happy day after Cinco de Mayo!
At the bottom of the (giant, scary) file that this fic gets written in are all my dialogue snippets and half-coherent notes about future scenes, etc. A recent addition to these is the capslocked sentence "I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU A SQURREL COAT."
I just thought I'd put that out there, so that when this thing takes a sharp left turn and becomes a post-apocalyptic nightmare in which all the characters live in a survivalist camp in the mountains and show their affection with dead animals, you will have been warned. ("Oh wow, Kris," Adam said. "It must have taken forever to find and shoot this many black squirrels. Thank you!")
Love to adelate and risti again for the beta-ing and brainstorming. ♥
[read in context.]
____________
Daniel was sitting on the couch playing Gran Turismo 2 when Kris walked in the door, and he didn't even look up from the TV. Kris considered taking advantage of Daniel's obliviousness and sneaking up on him serial killer style, but it didn't seem worth the effort. He flopped down on the opposite end of the couch.
"I'm trying to unlock another course," Daniel said, all impatient like Kris had even asked to play in the first place.
"Whatever." Kris took off his shoes and shoved them under the coffee table, which his mom would probably be annoyed about later.
"Did you walk home? Because the after-school bus came by here already."
"No, I got a ride."
Daniel made an affirmative noise and continued mashing buttons on the Playstation controller. Kris almost wished Daniel had asked him who he'd gotten a ride with. He sort of wanted to say Adam gave me a ride, and we got ice cream, and now he's going to go paint scenery, just to say it, even though Daniel probably wouldn't care. Kris sat around listening to the game's soundtrack and fake racetrack noises for a while, then made himself get up and drag his viola and his backpack to his room. He debated which was the lesser of two evils, math homework or selections from The Nutcracker Suite, and decided to start with the viola because Daniel was in racecar-world and less likely to come in and whine about the boring ballet music on endless loop. It seemed less annoying than usual, like maybe telling Adam how annoying playing music he hadn't picked could be took some of the annoyance out of it, but after an hour or so he called it quits and went to play Playstation.
It turned out that Kris's dad had forgotten about a meeting he had to go to after dinner, so the guitar-shopping trip got postponed and Kris did homework and talked to Katy on the phone instead.
"Where'd you go after school? I thought you were going to a math thing, but you weren't on the bus," she said.
"Yeah, I didn't go, and then Adam gave me a ride home," he said, and the second it was out of his mouth, the rest of it---the ice cream, the story of Adam's bad day, the random inflatable mummy---all seemed weirdly private, like something that would change shape if he shared it.
"Aww, that was nice of him," Katy said, and just like that Kris changed his mind and wanted to tell her after all, but she was already moving on to something else like it wasn't a big deal or even that interesting, which Kris guessed it really wasn't. "The violin rehearsal was horrible. I think Mr. Shapiro wanted to strangle us all, and Melissa started crying again."
"Seriously?" Melissa sat a couple chairs down from Katy in orchestra and had a tendency to burst into tears when things got really tense.
"Yeah. I'm kind of worried about her. I thought maybe I'd invite her to a GSA meeting or something."
"You think she's crying because she's a lesbian?"
"No---" you idiot, Katy's tone implied "---But the GSA meetings are a good place to talk about stuff. Wait, unless she'd think I was saying she was a lesbian because I invited her. Do you think she'd think that?"
"Probably."
"What if I just told her that we have like, cookies and stuff?"
"What, like I don't think you're a lesbian, I just want you to have a cookie?"
"Oh my god, I wouldn't say that---"
"We'll just rename ourselves the After School Cookie Alliance, otherwise she'll cry because you think she likes girls."
"You are awful," Katy said, but she was laughing.
"No, wait, it should be---it has to be two things that are allied, though, like...the Cookie-Cupcake Alliance."
"After School Cookie Alliance sounds better, though."
"Maybe I could call my band that."
"You could have really cool t-shirts, with different kinds of cookies..."
"What are those Girl Scout cookies, with the stripes---" Kris sketched a circle and some stripes in the air with his fingers before he remembered Katy couldn't see him.
"Samoas."
"Yeah, those. I definitely want those on there."
"Everyone loves those," Katy agreed. "Did I tell you I figured out why I hate the stupid Nutcracker music so much?"
Katy's dad kicked her off the phone a little while later, but not before she'd explained that she had traumatic ballet recital memories involving music from The Nutcracker Suite, and they'd agreed to walk to her house after school tomorrow because the weather was supposed to be warmer. Kris went to put his homework away in his backpack and found the Nirvana CD Adam had loaned him in between some folders. He popped it into his CD player with the feeling of slightly nervous anticipation he always got when he was listening to music he knew someone wanted him to like.
The album opened with the song Allison sang at the open mic (and Kurt Cobain introduced it the same way Allison had---this is off our first record, most people don't own it---so that explained that), and Kris found himself swaying and playing air guitar without realizing it by the time the second chorus rolled around. That set the tone for his experience with the entire album, which had him yearning for his guitar (even though it was just in the garage) and at the same time made him never want to pick up his guitar again, because he wasn't sure if he'd ever be this good. Kurt Cobain wasn't the best singer in the world, but there were moments when his voice went straight to Kris's heart anyway---the way Adam's had at the open mic---like someone tightening down a tiny vise in his chest. The recording had applause and crowd banter and Kris wished the next open mic was sooner because he wanted this. He didn't know if he was good enough, if he'd ever be good enough, but he wanted to be. He wanted to say something cool and dry like I'm probably going to screw this song up... into a microphone; to start playing his guitar knowing people were listening. He wanted to take a shaky breath and sing and hear his voice amplified, bigger than he was used to, ringing out of the speakers and boomeranging back to him.
He made himself listen to the CD straight through, without listening to the songs he liked multiple times or skipping through the ones that didn't grab him as much. The last song had such raw power that by the time his CD player shut itself off with its familiar little whirring noise, Kris was stunned, almost dizzy. He wondered if that was what Adam meant when he'd said this album was spooky, and what Adam's favourite song was. He stared at the track listing on the album jacket for a while like that would help him figure it out. For a few minutes he considered looking up Adam's number in the phone book so he could ask about it, so he could say holy shit, that CD is amazing and have Adam say I know, isn't it? back. He could already hear exactly how Adam's voice would sound saying it. But looking up someone's number and calling them was kind of a weird thing to do, and it was after ten o'clock anyway, which also meant that Kris probably didn't have enough time to sneak onto the computer and find some Nirvana guitar tabs. He wished Adam had given him this CD on a Friday. He wished he was a guitar prodigy. He wished there were something, anything he could do besides take a shower, half-heartedly read a chapter of The Great Gatsby, and go to sleep.
____________
Kris hurried to the choir room the next morning, on a mission to find Adam and talk grunge music. He'd woken up with "Pennyroyal Tea" twined around his brain like kudzu and there was something he found suspiciously satisfying about telling someone what was stuck in his head and getting it stuck in their head, too. It was like that proverb about misery loving company, maybe. He didn't see Adam as he walked into the room, but Megan stood up and waved at him with both arms like she was shipwrecked and trying to signal a rescue plane.
"It's Kris!" she squealed, jumping off the risers and jogging over to him. "Good morning, Kris."
"Hi," Kris said. "Do you know where Adam is?"
