Chapter 32

Rhonda wasn’t thrilled with me skipping our lunch to go to the choir room with Cameron. She accepted it, but made it clear she didn’t want to give up any more lunches this week.

Things had been a little strange between us since the previous week’s blow-up over my friendship with Kat. She’d backed down and had been overcompensating all week, although not without a few snide comments being thrown in. Not enough to cause another fight but enough to make it clear that she still wasn’t okay with it.

I let it pass. I knew I hadn’t done anything to deserve her jealousy, and confronting her wouldn’t keep her from being upset about it. As long as she didn’t make ultimatums again and didn’t cause problems for Kat, I could take the comments. I did notice she’d skipped my Sunday gig.

Since she’d started coming to see me play, she hadn’t missed a weekend and I’d thought I’d see her on Sunday. She said she was busy, but I was pretty sure she was trying to send a message. Rhonda wasn’t petty exactly, but she did play games from time to time instead of just saying what she wanted to say. It drove me a little crazy, but we’d had enough stress on our relationship over the last week and I didn’t want to add to it. It’s the same reason I didn’t mention what happened with Kat. While I wasn’t sneaking around, since nothing actually happened, I knew it would just cause a fight, and decided it was better to let things be for now.

“Before you go,” she said when she’d finally accepted that I was going to miss our lunchtime. “There’s a party on Saturday, and I want to go to it.”

“Okay,” I said, her tone making me instantly wary.

“I know you’re not going to like it, but I want to go. The football team has their last game this week, and they’re throwing a party afterward, since it doesn’t look like they’re going to qualify for state again.”

“Rhonda, you know...”

“I know you don’t like them and they won’t be the only people there. It’s just the reason the party is happening. The baseball team will be there too, which means Marcus will want to go. If I can get Hanna to go too, will you go? You said relationships didn’t mean the other person gets to control you or whatever, well, you’ve been doing that here. You’ve refused to go to any of the football parties, and I want to go. You know I’m on the JV cheer team, and I need to socialize with the seniors if I’m going to get to varsity next year.”

She had me there, throwing my words about Kat back at me. While I thought I had good reasons for not wanting to be within ten miles of Aaron and his friends, Rhonda had always made it clear she had goals when it came to high school, and this was part of that.

“Fine. Get Hanna to go and I’m in.”

“Great,” she beamed. “See how much happier everyone is when you give in to me.”

I rolled my eyes and gave her a kiss before heading to the choir room, stopping to grab a sack lunch on the way.

“Finally,” Cameron said when I got to the choir room.

“I had to grab lunch and make sure Rhonda didn’t decide to put a hit out on me for skipping our lunches together.”

“So, you ready to start?” he asked, practically bouncing with excitement.

“You understand I haven’t done this before, right? I’m not exactly sure what ‘starting’ means.”

“Ohh, yeah. Sorry. I’ve never gotten to teach anyone before and I’m kinda excited. So, let’s start up with some vocal exercises. Have you done those before?”

“Not really. Normally I just sing.”

“That’s terrible. Your vocal chords are a muscle and have to get stretched and warmed up just like any other muscle.”

“So how do we warm up?”

“Okay, do what I do.”

Warm-ups turned out to be half completely ridiculous and half-familiar. The first part was the ridiculous section as we proceed to make weird noises for five minutes. I felt like an idiot and was positive I’d never do this in front of another person, but I humored Cameron, who was doing them along with me. The second part we sang through several major scales, not that different than how I warmed my fingers up playing guitar.

“Okay, do you recognize these two songs,” he said, setting the lyrics from two songs in front of me.

“Sure,” I said, since both were popular songs currently on the radio.

“Okay, could you sing this section from this song, then pause and sing this section from this song. You know how they go, right?”

It was just lyrics, but I knew the tune for each.

“Yep.”

“Good. I want to get a feel for your range. Start when you’re ready.

I sang both, the same way I would at the club. The first was comfortably in my range. A little lower than I normally went, but I didn’t feel like I was pushing anything. The second one, however, was almost outside of my range, being significantly higher than anything I normally sang. During the last chorus, there was a particularly high note I had to bail on completely. When I finished, I looked over at Cameron.

“Not bad. Great, actually. You’ve got a really good gravel in your tone at the lower range, but you do the higher stuff smooth and even. You might consider trying to add a little vibrato in at parts, but that’s just personal preference, and you don’t really need it.”

“I’m not sure how smooth the higher stuff was. I completely whiffed on some of those notes.”

“I picked it because of that, actually. Except for some singers who stay mostly in falsetto all the time, this one is higher than most pop songs get. You hit more of it than I expected, except I thought you might switch over to falsetto and go for that one note rather than skipping it.”

“My falsetto isn’t good, so I normally don’t use it.”

“That’s probably why it isn’t good. Your range is wide enough you don’t really need it, but you should still do it in practice so that you have it when you need it. There are times when a good falsetto lets you switch up emotions in a song that you don’t get with chest or head voice. Or at least that’s what my vocal coach says.”

“You keep saying chest and head voice, but I don’t know what that means.”

“I’m guessing you’ve never had any voice lessons, have you?”

“No. I practiced a lot with musicians as a kid, but that was mostly just guitar. Sometimes I sang along with them, but my voice was higher then.”

“God, I hate you sometimes,” he said, although with a smile.

“What?” I asked.

I knew he didn’t mean it as an insult because of the smile, but I wasn’t sure what he was joking about.

“You play the guitar better than most professional musicians and you have this amazing voice without a day of practice. I convinced my dad to get me a vocal coach when I was 8, and I’ve been practicing every day since. All that, and I might be good enough for Broadway, and here you are, straight-up rock star material from birth.”

“Broadway singers are really good.”

“They are, but it’s a different kind of singing. More belting, less nuance, because you have to project out to the whole audience, even on the quiet parts. It’s different. One will, if you’re lucky, keep you employed, the other will make you a household name.”

“Well...” I said, not sure how to respond.

I knew I had a good voice, but I didn’t think about it much. When it came to music, I’d always cared more about the instruments than the singing, and hadn’t really done much outside of the shower until I started playing at the Blue Ridge.

“That doesn’t mean you can just skip practicing though. Just like your guitar, you should be practicing your vocals every day. You have to keep working those muscles, and there is still stuff you can improve on. Eventually, you’re going to need to find a professional, but I can get you started.”

“Fair enough, I will practice. Back to my question, what’s head voice and chest voice?”

“It’s just how we identify the different parts of singing. Your chest voice is when you sing from the chest, usually the bottom part of your range. Your head voice is more from up in your throat and your nose. While that includes falsetto, it mostly means the stuff at the upper end of your register. They’re created using different parts of your throat, and head voice notes tend to be breathier.”

“Okay. I guess that makes sense.”

“Your chest voice is pretty good, but we can work on exercise to extend your upper range and get more body out of your head voice. We also need to work on your breath control a little bit. You’re not bad, but you are letting too much air out in some places, which is shortening the distance you can go before taking a breath.”

“So, air control, head voice, and falsetto.”

“For starters. As I said, I can’t get you where you’re going to want to be eventually, but I can get you started.”

He spent the rest of lunch showing me some exercise I could do to work on my upper range. I think he really enjoyed the teaching, because he tried to talk me into meeting him a couple of times a week at lunch, but I held firm at one day a week. Rhonda wanted me to become a rock star enough to accept that, but I knew I’d have a riot on my hands if I pushed for anything more. Besides, eating lunch while walking down the halls sucked. The bagged lunches might not be great, but I still preferred to eat them sitting at a table, rather than trying to shove an entire sandwich in my mouth before I got to class.

Wednesday at tutoring, Kat told me she’d heard from Chef, and she was going to talk to his psychologist friend after school. She’d looked terrified and asked if I would go with her. I tried to explain that I’d already be there, since Hanna took me to the Blue Ridge every day so I could train with Chef and I had band practice on Wednesdays, but she was insistent that she wanted me to ride with her. I could imagine the prospect of having a stranger dig around your head would make anyone anxious and I didn’t have the heart to tell her ‘no.’

When we got to the parking lot, I redirected us to Hanna’s car, so I could let her know I wouldn’t need a ride that day. Luckily, Hanna was already at the car, which wasn’t normal, since I usually beat her most afternoons. Unluckily, Rhonda was there too. I knew the issue of my friendship with Kat would come up again, but I’d hoped to avoid it a little longer, and preferably without Kat there to overhear the fight.

“Hey,” I said, coming up behind them. “Kat needs some help with something today, and she said she’d drop me off at the Blue Ridge afterward, so you’re off the hook today.”

“Hey, Kathrine,” Hanna said, not sounding particularly happy to see her.

“I didn’t know you two knew each other,” I said.

Of course, thinking about it for two seconds, I realized I should have. I knew Kat had been with Aaron since last year and Aaron and Hanna had some kind of history I hadn’t figured out yet, so it made sense they’d know each other. Since Hanna and Aaron’s history wasn’t a good one, it also made sense that Hanna wouldn’t have been a big fan of Kat. I mentally kicked myself. Had I thought about it, I would’ve realized all this ahead of time and gone about this very differently.

“We do,” Hanna said.

“Hi, Hanna,” Kat said, almost in a whisper.

“She’s been helping me with my math and we’ve become friends. You’re okay, right?” I asked Hanna.

“I’m not okay,” Rhonda said, pissed.

“Go wait in your car and wait for me, okay?” I said to Kat before turning back to Rhonda.

Kat nodded and hurried away. Rhonda just looked after her, pissed, but Hanna’s expression changed, like she was trying to figure out what just happened.

“Rhonda, we’ve already done this once. What are you not okay with? I’m helping my friend, that’s it. You can choose to trust me or not, but that’s on you.”

“So you’d be fine with me having guy friends?”

“We’ve been through this too. Yes, because I trust you.”

“Then why do you get pissed when I talk to Aaron.”

“That’s different, and you’re smart enough to know that. Aaron isn’t after you to become friends, he’s looking to get at me, and he’s fine with hurting you to do it. Besides, being friends with someone who hates me is different than just being friends with a guy. You and Kat have no history as far as I know, so why do you care?”

“Why wouldn’t he want to be my friend? You don’t think someone like him would want to be friends with me? What, only you and your little group of rejects are good enough for me?”

“Charlie’s right,” Hanna said. “I know Aaron, and he sees girls as disposable. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him be friendly to a woman if it wasn’t to get something from her.”

“Whatever,” Rhonda said. “Do whatever you want!”

Rhonda stomped off. For a moment I considered chasing after her, but decided against it. For one, she needed to calm down before she was ready to be reasonable. Going after me was one thing, but the ‘rejects’ comment at Hanna was something else entirely. For the other, Kat was still waiting on me and I wanted to make sure Hanna wasn’t also pissed at me.

“Are we okay?” I asked her, finally turning away from Rhonda as she disappeared into the school.

“Why wouldn’t we be? I don’t care who you’re friends with.”

“You would if it was someone you had a bad history with. I honestly didn’t know you and Kat knew each other. If I had, I would have asked you about her before. You’re my best friend, and I want to make sure I’ve always got your back. Do you two have a problem with each other I should know about?”

“No, not really. I was just surprised to see you with her. She was part of Aaron’s group, but she didn’t do anything to me. She never even really talked to me and always seemed terrified more than anything else. What’s going on with her?”

“I’ve been trying to help her out with some personal stuff. I took her to talk to Chef on Sunday, and he arranged for someone else to see her today, so we’re headed up to the Blue Ridge.”

“Chef’s helping her?”

I thought that might help. Hanna thought the world of Chef, and if he thought someone was worth helping, then they couldn’t be all bad.

“Yeah. It’s not my place to say what the problem is, but he agreed she’d needed help.”

“I just find it weird you’re hanging out with her, considering she’s dating Aaron, or whatever.”

“More like he’s taking advantage of her. She’s a good person, she’s just got some issues she needs to address, and they’re partly why she’s with Aaron.”

“You mean she’s a doormat and does whatever anyone tells her.”

“Like I said, it’s not my place to talk about it, but she’s my friend and I want to help her.”

“Okay, okay. We’re fine. You go off and be the white knight; we both know it’s your favorite thing. I’ll be at home, sad that you no longer need me.”

She dramatically threw the back of her hand against her head like she was some kind of old movie star, leaning back like she was going to swoon.

“Bite me. Don’t think I’m not going to still demand rides.”

“Whew, and here I thought I wasn’t needed. Go, your damsel’s waiting on you.”

“Smartass,” I said to her cackle as I walked off towards Kat’s car.

Rhonda was going to be a pain in the ass, but at least Hanna wasn’t pissed at me.

“Sorry about the drama,” I said, getting into Kat’s car.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make your girlfriend mad at you,” she offered, her voice quivering like she might cry any second.

“Hey, that’s not on you. You’re my friend and that’s not going to change just ‘cause Rhonda gets pissed. You did nothing wrong, at all. Okay?”

Kat just nodded, wiping her eyes.

“Good. Let’s not keep them waiting.”

I babbled on about random things as we drove to the Blue Ridge, just trying to take her mind off being upset. Partly, because I didn’t like seeing anyone upset, but also because I thought it might not be helpful to deliver her to Chef’s psychologist friend crying, when they had other stuff to focus on. By the time we got there, I’d even managed to get Kat to laugh a few times at my stupid jokes. This time we just went in the front door, like I did every day.

Chef’s friend was already up in his apartment, so he put me to work doing warm-ups while he walked her upstairs.

“Okay,” Chef said when he came back downstairs. “I know you have trouble focusing when you’re worried about something, so we’re going to do a little something extra today. At some point in your life, you might have to fight to defend something you care about, and you can’t let your worry get in the way. Losing focus here just gets you yelled at. Losing focus when it counts can get you seriously hurt. Every time I feel like you’re losing focus, I’m going to spend ten minutes doing my best to make you cry from how hard I’m working you. Clear?”

“Clear.”

I’d like to say I managed to keep focus and passed with flying colors, but that would be a lie. While I thought I’d done a good job, twice I missed a move. I’m not sure I agreed it was because I lost focus, since sometimes I just missed a move I was supposed to do, but I knew that arguing would just cause Chef to double down, which I didn’t want.

I could say that I didn’t actually cry, but I wanted to. The first time he had me go through high-intensity leg moves, never letting me stand all the way up, until they were so wobbly that I could barely stand upright. While it was terrible, the worst part was I had to keep going, not missing any moves, after my legs had been exhausted. The second time he did the same thing, but to my arms and shoulders. I honestly felt like quitting at one point, when the pain in my shoulders got bad enough it didn’t seem worth it anymore, but I pushed through it.

“Did you learn your lesson?” Chef asked when we finished up.

“Chef, I’m sorry, but I don’t think you can just beat this out of someone. It’s not something I can just turn off.”

“No one’s asking you to turn it off, you can be worried or concerned or angry or whatever all you want. What I want is for you to not let those things get in the way of your focus.”