Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,65

delta formation:

He’s cool.

Late afternoons and evenings were the trickiest, because that’s when I would have to reject Cirrus even though every nerve in my body screamed to be with her.

“I want to hang out and watch you guys practice,” she would say.

“I want the show to be a surprise,” I would say.

That was only partly true; mostly I could not have her knowing Gray was coaching me to be a fake rock star.

“Oookaaay,” she would say. And then I would watch her pedal away from me as I waved from the bike racks.

Then, at the end of each day, it would just be me, Milo, and Jamal locked in the music room waiting for Gray to arrive while the school grew quieter and quieter. Everyone else was going home to dinners and homework and television and video games; we were here to work.

We sat on the amps like they were ours, not the school’s. We tuned our instruments. Milo adjusted his drums a millimeter here, a millimeter there. He had taken the cocktail kit apart and set it in a traditional rock drummer formation. We twiddled knobs to fine-tune our volume and gain and reverb and presence. I did not know what that last knob did. I just liked the idea of having a control to adjust one’s philosophical outlook on life.

Then we waited.

“You guys wanna go through it while we’re waiting for Gray?” I said.

“Waiting for Godot,” said Jamal with a sour look.

“Hey,” said Milo. “I’m telling you I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

I folded my hands over the neck of my guitar. “What.”

“Jamal’s being paranoid,” said Milo.

“Just say it,” I said.

Jamal held out his phone. “Lady Lashblade gave a like to this other wannabe prop-making clown posse.”

I squinted. “LARPros? They have less than half the follower count we do. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” said Jamal.

“Their stuff is very low quality,” said Milo.

“We need to record the episode for Esmeralda’s Veil stat,” said Jamal. “We have to stay on the Lady’s radar if we’re going to get that seat next to her at Fantastic Faire.”

I sighed. “We will.”

“We’re slipping,” said Jamal.

“We are not slipping,” said Milo.

I sloughed off my guitar and put an arm around Jamal. “Hey. We will get the episode done.”

“When?” said Jamal. “In our sleep?”

“I know this band nonsense is eating up our time,” I said. “I am sincerely sorry. I am forever grateful to both of you. Without you I would be dead. Home stretch?”

“You’re impossible when you get all sincere like this,” said Jamal.

The door hissed open on soundproof gaskets. Gray entered.

“Sorry-sorry, work thing ran late,” said Gray.

“Work?” I said.

Gray shrugged. “I had a group interview with the entire Trey Fortune gang. Like for real this time.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

“Probably because I didn’t tell you,” said Gray with another shrug.

“How did it go?” I said.

“Really great, actually,” said Gray to the floor. “Turns out I can get excited about quarterly tax filings for small- to mid-size LLCs.”

I said nothing. A really great interview was a far cry from coming home to regroup before returning to a new band in Hollywood. It sounded like Gray might not be going anywhere at all.

I glanced at Jamal and Milo. It was disturbingly difficult to tell whether Gray was proud of himself or suicidal.

“All that sounds wonderful,” said Milo.

Gray wrestled off his blazer and yanked his tie loose. “Whatever. Let’s rock.”

We ran through “Beauty Is Truth” again and again. At first, we followed Gray as he guided us along with the chord changes on the chalkboard with a broken drumstick as his pointer. When we could make it through with no mistakes, Gray stopped pointing along to see if we would still manage. When we could, he erased the chalkboard altogether.

We played. We threw eyes. We landed the changes.

Gray very gently suggested that maybe Jamal did not have to sing his improvised, spontaneous backup, and this made Jamal very sad. Gray backpedaled quickly and told him that backup hoots and hollers—not Elvish—were what was called for, and Jamal was happy again.

Milo was very sad about his inability to twirl drumsticks until Gray sat him down and showed him the basics. There were three juicy spots in the song for him to spin those chopper blades, and when he managed to hit them all without dropping sticks, he became happy again, too.

It was very, very important to keep Jamal and Milo happy, and I was grateful for Gray.

Each night, we would power down and blast off