0 2
snare
noun. metal wires stretched across a drum skin to make a rustling sound; an eponymous type of drum.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
I'M NOT AN ANXIOUS PERSON.
Here's my process for making decisions: I do the things I want and have to do. I don't do things I do not want or have to do. Weirdly enough, if I'm neutral on the matter, checking whether an action will annoy Bay or not is my final, and pretty reliable, metric.
The day of the section leader information meeting, I intended to arrive early at band rehearsal and claim her precious concert snare again. In the Halston Student Orchestra, musicians have assigned parts most of the time. But in a few pieces, Bay and I share, and therefore have to divvy up what's fun or what's hard or what's utterly boring (the triangle). She's better at tuned percussion than I am, being able to tinker on a keyboard, but I know her heart lies where mine does: with drumming.
Unfortunately, I am late.
Way late.
I had a Computer Systems test that ended at five—which I could have left, but I stayed to check my answers—which is all the way across campus from the Music Department. Even skateboarding to speed up the transit time, I arrive half an hour after rehearsal starts.
The Music Department is a sprawling cluster of stone and brick buildings. It's one of the oldest parts of Halston University, evinced by the massive oak trees that shade the sidewalks. The main building is a soaring three-storeyed stone cathedral, with classrooms and faculty offices on the uppermost floor. Multiple other stone buildings house the band rooms and storage rooms. The Choral Hall in the center of the Department has raked seating, mezzanine seats and hardwood staging. The pep band and HSO play multiple concerts here a year.
The historic exteriors bely the modern architecture inside—especially the band room, kitted with soundproof walls, a drum cupboard and angled, acoustically-optimized ceilings. I enter in the middle of a hushed, pensive bridge, sticking out like a sonically sore thumb. Keller, the HSO conductor and marching band director, glances over and shoots me her unamused, grandmotherly stare. Bay isn't playing—the entire percussion section is in the midst of one of our frequent sixty-fucking-something-bar rests—but she stands at the concert snare and lords her position with a harsh smile.
Damn it.
She's in her usual baggy dark trousers and a tank top. Her cardigan is discarded on the padded bench against the wall. She keeps reading her music as if we haven't all memorized the selections by now. We've competed at everything—showmanship, stamina, and yes, punctuality. Nearly three years of it, the tiresome volleying of insults and stubborn wagers and measuring-up contests. There will always be another one around the corner, constant as gravity.
I slip into the percussion section, leaning my skateboard against the wall and lowering my rucksack to the carpet, pulling out my music folder. When I go to grab the mallet bag, Bay sticks her heel backward, hoping to trip me. Seriously? I deftly skip over it and tug the end of her hair. Her elbow slams back into my ribcage, knocking the breath out of me in a wheeze. The other percussionists (Shane, Nate and Lien) laugh under their breaths. They love watching our rivalry.
I move closer and lean down to whisper over her shoulder, "I hate you."
She keeps her head forward, pretending not to hear.
Shane Nichols, currently on the vibraphone, is a sophomore girl who wants a tattoo sleeve by the time she graduates college. She's 60% there; she would be 100% there if she stopped splurging on random areas of her body. Nate Savchenko, on miscellaneous, is one of the senior percussionists graduating at the end of this semester, but with his ageless dark skin and round cheeks he looks much younger than his years. Lien Hoang, Lord and saviour, on bass drum, is the other senior—and she is the big boss lady.
Section leader.
After the hurricane that was Toby Minhas, Lien Hoang stepped up in her junior year. She was the rooted palm tree that couldn't be toppled by any hurricane. She'd led the percussion section when I was a sophomore, and last marching season, too. Now that it's the spring semester, a lot of the marching musicians have dispersed to recharge and focus on their studies. I'll see all my drumline friends again in August—if they aren't graduating.
But for those drummers that live and breathe music year-round, they find other campus ensembles to join. Shane, Nate and Lien are three of the drumline that joined me in the pep band and Halston Student Orchestra. Instead of sweating on the football field and going for showmanship, we're in the soundproofed, acoustically-designed band room going for sophistication, ready for recitals and concerts.
I flick to the correct page, matching bars to Keller's conducting, and wait for my part to come. I still have nothing to do until the maestoso, which means waiting through the fluttery part, then the sad part.
