“Do you know what’s going on with the—what are they called?—Fabulous Fruit Family?”

“Close enough. I heard they had a rehearsal the day after Ezra returned, and it was a disaster. Ezra and Sid want to totally change the vibe, get away from the country rock/Grateful Dead thing and more into primal thrash rock—like Iggy Pop, Velvet Underground, some band called Big Star,”

“I’ve never heard of any of them, but then I wouldn’t have, would I?”

“Probably not. The Velvet Underground is the only one I know. But you’ve heard ‘Walk on the Wild Side.’”

“That’s the Velvet Underground?”

“Well, Lou Reed. He was in the Velvet Underground.”

“Ezra and Sid want the band to sound like that? I hate that song.”

“Yeah, not my favorite. Anyway, Angelica said the rehearsal got so loud that Alma walked out; she couldn’t even hear herself sing.”

“What about Jenny? What does she say?”

“I haven’t talked to her, but I assume she felt the same way, because she quit, too. They’ve been doing all this jazzy stuff with Angelica, so Ezra and Sid’s new thing must have been a shock.”

“So now Lulu is singing with them?”

“How did you know?”

“I ran into her a couple days ago, and she told me about the gig tonight. She didn’t say anything about Alma and Jenny leaving the band, though.”

The waitress brings our dessert: chocolate cream pie for me, and apple pie à la mode for Sofía. The Brown Derby is quiet this afternoon—a lot of singletons at the counter and older couples apparently disinclined to engage in small talk. After our late lunch, we’ll walk up to the Westside to hear Angelica and her band open for the Fruit Stand Band at the DeLuxe. I haven’t talked to Jenny since our breakup a week ago, and I haven’t been to the DeLuxe since the December debacle, so I’m nervous about it, although I won’t have to worry about being underage. The DeLuxe has set up an outdoor stage in the empty lot behind the bar to cater to younger Evergreeners, and this is the first of their Under-Age Happy Hour shows: Saturday concerts starting at five in the afternoon.

Sofía and I have been hanging out a lot this week. Our attempt to play tunes from 84 Chorinhos Famosos last weekend was frustrating: she’s an expert sight-reader, so she sailed through the intricate melodies while I struggled to simply play the chord changes in time. We tried again on Thursday, and it was a little more successful, but without much recorded evidence of how choros are supposed to be played—what a rhythm guitar should do, for example—I felt out of my depth, bumbling and incompetent. After my ejection from Angelica’s band, I’m reluctant to spend more time with another style of music I can’t play.

Sofía, however, has become a welcome companion. Monday morning, she stopped by my dorm room to walk with me to book group, and after a couple of days of finding excuses to hang out together or accompany each other around campus, we’ve settled into an unspoken routine that begins when she comes by my room sometime in the morning and ends when I walk her back to her ASH apartment after dinner or an evening event, which this week included two movies and a reading by writer Kate Millet, as part of the Children of the Seventies gay culture festival. We often eat together. Meals at the dining hall are expensive if you’re not on the meal plan, but we’ve adopted a scheme in which Sofía pays for a salad, or a bowl of cereal at breakfast, and then helps herself to the food on my tray, which I happily overfill for her sake.

It’s a platonic relationship; there’s been no hint of any romantic interest from her, at least none that I can tell, but I’m happy with that. Not that she’s unattractive, but I’m still recovering from the breakup with Jenny, and Sofía either understands that or is not interested in me romantically. We talk about our lives before Evergreen and even a bit of politics: she was happy to hear my recounting of the Watergate affair, with commentary, since this has never been a topic of discussion among her college social circle or parents. And since we’ve seen many of the same movies in the last few years, we discuss those, too, though we don’t always agree (she finds Woody Allen annoying, for example).

