Girl, Unstrung

by Claire Handscombe

  “Yep. That’s him.”

  “He was cute.”

  It’s clear by the hair all in his eyes comment that this is not what she actually thinks. That what she actually thinks is he needs a haircut before she can even contemplate his blue eyes and his chin dimple and his long eyelashes. She’s trying to get a reaction from me. Gauging if I think he’s cute.

  “I guess,” I say. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “Uh huh,” she says, in that way she does when it’s clear she doesn’t believe me. She brushes the part of my hair that isn’t braided yet. Trying to relax me some more, coax more honesty out of me.

  “Do you think he likes you too?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. I’ve fallen right into the trap. By not arguing with the too I’ve let it be tacitly understood that I do, in fact, like him. It’s the hair brushing. Its actual magical powers. “I mean, he invited me on the trip, so, I guess so? But sometimes I think boys only like me because of dad. Not just boys. Girls, too. Everyone.”

  This, actually, is an effective strategy, though it isn’t really a strategy, as such. The words rushed out in an honest whoosh before I had the chance to think about them. But they’re an effective deflection, pointing to a Bigger Issue Into Which We Should Probably Delve.

  “How do you know they don’t like you because of me?” my mom says. Now she’s deflecting, too. Making a joke to relax me further, to cause more words to tumble out of me as she finishes my braid.

  “Ha,” I say. “Good point.”

  She starts massaging my neck and shoulders. This is definitely not part of the usual hairstyling deal.

  “That’s good,” I say. She’s doing it pretty softly, on my neck then down each shoulder. I know that in order for it to be effective it needs to hurt at least a little, like so many things in life. You play till your wrist aches, and then way past that point. Till the skin on your neck is purplish. That’s how you know you’re pushing yourself anything close to hard enough.

  “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders,” my mom says, like it’s some great achievement to have figured out that people in Hollywood’s orbit are a little superficial. Still, I like the compliment. “But you have to let people love you. You have to let them like you for who you are.”

  I think about Ebba, for some reason. Which is not at all what we’re discussing, so who knows where that came from.

  “Maybe not sophomore boys on ski trips,” she adds. I never mentioned he was a sophomore. How does she know? Do she and dad talk more than I think they do? Was all of this conversation some kind of elaborate bluff? I don’t want to sound paranoid, though. I let it go. “Be careful,” she says. “Okay?”

  I’ve got a supply of condoms, if that’s what she means. You know, just in case. Just in case things escalate quickly at the top of a mountain or after a hot apple cider. Would he taste sweet? Would I taste it if I’ve been drinking it too? How does that even work? Always prepared. I suspect that isn’t what my mom means, though. I suspect she’s talking about my heart. She doesn’t need to worry about that. I’m always careful with my heart.

  Sixteen

  Since mom’s in acting too, she understands the importance of multiple takes. Of keeping going till you get it just right. Till you get it perfect. Except, of course, there’s no such thing as perfect in music. That’s why we’re supposed to say Practice makes progress, not Practice makes perfect. (I’ve told my dad this a million times. It’s like he doesn’t listen.) It’s possible, I guess, to be technically perfect, with your fingers in all the right places on exactly the right beats, with your vibrato exactly even. And that’s primarily what I’m going for in this video: technical perfection. The other stuff, it’s so subjective. My expressiveness. My musicality. My potential, even. These things can’t ever be perfect. Not objectively. So I’m focusing hard on the things that can, because secretly I agree with my dad on the fact that you can get there if you just put the effort in. The other stuff is icing on the cake. It’s not the cherry, because strictly speaking you don’t need a cherry. It’s nice, but it’s superfluous. Some people don’t even like the cherry. But icing is different. Icing, like the musicality, needs to be there. It’s not the main thing, but a cake without icing isn’t going to impress anyone, no matter how perfect it’s execution.