After twenty more minutes refining this piece, Keller changes the music and the percussion section starts to exchange instruments. I'm on timpani, Bay has the third miscellaneous part with the most overlooked instruments: tambourine, rainmaker, gong, et cetera.
"Bay. You're running for section leader."
She tilts her head up to give me a sugary smile, brown eyes like top-shelf whiskey, the kind in bottles that look like diamond. "Am I?"
"Are you?" I counter. "For someone who hates other people I don't understand why you'd pick a people-focused, teamwork-intensive leadership role."
"You're right. You don't understand. Don't strain yourself trying."
I glare so hard my jaw ticks.
Then her floral scent curls around my head, dangerous, and I remove myself from her vicinity. Back at the timpani, I use the foot pedal to make sure the skins are in tune, mallets in hands, and poise myself for when Keller counts us in.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
After rehearsal, the band room fills with students interested in becoming a section leader.
All the marching band peeps that I haven't seen since marching band season ended last December all reappear, like magic. I made friends with people from every section over the last three years.
"Hey, man," I clasp hands with Petey, my favorite tubist. "How've you been?"
(He's been good.)
One of my buddies from the color guard is unexpectedly here. "Alice!"
"Callum!" Alice walks straight into my hug. I finally discern her reason for being at this meeting.
"No way, you want to be drum major?" She says yes, she had a weird surge in gusto over the winter holiday, and I say, "Best of luck."
There are more people, more and more, and I try to get around to all of them before Keller starts the meeting. Hi, hi yourself, is this semester treating you well?, damn sorry to hear that, we should catch up, yes definitely.
Quentin Cheng, the first flute, is technically another band friend, but that label is reductive. He's a junior like me. We were in the same grade at our private, obnoxious high school, four years of mutual suffering. Now we're both Engineering majors, like our life paths simply won't separate. I won't lie: though I have a ton of friends and even more acquaintances, Quen just might be the best of them.
Ten minutes trickle by, laughing and socializing with my old bandmates. I can hardly wait for fall. For competition season to start again. Band always was the time of my life. It felt like family to me.
"Okay, settle down." I sidle up to some drumline players I haven't talked to in months, squeezing sideways past the music stands and settling in. Everyone fills the semicircles of chairs in front of the conductor's podium, except Bay, who's alighted on the long bench in the percussion section, having just packed the instruments away. I don't understand separating herself, when there is a whole room of people to hang out with.
Keller tells us: "I'm sure that you all know how important the section leaders and drum majors are for our bands. A lot of you have had fantastic section leaders yourselves, to guide you into the culture of the band and find your place as a Halston musician."
Lien Hoang, Lord and savior (she made all us underlings call her this during the last two band camps, and the results of her bullying have become Pavlovian), is a great section leader. And she's graduating in two months.
Section leaders have to be the right balance of easy-going but disciplined. Respected, but not feared. Friendly but impartial. Keller says as much, and at the world friendly I glance over my shoulder to Bay. All her attention is pinned on Keller, but she daintily rests her chin on a hand with only the middle finger up, her dark curls cascading around her shoulders. Rising above, I send a sunny grin her way and look forward again. I'm a leader, and she's just bitter.
Instead I nudge Quentin beside me. He's stretched his long legs out in front of him, slumped low in his chair with arms crossed.
That's gonna be us, I mouth to him.
Quen shakes his head sardonically at my giddy expression, knowing how far ahead of myself I get—but I can't help it. Since we were fourteen, he's been the reliable anchor to my windy sail.
Toby Minhas in my freshman year, and then Lien Hoang ever since, showed me the successful way of jumping through the successively-tighter hoops that the Music Department sets in front of hopeful section leaders and drum majors.
"Some of you already know how the process works. As of this Monday, we've already released the application form on the Facebook group and the sheet music for the audition piece," Keller is saying.
I know the process like the flaking scars on my drumsticks. Intimately.
Step one: obtain a recommendation letter from a teacher who isn't part of the Music Department to prove your academic standing.
Step two: learn the audition piece (which is always a piece for next year's marching repertoire, to get a head start on memorization).
Step three: perform said audition piece following an interview with the band director, Maude Keller, and relevant section directions, and await notification of success.
Easy.
The process is so mundane that I start daydreaming, skipping ahead. Next year, I can imagine meeting freshmen who are insecure and anxious like I was—hoping the football green split like a crevasse and swallowed me whole that first day of freshman band camp—guiding them into the band as capable musicians. I can imagine bonding with my team, and warning them about our resident Grinch, Baya Rodriguez, and not to let her steal Christmas.
