Playing it Kale
CHAPTER ONE
Music has always been able to fix everything in my life, except my awkwardness.
I’m the kind of girl who will always say the wrong, most out of left field thing. The girl who will always, guaranteed, trip and fall flat on her face in the exact moment that everyone is looking. I’m the girl you always want to get away from as soon as possible cause you just don’t know what to say around me.
Maybe that comes from having parents who are scientists, and only seemed to have children to bless the world further with their brilliance by producing equally brilliant offspring. It could be that I was homeschooled and taught by overly-paid tutors. That I graduated “high school” when I was fourteen and held a bachelor degree by the time I was eighteen.
I don’t feel like I’m really that smart, but those kind of things just seem to come natural to me. Mom and Dad decided I should be a microbiologist, so that’s what they groomed me for. At the moment, I’m working as a lab assistant at Evergreen Micro in Seattle. I’m still in school, one semester from getting my Masters degree.
You’d think, hallelujah, the end of school is nigh.
But no. Then it’s just on to the PhD.
School is my life.
So maybe it’s a combination of all of this that makes me so weird and awkward and different from everyone. That makes it so I have a grand total of one close friend and only one kind of boyfriend in my past.
But it’s okay.
I’m Whitney Ford, and I’m happy with the person I am. I like being quirky and weird and different. Not everyone else likes it, and sometimes that kills me, but I don’t want to be any other way.
Because at the end of the day, I can go home to my apartment, pull out my guitar, and sing like no one can hear me.
“Please, Whitney,” Ming begs as we head to the parking lot. “You can’t imagine the humiliation this will cause me if I have to call and bag out on the day of their wedding.”
A cornered jackrabbit forms in my stomach at the mere thought of what she’s asking. “You know I can’t,” I say as the hot, late summer air envelops me as we walk out the doors of Evergreen Micro, fondly referred to as EM.
“It really wasn’t that bad last time,” she tries to argue. It’s weak; I can hear in her voice she isn’t even convincing herself.
“I turned fifty shades of green, Ming, not gray,” I say as I look over at her and raise an eyebrow. “I had to dash off the stage and puked on the move. That poor stagehand will never get the smell out of his shoes.”
“But that was a year ago,” she says as we weave between cars and head for the assistant parking lot. Clear at the back. “You’ve grown as an artist since then. Who knows, maybe this will be the night that you discover you’re over all that, there will be some kind of talent scout, or recording studio bigwig there, and you’ll get your big break!”
And burst into the music industry like never before seen, with half an album premiering on the radio, going platinum, and all that stardom.
Yeah. Freaking. Right.
“Ming, it just isn’t going to happen,” I say with a sigh as we get to our cars, parked right next to each other. “I just…can’t.”
And it makes me sick. And makes me feel like a chicken. And a horrible friend.
“Please, Whit,” she says with desperation and depression. “With Rachel sick, there is literally no one to fill in for lead vocal. Think of that poor bride, having her band back out for her wedding. Do you really want to crush her dreams and ruin her big day?”
Great. She’s laying the guilt on. One of those things I really can’t fight.
I can say no, up until the point that there’s guilt that I’m letting someone down. I have my parents to thank for that.
Ming must see it in my eyes, because there’s a twitch of a smile that forms in one corner of her mouth.
“I’ll give you my signed briefs…” she drags out in a sing-song.
And she’s found my kryptonite. She knows this is one of those few things that I cannot turn down.
“You’ll give them to me before the show tonight?” I ask with a squeak. Around the hard lump in my throat. Around the boulder in my stomach.
Ming raises her right hand. “I swear they will be in your hands as you walk on stage to sing your heart out.”
“Cause that’ll calm my nerves down, holding a pair of men’s briefs as I go to perform,” I say with a nervous laugh as I open the door to my tiny white truck.
Ming lets out an excited squeal, jumps up triumphantly, and wraps her arms around me in a tight embrace. “Thank you thank you thank you,” she says too loudly, right into my ear. She goes to plant a kiss on my cheek, which turns super awkward when I turn to look at her, and she plants it on the corner of my mouth.
