18. Callum
18
CALLUM
“ W hat’s going on?” I asked, bursting into the elementary school auditorium. I caught sight of Liz standing up front, placing mouse ears onto a small boy’s head. There were boxes in front of her that seemed to be vomiting feather boas and sparkly vests.
“You made it!” Liz said as she spun to greet me. But she immediately caught sight of a long, brown piece of fabric that she pulled out of a bin. “I found the lion’s tail!” she cried out. A nearby parent shrieked and came to take it from her.
“Is everything alright?” I asked.
Children were milling about everywhere, and the room was a mess of noise and movement. A woman at the piano was struggling to review a song with a group of children while a parent was putting safari hats onto their heads. Liz and another mother were sorting through the boxes in front of them while two teenagers were on the auditorium’s stage erecting two-dimensional trees.
“It’s a mess,” Liz said. “There was a PTA meeting in here last night which meant we couldn’t install the set until now ! And the costumes didn’t arrive in time! They’re stuck in the mail somewhere, so we have to improvise!”
Liz held out her hands to the boxes of costumes in front of her, as if she wanted me to see how difficult it would be for her to salvage something from these plastic tubs. I smirked at her.
“What are you laughing at?” she asked. “This is serious stuff!”
“Oh, absolutely!” I said, feigning solemnity. “A summer camp play about the animal kingdom is not a laughing matter!”
“Make jokes!” Liz said, tossing a fuzzy sweatshirt at me that someone had painted cow spots onto. “But your niece will not be happy if this show is anything less than the Broadway production she’s imagining!”
“Alright, alright!” I said, holding up my hands. “I’m here to help.”
“Good,” Liz said. “No one can figure out how to set up the sound system.”
“And you think I know how?” I asked, giving her an incredulous look.
“You’re a musician!” she said. “You must know something about it!”
“I have people for that,” I said to her. “All I have to do is show up for mic check and plug in my guitar.”
Liz looked at me with exasperation as another group of children were ushered toward her. She smiled at them, eager not to show them any of the stress she was feeling.
“Are these our little bear cubs?” she asked, and the smallest campers nodded at her.
“Please, Callum,” she said, glancing over at me as she pulled brown baseball caps from the bottom of one of the bins. “Can you just try?”
I sighed at her.
“Fine. Let me look at it.”
“Thank you!” Liz said. She instantly turned back to the children in front of her as the piano began to plunk out a rousing number about a hungry tiger. I made my way to the back of the auditorium where an ancient-looking soundboard was sitting on a plastic table. I groaned as I noticed not a single cable was plugged into the board. Whoever tried to set this thing up had given up quickly.
I pulled out my phone and clicked to my YouTube app. When I needed to learn something quickly the site never failed me. But the last video I had searched was still there when I opened the app. It was the video of me playing my solo stuff. And it was up to 1.7 million views. I was about to quickly ignore it and type “Soundboard set up” into the search board, but my eye caught the comments section. I read:
Please make a solo album!
The comment surprised me. I thought most people were upset to think I might be abandoning the Horizon. But this person seemed interested in listening to my own work. I knew that a deeper dive into the comments section could only bring pain, but I couldn’t help myself. I read on, jumping over the nasty comments.
So good! Please do an acoustic album. We want more!
On the radio today he said he just played this for fun. Boo! I wish he was actually going to produce a solo album.
We need a petition for a Callum Jones solo album. Who’s ready to sign?
I blinked as I scrolled through, seeing more and more likes and positive comments. Were all these people actually interested in me breaking out on my own? Did they actually like my stuff? A slam of the door next to me made me jump, and I looked up to see Darcy striding through the door. I felt a sudden urge to look busy, and I quickly searched for the video of the soundboard set- up. But Darcy didn’t see me in the back of the room. I saw her head straight to Liz.
With new nerves as I realized Darcy was here too, I focused on solving the soundboard problem. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk to Darcy after this morning’s screaming match in her living room. And then there were my comments on the radio that I had no idea if she had heard. I decided to keep my head down until I could think things through.
The squeaky sound of children’s voices was driving me a little crazy in this echoey space. I didn’t have high hopes that amplification would make it sound any better, but Liz was counting on me to fix things. I followed along with the video tutorial and unpacked the cords and cables I needed to power up the board and connect it to the speakers that hung at various locations in the room. Next I set to work on microphones, and I was rewarded with a loud squeak that told me I had succeeded! But the sound caused everyone else in the room to cover their ears.
