This Time It's Real

            by Mariel Austin

 

            We all sat in the decrepit, musty band room, awaiting the results of our auditions, if there were results at all for any of us. Mr. Hamilton, the band director, whom we referred to as “Ham,” read aloud the name of each official member of the Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble along with his instrument and his chair. As he began to read off the names of the trombone section, I waited for my name under second chair. As everyone expected, Duane Mann-Ferguson made first chair, I made second, Quentin Shapiro made third, and Jonathan Hernandez made bass trombone. When it came time for the director to announce who would be playing the baritone saxophone, we all stopped breathing. Even the continuous hum of the heating system seemed to stop to make way for the news. Ivan di Giovanni broke the silence from Mr. Hamilton’s lips. Loud groans of triumph and epiphany pervaded the room even before our director could finish Ivan’s first name.

            No one expected Ivan to make baritone. Most people, including Ivan, thought he didn’t deserve it. As doubtful as he was, Ivan made his way to baritone and he was proud himself, and so was I. After our director announced the leaders of the combos, we all stood up to leave and give each other high fives. I went up to Ivan to give him a high five, just to feel the comforting touch of his hand once more. One last time after knowing he would never want to have anything to do with me again. The fact that he actually made the band lifted my spirits, as I still saw a stale, lifeless possibility that Ivan and I could restore what we once had.

            I was completely unable to fathom the end of our yearlong relationship. One day, Ivan just stopped liking me and said he lied when he told me “I love you.” The more he evaded me, the more I wanted to restore our relationship. I remember how Ivan responded to me one day by mustering all his rage and spitting it into my face.

            I’m not attracted to you, he shouted in front of a group of boys who went Ooooh.

            He continued: It would suck if something bad happened to you, but I just can’t care about it right now.

            I had wanted Ivan to try out for the band because I was trying out. I wanted for Ivan to make the band and I wanted to be with him everyday until he moved to college. Instead, nothing turned out the way it was expected to, so he became angry and tore himself far away, even though he sat one row in front of me. Despite the fact that I was to spend every day after school for the rest of the year, sitting and playing with the one person who wanted me out of his life, I had only one joy left. I was one out of the two girls who made it into the twenty-five-piece band and the only one in the horn section. I am second chair, just one below Duane, I thought. I have the privilege of taking Duane’s place, should he resign from it for any reason.

            I had a position of power I could never have had in the San Francisco Girl’s Chorus from freshmen year. A more disciplined, mutual group than the band, the chorus gave leadership only to the oldest, most mature girls, but encouraged no one to have more importance than another. In chorus, there was no second chair to step up the leader. I had left the chorus soley because I wanted to try out for the Ensemble. The fact that I, a girl, had earned the position of potential leadership over a band of boys empowered me. I was the only girl horn-player and that was how I liked it.

            ###

            Although Ivan was dead to me, I saw the end of our story as an opportunity to start my new life with Quentin, my crush of last summer’s pubescent, hormonal Stanford Jazz Camp. To me, Quentin’s features, from his dirty blonde, faded blue Mohawk to his moral fibers, made him perfect. I dreamed of having what I had with Ivan with Quentin.

            At jazz camp, we would sit together at lunch, talk dirt about the counselors, and share crude jokes together. I figured I had a personal enough connection with Quentin to start a relationship with him. We were also in the same section in the band, which made sitting by him and talking with him easy. I continued through first month of school to share our old jokes and would even try to initiate conversations. By the time October arrived, however, Quentin had developed an elusive, frozen bitterness towards me. During sectionals, Quentin, along with Jonathan, would respond to my comments or suggestions by brushing me off and continuing to stumble over their parts, cacophonously enough to tune me out.

            Quentin and Jonathan would start to share their own jokes, which I could never understand, though they were identical to the ones Quentin and I used to share. One day, during sectionals, Jonathan walked in laughing about an old trombone teacher he had, whom Quentin and I happened to know.

