Five Flavors Of Dumb Part 11

Kallie peered around Finn. "No. I need to learn it."

"No, Kallie. You need to learn the guitar guitar."

I flashed back to the scene outside the radio station and decided I couldn't let things escalate. "Leave her alone, Tash. She's trying, okay?"

Tash pretended to stifle a laugh. "Like that'll help."

I was braced to continue our little spat, but Finn moved the piece of paper with the chord symbols in front of Tash, added a couple of his own, and signaled for her to play. Before she'd even had a chance to sound the first chord, Finn took her left hand and meticulously repositioned her fingers. It was a subtle gesture, but it changed the balance of power in a heartbeat. Suddenly Kallie was beaming at Finn like he was her own personal hero, while Tash stared straight ahead, struggling to work out how she'd been outmaneuvered by a freshman. A day earlier I'd have a.s.sumed it was just innocence or cluelessness on Finn's part, but now I knew it was nothing of the sort.

By the time five o'clock rolled around, Tash already seemed to have her guitar halfway into its case. I waved my hands to indicate that I had announcements, but she just ignored me, striding toward the door like I was invisible. I could have let it go, but instead I leaped up and cut her off.

"Guess you and your brother both have a crush on Kallie, huh?" she said, throwing a backward glance at the pair.

"She's getting better," I replied, quietly but firmly.

"Really? And how the h.e.l.l would you know?"

I felt the flash of anger that always accompanied jabs at my deafness. I wanted to tell her to get over herself, but instead I gripped her arm and pulled her into the practice room around the corner, where even more of the soundproofing seemed to have been sacrificed since my last visit with Josh.

"Why do you always do that?" I asked.

"What?"

"You know . . . those snarky remarks to p.i.s.s people off. Why do you want everyone to hate you?"

Tash rolled her eyes, snorted, and shifted her weight from one leg to the other, reenacting every well-worn stereotype of the girl who doesn't give a c.r.a.p. But undermining the whole ch.o.r.eographed routine was her face, flushed red and tense. The girl with rings in her nose, eyebrow, and lip stared at me like she'd never before been pierced so deeply, and I stared right back. I knew that today needed to be the day that everything changed. Today needed to be the day that she she blinked first, that blinked first, that she she stormed off in a gesture of defiance that was really just surrender in disguise. stormed off in a gesture of defiance that was really just surrender in disguise.

To my utter surprise, she did precisely that.

I felt exhausted as I returned to the cla.s.sroom, but grateful glances from Kallie and Ed told me they knew how important it had been for me to take a stand. Josh and Will had already taken off, although Josh had apparently thanked Ed for his contribution to the rehearsal. Truly, it was a day of firsts.

As Finn prolonged his private rehearsal with Kallie for one more minute-and indulged his first and last opportunity to brush fingers with the school's resident hottie-Ed traipsed over and sat in front of me, twirling his drumsticks.

"I can't say our rehearsals are completely warm and fuzzy just yet," he announced.

"No," I agreed. "Even our fans are turning on us."

"What? We have fans?"

I laughed. "Well, not the band. Someone wrote me me a private message on our Mys.p.a.ce page." a private message on our Mys.p.a.ce page."

Suddenly Kallie and Finn were looking at me too. "What did it say?" she asked.

Against my better judgment I pulled up the message on my laptop and read it to them, omitting the bit about me being a "money-grabber." Everyone was silent. "I don't know what it means," I admitted.

"I do," said Kallie as she put her guitar away. "It's an address. 171 Lake Washington Boulevard East is Kurt Cobain's house."

"I thought he was dead."

"He is. Which begs the question, why does your secret admirer want you to go see him?"

Ed sat down next to me and peered at the screen.

"Actually, the only question it begs is why I read this to you in the first place." I closed the laptop.

Kallie narrowed her eyes. "So that's it? You get a cryptic message from a secret admirer and you just drop it?"

"Yes, obviously. It could be from a serial killer."

Ed tapped his fingers against my laptop. "Whose username is an anagram of Baz Firkin?" he asked dubiously.

