Dear Tamara
PLEEEEEEEEEASE be our singer. Please please please please please please please please please infinity please googolplex pleeeeeeezzzzeeee.
Stella
Too much maybe? I delete the email and try again.
Dear Tamara,
With regards to the proposal we discussed this Saturday last, please be advised that…
What the funk? Who am I, Jane Austen?
Yo, Tam girl
Wassup? When u gonna jam wit me and my boyz?
I laugh so hard, Mom knocks on my door to see if I’m dying.
“Fine! I’m fine!” When I catch my breath, I try one last time.
Hi Tamara
I’m going to Vinyl Village tomorrow morning, elevenish. Wanna come? We can talk.
Best
Stella
An hour later, after I’ve checked my emails so many times I’m getting repetitive strain injury in my mouse finger, I get this reply.
Stella
VV sounds fun. CU at 11.
T
I hate people who write “see you” as “CU” but at this point, I can’t let it be a deal breaker.
It’s easy enough to find Tamara in Vinyl Village the next day, because she’s the only person in there wearing beige. I mean, beige. Seriously? But Mom always says not to judge an album by the liner notes, or something, so whatever. Since Tamara can sing like the love child of Annie Lennox and David Bowie, she can wear all the beige she wants. Heck, I’ll wear beige if she wants me to.
“Hi, Stella,” she says when I join her by the country albums. “I haven’t been here in ages. Do you buy a lot of vinyl?”
“Yeah,” I say. “My parents have a pretty big vinyl collection. But they like to add to it. So I’ve been coming here with them since I was a baby.”
“Hey, Stella! ’Sup?” the guy behind the counter says, on cue. For a second I worry that Tamara might think I’m showing off, but then two twelve-year-old girls pull out phones and start taking pictures of her and giggling, whispering, “Fantalicious” to each other. Tamara turns away and heads down the jazz aisle.
“I bet that gets irritating,” I say, thinking how awesome it might be to be recognized like that. To have giggling fans taking pictures. That would mean they like your music, right?
“Yeah, it was okay when I was still with the group,” Tamara says. “But now it’s just humiliating. I mean, they’re probably making fun of me.”
I don’t know what to say for a moment. Apart from the fact that I don’t really know what she’s talking about, Tamara seems sad suddenly. I feel like I should say something supportive, which will probably cause a short circuit in my brain because I’m useless at stuff like that.
But then Tamara pulls out a record and gasps. “Oh my god. I’ve been looking for this for ages!”
I look at the album. It’s a live recording of Billie Holiday. Tamara literally hugs it to her chest.
“Billie Holiday?” I say. “You like her?” I don’t listen to much jazz, but Mom and Dad put it on some nights when they’re mellowing out on the deck with wine and their weird friends. Billie Holiday is one of my favorites because she’s just so depressing. It’s awesome music for angsty chocolate binges.
“I love her!” Tamara says. “Of course I love her. Any female singer who doesn’t worship and admire her is a faker as far as I’m concerned. Doesn’t matter what style you’re singing, Billie can teach you something. You don’t even need to be a singer. Anyone with a soul can learn from Billie Holiday.”
I can’t help grinning. That’s the type of thing I would say about drummers and Stewart Copeland or Travis Barker. “Who else do you like?” I ask.
We spend nearly an hour talking about Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. Tamara schools me about Patsy Cline and Mahalia Jackson. And I hook her up with Chrissie Hynde and P.J. Harvey. We have a brief argument about Adele versus Amy Winehouse, which is only resolved when she points out that Adele is in fact still alive and thus wins by default. After giggling for about ten minutes about how dumb that logic is, we nearly have to flip a coin about a really-good-condition German ep of “Push It” by Salt-N-Pepa. I let her have it—I can’t be seen with hip-hop, even though it is a cool song.
“So why’d you quit Fantalicious anyway?” I ask as she pays for her albums. Her happy mood seems to evaporate. She tucks her wallet away and swishes the shopping bag off the counter. I practically have to run to catch up with her.
Outside the store, Tamara stops and stares up at the sky. She looks miserable.
“Hey, what’s up?” I say.
“I didn’t quit,” Tamara says. “They pretty much kicked me out.”
“What?! They must be insane!”
“Thanks,” Tamara says. We start walking toward the bus stop. “They kept having meetings without me. Then one day our manager turned up with these new costumes and…”
I wait. It feels like the right thing to do. Maybe I’m not so hopeless at interpersonal relations after all. We walk half a block before Tamara speaks again.
