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“Oh you bet your little bony behind I’ll tell you,” he replies, chugging water. “You said to talk about the tour, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, the tour.” I emphasize the word. “Ourtour. Not your tour of Paris and its various French asses.”
Everyone roars with laughter.
“Oh hey, I know. We can hang with Beethoven in Paris, right? Is he gonna be there, Isaiah?” Skye asks.
He’s obsessed with ‘Beethoven’.
Then again, everyone is.
I roll my eyes. “Beethoven will be too busy writing real music to come visit our stupid little show, I’m sure.”
“Someone’s jealous,” Jude lifts an eyebrow in my direction.
“You bet I’m jealous,” I tell him. “He’s my number one rival. No one is more famous than me–well, than us–except for this guy.”
“I know what we should do!” Jude yells excitedly. “We should have Beethoven come up on stage at one of our Paris shows. I’d love to play with him. Maybe one of the songs he’s written for you, Zay? Skye, make it happen, my man.”
“I am not getting involved,” Skye replies with his mouth full.
“Isaiah won’t do it,” Jude taunts. “He’s scared.”
“I’ll text him right now,” I snap, and then I wish I hadn’t.
Everyone laughs, and the conversation drifts off to girls and Paris night clubs.
It’s common knowledge now, but it wasn’t back when I wrote theBeethovensong: Beethoven is my brother. Everyone calls him ‘Beethoven’. It started as a joke when he was a kid musical prodigy, and it stuck. And at some point, people started saying thatBeethovenwas a song I wrote for him. I let them believe it, but it’s only party true. It’s easier to deal with than the truth.
But then, a year afterBeethovencame out, I went online—a mistake I’ve not since repeated—and saw that my idiot brother had gone and changed his username to something including Beethoven. I believe it’s @beethovens9th to this day.
Is he making fun of his own fame? Or has it gone to his head so much that he no longer recognizes his own ridiculousness? And is there a difference? I have this gnawing feeling that both are true.
I grip my phone and scroll down to text my brother. His real name is James, and he’s currently an orchestra conductor and a professor at a musical college in Europe. He’s two years younger than me, making him barely nineteen.
I wonder what version of James I’ll get tonight. He talks to me in different languages depending on his mood. Sometimes ‘his brain gets too much for him’ as mom used to say, and it spills out in weird languages or music. I prefer the music.
I mean, he has written some of my best hits, includingBoyfriend. But notHeartbreaker. That’s all me. And her.
Then again, he hates his name. No one calls him ‘James’ apart from me, and he’s told me more than once that he’d prefer anything to James, even Beethoven. Especially Beethoven. All his friends call him ‘Pan’—our last name. I can’t even use it, because it’s now his name.
My head is swimming and I’m still drenched in sweat, but I can’t avoid texting him after Jude’s dare. Also, I kind of miss him, but I’ll die before I tell him that. So I bite my lip ring and shoot off a text to this dude the entire world calls ‘Beethoven’.
Isaiah’s phone
Isaiah: Hey, little bro, what’s up? Literally just finished my show.
James: I watched you.
Isaiah: Yeah? Which part?
James: The whole thing. I was on call with Skye the whole time. Wish I’d been there.
Isaiah: Was I any good?
James: Not too bad.
Isaiah: Aw, I’m gonna melt.
