Guitar Class

A Short Story by Ashley C. Cantave

Part 1

 

I met him in guitar class. He was a junior and I was a freshman. I first noticed him one day when all of us were seated in a circle of chairs and had to play a short solo. Actually, in that class, we were usually seated in a circle of chairs, but we didn’t usually have to play solos. That day we did.

Most of us played songs that were long-established standards for beginning musicians—I played a very slow, shortened version of “Minuet in G Major.” But he played a sample of a song he wrote.

The song itself wasn’t remarkable—a simple melody strummed with two chords. But the fact that he had the courage to play his own song in front of a room full of peers—that got my attention. From that moment on, I was hooked. I was hooked to William Wireson.

Guitar was the seventh of the eight classes I had every day. By third period, I was eagerly watching the clock to see when its hands would signal that it was time to see my crush again.

Most days, the clock’s hands were not as merciful as I would have liked them to be. Most days, they moved far too slowly, and the wait could be excruciating. But, without fail, they would eventually announce the moment I longed for every day. And when the bell rang to make the announcement official, my heart would race, pounding faster and faster with every step I took to the guitar room.

He was usually one of the last students to enter the room. I usually arrived a few seconds before him. I would have loved to get there sooner, giving myself more time to choose a practice guitar, find a seat, and prepare myself emotionally for his arrival. But the class I had before guitar was so far from the guitar room that I already had to power walk through the overly crowded hallways to get there even a few seconds before him.

When he finally entered and my eyes fell on him, I often forgot to breathe. My heart would be aflutter for the entire forty-five minutes of the period, and the effect of seeing him would linger for hours after the class ended.

It didn’t take long for me to learn Will’s routine. When he arrived, he would take one of the acoustic guitars next to the door and sit beside one of the two friends he had in that class. But if he was really late, he would take any empty seat he could find. Either way, because of our seating arrangement, it was easy for me to steal frequent glances at him until our class split up to do our daily practice.

After our teacher took attendance and gave us an assignment for the day, we would go off in groups of either two or three to practice. Only on Fridays would we have an abridged practice so we could rejoin the group before class ended and perform what we had been practicing, most often all members of the group playing at once.

But occasionally we would have solos. I always got nervous before my solos, and that was before I had a crush on Will. Now solos could be brutal, so I was grateful they didn’t happen often.

 *****

On one Monday, I arrived in guitar class about thirty seconds before the bell rang. Once I got settled, I watched the door for when Will would enter. About four other students trickled in as I stared and waited.

The instant his beautiful frame crossed the threshold, my eyes were glued to him. I watched him, mesmerized, as he chose a guitar then took a seat—right beside me. I was stunned. I had been so absorbed in watching him, I didn’t realize until he was seated that he was actually sitting right next to me.

That seat had been the last empty one. By some miracle, I was sitting right next to William Wireson. My heart was pounding like crazy, and it took all my strength not to stare at him the entire time our teacher explained what our assignment was. I only half heard her say that we would have to practice “Ode to Joy” for Friday’s performance.

And then the teacher did something she didn’t usually do. Usually, she let us pick our own group mates, and I would partner with one or more of the other female freshmen in our class. But today, to shuffle our groups, she decided every other student would partner with the person sitting to their right. I was one of the students chosen to partner with the person on my right. Will was on my right. That meant Will and I were partners.

I strove to hide the intensity of the flutter in my stomach as I turned to my partner.

I loved calling him that. Partner.

But I’ll admit, I was somewhat reluctant to look at him, afraid I would see traces of disappointment on his face. I knew I was less than nothing to him, and I knew he would prefer to practice with his friends.

But when I looked at him, I didn’t see any disappointment. He seemed indifferent, if anything. Though I would have much preferred to see thrill on his face or at least a modest joy, I would take indifference. Indifference was better than disappointment.

“So, I guess we’re partners,” Will said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said as nonchalantly as I could.

“So…we should go practice.”

“Yeah, we should.”

“Where do you want to practice?” he wondered. I thought that was somewhat gentlemanly of him. He could have just chosen our practice location without consulting me. Instead, he asked for my opinion. That was nice.

In our guitar class, there were six practice rooms where groups could rehearse in private. But other groups preferred to stay in the main room to practice, while still others sat in the hallway just outside.

I didn’t think I could stand the intensity of being alone in a practice room with him and it was too loud in the main room for me to focus on rehearsal. The hallway outside was the best option.

“We can go out in the hallway,” I suggested.

“Ok,” he said.

We grabbed our guitars and headed outside. I always found it refreshing to be in the school hallways when they were empty. They seemed like such a different place than when I was trying to weave between the thousands of other students there and avoid being stepped on or sideswiped by tall seniors and football players.