We also like to make fun of what she calls “the greenery,” Evergreen’s various political and social dramas, which are tediously documented each week in the Cooper Point Journal. In the last few months, the Journal has become a forum for academic intrigue and upper-class outrage, with some exceptions. For example, we’ve just been reading a satirical article in the CPJ called “The Whole Dearth Catalogue,” a lampoon of next year’s guide to the Evergreen curriculum written by someone named Matt Groening, although I wonder if this is a pseudonym (“groaning”? “greening”?). There have been sporadic attempts at humor in the Journal before, but this is the first that is actually funny. It begins by juxtaposing a list of current Evergreen programs with next year’s “new-and-improved” versions. For example, American Music will evolve into How to Build a Dulcimer. There are also new programs such as A Year in the Dorms, in which “students will live, eat, and sleep in the Evergreen dormitories, studying the other inhabitants in an attempt to explain their peculiar lifestyles.” In the new program Rhythm, Recipes, and Revolution, students “will concentrate on Country Music of the Mid-Sixties, Organic Home Economics, and Left-Wing Political Science” and “will be expected to sell their stereos and send the money to Chilean revolutionaries.” My favorite line is, “there will be instruction on cowbells, hand-jive, and celery.” Walt, Sally, and Liam have been trying to get a group study program called Old-Time Country Music approved for next year, with Mr. Emerson as faculty adviser, and I wonder if Groening was privy to some behind-the-scenes curriculum planning.

“Do you know what you’re going to do next year?” Sofía asks.

“No, although Walt and Sally told me I’ll have a spot in the country music thing if it gets approved.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“I don’t know. I could still play music with them even if I was in another program. It feels a little weird to pay to study old-time music. There I go sounding like my dad. Why, what are you’re thinking about?”

“I thought about Images of Women in Twentieth Century Art and Literature, but I saw the reading list, and the authors are all white, oddly, and not just women.”

“I was considering Two Cities of Destiny: Renaissance Florence and Elizabethan London. Immersing myself in history for a year seemed like it would be a nice change, but studying sixteenth-century England and Italy all year seems like some kind of regression in time, escapism, which might be good for me, or not, I don’t know. Is there anything else you’re interested in?”

“I’m thinking about the Xequiquel program.”

“That’s where you go to Guatemala for the year?”

“Not for a year, just spring quarter.”

“That’d be an adventure.”

“It would, and I’d like to improve my Spanish.”

“I thought you were fluent?”

“Not really. When we moved here, my parents insisted we speak English around the house as much as possible. I still remember a lot, but I don’t know if I could have a serious conversation in Spanish. I’ve thought about going to live in South America after I graduate, not Chile, although maybe eventually, but somewhere like Colombia or Peru, maybe teach music or English.”

“I don’t know anything about Guatemala. Is there any kind of musical or literary tradition there? What would you study, other than the language?”

“I think it would be more about history and culture. It starts with the Mayan civilization, and then, well, I’m not sure. One problem is that, for winter quarter, there’s a Spanish-language immersion thing where all the students live together. I like the immersion idea, but I want to have some say about who I’m living with. I had a bit of a disaster with my first-year roommates. It’s funny, the thought of living with strangers in Guatemala for a few months doesn’t bother me, but sharing a kitchen and bathroom with random ’greeners does.”

“I hear you. I’ve been talking to Eric about getting an ASH apartment next year. A friend of his from Eugene is transferring to Evergreen, and they’re looking for a third roommate. Anyway, I’m going to have to look at the catalog again. The only music program is Interplay: Music, Art, Theater, and Dance, which is supposedly designed for students ‘with an inclination toward experimental work.’ I don’t think that’s me anymore, if it ever was, at least not until I get better at non-experimental music.”

“I think you made the right choice.”

“What do you mean, what choice?” Angelica says. She’s just finished her set and we’re watching the Fruit Stand Band set up. Sofía has gone to get something to drink from the outdoor bar.

“Replacing me with Andrew. He locks right in with Gabe and Charlie, and putting Alma on electric piano, that’s a great sound.”

“That’s sweet of you to say. Who are you here with? Walt? Sally?”

“No, the Slugs had some kind of street-fair gig up in Seattle. I came with Sofía.”

“Nice. I like her. But don’t let Jenny see you. She’s had a bad day, a bad week, really.”

I follow Angelica’s gaze to the stage, where Jenny is talking to Ezra as he sets up his gear. She doesn’t look happy. Ezra appears oblivious to whatever she’s saying, leaning down to adjust his amp while she talks to his back.

