Cracks in the Ceiling

Ranko swallowed a gulp of room-temperature water from her plastic bottle, sighing as she dejectedly tossed the empty bottle in the gray trash can next to Ms. Zaito's desk.

"Hey, come on! Don't get discouraged." The diminutive drama teacher flashed her pupil a smile, but there was a little concern behind it that she didn't fully manage to hide.

"I told you, you should have left Tsukiko in the lead. I can't do this. We've been trying for a month now and all I've done is sound like a frog in a freakin' juicer." Ranko fiddled idly with her ponytail as she spoke. "And I still haven't even gotten through a freaking rehearsal because of my stupid leg." She glared in frustration at the pair of aluminum crutches leaning against the teacher's green chalkboard. "I'm gonna suck at this, and embarrass us all."

Ms. Zaito furrowed her brow slightly. "What did the doctor say?"

The redhead nodded. "Next Thursday, I'm allowed to loosen the screws so I can bend it. I still gotta wear the brace a little longer, so it can't flop around side to side, but at least I'll be able to walk on it."

The instructor smiled. "That's gotta be exciting for you, honey."

Ranko sighed distantly. "Yeah, I guess so. I've just already missed so much that I wanted to do." Indeed, she hadn't even gone up on stage with her fellow cheerleaders to accept the trophy for Yusue High's second consecutive All-Tokyo Cheerleading Invitational title, opting to let the organizers announce Rin as squad captain and celebrate the squad's victory without her. She had told them to make the judges forget her, and when they had done largely as instructed, it didn't feel right to take any credit for what they had done on the mat without her.

"And like, I have my tour coming up, besides your show, and I haven't gotten to practice for any of it. No joke, I have nightmares about, like, falling off the stage and crap."

Ms. Zaito pulled her rolling office chair out from behind her desk, wheeling it next to Ranko's seat and sliding into it. "Hey. You're putting way too much pressure on yourself, kid. I can't speak for your tour, but given how successful you've been in your music career so far, I think you'll probably be alright. As for the musical, I have been doing Phantom here every year for a while now. Believe me when I tell you, if I didn't think you could do this, I'd recast you, just like I did when I swapped you in for Tsukiko. I've heard you sing the songs, and you have that all nailed. It's just the acting part now."

Ranko groaned, her shoulders slumping in her school uniform. "Except for this impossible freaking note you want me to hit. I'm straining as hard as I can, and I don't feel any closer than I was before. If anything, I might be getting worse."

"Of course you are getting worse, honey. And it's because you're trying too hard." Ms. Zaito sighed, letting her shoulders slump a little in demonstration. "You need to relax. It's all about confidence. Like, you told me you used to really struggle with the high C in Once Upon a Rhyme, but it got easier with practice. I'm sure some of that was practice, true, but I would wager that a bigger part of it is just that you developed a sense of confidence that you could do it."

She stood, her short frame leaving her almost at eye level with her student even though Ranko was still seated. "Come on, let's try together. Start your stretches?"

Ranko sighed, leaning her head back and sticking out her tongue as far as it would go. These stretches are so weird. I must look like a freaking iguana in a school dress, she thought as she retracted her tongue for a moment between repetitions of the stretch.

"Okay, good," Ms. Zaito said after ten of the tongue stretches. "Now, the yawns?"

Ranko blushed. She actually was finding it a little harder to yawn on command these days. Between her inability to do much at the Phoenix, being barred from nearly all housework, and the occasional assist from the bottle of Percoset in her backpack when her knee was especially sore, she had been sleeping more than she could ever remember of late. It was such a foreign feeling for her, not being bone-tired every day. Better enjoy sleeping while I can, she thought. Somehow, I don't think I'm gonna be getting eight hours a night on the road.

Still, after a moment of concentration, she yawned widely, stretching her mouth as wide as she could and vocalizing through the yawn as she stretched her arms.

"There you go! Great job. Stretch everything out in there. Remember to stay loose. Relax." Ms. Zaito smiled encouragingly, her voice soft and soothing, like she was talking to a baby. Or maybe a puppy.

Ranko blushed further. Oh, I'm relaxed alright. She sighed, glaring at her knee. Freakin' Haru, not watchin' where you were going. One of her classmates had stripped over her outstretched leg in her English class, and she'd been forced to break down and take one of the white pain pills in her bag in order to get through the remainder of the day. At least I don't feel all braindead anymore. I swear, the only thing that makes me more of a ditz than those friggin' pills is when Akane touches me. Gods help me when I get my math quiz back. I'll be lucky if I got my damned name right.

Knowing the routine after four previous vocal coaching sessions, Ranko began singing scales, each series of eight la sounds starting one note higher than the one previous. She started with a C4, stepping up through the octave until she reached C5. She then did the same beginning at D4 and progressing up to D5, and on she went, until she ran a scale from C5 to C6. She sighed, her posture visibly shrinking as she started with a D5, looking up at Ms. Zaito forlornly. Sure enough, when she reached C6, the scale's final attempt at a note came out in a flat, hoarse croak sung at perhaps a third the volume of the note before.

"Damn it!" Ranko sighed, slumping back into her chair. "It's hopeless."

