Girl, Unstrung

by Claire Handscombe

  I’m there, in that place, the place some people call flow, the place where it feels like the viola is an extension of me, is part of my body, when I notice something shift in the air. I’m not alone. I can feel it. I open one eye during the next long note and am jerked right out of the moment. My stepmom, Ebba, is standing in the hallway outside my bedroom, watching me, with this goofy smile on her face. My mood splutters and dies; the bow in my right hand slows to a stop.

  “Keep going,” Ebba says. “I love watching you play.”

  “I don’t like to be watched when I’m practicing,” I say.

  “I love the creative abandon on your face.”

  “I don’t like to be watched,” I say again.

  I can see her mulling over what to say to me. I hope I don’t have to explain the difference between being watched at a concert, when you’ve worked your ass off for months and you’re as damn near perfection as you’re ever going to get, when your hair has been coaxed into a vaguely elegant updo and you’re wearing your best concert dress, the simple black of it making you feel somehow grownup and poised, and being watched at home, in your yoga pants and your dad’s old Juilliard t-shirt, as you play only for yourself and allow imperfection.

  “You’re beautiful when you play,” she says.

  “Thank you,” I spit out automatically, like a vending machine. Really, I’m thinking, oh, and I’m not beautiful the rest of the time? (I know I’m not, but that isn’t the point.) Really I’m thinking, leave me the hell alone. This is more or less what I’m always thinking when she tries to be nice to me. Why does she have to be so nice? Dad already married her. She doesn’t have to prove anything.

  “I should get back to it,” I say, though I know that I won’t. That she’s ruined the mood and the moment. I stand and wait for her to leave. Our eyes lock in some kind of unspoken battle. She wants me to keep playing with her there, I’m pretty sure, so she can keep watching. Ummm, no. She gets it eventually. She turns to leave, her shoulders stooping a little. I’ve won this round, but it somehow doesn’t feel like I have.

  Four

  Ebba and my dad first dated way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, in the ’90s I think, when he was at Juilliard and she was at NYU. But she broke his heart when she left him for this superstar screenwriter, which is all very sad except when you consider that if she hadn’t done that he wouldn’t have met mom – or he might have met her, but you know what I mean – and I wouldn’t exist, or maybe I would exist and I’d be Ebba’s daughter instead, I don’t know, that kind of thing makes me trip. The story goes that mom and dad, who obviously weren’t mom and dad yet, were both in the audience of the same play, and the play had this kind of dark humor that nobody else seemed to get except the two of them, so they were the only two laughing. And at one point they both turned to see who the other person laughing was, and at intermission dad bought mom a drink, and fast forward a little and you have a wedding, four kids, divorce. A true love story for our times.

  Two years later or so, we’d just about gotten used to our new lives as “one family under two roofs” (okay, mom and dad, whatever you need to tell yourselves to stave off the guilt) when Ebba’s book got published. It’s a memoir mostly about her love affair with this screenwriter dude, and dad went all starry-eyed over it because she mentioned him in it, too, and I guess wrote some nice things about him. Apparently, he was quite the charmer back then. (If Twitter is to be believed, a lot of women still think he is, and that weirds me out to no end.) I didn’t know any of this at the time, but I’ve pieced it together through judicious eavesdropping and the creative use of my more-than-adequate brain. Dad and Ebba started dating again around the time that Libby lived with us, and I was so busy worrying about whether Libby would be my new stepmom that I completely missed the Ebba signs until it was too late. Libby would actually have made a great stepmom, so I don’t know what I was worrying about, except that it would have been weird because she was really more of a big-sister kind of age than a mom kind of age. I bet she wouldn’t have stood in the doorway watching me play without asking first, though. She would have realized how weird that was.

  Five

  It turns out that swoopy-haired Tim was right about the orchestra at this school. It is pretty great. We play real music, not simplified film music scores like back at middle school, and on days like today, even with the windows closed, the smell of freshly cut grass come in from the football field. The room is oval-shaped, with wide steps so that the different families of instruments are on different levels: snare drums and other percussion at the back, clarinets and flutes and trumpets and the other wind instruments a little lower, and then us strings at the front, with the violas next to the second violins.