And it was especially nice to be alone in a hallway with Will—well, almost alone. One other group had decided to practice in the hallway as well. But they were seated far enough away that I barely noticed them.

Will and I sat beside each other on the floor and placed our guitars on our laps. We put our songbooks on the floor in front of us. Before beginning, I did what I always did when learning a new song. I wrote the letter names of the music notes on the page so they would be easier for me to play. As I wrote, Will started playing the song.

I looked at him. “Wow, that’s cool that you can play without writing out the notes,” I said, feeling somehow that I had just given him a lame compliment.

“It’s no big deal,” he said. “I used to play the oboe when I was younger, so I know how to read music.”

“That’s still really cool,” I said.

He shrugged and kept playing as I wrote out the notes. When I finished, I put my pen down and got into position to play, waiting for him to stop. But after he had played a good portion of the song, he switched to something else.

I didn’t recognize the tune, but I felt like I was in paradise as he played it for me. Actually, I could sense that he wasn’t really playing it for me. He was playing it for himself. But I imagined he was playing it for me, and that was enough to make me feel I was melting with every chord he strummed.

He ended the song on a G chord. I was happy to note that I recognized it. And after he finished, he looked back down at the book.

“I guess we should get back to practicing,” he said.

“That was really nice,” I said. “What you just played.”

“Thanks. I wrote it.”

“You did?” He nodded. “That’s so cool. And that reminds me, I never got to tell you how amazing I thought it was when you played one of your own songs for your solo.”

He shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

“It is to me. I don’t know if I could ever write a song, let alone play it in front of other people.”

“I guess I better get used to it,” he said.

“Why? Are you in a band or something?”

He nodded. “Yeah, me and three other guys. We were all supposed to be in this guitar class together so we could use the practice time to rehearse for gigs, but the third guy had a schedule conflict.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “Anyway, he’s the drummer. So, I don’t know how much it would have helped for him to be banging his pencils on a notebook.”

“It still would have been better than nothing, I imagine.”

“Yeah,” he said, mindlessly fingerpicking another melody. “What I really wish is if we could find a good sound guy to help us set up our shows. Then we could play pretty much anywhere.”

I didn’t know where the idea came from, but suddenly I found myself saying, “I happen to know a sound guy. Well, sound girl, actually.”

He stopped playing and looked at me. “Really? Who?”

I swallowed and forced myself to speak, though it was hard with his gorgeous brown eyes staring directly at me for the first time. And his short brown hair framed his face in such a way that made those eyes seem even more penetrating. “Um, me.”

“You? Really?”

“Yeah, me. I know how to do sound stuff. I could help you out if you want.”

“Oh, man, that would be great. What’s your name?”

“I’m Parker.”

“Parker. Ok. I’m Will.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“You too,” he said. “So, hey, when we go back inside, we should exchange numbers so we can keep in touch.”

“That would be great,” I said, struggling to stifle the excitement bubbling inside me.

Oh my gosh, I was going to have my crush’s name and number in my cell phone. And I won’t bore you by telling you how many times I had practiced putting his name and number in just in case an opportunity like this presented itself. All I’ll say is, when it really happened, the whole thing felt surreal.

After I floated through the rest of the day and managed to somehow get myself home despite the immense daze I was in, I sat down in front of my computer and googled “how to set up the sound system for a concert.”

***** 

Every day after school now, in addition to doing my homework, I would research the setup for a PA system. (Did you know that PA stands for “public address”? I didn’t.) I learned what equipment was needed, how to connect it, where to place speakers to avoid feedback, what an XLR cable was, and how to balance sound levels with a mixer.

Will and his band had some of the equipment already, and I asked my parents to buy what they didn’t have by convincing them I planned to work on PA systems as a new hobby. It was definitely possible that it would become a new hobby if I got good at it, but for now, I had only two reasons for needing that equipment—to help Will and spend as much time with him as possible.

Now in guitar class, sometimes Will would purposefully partner with me to discuss sound stuff and upcoming gigs. Even if we weren’t discussing the most romantic of topics, it was still the most beautiful music to me to hear him speaking to me—to have him acknowledge my existence at all.

I still remember the first time he called me. I saw his name flash on my phone and I trembled. Until that day, only my closest female friends had ever called me on my cell phone.

On the rare occasion that a boy called me, it was usually on my house phone because that was the number in the school directory, and only because he needed help with his homework. To see Will’s name flash on my phone—knowing he wasn’t calling for a school-related reason—that sent chills through every fiber of my being.

I almost didn’t answer the phone so I could prolong the moment, but I did answer it.