"No, but some guy from the jazz band asked us to watch his guitar. Do you want to help us watch it?"
Kris raised his eyebrows. "You need help watching a---oh. You want me to play something?"
"Please," Megan said, clasping her hands together. "It's just sitting there, and none of us know any songs." She walked back to the risers and gestured to the guitar with both hands like she was presenting the grand prize on a game show. It was a blue and black electric, sitting on the bottom riser in an open case. Alicia was sitting one riser above it, sharing a miniature box of Froot Loops with a curly-haired girl who had four earrings in each ear.
The fingerprint smudges that were visible on the guitar's surface made Kris feel weird about just reaching into the case and grabbing it, but Megan solved his crisis of conscience by picking it up herself and holding it out to him.
He shrugged his backpack off first, then sat down on the bottom riser and took the guitar, settling it in his lap without putting the strap over his shoulder. (For some reason, that made him feel better about playing someone else's guitar without their permission.) "Did he also ask you to watch an amp, by any chance? Because it's not going to sound very good---"
"Doesn't matter," Megan said. "It'll still be a million times better than people coming in here and people playing that song from Titanic on the piano."
"People do that?" Kris had assumed that song was finally dead.
"Yes." Megan sounded grim. "And sometimes stuff from Phantom of the Opera. It's a nightmare."
Kris played a few experimental chords on the guitar. The sound was quiet, hard to hear over the noise in room, and had a flat, metallic quality that made him feel better he'd mostly decided on an acoustic electric. He closed his eyes and played a C. The resonance of the strummed strings felt different against his hands, and where the guitar was cradled against his body. There was something about the way the individual notes sounded together that was sharper than his acoustic, and he could have sat there for a long time just strumming random chords and trying to figure it out, but that wasn't what he was supposed to be doing.
"What do you want me to play?" he said.
"I want to hear some NoFX," Alicia said.
"Do you know any Pavement?" said Earrings Girl.
"Kris is not a jukebox!" Megan said, which both made Kris laugh and saved him from having to admit that he definitely didn't know anything by either of those bands. He only knew that NoFX was a band because Alicia had several t-shirts that proclaimed her love for them. "...But if you play us something we can sing, we'll start a cult that worships you."
"And give you the last of these Froot Loops," Alicia offered. She peered into the tiny cereal box. "They're mostly purple ones."
"But Froot Loops are like M&Ms," said Earrings Girl. "The colours all taste the same anyway."
Kris thought about songs he knew that Megan, Alicia, and Earrings Girl would also know. There was always his Beatles catalogue, but he felt like he and Megan had already covered that, and he wanted something new. He wasn't sure if Alicia and Earrings Girl were the right audience for his single-guitar version of "Baby One More Time." He considered the slowed-down and only semi-successful rendition of "Lovefool," but he hadn't worked on that for a while, and it seemed wrong to play it without Adam there. He wished he'd had time last night to learn something from the Nirvana CD, his fingers were still itching for those songs and he was pretty sure everyone but him knew them already and could sing along. But everyone usually knew Eighties music, too, so he decided on something his dad had taught him back when he'd only been playing guitar for a few months.
"Do you guys know '867-5309'?"
"Hell yes we do," Megan said.
"Rose will sing harmony," Alicia said, nudging Earrings Girl---Rose---with her shoulder.
"Okay," Kris said, and shifted the guitar in his lap. The song had a little intro part with some picking, but he skipped that and went straight to the chords.
"Wait, wait, stop a second," Megan said, and Kris stopped playing. "That's really quiet."
"Yeah, that's why it needs an amp."
"No, I mean you're going to have to sing with us so we know where we are, I don't know if we'll be able to hear."
Kris hesitated for a moment. Playing guitar at school was one thing, but playing guitar and singing was another. As badly as he'd wanted an audience last night, this wasn't the audience he'd meant. The other people in the choir room were just trying to finish homework and play piano and gossip before homeroom, and they were probably going to think he was showing off or a giant dork or maybe both of those things at the same time. But he didn't want to explain all that to Megan, who was obviously fine with spontaneously bursting into song.
"Yeah, okay," he said, and started again, his heart speeding up a little as he played the intro chords. He only had to sing the song's first line (Jenny, Jenny, who can I turn to) by himself before the girls jumped in. Alicia and Rose were sitting behind him, so there was a kind of surround-sound effect. Their voices were drowning out the guitar completely---Kris couldn't even hear it, and it was in his lap---but he kept playing anyway. He liked the way the guitar felt in his arms, the vibrations of the inaudible chords. Rose picked up the harmony one line in, and Kris was surprised that they actually sounded halfway decent until it fell apart after the chorus because Alicia and Megan started singing the first verse over again instead of the second verse.
"So how does the second verse actually start?" Megan said.
"Jenny, Jenny, you're the girl for me," Rose said, stepping down a riser to sit next to Kris.
"...Really? Okay, I thought that would make me remember the rest, but it doesn't. Can we just do the first verse over again? Kris? Do you mind?"
Kris shrugged and tried to ignore the group of girls sitting by the window who were staring at them. "That's fine, the guitar part's all the same anyway."
"Does Adam know Kris can sing?" Alicia said, climbing down to sit on Kris's other side and giving him a look he couldn't interpret.
"What?" Kris said, because seriously, it wasn't cool to talk about him like he wasn't there, and why did Alicia think Adam would care that he could sing?
"I told him," Megan said at the same time, waving Alicia off. "Less talking, more singing. Rose, why don't you and Kris sing the first 867-5309 in the chorus, and then Alicia and I will do the echo, that way it's even."
"That works," Rose said, and Kris gave up and played the intro chords again.
They managed to get through the verse and chorus one more time before the warning bell rang, and the guy whose guitar Kris was playing (who was tall and blond and didn't seem to care at all that Kris was playing his guitar) came back for it and they all headed to their homerooms. Kris sat down at his desk and looked down at the fingertips of his left hand, almost hoping the indentations of the guitar strings would still be visible, but they weren't. He missed the weight of the guitar in his lap already, but he consoled himself with the box of Froot Loops that Alicia had given him as they left the choir room. He spent his first few classes daydreaming about guitars and doodling a t-shirt design for his nonexistent band and ended up feeling annoyed with himself for always talking about having a band like it was a joke instead of something he was actually considering.
He kept an eye out for Adam all day, hoping they'd run into each other in the hall at some point so he could at least tell him he liked the Nirvana CD, if nothing else, but Adam was nowhere to be seen. His day hovered between average and annoying, and by the time he was rushing out of his business class to meet Katy at her locker, he half wanted to pull her hair over his face like a curtain and take a nap.
"I heard you were playing guitar this morning," she said, lacing her fingers into his as they left the school.
"Yeah, I---wait, who told you that?"
"Sarah Klein."
Kris just gave Katy a blank look.
"You totally know her. She's kind of short, she always wears headbands. Anyway, she said you were singing and stuff. You keep having concerts without me."
"It wasn't---I didn't plan it or anything, I just went down there and Megan was like 'hey, we have this guitar'---"
"I was joking." Katy squeezed his hand. "But I'm sad I missed it."