            “Aw, man, you know who’s the worst? Karl Reynolds,” Jonathan laughed.

            “Oh, yeah, he looks like a fuckin’ vulture,” said Quentin.

            “I know, man,” I joined in. “He also blinks every time he moved up a partial.” I demonstrated on my trombone how much effort it would take for Karl to move up a note in a scale. Suddenly, the two exchanged looks of warning and immediately cut their laughs short, as if they didn’t want to admit to one another that I had succeeded in entertaining them. Quentin and Jonathan started mumbling discretely to each other various other anecdotes about Karl, as if forbidding me from enjoying them with the two.

            I only meant to help the section sound the best it could because Duane was not acting on the initiative, but my section mates grew to resent me and insisted on shutting me out of their earshot. Even outside the band room, Quentin sneered and walked away from my attempts at conversations. I tried everything make him notice my adoration of him again, not just my impetuous remarks in sectionals. I never even had the opportunity, let alone the spine, to ask Quentin out for a date the same way Ivan asked me out the first time. All over again, I lost another friend because he stopped liking me.

             ###

             After a month went by, I grew to realize that anything I tried to love and embrace wasn’t made to last. Nothing that appealed to me became mine to keep. Even my technique on my instrument became worse and I forgot how to sound beautiful and how to improvise. Was this because of the teasing I received from Quentin and Jonathan, along with most of the seniors in the band, which discouraged me enough to stop caring about my music? Disconsolate, all I could do was wait for each school day to end, knowing each one would end frozen, with me catching the bus alone on a rainy autumn afternoon. I was convinced I was not going to get better for a long time. Then, by chance, a day in November changed me.

            At the end of practice one day, I knelt on the floor to disassemble my trombone. Realizing I left my music folder on my chair, I started to stand up to retrieve it. As soon as I stood and turned around, Ben Weiss, the lead trumpet player, walked by me, within inches of my face. As Ben walked up the risers, he continued to smirk over his shoulder at me, while the members of the trumpet section observed what was happening and cheered him on. 

            Laughing along with everyone else, I said, “Whoa, we almost, like, crashed!” because didn’t know what else to say or do. I forced my laughs to cover up my confusion and embarrassment. I immediately received the impression that Ben liked me. Why did Ben show me like this? If he liked me, he could’ve picked a less awkward situation to put me into. Nonetheless, Ben fancied me, which, in turn, made me start to like him. My spirits brightened once again, bet they weren’t stale and lifeless; they were lively and happy.

            As soon as I arrived at home, I came to an upsetting conclusion. When I tried to get back together with Ivan and when I had tried to start anew with Quentin, I had failed. This time, Ben came to me, with promising intensions instead of cruel ones. Was it supposed to work like this? A boy could approach a girl, but a girl couldn’t approach a boy? Ivan and Quentin had their reasons to stray away from me, but what was Ben thinking? 

            ###

            Even as I was ignored, condescended, and secretly made fun of by most of the seniors, including Ivan, I began to find peace with the juniors and in a few months I became friends with most of the band. When we had to compete at the Redwood Empire Jazz Festival in December, we all arrived on the fairgrounds that morning to store our instruments. We kept ourselves occupied until we had to unlock our instruments, warm up as a band, and play in front of the panel of judges. Jonathan and some other band members wanted to start a game of football and got to the main lawn just in time before a group of middle school kids almost took it over. Ben and his friends wanted to find an open practice room to play Hold’em. Others ventured out to more secluded parts of the fairgrounds, away from the chaperones.  

            I had always been a bench warmer, devoid of any athletic rigor, so I stayed away from the lawn. I also knew it wise to steer clear of peculiar substances only hours before the competition, so I didn’t wander off the main campus. With nowhere else to go, I decided to follow the poker fans in search of an open practice room. Then again, I had always been pitiful at every card game my sisters tried to teach me as a small child and I never had any idea of how poker worked. Because Ben was leading the group, I followed out of sheer fancy for him. Ben, along with four other members, split off to one corridor, while the other half of the group went to another. I went with Ben’s half, who ran ahead and found an unlocked practice room that turned out to be too small. From the corridor, I could see Ben through the window of the door, inside the room, noticing that it was no more than a storage closet with a poorly tuned piano.

