The rumpus room in Naomi’s basement felt muggy. We’d been drinking greedily all night, exercising our freedom in the absence of Naomi’s parents, who were away for the weekend. Sara and I had dragged along our guitars and were playing some of our new songs for Christina and Naomi and the other Frenchies crowded around. Naomi’s older brother, Kevin, whose bedroom was also in the basement, came out at one point and leaned on the back of the couch, watching with interest. When Naomi’s parents would go out of town, he’d supervise, which usually meant throwing a party where his older friends would ply us with alcohol and cigarettes. He played drums in a local band; their gear was strewn around the room. The four-year difference in age between us might as well have been ten. He had a job and went to university. We thought he was so cool.
“You guys are awesome. You should jam with my band sometime,” he said. “We need a singer and you guys are good.”
Few people aside from our friends and family had heard Sara and me play. And not many of them had been adults. His compliment fed the part of me hungry for validation from people older than us—adults who weren’t also related to us. We desperately wanted to be taken seriously. And Kevin’s offer felt serious.
“Sure,” I said.
The first time we showed up to jam, Kevin suggested we play Justin, the bass player, and Corey, the guitar player, a few of our songs. They all nodded along, smirking and smiling to one another.
“I told you,” Kevin said from behind the kit.
But Corey suggested we start with learning the ones they already had written and rehearsed. I felt off balance, in part due to the beer I’d drank before while we waited for them to get off work, but also because it was weird to sing lyrics I hadn’t written, and even harder to strum along to chords I didn’t know the names of.
“Just sing,” Corey suggested to me after I hit the wrong chords enough times. He wasn’t cruel about it, but it stung. I could feel him growing impatient when I’d squint to watch his hand, trying to see where to move my own fingers. I had no technical knowledge of the guitar, not the way I did with the piano. I had no way of knowing what a C chord was when he called it out. Sara gave in before me. Opting to wrap the mic cord around her hand, she flopped on the couch, and I felt jealous of the casualness of the move. Eventually, I put away my guitar and joined her.
I wasn’t sure I liked playing with them. On the phone the next night I told Alex they seemed a bit old.
But when Sara told me Kevin had invited us to come jam with them again and that Corey thought we were really talented, we caved to the shine of their attention.
A half dozen rehearsals later, Kevin announced our first real gig. “It’s on Halloween at Travis’s friend’s house.” Travis was the part-time trumpet player. He was twenty-five.
“Maybe we could play one of our songs there, too,” I suggested.
Kevin perked up behind the drums. “Yeah, for sure,” he said. “That’s a good idea. Corey, let’s let them play one of theirs.”
Corey didn’t say much, just lit a cigarette and mumbled, “Go for it.”
“Ready.” Sara nodded toward me. “This one’s called ‘Christ Comes Quickly.’ ”
Sara started to pick out the intro on her electric guitar. Kevin found the tempo and started to follow along with his kick drum. Then Sara started to sing. “Late at night, when the stars are eating you alive. Does it make you sad, does it make you cry deep down inside?”
I nodded to Kevin, trying to give him cues to show him we were moving to a new section.
“In your dreams when the blood falls in your arms. If I fall, will you catch me?”
I jumped in, yelling, “Will you catch me in your arms?”
We sang the chorus together, both frantically strumming power chords in unison as we built to the second verse. Kevin pounded away behind us.
“Does it bother you, does it bother you, does it bother you? Yes, it does,” we yelled. “She opens her eyes, there is no fire, she’s a liar.”
When we finished, Kevin slammed down his drumsticks on the snare. “That was awesome.”
Corey let a long plume of smoke out and smiled. “It was awesome.”
We had to bargain with Mom to get permission and a ride to the party. “It’s our first real gig,” we begged.
“Are there going to be parents there?”
“Mom. No.”
“It’s Kevin’s friend’s house, Mom. They’re all like, in their early twenties.”
“You’re not going to do any drinking? Right?”
“No, Mom. Please.”
She dropped us out front. Even from the street, you could see the house was packed. As she waved through the front window, she looked nervous. I tried to look confident as I waved back, but I was nervous, too.