“Sorry! Sorry!” I cried out as I muted the microphone. Without thinking, I checked in with Liz at the front of the auditorium, and Darcy was staring back at me. My eyes caught hers as she helped a child put on a sparkly vest, but she quickly looked away.
So she didn’t hear , I thought. If Darcy was still avoiding me, then it probably meant she didn’t hear what I said on the radio. Either that or she wasn’t ready to accept my apology. I had a sudden urge to talk to her. I needed her to know I didn’t mean to hurt her with the offer. In fact, I thought it would help her. I was trying to show her how much I valued the place since she loved it so much. But how could I find a way to make her understand that?
One of the dads had wandered over to me and the soundboard, looking a little lost. I imagined he had been dragged along by his wife and now he wasn’t sure where to help.
“Want to give me a hand?” I asked. As I began to walk the guy through the soundboard and the set-up of additional handheld microphones, my eyes floated to the front. I saw Darcy walking onstage to line the kids up. Liz was looking at all of them together and Darcy was adding a hat or a boa wherever Liz instructed.
After a moment, I saw Darcy cross to the backstage area and I saw my opportunity to catch her alone for a moment.
“I’ll be right back,” I told the dad, whose name was Ian. “You’ll be alright?”
“Sure thing,” he said. It was exactly as I expected: He was thrilled to have a task instead of wandering around the room.
Once I knew Ian was comfortable, I took off toward the stage, dodging parents who were setting up folding chairs in neat rows. I pushed my way through the door that led backstage and climbed a few steps to get to stage level. Darcy was there, pinning a tail to the back of a child’s costume. When the kid ran back onstage, she turned to look and she caught me out of the corner of her eye.
“What are you doing?” she asked. She seemed jumpy, as if she didn’t know how to react to me.
“Can we talk?” I asked. “Just for a minute.”
“Liz needs me,” she said, but she didn’t make any attempt to move. I took it as a good sign and decided to continue. I might as well get out what I could before she decided to walk away.
“So, the offer,” I said, cutting right to the chase. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Darcy told me. “We have too much to do to get this show ready.”
“You don’t even have a kid here!” I laughed, and I saw Darcy crack a smile.
“Liz’s kids are like my kids,” she answered.
“Mine too,” I said. She turned to me then, looking at me properly for the first time in the conversation. “Look, if you don’t want me to buy the place then I won’t. I’ll withdraw the offer, no questions asked.”
“I’m going to help Liz,” she said. Darcy crossed onto the stage then and called out another group from the wings. She lined up the little butterflies and helped them put on their wings as Liz pointed to which kid should get which color.
I watched her for a moment, shaking my head as two of the kids started fighting over the blue pair of wings. While Darcy tried to be gentle with them, Liz interrupted the argument with a quick threat, telling them they wouldn’t get any wings if they didn’t calm down. I laughed, but Liz’s reprimand was effective, and they were able to continue. I left as the kids were given matching headbands with bouncing antennae on them.
The conversation with Darcy had been brief and inconclusive. She hadn’t said anything when I told her I would withdraw my offer on the hardware store. Was that a sign that she didn’t want me to? Or was she still too mad to talk to me about it? I shuffled back to the soundboard as I tried to interpret every brief interaction Darcy and I had.
At least she didn’t yell , I thought. That was certainly an improvement from this morning. And when I thought about it, I felt a softness from her that was a far cry from open hostility. So maybe she was willing to forgive me after all.
“You okay, man?” Ian asked as I joined him back behind the table.
“What would you do if you liked someone, so you put in an offer on her family property that’s way over the asking price, but then she gets upset you did it?”
“What?” Ian asked. He looked at me blankly, clearly overwhelmed by all the information I had just laid at his feet. The man had only just learned how to do sound. I guess it was too much to expect him to be a confidant when I had only just met him.
“Never mind,” I answered. I clicked the headphone jack into the laptop being used for sound and heard children’s music blast out through the speakers. The children cheered as they heard the familiar tracks they had worked with for the past week. I waved at them and gave them a mock bow amidst their clapping. When I rose from this bow, I looked across the room and saw Darcy staring back at me.