ZARKINFIB . . . BAZ FIRKIN. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it.

"Why would Baz want you to visit Kurt Cobain's house?" asked Kallie.

I thought back to our discussion in the studio. "He said he wanted me to get acquainted with the world of rock music. I guess this is all part of my education."

Kallie sidled up and took my arm. "Well, let's get educated, then." She smiled, like my explanation had been reason enough for her to buy in.

"I'll come too," said Ed.

I shook my head. "No way. I need to get home for dinner. Mom and Dad will be p.i.s.sed if I'm late."

"I'll tell them you're busy," said Finn.

I was about to protest again. After all, I could think of at least another eighteen reasons why this was a dumb idea. But then I remembered Piper's Manifesto Piper's Manifesto, and realized that two of the people who'd spent the previous day chewing me out were being friendly to me again-really friendly, and I couldn't say no. Not even if it meant being late home.

Besides, it beat a Vaughan family dinner hands down.

CHAPTER 28.

I dropped Finn at home on our way to 171 Lake Washington Boulevard East. Kallie navigated, taking us on a snaking trail through the autumnal colors of the arboretum and on down toward Lake Washington. Flakes of cloud drifted above us, tinged by the setting sun. On the far side of the lake, the Cascade mountain range jutted through the evening haze.

Lake Washington Boulevard runs parallel to the lake but high above it, a street of large houses and austere fences. Kallie indicated that I should park across the street from a set of especially fortress-like wooden gates. There was no house number, but she seemed sure of the address.

We emptied out of the car and approached the gates cautiously. To the left, an elaborate security system deterred us from getting too close, and all I could see of the house itself were the curved, gabled edges of the rooftop. Ed stepped up to the security system and admired its complexity, while I wondered what on earth we were doing there. I was even more puzzled by Kallie being there with us, but as I glanced over at her, I couldn't help noticing how transfixed she seemed, like she couldn't be anywhere else in the world.

Kallie met my eyes. "There's a park next door," she said, pointing to a hill beside the house. "I think you should see it."

"How do you know about it?"

"My parents. They were big Nirvana fans back in the day. Saw some of their early performances. Mom used to brag about being the first African American to go grunge."

"What about your dad?"

"Well, he's not African American."

"Oh. So what exactly is grunge, anyway?"

Kallie folded her arms, c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "You know-the Seattle sound." She gave me a moment to express appropriate recognition, which of course didn't happen. "It was this musical style that started in the mid-eighties. Heavy guitars, angsty lyrics, generally hardcore. You've heard of Nirvana? Pearl Jam? Soundgarden?"

"Nirvana, yes. Not sure about the others."

Kallie's eyes grew super-wide. "Just for the record, I don't think anyone else should ever hear you say that, you being the manager of a rock band and all."

"Point taken," I said, and Kallie smiled.

The park was called Viretta Park, a small, gra.s.sy hillside surrounded by woods. We were alone as we traipsed up the hill, the gra.s.s lime green from the recent rain. Patches of clover shared the ground with a few stubborn dandelions, leftovers from a summer that was already a distant memory. And in the middle of the park was a Douglas fir, its trunk spray-painted with the letters "RIP."

Beside the tree, two benches had been subjected to the same treatment, every inch of the warm red wood covered in tributes to Kurt Cobain.

"So apart from Cobain, what made Nirvana special?" I asked finally.

Ed turned around. "They took indie rock mainstream."

"Which means?"

"They broke musical boundaries. Their music was only supposed to appeal to a niche audience. They weren't supposed to make it big. But somehow they ended up speaking for their generation in a way that bigger bands just couldn't seem to."

Kallie smiled. "And they had energy. They just . . . rocked."

I looked at Kurt Cobain's house, clearer from the park, and gawked at the size of the place. It was a beautiful house, too, with patterns in the red brick and latticed windows looking out over the lake and mountains. It must have been worth millions of dollars. Suddenly I wanted to get away, leave all that wasted wealth and misdirected adoration behind me.

