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I’M WITH THE BAND (SANTANA’S SECRET)
These Glee kids drive me crazy. They're always bitching and whining about nobody paying them any attention, or complaining about being the bottom of the social pecking order. The irony is incredible. Here we all are, their faithful, silent little band members, and I'd bet my last dollar that the only one of them who knows my name is Brittany. And that's just because we made out this one time at band camp. I think the only reason Brittany turned up was to work on her perfect kissing record; she doesn't even play an instrument. Girl's sure got rhythm though. Maybe we should give her some cymbals and see what happens.
Finn Hudson bumped me on the shoulder once and called me 'buddy'. I wanted to punch him. Like, he seems harmless enough most of the time when his head isn't up his own ass, but hey, guy? It's like, I know you have a dead dad, puffy nipples, no game in the sack and zero plans for after graduation. You should at least realise I'm in the room. If you're going to finally notice that the reason you rocked out on Jesse's Girl is because I was giving killer backup, at least learn my name. (It's Joseph, by the way. Not Joe, like everyone calls me. I hate that. It's Joseph. Eight years I've been trying to get people to call me Joseph, and nobody remembers.)
Seriously. How can they not know us? We know all their songs! We pick stuff up at a moment's notice! It's not like we get a chance to rehearse – the best I can do is stick my head into the choir room sometimes during the week and see what stupid word Mr Schue has written up there for inspiration. Gleeks are pretty predictable. One week the word was SUCCESS and I went and told everybody to brush up on the entire scores of Wicked, Rent, Funny Girl and Aretha's back catalogue. That covered Rachel, Kurt and Mercedes completely. Did they say thank you? Hell no. Rachel only ever looks at us when we're some kind of prop in a song, when she skips around grinning maniacally and patting people on the head.
Damn, she can sing, though. If she doesn't get into NYADA, it'll be a real shame. Yeah, I know about NYADA. We know about everything. They treat that room like a confessional booth, and us like furniture. We know everything first. We knew Quinn was pregnant. We knew Puck was the father. We knew Mike Chang was crushing on Tina while she was with Artie. We knew Santana was in love with Brittany, like, last year. They don't realise it, but we know everything about them before they even tell each other.
But here's the thing. We know stuff they don't tell each other as well.
Like, did you know that Mike applied to NYADA as well, and he got his finalist's letter and he hasn't told Kurt or Rachel? I don't blame him – can you imagine the diva drama fits?
And then there's Santana. Until recently, Santana Lopez had spoken to me exactly one time, and it was over a year ago. I was packing up my guitar and she almost tripped on the case. She glared and me and growled, "Way to take up space, firecrotch."
I guess that's as much as I can expect. It's true. I'm a ginger and I play guitar (and sometimes banjo) in the school band. Firecrotch is one of the nicer things I've been called.
Here's the thing about Santana:
She loves to sing.
I mean, loves it, like ... like air or something. Like she doesn't know what she did before it or without it. Like she didn't have a voice before and she's found the only way she knows how to talk about her feelings. I've gone to school with her since we were both small. She's fierce. I've never seen anybody with more heat inside them. I've seen her channel it into athletics, but who knew she had a voice like that inside her? Or that watching her discover it and let it soar would be such a rush?
The first year or so in Glee, she never aimed for solos or really stood out much. I mean, you get to know all their voices pretty well, and you could always pick her out of the line-up, unlike Brittany, who's good enough, but doesn't have that spark you see in Rachel, for example.
But then one day Santana kinda opened up. She's been singing more and more – lately almost as much as Rachel, and I'll tell you what. For my money, she's the star of the room. Rachel's voice is powerful, and pure, and all those other wonderful Disney things. She'll be a Broadway star, that I do not doubt for a second. And Mercedes is a diva like all get-out. Girl can wail.
Santana, though - she could be any kind of star she wants. There's no style she can't nail, and the funny thing is, even though she makes cracks all the time about being hot and being an awesome singer, I get the idea that's just breeze. She doesn't know just how damn good she really is.
But she does know she loves it. And it seems like it's just as much a surprise to her as anyone else. And the reason I know it's so important to her is that she never, ever talks about it. That's how you know what's important to Santana - the things she keeps to herself. Because god knows, everything else comes out of her mouth.
She spends more time singing and working alone in the auditorium than you'd think. And you can see her kind of chewing it over. Like, could this be what she wanted, for real? Could this be her future? She used to mention law school occasionally. I haven't heard that for months. She asked Brad once where he went to school and when he told her NYU, she said, 'I read they have a good musical theatre department.'
And one time when I came into the choir room, she shoved a bunch of prospectuses under her chair and forgot them when she left. Yeah, so what if I checked them out? One was for the Berklee School Of Music in Boston. She'd circled the undergraduate program in songwriting, but next to it was scrawled BUT NO DANCE MAJOR HERE in red letters. That made me smile. I don't know if Brittany has enough credits to get into college, but if she does, there's no dance school in the country that wouldn't take her. She's totally awesome. Another was for the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance. In that one, she'd written WE COULD LIVE OFF CAMPUS?
