Marching season is out, but the competition is only heating up.
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Section leader applications for the next marching band season at Halston University are officially open, and percussionist Bay Rodriguez wants the role.
Bay's only competition is Ca...
verb. using quick drum strokes to produce a sustained sound.
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I CAN ADMIT WHEN I'M wrong about a person.
I try not to be wrong about people in the first place—by listening and being attentive to their words and behavior—but if I'm wrong, I can apologize and adjust.
Isabella Rodriguez? I have no idea whether I'm wrong about her or not. See, that requires knowing the truth of her, and being able to compare the truth with my perception, and I have no fucking idea who she really is, underneath it all. I listen to her speak. I watch her actions. And the aggregate sum of these clues is a mess of contradictions, a mosaic of every potential personality trait.
Is she extroverted or introverted? No idea; she hates people but she likes to party—but does she even like to party or does she attend out of a weird mix of conformity and curiosity? I watch her treat the other percussionists with such gentleness, such attention to detail, such unwavering motivation. Her energy doesn't fade the way mine or the rest of the drumline's does; she's our rock, hard and punishing as rocks are.
Three weeks into the semester, I have come to agree with Keller's decision to make us co-lead. Bay teaches me things I can't learn from anyone else. She challenges me, and she brings qualities to the band leadership I don't have. I kind of hope she thinks the same about co-leading with me, our personal feelings aside.
It's Tuesday, nearly midnight, one of those nights when I can't sleep again.
After marching band practice and dinner, I called Mom and Christian. He feels shy around his new classmates, he's so attuned to the way people look at him with sympathy and he hates it. I tell him that he has the next four years to meet people and make more friends.
"Don't worry about it," I comforted, "everything will turn out okay."
Then I did two hours' work on a coding assignment, and finally I give up trying to use schoolwork to lull me to sleep. I shrug on a hoodie and grab my skateboard from the porch. Earphones shoved in, skating playlist blasting, the asphalt blurs beneath my feet. While I skate around Halston, the campus yawns wide; still awake, but rolling over and falling asleep.
Lamps spotlight the empty streets, dropping cones of yellow in the air for moths and insects to fly into. The fall nighttime air is cold, and the whole time I only see three or four students wandering home from libraries or study spaces, feet shuffling wearily.
When I pass through the Quad and the Foxhole, I see a familiar silhouette walking alone. Her hair is bundled up in a textured mess at the crown of her head. She has an unbuttoned denim shirt over a simple t-shirt dress, and I can see the strap of her Foxhole apron hanging from her tote bag. When my skateboarding becomes audible, Bay glances over her shoulder. Looks back to the front. Double takes.
