“Okay.” He pops his eyebrows like he isn’t surprised I’m being difficult then straightens to his full height. “Let me get my keys. I’ll drive you. If you wanna hang out in the library until class, then I’ll stay with you.”
“I’m not going to the library. I’m going to check into my hotel.”
“What?” they all whine at roughly the same time.
“You can’t leave! We have all the drum majors under one roof!” Tim says.
Nate adds, “It was an accident! We swear, we’ll take better care of you at parties from now on. Don’t go!”
“I will not go into Shan’s room even once while you’re here,” Jake promises.
I would never ask Shannon to give up what sounds like a great sex life.
“You’re right. I don’t feel well. As much as I’m grateful you let me crash here, I don’t want to sleep on the floor all week. It’s no big deal. The secretary at the leasing company said my apartment should be ready by Sunday.”
“Take my bed again,” Jimmy offers. “You don’t have to sleep on the floor. Besides, that way, you can have full access to my room and do all kinds of things to get back at me.”
“I’m not going to get back at you, Jimmy.”
“Stop calling me Jimmy!” he yells, a little panicked before he calms himself. “You just need another day to bounce back, that’s all. You’ll feel fine by tomorrow. When you’re ready and plotting away, you’ll call me James again, and then everything will go back to normal.”
“I’m never going to call you James again.” I don’t want him thinking my behavior is just a front for another stupid competition. “There’s no more war. It’s over.”
He plasters his hands to his face, then he lowers them and pins me with a hard glare. “You don’t mean that. You said it yourself, the whole band gets weirded out without the war. They’ve been conditioned to expect it. We still have a week to go in the voting, and you wouldn’t do anything to hurt your chances.”
“I’m not going to do anything to hurt my chances.” I rise from my chair. “I’m not going to do anything to hurt any of our chances, but I’m not competing against anyone except myself. I’ll be the best drum major I can be, and you guys should do the same. If you want to play dirty against each other, I can’t stop you. But leave me out of it, okay?”
“We’re not going to play dirty,” Nate promises.
“A fair fight to the finish line,” Jake agrees.
“You hate to be left out,” Jimmy reminds me. “You love competition. Especially against me.”
“Not anymore. I was already done before I ever had a sip of that drink. I just didn’t get to tell you.” I cross the room and hoist my backpack onto my shoulder. “If you need someone to compete with, I know a guy.”
“Oh, we’re gonna get Jared back,” Tim promises. “Don’t you worry about that.”
Even though I’m changing my ways, after what Jared put me through? Yeah, I’d still like to see Karma get him somehow in some way. “Just don’t do anything stupid to get kicked out of band. I’ll see you guys tonight at practice.”
Jimmy takes a step forward. “Sophie, don’t go.”
I don’t pause, and I don’t look back.
Shannon knows I need the time to pull myself together.
I hear her being the best friend a girl could ever have as I make my way to the front door. “Let her go, Jim.”
“I can’t!” he shouts. “I’m running out of time! I can’t give her a whole week to get her head on straight again!”
I shake my head, which feels pretty straight as I head out into the chilly morning air. He’ll get used to the change. At the end of the week, one of us will be voted as head drum major, and then there won’t be anything to compete over. The ITK parties will continue as scheduled; he’ll find some more toys to play with and by then … everyone will be used to the new normal.
Chapter Seventeen
Someone actually put up a makeshift scoreboard in the band room. Judging by the tallies, Jimbo is in the lead by a slim margin over me. Poor Tim is in last place. And these aren’t even official votes being counted.
This is not good for band morale. We’re supposed to be a tight-knit family, not a bunch of warring politicians running smear campaigns and debating over stupid things that don’t even have any relevancy to the season. I get Dr. Kimball’s rationale for trying to instill in us a sense of responsibility and ownership over our band, but this isn’t the way to do it. And even though I agree there’s no place for hazing here, we still need something to bond over. Something that’s just for us and has no relation to the football team winning or losing every week.
The staff are holed up in their offices in meetings and prepping this week’s practice schedule. Bandies aren’t required to report for another hour, and I have nowhere else to be. So, I get comfortable and settle in to write a list of suggestions to take up with Dr. Kimball. I vaguely remember some of the ideas the saxophones had when we played cards at the party Saturday night.
I’m three pages into a list of what I think are great ideas when the other drum majors begin to arrive. We’re supposed to report a half hour early.
“What do you think about monthly band dinners?” I ask Tim.
As soon as he sees the scoreboard, his expression falls. This might be a good distraction and give him a sense that his input still matters.
He plops down in the chair beside me. “Like everyone meeting up at one of the dining halls to eat together once a month? Most of the sections do that already.”
“I know, which is why I think we should try to schedule them for the whole band and make it a bit different than the sectional dinners. I was talking with some of the saxes at the party, and not everyone thinks these drum major competitions are a good enough replacement for the rookie-initiation ritual.”
“Well, I agree with that,” Nate says as he joins us. “What we did at camp was just stupid. The bandies looked bored out of their minds for half of it.”
I point my pen at him. “The section leaders didn’t really have enough time to plan something better. Shannon said they’re already putting their heads together for next year, so hopefully, whatever they come up with will be more interactive for everyone.”
“Who cares about next year?” Jake plops his backpack down then collapses into a chair like he just ran a marathon. “We won’t even be here.”
“I care,” I admit. “Just because I’m a senior doesn’t mean I don’t have friends who won’t be graduating for several years. I’d like to leave them in a good place, if not better than when we were rookies.”
Tim shakes his head. “This is why you should be head drum major. You are a band geek to your very core.”
I hate that this stupid contest is making anyone feel badly about themselves. “We’re all band geeks to our very cores. Why else did you guys stay in band until senior year of college then audition for drum major at all?”