From there, the conversation had gone about how they all did, segueing from a somewhat civilized discussion to Eric performing a loud monologue that no one else could interrupt. I often left lunch feeling exhausted, and that day I’d almost fallen asleep in my ecology class afterward.
The band might have been nameless, but this didn’t prevent them from practicing, if the noise I heard as I walked up to the house was any indication. The music was coming from around the side of the house, so I followed it, coming upon an outbuilding that sat between a truck up on blocks and a large sedan with a sunken-in roof. Smaller than a garage, but bigger than a shed, it had two wooden doors that were open, revealing Mac at his drum set, Eric behind a microphone, and Ford, who was fiddling with an amplifier. In front of them was Layla, in a lawn chair. She was wearing sunglasses.
“Verdict?” she was saying as I came up behind her. “Too loud. Not good.”
Eric just looked at her. “Don’t feel the need to candy-coat, Chatham.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
“We’re supposed to be loud, though,” Ford said, unplugging something, then plugging it back in. “That’s part of the whole ethos, right? That this music was, in its original form, so highly controlled and conducted, even computerized. Making it raw and rough turns it on its head.”
Mac, drumsticks in hand, raised his eyebrows. “Dude,” he said. “You’ve been hanging out with Eric way too much.”
“On the contrary, I think someone is finally talking sense around here,” Eric said. “Now we just need to get our drummer on board with the message and we’ll be all set.”
“Forget your message,” Layla told him. “Concentrate on playing well.”
“Nobody asked you,” he said. “Don’t you have special ketchup to formulate or something?”
“Nope.” She sat back, crossing one leg over the other. “Right now, I have all the time in the world.”
“Lucky us,” Eric grumbled, turning back to the other guys. “Okay, let’s try ‘Prom Queen’ again, from the top.”
Mac counted to four, and then they began playing again, sounding a bit disjointed at first before gelling, somewhat, by the end of the first verse. Despite Layla’s ongoing commentary, I saw her tapping her foot as I came up beside her.
“Front-row seat, huh?”
“Hi!” She looked genuinely happy to see me. “Well, it’s hardly the real Logan Oxford. But at least we don’t have to go far. Here, let me get you a chair.”
“Oh,” I said. “You don’t . . .”
But she was already going into the shed, squeezing past Ford and his bass to retrieve a battered pink lawn chair patterned with palm trees. As she plunked it down in front of me, a couple of dead spiders fell off it. She ignored this, wiping it clean with her hands before presenting it to me. “Best seat in the house. Or this house.”
I sat. The band was still playing, although Eric had stopped singing and turned around, his back now to us. I said, “So this is where they practice?”
“Sometimes,” she replied, plopping back into her own seat. “There’s also Ford’s basement, but there’s always laundry going down there and Eric claims the smell of fabric softener gives him a headache.”
“Rock star problems.”
“Eric problems.” She sighed. “They’re like first world, but even more privileged.”
I looked at the man in question, who had now stopped playing altogether and was tuning his guitar, a frustrated look on his face. As Mac and Ford moved alone into the chorus, I realized they actually sounded better without him. Maybe this was why I said, “You’re tough on him.”
“Eric?” I nodded. “Yeah, I guess. But it’s from a good place, I swear. Before he met Mac and started coming around, he was such a freaking jerk. Just a total know-it-all blowhard. But the thing was . . . it wasn’t really his fault.”
“No?”
She shook her head. “His parents, they tried to have kids for, like, ever. All these fertility problems, miscarriages. They’d basically been told there was no way it was ever going to happen for them. So when his mom got pregnant without even trying, it was like . . . a miracle. And when Eric arrived, they treated him accordingly.”
“Like a miracle?”
“Like God’s gift. Which was what they thought he was.” She shifted in her seat. “The problem was when it became how he saw himself, and there was no one there to tell him otherwise. Then he met Mac.”
“And Mac did?”
“In his way,” she replied. “That’s the thing about my brother. He’s subtle, you know? And a good guy, a guy you want to like you.”
I cleared my throat, concerned I might be blushing.
“So he just told Eric that he didn’t have to try so hard. Win every discussion, talk louder than everyone else. That kind of thing. And Eric, to his credit, listened. Now he’s not so bad, although he has his lapses. And when he does, I feel it’s my duty to speak up. We all do.”
“For the common good,” I said.
“Well, it takes a village,” she replied. “Or a city, really, in his case. A big one. Many citizens.”
I laughed as there was a blast of feedback, followed by Eric shouting something. Layla winced. “Okay, I need a break. Let’s go get something to eat.”