Out of Tune: The Original 2015 Draft

chapter 9

Music can change the world because it can change people

-Bono

By the time Spencer and I reached the school, and inside to the gym, the other guys had arrived and had already started setting up. We'd been nervous of people showing up early for the dance, either students or faculty members that could recognize me and alert my family to what I was actually doing, so Charlie, somehow, managed to get the keys to the gym doors from the janitor, how he did that I would never learn, and locked the doors so that we had utter privacy until the dance was scheduled to begin.

When we walked into the gym, the other guys looked up and immediately stopped what they were doing, dropping the sound cables and the keyboard stand. They collapsed to the ground where they lay, forgotten and unimportant.

"Aileen?" Zeke asked, looking shocked. Charlie and Miles wore the same expression that Zeke did. But, where Charlie had nothing to say, Miles had no problem putting his thoughts into words.

"A!" he exclaimed in his booming, exuberant voice. "You look like a girl!"

I laughed loudly. Pleased that Miles, at least, wouldn't treat me any different because of how I was dressed. It was true that, when I was at school and hanging out with Taylor and Katie, I tended to dress more feminine and girly, but on those days where I hung out only with the guys, I was always dressed in jeans and a simple band shirt with my hair up in a high pony tail.

"Well," I replied to him, "you do know that I really am a girl, right?"

"Course," Miles replied cheekily. "But you never actually look like one."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, enough about my physical appearance, we need to finish setting up."

It took us roughly half an hour to get the drum kit, the mikes and speakers, keyboard, and soundboard set up. By the time we had finished, there was still half an hour until the dance and, since we didn't technically go on to play our first set until eight o'clock, an hour after the dance started, we decided to order in a pizza and wait in a deserted classroom until it was time to go on.

As we sat in an empty history classroom, munching on a half vegetarian, for Charlie's sake as I learned he was a vegetarian, and half meat lovers, because it seemed Miles was incapable of eating anything but meat, I was under the impression that this, just hanging out with the guys and not out in some crowded gym worrying about hair and makeup, was what I really wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I enjoyed spending time with the guys. They made me feel welcome and accepted and just like I was one of the guys. They didn't care if I didn't dress up all of the time; night's like these obviously exempted, just as long as I came ready to have a good time. I was good hanging out with them, practicing our music, eating pizza, playing Settlers of Catan.

I didn't need to go shopping or hang out at the mall or beach every weekend. I just needed my guys and the rest of my life would be fine.

At quarter to eight, Spencer and I pulled out our guitars to tune while Zeke worked on getting his bass in tune. We put on our masks and then left the room, headed towards the gym for our first ever performance.

The nervousness in the air as we stopped outside the gym doors was palpable. Zeke was wringing his hands together, Charlie was tapping his fingers against the side of his legs, Miles was playing with his drumsticks, banging the pieces of wood together irritably, Spencer was biting his lip and me...

I was fine.

I didn't know what it was that made me suddenly calm and ready for this performance. I had been nervousness, terrified, all day, but know I felt ready. It was as if I could feel my dad standing beside me, cracking one of his cheesy jokes that he always said before going on to perform.