            “Can we go somewhere else?” I asked Ben through the glass in the door. When he saw me, he started staring at me, the way a dog stares at a stranger with food in his hand. Thinking Ben couldn’t hear me, I tried opening the door, only to realize the door handle stubborn and wouldn’t open—No. Ben was holding the door handle shut from the inside. I let go and gestured an exaggerated shrug through the window until he opened the door.

            “What’d you do that for?” I asked.

            “Nothin’. I was just messin’ with you,” Ben said, smiling at me. Again, I received the same feeling I had when Ben had made his first advance towards me. I could tell he was teasing and flirting with me, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I couldn’t tell whether to accept Ben’s offers or to tell him I didn’t need them. I was unable to decide what I wanted and what I didn’t want. I recalled the previous year, when I was a freshman and Ivan was a junior in the beginner’s band, and how my band mates would give me the cold shoulder whenever they would see Isaac and I holding hands. I had a fruitful, deep relationship at the cost of my social life. With Quentin, I never fretted about how the band would look at me, but with Ben, I started to worry about having another episode such as the one in freshman year. Was this also because I decided to approach Quentin but Ben decided to approach me?

###

            Around March, we were scheduled to play at the Berkeley Reparatory Theatre for our annual fund-raiser. Because we were staying at the theatre for five hours, the theatre faculty provided us with complimentary bag lunches. In our holding room, we sat and ate before going on stage. After I nibbled on half of my flimsy tuna sandwich, I sat on a bench to sort my music. Ben came by and sat next to me, not staring at me this time, but not saying a word, either. An excruciating silence arose between us.

            Supplying a usual anecdote to pervade the tension, I sighed, “What crummy lunches we got. I ended up with a soggy tuna sandwich.”

            Ben did not respond. He held his breath as if he had something to say, but couldn’t bring himself to speak. After I drank from my water bottle, Billy got up and walked out of the room.

            Afterwards, I came to another startling inquiry. Was Ben thinking about asking me out? Did he seat himself next to me so he could ask me out an a date? Why else did he just sit down, hold his breath, and pause? Ben must have had something on his mind, if it had anything at all to do with me. If this was the case after all, at least Ben didn’t embarrass me this time. There was no one else in the room. 

            ###

            April came around, which meant we had to compete in the Monterey Jazz Festival. Because it took place in such a distant city, some people in the band would drive down the day before the competition to spend the night at the Portola Plaza Hotel, which housed the festivities. After Mom and Dad finished making hotel reservations, we started making plans for what we were going to do the day after the competition. Mom suggested we go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

            “How about we invite Sean to go to the aquarium with us?” she asked me.

            I was surprised Mom asked me this. “Oh,” I said. Sean Goldman was the band’s vibraphonist. He was also a combo member. “Uh, sure. Okay,” I answered tentatively.

            I had heard from my classmates that Sean had no interest in girls and was proud of it. How was I going to spend an afternoon with Sean? I was already intimidated by Sean’s uncanny amount of energy and talent that went into his performance and his compositions. The thought of being put in a position in which I had to talk and interact with this person put me off. However, Sean had easily made friends with all of the band members and was very sociable, at least with the boys. I started having second thoughts and saw the aquarium trip as a chance to get to know this person better and be less afraid of him.

            To the band’s dismay, a band from Oregon had beaten us to first place, leaving us in third. Some of the boys sneered and cursed amongst themselves because the Ensemble had won the previous two years in a row.

