Story of My Life
As I struggled into the jacket of my band uniform, I accidentally knocked my instrument off the bus seat. The latches on the case broke, spilling my piccolo out onto the floor amid laughter from everyone who saw. As I reached down to retrieve it, a black-shod foot kicked it under my seat out of my reach. My protests were met with jeers and more laughter.
“Here, catch!” someone shouted, and I helplessly watched my picc go sailing through the air.
Fortunately, Emily Monahan, the trombone section leader and my only friend at Riverside High School, had quick reflexes and caught it before some idiot did – or didn’t. She wiped the dust off and gave it back to me, then put her stuff in the two-seater across the aisle and sat down beside me.
“Thanks,” I said. I raised the piccolo to my lips to play a scale and make sure it still worked... and a spider crawled out of the mouthpiece and into my face.
Let it be known that I am very afraid of spiders.
I cried out in panic and swatted the little eight-legged horror to the floor, nearly knocking my glasses off in the process. Emily stomped it flat.
The other band members, of course, found this hysterical.
I could feel my face turning red, and I slumped down in my seat, pulling my hat down over my eyes. Emily put her arm around my shoulder. “Don’t let them get to you, Daniel,” she said. “They’re just a bunch of blockheads.”
Actually, she used a much stronger word, not to mention some choice adjectives, but I won’t repeat them.
“A bunch of blockheads who give me no peace,” I moaned. “The instant someone found out I play the flute, I got branded ‘gay’ and they haven’t left me alone since. I’ve had enough! It’s not like I don’t get enough of it at the Farrels’.” Todd and Lisanne Farrel were my foster parents. I didn’t think of their house as my home; between them and their son Justin, they didn’t exactly make me feel welcome. Besides, I’d been handed around to so many different families since my real parents had died, I didn’t really feel like I had a home anymore.
Emily suddenly raised her voice, just a bit. “What you need, Daniel, is a girlfriend.” As I opened my mouth to ask where that had come from, someone stopped by our seat. I didn’t bother to look up.
“Excuse me. Is someone sitting here?” the person, a girl, asked Emily, pointing to the seat containing my friend’s bag and jacket.
Emily winked at me. “Actually, I am. But you can sit here next to Daniel.” She hopped across the aisle and gave me a thumbs-up behind the other girl’s back.
I didn’t meet her eyes as she sat down and the bus pulled out of the school parking lot. After a moment of slightly awkward silence, she introduced herself. “Hello. I’m Isis Gahlin.”
I looked up at her in surprise – she was actually speaking to me, of all people! – and was spellbound. She was gorgeous, her straight black hair nearly long enough for her to sit on, her cinnamon-sugar complexion flawless, and her deep brown eyes outlined dramatically but not gaudily in black. But what attracted me most was the compassion in those eyes, and the sincerity in her dazzling smile. “Um... hi,” I stammered. “I’m, uh, I’m Daniel Jackson. Um, how are you?” I mentally kicked myself for such a lame line.
Isis’s smile fell and she grimaced slightly. “Let’s just say it’s tough being sixteen.”
I’m afraid I laughed in her beautiful face. “Oh, you have no idea,” I said, the bitterness I kept bottled up and hidden away even from Emily finally exploding forth. Shocked at my own rudeness, I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to... I’m not usually... I mean...” Nothing sounded right.
She placed a hand on my shoulder, and a... a thrill, I guess you could call it, shivered down my spine and electrified my whole body. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. There was genuine concern written on her features. “I’m the one who should be apologizing.”
“For what?” I asked. “You have no way of knowing what...” I couldn’t seem to form a coherent sentence around her.
“I still feel bad,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I can tell by the tone of your voice that you have worse problems than an overcrowded schedule.”
I took off my glasses and rubbed the bridge of my nose, as I often did when I was especially stressed. It was a mannerism I’d picked up from my father. “You have a point,” I said softly, then, without even thinking, added, “and you’ve driven it straight through my heart.”
As soon as I realized what I had said, I looked away in horror. What was happening to me? Those words had burst forth before I’d even fully realized I felt that way.