"We just sang the first verse of '867-5309' twice, it wasn't that exciting." Obviously it was exciting enough to Sarah Klein (she'd probably been one of the staring girls sitting by the window) that she'd had to go tell Katy about it, which reminded him of Alicia saying does Adam know Kris can sing? and the fact that he still didn't know what that was about.
"Sarah thought you were good," Katy said, which didn't make him feel any less weird, even if it was flattering at the same time.
Katy sort of steered them to the playground instead of her house, which had become the way she and Kris asked each other to make out for a while without actually asking. The elementary school didn't let out until 3:30, so it was usually empty before then, although there'd been a couple embarrassing incidents involving moms with kids who were too young to be in school at all. They were the only ones there today, though, and they snuggled up in a little fort type thing and kissed for a while. Katy was half in Kris's lap, soft and sweet like always, and he felt strangely suspended in between the warm presence of her and the cooler, greyer swirl of everything that was in his head---guitar chords and conversations people were having about him outside his hearing and the history quiz he'd probably failed---and he wasn't completely in either place. Katy must have noticed, because she pulled away from Kris with a final brush of her lips against his cheek and turned around to sit with her back leaned against his chest, head tipped back onto his shoulder and elbows resting comfortably on his legs like he was her own personal armchair. Kris wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes. His nose and his fingertips were getting cold, but he wanted to stay here a little longer. He felt good, sitting with her like this, both safe and like he was protecting her at the same time. (What he would be protecting her from, he wasn't sure. Renegade squirrels and disapproving moms with toddlers, maybe.)
"I think I actually want to have a band," he said after a moment. "Like, for real." He felt Katy move her head to look up at him and opened his eyes.
"So talk to Joey," she said. "Whose side was he on when his band broke up?"
"Victor's---the singer's---I think."
"See, then you'd have a bassist and a singer."
"I kind of want to be the singer," Kris said.
"Oh." Katy twisted around so she could see him better. "I thought you just wanted to play guitar."
Kris shrugged. "I don't know."
"Then you just need a drummer," she said, and Kris could see the questions she wasn't asking in her eyes, and he loved her for not asking them, for not making a big deal out of it and needing him to explain why. It made him want to lean down and kiss her, so he did. "Maybe you should ask Rob."
"To what? Play timpani for me on 'Baby One More Time'? I don't think that would work..."
Katy smacked his leg lightly. "Don't be obnoxious. He might play drums, too. I don't think they had timpani the first few years we did orchestra in elementary school, he probably started out just doing general percussion."
"That still doesn't mean he can drum to non-classical music."
"You should ask him, though. He's nice----I ran the bake sale table with him one time. I wonder what Alicia's going to bake tomorrow?"
"What, for the GSA meeting?"
"Yeah, the people from student council are coming. Maybe she'll do something super-complicated to impress them so they'll help us out."
"Or we could try to hypnotize them with a giant watch, like in a cartoon," Kris suggested, and Katy laughed. "So did you ask Melissa to come to our cookie club?"
"No, because you have me all paranoid that she'll think I mean she's gay and get upset! And tomorrow wouldn't be a good time anyway, the student council people are coming so we'll probably just talk about dance stuff."
Kris rolled his eyes, unseen.
"Okay, too cold," Katy said. She sat up straight, grabbed her backpack, and hopped out of their little fort, and Kris followed her. They sat in Katy's kitchen for a while when they got to her house, drinking hot chocolate and eating pretzel sticks and talking to Katy's mom. Kris showed Katy his After School Cookie Alliance design, and they told each other stories about the alternate universe where this band existed and Katy ran their merch table wearing her Girl Scout sash from fourth grade. They did some homework and migrated over to the computer and play-argued over who got to type. Katy wanted to talk to her friends on instant messenger, Kris wanted to search for guitar tabs, and while her mom was in another room Katy sat in Kris's lap and neither of them could type at all, which was also fine.
Kris's mom picked him up on her way home from work, and after dinner he started learning to play "Pennyroyal Tea." This ended up being a semi-bad idea when he woke up with it stuck in his head again after having a dream where he was supposed to get to a Nirvana concert but he had to drive there in a vintage limousine that would only go in circles around this fountain. Charles was sitting next to him wearing a chauffeur hat and holding a plate of sandwiches, and Kris knew it would be his own fault if he didn't get to the concert in time and Kurt Cobain died.
He wanted to go down to the music wing and see if there were any guitars he could help baby-sit today, but he ended up tagging along to the cafeteria with Katy before homeroom because he wanted to copy her English homework. He was anxious about the GSA meeting---he had been since Katy reminded him the student council members were coming. He couldn't help but feel like having people at a GSA meeting who weren't actually in the GSA was a bad idea. He worried that they'd be rude because they secretly wanted to host the dance (although why anyone would actively want to host a dance, he still wasn't sure). Or that they wouldn't get the good-natured craziness that was the GSA's default setting and would ruin it by standing around looking confused and superior. Or that they'd say something mean to Adam.
His head was full of scenarios in which student council members in polo shirts made snide comments about Adam's makeup or the fact that he was gay and Kris rushed in to defend him, to tell them to fuck off because Adam could do whatever he wanted and was much cooler than they were in the first place. Which was insane, because no one was going to come to a meeting of the Gay-Straight Alliance and insult Adam for being gay (at least Kris really hoped not), and Adam was clearly capable and willing to stand up for himself even if they did. Telling himself that didn't help, though, and by the time he and Katy and Marie actually arrived at the meeting, he was half-afraid he was going to do something stupid like yell at some random student council kid for eating too many of their cookies.
(Alicia's baked goods contribution to this meeting was a plate of chocolate chip cookies, to which Megan's response was: "Chocolate chip cookies? That seems half-assed. I wanted a soufflé. With kiwi-mango sauce."
"Shut up," Alicia replied. "Chocolate chip cookies are classic. Everyone likes them. They say 'oh, hi, look how welcoming we are. Give us your money and go away.'")
Only three people from the student council showed up---Marcus Monroe, who Kris knew from when the JV baseball team had scrimmaged with varsity sometimes last year, and who he'd forgotten was student council president---and two girls. None of them were wearing polo shirts, which Kris decided was a good sign. He was relieved enough that things were going well that he even forgot to be bored for the first ten minutes or so of the dance-budget discussion. The decorations weren't going to be that expensive, because the GSA and various theater minions were going to make most of them (Kris was beginning to regret not listening to previous dance discussions very well, because he'd probably signed up to paint a giant mural of Munchkinland without realizing it), but the student council was willing to split the cost of the DJ with them and help stock the snack table. There was one tense moment, when Adam brought up not voting for a king and queen and court at the dance.
"Why, because you can't have two kings?" said one of the student council girls, who Kris immediately hated.
"No," Adam said, in an overly patient tone that almost made Kris want to laugh. "Because it's a pointless popularity contest that makes people feel stupid when they should be dancing and having fun. And it also doesn't go with our theme."
"You 'crown' the same few people king and queen and duchess or whatever at the homecoming dance and prom," Nina added. "Why do it three times?"
"They have a point," Marcus said. "I look like an idiot in those stupid crowns."
"Like you'd win anyway," said the other student council girl, who Kris decided not to hate just yet. "Is this going to be, like, a costume dance?"
"Only if people want," Adam said. "I mean, it's still the winter formal, so...dresses and ties and everything, but if anyone wants to do stuff for the theme, too, that's awesome."
