Part of me felt about the same as Joey. I wasn’t sure our band name would matter that much. “Can we name the band something like ‘Screw You Jessica’?”
Both Charlie and Joey chuckled. Charlie shook his head. “That might make a good song at some point, but I don’t think it works for the band name. What if Jessica moves away or you guys stop being enemies for some reason?”
I raised an eyebrow, unable to believe that we could stop being enemies. There was already so much bad blood between us. “But she’s just awful! I mean, that thing in the locker room…”
“I know, I know,” Charlie said soothingly. “Trust me, I understand why you’d want to get back at her. But a band name definitely isn’t the way to do it.”
“Then how? How can I get back at her? I just—sometimes I want to hurt her, Charlie. I don’t think I ever would, but she deserves it.” Although I did my best to fight it, I could feel my body shake with anger.
To my surprise, it wasn’t Charlie who comforted me, but Joey. He reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “I think I know how you feel,” he whispered.
It wasn’t much. Hell, if it had come from Charlie or my mom I would have been angry they hadn’t actually said anything helpful. But it was Joey, and it felt like displays of empathy from him were special. “Thanks, Joey.” I leaned over and wrapped my arms around him.
“We can’t do ‘Screw You Jessica,’” Charlie said. “But I have an idea. What do you like about yourself, Ashley?”
“Nothing.” No, that wasn’t true. I shook my head against the cotton of Joey’s black shirt. “I like my hair. I think the color’s pretty.” It sounded so stupid to say out loud, but I felt safe. Something about the way Joey and Charlie were acting let me know that nothing I trusted them with would leave the apartment.
“It is,” Charlie agreed. “Very pretty. Beautiful auburn hair.”
I pulled away from Joey, who stiffened as if he’d expected the hug to last longer. “Thanks, but how is that going to give us a band name?”
A smile slowly spread on Charlie’s face. “Instead of a negative name—something born from our hatred of a certain girl—I think we should choose something positive. Something we like about ourselves. Something you like about yourself. Auburn. Think about it; your hair makes you different, but it’s also one of your most beautiful traits. Auburn is us. We’re different, but because of that we shine so much brighter.”
“Auburn,” I whispered, squinting through my tear-laced eyes at a strand of my own hair. Auburn is us. “I like it.”
“Thanks.” Charlie sighed slowly, as if that was a weight off his mind. “Now we just need to figure out what our next step is. I think if we know how we’re going to get into venues once we’re better, we’ll be more motivated to get better.”
“We don’t need to get better,” Joey argued. “We’re already as good as any band on the radio. I sang at that Misadventure Galley concert, remember?”
I had to suppress a laugh; we’d let Joey go on thinking we believed his lie for so long that it seemed like he’d started to believe it himself. Charlie rolled his eyes, too subtly for Joey to catch. “Look, I think we have a choice here. We can keep playing in my garage, and we’ll never move beyond that, or we can decide that we’re going to succeed. That we’re willing to do whatever we have to in order to reach that point.”
For a moment, I thought about that. It didn’t take me long to decide that the answer to the question of how much I was willing to do to succeed with our band was ‘pretty much anything.’ “Whatever we have to do,” I repeated, nodding.
“Exactly. Are you in, Joey?” When he didn’t reply, Charlie continued. “I don’t want this to be something that we can just turn our backs on when it gets hard. So… I think we should make a contract. Do you have some paper, Ash?”
I pushed off the couch, planning on heading for my backpack, but my mom was sleeping in the bedroom and I didn’t want to wake her up. Not after ten hours of work, followed by about thirteen hours with Kent. She probably hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep during those thirteen hours, and I remembered something about another long shift tomorrow. So instead of going for my backpack, I crossed to our kitchenette and started pulling drawers. There wasn’t any real paper or pens that I could find, but I did manage to get my hands on a white pan liner and half-dead Sharpie. Charlie raised an eyebrow as I brought them back to the couch, but didn’t say anything.
“Okay, what’s in this contract?” I asked, taking a seat on the armrest and holding the Sharpie ready.
Joey frowned, apparently lost in thought. “We’ll practice, at least an hour every weekday. And we’ll get a gig before we graduate high school. A real gig, one that pays.”
I nodded and wrote down the ideas. “I like that. What else?”
“We’ll maintain a good GPA,” Charlie said. “No failing classes, and we’ll do our best to help each other if we need it.”
Even though I was a little surprised by the direction he was taking the contract, I added the suggestions. Charlie’s idea gave me one, too. “We’re friends, right?” The pair of them nodded. “Then I think we should have something about staying friends, no matter how hard things get. Not just with our band, but with life in general.”
“We’ll always be friends,” Charlie vowed. “Yeah, add it in there.”
Over the next half hour, we came up with a couple more items to add to the list—that we’d chip in if the band needed any money for expenses, and that we’d settle hard decisions by a majority vote—but for the most part its soul remained the same: we wanted the best for each other, would work to achieve it and help our friends, and we would stick together. The pan liner had more than enough room for us to sign by the time we finished, but Joey filled up most of it with a huge, looping signature.
“Sorry,” he said when I commented on it, “I wanted to show how much I agreed with the contract. I think…” He coughed into his hand. “Well, you guys are really good friends. Probably my only friends right now.”
“Me too,” I said, smiling. “And nothing could ever change that. Especially now that we have a contract.” They laughed, but I was being serious. Somehow having it all down on paper—even the paper of a pan liner—made the whole thing feel more real.
Charlie stood up. “So, now that we have a contract… What are we going to do to get better?”
I shrugged. “Practice. And maybe, figure out somewhere to play so that I can get used to singing in front of people before we have our first real gig.”
“That’s a good idea. Actually, I know a place.” Charlie chuckled, shaking his head as if he was enjoying being in on whatever it was he hadn’t shared with us yet. “But you aren’t gonna like it, Ash.”
“Why? Where?”
“At school.” He held up a hand to silence the protest that jumped to my lips. “If we bring our instruments and play in the cafeteria, we’ll have a guaranteed audience. I don’t think it’s against any school rules. There’s that one kid who brings his guitar in all the time.”
I grimaced, hardly able to imagine the field day Jessica would have if we did that. “But he only has an acoustic guitar. Where would we find power outlets?” I looked to Joey for help, but he seemed sold on the idea.
“I like it,” he said. “And if Jessica says anything, I’ll just tell her to shut up again.”
“Yeah, okay.” I wanted to say something about how Jessica wouldn’t care, how we’d be giving her more ammunition to torture me, most likely when I was away from my friends, but that was my own problem.