“Why would Jenny care? She broke up with me. And nothing’s happening with Sofía and me anyway.”

“Maybe not, or maybe not yet. But Jenny won’t know that. And Ezra’s being a raging dick to her. He insisted she sing on a few songs tonight even though she quit the band. You know that, right?”

“You told me.”

“Right, well, he’s saying he wouldn’t have come back from Mexico if he’d known she was going to quit—typical male control-freak BS.”

“I assume he’s not pulling the same thing on Alma.”

“No, Alma wouldn’t stand for it. Besides, she probably saw it coming. Sid hasn’t been shy about what he’s into, and Alma knew he was in touch with Ezra. But I don’t think Jenny did, or she didn’t pay attention.”

“How would she know? He’s been in Mexico for the last four months.”

“He wrote her every week. He says she knew they wanted to change the sound of the band.”

“He wrote that often? She never mentioned it.”

“Well, she wouldn’t, would she? Hey Sofía, thanks for coming.” Sofía has returned with Cokes for the two of us.

“You were wonderful. Your voices are heavenly,” she says.

“Thanks.” Angelica looks back at the stage and says, “I should go rescue Jenny. Are you going to stay for the Fruits’ set?”

“I think so,” I say.

“Hey girlfriend,” Angelica says to Lulu, who has just walked up to us.

“What it is, sweetums. Way to go. You kids rocked.”

“Thanks, good luck and have fun,” Angelica says and then turns and walks toward the stage.

“I can’t wait to hear the new band,” I say to Lulu.

“Well, kiddo, I just hope we don’t suck. Or at least that we suck with passion, right?”

She leans over to Sofía and gives her a kiss on the lips. She appears to be quite high. Sofía seems taken aback, but doesn’t move away or say anything. Lulu laughs and skips away toward the stage, waving a conductor’s baton over her head. She’s wearing a black, sleeveless t-shirt with no bra underneath; a short, green-and-white cheerleader’s skirt; torn, black stockings that come up to the middle of her thigh; and her usual pink-and-green hightops. As she takes the stage, she flips her skirt up behind her, revealing that she’s not wearing underwear. Sofía looks at me, grinning, her eyes wide. We laugh and she collapses against me, her chest heaving against mine. A shriek of feedback from the stage propels her away from me and she backs right into Jenny.

“Oh, sorry.”

“That’s OK,” Jenny says. “So, what did you think?”

“The band is great,” I reply, realizing too late that Jenny may have been addressing Sofía. But neither seem to notice or care. “I like the new songs. And I’m glad you get to sing lead on a couple. It’s no longer just Angelica’s backup band.”

“Yeah, we’re thinking about a new name: Angelica’s Angels, or the Angel Band, or something. Anyway, I have to go get ready.”

She removes a ball of cotton from her pocket and pulls it apart, placing half of the ball in one ear and half in the other.

“What’s that for?” Sofía asks.

“My hearing. The band has gotten so loud. I had a horrible headache after our last rehearsal. This won’t help with the headache, but it might save my ears.”

“Wow,” Sofía says to me as Jenny walks away. “Do you think we’re ready for this?”

“We can always leave if we don’t like it.”

A discordant wheeze bursts from the speaker. I look at the stage and see Lulu seated in front of the electric piano that Alma had been playing in the first set. She has a full-size accordion in her arms and is opening and closing it with no discernible beat, moving her fingers slowly and randomly from key to key. As she does so, her elbows crash down onto the piano keyboard, which sounds like it’s hooked up to an overdriven guitar amplifier. Charlie’s arms whirl around his drum kit spasmodically, hitting as many things as he can in the shortest amount of time possible and then stopping abruptly, before resuming his percussive flailing seconds later. This continues for no more than a minute, but I wish I had asked Jenny if she had any more cotton balls. Lulu and Charlie cease the onslaught as if on cue and Sid begins playing a low, throbbing distorted bass drone. This could be a sign that a song is about to emerge, but it goes on for far too long. Lulu sheds her accordion and begins fiddling with some tubes attached to her wrists. As she struts to center stage, I see that she has attached a vocal microphone to each wrist. She yodels into one and growls into the other, then slams both into Charlie’s cymbals. The sound is excruciating, and I think of suggesting to Sofía that we leave before we permanently damage our hearing, but I doubt she would be able to hear me. Lulu leaps into the air and when she lands, the band launches into a conventional mid-tempo rock ’n’ roll groove. Ezra ambles to the middle of the stage, strumming the Starfire I had played in Angelica’s band, and starts singing.