The teacher walked behind her desk, slipping her hand into the wide drawer above the knee hole and producing a green rubber band. "Let me show you something." She held up the rubber band. "So, this is your vocal fold, right?" She hooked the rubber hand between her thumb and index finger, separating the fingers until the band was stretched to perhaps half of its maximum. "And my hand is your throat. Here, pluck that. Like a guitar."

Ranko did as she was instructed, and the rubber band made a low thrum sound.

"Now, watch this," Ms. Zaito continued, nearly doubling the distance between her fingers and causing the band to stretch further, thinning slightly. "Pluck it again."

Again, Ranko reached over her wrist and flicked the band upward with her finger. When she released it, a higher thwring sound came from the rapidly-vibrating rubber.

"See? That's how we make higher notes." The teacher relaxed her fingers, handing Ranko the rubber band. "Try it on your hand for a second."

The redhead wrapped the band around her thumb and index finger, but as she tried to stretch her fingers apart, the teacher reached over into Ranko's lap. She wrapped her palm around the back of Ranko's left hand, curling her fingers around Ranko's hand. She held tight, preventing Ranko's index finger from moving any further away from her thumb.

Ranko looked up in confusion. "But… you said you wanted me to…"

The instructor smiled. "So, we know that the rubber band, our vocal fold, remember, is capable of stretching more and making that higher sound. There's enough flexibility there that it can do it; you just saw it. But, we can't stretch it any more effectively because the area around it is so tense that your throat can't allow it to." Shaking Ranko's hand in her tight grip for emphasis, she reached down with her other hand and flicked the rubber band, coaxing a low thrum sound from it.

"But," Ms. Zaito continued, "if we relax the muscles…" She left her hand wrapped around Ranko's fingers, but released all of the pressure she was applying, allowing Ranko to stretch her fingers further apart. Again, the vocal coach strummed the rubber band, and a higher tone was produced as the band vibrated. "See?"

Ranko looked down at her hand in wonder. "Whoa."

The diminutive woman grinned. "Now you're getting it. This is why you stretch your mouth, and hold it as open as far you can when you sing high. We want to leave as much room for things to stretch and move in there as we can. But it means you can't be stressed and tense and all scrunched up." She scrunched her head down into her shoulders until her neck almost disappeared, affecting her voice with a strained twang like a goblin. "You gotta sing like you love it. If any student I've ever had loved to sing, I know you do. And I know you've got the talent to do it, too. So you've got all the ingredients, you just need to get out of your own way. One other thing to consider…"

She reached down and plucked the band once more, only barely stretching it upward before releasing it. A lower sound, shorter in duration, was produced. "You're so worried that you're going to sound bad that you're not putting any air, any volume, behind the note. So you're not giving the vocal folds enough oomph to actually vibrate the way you want them to."

Ranko blushed. "But, I'm embarrassed. It sounds awful when I get it wrong, and I don't want somebody to hear me."

The teacher laughed. "You're a singer, honey. Being heard is the whole point. Don't worry about sounding bad or hitting it flat. I'm a teacher, not an audience. You don't have to impress me; you already have. Hearing it sound bad a thousand times until you learn how to make it sound good is my job, and besides, nobody outside this room can hear you when you're in here, anyway." She motioned to the black eggshell foam sheets covering the wall separating her classroom from the hallway.

"C'mon, let's give it a try, but don't push it. Don't worry about the show, or any of that stuff. Just be a care-free high school girl who loves to sing, okay? I want you to close your eyes. Relax your shoulders. Chin up straight, and take a couple of deep breaths, okay?"

Ranko complied, an infinitesimal glimmer of hope visible in her deep blue eyes before she closed them.

"Okay. Now, put your mind somewhere else. Don't focus on sitting here with the tyrannical, mean old drama teacher. Go somewhere where you're completely happy, and completely comfortable." Ms. Zaito gave Ranko a soft, almost matronly smile.

Ranko nodded, smiling broadly as she pictured herself standing alone on her stage at the Phoenix, facing out into the bar. In her mind's eye, Hana and Akane sat at the VIP table to her left, but no one else was present in the bar.

"Good, good. Now, try the scale again, and put some air behind it this time. Lift up your chin, and don't be ashamed to open your mouth wide! You don't have anything to hide; you brush your teeth, right? What's to worry about? If you sing it flat, then so be it, but sing it proud, girl. I promise, you can do this, Ranko."

Ranko fidgeted in her chair. It's so much to keep track of. I didn't realize I was doing all this when I sang; I was just… singin'. But, what the hell. Here we go.

"La, la-la, la-la, la…" Ranko lifted her chin until it was some fifteen degrees higher than parallel with the floor, letting her resonant sixth-octave C flow from her tongue. "La!"

But then, there came an eighth "La!" It was quieter, slightly more tentative, but it was definitely there. Ranko opened her eyes in shock, a wide smile on her lips as her fingers fell loosely to her throat. "Did I just…?!"

Ms. Zaito grinned excitedly. "That, Ranko, was your very first D6." She poked at a key on the right side of her piano's keyboard, producing a similar tone. "I told you, you could do it. You're officially halfway there, honey."