47
Sasha
At the Channel, Heather Erin taught me to never pause when I was asked a question in an interview. Not for a moment. She told me to treat it like being onstage. Start right in answering, talking, playing the next song, interacting, laughing. Fill the space even if you don’t know what you’re going to say.
Otherwise the pause becomes the first response. The pause means something. Don’t show you’re thinking. Don’t show you’re taken aback. Don’t let the energy drop. The immediacy will make people believe you’re genuine. It will make you seem alive and engaged.
You’re fun fun fun, no one wants your consideration. No one cares what you have to consider. If you pause, that pause happens inside them too.
They snap out of the moment, and outside the moment, it’s just fear. That’s what Heather Erin said.
Then she laughed and started talking about something else. Her laugh is a foreign language to her, like she learned how to do it from watching TV.
When Lillian asks me to join the band, I stop dead.
I’m taken off guard, but I’m not silent for a lack of words. I know exactly what to say.
No.
No is absolutely what I should say. For a thousand reasons. For myself. For these dear people I’ve come to adore.
Normally, I might go with the ever-reliable pretend-you-don’t-know-they’re-serious. What? Really? No, surely not. Hahaha.
You can create a lot of space to think like this if there’s anything to think about and if the person asking you the question isn’t Lillian. Sometimes, when she’s joking, I can’t quite tell. But when she wants to be serious, there’s no doubting it. It’s locked in.
I should sit down. I’ve just stopped in my tracks, and even though it’s only been a half-second that means I’m only a half-second away from the pause becoming the answer, and to them it’s not a big question. It’s a why-not for a high school band. Something to give a shot. We’ll be queer and joyful and play at Initialism and know we belong in the world.
Only I don’t belong. Alexander Ash shouldn’t be here, and neither should Christensen.
I didn’t have to look up his name to confirm it. Quinn said Christensen used to be big in the music industry but moved home because his mom was dying. Once it clicked, it was obvious.
Back then he had buzzed hair and a gym-rat body instead of a beard. He was called Chris, lord among the Channel’s talent scouts. He was behind the scenes, only known in select circles, not in the album credits and not on the cover of magazines. He was a gatekeeper wh.
“discovered”
a Top 40’s worth of musicians. He fed the machine.
I know of him because he brought LucSee to the Channel, and years later, she opened for the entire North American and European legs of an Admirer tour. She must have been one of the last people he scouted before leaving the Channel and opening Initialism.
Here, I haven’t heard anyone talk about him having connections they could use. He runs Initialism and gives a lot of young queer people a safe place to see music and a safe stage to play on. That seems to be all. Even Cyprus hasn’t said anything about him knowing people.
But still, I don’t trust him. The Channel is always hungry. Maybe he watches some of these musicians and thinks now is the moment for the Channel to elevate someone queer to show that they can keep up with the times. Now that there’s money in it.
Maybe he considers turning me in as a way to get back into the business.
As Sasha Weaver, I fear he’ll make me back into Alexander Ash.
Though the longer I’m Sasha, the more I realize this is who I’ve always been. Alexander Ash was the part and Sasha was the actor. Despite all the pain, I don’t think I’d trade my life story away. The role was wrong. But I love the lights too much, even though I only felt them on my face through a visor.
With all my heart, I want to plunge in. Goddamn recklessness and Lillian and Quinn looking hopeful and bright. The pause has stretched. I can see Lillian start to wonder. It’s so slight, a hint in her eyes. Her walls of confidence stay up.
“What do you say?”
she asks.
“We’ve got sex, drugs, and rock and roll.”
“We do?”
says Quinn. He turns to Cyprus.
“I know I’m personally a sex symbol, but are drugs part of Wavelength’s deal now?”
“We’ll add it to the talking points of the meeting.”
Cyprus is watching me very closely, in a different way than Lillian and Quinn. It’s more cautious even as she jokes.
“Maybe if we get an official sponsorship.”
They’ve given me the moment. As always, they’re more generous with their judgment of me than I expect. The world isn’t out to tear my every pause to shreds anymore.
I must believe this.
I sang in this city without my helmet on.
Christensen didn’t report me, no one else could have recognized me, Isabelle hasn’t texted me again.
As long as Augustus is on trial, the Channel doesn’t need me for Admirer.