            After we checked out of our hotel rooms, my parents and I picked up Sean after he had disassembled his vibraphone. Sean and his dad loaded his instrument into their car and arranged to meet at their house at the end of the day. When we arrived at the aquarium, we were bombarded with the hustle and bustle of tourists and parents with their little ones. After we bought tickets and received brochures to read, we made plans to meet at the museum cafeteria for lunch. When Mom and Dad asked if they could go on their own and leave Sean and I to explore, I stirred, remembering what I had foreshadowed; but then I remembered how I thought spending time with Sean wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

            As I matter of fact, Sean and I skipped gaily from one end of the aquarium to another. From the otter tanks to the jellyfish exhibit, we freely laughed and exchanged jokes and stories like we had known each other for years. When we met Mom and Dad at the aquarium cafeteria, Sean and I stood in line at the deli, wondering what to order.

            “I wonder how many people leave the aquarium saying, ‘I wanna have fish for dinner tonight!’” Sean said as he pointed out fish and chips on menu.

            I looked over his shoulder at the menu and, sure enough, fish and chips was an entrée. How ironic!

            “Hmm, I don’t know,” I laughed. “Depends on how appetizing you found the sea anemones and the bottom-feeders.”

            After our visit to the aquarium, we headed back home on the freeway when Mom pointed out the sign advertising the Dennis the Menace playground. Upon Sean’s gleeful request, we took the next exit and stopped at the playground. At first, I was reluctant to make a stop, as it was getting late on a Sunday and I had some weekend homework to finish. As it turned out, I started enjoying myself as Sean darted out of the car like dog off leash and beckoned me to join him on a ten-foot slide and then into a shrub labyrinth that came up to our shoulders.

            When we arrived back in Berkeley, we stopped at Sean’s house to drop him off first. Mom and Dad went inside to talk to Sean’s parents, leaving Sean and I in the car. When Sean and I exchanged good-byes, Sean leaned over and hugged me.

            We arrived home late in the afternoon. I knew I had made wrong judgments in the first place about Sean.  I realized that Sean was the only person I didn’t feel any tension in front of. I didn’t have to continuously supply anecdotes to keep him busy or worry about leaving him bored with me. With Sean, I didn’t have to force a laugh or try constantly to impress him.

###

            Shortly after the Monterey festival, our performance at Yoshi’s was coming up near the end of the month. When it came time to review our charts, we decided to review “This Time It’s Real” with our guest artist, Mic Gillete from Tower of Power. The month before, Mic had asked me to sing the vocal part for his song, while he played the trombone. He gave me lyric sheets and told me where to find a recording of the song so I could be ready. The week after he asked me to sing, he had to leave town because of a dead friend. For a month, no one was sure whether or not Mic would get back to us about the song. Two days before the performance, he came back to run the “This Time It’s Real” with us, with me on vocals.

            I brought an amplifier and a microphone from home and set it up before band practice the day Mic came. As enthusiastic as I was, when we started playing the song, I had forgotten that lyrics completely. All that came out of the amplifier was a ratty, nasal voice trying to belt out low notes. Several times we had to stop because the band was too loud. Halfway through the rehearsal, Ham asked the band for their opinion on whether or not to perform the song.

            “I don’t think we should do anything new,” Antonio Ewing, our bassist, embellished. “We’re performing tomorrow.” Murmurs arose from the band as everyone talked at once.

            Suddenly, Ben stood up from his seat, rose above the clamor, and said, “I think that because Mic is our guest artist, we should feature him instead.” Then he tacked on, “Nothing against Mariel.” Ben embarrassed me once again, but in a way that Quentin or Jonathan would have done it.

            “You know what,” said Mic. “let’s do it with vocals because Mariel took the time to memorize it,” His proposition was met with a series of disgusted groans and rolling eyes.

            This continued until the end of band practice. Bewildered, I walked out of the room after the bell rang to put my trombone into the storage room. Ham told me I was doing a good job and that the band was just being obnoxious. He said they were deliberately playing as loud as they could to drown me out. As I walked back to the band room to retrieve my backpack, Sean stopped me and put his hand on my shoulder.

            “Don’t feel too bad,” he reassured gently, making eye contact with me.