Music has always been able to fix everything in my life, except my awkwardness.
I’m the kind of girl who will always say the wrong, most out of left field thing. The girl who will always, guaranteed, trip and fall flat on her face in the exact moment that everyone is looking. I’m the girl you always want to get away from as soon as possible cause you just don’t know what to say around me.
Maybe that comes from having parents who are scientists, and only seemed to have children to bless the world further with their brilliance by producing equally brilliant offspring. It could be that I was homeschooled and taught by overly-paid tutors. That I graduated “high school” when I was fourteen and held a bachelor degree by the time I was eighteen.
I don’t feel like I’m really that smart, but those kind of things just seem to come natural to me. Mom and Dad decided I should be a microbiologist, so that’s what they groomed me for. At the moment, I’m working as a lab assistant at Evergreen Micro in Seattle. I’m still in school, one semester from getting my Masters degree.
You’d think, hallelujah, the end of school is nigh.
But no. Then it’s just on to the PhD.
School is my life.
So maybe it’s a combination of all of this that makes me so weird and awkward and different from everyone. That makes it so I have a grand total of one close friend and only one kind of boyfriend in my past.
But it’s okay.
I’m Whitney Ford, and I’m happy with the person I am. I like being quirky and weird and different. Not everyone else likes it, and sometimes that kills me, but I don’t want to be any other way.
Because at the end of the day, I can go home to my apartment, pull out my guitar, and sing like no one can hear me.
“Please, Whitney,” Ming begs as we head to the parking lot. “You can’t imagine the humiliation this will cause me if I have to call and bag out on the day of their wedding.”
A cornered jackrabbit forms in my stomach at the mere thought of what she’s asking. “You know I can’t,” I say as the hot, late summer air envelops me as we walk out the doors of Evergreen Micro, fondly referred to as EM.
“It really wasn’t that bad last time,” she tries to argue. It’s weak; I can hear in her voice she isn’t even convincing herself.
“I turned fifty shades of green, Ming, not gray,” I say as I look over at her and raise an eyebrow. “I had to dash off the stage and puked on the move. That poor stagehand will never get the smell out of his shoes.”
“But that was a year ago,” she says as we weave between cars and head for the assistant parking lot. Clear at the back. “You’ve grown as an artist since then. Who knows, maybe this will be the night that you discover you’re over all that, there will be some kind of talent scout, or recording studio bigwig there, and you’ll get your big break!”
And burst into the music industry like never before seen, with half an album premiering on the radio, going platinum, and all that stardom.
Yeah. Freaking. Right.
“Ming, it just isn’t going to happen,” I say with a sigh as we get to our cars, parked right next to each other. “I just…can’t.”
And it makes me sick. And makes me feel like a chicken. And a horrible friend.
“Please, Whit,” she says with desperation and depression. “With Rachel sick, there is literally no one to fill in for lead vocal. Think of that poor bride, having her band back out for her wedding. Do you really want to crush her dreams and ruin her big day?”
Great. She’s laying the guilt on. One of those things I really can’t fight.
I can say no, up until the point that there’s guilt that I’m letting someone down. I have my parents to thank for that.
Ming must see it in my eyes, because there’s a twitch of a smile that forms in one corner of her mouth.
“I’ll give you my signed briefs…” she drags out in a sing-song.
And she’s found my kryptonite. She knows this is one of those few things that I cannot turn down.
“You’ll give them to me before the show tonight?” I ask with a squeak. Around the hard lump in my throat. Around the boulder in my stomach.
Ming raises her right hand. “I swear they will be in your hands as you walk on stage to sing your heart out.”
“Cause that’ll calm my nerves down, holding a pair of men’s briefs as I go to perform,” I say with a nervous laugh as I open the door to my tiny white truck.
Ming lets out an excited squeal, jumps up triumphantly, and wraps her arms around me in a tight embrace. “Thank you thank you thank you,” she says too loudly, right into my ear. She goes to plant a kiss on my cheek, which turns super awkward when I turn to look at her, and she plants it on the corner of my mouth.