Kris tried to imagine how anyone was going to combine Wizard of Oz costumes and formal wear. Probably sparkly red shoes would be involved somehow. The meeting wound down, and he left Katy talking to Jess about where to rent helium tanks for the dance and/or Jess's sweet sixteen in February. Adam was standing by the blackboard, twisting and untwisting the cap on his bottle of water, and he smiled as Kris walked over to him.
"I think that went pretty well," he said. "And now I almost want to join the student council. Marcus is seriously cute."
"Yeah," Kris said, just to be agreeable, because Adam looked a little unsure, like he didn't know if it was okay for him to talk to Kris about guys being cute. But then he thought hey, why not, and looked across the room at Marcus, tried to see him the way Adam might see him. It wasn't difficult, he was kind of cute. His eyes were a light brown that stood out and looked almost golden against his dark skin, and he had a warm, contagious sort of smile. Plus he was wearing a green plastic afro pick in his hair, which Kris thought said good things about Marcus's sense of humor. "I like his eyes."
"Me too," Adam said, and for a moment he just looked at Kris like he'd said something baffling or surprising, and Kris almost wanted to apologize, even though he wasn't sure what for. "I can't believe I missed your sing-a-long yesterday. Of all the mornings to actually go to my homeroom..."
"Does everyone know about that? Did Sarah Klein talk to you, too?"
"No, Megan told me. Wait, Sarah Klein? The alto with the headbands? Why would she---"
"No, never mind," Kris said. "Long story. And I went down there to talk to you in the first place."
"You did?"
There was something so bright and excited in Adam's eyes that Kris forgot---just for a second---what his big compelling reason for going to the choir room to talk to Adam had been. He wasn't sure why he even needed a better reason than I wanted to talk to you, but then he remembered the CD and his crazy dream and the guitar tabs and it all fell into place in his head. "That CD is so amazing."
"What, Unplugged? I know, right?" Adam sounded almost exactly the way Kris had imagined he would. "Grunge is so not my usual thing, but I love that CD."
"It's really..." Kris made a motion with his hands to try and describe it. "It almost makes you feel like you're there, and the music is just..."
"They filmed it, too, you know. That concert. They still air it sometimes on MTV, we should---you should keep an eye out for it."
"Cool. I probably---I won't keep the CD for too long, I just have to make myself a tape of it."
"Don't worry about it," Adam said. "Or actually, keep it for a while, but we're getting my dad a CD burner for Hanukkah, and then I'll burn you a copy. The sound will be better."
"Thanks. I really want to learn like, all of those songs on guitar, I started learning 'Pennyroyal Tea' yesterday..."
"Do all Nirvana songs really only have three chords apiece? I think someone told me that once."
Kris laughed. "It's more than three. 'Pennyroyal Tea' is like, five or six, I think..."
"So did you get your new guitar?"
"Not yet, my dad had to do something else. I think we're going to go this weekend."
"What are you going to name it?"
"What, my guitar?"
"Yeah. Aren't you supposed to name them? A girl's name, like, 'this is my guitar, Betty.'" Adam said the last part in a weird voice that was maybe supposed to be Elvis, Kris wasn't sure.
"...I just call mine 'my guitar'."
"Well that's no fun," Adam said. "We're going to name the new one. But not Betty. Something better."
"Okay." Kris liked that "we," it made him wonder if Adam would want to come over to his house and meet his new guitar, once it actually existed, like a guitar baby shower or something. He imagined them sitting in the garage, singing it lullabies and Nirvana songs all afternoon.
"Adam, come over here and tell Katy she has to let us make her a costume," Becky yelled from where she was sitting on the classroom's broad windowsill with Katy and Marie.
Adam raised his eyebrows at Kris in a way the clearly said he had no idea what this was about, but he was inviting Kris to come find out with him, and the two of them walked over to the windowsill.
"...you can always find 80s dresses at thrift stores," Becky was saying. "You know, with the giant puffy sleeves? I think Glinda had puffy sleeves, or the whole dress is just really puffy, but that's easy, we'd just need a bunch of tulle. You would be like, the prettiest Glinda ever."
"I always wanted to be Glinda when I was little," Katy said.
"And we'd do your hair in like, really soft, big curls..." Becky reached over and curled some of Katy's hair around her fingers, which was weird for Kris to watch. Usually he was the one doing that.
Adam leaned in and spoke to Katy in a conspiratorial stage whisper. "You can trust her. She does costumes and stuff for drama club, she's good at this."
"Okay," Katy said, nodding at Becky. "I think I'll be Glinda."
"Maybe I'll go as one of those flying monkeys," Kris said absently. He regretted it when Becky turned to him, her eyes lighting up.
"You should," she said. "We could make you some wings, and a tail..."
"I was joking," Kris said.
Becky ignored him. "And the monkeys have those little hats, right?" She drew a circular shape in the air around her head.
Kris looked at Adam for help, but Adam was just standing there laughing.
"You should see how horrified you look," he said after a moment, and patted Kris on the shoulder. "Don't worry, no one is going to force you to wear wings and a little hat."
"Speak for yourself," Becky said, eying Kris in a way that was sort of scary.
"I'll distract him while you put the wings on," Katy said, and Kris glared at her. She just grinned and wrapped her arm around his waist, pulling him closer to her.
"A bunch of us are going to go to thrift stores over Christmas break to get stuff to wear for the dance," Becky said to Katy. "You should come."
"Sure, that would be awesome," Katy said, and she looked so honestly thrilled about it that he couldn't even pretend to stay mad about the monkey wings. Kris looked around for Adam, who'd disappeared.
He turned out to be standing near the now-empty cookie plate, talking to Marcus and Jess. He was talking to Marcus like he was just talking to anybody, not like he thought Marcus was cute (seriously cute, even). He wasn't doing any of the stupid crap Kris had found himself doing before he and Katy had become a couple---fidgeting or looking at his shoes or laughing too much.
His first thought was that Adam was just better at not being a spaz than he was, but then he realized that although that was true, Adam didn't exactly have the luxury to be a spaz around anyone he was crushing on in the first place. It made him wonder how Adam had learned to hide how he felt, or when he'd learned to hide how he felt, and how he'd decided to stop hiding it. Not for the first time, Kris regretted that he'd only met Adam this year, that so much of who he'd been, what he'd been through before now was a mystery. He didn't know if he was allowed to ask about it.
He thought about things he was allowed to ask about. He'd forgotten to find out what Adam's favourite track on Unplugged was, for one thing, and even though they'd just talked about the CD, Kris felt like they hadn't had the conversation he'd wanted about it. He still had more to say, things he wasn't sure he even knew how to say, but he wanted to try.
But he could wait.
Adam was still talking to Marcus, and Kris found himself having to try and convince Katy, Becky, and Megan that no matter how many pairs of plaid golfing pants there always were in thrift stores, he really, really didn't want any.
____________
Relevant Music
In case you're not familiar with it, 867-5309 (Jenny). I learned this song from a pop-punk cover, so the original seems so slow to me!
And selections from Nirvana's Unplugged CD. (And actually, if you'd like the whole album in downloadable format, drop me a line and it will appear to you in a cloud of sparkles, lilies, and questionable cardigan sweaters. I would feel like a jackass making it a plot point and then not offering it to you guys.)
