THERE WERE AT least twenty students at the pool party, and Derrick found himself standing by a folding table with a spread of snacks laid out on it. A boombox under the covered patio was playing a mixtape that Derrick had brought and Britney Spears echoed from the speakers, followed by Backstreet Boys. It wasn’t Derrick’s favorite music, but even he found himself bobbing his head. Plus, he knew that it was Haley’s favorite music, so he’d spent an entire afternoon downloading the songs from Napster on Doug’s computer and copying them to a tape. He’d labelled it “Pool Party ‘99”. When he’d given it to Haley, along with the track listing, she’d beamed and threw her arms around him.
“It’s perfect! It’ll be the soundtrack for the whole semester,” she had said. “Everyone is going to love this. You’re awesome.”
Now, Haley and a couple other girls were tossing a volleyball back and forth over the water while her boyfriend Ty Anderson was playing water basketball with some of the other football players.
While Ty was around, Haley’s attention was elsewhere instead of on Derrick and he felt a tinge of jealousy inside him. He didn’t understand why someone so sweet was with such a jerk. She was bubbly and outgoing and seemed to love everyone around her. To Derrick, Ty just looked like a jerk.
AJ stood next to him, drinking a Surge soda with a bag of 3D Doritos tucked under his arm. He had on a pair of Hawaiian shorts and a backward Mount Vernon Lions hat. “Look at those cavemen,” he said, nodding toward the football players. “I’m so glad we’re not like that. They’ve probably got six brain cells total.”
Unfortunately, the prettiest girls in school seemed to be attracted to the cavemen, and even Derrick noticed the girls on one side of the pool stealing glances at the muscular, shirtless guys while not even noticing AJ or himself. “Yeah, but the girls seem to like them.”
“Dude, just wait til we are on that stage for the talent show. Every girl in school will want to be our girlfriends. We’ll have to beat them off with a stick. I mean, you don’t even have to be good looking as long as you’re a rockstar. Look at Keith Richards. He’s been dead for fifteen years and he still gets chicks.”
“Keith Richards died?” Derrick asked, confused.
“Yeah, but no one has the heart to tell him,” AJ shrugged.
Derrick paused for a moment and then groaned. “That’s so stupid.”
“But, seriously,” AJ said. “Chicks dig musicians.”
“You sound so confident.”
“What can I say? It’s the truth. Girls love rockstars,” AJ said.
From the wooden gate that led to the driveway from the backyard, another girl, followed closely by a guy, came into the party. She was tall and lanky, all elbows and knees, with braces that sparkled in the afternoon sun and blonde hair that fell to the small of her back. Derrick recognized her from the tennis team, though he’d never talked to her. Some of the girls squealed seeing another friend show up and she immediately dashed from the guy she was with to join them.
“Hey,” AJ said, elbowing Derrick. “That’s Dustin. The drummer I was telling you about.”
Dustin was short and stocky, with close-cropped dark hair and a towel draped over his shoulders. He was carrying a beach bag stuffed to the brim with what could only be his girlfriend’s belongings. He looked like a fish out of water, just as uncomfortable as Derrick.
AJ tugged at Derrick and they went over to Dustin, who was setting his things down next to one of the lawn chairs lined between the pool and the patio.
“Hey man,” AJ said. “How was the football game last night?”
“It was okay,” Dustin said. “The first performance of the season can be hit or miss. But I feel like we did a good job.”
AJ explained to Derrick that Dustin was the drum major for the marching band this year.
Dustin continued, “But after the game, me and Lindsey went to see a midnight showing of that Sixth Sense movie. Have you guys seen it yet?”
Both Derrick and AJ shook their heads.
“I won’t ruin it for you, but the ending is nuts.” Noticing Derrick, he said, “Hey man, I’m Dustin.”
“I’m Derrick.”
“Oh yeah. You’re the new kid, right?”
“Yeah, moved here right before school started.”
“Dude, that sucks,” Dustin shrugged. “But welcome to Mount Vernon.”
AJ said, “Hey man, you know that talent show coming up at the end of the semester?”
Dustin nodded. “Yeah, Lindsey is on the planning committee or something like that. What about it?”
“Well, Derrick and I want to start a band for it. Play a couple of songs. We need a drummer. Would you be interested?”
Dustin thought about it for a second. AJ continued to slurp down the Surge. “What kind of music?” Dustin asked. “I don’t want to do any of that pop punk crap or nu-metal.”
“Rock,” Derrick said. “We thought maybe doing a song by Collective Soul or Pearl Jam and a song that we come up with ourselves.”
“I don’t know, man,” Dustin said. “I’m pretty busy with the football season, so I like to spend as much time with Lindsey as I can when we’re not practicing for that.”
“We’d just need a day or two per week to practice,” AJ said.
“And we can use my garage for practice space,” Derrick said.
“Well, we’d need a bassist,” Dustin said.
“I’ll play bass,” AJ interjected.
Derrick looked at him with confusion. “But you’re the second guitarist,” he said.
“We don’t need a second guitarist. You’re good enough that you can handle the guitar stuff. I’ll play bass and sing. We’ll be like Rush.”
“Rush is awesome,” Dustin said. He looked over toward the pool where the girls were splashing around and wading in the shallow end. “Let me think about it. I want to do it, but I just don’t have a lot of free time right now to say yes.”
♪ ♪ ♪
After pizzas were delivered and everyone ate, the party migrated from the patio and back into the pool for a giant game of Marco Polo. Derrick was thrashing around the water, listening intently for Haley’s voice as he kept his eyes closed, hoping to tag someone. The boombox on the patio was playing a Mandy Moore song from the mixtape that he had brought and it made it hard to concentrate as everyone splashed around the pool.
“Marco!” he called out.
And a whisper from right beside him said, “Polo.”
He spun, his arms wild, catching nothing but water and air.
“You missed,” the voice said again, this time to his right. He faked reaching once and then dove for the source of the voice, feeling his hands on skin.
Derrick opened his eyes, his blonde hair falling over them, and caught a face full of chlorinated water from Haley splashing him. She was laughing. “I thought I had you fooled,” she said.
Dustin came up from beneath the water and looked at the watch on his wrist. “Have you guys seen Lindsey? I have to be home in twenty minutes.”
A couple of the girls looked around. “She said she was going to the bathroom,” one of them said.
Dustin climbed from the pool and dried himself off with the towel he’d left on the back of one of the lawn chairs on the patio. He went inside while the rest of the party went back to the game of Marco Polo, with Haley as the new Marco. A few moments later, there was a commotion from the patio door as Dustin came back out to the backyard. His face was ghost-white and he grabbed his bag and went for the gate at the fence without saying a word to anyone else. The entire party went completely silent.
Their collective mouths dropped when Lindsey followed him out the door, in tears, begging him to stop, to talk to her.
And behind her, Ty came out, his face somehow both embarrassed and smug.
No one said a word. Everyone understood exactly what had happened. Haley immediately burst into tears herself, climbing out of the pool and running inside the house, shoving Ty out of the way. A couple of girls followed her in, each of them glaring at Ty as they did.
Derrick and AJ stood silently in the pool, the only ones still in it. Then, AJ leaned into Derrick and shrugged. “Looks like Dustin has some free time now.”