Rules to Rock By (11 page)

“So, Dad, how’d your
masterpiece album
turn out? Was it worth it?”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s a masterpiece, but—”

“Really? Then why bother? What’s the point if it’s not going to be your
Sgt. Pepper’s
, your
Doolittle
, your
OK Computer
?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at, Belle, but I’m quite sure I don’t like your tone.”

Both my parents pulled this trick. Ninety-nine percent of the time they didn’t act the least bit like parents, but as soon as they didn’t like the way I was acting, they came out with all the things they thought parents were
supposed
to say: “I’m not sure if I like your tone,” “Watch yourself, young lady,” “You’ve got an attitude problem,” etc.

“Okay, how about this tone? Do you agree with all the bloggers that say you guys haven’t made a good record since
Entranced
?” Even X looked up from his state of orange-sherbet gluttony to see the response to that one.

“That’s enough, Belle,” said my mom. “Go to your room. This instant!”

She didn’t even sound like a real parent. She sounded like a fake mother in a black-and-white movie, an actor reading from a script.

“I don’t even
have
a room! My room is four walls away from being a room! It’s just a
personal area
!”

“Well, go to your
personal area
, then!” Mom said. “Right now!”

I ran into the kitchen and paced back and forth in front of the sink. I was stomping so hard that my feet actually ached, and the room seemed to be moving, not me. Everything was a blur, and my brain felt hot with anger. Then I reached into the sink, grabbed the plate I had just put there, and smashed it to the floor.

“Belle!” my mom shouted as I ran to my room, to my area, to whatever it was, cursing the fact that it didn’t even have a door I could slam. I just jumped on my bed and put the pillow over my head. I tried to calm myself down by going through Beatles lyrics in my head, but it didn’t work. How could my parents be that clueless? How could they treat X and me like we were just another piece of baggage they had to take up north with them to make their home-studio dream come true?

I needed a real band more than ever now. Anything to take me away from all this. A band would be my magic carpet, my escape route out of this stupid situation.

“Belle?” It was my mom. “I’m sorry, honey.”

“Go away!”

“Can we talk? Please?”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Jake is here. Will you talk to him?”

“No!”

That took the cake. Things had gotten so bad with my parents, they had forgotten how to even
be
parents. They needed a big bearded drummer to raise their own kids.

I waited until I was sure they had both walked away and weren’t coming back, opened up my notebook, and wrote:

You stand there trying to say the right things

But I can’t even look you in the eye

When you wake up, see I’ve left this place

Will you even cry?

I wonder, will it hurt you bad?

When I turn from you and run?

I’ll be the one with the last word

Heading for the setting sun

I titled it “Setting Sun.” As they say in the business, this song-to-be “wrote itself.” If my parents were going to drive me insane, maybe I could at least get some lyrics out of it.

Rock stars use their lame family lives as material for songs.

THE FIRST PRACTICE

“Abuela, I
know
you want me and X to do what Mom and Dad say,” I said to Abuela bright and early the next morning, a Saturday. “But I don’t think you’re really getting the situation.”

Abuela had woken me up with a phone call at the ungodly hour of 7:
1
3 a.m. and had just finished her “make your fathers proud” speech.

“How you mean, Annabella?” she said.

“What I mean is that I can’t make them ‘proud’ if they’re never even around.”

“They really spending so much time outside of house?”

“Yes, Abuela, they really are. But what’s worse is how they never notice what’s going on with us. I mean, X is not the same as when you last saw him. He’s so hyper and crazy, going bonkers constantly.”

“This is no good. No good.”

“And Mom and Dad haven’t met any of my teachers yet, or anything. I probably hang out more with my English teacher than I do with them.”

“
Mi angelita,
I did not know this. I so sorry. This also no good.”

“And Jake makes us chocolate chip pancakes like four times a week. Last night, Mom made turkey meatballs. That’s the first real sit-down meal we’ve had as a family in Providence. And it ended in a fight.”