Pennyroyal Tea
Where Did You Sleep Last Night (the last song on the album.)
I just thought I'd put that out there, so that when this thing takes a sharp left turn and becomes a post-apocalyptic nightmare in which all the characters live in a survivalist camp in the mountains and show their affection with dead animals, you will have been warned. ("Oh wow, Kris," Adam said. "It must have taken forever to find and shoot this many black squirrels. Thank you!")
Love to adelate and risti again for the beta-ing and brainstorming. ♥
[read in context.]
____________
Daniel was sitting on the couch playing Gran Turismo 2 when Kris walked in the door, and he didn't even look up from the TV. Kris considered taking advantage of Daniel's obliviousness and sneaking up on him serial killer style, but it didn't seem worth the effort. He flopped down on the opposite end of the couch.
"I'm trying to unlock another course," Daniel said, all impatient like Kris had even asked to play in the first place.
"Whatever." Kris took off his shoes and shoved them under the coffee table, which his mom would probably be annoyed about later.
"Did you walk home? Because the after-school bus came by here already."
"No, I got a ride."
Daniel made an affirmative noise and continued mashing buttons on the Playstation controller. Kris almost wished Daniel had asked him who he'd gotten a ride with. He sort of wanted to say Adam gave me a ride, and we got ice cream, and now he's going to go paint scenery, just to say it, even though Daniel probably wouldn't care. Kris sat around listening to the game's soundtrack and fake racetrack noises for a while, then made himself get up and drag his viola and his backpack to his room. He debated which was the lesser of two evils, math homework or selections from The Nutcracker Suite, and decided to start with the viola because Daniel was in racecar-world and less likely to come in and whine about the boring ballet music on endless loop. It seemed less annoying than usual, like maybe telling Adam how annoying playing music he hadn't picked could be took some of the annoyance out of it, but after an hour or so he called it quits and went to play Playstation.
It turned out that Kris's dad had forgotten about a meeting he had to go to after dinner, so the guitar-shopping trip got postponed and Kris did homework and talked to Katy on the phone instead.
"Where'd you go after school? I thought you were going to a math thing, but you weren't on the bus," she said.
"Yeah, I didn't go, and then Adam gave me a ride home," he said, and the second it was out of his mouth, the rest of it---the ice cream, the story of Adam's bad day, the random inflatable mummy---all seemed weirdly private, like something that would change shape if he shared it.
"Aww, that was nice of him," Katy said, and just like that Kris changed his mind and wanted to tell her after all, but she was already moving on to something else like it wasn't a big deal or even that interesting, which Kris guessed it really wasn't. "The violin rehearsal was horrible. I think Mr. Shapiro wanted to strangle us all, and Melissa started crying again."
"Seriously?" Melissa sat a couple chairs down from Katy in orchestra and had a tendency to burst into tears when things got really tense.
"Yeah. I'm kind of worried about her. I thought maybe I'd invite her to a GSA meeting or something."
"You think she's crying because she's a lesbian?"
"No---" you idiot, Katy's tone implied "---But the GSA meetings are a good place to talk about stuff. Wait, unless she'd think I was saying she was a lesbian because I invited her. Do you think she'd think that?"
"Probably."
"What if I just told her that we have like, cookies and stuff?"
"What, like I don't think you're a lesbian, I just want you to have a cookie?"
"Oh my god, I wouldn't say that---"
"We'll just rename ourselves the After School Cookie Alliance, otherwise she'll cry because you think she likes girls."
"You are awful," Katy said, but she was laughing.
"No, wait, it should be---it has to be two things that are allied, though, like...the Cookie-Cupcake Alliance."
"After School Cookie Alliance sounds better, though."
"Maybe I could call my band that."
"You could have really cool t-shirts, with different kinds of cookies..."
"What are those Girl Scout cookies, with the stripes---" Kris sketched a circle and some stripes in the air with his fingers before he remembered Katy couldn't see him.
"Samoas."
"Yeah, those. I definitely want those on there."
"Everyone loves those," Katy agreed. "Did I tell you I figured out why I hate the stupid Nutcracker music so much?"
Katy's dad kicked her off the phone a little while later, but not before she'd explained that she had traumatic ballet recital memories involving music from The Nutcracker Suite, and they'd agreed to walk to her house after school tomorrow because the weather was supposed to be warmer. Kris went to put his homework away in his backpack and found the Nirvana CD Adam had loaned him in between some folders. He popped it into his CD player with the feeling of slightly nervous anticipation he always got when he was listening to music he knew someone wanted him to like.
The album opened with the song Allison sang at the open mic (and Kurt Cobain introduced it the same way Allison had---this is off our first record, most people don't own it---so that explained that), and Kris found himself swaying and playing air guitar without realizing it by the time the second chorus rolled around. That set the tone for his experience with the entire album, which had him yearning for his guitar (even though it was just in the garage) and at the same time made him never want to pick up his guitar again, because he wasn't sure if he'd ever be this good. Kurt Cobain wasn't the best singer in the world, but there were moments when his voice went straight to Kris's heart anyway---the way Adam's had at the open mic---like someone tightening down a tiny vise in his chest. The recording had applause and crowd banter and Kris wished the next open mic was sooner because he wanted this. He didn't know if he was good enough, if he'd ever be good enough, but he wanted to be. He wanted to say something cool and dry like I'm probably going to screw this song up... into a microphone; to start playing his guitar knowing people were listening. He wanted to take a shaky breath and sing and hear his voice amplified, bigger than he was used to, ringing out of the speakers and boomeranging back to him.
He made himself listen to the CD straight through, without listening to the songs he liked multiple times or skipping through the ones that didn't grab him as much. The last song had such raw power that by the time his CD player shut itself off with its familiar little whirring noise, Kris was stunned, almost dizzy. He wondered if that was what Adam meant when he'd said this album was spooky, and what Adam's favourite song was. He stared at the track listing on the album jacket for a while like that would help him figure it out. For a few minutes he considered looking up Adam's number in the phone book so he could ask about it, so he could say holy shit, that CD is amazing and have Adam say I know, isn't it? back. He could already hear exactly how Adam's voice would sound saying it. But looking up someone's number and calling them was kind of a weird thing to do, and it was after ten o'clock anyway, which also meant that Kris probably didn't have enough time to sneak onto the computer and find some Nirvana guitar tabs. He wished Adam had given him this CD on a Friday. He wished he was a guitar prodigy. He wished there were something, anything he could do besides take a shower, half-heartedly read a chapter of The Great Gatsby, and go to sleep.
____________
Kris hurried to the choir room the next morning, on a mission to find Adam and talk grunge music. He'd woken up with "Pennyroyal Tea" twined around his brain like kudzu and there was something he found suspiciously satisfying about telling someone what was stuck in his head and getting it stuck in their head, too. It was like that proverb about misery loving company, maybe. He didn't see Adam as he walked into the room, but Megan stood up and waved at him with both arms like she was shipwrecked and trying to signal a rescue plane.
"It's Kris!" she squealed, jumping off the risers and jogging over to him. "Good morning, Kris."
"Hi," Kris said. "Do you know where Adam is?"
"No, but some guy from the jazz band asked us to watch his guitar. Do you want to help us watch it?"