  I’m second chair, which apparently is completely random; there were no auditions and the freshmen sit wherever there are space from the seniors graduating and everyone moving up to take their place, like we’re the British royal family and it’s an unquestioned and unquestionable line of succession. It’s a stupid system, if you ask me, because clearly what needs to happen is everyone should audition every year, since for all anyone knows the incoming freshmen are every bit as good as and maybe even better than the newly appointed seniors. As, for example, is the case this year. My stand partner, Esther, is a sophomore and she’s pleasant enough, sickeningly pleasant almost, but she doesn’t like it when I turn the pages too quickly, and we keep missing notes. It won’t matter after a few weeks, when we know our part of Scheherazade off by heart, but at the moment it’s kind of annoying, plus it makes me look bad. You’re supposed to glance at the last few bars on the page, imprint that on your brain, and then turn the page as soon as a rest will allow, even if it’s before you really need to. But she’s too busy tapping out the rests with her foot and counting under her breath – one two three four two two three four three two three four —to memorize the notes. Still, we’re making progress.

  The teacher who conducts us is kind of funny looking. He’s tall and wiry and bald, and says things like flutes, imagine those top notes need to reach up to the clouds! If it was me, I’d just say, watch your tuning, you’re way flat, it’s hurting my ears, but weirdly this stuff does seem to work.

  Tuesday of the fourth week, swoopy-haired Tim is waiting outside the music room when I come out, chewing gum and kicking his right foot with his left foot, his left foot with his right, over and over. I’m almost not surprised to see him there. I’ve been expecting something like this, I’m not sure why. He seemed the type to want something from me – something to do with my really-not-all-that-famous-let’s-all-calm-down dad, probably, and the type not to rest until he gets it.

  “Hi,” I say, because being polite and moving on seems like a good strategy for getting him off my back. My dad taught me that: be as nice as you can be, then leave as soon as you can. As soon as I can is now. And I have a worthy excuse: I’m being picked up by my mom, and I don’t want everyone’s dinner to go cold.

  “Wait,” he says, when I’m a step or two past him already.

  I turn and look at him, size him up. “Were you waiting for me?”

  “I was,” he says. He looks down, like he’s suddenly shy. I’m not buying it, but my stomach does a weird somersaulty thing that is probably related to the length of his beautiful eyelashes. Then he looks back up at me through them with those ocean-colored eyes. Ugh. Listen to me. I can’t help it if he’s hot, okay? It would be rude and stupid not to notice. I don’t have time for boys; instead of teardrops on my guitar I have stickers on my viola case. Stickers from music camp and from countries I’ve toured around with different orchestras. But I’m just stating objective fact when I say that Tim is hot. It might be useful for some scientist’s doctoral project someday: the effect of long eyelashes on the guts of teenage girls.

  “I wanted to make sure you knew about the ski trip,” he says.

  Of course I do. It’s all anyone’s been talking about this week.

  “I don’t ski,” I
say. I’m not the outdoorsy type, unless you’re counting lying on the beach flipping through Teen Vogue or Strings Magazine.

  “You should,” he says. Other kids are pushing past me. We are completely in the way. And I’m wishing I could raise one eyebrow the way Ebba can. An eyebrow that would say, who do you think you are, exactly, to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do?

  “Should I?” I say instead, hoping all of that is somehow obvious from my tone.

  “Yes. It’s fun. And the ski trip is always a blast. Last year was awesome, and my brother says the year before was super cool too.”

  “Uh huh,” I say.

  He presses a flyer into my hand. He barely touches me but I feel like I’m the body in that Operation! game I sometimes play with Harry. Like every part of me is buzzing and lighting up. Then Tim leans in and whispers, “It’d be a chance to get to know each other.” The word chance tickles my ear with its ch and its ssss sounds. My stomach does that thing with the somersault again.