"I'm sorry, but I just don't get it," I said. "All these people visit this park just because he lived next door?"

Kallie looked puzzled. "No. They come here because that's where he killed himself."

I waited for her to laugh, to cry gotcha gotcha, but she didn't. "What?" I mumbled. "How?"

"He shot himself," she said. "Didn't you know? He went alone to the greenhouse above the garage and shot himself."

I felt my breath catch, my eyes drawn back to the house magnetically. It looked the same as before, but somehow different too.

I took in the view again, the mountains fast disappearing, the inky black lake stretching into the distance, rimmed by amber streetlights on the other side. "But it's so beautiful here," I said.

Kallie and Ed stood silent, regarding me.

"It's just . . . how could you see such beauty and not find a reason to keep living?"

Kallie stepped forward and took my hand in hers. "He was depressed. He was addicted to heroin. And I think there comes a time when all the beauty in the world just isn't enough."

"But he had so many fans, so much money."

"It's not enough," said Kallie sadly. "I don't think anyone who's motivated by fans or money will ever get it."

"Get what?"

"Music. It's not about those things. It's about a feeling. It's about expressing yourself. It's about letting go."

I couldn't help but stare at Kallie, Dumb's weakest link-the one who couldn't play in time or in tune, whose superficiality had left me speechless for years. Did she really believe a word she'd said?

I sat down on one of the benches, stuffed my hands inside the sleeves of my fleece jacket. On the seat, to my left, someone named Tom D. from Minneapolis wanted Kurt to know that he was gone but not forgotten. Dakota and Phil from Sydney, Australia, told Kurt that he'd live forever. Someone had even left three daisies, wilted and withered now, but a touching gesture all the same.

Ed sat down too, but he didn't speak, just stayed with me as I studied the bench and our breaths condensed in the air. He seemed to know I needed to be quiet, but I was still grateful to feel him there beside me.

In phrases long and short, scrawled and carved, Kurt Cobain's apostles had composed eulogies to their fallen leader. And however much I wanted to dismiss the words as simple graffiti, I couldn't ignore the sentiment or the distances covered on the way to this place, the final destination on the Kurt Cobain pilgrimage. I could have been cynical, of course, but that would have been dishonest. Because the painful truth was that each and every person who had sat on that seat before me had experienced music in a purer, more visceral way than I could even begin to imagine. And I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't profoundly jealous of every single one of them.

CHAPTER 29.

Everyone stopped talking as soon as I walked into the dining room.

"Where have you been?" demanded Mom.

I hesitated. "Kurt Cobain's house."

"Yes, Finn told me that. I mean, what what were you doing at Kurt Cobain's house when you should have been here for dinner?" were you doing at Kurt Cobain's house when you should have been here for dinner?"

I was about to mention the e-mail from ZARKINFIB, but I could tell that Mom wouldn't consider that an acceptable explanation right now. "Kallie said it would be . . . illuminating."

Mom rolled her eyes. "Oh, great. So air-guitarist Kallie is also an air-head."

"I never called her an air-guitarist."

"No, Finn did. The airhead bit I worked out for myself."

"She's not an airhead."

"Oh, right. She just drags you off to the house of a suicidal rock star. Sounds like a shoo-in for Mensa."

Finn looked up suddenly. "Kallie is is smart, actually. And since you've never even been to Kurt Cobain's house, I don't see how you can call it a waste of time." smart, actually. And since you've never even been to Kurt Cobain's house, I don't see how you can call it a waste of time."

Silence. Mom was ready to have an argument with me, but Finn's vehemence surprised all of us. It was like he'd declared war, and she didn't care enough to continue fighting. Or perhaps it had nothing to do with Kallie or Cobain at all. Maybe she was still p.i.s.sed at me for last night.

"Look, Piper," she said tiredly, "I'm all for you indulging this project, but I'm not going to bend on our rules. You get home in time for dinner or you can forget about the band. Understand?"

I nodded, and Finn returned to studying his plate. He wouldn't meet my eyes until Mom and Dad left the table, and even then I could tell he was still shaken by his outburst.