Any Second by Kevin Emerson

Author:Kevin Emerson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2018-11-19T16:00:00+00:00

October 3

She stopped when she saw the splatter of blood on the milky-white snare drum head. The safe cocoon of sound died away around her. She’d asked to stay after rehearsal and play for a bit. Ms. Reid would be coming back from the office soon to lock up, but for a half hour it had just been Maya and the drums.

She’d been playing a tom-tom beat using paradiddles, fluid and alternating. Inspired by a show at the Vera Project on Saturday night. Dad took her, so lame to be there with your dad and yet also pretty cool of him. When was the last time they’d done anything like that?

Both her parents could tell she was down after the dance, and not just the hangover, which Mom went light on her about. They didn’t know she’d found Eli in the first place, never mind lost him again, but they did both notice how her phone kept buzzing. How she kept not looking at it. She knew who the messages were from.

Janice had started out apologetic:

Sorry we drank too much.

Didn’t like seeing those boys messing with you.

Lucas and Mateo were kind of boring. Maybe just bc you weren’t there.

To annoyed:

So this is how it’s going to be?

Are you with your tech friends?

You like that better than me?

They’ve helped you through the hardest time of your life?

To pissed:

What the fuck?

To frigid:

Whatever. I get it.

So when Dad had picked her up for dinner on Saturday and asked her what she felt like doing, she’d told him to just drop her off at the Vera Project. He and Kendall could go to dinner or whatever. But he’d surprised her: Can I come? And Kendall had been like, I’ll meet my friend. And then there they were, first watching a band called Powder Lips and then the Rusty Soles. Their excellent girl drummer had done this tom-tom beat that Maya had memorized. Dad tapping his foot, nodding. Maya now and then getting lost in the music.

Here in the band room, she’d turned off two of the three banks of lights and worked on that beat in the shadows. Sound and sweat, the Slinky-like compressing from polyrhythms to unisons, roar to growl, ferocious cymbal crashes. Eyes closed, humming melodies to herself that resonated through her skull and inside her earplugs.

She had an extra energy driving her today. Something in her back pocket. First, though, this bloody business on her knuckle.

She sucked the drop and dug into her bag for a tissue and a Band-Aid (four total today). She folded up the tissue, licked it, and wiped at the drum head. The blood mostly came off its rough surface, enough that you might mistake it for a coffee or soda spill.

She put on the Band-Aid and had just picked up her sticks again when she heard her phone buzz.

She gave her bag the side-eye, but instead reached into her back pocket. Her fingers tingled as she unfolded the blue paper. A piece of half-sized stationery with red lines.

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