Isis looked at me strangely. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean...” Looking into her eyes, I couldn’t summon the courage to tell her that I was falling for her, hard and fast. “I... don’t want to talk about it.”
She shrugged amiably. “Okay.” Changing the subject, she asked, “So... what instrument do you play?”
“Promise you won’t laugh?”
“Why would I laugh?”
I took a deep breath. “Piccolo,” I said softly. “And I’m a social outcast for it.”
Isis smiled, and I wanted to melt. “Most famous flutists are men, Daniel.”
“Try telling them that.”
She stared into my eyes, and I wanted to be looking anywhere else, but at the same time, I wished she would never look away. “If they’re going to judge you by the instrument you play, of all stupid things, then they’re a bunch of sexist idiots who can’t tell their brasses from their oboes.”
The bus pulled into Maywood High, and we disembarked laughing. Her sweet musical laughter washed away any lingering tension I had. I was more comfortable around Isis than I had ever been around any other girl besides Emily.
We chatted on the way to the field, and were just passing the equipment bus when I realized she wasn’t carrying an instrument. “I’ve told you what I play,” I said. “What about you?”
“Guess,” she called down as she disappeared into the back seats.
“Clarinet?” I shouted after her.
“Try again! Bigger!”
“Trumpet?”
“Bigger!”
“Euphonium?”
“Close, but think even bigger!” A tuba case appeared at the door, wheeled from behind by Isis. One wheel slipped over the first step, and the tuba slipped and started to tumble off the bus, dragging Isis after it. “Help!”
I tried to catch the heavy case, but it bounced off the second step and knocked me to the pavement. I was lucky it fell to the side and not on top of me.
Actually, Isis fell on top of me, one elbow digging painfully into my solar plexus. She jumped up and reached out to help me to my feet. “Oh, my God, Daniel, I’m so sorry!” she cried in dismay. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” I gasped weakly. As I regained my breath, I said, “My foster brother’s on the wrestling team. He practices his WWF moves on me. I’m used to it.”
We walked hand in hand to the field for the competition. I was impressed with the other bands’ field shows. One school played selections from Man of La Mancha, another did The Phantom of the Opera. Maywood did a Sesame Street show in honor of the band director’s newborn son. But the most outstanding group, in my opinion, was the Middletown High School Marching Mustangs. They played a Jekyll & Hyde field show, all the music arranged for marching band by one of their euphonium players. She’d written the drill, as well.
The Riverside Marching Eagles, however, blew everyone else out of the water, even Middletown. Our show was 1776: we played “Lees of Old Virginia”, “Yours, Yours, Yours”, “He Plays the Violin”, “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men”, and closed with a powerful rendition of “Is Anybody There?”. We marched off the field in perfect formation, triumphant. We won by a landslide, with Middletown coming in second.
There was a general air of celebration as we loaded the buses back up to return home. “That was so much fun!” Isis said breathlessly. “The other field shows were so cool! And did you see the girl in Middletown’s color guard with the flaming baton? She was amazing! Jekyll & Hyde has always been my favorite musical. I can’t believe a student arranged that stuff! She really knows what she’s doing.” She paused. “I’m sorry. I only talk this much when I’m really excited.”
I grinned. “That’s okay. I like to hear you talk.” I groaned as I took my seat and let my sore muscles relax. “Ow. Next time, remind me that I’m not faster than a speeding tuba,” I quipped.
“I’m really sorry about that.”
“I was just kidding. I would’ve hated to see your pretty face smeared all over the parking lot.”
Isis was silent for a moment, then, to my complete shock, took my face in her hands and kissed me full on the lips. After a moment, I found myself returning it. She pulled away and said softly, “I have to tell you something, Daniel.”
Here we go, I thought. This is the part where she tells me that today was just one big mistake.
Her hesitation made me sure of it. Then she leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Do you believe in love at first sight? I never did - until I met you.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I kissed her again instead.
Before she left for home, she said, “Meet me in the band room tomorrow morning before homeroom, and I’ll give you my phone number.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“Oh, right. Monday, then.”
“I’ll be there.”
Isis smiled. “’Bye, Daniel!” She blew me a kiss, and was gone.
My foster parents handed me off across the country that Sunday.
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