“None of them fit me,” she says, blushing. “And Petra, that’s our manager, said they didn’t come in bigger sizes. So…”
I feel sick. And a little guilty. When we saw Tamara singing at the baseball game, I thought to myself that she was chubby. And she is a bit chubby, but not in a bad way. And anyway, that’s no reason for her not to be in a singing group. It’s no reason to be excluded from anything. “That’s discrimination,” I say. “They can’t fire you for not fitting into some cheesy cheerleader bunny suit.”
Tamara laughs then. “Thanks,” she says. “So whatever. I guess I did quit rather than face that humiliation again. It sucks, because I wanted to sing at the festival this summer and they’re probably going to headline. But Petra kept telling me about diets and exercises I could do, and I tried some, but…I’m just not a skinny little tart.”
“You’re not a tart, Stella. You have class.”
Class? That’s a first. But I like it. “Our band will be the classiest group in town,” I say. “Sing for us, Tamara, please. We’re not sizeist, ageist, racist, sexist or homophobic. We’ll even let you choose your own clothes. And we’re going to try out for the festival. Maybe they’ll choose us to headline.” She still looks uncertain. So I try my pleading face. It works on Dad when I need extra iTunes money. Sometimes it even works on Mom. I don’t think Tamara is so easily moved. So I try something softer. “Just come and jam with us, Tamara. What have you got to lose?”
“Nothing, I guess,” she says. “Nothing but pride—and after a year with Fantalicious, I’m used to throwing that away.”
“What about ‘Viva la Vida’?” Miles says. He even plunks out the opening chords on our keyboard.
“Seriously, Miles? I’ll kill you,” I say.
Tamara snorts into her Slurpee. “It’s not a great singer’s song anyway. How about something old? I think I could probably fake my way through ‘Stairway to Heaven.’”
“As much as I would love that,” Jacob says, “I’m not sure anyone should ever fake that song.”
I exchange a look with the boys. Tamara seems different now we’re talking about her singing. Confident. Almost arrogant. It’s a little irritating. I mean, I know she’s a good singer and all, but she doesn’t have to be so cocky. Faking “Stairway to Heaven”! Really?
“Shouldn’t we be thinking of a girl singer?” I say. This whole process is beginning to frustrate me. Tamara has been in the studio for twenty minutes and we haven’t played a note.
“I can sing tenor range too, but whatever.” Tamara drops her empty Slurpee cup into the overflowing trash and picks up the iPod from the top of Jacob’s amp. “What about Tracy Bonham? She’s a girl.”
“You know ‘Mother Mother’?” I ask.
Miles coughs explosively, and Jacob frowns at me, but Tamara doesn’t even twitch.
“Give me five minutes and some headphones and I’ll be good,” she says, taking the iPod and headphones outside to sit in the sun.
As soon as the door closes, Jacob sighs. “Why’d you choose such a hard song?”
“It’s not hard. We play it all the time.”
“It’s hard to sing, Stella,” Miles says. “Maybe you could ease her into it a bit?”
“This is a rock band, isn’t it? Aren’t we trying to find out if she can rock out?”
“Well, yeah, but I don’t think we should scare her off. I mean, she’s literally our last hope.”
He’s infuriatingly right. They both are. Now I’m worried that the song will freak her out. Not only is it hard to sing, but it’s pretty dark. I start searching through my phone for something a little lighter while the boys tune up. But before I find anything suitable, Tamara comes back in.
“Ready to roll?” she says. She doesn’t look scared. Maybe a little nervous. But I’m terrible at reading emotions.
Jacob starts playing the opening of the song, and Tamara comes in right away, just like she’s supposed to. She changes as she sings, loosens up. Her eyes close and she sways a bit, until the song changes and Miles and I come in with bass and drums. Tamara jumps in time with us, clutching the mike, waving her free hand and looking very rock and roll for a girl in pink yoga pants and a Gap cardigan. When she wails out the ironic chorus line “Everything’s fine!” with a genuine growly break in her voice, Jacob’s eyes almost bug out of his head. Miles just grins.
She doesn’t miss a word or a note. She makes me believe every emotion. And she looks cool. Somehow the music transforms her into a rough-and-ready rock chick singing about how hard it all is. It’s some kind of musical magic. When the song ends we all just sit there silent for a few seconds.
“Well,” Jacob finally says. “I vote yes.”
“Me too,” Miles says. “That was wicked.”
I’m smiling like a drunk monkey when I add my vote. “One hundred percent. What do you think, Tamara? Are you in?”
She has a thoughtful look on her face, and for a second I’m worried she’s going to tell us she doesn’t think we’re her scene. But then she grins. “That was the most fun I’ve had in weeks,” she says. “Let’s do it again.”