  My fourth take today is great, and not just because mom got the angle exactly right so that my round face looks a bit thinner, and the lighting makes my freckles less prominent. No, it’s great because of my technique. To continue this slightly overwrought metaphor, the cake has risen perfectly. The testing knife has come out clean. But where the metaphor fails is here: you make the cake perfectly, then you add the icing and in theory at least if the icing isn’t good enough you can scrape it off and start again until you get that part right, too. With playing the viola, you have to do both at the same time. Technical perfection and musicality. The cake and the icing.

  I’m at my most musical when I’m not thinking too hard about the notes, when I’m able to just relax into the melody, to let intuition guide me. There are two ways to achieve that: either you fudge the notes and the tempo, or you know the notes and the tempo so well that that it’s okay to relax because your muscles can be trusted to do their thing unaided. Mom and dad say it’s the same thing with acting. That you’ve got to know your lines so well that you don’t need to think about them, so that all of your brain power and energy can go into inhabiting the fictional character, which guides the other stuff: how you move, your facial expression, your tone of voice. In a way, it’s muscle memory for them, too, and that’s why they memorize out loud, to train their mouths to just make the right sounds while they focus on the other things.

  So now that I’ve achieved technical perfection I need to keep doing takes until I get one that’s also musical and moving. After four takes, though, I don’t really feel capable of moving anyone – or moving anything, even my bow across the strings.

  “What did you think of that one?” I ask mom, hoping she felt something I didn’t. Hoping there was musicality in it that I didn’t hear because my brain is mush at this point. But, to be fair, maybe hers is, too. And in any case, here’s the thing: I’d know. I can feel it down in my gut when I’m doing it right. This wasn’t that.

  “I think let’s call it a day,” mom says. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  I’m exhausted, suddenly. I have no energy left to fight my own mediocrity. “Okay,” I say.

  Seventeen

  The seventh take is the winner, but I’m not at mom’s when I do it. She got called for an audition the night after our first four takes, and it was for a show she’s always wanted to be on. She got the call when we were together and I acted like it was no big deal, that I could totally just do the taping with dad instead.

  The truth is, though, it is kind of a big deal. Being with mom is calming in a way that being with dad isn’t. He’s fun, but he’s not calming. And Ebba – well, Ebba just makes everything more complicated. But I didn’t want to guilt mom out of the opportunity. I’m back at dad’s now, and he’s out working too, or what passes for working, some party somewhere, a premiere of some movie or other. Ebba usually goes with him to these things, but it can get complicated when it’s our week with dad. So, lucky her, she’s stuck with trying to get Harry to eat a spoonful of peas at the kitchen island, her phone wedged between her head and her shoulder as she organizes a car pool for ballet class for Juliette, against the background thrum of Rosie talking and talking about the latest book she’s reading.

  Ebba looks a little frazzled, to tell you the truth, too frazzled to do a good job of recording me, let alone of helping me get my head in the game. Strands of hair have fallen out of her ponytail, and not in an artsy way. So I go upstairs to try to figure out if I can somehow position my iPad to video myself at a good angle. I play the first few bars of the Telemann and then I look, and it’s awful, awful, the camera practically peering up my nose and somehow also givin
g me a double chin. In theory, it doesn’t matter what I look like, but first impressions, and all that. I don’t want the LACHSA people to think I’m some kind of weirdo with no friends to take the video for her. I’ve made my peace with not being allowed “unfair” advantages, but I’m not going to allow myself unfair disadvantages either.

  LACHSA only takes rising ninth and tenth graders, so this is my last chance. Dad likes to sing I am not throwing away my shot from Hamilton at me from time to time, in what I think is supposed to be an encouraging way. “When are you going to get us tickets?” I ask him when he does, and he says, this is not about that. This is about you. You not throwing away your shot. But annoying as it is, it’s kind of become my mantra. I’m going to make it this time if it kills me, and sometimes I think it just might. At night, sometimes, the throbbing of my wrist wakes me up, and I have to swallow some Advil about an hour before each practice session so it kicks in in time. I’ve thought about asking my parents to take me to the doctor so I can get prescribed something stronger, but I think mom and dad would probably both decide I was unnecessarily obsessed or something, and make me cut down my hours of practice or whatever, not throwing away my shot be damned. But I’m so close now, so close, I just need to get this video done and then a few weeks of intense practice and then my audition, and when I hear I’ve been accepted into LACHSA I’ll give myself a break, go back down to my basic two hours a day for a little while: pre-breakfast, pre-dinner, after dinner. What’s a little Advil for a few weeks in the meantime?

