The Gossamer Girls Go for Glory (sample)
It was Thanksgiving Eve and Jennifer Sunshine was stuck in the wrestling room. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” she muttered, allegretto, into her outdated phone, pressing her foot against the door as a useless formality. Holly picked up on the fourth ring. “Jen?” “I’m stuck. Come back.” “What?” “I’m fucking stuck. The door.” Holly didn’t seem to understand, but promised to hurry back anyway, and as Jen waited, she gave the door a final kick, and stuffed her last stray pages of sheet music back into her folder, and swore. The mat-padded walls of the dank, cheerless cave made for excellent acoustics; her curses sounded great. It was proof that she’d chosen the right spot for the Gossamer Girls’ temp rehearsal space. (The official school chorus had claimed the music room while the auditorium was getting torn apart.) Full minutes passed. “Jen, it’s me,” came Holly’s voice. “What’s the code again?” “Two-three-six-eight.” Four beeps, a fifth beep, and Holly flung open the door to reveal the region’s angriest a cappella captain. “Geez,” she mused. “They really lock down quick.” “I don’t see why,” Jen grumbled, storming out. “There’s nothing around here worth stealing.” A kindly custodian showed them out the side door. By this time it was dark, and ice-white lights lit their way as they tromped across the parking lot. “I bet you’re glad I’m home for break,” Holly said. “To let you out. How long were you cleaning up in there?” “I wasn’t cleaning,” mumbled Jen, clouds crossing her face. “Just… going over stuff for the season. You know how it is.” “Hey, I’m just relieved you weren’t yanking me back for last-minute scales,” Holly said. She scratched around her neck. “I guess I was… surprised you called me.” Jen smirked. “You’re an Atkins. First in my contacts.” (Jen was the only teenager she knew who sorted contacts last-name-first.) “I mean, aside from Michael Aaron who I did that physics project with. Who isn’t a Gossamer Girl.” A beat. “And also, he’s an asshole.” Holly’s freckles flinched. Her face was squirming. She was looking for the right way to phrase something, and seemed to think that scrunching up her cheeks might aid the search. “You can say it,” Jen added. “I guess… I still thought Cody’d be your first call.” Jen shook her head. “Anyway, her mom picked her up right after. They had to hit the road.” Holly tried again. “But you and Cody…” “She had to hit the road.” Holly tried again—again. “You’re still—?” Jen sighed. “We’re still.” Holly nodded and hugged her music tighter. Jen felt like doing that herself.
Jen’s last name was real and her mood rarely matched it. ‘Sunshine’ was a corruption of Sonnenschein, the surname of her ancestors who’d struck out from the motherland in search of a better life elsewhere. Their name hadn’t made it to her, but their restless spirit had. The Sonnenschein-Sunshine line had somehow wound up in South Stockbridge, Pennsylvania, with improvement of life in diminishing supply. A senior at James Garfield High, Jen was taking economics, which meant that in October she’d delivered a report on how manufacturing towns like South Stockbridge had gone, well, south, and never re-ascended. It wasn’t all doom and gloom. Mostly gloom alone. Her parents were okay; all the parents of the Gossamer Girls were okay. No one talked much about how to get beyond okay. Still, it could have been worse than South Stockbridge; if North Stockbridge had ever existed, she’d never seen it. She’d been captain of the Gossamer Girls (‘president’ struck her as a ghoulish title for a Garfield kid) since June of her sophomore year, and under her stewardship the school’s most beloved all-female a cappella group had made astounding strides in being ignored. A lot of it came down to mathematics: a modern competitive show choir needed more dollars and people alike than South Stockbridge could provide. Jen knew her town was dying; the group hadn’t boasted long lines of cheerful women since the days it was still called the Gossamerettes, and even if the numbers were there, the costs of competition—costumes, coaches, choreographers, car trips—were not, and never would be. It was not a tune that anyone could change. She’d submitted, in her essay for college admissions, that her hometown’s better days were the reason for the Gossamer Girls’ strict reliance on the music of the past, as a wistful salute. “The golden age of the girl groups is over,” she’d written. “But we keep their sound alive. For us, these are not just the songs that our parents and grandparents loved. They are gifts that connect us to the world that came before us, the promises of people who carried on through even tougher times, and faced uncertain futures with hope.” Deep down, she’d believed every word.
Monday, November 27th was their first rehearsal back. “All right, let’s wrestle,” chirped Amber McFayden, tossing her backpack across the room. A perky sophomore, raw-voiced but pleasantly loud, she was usually the first to show up, besides Jen. “What’s up, Sunshine.” “Our lease on this room, for one thing,” murmured Jen, propping open the door with a dumbbell. “Harker says Coach Nicolini wants to get the wrestlers in before winter.” “Yeah, well, who wouldn’t,” said Amber. “Can we get the music room back?” “If we kill the chorus first.” “You’re on.—Harker talks to you?” “Sends notes to me in homeroom. I’m right near his office, so it’s cool.” Amber nodded. “Hey, Michi-Peachy. Our captain’s got the principal’s ear.” “Everyone knows that.” Michiko Matthews, junior, voice of an angel, mouth of a truck driver, strutted in like she owned the place and intended to raise the rent without making repairs. “Fuckin’ Harker’s had it in for Gossamer Girls and Jen’s got it in for fuckin’ Harker. You think he’s got anything better to do? Nothing happens here.” “He doesn’t have it in for the group,” sighed Jen. “He is simply parsimonious.” It had been one of her SAT words. “You know what I think?” broke in Holly, sidling into both the conversation and the room. “It’s a classic case of schools undervaluing the arts. We should take our case to Mr. Harker and show him how music fosters teamwork and promotes empathy.” A freshman and a newbie in South Stockbridge, Holly Atkins still believed that the world was basically good. “Point one, fuck your stupid empathy,” countered Michiko, with a smile. “Point two, there’s no money for anything. Look around at this dump.” Jen raised an eyebrow. “Thank you, Michiko. Very… succinctly-expressed.” “You’re welcome, bitch.” (Holly grinned ear to ear throughout this exchange, not insulted but perplexed.) “Holly, there’s a reason this school isn’t named for, like, Lincoln, or one of the greats,” Jen explained. “Last year’s musical was Annie and our poor-person costumes were authentic. I’m pretty sure the football team used a dead cat for the ball last week. We really got nothin’.” “I see,” lied Holly, nodding. Her auburn ponytail bobbed. “Now you know why we sing a cappella,” remarked Michiko. “We’re the only fuckin’ instruments we can afford.” “Still, folks, Jen’s trying,” Amber sighed. “But Harker’s walking all over her.” “He’s walking on Sunshine! Oh no!” came a bellow from outside. “Now you’ve done it,” grumbled Jen, as Bell jogged in and forced everyone to accept a high-five. Bell was short for Isabella and for her age. A junior with a thick and semi-ruly shock of bleach-blonde hair, twinkling blue eyes and a brassy belt clocked at decibels someplace between a sonic boom and Brian Blessed, Bell Kozlowski was the Gossamer Girls’ most valued power singer and their most tolerated court jester. “You know how old this school is?” she said, giving Jen’s head a friendly flick before draping an arm around her shoulder. “The murals out front still depict a thriving industrial culture.” Her mouth hung open in a gleeful leer. “Get it?” she said. “It’s funny ‘cause our families are doomed.”
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