Tempo Change Read online

  “Too soon to tell,” she said. “World peace.”

  “Very original, Miss America.”

  “Look, let me ask you something,” Ella said, her face softening. “Why couldn’t prayers and wishes be like the same thing? Sometimes if you want it hard enough, it kind of happens. Power of positive thinking and all that. Couldn’t you call it angels?”

  “Ella. What you’re talking about is superstition.”

  “How do you know?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know, of course. And I had a flash of the feeling I had in church on Christmas Eve. That seductive feeling that all that faith and all those prayers and all that willingness to believe somehow had the power to make things happen.

  I shrugged it off before Ella could see the doubt in my face.

  “Okay,” I said. “When we achieve world peace, you can say you told me so.”

  “It’s a date,” she said.

  She punched my arm and walked away.

  Crazy Goes to College

  ANOTHER ARTICLE CAME OUT ABOUT VIV IN THE SANTA MONICA newspaper and it mentioned the band, the Fringers, and the fact that I was Duncan Kelly’s daughter.

  The last line of the article was: “If Vivien Wyler’s vision was true, the Fringers are not just a band to watch. They have been touched by angels.”

  “Great. Now we’re all nuts,” Gigi said.

  “We can use this,” I told them. “Anything that gets publicity for the band is a good thing.”

  “Oh, really,” Gigi said, “then why don’t we all go get arrested?”

  “Be serious.”

  “I am serious. I couldn’t be more serious.”

  We were sitting at rehearsal at the back room of Peace Pizza, waiting for Viv.

  “I don’t want our band to be the touched-by-an-angel act if it’s all the same to you,” Gigi said. “You forget that the band is just a hobby for me. I have plans. I’m running for school office at the end of the semester. And not on the angel ticket.”

  “This isn’t going to interfere with your political career.”

  “Well, you say that, but we were just doing it for the talent show to begin with and now we’re playing at Coachella,” Gigi argued.

  Ella was sitting behind her drum kit, inspecting her fingernails.

  “Do you have an opinion about this?” I asked.

  “I’m of the opinion that we should just rehearse,” she said.

  “What about Viv?”

  “We can rehearse till she gets here.”

  “I wonder if her chariot got stuck in traffic,” Gigi said.

  I decided this was as good an occasion as any to introduce my great plan for Coachella.

  “Since the cat is out of the bag about my father, and since we have to do whatever we need to do to beat the Clauses, I think we should cover one of his songs.”

  They stared at me. I hadn’t really talked to my friends about my father. They knew who he was, because now everyone did, but they never brought it up. Probably because until this moment, I didn’t want anyone to bring it up.

  “I don’t know any of your father’s songs,” Gigi said.

  So I told her. On his most famous album Ineffable (much irony to be mined there, for sure) there was a song that got a lot of radio play called “Glass Half Shattered.”

  Here was the chorus:

  You’re staring at me like there’s something to see,

  Like there’s an important man waiting to be set

  free,

  But I’m not the only man who has ever mattered,

  I’m not half full or half empty, I’m a glass half

  shattered.

  I had downloaded it from the Internet, along with some reviews that called him a visionary, someone who spoke the hard truth even when no one was listening.

  When I read those lyrics I thought about my mother, trying to make him happy and failing because he was always a glass half shattered. I vaguely remembered the song reverberating through the house when I was small.

  The girls read all the lyrics and it was quiet for a spell.

  I said, “It’s not hard, it’s just in the key of C. It’s one-four-five, with a minor in the bridge, four-four time. We can play it at any tempo. I’ll change it to make it from a girl’s point of view, obviously. I think it could get the right kind of attention.”

  “What kind of attention is that?” Gigi asked. “I thought there was no wrong kind of attention.”

  “Look, Gigi, I don’t want to fight. I just figure if you enter a competition, you should try to win. You should use what you’ve got.”

  “Doesn’t that feel manipulative?”

  “I don’t know. Isn’t every kind of show manipulative? We’re trying to perform something.”

  “In the old days you didn’t want people to know about him,” Gigi said.

  In the old days, I didn’t have a sense of competition, of realizing there was a way to win at this. In the old days, I didn’t think I had a chance of earning my father back, but I didn’t say that.

  “What’s gotten into you?” I asked.

  Gigi shook her head and pinched her lip. “I never expected it to get this far. I’m not really a bass player. We’re developing fans—just look at the Joshes and Bos. And I don’t think I can live up to it.”

  “Look, we’re doing it, aren’t we? It’s scary to put yourself out there but somebody has to. It’s about willingness.”

  Ella said, “Can we just hear the song?”

  I played and sang them a rough version on the guitar and they listened with wide eyes. They were very still when I finished and then Ella figured out a tempo and Gigi followed along and I could see that my plans were falling into place.

  Then Viv walked in.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said.

  “No problem,” Ella said. Odd that she would end up being the peacekeeper. “We’re just figuring out one of Blanche’s dad’s songs. You’ll like it. It’ll be fun to sing. Just listen.”

  Viv waved a hand at her and said, “I can’t stay. My parents are waiting in the car. I just came by to tell you that I can’t be in the band anymore.”

