Five Flavors of Dumb (6 page)

Ed scowled, but honestly it felt good to have the last word for a change.

If only I’d actually been right.

Mom shimmied into my bedroom like she was auditioning for the cheerleading squad, waving a piece of paper before me playfully. I squinted at the title and couldn’t help smiling. It was the contract, chock-full of phrases like “in accordance with” and “legally binding” and words like “contingent” and “perpetuity.” It hadn’t occurred to me before, but lawyers really do a first-rate job of making English read like a foreign language.

Is it okay?
signed Mom. Her face made it clear that she expected this to be answered in the enthusiastic affirmative.

I nodded, rubbed the edges of the precious document while I wondered how to break the news to her.
It’s perfect . . . but I wonder if we could make one small change.

Mom’s eyes narrowed. She was suddenly the anti-cheerleader.
What’s wrong with it?

Some of the perkiness was back again, so I guess she’d been anticipating something more troublesome.
Who is it?

I didn’t mean to, but for some reason I hesitated.
Ed Chen.

Mom grinned like a fool.
So you’ll be seeing a lot of each other?

It’s not like that.
I rolled my eyes.

She threw up her arms in surrender.
Okay. So what name should appear on the contract?

I finger-spelled
Ed Chen.

I wasn’t certain.
I’ll check. I’ll get back to you.

Mom still had a smile on her face, but she didn’t seem amused.
Okay, you do that,
she signed, then patted my head like I was the naughty puppy she loved in spite of herself.

 

The next day, Ed was squinting at the chessboard, as usual. He never really played with any rhythm—which is kind of ironic given that he was a human metronome with a drum set—but this time I really felt he was stalling. And to be honest, I couldn’t work out why.

“Did you hear me, Ed?” An unusual question coming from me, but he nodded distractedly. “So what is it?” He shook his head. “I have to know,” I said. “It’s for the contract.”

Ed sighed dramatically. He cast his eyes around like he was hiding quiz answers from a prying neighbor, then wrote one word on a scrap on paper and nudged it toward me.

I studied the name, and studied Ed. I may have repeated this process several times before I was completely sure he wasn’t just screwing with me. “Seriously? Your name is really . . . Edgard?”

“Shhh! Yeah. That’s why I go by Ed.”

“I get that,” I said, not trying to be too personal about it, but—
really
. “And I thought
my
name was weird.”

“I love your name,” he said simply.

I blushed, and he blushed, and his eyes went all puppy-dog, and then we both pretended to study the board again.

“I’ve never heard the name Edgard before.”

“Yeah, well . . . My mom’s favorite composer is this French guy named Edgard Varèse. He wrote these funky, large-scale percussion pieces. And I mean,
only
percussion.” Suddenly his lips were moving faster, his face alive with excitement. “No strings, winds, brass . . . just a ton of percussion instruments and sirens and whips and . . . well, almost anything. You name it, he did it.”

I didn’t know whether to be impressed or amused. “That’s weird.”

“No, it’s great. Seriously. So challenging, but it’s like a whole new sound world ...”

He stopped, took a deep breath like he was afraid he’d just overstepped his mark, but I smiled to let him know it was fine. I could imagine new sound worlds. I was totally okay with that.

“Anyway, Mom started giving me percussion instruments to play when I was still a baby, and Varèse is one of my favorites now as well. It’s hard not to like playing the drums after you’ve immersed yourself in Varèse for a while.”

He smiled, emphasizing the dimple on his left cheek. I looked for a matching one on the right and decided I preferred the asymmetry.

“So where are you going to study?” I asked.

Ed’s hand hovered over his rook. “I’ve got an audition at the Peabody Institute in February.”

“I’ve heard of that. Where is it?”

“Baltimore.”

“Seriously? That must be pretty close to Gallaudet, then.”

“Uh-huh. Thirty-seven miles.” He shuffled his rook toward certain death.

“Really?” I was amazed he could put a number on it. Who bothers learning stuff like that? I hadn’t even realized he knew that Gallaudet was in DC. “Exactly thirty-seven?”

He looked away, scratched his forehead. “Um, yeah. Something like that, anyway.”

“We’ll be pretty close then.”

Ed nodded, then groaned appropriately as I ignored his rook and put him directly into checkmate. But the faintest hint of a smile made me wonder if it really bothered him at all.

That evening, Marissa finally IM’d me, and I was so excited that I didn’t even give her a hard time about taking forever to get back to me.

Once she’d admitted that her new school was everything she’d hoped it might be (and assured me yet again that she wished I were there with her), I told her about Dumb, and how they were really coming together. I was on such a roll that I’d written most of an essay when I suddenly realized I wasn’t even sure she was getting any of it.

A pause. A
long
pause. The kind of pause that’s usually followed by a comment like MARI55A HAS LOGGED OFF.

They were words, nothing more, but somehow I could feel her frustration mounting with each exchange. I needed to bring the conversation to an end, but I wasn’t sure how. I began to write a question, then erased the words and typed another, then erased that too. Eventually there was nothing onscreen but the blinking cursor and the aching silence of the distance between us—and it was an entirely different kind of silence to the one that had drawn us together in the first place.