Kris raised his eyebrows. "You need help watching a---oh. You want me to play something?"
"Please," Megan said, clasping her hands together. "It's just sitting there, and none of us know any songs." She walked back to the risers and gestured to the guitar with both hands like she was presenting the grand prize on a game show. It was a blue and black electric, sitting on the bottom riser in an open case. Alicia was sitting one riser above it, sharing a miniature box of Froot Loops with a curly-haired girl who had four earrings in each ear.
The fingerprint smudges that were visible on the guitar's surface made Kris feel weird about just reaching into the case and grabbing it, but Megan solved his crisis of conscience by picking it up herself and holding it out to him.
He shrugged his backpack off first, then sat down on the bottom riser and took the guitar, settling it in his lap without putting the strap over his shoulder. (For some reason, that made him feel better about playing someone else's guitar without their permission.) "Did he also ask you to watch an amp, by any chance? Because it's not going to sound very good---"
"Doesn't matter," Megan said. "It'll still be a million times better than people coming in here and people playing that song from Titanic on the piano."
"People do that?" Kris had assumed that song was finally dead.
"Yes." Megan sounded grim. "And sometimes stuff from Phantom of the Opera. It's a nightmare."
Kris played a few experimental chords on the guitar. The sound was quiet, hard to hear over the noise in room, and had a flat, metallic quality that made him feel better he'd mostly decided on an acoustic electric. He closed his eyes and played a C. The resonance of the strummed strings felt different against his hands, and where the guitar was cradled against his body. There was something about the way the individual notes sounded together that was sharper than his acoustic, and he could have sat there for a long time just strumming random chords and trying to figure it out, but that wasn't what he was supposed to be doing.
"What do you want me to play?" he said.
"I want to hear some NoFX," Alicia said.
"Do you know any Pavement?" said Earrings Girl.
"Kris is not a jukebox!" Megan said, which both made Kris laugh and saved him from having to admit that he definitely didn't know anything by either of those bands. He only knew that NoFX was a band because Alicia had several t-shirts that proclaimed her love for them. "...But if you play us something we can sing, we'll start a cult that worships you."
"And give you the last of these Froot Loops," Alicia offered. She peered into the tiny cereal box. "They're mostly purple ones."
"But Froot Loops are like M&Ms," said Earrings Girl. "The colours all taste the same anyway."
Kris thought about songs he knew that Megan, Alicia, and Earrings Girl would also know. There was always his Beatles catalogue, but he felt like he and Megan had already covered that, and he wanted something new. He wasn't sure if Alicia and Earrings Girl were the right audience for his single-guitar version of "Baby One More Time." He considered the slowed-down and only semi-successful rendition of "Lovefool," but he hadn't worked on that for a while, and it seemed wrong to play it without Adam there. He wished he'd had time last night to learn something from the Nirvana CD, his fingers were still itching for those songs and he was pretty sure everyone but him knew them already and could sing along. But everyone usually knew Eighties music, too, so he decided on something his dad had taught him back when he'd only been playing guitar for a few months.
"Do you guys know '867-5309'?"
"Hell yes we do," Megan said.
"Rose will sing harmony," Alicia said, nudging Earrings Girl---Rose---with her shoulder.
"Okay," Kris said, and shifted the guitar in his lap. The song had a little intro part with some picking, but he skipped that and went straight to the chords.
"Wait, wait, stop a second," Megan said, and Kris stopped playing. "That's really quiet."
"Yeah, that's why it needs an amp."
"No, I mean you're going to have to sing with us so we know where we are, I don't know if we'll be able to hear."
Kris hesitated for a moment. Playing guitar at school was one thing, but playing guitar and singing was another. As badly as he'd wanted an audience last night, this wasn't the audience he'd meant. The other people in the choir room were just trying to finish homework and play piano and gossip before homeroom, and they were probably going to think he was showing off or a giant dork or maybe both of those things at the same time. But he didn't want to explain all that to Megan, who was obviously fine with spontaneously bursting into song.
"Yeah, okay," he said, and started again, his heart speeding up a little as he played the intro chords. He only had to sing the song's first line (Jenny, Jenny, who can I turn to) by himself before the girls jumped in. Alicia and Rose were sitting behind him, so there was a kind of surround-sound effect. Their voices were drowning out the guitar completely---Kris couldn't even hear it, and it was in his lap---but he kept playing anyway. He liked the way the guitar felt in his arms, the vibrations of the inaudible chords. Rose picked up the harmony one line in, and Kris was surprised that they actually sounded halfway decent until it fell apart after the chorus because Alicia and Megan started singing the first verse over again instead of the second verse.
"So how does the second verse actually start?" Megan said.
"Jenny, Jenny, you're the girl for me," Rose said, stepping down a riser to sit next to Kris.
"...Really? Okay, I thought that would make me remember the rest, but it doesn't. Can we just do the first verse over again? Kris? Do you mind?"
Kris shrugged and tried to ignore the group of girls sitting by the window who were staring at them. "That's fine, the guitar part's all the same anyway."
"Does Adam know Kris can sing?" Alicia said, climbing down to sit on Kris's other side and giving him a look he couldn't interpret.
"What?" Kris said, because seriously, it wasn't cool to talk about him like he wasn't there, and why did Alicia think Adam would care that he could sing?
"I told him," Megan said at the same time, waving Alicia off. "Less talking, more singing. Rose, why don't you and Kris sing the first 867-5309 in the chorus, and then Alicia and I will do the echo, that way it's even."
"That works," Rose said, and Kris gave up and played the intro chords again.
They managed to get through the verse and chorus one more time before the warning bell rang, and the guy whose guitar Kris was playing (who was tall and blond and didn't seem to care at all that Kris was playing his guitar) came back for it and they all headed to their homerooms. Kris sat down at his desk and looked down at the fingertips of his left hand, almost hoping the indentations of the guitar strings would still be visible, but they weren't. He missed the weight of the guitar in his lap already, but he consoled himself with the box of Froot Loops that Alicia had given him as they left the choir room. He spent his first few classes daydreaming about guitars and doodling a t-shirt design for his nonexistent band and ended up feeling annoyed with himself for always talking about having a band like it was a joke instead of something he was actually considering.
He kept an eye out for Adam all day, hoping they'd run into each other in the hall at some point so he could at least tell him he liked the Nirvana CD, if nothing else, but Adam was nowhere to be seen. His day hovered between average and annoying, and by the time he was rushing out of his business class to meet Katy at her locker, he half wanted to pull her hair over his face like a curtain and take a nap.
"I heard you were playing guitar this morning," she said, lacing her fingers into his as they left the school.
"Yeah, I---wait, who told you that?"
"Sarah Klein."
Kris just gave Katy a blank look.
"You totally know her. She's kind of short, she always wears headbands. Anyway, she said you were singing and stuff. You keep having concerts without me."
"It wasn't---I didn't plan it or anything, I just went down there and Megan was like 'hey, we have this guitar'---"
"I was joking." Katy squeezed his hand. "But I'm sad I missed it."
"We just sang the first verse of '867-5309' twice, it wasn't that exciting." Obviously it was exciting enough to Sarah Klein (she'd probably been one of the staring girls sitting by the window) that she'd had to go tell Katy about it, which reminded him of Alicia saying does Adam know Kris can sing? and the fact that he still didn't know what that was about.