  The air seemed to get sucked out of the room and all of us were very still.

  “What do you mean?” I finally said.

  “Well, I don’t expect any of you to understand. But ever since my experience, I’ve been getting a lot of Guidance, and it’s not right for me to remain in the band. I’m not sure why, but I must listen to the Guidance these days.”

  I looked at her. “By guidance, I assume you’re not talking about Dr. Morleymower.”

  Viv laughed. “No. Actual Guidance. Divine Guidance.”

  Gigi threw her hands up and said, “This is what I’m talking about.”

  Ella said, “Everybody calm down. Viv, have you really thought this through?”

  “I can’t sing,” she said. “It’s not right for me. I don’t know why but I’m being told I shouldn’t.”

  I put my guitar down and moved toward her. She didn’t back up; she just stood there watching me.

  I said, “Viv, think about it. If you want to make this about God, why would He give you the gift of singing, and why would He rescue you from possible death, only to tell you not to sing?”

  To my surprise, she just smiled at me. She said, “I don’t ask God what He’s up to anymore. I just do what I’m told.”

  “There’s the slightest chance that you’re still not fully recovered,” I suggested.

  That’s when she started backing away from me.

  “Oh, is that what you think? I’m crazy and I just had a crazy experience?”

  “No, I’m not saying that. I’m just wondering …”

  “I know what you’re wondering. Everyone’s wondering. It’s why my parents are making me see a therapist, but I know what I know. Nothing is going to change that.”

  “You might not entirely know what you know,” I said. “I mean, that was a big ordeal and you might not be finished w
ith … recovering.”

  “What happened to me was real. It was more real than anything that has ever happened. I know I can’t do anything to convince anyone. But I do know what happened. I told myself, if it fades, I’ll know it wasn’t what it seemed like. But it doesn’t fade. It just gets stronger.”

  The Bos and even Jeff had gathered at the door and were looking and listening.

  “I enjoyed our time together but now I have to go,” she said.

  I moved toward her.

  “Viv, wait. Maybe this is your parents?”

  She laughed. “My parents? They want me to be in the band. They’ve done a complete turnaround. I have to be the first girl in the history of high school to defy her parents by not being in a rock band.”

  “But we need you,” I said.

  She shook her head. “You really don’t.”

  Before I could argue further she just gave us a hand flip of a wave and walked out of the room. One of the Bos followed her out and then came running back into the room.

  “It really was her parents waiting for her. Not a spaceship.”

  “Get out of here,” I said, and he scrambled off, giggling.

  The rest of us didn’t speak for a moment. Then Gigi started packing her bass into its case.

  “Well, that’s what I thought. It was always supposed to be a hobby.”

  “Don’t go, Gigi,” I said.

  “Blanche, I can’t dedicate my whole life to this idea.”

  “But you enjoyed it. Don’t abandon it just because we’ve hit a bump in the road.”

  “One person’s bump is another person’s dead end,” she said.

  Gigi walked out and then Ella and I were left alone in the rehearsal space. I could hear the chords from my father’s song bouncing around in my head. It was hard to believe we had gotten so close to everything. And now it was falling apart. How had that happened? So much for Jeff’s perfect system idea.

  Ella stood and started breaking down her drum set.

  “I guess that’s that,” she said.

  “Ella, come on. This can’t be over. Coachella. Everybody’s dream.”

  “Your dream,” she said. “You dragged us into it.”

  “Really? That’s how it is? At least have the courage to admit you wanted it. Some of it. I saw how everybody was at the Whisky. I’ve seen how different we all are since we started the band. You barely talked to anybody before. Gigi never did anything but study. Viv didn’t even realize she was a singer. I didn’t dream that for us. The dream was there. I just got everybody to see it.”

  Ella thought about it, twirling one of her drumsticks.

  She said, “Do we really need Viv?”

  “Of course we need Viv You’ve heard how she sings.”

  She shrugged. “I also heard you sing tonight. You sing fine.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “What’s the big speech you always give about willingness?”

  I felt the blood rush out of my face.

  “That’s different.”

  “How’s it different?”

  “I can’t sing, Ella. That was never the idea. I just write the songs and play them. That’s not enough?”

  “Right now it’s not. Considering.”

  “Even if I agreed to do that, we’ve lost our bass player.”

  “It’s Gigi. You can talk her back in.”

  I watched Ella packing up her kit. My thoughts rolled around in my head like marbles.

  “Maybe there’s someone else,” I said. “From Madrigals. One of the Chelseas.”

  “Yeah, right,” Ella said.

  “Anybody but me,” I pleaded.

  “It was just an idea,” she said. “We’re back where we started. Find a singer and then we’ll talk.”

  And she walked out with her gear, leaving me a glass half shattered.

  Spinning Plates

  I DIDN’T E-MAIL MY FATHER ABOUT VIV’S ANGEL ENCOUNTER and her sudden decision to drop out. I just kept talking about how exciting the band was and how great our set list was coming. I also didn’t tell him that we were going to do one of his songs because that was going to be my special surprise to him. Before I realized that my special surprise to him was going to be dropping out of the Coachella lineup.