“Hello?” I said breathlessly.

“Hey, Parker,” he said.

“Hi, Will.”

“The guys and I were thinking that you should come to one of our rehearsals to get a feel for our sound.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“Cool. Are you free this Saturday at three?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

“Ok. We rehearse at Rick’s sister’s dance studio.” (Rick was one of the guys in our guitar class.) “I’ll text you the address.”

“Ok, sounds good,” I said.

“Ok. See you then,” he said.

“See you.”

He hung up. I stared at the phone. William Wireson had just called me. I had just talked to William Wireson on the phone. And I was going to see him outside school for the first time. And on some level, he was actually looking forward to it. Excited wasn’t a strong enough word to describe how I felt, but I couldn’t think of a better word.

When I entered the dance studio that Saturday, I saw that the four band members had positioned themselves and their instruments near the double ballet barre so they could face the giant mirror across from it. It seemed they wanted to watch how they looked as they performed. Meanwhile, I would be responsible for how they sounded.

“Hey, guys, this the PA girl I was telling you about,” Will said when he saw me. I felt myself grow warm, and I was grateful that my brown skin didn’t easily show blush.

“Hey, PA girl,” Rick said as he tuned his electric guitar. The other two guys just glanced at me, then the bass player returned to tuning his bass while the drummer resumed setting up his set.

“Hey,” I said.

“So, yeah, we’re going to get started in a couple minutes,” Will said. “Just have a seat anywhere.”

“Ok.”

I sat in a corner of the room and waited for the rehearsal to begin. When it did, I was happy to note that the group sounded like a band. They were in tune, the drummer kept a steady rhythm the others followed, and they ended their songs at the same time—usually.

As for the music itself, it was…interesting. It definitely wasn’t anything I would pay to hear played live (except, of course, if it meant seeing Will). It was like a mix of pop and rock, but sometimes the bass player would play these unsettling notes or the two electric guitars would emit chords that, to my ears, were far from harmonious.

Plus, the lyrics were lackluster at best. Will sang in a way that made most of his words come out muffled, even with a microphone. The few I did hear didn’t make any sense, so I didn’t have a clue what most of the songs were about.

But I didn’t care. It was like living a dream to be given permission to sit and watch Will for two hours. I could have done that all day. And because I couldn’t make out most of the words he sang, I could imagine he was singing only love songs—and singing all of them for me.

After the rehearsal ended, Will looked at me and asked, “Well? What did you think?”

I took a moment to choose my words carefully. “Not bad.” That was all I could think to say.

Will read more into my “Not bad” than I had hoped he would. “You see, guys,” he said, “I told you we need to work on rhythm.”

“No, it’s not the rhythm,” I said. “It’s just…and, remember, this is just my opinion…but the bass player plays some weird notes sometimes and some of the chords don’t go so well together.” I paused. “But you all kept great rhythm. And, again, this is just one person’s opinion.”

The guys looked at each other. Then Will looked back at me. “Thanks for the feedback,” he said.

I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic, but I still felt obliged to say, “You’re welcome.”

“Tell you what,” Will said. “The guys and I are going to practice some more. Come back in two weeks and tell us what you think then. And bring your sound stuff so we can start working that out, too.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

I left that rehearsal feeling an uneasy mix of emotions. I was still euphoric after spending two hours watching Will serenade me, but I wasn’t sure if I should have been so honest about how his group sounded.

The thing is, I really wanted them to do well when they performed live, so I thought the best thing to do would be to tell them the truth gently. But part of me was afraid they wouldn’t want my help anymore after I gave them such honest feedback.

I was wrong, though. Will never called me or told me at school that I was uninvited from their rehearsal. And when I went to that rehearsal, I found the band’s sound much improved. I also discovered that I had a knack for setting up PA equipment.

It was amazing how much a mixer enhanced the band’s sound. Now that I could balance out Will’s voice with the other instruments, his words came out clearer—though, to be honest, I preferred listening to them when I couldn’t really hear what he was saying. Now the lyrics were more nonsensical than before, but I didn’t comment on that.

After a few more rehearsals with the PA equipment, Will’s group sounded not only like a real band but a professional one. Part of me felt they could also use a keyboardist, though, or maybe a computer program to help fill out their sound. But, again, I kept those comments to myself.

I felt I had said enough, and I didn’t want anything to deprive me of the opportunity to be around Will as often as possible—like constant criticism, for example. Though he still hadn’t shown even the faintest romantic interest in me, I thought that if we spent enough time together, eventually he would.

Copyright © 2021

(Not all the stories have two parts, but this one does. Click here to read Part 2. Or you can click here to read more stories.)

Last updated: February 4, 2022