And like, did you see the school musical? My mom and dad came home from that and all they talked about all night was 'that girl in the red dress', like Rachel wasn't even on stage.
Okay, so, I'm a little obsessed with Santana. Don't ask me why, okay? And I know she's gay and everything. Yeah, she's smoking hot, but it's more than that. It's like, when I found out there was this whole other person under the insults and the Cheerio skirts – this person I'd been to school with for years and never seen before, I couldn't stop seeing that person. And it blew me away that everyone else didn't see it too.
We have this secret, she and I. I'm going to write it here, but it's not for anyone else, okay?
So, just over a month ago, I'm re-stringing my banjo in the choir room. Glee had been over for an hour or so, and I don't have anywhere to be, so I'm doing some maintenance. I have four guitars, a mandolin and the banjo, so I give them all the full workout.
Anyway, Santana comes in, alone. I don't know why she was there so late, and I don't ask, because I've gone, like, eight years being too frightened to talk to her, so why should now be any different?
I know through the grapevine that she's told Brittany that she was in love with her, and Brad told me about Songbird and stuff, but they don't seem to be spending any time together, even though Brittany broke up with Artie. So I don't know what's going on with her and Brittany except that they sit on opposite sides of the choir room and both of them look so, so sad all the time.
So she looks at me and she doesn't say anything, and then she sits at the piano, and hey, here's something else I didn't know about Santana Lopez, because she starts playing. She's not a natural or anything – her hands are kind of shaky and you can tell she's never really studied - but she's not too bad.
It's really quiet at first, and I can't figure out what the song is. But then she gets some confidence behind her, and I realise with a grin (that I hide) that she couldn't have picked anything more ironically perfect. It's an unplugged version of Black Magic Woman that's been done by both Fleetwood Mac and the actual singer called Santana in the 70s. She plays through the intro, a verse and the chorus silently, and then takes this deep breath and starts over.
And when she starts singing, it's so fucking sad that I'm totally frozen.
This song is supposed to be bluesy, and kinda sexy, about having your head messed with by a woman you love. You know the opening theme for True Blood? That's kinda the feeling that the original version has.
But Santana has turned it into a heartbreaking dirge. And it's beautiful.
She's slowed it riiiiiight down and stripped it way back, added more minor chords. It's Tori Amos meets Adele meets Nina Simone meets Santana's own raw style. You know when she's sad and her voice is all husky and gets that catch in it? And it makes you wanna cry? Yeah.
A black magic woman, she sings. Got me so blind I can't see…
The hairs are standing up on the back of my neck, and I barely even notice that I've picked up a guitar, going for the acoustic, because anything else would intrude too much.
Her eyes flick up to mine as I join in on the song, and for the first time ever, she looks at me. It feels like I'm in church.
Don't turn your back on me, baby / yes, don't turn your back on me, baby
I actually have tears in my eyes. Goddammit. The last thing I need is Santana Lopez to see me cry. But then I realise it doesn't matter, because she's crying too.
As she passes the bridge, I drop way, way down, sticking to the low frets, because she doesn't need me really, and I don't want to spoil it.
You're turning my heart into stone / I need you so bad, magic woman, I can't leave you alone.
Some people find it weird that Santana loves Brittany. They talk about Brittany like she's retarded. Or like she's so stupid that being with her would be like having an eight-year-old for a girlfriend. But Brittany just goes through the world looking at it a different way, and Santana needs that, because Santana only sees the bad stuff until Brittany shows her the good.
I need you, darling / I need your love so bad / I want you to love me
The last echo of the song dies away, and she just sits there at the piano, tears streaking her face, looking so lost. The silence in the room stretches out … and out … and out, until I can't stand it anymore.
My cheeks are flaming, but I finally find my voice. "That was really ... you're like..." and I take a deep breath. "Totally amazing."
She looks up. Her voice is husky. "You too," she says. "I mean … you are." It's the first time any Glee kid has ever said anything about my playing. Maybe it was only six words, but it felt like more.
I don't know what to say now, so I don't say anything. I bet I have the stupidest look on my face.
When she stands abruptly, picks up her tote and slings it over her shoulder, I feel a strange sense of loss. I doubt we'll ever have a moment like this again.
As she leaves, she stops at the door and turns around.
She doesn't say, "If you tell anyone I was here, I'll crack one of your nuts", like I'm expecting her to. She doesn't say, "If anyone finds out I sang that song, you'll wake up underwater." She doesn't say, "Don't even think about spreading this around, firecrotch." She doesn't say, "If people knew how much singing means to me, they'd have something else to hold over me and I think that would break me in half." And she doesn't say, "Everything I feel for Brittany is right there, in that song, in this room, and I can't tell it to anyone and it hurts me so much." She doesn't say those things, but you can tell they're all there, inside, waiting.
Instead, she says, "Thank you, Joseph."
I nod. And that's when I decide that I'll always keep this secret. For her.