  I scrap the fifth attempt, prepare to try again with the iPad at a slightly different angle on my nightstand. “This is never going to work,” I say, possibly with a few added expletives of the kind dad doesn’t like me to use around the house.

  There’s a knock on the door: Ebba’s tell-tale three knocks.

  “Yeah?”

  She pushes the door open. “You want some help with taping your audition?”

  “You’re busy.”

  “Harry’s in bed. Finally.” She laughs, like she’s making a little joke with herself. “Dishes are in the dishwasher. Rosie’s reading. I’m all yours. If you want me.”

  It’s not, obviously, that I want her, exactly. I want mom and her reassuring confidence in me. Or dad and his terrible puns. I don’t mind helping you, he’d say. It’s no treble. Haha. Good one, dad. But I do need someone, and Ebba is the someone who is available.

  “That would be great,” I say. I can’t get this iPad to angle right.

  We figure it out together and I play the fourth movement Telemann concerto, double stops and super-fast eighth notes, with its taped accompaniment, skipping along as effortlesslyas I can with the lightest of touches as I can. It would be better to have a live pianist, but no-one in the family is that good at the piano, and my viola teacher didn’t have the extra hours for the extra takes this week. I play it through, and it’s good enough, not good enough, you know? It’s technically damn near perfect. But I don’t have it. That extra thing where the music resonates in my bones and in the pit of my stomach.

  “I don’t think it’s happening tonight,” I tell Ebba, half-way through the second take that we do together.

  “You’re not feeling it?”

  I shake my head, disappointed in myself.

  “It sounded good to me,” she says.

  “I mean, yeah. It’s good enough. To the untrained ear, you know?”

  She smiles, sort of, with her mouth but not her eyes. “I feel like my ear is pretty trained,” she says. “We’ve heard you play this for months.”

  “Sorry if I’m boring you.” I don’t sound sorry. I sound like a brat. Hashtag sorry not sorry.

  “I don’t mean it that way,” she says, but I’m not convinced. She forces warmth into her voice. “Want to give it another try?”

  I shake my head again. “It’s not happening tonight. I’m sorry.”

  And this time I really am sorry, though I’m not sure what about. Wasting her time? Being meaner to her than she deserves? I don’t know, but I must be sorry about something, because I’m crying. It’s embarrassing how much I’ve cried lately. I am not this pathetic whimpering wimp of a little girl. The embarrassment of it makes me cry more. I don’t want Ebba to see me like this. I want her to know I’m strong. That she can’t break me. That nothing can break me. Except, obviously, it turns out something can after all. Whatever this something is.

  I’m still holding my viola in place, under my chin and sticking out in front, so she can’t hug me. I don’t want her to, anyway.

  “Clara,” she says. “Look at me.”

  My eyes move slowly, across my viola’s body and fingerboard and over to Ebba. Her eyes are such a brilliant blue. She’s beautiful. I’ve never noticed that before. I’m struck with it, suddenly. Dad has great taste.

  “You can do this,” she says. “I promise you can do this. Let your fingers do the work. Let the rest go. Remember that time I was watching you from your bedroom door? That time you were so mad at me?”

  Like I could have forgotten that.

  “What were you thinking about then? Because it was working for you.”

  I was picturing myself on the stage at Lincoln Center, but I’m not about to tell her that.

  “I don’t remember,” I say.

  “Well, whatever it was,” she says, like she knows I’m lying, “try that now. You were feeling it down in your bones, the music. I could tell. That’s why I couldn’t tear myself away. When you play that way, it’s impossible for anyone to tear themselves away.”