"Sarah thought you were good," Katy said, which didn't make him feel any less weird, even if it was flattering at the same time.
Katy sort of steered them to the playground instead of her house, which had become the way she and Kris asked each other to make out for a while without actually asking. The elementary school didn't let out until 3:30, so it was usually empty before then, although there'd been a couple embarrassing incidents involving moms with kids who were too young to be in school at all. They were the only ones there today, though, and they snuggled up in a little fort type thing and kissed for a while. Katy was half in Kris's lap, soft and sweet like always, and he felt strangely suspended in between the warm presence of her and the cooler, greyer swirl of everything that was in his head---guitar chords and conversations people were having about him outside his hearing and the history quiz he'd probably failed---and he wasn't completely in either place. Katy must have noticed, because she pulled away from Kris with a final brush of her lips against his cheek and turned around to sit with her back leaned against his chest, head tipped back onto his shoulder and elbows resting comfortably on his legs like he was her own personal armchair. Kris wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes. His nose and his fingertips were getting cold, but he wanted to stay here a little longer. He felt good, sitting with her like this, both safe and like he was protecting her at the same time. (What he would be protecting her from, he wasn't sure. Renegade squirrels and disapproving moms with toddlers, maybe.)
"I think I actually want to have a band," he said after a moment. "Like, for real." He felt Katy move her head to look up at him and opened his eyes.
"So talk to Joey," she said. "Whose side was he on when his band broke up?"
"Victor's---the singer's---I think."
"See, then you'd have a bassist and a singer."
"I kind of want to be the singer," Kris said.
"Oh." Katy twisted around so she could see him better. "I thought you just wanted to play guitar."
Kris shrugged. "I don't know."
"Then you just need a drummer," she said, and Kris could see the questions she wasn't asking in her eyes, and he loved her for not asking them, for not making a big deal out of it and needing him to explain why. It made him want to lean down and kiss her, so he did. "Maybe you should ask Rob."
"To what? Play timpani for me on 'Baby One More Time'? I don't think that would work..."
Katy smacked his leg lightly. "Don't be obnoxious. He might play drums, too. I don't think they had timpani the first few years we did orchestra in elementary school, he probably started out just doing general percussion."
"That still doesn't mean he can drum to non-classical music."
"You should ask him, though. He's nice----I ran the bake sale table with him one time. I wonder what Alicia's going to bake tomorrow?"
"What, for the GSA meeting?"
"Yeah, the people from student council are coming. Maybe she'll do something super-complicated to impress them so they'll help us out."
"Or we could try to hypnotize them with a giant watch, like in a cartoon," Kris suggested, and Katy laughed. "So did you ask Melissa to come to our cookie club?"
"No, because you have me all paranoid that she'll think I mean she's gay and get upset! And tomorrow wouldn't be a good time anyway, the student council people are coming so we'll probably just talk about dance stuff."
Kris rolled his eyes, unseen.
"Okay, too cold," Katy said. She sat up straight, grabbed her backpack, and hopped out of their little fort, and Kris followed her. They sat in Katy's kitchen for a while when they got to her house, drinking hot chocolate and eating pretzel sticks and talking to Katy's mom. Kris showed Katy his After School Cookie Alliance design, and they told each other stories about the alternate universe where this band existed and Katy ran their merch table wearing her Girl Scout sash from fourth grade. They did some homework and migrated over to the computer and play-argued over who got to type. Katy wanted to talk to her friends on instant messenger, Kris wanted to search for guitar tabs, and while her mom was in another room Katy sat in Kris's lap and neither of them could type at all, which was also fine.
Kris's mom picked him up on her way home from work, and after dinner he started learning to play "Pennyroyal Tea." This ended up being a semi-bad idea when he woke up with it stuck in his head again after having a dream where he was supposed to get to a Nirvana concert but he had to drive there in a vintage limousine that would only go in circles around this fountain. Charles was sitting next to him wearing a chauffeur hat and holding a plate of sandwiches, and Kris knew it would be his own fault if he didn't get to the concert in time and Kurt Cobain died.
He wanted to go down to the music wing and see if there were any guitars he could help baby-sit today, but he ended up tagging along to the cafeteria with Katy before homeroom because he wanted to copy her English homework. He was anxious about the GSA meeting---he had been since Katy reminded him the student council members were coming. He couldn't help but feel like having people at a GSA meeting who weren't actually in the GSA was a bad idea. He worried that they'd be rude because they secretly wanted to host the dance (although why anyone would actively want to host a dance, he still wasn't sure). Or that they wouldn't get the good-natured craziness that was the GSA's default setting and would ruin it by standing around looking confused and superior. Or that they'd say something mean to Adam.
His head was full of scenarios in which student council members in polo shirts made snide comments about Adam's makeup or the fact that he was gay and Kris rushed in to defend him, to tell them to fuck off because Adam could do whatever he wanted and was much cooler than they were in the first place. Which was insane, because no one was going to come to a meeting of the Gay-Straight Alliance and insult Adam for being gay (at least Kris really hoped not), and Adam was clearly capable and willing to stand up for himself even if they did. Telling himself that didn't help, though, and by the time he and Katy and Marie actually arrived at the meeting, he was half-afraid he was going to do something stupid like yell at some random student council kid for eating too many of their cookies.
(Alicia's baked goods contribution to this meeting was a plate of chocolate chip cookies, to which Megan's response was: "Chocolate chip cookies? That seems half-assed. I wanted a soufflé. With kiwi-mango sauce."
"Shut up," Alicia replied. "Chocolate chip cookies are classic. Everyone likes them. They say 'oh, hi, look how welcoming we are. Give us your money and go away.'")
Only three people from the student council showed up---Marcus Monroe, who Kris knew from when the JV baseball team had scrimmaged with varsity sometimes last year, and who he'd forgotten was student council president---and two girls. None of them were wearing polo shirts, which Kris decided was a good sign. He was relieved enough that things were going well that he even forgot to be bored for the first ten minutes or so of the dance-budget discussion. The decorations weren't going to be that expensive, because the GSA and various theater minions were going to make most of them (Kris was beginning to regret not listening to previous dance discussions very well, because he'd probably signed up to paint a giant mural of Munchkinland without realizing it), but the student council was willing to split the cost of the DJ with them and help stock the snack table. There was one tense moment, when Adam brought up not voting for a king and queen and court at the dance.
"Why, because you can't have two kings?" said one of the student council girls, who Kris immediately hated.
"No," Adam said, in an overly patient tone that almost made Kris want to laugh. "Because it's a pointless popularity contest that makes people feel stupid when they should be dancing and having fun. And it also doesn't go with our theme."
"You 'crown' the same few people king and queen and duchess or whatever at the homecoming dance and prom," Nina added. "Why do it three times?"
"They have a point," Marcus said. "I look like an idiot in those stupid crowns."
"Like you'd win anyway," said the other student council girl, who Kris decided not to hate just yet. "Is this going to be, like, a costume dance?"
"Only if people want," Adam said. "I mean, it's still the winter formal, so...dresses and ties and everything, but if anyone wants to do stuff for the theme, too, that's awesome."
