Chapter 6 Music Education Part 2

Chapter 6 Music Education Part 2

All weekend, whenever Sophia thought of the Halloween party, she thought of Adam. She thought of the Halloween party often because Annie kept talking about it while putting together a dance-song list on her computer, and demanded that Sophia help with making decorations, and trying to decide what to costume to wear, the cute cheerleader, or the 70’s rock star. And when she thought of Adam, her stomach pinched. It’s just a party, she told herself. Why am I so worried about Adam being there anyway? So everytime her stomach pinched, she’d breath in deeply, and while exhaling, repeat the words ‘Party’s are fun. Party’s are fun.’”
Everyday of the next school week, Adam found Sophia at lunch and sat with her. Sophia didn’t’ really think it was the other way around. He definitely liked her enough to sit with her everyday. But she hadn’t thought much about her own feelings…yet. Sometimes they just talked about random stuff, other times it was more serious, or even funny. But one thing that punctuated each meeting was the discussion of music and politics. Sophia had never thought the two ever really meshed until she was first introduced to Adam’s music. Monday, when he sat down across from her the first thing he did was hand her an envelope with a shiny disc inside labeled: Sophia’s Rock Ed. 1. She would’ve preferred to re-label it ‘Adam’s Music’; she would never own up to having any kind of association with his so-called music. She took it from Adam like it was mud, not sure if she would ever dare listen to it. Adam changed her mind when he confessed that he spent four hours Sunday night burning the disc for her.
You didn’t have to do that, Sophia refuted.
It was no big deal, I was already listening to the music, I thought, heck I’ll just burn a disc while I’m at it.” Sophia knew it was more than that. “You better listen to it. I’ll be quizzing you on lyrics tomorrow,” Adam teased.
“Oh, thanks. One more assignment,” Sophia teased back.
“It won’t feel like homework, I promise.”
That night after dinner with her chaotic family, after homework, and one hour of trumpet practice, Sophia knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. Sophia pulled the disc from the envelope and thoughtfully snapped it into her walkman. She put on her headphones and turned down the volume in anticipation. Her heart beat a little faster, thinking that all while Adam recorded these songs, he was probably thinking of her. She turned the envelope over and read Adam’s handwritten playlist:
Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
Highway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
U2 – I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Bulls on Parade – R.A.M.
Settle For Nothing – R.A.M.
Down On the Street – R.A.M.
Be Yourself - Audioslave