The song sounds familiar. Sofía looks at me quizzically and mouths, “I know this.” Then suddenly the band stops, except for a pulse from the drums, and the title of the song is revealed by Ezra’s whispered chorus, harmonized by Lulu and Sid: “I Think We’re Alone Now.” After the chorus, the band kicks back in, Ezra, Sid, and Charlie venomously attacking their instruments. Ezra and Sid jump straight up and down in time, as if on a trampoline, while Lulu prowls the stage, howling like a bandsaw and banging her mics on whatever she can, the audience cheering with each brutal blast. At one point, she sticks a mic under her skirt and pretends to hump it, until a peal of feedback becomes unbearable, even for her.

The rest of the set proceeds in a similar manner, bursts of almost unendurable noise framing melodic pop songs, some of which are familiar, some not; a couple of memorable refrains emerge from the din: “when my baby’s beside me” and “you can’t hide behind your makeup.” The band regularly punctuates its basic, furious groove with quiet moments. During one of these interludes Jenny strums a ukulele into her vocal mic (in general, Jenny only appears onstage when she has to harmonize on a chorus), and during another, Lulu plays what sounds like a Bach Invention on the electric piano. By the end of the set, I have to admit that, except for the ringing in my ears that began about halfway through the set and the pain now nesting immediately above my left temple, I almost enjoyed it. Lulu, Ezra, Sid, and Charlie are all good musicians and many of the songs were catchy.

Sofía and I instinctively move toward the back of the crowd as soon as the audience begins chanting for an encore. Behind the makeshift bar and Porta Potties at the side of the stage there’s an empty field, sheltered from the noise by a stand of trees, and when we get to a place quiet enough to talk, Sofía says, “I can see why Jenny and Alma quit. That was weird.”

“I wish they would have played at a normal volume. I might have enjoyed it,” I say.

“You’re kidding? You liked that?”

“I wouldn’t say I liked it, but I might have if I hadn’t been in pain.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t get past the volume, and the posturing, the robotic jumping around and Lulu’s whole schtick.”

“I guess I’d be bothered more by Lulu’s weird thing if it didn’t seem like exactly who she is.”

“I guess. Anyway, should we get going, or do you want to stay and talk to people?”

As Sofía says this, I see Jenny approach the bar. She’s carrying her ukulele and has put on her jacket, as if she’s on her way home. She must have been given a reprieve for the encore. I wave at her, she waves back, and after getting something to drink, walks over to us.

“Sorry you had to endure that,” she says, shaking her head.

“I would have liked it if it weren’t so loud,” I say.

“I don’t know how you can stand it,” Sofía says to Jenny. “Are you going to keep singing with them?”

Jenny looks at me for a second and then turns to Sofía. “I don’t know. Ezra wants me to. And yeah, like you, Lucas, I’d like it if it wasn’t for the volume. Plus, I’m not sure what to do when they’re all jumping around and Lulu is . . . doing whatever that is.”

Angelica appears from between the trees, trailed by Sandy.

“I don’t understand why Ezra insists you sing with them if you don’t want to,” I say. “They have three good singers.”

“Maybe Ezra likes Jenny’s singing,” Angelica says, joining us and raising her eyes at me in her old “I can’t believe you said that” fashion. “Or maybe he’s on a power trip.”

Nobody responds to this, but Sandy says to Sofía, “Hey, I know you. Haven’t seen you at any Gay Alliance meetings lately. How are you?”

“I’m good,” Sofía says, neglecting to elaborate, or look at me.

“Are you going to the party at Willowberry?” Sandy asks me, friendlier than I’ve ever seen her.