Kris tried to imagine how anyone was going to combine Wizard of Oz costumes and formal wear. Probably sparkly red shoes would be involved somehow. The meeting wound down, and he left Katy talking to Jess about where to rent helium tanks for the dance and/or Jess's sweet sixteen in February. Adam was standing by the blackboard, twisting and untwisting the cap on his bottle of water, and he smiled as Kris walked over to him.
"I think that went pretty well," he said. "And now I almost want to join the student council. Marcus is seriously cute."
"Yeah," Kris said, just to be agreeable, because Adam looked a little unsure, like he didn't know if it was okay for him to talk to Kris about guys being cute. But then he thought hey, why not, and looked across the room at Marcus, tried to see him the way Adam might see him. It wasn't difficult, he was kind of cute. His eyes were a light brown that stood out and looked almost golden against his dark skin, and he had a warm, contagious sort of smile. Plus he was wearing a green plastic afro pick in his hair, which Kris thought said good things about Marcus's sense of humor. "I like his eyes."
"Me too," Adam said, and for a moment he just looked at Kris like he'd said something baffling or surprising, and Kris almost wanted to apologize, even though he wasn't sure what for. "I can't believe I missed your sing-a-long yesterday. Of all the mornings to actually go to my homeroom..."
"Does everyone know about that? Did Sarah Klein talk to you, too?"
"No, Megan told me. Wait, Sarah Klein? The alto with the headbands? Why would she---"
"No, never mind," Kris said. "Long story. And I went down there to talk to you in the first place."
"You did?"
There was something so bright and excited in Adam's eyes that Kris forgot---just for a second---what his big compelling reason for going to the choir room to talk to Adam had been. He wasn't sure why he even needed a better reason than I wanted to talk to you, but then he remembered the CD and his crazy dream and the guitar tabs and it all fell into place in his head. "That CD is so amazing."
"What, Unplugged? I know, right?" Adam sounded almost exactly the way Kris had imagined he would. "Grunge is so not my usual thing, but I love that CD."
"It's really..." Kris made a motion with his hands to try and describe it. "It almost makes you feel like you're there, and the music is just..."
"They filmed it, too, you know. That concert. They still air it sometimes on MTV, we should---you should keep an eye out for it."
"Cool. I probably---I won't keep the CD for too long, I just have to make myself a tape of it."
"Don't worry about it," Adam said. "Or actually, keep it for a while, but we're getting my dad a CD burner for Hanukkah, and then I'll burn you a copy. The sound will be better."
"Thanks. I really want to learn like, all of those songs on guitar, I started learning 'Pennyroyal Tea' yesterday..."
"Do all Nirvana songs really only have three chords apiece? I think someone told me that once."
Kris laughed. "It's more than three. 'Pennyroyal Tea' is like, five or six, I think..."
"So did you get your new guitar?"
"Not yet, my dad had to do something else. I think we're going to go this weekend."
"What are you going to name it?"
"What, my guitar?"
"Yeah. Aren't you supposed to name them? A girl's name, like, 'this is my guitar, Betty.'" Adam said the last part in a weird voice that was maybe supposed to be Elvis, Kris wasn't sure.
"...I just call mine 'my guitar'."
"Well that's no fun," Adam said. "We're going to name the new one. But not Betty. Something better."
"Okay." Kris liked that "we," it made him wonder if Adam would want to come over to his house and meet his new guitar, once it actually existed, like a guitar baby shower or something. He imagined them sitting in the garage, singing it lullabies and Nirvana songs all afternoon.
"Adam, come over here and tell Katy she has to let us make her a costume," Becky yelled from where she was sitting on the classroom's broad windowsill with Katy and Marie.
Adam raised his eyebrows at Kris in a way the clearly said he had no idea what this was about, but he was inviting Kris to come find out with him, and the two of them walked over to the windowsill.
"...you can always find 80s dresses at thrift stores," Becky was saying. "You know, with the giant puffy sleeves? I think Glinda had puffy sleeves, or the whole dress is just really puffy, but that's easy, we'd just need a bunch of tulle. You would be like, the prettiest Glinda ever."
"I always wanted to be Glinda when I was little," Katy said.
"And we'd do your hair in like, really soft, big curls..." Becky reached over and curled some of Katy's hair around her fingers, which was weird for Kris to watch. Usually he was the one doing that.
Adam leaned in and spoke to Katy in a conspiratorial stage whisper. "You can trust her. She does costumes and stuff for drama club, she's good at this."
"Okay," Katy said, nodding at Becky. "I think I'll be Glinda."
"Maybe I'll go as one of those flying monkeys," Kris said absently. He regretted it when Becky turned to him, her eyes lighting up.
"You should," she said. "We could make you some wings, and a tail..."
"I was joking," Kris said.
Becky ignored him. "And the monkeys have those little hats, right?" She drew a circular shape in the air around her head.
Kris looked at Adam for help, but Adam was just standing there laughing.
"You should see how horrified you look," he said after a moment, and patted Kris on the shoulder. "Don't worry, no one is going to force you to wear wings and a little hat."
"Speak for yourself," Becky said, eying Kris in a way that was sort of scary.
"I'll distract him while you put the wings on," Katy said, and Kris glared at her. She just grinned and wrapped her arm around his waist, pulling him closer to her.
"A bunch of us are going to go to thrift stores over Christmas break to get stuff to wear for the dance," Becky said to Katy. "You should come."
"Sure, that would be awesome," Katy said, and she looked so honestly thrilled about it that he couldn't even pretend to stay mad about the monkey wings. Kris looked around for Adam, who'd disappeared.
He turned out to be standing near the now-empty cookie plate, talking to Marcus and Jess. He was talking to Marcus like he was just talking to anybody, not like he thought Marcus was cute (seriously cute, even). He wasn't doing any of the stupid crap Kris had found himself doing before he and Katy had become a couple---fidgeting or looking at his shoes or laughing too much.
His first thought was that Adam was just better at not being a spaz than he was, but then he realized that although that was true, Adam didn't exactly have the luxury to be a spaz around anyone he was crushing on in the first place. It made him wonder how Adam had learned to hide how he felt, or when he'd learned to hide how he felt, and how he'd decided to stop hiding it. Not for the first time, Kris regretted that he'd only met Adam this year, that so much of who he'd been, what he'd been through before now was a mystery. He didn't know if he was allowed to ask about it.
He thought about things he was allowed to ask about. He'd forgotten to find out what Adam's favourite track on Unplugged was, for one thing, and even though they'd just talked about the CD, Kris felt like they hadn't had the conversation he'd wanted about it. He still had more to say, things he wasn't sure he even knew how to say, but he wanted to try.
But he could wait.
Adam was still talking to Marcus, and Kris found himself having to try and convince Katy, Becky, and Megan that no matter how many pairs of plaid golfing pants there always were in thrift stores, he really, really didn't want any.
____________
Relevant Music
In case you're not familiar with it, 867-5309 (Jenny). I learned this song from a pop-punk cover, so the original seems so slow to me!
And selections from Nirvana's Unplugged CD. (And actually, if you'd like the whole album in downloadable format, drop me a line and it will appear to you in a cloud of sparkles, lilies, and questionable cardigan sweaters. I would feel like a jackass making it a plot point and then not offering it to you guys.)
Pennyroyal Tea
Where Did You Sleep Last Night (the last song on the album.)