The Led Zeppelin songs were surprisingly good. Sophie could tell this band had talent. Kashmir had an orchestra playing in the background and she could see how Adam would recommend this song for her band to play. All the instruments pulsed in unison to the beat of the song.
Highway to Heaven held a melancholy feel, but she still liked it. It pulled at her emotions. The next three were R.A.M. She didn’t enjoy them much, though she thought it interesting that their style was a mix of rap with metal. It held nothing for her. She wondered why Adam liked Rage. She tried harder to listen to the lyrics, and as she did, she gained some insight into the workings of Adam’s thoughts. Bulls on Parade was the most political song about an unnamed government using terrorism to gain military power. That was a little scary. She would have to ask Adam more about that one. But the next one troubled her. And as she listened she could almost visualize Adam yelling out those lyrics. The artist yelled about pain in his home, of hatred being passed down from one generation to the next. He spoke of never knowing his father, and how he tried to hold onto his family but he slipped away from them with no one to catch his fall. Something about Adam came disturbingly into focus. She wondered how much of that song could be true about Adam’s life. The next song began, breaking up Sophia’s thoughts.
The fast energy driven beat began and the guy rapped about being lost in love with a supposed beauty who many people craved to look at. He was lost in love with a girl he didn’t know but admired from a distance. Sophia wondered skeptically how you could be in love with a girl you don’t even know. You’d only be in love with her looks. A curiousity nudged her. No way! But maybe, just maybe Adam felt that way about Sophia. But the song wasn’t accurate. It’s not like tons of guys were admiring her from afar. Well, at least not from her perspective. But maybe, just maybe from Adam’s perspective, it was nearly impossible for him to vie for her attention.
She placed her hands on her cheeks and realized she was slightly flushed. She laughed in disbelief. She actually felt flattered about such a possibility…and slightly embarrassed about feeling flattered.
On to the next song, she murmured.
Something softer, more melodious began on cue. A man with a deep edgy, soul searching voice, sang about life’s challenges, particularly in the love category. During the chorus he provided his solution to deal with those challenges. Repeated several times came the phrase, be yourself, just be yourself. Sophia nodded her head in agreement. She tried to stay true ot herself as much as possible. But was that really what Adam felt? Did he feel he was being himself by adhereing to a particular look? Did he think he could win love, maybe her love, by being himself? Oh, well, there would be other times to figure that out.
Sophia threw off the headphones and tossed the songlist Frisbee style across the space between her bed and desk. It landed onto her desk, and she took a deep breath. She realized she was overanalyzing the songs Adam chose. That wasn’t being very fair to Adam. But at the same time, these songs had to have some sort of meaning for him, or else why did he like them and make the extra effort to burn them onto a disc for her? She felt a knot forming in her chest. A truer picture of Adam was coming together for her, like the pieces of a puzzle completing the view.
If Adam was truly suffering, and searching for some answers, she knew she could give him those answers. Her compassion urged her to provide life’s answers to Adam, if he would accept. The only problem was she didn’t know exactly how to go about doing that. She was trying to get to know him better, to try to expose him to her ‘good’ Mormon friends. Inviting him to the party was a start, but it was just a start. She realized that she would have to gain his trust too. She wanted him to know that she was hanging out with him because she wanted to be his friend not just be his missionary.
Another question bothered her. Was Adam consciously looking to her for answers, or was there more? All the signs seemed to lead to one conclusion, that she would have to realize soon. Adam liked her. But she didn’t want to let on to him that she knew it. Then she would have to decide how she felt about him. She just wasn’t ready for that. She was still heartbroken over Jared. Every night at 9 she’d think of Jared, because that was when he would call, like clockwork. It was an old habit she hadn’t broken yet.
Sophia yawned and looked at the clock. “11:15” glowed bright red. Sophia sat up, pulled the elastic from her ponytail, and shook her brown hair out. She shot the elastic across the room onto the desk bumping into the songlist. She squinted reading the words on the card one last time before climbing into bed. She didn’t recognize the titles and walked over to pick it up. She realized there were five more songs listed on the back of the card; quite different from the previous songs…fortunately.
She was pleasantly surprised that the last five were classical. So he does have some refined taste, she thought. She put her headphones back on and lay comfortably on her bed to relax with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring and Ave Maria, Debussy’s Claire de Lune, and Tchaikovsky’s None But the Lonely Heart. All love songs, she concluded with a smile as she drifted off to sleep.


Sophia sat next to Adam at a picnic table. But they weren’t at school, they were at the stadium near the concessions. No one was around, the game had ended, everyone had gone home. It was very dark outside, except for an emergency light which shone down eerily over the two of them. Adam looked at her. He opened his mouth. Words spilled out exposing his painful childhood, but she couldn’t hear what he was telling her. What did you say? she asked. It doesn’t matter. What matters is I need you. A tear fell from one of his black eyes. She felt so sorry for him. She took his hand. He leaned closer to her. She closed her eyes and waited for him to kiss her….
“Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.” The sound didn’t make sense to her at first. She cuoldn’t find where the sound was coming from. It annoyed her that she couldn’t open her eyes to look for it. Layer upon layer of consciousness unfolded and Sophia finally opened her eyes. She lifted her head off the pillow and threw her hand down on the snooze button. She dropped her head back down on the pillow, and noticed the dampness. She unstuck her pajamas from her sweaty body. She pulled up her hair which clung moistly to her neck.
Relief washed over her. The dream had felt so real. She truly felt sorry for him. But the unsettling part was her undoubting acceptance of Adam and her willingness to kiss him. How could she just let him kiss her? It was like other dreams she had where she was smoking a cigarette or drinking some beer, or walking in public in her underwear and there was nothing wrong with it. She had never done any of these things in her life and never planned on it. Dreams could be so odd. You could do all sorts of things without feeling ashamed or guilty. That is until you woke up. She actually felt guilty about letting him kiss her out of pity for him rather than waiting to explore her own feelings for him first, even though it never really happened. But it could, she decided.