Angelica elbows her, but I say, “No, I need to get home. I’ve got a bunch of work to do. I got up late and we went to the Brown Derby for lunch, so I haven’t done anything productive today.”

“How about you?” Sandy says to Sofía. “You up for a party?”

“I should get home, too,” she says.

“Too bad, I was going to offer you two a ride,” Sandy says, her eyes still on Sofía.

“There’s no hurry to get to the party,” Angelica says. “We could give them a ride up to school and then head over to Willowberry.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Sandy says.

“A ride would be great,” Sofía says. Jenny has been silent through this negotiation and now she gives me a wan smile. Sofía sees it.

“I’m in ASH, and you know where Lucas lives,” Sofía says, as if to dispel any notion that we might be a couple. Sandy heads off toward the parking lot, and after Angelica and Sofía say goodbye to Jenny, they follow. I linger momentarily, and Jenny touches my arm.

“It made me happy to see you here today. I know it can’t be easy. I’m glad to see you’ve got someone to hang out with, or . . . whatever.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it.”

I want to ask about Ezra: how she’s handling his return, if he’s harassing or pressuring her in any way, if they’re sleeping together. But I don’t. Instead, I say, “I should go. I wouldn’t put it past Sandy to drive off without me.”

Jenny laughs. “Yeah, go. I’ll see you around.” She leans over and kisses me on the cheek, then walks back toward the stage, where the sound crew is starting the teardown, a large crowd in front clustered around Lulu and Ezra.

“I didn’t know you were gay,” I whisper to Sofía.

“I’m not. Would it matter if I were?”

Sofía and I are in the back seat of Sandy’s car, the noise of which, along with Sandy and Angelica’s chatter in the front seat, masks our conversation.

“No, of course not. I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”

Sofía is silent for a few minutes and then says, “I haven’t had much luck with men. In high school, I was . . . nerdy, I guess—shy, awkward—and people made fun of my accent. And puberty was not kind to me. When I got to Evergreen, I thought maybe I was . . . you know, that I liked women, but that maybe my upbringing kept me from realizing it, or admitting it. But it turned out I didn’t . . . like women . . . you know, that way.” She takes my hand, staring straight ahead, as Sandy turns onto the Parkway.

When we drop Sofía off at ASH, she says to me quietly, “See you at the square dance, if not before,” looking into my eyes as if expecting a response.

“Good night,” I say, as she closes the car door.

Sandy and Angelica have been discussing the concert for most of the trip, dissecting its implications and possibilities, most of which I’ve tuned out, but as Sandy pulls into the dorm drop-off circle, I hear Angelica say, “Oh, yeah, they’re definitely fucking.” I don’t ask who she’s referring to, afraid that she’s talking about Jenny and Ezra, or maybe me and Sofía.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say as I get out of the car. “Enjoy the party.”

My dorm room is quiet; I’m the only one here. There isn’t really any work I need to do, but there’s no way I was going to the Willowberry party. I should practice; I haven’t played the guitar or fiddle at all today. But instead, I pick up the Dostoevsky book I’m reading, The Idiot. After ten minutes, I realize I haven’t retained anything I’ve read. The latest Cooper Point Journal is lying on the coffee table, so I pick it up and leaf through it. It includes a detailed schedule for the gay festival. Tonight, there’s a gay puppet theater and a concert by Lavender Power, a lesbian rock band. I page to the back to see what else is going on and see that the ASH coffeehouse is showing Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run in half an hour.

There’s a quiet knock on the door. I wonder who this could be. Most of my friends are otherwise occupied, but I open it to find Sofía, smiling.

“Oh, good, I was hoping you’d be here,” she says. “Do you want to go see the Saturday night movie?”

“I thought you didn’t like Woody Allen?”

“Actually, I didn’t even look to see what was playing, but I’d watch anything.”

“Do we have time to make popcorn?”

“Sure,” she says, closing the door behind her. “Oh, and um . . . My roommates won’t be home tonight. If you wanted, you could, uh, I don’t know . . . bring a toothbrush?”

NEXT: Chapter 24: May 25: Folklife