“What?!?!” She screeched so loudly I had to pull my ear away from the phone. “You eating pancakes? For dinner? Annabella, this is very, very, very bad. Why you no tell me this before? Shaking Jake no can cook for
my
family. That red-beard man no cook for
my
grandchildrens. I gonna talk to your fathers now. For sure! Nobody making the good food for you? I very upset about this, my baby. I no happy at all.”

“How you doin’, Belle?” the red-beard man asked me only moments after I hung up the phone with Abuela.

But I didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m having a band practice. With only one measly bandmate! I need at least one more musician, Jake. Otherwise we’ll be a joke!”

I had just finished cleaning up the broken dish that my parents had left from the night before with a note from my dad next to it saying, “You broke it, you clean it up.” I could hear my parents stirring upstairs, and I was trying to finish this chat with Jake before they came down.

Jake had a homemade carrot cake in the oven and was licking some of the leftover batter off a spatula. The light orange color matched his beard and head hair perfectly. “Want some?” he asked, and I shook my head. In Brooklyn, Abuela had absolutely forbidden him to make his cakes after the time he’d clogged her drain with carrot peels and she’d had to call a plumber.

“How did you hook up with the bands you’ve been in, Jake?”

“Well, drummers are in demand. Always. I’ve never really had to look for people to play with. They’ve found me.”

“Well, all I know is that it’s been two months and I’m not even close to having a band. And every time I ask people about how they put theirs together, they make it sound like it just
happened
. Like magic.”

“Well, it is kind of like that,” said Jake. “You put yourself out there, and things just start to work for you.”

“Well, I’ve
been
putting myself out there.”

“It can take some time.” He licked his fingers.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“And listen, I’m psyched to jam with you if you need a drummer.”

“Thanks, Jake. I’ll keep you in mind. If I decide to form a band with senior citizens. Who drool.” I pointed to the batter in his beard. “Seriously, though, this is something I want to do
on my own
. With kids
my age.
”

“Yep, I get it. Oh, listen, just a quick word before your mom and dad get in here, okay? I think they’re going to ask you to take care of your brother again today.”

“Jake, when are they going to stop letting you do their dirty work for them?”

“They didn’t ask me. I just wanted to give you … a little warning.”

Just then, Mom walked in.

“Mom, I have to take care of X today? I have band practice.”

“We’re doing an unplugged thing on WBRU today,” she said. “I told you.”

“You did
not
tell me, Mom!”

“Listen, Annabelle, I know the timing isn’t great. And I know you’re having your friend over to play. You don’t even have to watch X. He’ll entertain himself. You know how he is.”

“I know exactly how he is, Mom.” I could hear Dad walking around up in their bedroom. He was probably waiting until this conversation was over to come down.

“It’s not like I’m complaining because I don’t like being with X. He’s fine. Everybody loves him, blah, blah, blah. But why does it have to be
me
always taking care of him? Ever since we moved, it’s like
I’m
the mom and you and Dad are just … not even around.”

My mom looked like she’d been slapped in the face, and I thought,
Good
.
At least you’re paying attention.

“Look, the move’s been hard on all of us,” she said. “But we’re going to get through it. We’re going to get through this album, the shows, your new school, X’s new school—all of it. But we all have to pitch in. And today I need you to help look after X for me. We’ll be back in three hours. Okay?” She looked like she was about to give me a hug or a kiss or something, but then thought better of it, grabbed her bag, and headed for the door.

“We ready?” Dad said, climbing down the loft ladder.

“Yeah, we’re ready, hon.”

Jake took the carrot cake out of the oven and put it on the stove top to cool. It smelled delicious.

“For you and your bandmate, Belle,” Jake said, and then pointed to a small mixing bowl on the counter. “Wait for it to cool, and then put this frosting on top.”

“Thanks, Jake,” I said.

And just like that, the three of them were out the door.

