Out of Tune

Chapter Ten

Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life --Jean Paul

The last beat of the song slowly faded away.

Lennon, sprawled across the couch in Spencer's basement, told the band, "Your set is coming along really well. You're sounding great."

"But the real question," Miles said from behind the drum kit. "Is whether we're good enough not to get laughed off the stage and hopefully have this turn into a regular opening gig."

"I think you are." Lennon flipped a few pages in her notebook. "Maybe Tomorrow is amazing. It's a fantastic cover. You play it really well. Aftershocks and Pieces of Your Memory are great too. I have a few notes for Precious Fools. That's the cover that needs the most work."

"What kind of notes?" Spencer asked. Even though they didn't have a microphone, Lennon had told him to stand where he would if there was a microphone present. She wanted him to get comfortable being on the centre stage so that when the time came to perform, there was one less foreign thing he had to deal with.

Lennon reached for her guitar. She'd brought it with her when she'd come to the rehearsal and it was the first time she'd actually pulled it out of its case since her dad's passing. Spencer had whistled appreciatively when he'd seen it and had commented on the full sound it produced when she tuned it.

The weight of the guitar had been a welcome presence on her lap. Soothing and comforting, like a piece of her had been restored. It didn't sting as much as Lennon had thought it would to play that instrument. To remember the hands that had held it before, fingers flying across the frets as he'd strummed. Hands that had been as familiar to her as her own.

Yet after being tuned, Elijah McCormick's guitar had mostly sat in a stand, waiting to be played. But Lennon didn't need to be strumming along with them. Spencer had given her his sheet music since he had it all memorized so she'd been able to follow along as they'd rehearsed.

There was no denying as she picked it up, her fingers wrapping with familiar ease along the frets, that this felt right to her. Like a piece of her that had been missing had been returned.

Lennon flipped to the very start of the song. "Okay so right at the beginning with the lyrics, 'Empty streets and ruined places – Shattered walls and vacant faces – Broken glass and all the traces – Of you and I have gone away – Tell me where did I go wrong.'" She looked to Spencer to make sure that he knew where she was talking about. He nodded once without looking up, eyes on the sheet music in front of him. 

"You and Zeke are both fighting with the tempo. Spencer, you're on top of it so everything should be getting pushed along nicely but Zeke is lagging just slightly. Not much but enough that it's dragging the rest of the song. And the further you get into it, the more it starts to drag so. It ends up being too slow. And boring."

"Boring is what we are definitely trying to avoid," Spencer said, shooting her a wry grin. 

"Exactly." Lennon met Spencer's eyes and smiled.

She'd been attending their rehearsals all week, sitting in and mostly listening, offering comments when needed, as they figured out their set. Their gig at Quincy's was coming fast, only six days before they would be up performing on their first real stage.

It was clear they were excited. The energy in the band had picked up considerably as the week wore on, but so too did the nerves. The smallest mistake, a single missed beat or a slightly flat note, had the potential to be enough to set someone off. They wanted it to be perfect.