I can picture the sweltering band camp in August, running laps, when Bay always insists she's fine while looking on the verge of passing out. The sectionals where I will graciously put aside our rivalry and focus on the music. The competitions; I might even let her have the best of the Yamahas.
The tide turns on the Halston University marching band every year, bringing in new recruits and sweeping out the adults who are off to take on the world. The last three seasons of marching has been the best time of my life, beginning with that charmed audition in freshman year.
Freshmen hardly ever make the drumline, but I did.
Mr. Scott, the drum director, approached me afterwards, to say: "How long have you been playing?" And I told him how long: nearly all my life.
"I thought so." He nodded, expression vindicated. "I have a sixth sense for these types of things. Sometimes people can make it through the whole piece just fine—but we don't want just fine at Halston. There's little details, fundamental techniques, that take an old drumbug like me to notice. From here, Vierra, you've only got upward to go."
And he'd been right.
I'd gone up and up, and now there was only one more higher step I could take in my marching band journey. I brushed away the bittersweet sting of next season being my last. I never usually dwelt on the negative. Good experiences were memories and bad experiences were lessons and there was nothing to agonize over. Just move on. Be happy. Life was too short.
Marching band brought me to mentors, friends and rivals that all challenged me.
I learned how to commit. I learned how to share defeat with my peers. I grew.
Now it's my turn to teach.
Keller's chiming voice washes out through the cluster of people as she rattles off the dates of the audition and interview. "There will be slots galore for you during these weeks. It won't take more than half an hour. But if it arises that you can't make any, send me or your section director an email."
By the time we're dismissed from the meeting I have so much nervous energy zipping through me that I come up with an impromptu plan: "Party at my place on Friday! Tell your sections, everyone! We need to get together again!"
The celebratory whoops and cheers that rise to the sky sounded like an army of hundreds, though we were only about twenty. Quentin clears his throat and jerks his chin toward the pathway leading away from the Music Department. "Invite her. Don't be mean."
Bay, looking over her shoulder, rapidly glances away and starts walking when I cast my eyes in her direction. She's a solitary figure on the northbound road, her dark hair bundled into a hair clip.
... Fine.
I drop my skateboard and start after her. She obviously hears the sound of wheels on cobblestone, because her pace picks up, in a futile attempt to evade me. Infuriating. When I catch up, I kick the board into my hand. "Did you hear what I said?"
"Your voice carried like nails on a chalkboard."
"And despite our enmity, you are invited, of course."
Bay's gaze cements itself forward as we walked north, the sun sinking lower. "I work Fridays."
I fall into step beside her, one arm tucking the skateboard against my ribcage. The sky is all milky shades, like light yellow and lilac and baby pink. A light gust of wind blows her loose curls all up into her face, and she pulls several strands from her mouth with an irritated grimace, marching stoically onwards.
Amusement flickers in my chest. "Well, whether you come after your shift or find cover, I'm just letting you know the courtesy is extended."
"How gracious of you."
I think so.
She wouldn't do the same for me. She would also rather cut off her own head than come, but I still need to invite her. In all our years of rivalry, she's never tried to turn anyone against me. Is that a low bar for decent behavior? Definitely, but Bay and I bring out the worst in each other.
So I'll have to make my peace and be 'grateful' that things are only as bad as they are. There's been no false rumors, no petty ultimatums trying to split the percussion section into warring sides—not that Lien would let us fracture the team on her watch. She treats us both like her bickering children, and there will be punishments doled out if we don't obey.
No, our rivalry is an internal affair. And next year if I'm going to be a good team player for the entire percussion section, that means being a good team player for Bay, too.
Because she's part of it.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
A / N:
(darling sunshine boy)
i've written full-length novels in both female and male pov before, but this is my first dual pov work! i'm excited to bring you guys into callum and bay's heads; they are very different from each other, but that makes the story that much more interesting ;)
just a note: double time is not one-sided enemies to lovers, in which one person hates and the other person secretly loves/pines/wanted attention/whatever. callum and bay genuinely hate each other (for now, and for reasons) but they've both put limits on their behavior and rivalry, as you hopefully noticed.
please vote, comment and follow if you liked this chapter <3
aimee x