I barely looked up, stirring a spoon aimlessly in my empty cereal bowl. This was not the glorious first day of band practice I had imagined. I was basically going to be babysitting not one but two kids: my brother, a fourth grader who spoke in chants, and a classical music dork who would probably be shoving Wheat Thins and cheese slices down her throat all day long, leaving a trail of crumbs around the apartment like Hansel and Gretel. Some rock band.

X came into the kitchen. “Belle,” he said. “Hang out with me.”

For the next half hour, I was probably the least energetic Texas Hold’em partner X had ever faced. “Are you
awake
?” he kept saying. “You’re just letting me win.”

“No, I’m not,” I said. “I seriously have no idea how this game works.” It was true. If you ever want to put me to sleep, start explaining to me what the heck you’re supposed to do in poker.

When the doorbell finally rang, I had practically forgotten Crackers ’n’ Cheese was even coming. I slumped down the hall and hit the buzzer, barely caring.

“We’re here,” she said through the intercom.

“Come up to 5G,” I said.
We’re
here? That was definitely what Crackers had said. I opened the door and waited for the elevator to make its slow climb to the fifth floor.

“Surprise!” called out Crackers
and
Jonny.

“Jonny, what are you doing here?”

“I was afraid Christine would get lost,” he said, grinning slyly. “I don’t know about being in a band or anything, but I figured I could at least rock out with you guys a little.” He turned around, revealing the guitar case strapped on his back. I tried to play it cool, but I was really excited and couldn’t stop smiling for a full minute. Who knew how many of Ronaldo’s rules I’d polish off today?

In the studio, we plugged in our instruments and a couple microphones and set up the drum set, even though no one, including me, had ever really played it. After that, we puttered around for a few minutes, straightening cords and checking amp levels. I don’t know about those other guys, but I’m ready to admit that I was stalling. The big moment was here. I had a band! The beginnings of one, at least. It wasn’t like me, but, yeah, I felt shy.

“Well, we could try this little riff I wrote,” I said. I picked out the same White Stripes rip-off that had totally bowled over my dad on forced-family-fun day.

Christine stood and listened for a bit.

“Sounds like metal,” she said. Metal? What did she know about metal? She might have known Ra-who, but my riff was not a metal riff.

“Sounds cool,” Jonny said, and started playing along, echoing the riff on the guitar. He stepped on a little metal box called a “flanger,” which made his guitar sound like it was underwater. Then he stepped on another one, a Big Muff distortion pedal, and the riff went giant and fuzzy. Finally, Crackers figured out her part: a few spacey chords on my mom’s Nord 2 keyboard. This instant-mix song sounded a little messy and odd at first, but after a few minutes something strange and beautiful started to happen. It really sounded like music. This “band” had its first “song.”

I played around with some
ooohs
and
aaahs
before realizing that I might be able to mine my notebook for lyric ideas. I remembered my “Dumb Puppies” title idea from the first day of school and decided to play around with it:

Big dumb puppies

Foul my school.

Sad little dogs

Only know to play the fool.

Puppy, puppy,

Do as you’re told!

Puppy, puppy,

Your act is getting old!

Okay, it wasn’t a masterpiece exactly. These lyrics needed a
lot
of work. But it was something. It sounded like a song.

It felt really strange to sing in front of Jonny and Crackers. I hadn’t expected to feel nervous—after all, I had sung in Central Park to literally thousands of people—but I did.

“You have such a sweet voice!” said Christine.

“It’s true, it’s nice, it’s … not quite what I expected,” said Jonny. “Pretty,” he blurted awkwardly.

Sweet, huh?
Pretty?
Rock ’n’ roll isn’t
pretty
. I didn’t want to sound pretty.

“Let’s run through it one more time,” I said. I sang the melody again, but with more attitude, more growl. I tried one of my full-length-mirror rock star poses, pointing the headstock of the bass toward the ceiling.