Suddenly another message flashed on the screen:

She logged off before I could say the same thing.

Arranging our first full rehearsal was like scheduling a UN summit, and the process ended with about the same amount of political goodwill. Monday and Tuesday evenings were out because Ed had piano and marimba lessons (cue eye rolling from Josh). Wednesday was a no-go because Tash’s mom’s salon had extended opening hours, and she was required to help out. (No one but me seemed surprised that the girl with green hair had a mom who ran a salon.) Thursday had to be ditched when Ed informed us that he worked at a coffee shop (more eye rolling), which left Friday. Even Saturday had to be completely ruled out because Ed had Seattle Youth Orchestra rehearsal and Tash spent all day sweeping up hair at her mom’s salon. At that point I put my foot down and said that Sunday may be the day of rest for some people, but it sure as heck wouldn’t be for Dumb. Thankfully, faced with the alternative of practicing for only a couple of hours a week, everyone seemed on board with that.

Our first full rehearsal took place back in the luxurious surroundings of the Cooke family garage, with its artfully painted walls, spotlighting, and central heating. There was even an old but fully functioning vending machine I hadn’t noticed before, and Josh downed two bottles of energy drink before the others had finished setting up. Thus caffeinated, he generously divulged some of the information he’d inexplicably kept secret until that point, such as:

At which point I butted in and suggested that maybe it was time to learn some new material, and Josh pointed out that:

And Ed stopped biting his fingernails long enough to ask if it was a coincidence that they’d chosen songs that only used the same three chords, and Josh chuckled and said:

And even though I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, I knew my job was to keep up morale, so I said we’d take our time and make sure we were all comfortable before unleashing ourselves on our adoring general public, and Josh laughed again and said:

At which point I stopped biting my fingernails and expressed my incredulity through a choice four-letter word. Then I took a deep, calming breath and suggested that we stick to songs they already knew, at which Josh reiterated:

At which point I uttered several more four-letter words. And this time, breathing deeply didn’t help at all.

Fifteen minutes later, Ed was using an ancient bucket of sidewalk chalk to illustrate how they could insert the chord of A minor between C and F. As far as I was concerned, he may as well have been writing hieroglyphics, but Will seemed to know exactly what it all meant. He leaned back and played a series of rumbling bass notes over and over, while Tash looked on admiringly, although her eyes were locked on Will’s face, not his hands. A minute later she joined in with the earth-shattering, paradigm-changing C-A minor-F-G chord sequence, and suddenly I could feel how something indefinable had shifted, like a sentence that had grown by a few words. Finally, Josh got in on the act, composing new lyrics especially for the occasion. By the time everyone was in sync, Dumb had its first original song, and although Josh was bummed when I said he should change the lyrics “Hey ho, make me happy” because they were likely to be misinterpreted, a glare from Tash convinced him I was right.

Meanwhile, I kept busy by e-mailing Baz Firkin, insisting that we put off the recording session for at least a few weeks. Then I pulled out my camera and began taking black-and-white photos of the band at work. I took photos lying on the floor, standing on tables, at forty-five-degree angles, and any other positions I could think of that would make the band look sophisticated and artsy. I loaded them onto my laptop and began altering the contrast, distorting the image, and generally screwing with them until they resembled the grainy, hardcore shots I’d found on other bands’ websites.

By the time Dumb took a five-minute break, I was already downloading them onto our MySpace page, so everyone came over to look. Will nodded appreciatively, Ed raised an eyebrow admiringly, and Tash didn’t say a word—from her, it was the most approving silence I could imagine. And Josh squeezed my shoulder; just once, but I knew it meant he was impressed, and somehow his opinion mattered most of all.

The second half of the rehearsal was the Ed Chen show. For the next hour, he was no longer the geek they all ignored at school—he was their muse and cheerleader. With deliberately understated drumming, he kept steady time while Josh serenaded me with ever-evolving lyrics, and Will and Tash experimented with the new chord. Tash even kept her eyes fixed on Will at all times, so that their movements were appropriately synchronized, although I’m not sure Will ever noticed. Truth is, Will was so focused on his guitar that he seemed to occupy his own little bubble. On the rare occasions he glanced up, his cloudy expression suggested he was surprised to discover there were other people playing too. Despite that, I could tell by their relaxed demeanor that the music Dumb was producing wasn’t chaotic or mistake-prone at all. It was as if Ed had unleashed them on the previously peaceful kingdom of A minor, and they were laying claim to it for themselves.

As they gave a final rendition of “Let Go, I Feel Crappy,” which was loud and pissed enough to sound vaguely impressive from where I stood a safe distance away, it was obvious that Dumb had taken a giant leap forward in only one rehearsal. As long as Ed was around, there was cause for optimism. I even allowed myself to reflect that the positive change was indirectly my doing when a new e-mail arrived in my inbox from Baz Firkin: