Standing By

Decoding and Creating

"What was number four again?" Kevin asked, ignoring us.

She ran her finger in circles on the page. "Happy."

"And number eight?" Scott asked.

"Let's Get It On," she answered.

"We got Sing, Na Na Na, Misbehavin', Happy, something, something, something, Let's Get It On, Can't Hold Us, On My Way Home," Mitch summarized, making quicker sense of her notes than she had.

"And what do we have left?" Avi tugged at his beard and looked up and to the side as though trying to picture it in his mind.

"Royals, Starships, Cheerleader," she reminded everyone.

"Do Cheerleader as number five," Kevin decided.

Scott tilted his head back, gears cranking in his brain, then a small smile starting across his face. "Royals, then Starships. It'll be perfect right together. End of the song in Royals, we're going 'we're bigger than we've ever dreamed', then boom! go directly into Starships, rearrange it a little and do the chorus first with 'starships were meant to fly-y-y'—"

"No," Avi disagreed quietly, Kevin's, Mitch's, and Kirstie's heads swinging to him questioningly.

Scott didn't hear him, still talking with his head tilted backwards, mind full of ideas. "It'll be a perfect segway—bigger than we've ever dreamed, then wham, we're flying!"

"Why?" Kirstie asked reasonably.

"Whataya mean, why?" Scott asked her, finally looking at something other than the ceiling. "It seems like a perfect seg to me."

"I was asking Avi," she clarified. "He didn't particularly care for your idea."

Scott blinked at Avi. "OK... what are you disagreeing with? The order of songs or the rearranging of Starships?"

"Rearranging Starships," he said, eyes falling on the bed, seemingly unable to look at him. "I've always started Starships."

"Yeah," Kirstie said slowly. "I mean, we know..."

Kevin looked from Avi to Scott and back. "I understand Scott's line of thinking. Help me understand yours, Avi. Why shouldn't we rearrange the song?"

I leaned forward, eager to see how this interaction would go. Scott thought he had a good idea but Avi didn't think it was so great. Would they be able to sort out a disagreement without getting mad and ending up with hurt feelings and resentment? I noticed Chance had also leaned forward to see how it'd play out, and Rob was shaking his head slightly at me as though in a silent reminder to not intervene. I didn't want to, but I would if necessary.

"I—I've always started it," Avi said, his voice shaking because he was unaccustomed to asserting himself. "I... like the current arrangement. It works. Why mess with something if it isn't broken?"

Scott sat up. "Avi, I'm not suggesting we totally trash the arrangement. Just for this performance, I thought it'd be a good idea if we lead with the chorus. Then slide into the first verse and take it from there. Would that be OK?"

Avi blinked slowly, not saying a word, seemingly just processing things. I did think Scott was handling it well; he'd explained his rationale, he'd suggested and not just executed a decision, he'd asked for input, and he'd specifically asked Avi if he was OK with the rearranging of the song. But how was Avi receiving it? Was he in a good enough state to accept disagreements and constructive criticism?

"A one-time rearrangement," Kevin piggybacked on Scott. "Next time, it'll be right back to the original version."

Avi licked his lips, some but not all of the fear retracting from his eyes. "So... you're saying... go from where Mitch sings 'we're bigger than we've ever dreamed'—"