AT BAND PRACTICE, TWO NEW SPECTATORS were sitting on the floor against the back wall.
“Practice ended early for the Almost-All-Asian Chamber Music Octet,” Sam said. “We heard that you might need some support for your warped ambitions.”
“We have been hearing bits of your very strange music from down the hall,” Seo Woon said. “We had to see if up close it looks as weird as it sounds.”
The band seemed happy enough to have an audience of any kind. Then, all of a sudden, we had more.
I’d been e-mailing McGregor about our practices whenever I knew we were going to practice, because we weren’t getting high or drinking anymore, but I hadn’t told the band, because he hadn’t answered, and I figured he never would.
So when the door opened and McGregor walked in with his wife, everyone sort of froze.
His wife didn’t look anything like I figured she would. She worked in the “development” office, which was a real subtle way of saying “the money-getting department,” but she didn’t look like a fund-raiser. She was pretty, but not in a prep way—a real way, with wrinkles, like someone who hadn’t been afraid to jump the walls out into the real world. She had a long, brown ponytail, and her jeans were worn down to the last threads in the places your jeans are supposed to have holes: in the knees, in the butt. Like they’d been worn by someone with a life.
“This is so cool!” she said to her husband. “Music that’s newer than the eighteenth century at Oakhurst Hall!”
“Jill was a big rock fan in the eighties,” McGregor explained to the room.
She shrugged. “A few Bowie concerts,” she said. “Lou Reed. Stuff like that.”
“Well, all right then,” Danny said. They sat in a couple of old chairs. “We call this Everything Else, a rock symphony in three movements.”
Then I heard myself weigh in: “The first movement is called ‘Hope.’ The second is ‘Chaos.’ The third is called ‘Calm.’” The whole band looked at me. I shrugged. We could work on that part later.
And then, exchanging crazy glances—Can we do this?—we laid it down: The smooth birdsong opening, with its wandering melodies; the crazy middle, veering into everything from Phish to the Foos; the peaceful conclusion, which had started to almost sound like the end of a Sunday-morning Carlton-sermon hymn, only without the downer vibe.
During the whole fifteen minutes, I watched McGregor try to nod in rhythm, but he never quite got it right, although that wasn’t really his fault, because the rhythm kept changing. I could tell that what we’d written wasn’t for someone from the past. Just kids like us or like McGregor’s wife. His own brain was telling him to remember that he represented a school and wore yellow ties with lacrosse sticks on them and he was married to some big money family and he couldn’t risk muddying the waters if he was going to be Phil McGregor.
In the middle of the crazy second movement, when Josh and Danny were facing each other peeling crazy riffs, I knew that he wasn’t going to back us. I also didn’t care, because we were in the Zone.
His wife listened to the whole thing with her eyes closed, sometimes slapping the thigh of her jeans, in perfect time, and nodding.
When we finished, it was Jill McGregor who spoke first.
“Killer!” she said. “Wow. Too bad you guys weren’t around with Lou Reed and the Velvets.” McGregor coughed. Twice. “It’s going to be a great Thanksgiving concert this year, guys,” she said.
“Well, I’m sure it will be,” said Corporate McGregor. “Whether these boys play their . . . song . . . or not. It was very impressive, Jack. Quite original . . . and, well, to write something like that, from scratch, well, that shows a lot of enterprise. Well, we’d better get going.”
“Yep, I guess we’d better,” his wife said, and left it at that. As they walked out of the room, she turned back with a more serious look on her face. “Do not give up, guys. Okay? Promise?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Danny said.
The door slowly slid closed, leaving a hush like a morgue.
“So?” said Danny. “What’re our chances with the man?”
“Less Than Zero,” Sam said.
“Even with her bucks and connections?” said Josh.
“Face the music, son,” answered Simon. “Carlton’s not going to listen to a babe tell him what to do with his school, no matter how big her trust fund is. If she was really into rocking boats, you think she’d be married to McGregor? And trust me: Corporate man is rockin’ no boats.”
Sam and Seo Woon rose from the floor and headed for the door. “If you want my opinion,” Sam said, “you could really use a Korean string section. Or some talent.” Then they took each other’s hands. Seo Woon looked at us. “That was . . . amazing,” she said, as they walked out the door. “Good luck, guys.”
For a few seconds, we just stood there. Then Josh put his guitar in its case and slammed it shut. Simon hit the snare so hard I thought he’d break the stick. Maybe it had been a mistake—my mistake—to try and take it seriously. I could feel their shoulders sagging all around me. Old Oak Hall would always find a way to beat you down.
Unless someone beat it back.
“I’m going to the top,” I said.
“As in the Carlton top?” said Josh.
“What do we have to lose?” I said. “What can he say other than no?”
“Well, how about, ‘Are you out of your mind, son?’”
“What’s he going to do?” I said. “Use it against me that I have enterprise?”
“The name of a starship?” Simon said. “That has to be a good omen.”
As if.