Any resemblance to actual persons is coincidental

As I mentioned in this post, I used to write fiction. At the Tin House Writer's Conference, after copious amounts of wine to drown the nerves, I got up in front of a room full of intimidatingly talented peers and read this story.

I hope you enjoy it.


Four Color Click Pen
By Stefani Zellmer


There’s only one dude in our band and that’s one too many if you ask me. We let Marshall play bass for us because we felt sorry for him and because we get a kick out of his desperate attempts to lay each of us, in turn. Becky’s the one with the loud, long-winded, everyone-in-the-room-pay-attention-to-me stories, so naturally she’s the lead singer. She’s also studying to be an actress, but really she works in a dental office where she gets to surround herself with hot dentists who are unfortunately all gay.

Kelly plays lead guitar with her wiry arms. Her Mick Jaggar physique makes her more suitable to lead singer than Becky’s doughy one, but her personality prefers to hide behind her guitar, pensively plucking at chords. I’m the brooding, angst-inspired drummer. My easy irritability keeps the boyfriends in high turn around, but the beats passionate. We call ourselves Four Color Click Pen. My neighbors hate us.

Our day jobs only allow us to rehearse at night, when the other inhabitants of my Williamsburg loft building are trying to relax from their own day jobs. Marshall does publicity at a jazz label. Kelly’s a pastry chef at Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker Street in the West Village. I’m in advertising. Nobody really understands what I do, which is fine because I don’t have the patience to explain it. We practice at my loft because we can’t afford studio space and because I don’t own a car to lug my drums around.

I write most of our songs so the fact that they’re all about ungraspable love and laced with bitterness is no coincidence. If I were a journalist reviewing our band, I’d describe us as “melodic” and “raw,” because I enjoy an ironic juxtaposition of terms. I’d liken Becky’s voice to a human xylophone, which would then give me the idea to take up the xylophone so I could showcase my skills as an ambidextrous drummer slash xylophonist. The photos they’d run alongside the article wouldn’t be a band photo at all, but the posed black and white squares from our high school yearbook, Senior year, 1989. Under each of our photos would be our one listed activity, Marching Band. Not because any of us were actually in the marching band, but because the idea of it makes us giggle.

What everyone knows but nobody mentions is that Marshall is in love with me. If he weren’t such a compulsive liar and verbal showoff, two character flaws that repulse me, I might give him a chance. Because honestly he’s such a klutz he fumbles his way into charming. I nicknamed him “Slick,” which we chant in unison every time he kicks over a water glass (ten times a day).

Kelly’s day job as a pastry chef keeps us in sugar highs. As we’re getting into our 30s, it’s the only way we can manufacture enough energy to practice. Today we’re all a bit nervous because tonight we play our first public gig at The Living Room. Between the sound check and the show, we sit at Paladar across Orchard Street from the Living Room on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, shoveling chips and salsa into our mouths. Everyone’s sucking on Margaritas but me, because drinking and drumming do not mix.

We’ve known each other so long that we’ve run out of stories to impress each other. The only thing we really have left in common is our collective past, and like the family we’ve become, just because we’re linked doesn’t mean we necessarily like each other. We chomp loudly and let our glances fly around the room. Sometimes we puncture the silence with meaninglessness.

“Hey Rhonda, is your new boyfriend coming to the show?” Marshall says with a snide snicker implied in his tone.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say.

“But you want him to be,” Kelly says.

I love how everyone thinks they know me.

“Whatever,” I say.

“Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. Slurp. Slurp. Slurp,” we all say.

“You want to marry him and have, like, 10,000 of his babies,” Becky says.

“Becky,” I say, “how come you have to borrow your sense of humor from movie lines?”

“What movie was that from?” Marshall says.

“American Beauty,” Kelly says.

Our banter masks the impact of my insult. Becky doesn’t even notice I’ve called her witless. Her blonde hair seems to lighten a shade as we sit there. But I’ve successfully diverted the spotlight.

“I’ve never seen American Beauty,” Marshall says.

I instantly want to belittle him for not having seen an Oscar-winning film, but then I’m so mesmerized by this rare slip of honesty that I can’t even muster a clever comment. We slide back into speechlessness. We shovel and slurp and stare at the air.

Crossing Orchard Street on the way back to our gig, we must look like a gang of Jelly Beans. Because we’re Four Color Click Pen, we’re dressed accordingly. Becky’s wearing a shimmering red dress. Kelly’s wearing Kelly green pants and a Kelly green tank top with Kelly green Havaiana flip flops. Marshall’s wearing blue jeans and a plain blue t-shirt and I’m wearing black leather pants and a black muscle shirt. I look like a dyke. The boyfriend who is not my boyfriend adores this about me.

We weave ourselves train-like through the crowd at the bar, stopping every once in a while to hug a friend who is waiting to see us rock out. The fact that we have a lot of friends there makes us feel supported but pressured. We self-consciously imagine their high expectations. We anticipate them being stricken with disappointment if we suck.

Once we’ve kissed everyone’s cheeks, we make our way back stage where we sit on apple boxes and wait for Bill, the Living Room’s manager, to call us up on stage. When it will soon be too late to chicken out.

I inhale cigarettes and take note of the other’s relaxation techniques. Becky is doing some stand-up pilates or yoga moves, breathing in deeply the smoky air. Marshall is pacing and talking on his phone to someone he’s trying to pass off as a mysterious lover, but who I know is actually his brother in California. Kelly is doing shots with one of the cocktail waitresses she has a crush on. I think her name is Janice. Janice is precisely what she looks like.

Halfway through my third Parliament, Bill pokes his head around the curtain and nods us on. I slam my cigarette down on the ground and stomp on it with my comfortable-for-drumming Puma’s. I wonder if he’s in the audience, then I hate myself for wondering. We walk out on stage without a word. We know what we have to do.

The warmth from the lights hitting us calms me immediately. I sit down behind my drum kit and let the room settle before I launch us into “Mommy,” our first song. Becky lunges into her lines like she’s waited her life to sing them. My focal point is the light bouncing between her wisps of hair. The genius of a spotlight is that it blinds you from the audience. A room full of eyes tear into us and we can’t even feel it. In my peripheral vision, Marshall and Kelly strum away. Kelly’s body is fluid and smooth. Marshall is slick without irony. For the first time in my life, it seems, I don’t fuck up once. I feel like a crack of thunder. I know I’m just as unlikely to slay someone.

After the show, we walk the earth in glory. I bounce around the Living Room soaking up praise, trying to mask the eyes that are searching for him. Eventually I accept the fact that he didn’t show. I nod and pretend to listen to people’s chatter. In my head, I use his absence to write our next song.