Beauty and the Bully (15 page)

That was just spectacular, he thought.

He inserted his key in the ignition and started the Reliant. The digital clock blinked 5:02.

“Whoops,” he said aloud.

He sped out of the EFTHS parking lot, rather recklessly eased through a few stop signs, and raced home. When he arrived at his driveway, he saw Jessie's car parked along the street.

“Oh, man, she's gonna be
mad
,” he said.

Then, just ahead of her car, he saw a black Monte Carlo—the same car Freddie had left school in the day before, the very Monte Carlo that he'd been tossed onto.

“Freddie's sister,” said Duncan. “Oh, yeah.” He stared at the garage. “Wonder how practice is going.” He approached the side door of his garage with dread. He took note of the flaking brown paint, knowing that his dad would make him paint in the spring. He stood at the closed door and listened. He thought he heard laughter. Anxiously, he turned the door-knob and entered.

“Hey, everybody, really sorry I'm late. Couldn't be helped. There was this TARTS thing that Carly invited me to, and I couldn't very well say—”

A cowbell whizzed past his ear.

14

“Hey!” yelled Duncan. “Not this again!”

“
Yes
, this again!” shouted Jessie, flinging a strand of sleigh bells at him. “What the heck, dude?! It's like a quarter after five! You
know
I've gotta be home by six!”

“I'm sorry!” he said. He ducked to avoid a flying Cabasa. “I'm really, truly, incredibly sorry!” He remained hunched over near the door, unwilling to lift his head until he could be sure he wouldn't be struck by anything. “Enough with the projectiles!” he called. “Please! You're gonna break all the instruments! Or you'll break me!”

“Okay,” said Jessie. “Fine, cease fire.”

He stood up slowly. A set of castanets hit him in the stomach.

“Hey!” he yelled.

“Well, I hadn't actually hit you yet,” Jess said. “And any-ways, have I
ever
fought fair? No.”

In addition to Jessie and Stew, Duncan saw a strangely familiar face in his garage. It belonged to the blond girl who'd been at the wheel of the Monte Carlo. Duncan immediately noticed that she had a red Scorpio-Blaster Flying V guitar slung over her shoulder. Impressive, he thought. She had surprisingly soft features for a Wambaugh. She also looked the part of a punk rock goddess: Replacements concert shirt, ripped jeans, Doc Martens, tousled hair. She had a burning heart tattooed on her left biceps, too, which impressed Duncan more than a little.

“Hi,” he said to the girl. “You must be . . . ?”

“Freddie didn't even tell you my name?” she asked incredulously. “What a friggin' dope my brother is.”

“No, he must've told me and I just forgot it. Really sorry.”

“So you're the dope,” she said.

“Right. Something like that. I'm Duncan.”

“I'm Sydney,” she said, smiling faintly. “People just call me Syd.”

“So there's a new person in the band, Duncan,” said Stew with mock calm. “Did you know this? I suppose an e-mail went out and I just missed it. Or maybe a memo was circulated. Or maybe it was in the band's newsletter and somehow I overlooked it. Oh, well.”

“Sorry,” said Duncan, pressing his hands together. “I really am. I totally meant to tell you guys. You were not supposed to find out by—”

“—meeting Syd for the first time while she was breaking into your garage?” asked Stew. “No, I doubt we were supposed to find out that way.”

“Again, I'm really sor—” He paused. “Syd broke into the garage? ” He looked at the new guitarist. “You broke into the garage, Syd?”

“Well, I
would
have broken in if these guys hadn't shown up and opened the door. Good thing they did, too. I guess there's an alarm. Hee-hee.”

“Yeah, good thing. Why wouldn't you just go to the front door of the house?”

“There was a note. Freddie gave it to me. ‘Meet in the garage,' it said.”

“Exactly. It did not say ‘Meet in the garage, but if it's locked, break in.' Who
does
that?”

“Um . . . people who want to avoid yet another conversation with their guidance counselor?” offered Syd.

“Ah, right,” said Duncan. “I can see that being awkward.” He looked at Stew and Jess. “So let me get this straight: you two guys see a strange person breaking into my garage—the place where we keep, like, hundreds of dollars' worth of instruments and sound equipment—and you let them in?”

