“The Rainclouds,” she repeats. “I think I’ll write my play about them.”
Each year, our school produces an original play. The kids who want to write it have to apply in their Junior year with a writing sample. Alexa was this year’s winner.
“And they toured all over the country in this?” she asks.
“Yeah, but mostly the West Coast.”
“And they had a lot of fans, right?”
“Not really,” I say. “They never got that big.”
“Okay, so not tons of fans, but the fans they did have really loved them.”
I just shrug, don’t really respond, because she states this as though it’s a fact that doesn’t need confirmation.
“I can feel the love in here.” She nods to herself. “I can feel it in the glass and the stitches. Two best friends, playing music, searching for love.”
“Okay, Alexa.”
“What? You can laugh if you want to, but it’s true. Now, you’re going to want to get on Van Ness and take it all the way to Lombard.”
“Oh my God, Lex,” Meg says. “He knows how to get to the bridge.”
We go through what we’ve brought for the ride. Meg has devoted hours to making playlists to suit any mood. She plugs her iPod into Uncle Pete’s recently installed, prized stereo system, and soon we’re greeted with the upbeat, flirty sound of The Supremes.
Alexa has a folder containing maps, contacts, and phone numbers. Packed in a small case are an emergency radio, a universal cell-phone charger, and a first-aid kit.
“I also brought a Magic Eight Ball,” she says. “I’m trying to put a little more trust in fate.”
Bev has an ancient, clunky Walkman and her camera.
“That’s the cutest camera I’ve ever seen,” Meg says.
“I’ve been thinking about a project,” Bev says. “We should take a photograph of everyone we meet on the trip so that we remember them. Like, people we meet at gas stations and working at the motels and venues.”
“I love this idea,” I say. “This is so great. It’ll force us to talk to people. Plus it’s so documentary. It’s like Leon Levinstein.”
“Who?” Meg asks.
“That photographer we studied in class, remember? He photographed almost everyone he passed on the street.”
“Oh, yeah, that guy.”
Alexa says, “We could keep a tour journal and leave spaces for the photos to go.”
“Maybe we should alternate days that we write in it,” I say.
“Who wants today?” Meg asks.
Bev says, “We need a journal first.”
There’s the sound of Meg rifling through her giant bag and then the sound of her saying, “A journal like this?” and I glance in the rearview and there’s Meg, waving a large black book to the rhythm of The Supremes fading out.
“I’m a good person to travel with, yo,” she says. “You need something, you come to me.”
It’s still morning but it’s warm already. All of Melinda’s windows are down but the bus still fills with us laughing, and even though I’ve crossed this bridge a thousand times, something feels different. The sky, the water, the people walking along the footpaths, and all the cars ahead of us and behind us—everything is larger and more possible.
“Hey,” I say to Bev, “we should do this photo thing in Europe, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. We’re going to meet so many people. We can keep a log: where we were, who the person was, what we were talking about.”
“That sounds really good,” she says, but there’s something about the way she says it—like she’s doing her drifting away thing.
“Okay, let’s think about it more. We can refine it,” I say, using the phrase Bev’s favorite teacher uses instead of saying that something’s a bad idea. Bev smiles her amazing smile—that dimple in her left cheek, her one crooked tooth, from the time we crashed bikes and she went flying—and turns up the volume.
We’re exiting the bridge, and “Turn It On” by Sleater-Kinney has begun.
“Nice choice,” Bev tells Meg.
“I thought I’d give a nod to our origins,” Meg says. “Show the Riot Grrrls a little love.”
The summer after ninth grade, Bev showed me this book on the Riot Grrrl movement she found at Green Apple and told me, “I’m going for this.” And I think I said something like, “Why go for something that reached its peak the year you were born?” But she rolled her eyes and I ended up admitting that, yes: Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney were so much better than any girl bands around now, and after a laptop screen marathon of mid-nineties concert footage with terrible sound quality but dozens of badass girls jumping around in miniskirts or pounding on drum sets or strumming bass guitars (braless, in thin white shirts), I succumbed.
Yes, it was time for a resurrection. Yes, even though she had never played music before in her life, Bev could be the one to do it. Because even though some of the Riot Grrrls were awesome musicians, the real criteria were to care about injustice, to be antiestablishment, and to be hot in a way that was raw and authentic.
A few months later Bev and I saw Sleater-Kinney play at Great American Music Hall. We stood in the crowd, older people all around us, under the ornate ceiling and red balcony. I kept looking over at Bev, who was cocking her head, letting her blond wavy hair fall into her eyes, trying to look like this was nothing new when really all of it was new: standing in this dark room so close to strangers that we seemed to breathe in unison, all waiting for the same moment.