            Surprised by what he was doing, I said, “Oh, no it’s just me being quixotic.” Quixotic? Where did that word come from? Optimistic, impractical. I was being impractically optimistic about the band’s response to my singing. I was going to sing at Yoshi’s, but I was being too hopeful about the band’s reaction to it. First I underestimated what my position of power really meant. Then I underestimated what presenting myself as a musician really meant. If I had been more confident with my abilities, I wouldn’t have received a slap in the face by the band. The band was not the choir. The choir was much more gracious and forgiving than the band ever was. The day I used my choir skills in band was the day I realized this.

            When I came home to start my homework, the phone rang. Mom picked it up and handed it to me.

            It was Sean. The second I heard his voice from the other end of the receiver, I winced at what was to come from our conversation.

            “Yeah, I just want to let you know that I feel really bad about what happened in band today,” said Sean. “I think you did a good job.”

            “Oh, thanks,” I answered, knowing I didn’t deserve such a compliment.

            “Well, I have to go now. See you tomorrow,” said Sean. “Feel better.”

            “Okay, bye,” I said.

            ###

            At Yoshi’s, everyone arrived backstage to get dressed into their suits and ties and to warm up. Ben’s combo was scheduled to perform first as the opening of our concert, so Ben’s friends gave him high-fives before he went on stage and told him to play his best.

            “Think of the girls!” Carlos Donahue, the drummer, jested.

            “Think of Montserrat!” Alex Carr, the fifth trumpeter shouted.

            My ears perked up “Montserrat de la Fuente? I know her!” I called out excitedly. I had known Montserrat since I was in fourth grade. We had been singing together in the girl’s chorus since we were in the most beginning level. She was senior at Berkeley High, but I hadn’t seen her since I left chorus. I was ecstatic to hear she might even have been in the audience.

            “Who’s Mont-sirr-aht?” one band member asked.

            “She’s this chick Ben’s about to get with,” said Carlos.

            My heart plummeted into my stomach: What? Was Ben planning on dating Montserrat, one of my closest friends since the age of nine? Immediately, I wished I could go back to the bench at Berkeley Rep that one March and shut up to hear Ben ask me out so we would happily be boyfriend and girlfriend and I wouldn’t be confused anymore.

            I sat in the audience and watched Ben perform with his combo, in disbelief: What went wrong? Did he stop liking me because I had made an ass of myself whenever I presented myself? Still, I knew for sure that Ben, at the very least, liked me as a friend. Ben had always liked me.

             The next day at school, I was walking back to class after lunch when I saw Ben and Montserrat walking towards me, hand in hand, conversing. When Montserrat saw me, she waved her hand at me, smiled, and said “hi.” Ben looked away as he kept talking.

            ###

            Later in band practice, we started to prepare for our annual Jazz on Fourth Street venue. It had a raffle, for which there were several cash prizes, including shopping sprees for Fourth Street shops. Until the day of the event, band members and their parents would sell raffle tickets at Peet’s and have small makeshift groups of band members to supply music. The parents thought it would make the tickets sell.

            As I was warming up in my seat, Sean walked up to me.

            “Hey, great job at Yoshi’s!” he complimented.

            “Oh, thank you,” I said courteously.

            Sean stepped up closer to me. “I want to play with you sometime,” he told me in a hushed tone.

            “Well, we have to schedule a time slot for ticket sales,” I said.

            Sean shook his head. “Not just for Fourth Street,” he said. “I want to play with you sometime,” he repeated, placing more stress than before on each word. “Because you’ve got good sound and you’re a good soloist. You have a lot of good ideas.”

            “Oh, okay,” I said, feeling awkward again. “Thanks for letting me know.”

            Was this Sean’s way of coming onto me? Or was he just being friendly? I had to stop automatically assuming that any boy who approached me had a crush on me. Didn’t Sean have no interest in girls that way? He did seem particularly fond of me, though. For the first time, I started to wonder what Sean was thinking.