“What were we supposed to do?” asked Jess. “Tackle her?”

“Well, maybe. Tackling seems appropriate.”

“She didn't give off a burglar vibe, Duncan,” said Stew. “She had a guitar with her. If she were going to break in and take sound equipment, would she bring her own guitar?” Stew paused, glancing away. “And she turns out to be pretty cool.”

Duncan looked at the three of them.

“So,” he said hesitantly, “she's cool enough that you two guys aren't mad at me for adding someone to the band without asking? She's
that
cool?”

“Hey,” answered Stew, “as long as she can play.”

“And, um . . . can she?” asked Duncan.

“We haven't really jammed,” said Jessie. “We've been introducing ourselves to the new guitarist. Since you weren't here to make a formal introduction.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Once again. Very sorry.”

“Not an issue,” said Jess. “We like her. I think we've pieced together the important details of this whole covert deal between you and Freddie.”

“It was Freddie's idea,” said Duncan.

“Yeah,” said Syd, “big idea man, my brother.”

“In any case,” said Jessie, “it turns out this chick has excellent taste. She's a connoisseur of the eighties Minneapolis rock scene, which I appreciate deeply.” Jess pointed to the Replacements T-shirt. Syd struck a coquettish modeling pose. “A girl after my own heart,” said Jess, grinning.

“Nice,” said Duncan, plugging his guitar into an amp.

“So,” he said, “maybe we can play, um . . . well, anything, I guess. Just to establish a musical rapport. What do you know, Syd?”

She shrugged. “Hmm. I've been trying to teach myself a few Stones songs. I haven't mastered anything, but I'm getting the hang of a few of 'em.”

“Cool, great. Give us a taste of something.”

“Okay,” she said. “I've been working on ‘Rocks Off.' Know it?”

“
Exile on Main Street,”
said Stew. “Very nice. Best album ever, if you want my opin—”

“Oh, come
on
!” said Duncan. “It's a great record, but seriously. Best
ever
? It's no
Houses of the Holy
. It's no
Zeppelin IV
. Hell, it's no
Zeppelin I
, eith—”

“Enough!” said Jessie. “Let's just let the girl play. I've gotta leave for home in, like, five minutes. Can we all just agree that ‘Rocks Off' is a kick-ass song, and we'd love to hear Syd's version? ”

“It's a totally kick-ass song,” said Stew. “In fact, I'd say it's the best opening song on any album, ever. Hands down, the bes—”

“Puh-leez!”
said Duncan. “Better than ‘Black Dog'? I don't think so. Better than ‘Good Times Bad Times'? You've gotta be kid—”

“Dudes!” yelled Jessie, smashing a drumstick against a cymbal. “Let the girl play.”

“Oh, right,” said Duncan.

“Sorry,” said Stew.

“So,” began Syd, “are practices always this, um . . .”

“Full of disagreement, violence, and very little music?” asked Jess. “Yes, pretty much. I'd say you're witnessing a pretty typical practice. Normally I yell a bit more.” She smiled. “Hope that's not a problem.”

“No, I admire loud women,” said Syd. She and Jess fist-bumped. Syd then swung her guitar forward. She looked slightly awkward arranging her delicate fingers, Duncan noted. She cleared her throat nervously, then spread her feet wide.

“Okay,” she said tentatively. “‘Rocks Off,' here goes . . .”

To say that she sounded awful is an insult to guitarists who are merely awful. Syd sounded like an implement of torture. No, she sounded like the suffering victim of an implement of torture. She was excruciatingly slow and screechy. Whatever she was playing, it wasn't the scorching opener from
Exile
. It was more like something that should be played on an endless loop in Hell. And, to make matters slightly worse, she kept making guitar faces, scrunching up her eyes. She shook her head. Her mouth opened and closed operatically. Duncan felt a little queasy.

When the drums were supposed to enter, Jess did nothing but stare. When a vocalist was supposed to jump in, Duncan blurted, “Okay, okay!” into a floor-stand microphone, then walked toward Syd.

She stopped playing and smiled sheepishly. “What's up?” she asked, her warm green eyes looking up at Duncan. “Man, I just love that song.”