  “Okay,” I say. Really I’m just saying, okay, I’ll think about it. Okay, I’ll take the flyer. Also: okay, stomach: let’s calm down. He’s just a boy. You don’t have time for boys. Or for ski trips. But swoopy-haired Tim grins and walks away, and my stomach doesn’t say okay back.

  Six

  Mom likes to have heart to hearts with me when she picks me up from orchestra. It’s one of the few times we’re alone, uninterrupted, and because we’re both looking in front of us and not at each other, it’s easier sometimes to say what we really think. Plus, I’m trapped there, no getting away, with my viola in its bright red oblong case between my knees, and I’m usually in a good mood after orchestra. The chosen topic today is Friends At High School. Mom tries to make these deep and meaningfuls seem spontaneous and light-hearted, but I know she thinks about them in advance. I’m not, after all, my mother’s daughter for nothing. When I mention Esther, my stand partner, she spots a plausible segue and pounces.

  “I don’t hear you talking about your new friends much,” she says.

  “My new friends?”

  “From school.”

  It’s only September 20th. I’ve not even been at this school a month, though it feels like an eternity. I just want to be out of here and at LACHSA. “Oh. Well. If I’m only going to be there for a year, it seems pointless to get attached to anyone.”

  This, it seems to me, is flawless logic, but my mother sighs. “It’s always worth getting attached,” she says.

  I turn my head to look at her, like – really? You’re kidding me with this, right? But her eyes are behind sunglasses and on the road. Pretty sure she can feel mine boring into the side of her head, though.

  “And what about Katie?”

  Katie’s been my best friend since the third grade. We always planned to go to LACHSA together – her for acting, me for music. Guess which one of us got in? Well, obviously, you already know which one of us got in because you know which one of us didn’t. Of course, we made all these pacts our entire childhoods about how unless both of us got accepted, neither of us would go, our pinkies entwined or our names solemnly sighed in purple ink in one of our diaries, but you know how those pacts go. And let’s be honest, I’d have done the same. You can’t put your dreams on hold while you wait for someone else to catch up. I don’t blame her, not really. That doesn’t mean I particularly want to talk to her, though.

  “What about Katie?” I ask.

  “You should invite her over sometime. I miss her.”

  Katie is the perfect friend to bring home. She’s unfailingly polite, vocally grateful for every meal and snack and glass of lemonade, and she loves being around my crazy family for reasons that I have never completely been able to fathom. Plus, mom gets to assuage her liberal guilt by encouraging her daughter to have a Hispanic friend. Katie is really Catalina, but nobody calls her that. Except, actually, my mom, sometimes. I don’t know what that’s about. But I’m pretty sure my mom doesn’t mean she misses her. She’s worried about me and my Lack Of Friends.

  “I don’t really want to hear about LACHSA,” I say. I didn’t mean to be so careless, to open my mouth and have the truth just fall out that way. But a thing I’m discovering lately is that if you squish your emotions down long enough and hard enough, eventually they leak out at totally inopportune moments.

  “You might be surprised,” mom says. She doesn’t elaborate, and I have no idea what she means by it. “Besides, a friendship like that is a precious thing. You can’t just throw it away over jealousy. It’s such a waste.”

  Then we’re home, which means mom’s had the last word, and she gets to underline her point with a thud of the car door. Maybe that’s why I keep thinking about it that night. I even pick up the phone a couple of nights and scroll down to her name in the texting app. But no. I’m not ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.

  Seven

  I’m walking past dad and Ebba’s room the next week, my feet cool on the hardwood floor, when I catch a snippet of their conversation. Only a snippet. I don’t even realize it’s about me until my brain is done processing the sentences, and by then I’m too far down the hallway on the way to my room to double back. I’d risk being a little too obvious if I did. Eavesdropping requires stealth.

  I hear Ebba’s voice first. “How long do you think she’s going to be mad at me for?”

  “A couple more days,” my dad says, without authority in his voice. “That’s about the right penalty for this kind of minor offence.”

  “Minor?”

  “She pretends not to like being watched, for her art or whatever, but Clara lives for admiration.” It’s harsh, and I’d argue with him if I wasn’t hearing this from the hallway, but let’s be honest: it’s probably fair.

