This Song Is (Not) for You Read Free Page A

Rain.” She’s doing this official voice now, kinda like the Artibus people but more friendly, and I can tell it’s a bit of a joke. “April and the Rain hasn’t quite found its sound yet,” she continues.
    “We love to experiment. We love tempo changes and polyrhythms. We need someone to do vocals and help us round out our sound. Your extensive knowledge of real music proves that you’re not a poseur. Noise could give us the avant-garde edge for which we’ve been searching. What do you say?” She folds her hands on the table and cocks her head to the side.
    “Why don’t you go to our website?” Sam says. His voice is so quiet that I barely hear it over the clatter of the diner. “And if you wanna jam sometime, you can let us know.”
    “Yeah. Cool,” I say. The waitress sets my drink and their chili fries down on the table. “So you guys both go to Saint Joseph’s Prep?”
    “Don’t remind us,” Ramona says. Sam nods.
    “Do you guys know a girl named Sara Miller?”
    “Yeah. But not really. She’s the class president,” Ramona says. Sam kinda nods.
    “I used to date her,” I say. They both look surprised.
    “Oh. She’s nice,” Ramona says. I can tell by her voice that this is all she has to say about Sara.
    “Yeah. I mean, we broke up a few months ago,” I say, but I’ve clearly killed the conversation for now. They eat their chili cheese fries off the same plate without any sort of awkwardness. Their elbows don’t bump, they don’t get in each other’s way, and they don’t seem concerned about one person getting more than their share. She said that they weren’t a couple. I realize that I’m staring. I take a sip of my soda.
    “So what’s your website?” I ask. As I expected, they’ve bought a domain, and it’s gonna be so easy to remember that I’m not even going to write it down. But then the Ramona girl pulls out her phone and asks for my number.
    “I’ll just send you the link right now,” she says. Sam keeps eating the fries without looking at us. This girl really wants to me join their band for some reason.
    “Yeah, okay,” I say.

Ramona
    “He called,” I say. I imagine Sam shrugging and switching his phone to his other ear. It’s late. He’s probably in his room like me, stretched out on his bed.
    “Okay, he called,” Sam says. “But we don’t know if he’s any good.”
    “He’s good,” I say. “I can tell.” And I just know it. Tom is what our band has been missing.
    “I guess we’ll find out,” Sam says.
    “Yeah. Tomorrow,” I say. “I gave him directions to your place already.”
    “We don’t practice on Tuesdays.”
    “We do when we’re auditioning a new band member.”
    Sam laughs and probably rolls his eyes.
    “Oh yeah,” he says. “How could I forget that?”
    • • •
    April and the Rain practices in Sam’s mother’s garage. Their house has a three-car garage, but since Sam’s dad left, there are only two cars, so we have lots of room. Griselda lives there. Griselda is my kit. Sam keeps all of his guitars in his room, and he just brings down whichever one or two he thinks he might want to play that day. His dad is the one who keeps buying the guitars.
    I bought Griselda from this girl at school who got it for her birthday and then lost interest in drumming. Griselda is six pieces of awesome in rainbow sparkles. Each drum is a different color, but like, the purple tom has a bunch of different splotches of purple glitter, and the blue bass is a bunch of different blues. It took so many bottles of glitter nail polish, but the result is worth it.
    Anyway.
    I’m practicing fills when Sam comes into the garage. He’s got the neck of his old Fender electric in one hand and his amp in the other. I hit the high hat dramatically.
    “I was thinking we should do something in five-four. Or maybe seven-eight.”
    “Yeah, maybe,” Sam says. “What time did he say he was gonna get here?”
    “Afternoon,” I say.
    “That’s not a