Waking up and going to school was not one of the things that I wanted to do, but my father came in my room to get me up for the third time, “You’ll be late for school.”
Instead of throwing a pillow at him, which is what I had opted for the first two times, I rolled out of bed and landed on the floor with a ‘thud’, “Ow…what time did you get in last night Dad?”
He looked at his watch, “About two…listen I’m going to be late so get up so I don’t have to drive you.” He left my room but stopped at the stairs, “Listen, Louie made you some breakfast so just heat it up. It’s in the fridge. I’ll be home late again…Have fun at band practice.”
I got up and nodded, “I will…bye.”
He walked down the stairs, “Bye.”
I heard the door shut and the car pull out of the driveway. My cell said 7:00 and I panicked. I grabbed a pair of jeans and my Metallica tee and quickly changed. I pulled my hair into a ponytail since there wasn’t any time to do anything else with it, and ran downstairs. I found one of those white Styrofoam containers in the fridge and took it out. My name was on it and I quickly recognized Louie’s messy handwriting. Louie has been working with my Dad since the restaurant opened; he loves me like his own kid and often sends food home for me. I opened it and there was some pretty awesome looking French toast. I threw it on a paper plate and put it in the microwave. I grabbed my backpack, and grabbed my iPod. By that time my French toast was done so I slathered on some syrup and headed out the door. Of course, the kids at the bus stop thought I was crazy since it was freezing and I was wearing a t-shirt and shoveling my breakfast in my mouth. They were only a bunch of freshman so I didn’t really care what they thought. I finished my French toast as soon as the bus pulled up and I threw my plate in the trash can and took my seat. I put in my iPod headphones and looked around. Holly wasn’t on the bus which I found odd. So, it’s safe to assume that the bus ride was relatively quiet. As the bus pulled up to the parking lot I saw Holly step out of a car. Lucky duck, getting dropped off, she could have called me and offered me a ride. Then I thought of how I kind of put her aside for the band’s practice so I figured she was fair in just skipping me when getting a ride. I got off the bus and I didn’t even take one step into the building when I heard my name being called.
“Reagan!”
I turned around, a little annoyed because I was freezing and this person was delaying me from getting into a heated area. I looked around and spotted a boy with a pair of glasses that have been engraved into my memory, “Mikey!”
He caught up to me and we walked into the school together, “Where’s your brother?” I asked.
Mikey pointed over in the direction of the art wing, “Already there…he drove here…I took the bus.” He walked with me to my locker, “So he said he asked you to come back and listen to us again. That’s awesome.”
I opened my locker and grabbed my literature book, “Gerard, yeah? He told me that you said you wanted me to come back.”
“We do!” Mikey insisted, “It’s just that we were going to give you a few days just to make sure we didn’t scare you off completely with the way we act sometimes.”
I shut my locker, “Scare me off? I love your music and, although you guys can get a little crazy, you’re pretty cool.”
I walked all the way until I got to my English class, he stopped, “Well, I should probably go to Chemistry now…I don’t need to be late….again.”
“Right…see you later,” I said and walked into the room. I sat there and daydreamed the rest of the period.
After English, music theory, and band I had my free period I found myself still in the band room. I had my trumpet in hand and my music for college auditions. My first was Concert Etude, Op. 49; it was a nice enough piece so I figured it was okay for college. It was one of my favorite pieces anyway. I picked up my trumpet, it was silver Yamaha that my Dad had bought me for my eighth grade graduation, and started to play. Of course, I hadn’t really practiced at all today so I just started to make things up and play different notes as I went along. The music teacher, Mr. Edwards, walked in and came right up to my stand, “You can get into a college, then play whatever you want. They want to see how well you can prefect a piece.”
I stopped playing and sighed, “Yeah…I know.”
“Work on the Etude and then on the Aria.” He said walking into his office, “Play them for me at the end of the week…just to see how you’re coming along.”
I nodded, “Okay…got it.” He walked into his office and I shuffled my papers on the stand, looking for my other piece. It was an Aria by Mozart but written for trumpet. Once I found it I started to play, I don’t really want to sound like I have a big ego, but I was good. I must have played the song a few times before I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye. I stopped playing and looked up. Gerard stood at the entrance of the band room, a sheepish look on his face, “Uh…hey.”
I smiled, “Hi…what are you doing down here?”
“You told me I could come down here anytime since you’re down here ‘practically the whole day’”
“Oh…right.”
“That was really good…” he said and motioned to my stand, “What you were playing.”
“Thanks….it’s still a work in progress,” I started to rearrange my sheet music, “For college auditions and such…” Why did I have to be so weird around him?!
He walked over and sat down in the chair next to me. I set my trumpet on my lap and moved my hands away from my stand to stop me from fidgeting. He picked up one of the pages and looked at it, “Pretty hard stuff.”
I nodded, “And if I play it well then college professors will be really impressed.”
He set the music back down, “Play it again, I want to hear it from the beginning to the end…I only heard some of the last page.”
“Um...okay.” I placed the trumpet at my lips and took a deep breath and started to play.
Once finished I set my trumpet on its case, “Well…what do you think?”
He leaned back and motioned with his hands, “It…was really bad.”
I felt like the granola bar I snacked on third period was going to make a surprise appearance, “What? You just said it was good before I started to play!”
He started to laugh and nodded, “Yeah…I did. It did sound amazing. I was just trying to get you back for band practice yesterday.”
“Yeah…well it almost worked.”
We sat there a talked the rest of the period; I didn’t even realize that a whole forty-five minutes had passed. I whipped my case onto my lap and emptied my spit valve. I looked at Gerard who had this disgusted look on his face, “That was gross.”
“But it has to be done…leaving a little present for the violins this period.” I laughed and put it away and got up and placed it in my band cubby. Yeah, we have cubbies…its kindergarten all over again. I walked over and grabbed a cello from the closet and set it down across the room.
“Damn…you weren’t kidding when you said you lived down here,” Gerard noted, he had came over and handed me my music, “Trumpet, cello….and you think I’m multi-talented? What else do you do?”
I was going to tell him I was the in the select choir but when I looked up to answer him (5’2” remember?) he was really close to me. So, instead of answering I just grabbed at my music and gave myself a damn paper cut!
“FUDGE MONKEYS!!!” I yelled out, dropping the papers and clutching my finger.
He laughed, “Did you just say ‘fudge monkeys’? Right…let’s see the cut.”
He grabbed my hand and looked at my pointer finger, it was starting to bleed but it would be fine, “You’ll live.”
“Thank you Dr. Way,” I smiled at him and his eyes glowed just like the time at the football game.
There was a commotion outside and students started to walk in for orchestra. Holly plays the violin so she walked in and stared at me and walked away. Great, now she probably thinks that I’m completely ignoring her or something. I felt really bad and then I noticed that Gerard was still holding onto my hand, my face turned bright red. I dropped my hand to my side and motioned to my cello, “You should really go…you’ll be late to your next class.”
“Right…well, see you later.” Gerard said, glancing at Holly as she grabbed her instrument.
“Bye,” I watched him leave, and so did practically everyone else. I walked over to Holly, “Umm, Holls…what’s up?”
She just ‘hmmf’d’ and started practicing, clearly ignoring me. I walked back to my cello section and heard the whispers.
‘Who was that guy?’
‘Why was he with her?’
I rosined my bow; keeping my eyes low…things were changing. And people were noticing too.