  “No,” Ebba says. “Not that. How long do you think she’s going to be mad at me for being in your lives? It’s been two years. I’m exhausted. I feel like I’ve tried everything.”

  It goes quiet and I hear the rustle of clothes, like they’re hugging or getting ready to –

  Aww. No. Do not go there, brain. I forbid it.

  “Well,” my dad says, in this ridiculous puppy dog voice. Not, like, a barking or a yapping, that’s not what I mean. I mean the sort of voice you imagine goes with puppy dog eyes. All sweet and adoring. The way Harry Potter looks at Ginny Weasley when she’s tying his shoelaces in the sixth movie But they’re kids; it’s forgivable, even for wizards. Parent-age people should be over that kind of behavior. “If it makes you feel better, I’m unspeakably glad you’re in our lives. In my life.”

  It’s clearly about to get gross at that point, so I tiptoe the rest of the hallway and into my room for viola practice. As I twizzle the end of my bow to tighten the horsehair, I think about Ebba’s question. How long am I going to be mad at her? Another year? Maybe. She’s right: it’s exhausting. It’s exhausting being mad all the time. It’s not like I’m furious or punching walls or throwing plates at the floor or anything like that. It’s just this constant, low-level anger, like the way the fridge hums and you don’t notice it till it stops. Only this anger never does stop and that’s why I hadn’t really noticed it until I heard Ebba mention it.

  I flick to the right page of the études book on my music stand and secure the pages with the metal clips so it doesn’t close in on itself. I run through my scales absent-mindedly, forgetting to alternate staccato and legato notes. I feel like my anger protects me, you know? It stops Ebba getting too close. I let Libby get close and she left and I miss her. I let Katie get close and now she’s getting on with her life without me and leaving me behind. I let myself care about Madison Harper but she’s always busy filming and I never see her and that makes we wonder if we’re even really friends. What’s going to happen if I let myself get close to Ebba? Anyway, she likes Juliette more and loves going to the library with Rosie and talking to her about books and curling up on the sofa with her, one on each end, their feet touching, sharing a fuzzy blanket, each of them silently turni
ng pages. Who even needs a blanket, anyway? This is California. Like, turn the AC down if you’re cold.

  I’d just be replacing anger with jealousy then.

  Might as well stay angry.

  Eight

  Every October and February, my school puts on a talent show. Student Arts Showcase, they call it. You have to apply to be in it and get a teacher of the relevant subject to sign a slip guaranteeing you’re not going to completely and forever embarrass yourself and the school by attempting to do something in public that you’re so bad at you shouldn’t even be attempting it in the privacy of your own bedroom. Those evenings double as fundraisers and photo opps; the school invites reporters and prospective donors and then the article in Pasadena Now gets framed and put in the Hall of Fame, the part of the hallway that houses the sport trophies and signed photos from illustrious alumni and all that kind of stuff. We all know we’re basically being exploited for the financial good of the school but I’ve already picked up that, somehow, it’s still a big deal to get to perform or display your artwork for the Showcases.

  Mr. Giovanni, the wiry teacher from orchestra, smiles when I present him with the form after rehearsal. The room is bustling, still; people are disassembling their flutes, loosening their bows, clicking instrument cases shut. Then there are one of two show-offs running through some of the harder passages we ran through, allegedly to seal it in their muscle memory but more to demonstrate to the rest of us that they weren’t the ones slowing us down, thank you very much.

  “Good job, Clara,” he says. He pronounces my name right. He must know about Clara Schumann, which, you know, for a music teacher, makes sense. “It’s great to see freshmen get involved in these. What are you going to play?”

  I’ve been practicing the Stravinsky Elegie with my viola teacher for a while, and it’s almost up to scratch. (Dad would approve of that pun.) Although it’s got the same name as Glazunov’s, it couldn’t be more different – you start off wowing the audience with technical prowess. I’ve got two weeks; if I practice for an extra hour every day, it should be plenty good enough. Major scales, minor scales, arpeggios, étude of the week, the Telemann, and then the Stravinsky.