  One reason I didn’t tell him was that I didn’t believe it. A lot of people were invested in us going to Coachella and in Viv singing there. LaHa had gotten a little famous about it, since the only other local band attending was the Clauses. (And, of course, because we had Divine Inspiration on our side.) But never in the history of LaHa had we beaten out all the monster schools to land a spot in a major competition. The Manifesto had run a piece on the band, separate from the issue of Viv being touched by an angel, and Dr. Bonny had made an announcement at school and had sent letters to our homes congratulating us. That made Gigi’s parents all excited about her prospects as the future president, and even Ella’s parents, who had given up on her doing anything of note, started to take her seriously.

  Gigi hadn’t told her parents she’d quit the band. Which made me think she really hadn’t.

  Mr. Carmichael volunteered to help us rehearse and Dr. Morleymower would smile when he saw me in the hall, wagging a finger and saying, “Who didn’t want to join Madrigals?” Everyone was taking a little piece of the pie. What they didn’t understand was that the pie had turned into crazy pie and it wasn’t going to Coachella or anywhere else unless someone could talk some sense into Viv.

  Valiant efforts were made. Her parents reasoned with her. Her therapist gave her tests and meditations and books to read. Even Ms. Mason, the uptight religion teacher at LaHa, sat her down and explained that angels didn’t really tell people not to do things. Even when the angels appeared in the Bible, they mostly told people things that they should do and even then, it was up to the person in question. Besides, she said, angels were singers so why would they tell someone not to sing?

  “Of all the arguments,” Viv said, “that’s the worst. Angels mainly just sing in folklore, not in the Bible, and my angel, if it was an angel, didn’t sing. Besides, it’s not an angel telling me not to do it. It’s Guidance. They are very different. The thing I saw was a being that I could see and almost touched. Guidance is more like a feeling.”

  This was at lunch, a few days after she walked out of rehearsal. Gigi no longer ate with us and Ella was still being cool about the whole thing. She listened as if it were fascinating information that didn’t affect her directly. I had trouble holding it together. I had trouble not dropping to my knees and screaming.

  I said, calmly but in a tight voice, “Did Guidance ever consider that other band members have something riding on this? Is Guidance only concerned with your well-being?”

  She shrugged. Nibbling. “I don’t ask Guidance questions. I just do what I’m told.”

  “Well, if you should ever feel like asking Guidance a question, allow me to pass that one along.”

  Viv wouldn’t budge and I couldn’t bring myself to break the news to my father. He was making travel plans.

  He e-mailed again:

  Your mother is going to be okay with me showing up? I haven’t talked to her in a long time.

  I shot back:

  She’ll be fine, she’s moved on.

  I was surprised and wondered if he still cared when he instantly replied:

  She has a boyfriend?

  I thought about what to answer and quickly wrote back:

  Not really. Just this guy who comes around.

  He didn’t let it drop. He asked five seconds later:

  What guy who comes around?

  I decided to make it less than it was.

  A guy who sells guitars. They seem to be just friends.

  There was a two-day lapse before he wrote again. Then he didn’t reply. And when he did, he’d dropped the subject of my mother altogether.

  I’ve forgone the idea of camping. I’ll probably stay in a local hotel. But I don’t want to tell anyone where
. Let’s keep my whole presence there a secret, okay? I’m there to see you perform, not draw attention to myself.

  I hit each letter carefully:

  Sure. Nobody knows and nobody needs to.

  * * *

  Imagine my surprise when my mother knocked on my door a few evenings later and wanted to have another one of our talks.

  “Honestly, Mom,” I said. “I have a lot on my mind.”

  “So do I.”

  She walked over to my bed and sat without invitation. “When were you planning to tell me about your father, Blanche? Answer me that.”

  I felt naked in public.

  “What?” I looked around the room in a panic, as if I could somehow distract her with another subject.

  “Your father is planning to come to Coachella. I now know.”

  “I don’t really think he will—well, I wasn’t sure yet.”

  She looked at me and said, “Honestly, Blanche, were you going to just let me go up there with Ed and run into him? Was that your plan?”

  “I don’t know. He … I … it was supposed to be a secret. How do you even know? He told me not to tell anyone.”

  “Well, he didn’t mean me, Blanche. He meant his adoring public, not the mother of his child.”

  “Mom, how do you even know this?”

  “Because he e-mailed me,” she said. “The first I’ve heard from him in five years. You know that he sent letters and there were phone calls the first few years and then there was no communication. With e-mail he settled somewhere and I guess you two reconnected. I got over the idea of him e-mailing you, when I found out, because it made sense. Of course he has more to say to you than to me. He is your father. But when I saw his name in my mailbox, you can’t imagine what it did to me, Blanche. You can’t know.”

  “Mom, I don’t get it. Are you still into him?”

  “Into him?” she said incredulously. She started laughing and shaking her head and looking like she might cry all at once. “Not having your father is a hole in my life. It’s a gaping wound. I wanted us to be a family. I tried so hard. I failed. So now, I don’t want him back, but that doesn’t mean I can stand there and eat corn on the cob next to him in the middle of the desert.”