The parking lot at the school is mostly empty, everyone’s car parked along the curb closest to the band room. We’re one of the last people to arrive, and I feel bad because I know it’s my fault we’re late. Willow doesn’t seem to care, though; she steps out and walks a few lengths to Jess’s car, a small blue hatchback that he’s filling with drums and drum carriers.
“Ahhhh there she is,” he says when I slide next to Willow.
“Uh…yeah. Ta da…here I am,” I smile, not quite sure why he’s so happy to see me.
“So here’s the thing,” Jess starts, and I take a small step back on instinct. “You can’t really march with a xylophone, and Joe’s out of town for the weekend so we’re going to need someone to fill in on bass drum…how do you feel about playing bass?”
“I’ve never played drums in my entire life,” I say, shrugging. Before I can get my hands in my pockets, though, Jess is lifting a huge drum harness over my head. “Wait…did you hear me? No, not happening.”
“Yeah, actually, this is totally happening,” he says, resting the heavy metal over my shoulders and handing me two large mallets. “Lean forward and lock into the drum.”
“Jess, I don’t know how to do any of this,” I start to protest, but Willow is smirking behind him. She just heard me fly through one of the hardest pieces of classical composition—from memory—and the small quirk in her lip is her way of challenging me. I let out a heavy sigh, my breath blowing the stray strands of hair in front of my face. “Fine. Just tape the music to the drum.”
“Done,” Jess says, his mouth making a clicking sound when he winks at me. “Thanks, Kens. You’ll be great.”
I lift the heavy drum holster back over my shoulders and set it next to Jess’s car. “Bet this would totally piss your old man off,” Willow whispers in my ear. I smile at the drum, and then laugh lightly, my head tilting back. She’s right. Dean Worth would hate the very idea of this.
“Jess?” I holler out to him, catching him before he’s out of range. “Think I can get some bigger mallets?”
I swing one of them around, twirling it in my fingers for emphasis, and Jess’s body shirks with his laugh as he shakes his head. “I’ll see, Kens. For you? Anything,” he shouts.
I keep the mallets with me, and even though Jess wasn’t able to find any others, I manage to pound the drum loudly with the padded ones he’s given me. For a full mile, our small high school band winds down the dirt road through the orchard, families with strollers and dads with toddlers sitting on their shoulders lining either side. We play the school’s fight song seven times, and the crowd around us claps along the entire way.
As much as my father would hate this, my mom would love it, and I’m starting to feel guilty that I didn’t tell her about it. She’s working all night, but I think she would have taken the night off for a crack at a little campy high school fun with me.
By the time we march to the entrance, the families watching the parade have dispersed, and everyone’s crowded around an old barn-turned-ticket booth. I feel my shoulders relax the second Jess lifts the drum harness away from me.
“Not bad for a piano nerd,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, hugging myself so I can rub the sore spots on either of my shoulders. “You could probably talk me into doing that again sometime. You know…in a pinch.”
“You totally liked it,” Jess teases, and I smile because yes…yes I did. Reaching across me for Willow’s hand, Jess pulls her into his body, hugging her and leaving his arm slung over her shoulder while we walk to the end of the ticket-booth line.
Despite the complete lack of order, we buzz through the line quickly. At the main gate, we hand our tickets to an old man in overalls, who stuffs them into a dented coffee can. The simplicity of the entire thing amuses me, especially when I turn over my shoulder and watch the man trade his full can for an empty one, handing it to a little girl who takes it back up to the ticket booth to recycle the tickets again.
“We have to wait for Ryan,” Elise says, waving us over to join her at a small picnic table near the front of the festival. Until today, I went along with the hype for this event, not really understanding the strange adoration every other person seemed to have for it. But even I can’t deny the power of the smell being carried through the trees that surround us. It’s not apples, but something entirely…better. There’s a sweetness and a smokiness as well, and it makes my mouth water, craving the crunch of what in my mind must be the world’s most amazing crust and the tartness and sugary goo of apple-pie perfection.