For now, I can live freely here.
I must believe this.
“Well, so long as it’s corporately sponsored, I’m sure it isn’t dodgy,”
I say. I open my lawn chair and join the circle.
“That was my concern. Now that I know Wavelength isn’t a bad influence —”
“Rude,”
says Lillian.
“— I’m in.”
Whatever happens, Lillian’s face makes it worth it.
As the evening goes on, we make band plans and eat s’mores made with cookies. Lillian notices I’m cold and lets me wear her beanie and gloves. I’m not prepared for the weather, and I’m overwhelmed by what I’ve just committed to.
It’s not that I’ve got to learn and modify parts for an entire set of songs in the next few weeks.
After listening to some demos around the fire, I’m realizing just how good of a singer Emelia is.
I can do it technically, as in I can hit the notes, but can I hit them in the right way? With shadow in my voice and a fuller commitment than Admirer’s songs ever required? Though my voice will be clean and clear compared to Lillian’s no matter what I do.
In every aspect, I want to meet Lillian’s standard for being ready to perform, which is high enough that it’d impress the people I worked with at the Channel.
I’m overwhelmed to hope this could work.
I feel barely afloat and more excited for life than I’ve ever been.
“I started my first band with Cyprus when we were thirteen,”
says Lillian.
“Twelve,”
says Cyprus.
“Mechanical Heart,”
continues Lillian.
“We thought it was pretty edgy. I had a hair situation which I can only describe as substantial and wore my guitar far lower than anyone should ever wear their guitar. All remainders of that era are in a guarded vault in a secret location.”
Cyprus takes a nibble of cookie. She’s eating her way around the edge.
“That’d be my old laptop I spilled sangria on.”
“I was already doing their artwork,”
says Quinn.
“but I joined when Lillian started Wavelength. Her and Cyprus really needed someone to help them keep time. Then Lillian seduced Emelia to get her on board.”
Quinn beckons me from across the fire.
“And now, I’ve seduced you. It’s a vicious cycle.”
Lillian’s shifted to squatting by the fire, adjusting the logs with her bare hands.
“I mean, it wouldn’t not work,”
I say.
“You’re by far the hottest guy at school.”
Cyprus has her camera on Lillian.
“Jasper will be heartbroken to discover it’s not him. He seems so certain.”
“You’re … meh,”
says Quinn to me.
“Okay-ish, I guess. I’d hook up with you to save the band.”
He routinely tells me I’m a fifteen out of ten when I see him at school.
A log falls, showering Lillian’s arm with sparks. She swears and jumps back, waving her hand.
Cyprus pans with Lillian.
“To our legions of fans, this is how little Lillian cares about Wavelength. Do you remember Wavelength, Lillian? You need your fingers.”
“My line between badass and self-destruction is just really thin.”
Lillian takes a close look at her hand.
“I’m alright.”
“Well,”
says Cyprus.
“her body’s alright. Emotionally, she’s using humor to deflect attention away from real problems.”
“You’re posting this?”
asks Lillian.
“Some of it, probably. I’ll save the rest as unseen footage for the documentary I’ll make about us in forty years.”
“‘Her body’s alright’?”
repeats Lillian.
“Of everything she said, that’s the part you’re worried about?”
I use the fire poker that’s sitting right there to adjust the logs. I’m pretty invested in drawing more warmth from the fire.
“Aaaaaand, meeting our newest band member.”
Cyprus sweeps the camera over to me.
“This is Sasha, who’s going to be singing.”
“I can play tambourine too,”
I say. (That’s true.)
Then I remember why I thrive on this kind of attention, why I feel entirely familiar with it.
“Actually, can you not video me?”
Cyprus pockets her phone.
“Of course. Probably better if the news spreads in person first.”
She means Emelia, who I’ve never met. A peripheral ghost whose chair I’m in right now.
Later that night, when I’m sitting close to Lillian on her couch after Quinn and Cyprus have gone home, watching the pilot of Twin Peaks, that feeling flickers again.
Do I belong here? Is this ill-fated from the start?
But where I’m uncertain and afraid, tonight keeps obscuring it. Everything is campfire smoke and music plans and my head resting on Lillian’s lap. She touches my face like it’s absent-minded, and I have to work not to shiver.
I close my eyes.