Kevin came bounding toward us. He was dressed as a surfer. He darted around other adults in costumes who were smoking and drinking in the living room.
“Where do we go?” Sara asked awkwardly. “I didn’t realize we needed costumes.”
“No, no, no. You guys look great. Here,” he said, grabbing the handle of my guitar case. “We’re set up downstairs. Corey’s there tuning the guitars. Come on. You guys want a beer?”
“No!” we answered together.
When we were ready, Kevin got on the mic and shouted for everyone to come downstairs. The rumpus room filled quickly—it seemed like there were about thirty people. They looked so tall and drunk, but the costumes made it seem less serious somehow, and I told myself to relax. I felt my knees wobble a little as I stepped toward the microphone. When the crowd quieted down, I leaned in and cleared my throat. “We’re . . . the Dragonflies.”
Kevin counted off the top, “ONE, TWO, ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR.”
As we exploded into the song, I felt the adrenaline of the packed room of people who didn’t know us propel me forward, eviscerating the nervousness I felt before we started. The sound system they’d rented was so loud my ears rang between the first two songs, but I was having fun. It was the first time I felt like I was in a real band. People were moving to the songs and smoking in the small space. If I squinted I could imagine we were in a bar or a club, playing a real gig, rather than Travis’s friend’s basement.
In junior high, Sara and I had gone to gigs at nearby community centers to watch local bands play, and I’d dreamed of standing on the stage where they were, singing into a mic over music that filled the space and people in front of me. We’d performed plenty of times now for our friends, but this reminded me how those gigs had made me feel all those years earlier: happy. We were doing it. We were in a band—a real one.
When we finished the last Dragonflies song, the crowd cheered and the five of us pretended to be done until they called us back for an encore.
Kevin leaned in and said, “You guys play one of your songs.”
“So, we have one more song,” Sara said. “Tegan and I wrote it. It’s called ‘Don’t Believe the Things They Tell You, They Lie.’ ”
Everyone cheered.
As soon as we started, I felt a different energy fill the room; somehow there was still space for more. Goosebumps popped up, and I memorized their faces as we reached the pre-chorus where Sara sweetly sang the lyrics, “I don’t want to be a liar, but I do it every day. I don’t want to be so tired, but I can’t sleep anyway.” As she sang the last line she started to growl, “Don’t believe the things they tell you, they lie.” I spun the volume up the rest of the way on my electric guitar and slammed into the final word frantically. Behind me, Kevin was doing the same on the drums. When we stopped, the entire room lit up.
“They loved you guys,” Corey said afterward.
“I think they were just being nice,” I answered sheepishly as I locked my guitar case. It was obvious which song had gotten the largest cheer, and I felt guilty it had been ours.
“No, they weren’t. You guys have something. It’s special. Your songs are powerful.”
My chest expanded as I absorbed the compliments. I trailed Sara up the stairs, and at the door, a friend of Kevin’s stopped us. “What are you doing playing with these burnouts?”
“One day we’ll say the famous Quin sisters played a gig with us,” Kevin said, grinning with all his teeth showing. “Stay for a beer.”
“We should go.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s no fun partying with a bunch of old guys, huh?” He chuckled.
“Nah, you guys are cool. But we promised our mom.”
“Their mom,” the friend said to Kevin, laughing. “How old are you guys?”
We shuffled outside into the cold without answering to wait for Mom.
“I don’t think I want to play with them again,” Sara said, eyeing me.
“Do you think Naomi will be upset if we quit?” I was glad Sara felt the same as me. And glad she said it first.
“No, she doesn’t care what I do.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think we should just do our own thing. The band’s cool, but the way the audience reacted to our song—I don’t know, it’s something else. We just need to keep doing our songs.”
“I think so, too.”
We didn’t formally quit the band, but after we turned down a few invites from Kevin to come jam again with the Dragonflies, he stopped calling. Naomi never seemed to care, or at least she never said she did. And when Kevin would appear when we were over at their house, he always stopped and asked how we were doing, what was happening with music, if we’d written any new songs. We returned easily to being his little sister’s friends, and I put the Dragonflies out of my mind. Besides, Sara was right, what we had was different, unique, and there was only room in it for us.