“Yeah,” said Duncan. “Me, too.” And I hate to see it treated this way, he thought. “Solid, um . . . solid effort there, Syd. Very passionate. Really, um . . . committed.”

“Thanks!” she said.

Jessie and Stew were simply looking at Duncan. Jessie seemed halfway amused. Stew seemed peeved.

“Hey, Syd,” said Jess. “Come inside with me. I totally need a Mr PiBB before I leave. I'll introduce you to Mrs. Boone.”

“Dude, I've met Mrs. Boone. She wasn't overly impressed with the transcript from my last school.”

“You'll find that in her capacity as Duncan's mom she's a little nicer and wackier, if no less judgmental.”

“So she won't tell me that another C-minus means community college, then an early pregnancy, then a series of unful filling hourly-wage retail jobs?”

“No, she won't tell you that stuff when she's at home. She'll still be
thinking
it, but she won't say it. Probably.”

“Cool, then. I like Mr PiBB.”

Jess and Syd marched out the side door of the garage, chit-chatting. Stew simply glared at Duncan.

“Dude,” he finally said.

“Dude what?” asked Duncan.

“Dude nothin',” said Stew. “Sometimes a situation is so fantastically messed up that all you can really say is ‘Dude.' ”

“So she's not a strong guitarist, I'll give you tha—”

“Not a strong guitarist?!” yelped Stew. “She's not any kind of guitarist, Duncan. I won't even say that she's a
bad
guitarist, because that would imply that she belongs to the global community of guitarists. Which she doesn't.”

“Well, she looks cool,” Duncan offered. “She's a punk rock girl who's not totally vulgar and covered in sores and eyebrow rings and stuff.” He paused, running a finger over a dusty work surface, strewn with tools. “She has a tattoo,” he added.

“I have a dim-witted cousin on my mom's side who has about a hundred tattoos. He's in a penitentiary in Oregon. He tried to rob a liquor store armed with a vacuum attachment. Can he be in the band? Did I mention he has tattoos?”

“Well, when he gets out, if he can play the bass, we might be in the mark—”

“Seriously, Duncan,” said Stew. “She really sucked. I mean, nice girl. Don't get me wrong. Happy to know her, despite the fact that her brother's a raging psycho. But she just can't play. Not even a little.”

“What can I do?”

“You can kick her out of the band is what you can do.”

“Dude,” he said, then fell silent.

“What?” asked Stew.

“This is one of those nothin'-to-say-except-‘Dude' situations. ” Duncan, frustrated, sat on top of the dusty workbench. “I can't kick her out. She's Freddie's sister. I need Freddie. We have a deal. She's in the band, Stew. She's gotta be, or else I'm dead—either I'm metaphorically dead, or I'm physically dead. But dead.”

“Then fix her.”

“Wha—? You know she's not a puppy, right?”

“Make her better,” said Stew. “At guitar. Make her suck less.
Way
less. She needs lessons, dude.”

Duncan thought for a moment. Between band practices, homework, his dogged pursuit of Carly, and his burgeoning commitment to TARTS, he already felt a little overextended. But he didn't want the band to completely stink, and he knew he'd been wildly inconsiderate to his friends. And anyway, Syd seemed nice enough. Perhaps this would earn him extra points with her brother.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll try. It's kind of a delicate matter, though. One guitarist offering to give another lessons. But I'll pitch it.”

“Cool,” said Stew.

They heard voices and footsteps outside along the path that led to the garage.

“See, I told you Duncan's mom was a hoot,” Jessie said to Syd as they returned. They were each carrying two Mr PiBBs. Jess tossed one to Stew, and Syd handed one to Duncan.

“Gross,” said Stew. “Stuff tastes like liquefied dog hair.”

“'Cuz you eat a lot of dog hair and you'd know?” asked Jess. “This stuff rocks.”

“Thanks, Syd,” said Duncan. “So, um . . . Stew and I were talking, Syd, and we thought maybe that you and I could sorta, um . . .” She looked at Duncan eagerly. He paused. “Well, we were thinking that you and I could play together a little bit. Just us. Ourselves. The guitarists. It's way important that we get the guitars to mesh. To interact. To develop an organic kind of relationship, an interplay, a unified—”