  I remember that day, how it felt before I realized Ebba was there, lurking, watching me. I remember it was one of the first times I’d gotten the Glazunov almost right and I remember not caring if it was perfect, just letting the music carry me the way a wave carries a surfer.

  I close my eyes and I start. And when I’m done, I don’t have to look at Ebba to know that I nailed it. I felt it. I felt it right in my gut. That was it. My best. But I look at Ebba anyway and her eyes are glistening. She felt it too.

  “Atta girl,” she says. I don’t even mind that she’s talking to me like I’m a dog. “That was great. Really. Truly.”

  “Thank you.” I mean thank you for the compliment, and thank you for recording me, but I mean, too, thank you for believing in me. Thank you for helping me get there. Thank you for helping me get into LACHSA, and Juilliard, and the Symphony. Because if I get in, it’ll be because you helped me to be the best version of myself.

  Eighteen

  It’s Rosie’s twelfth birthday on December 9th, and what she wants to do is for all of us to sit and watch The Sound of Music together. For reasons best known to herself, it’s her favorite movie. It’s also super long, and that’s hours away from my viola, but she begged me, her blue eyes tearing up right there at the dinner table. “Please, Clara. We never do anything together as a family anymore. You’re always up there in your room.” I wanted to point out that the reason we never do anything together as a family anymore is that there is no together as a family. There’s mom in one house and dad in the other. Mom with the boyfriends she tries to hide from us and dad with Ebba and then us, the tagalongs.

  But birthdays have always been sacred in our house. Our houses. Our parents don’t work on our birthdays, and they try extra hard to say yes to as many as possible of the things we ask for. So I hold my tongue. And I think that maybe, just possibly, a couple of hours without playing through pain might be nice. A couple of hours without checking my phone, even. That’s a birthday rule, too: we put our phones down and we focus on being together. Mindfulness, or something. Togetherness. Hallmark-movie style. At least Rosie isn’t making us watch one of those.

  And anyway, I’m so very sick of having half an eye on my phones at all times just in case it pings with an email notification from LACHSA. When I remind dad that my email could come, as if anyone in the family could possibly have forgotten, he tells me that’s highly unlikely since the closing date hasn’t passed
, and even unlikelier on a Friday night. And also he states the obvious: that the email will still be there two hours later. That I can still have all the emotions and text Madison and Katie and Snapchat it all dand it will all still be just as exciting two hours later. Which, on a logical level, makes perfect sense. Logic has always been enough for me. But I’m not myself these days.

  I’m on edge. I’m spending a lot of time watching the pre-dawn turn to sunrise through my window, cursing myself for not coming top in math tests anymore, for not able to get through viola pieces I know like the back of my hand without some major mistakes. My vibrato is uneven. My fingers don’t respond as fast as they used to, as fast as they need to if I’m going to play as well as I possibly can at the LACHSA in-person audition in February. Not that I know if I’ll get to go to that yet. The waiting is killing me. No joke: some days I think my heart might just exhaust itself with all its frantic beating and give up. Dad alternates between tiptoeing around me and trying to cheer me up with his terrible puns and Hamilton quotes. Just you wait, he keeps saying, and I’m like, yes, the waiting is the problem here. Just picking up my viola makes me nauseous, which is unhelpful because now is exactly when I can’t give up on practice or, in fact, slow down even slightly. The pain in my wrist is getting worse. I take four Advil instead of two before practice and lessons now, and I experiment with ice, with Icy Hot, with heat patches. I’ve asked Ebba, pretending to be interested in her ballerina past, how she would dance through pain, what they did to make it bearable. She gave me super vague answers, so that was totally unhelpful.

  On this Friday night, for Rosie’s birthday, I make popcorn – real stovetop popcorn, like we have at mom’s. Rosie leans her elbows on the kitchen side and watches with me. I love the building anticipation of moments like this: you think the kernels are never going to explode, and then one does, and then a few seconds another, and then little groups start going at once until they’re having a party in there and the smell of them fills the house. We settle under our unnecessary blankets, Dad and Ebba in the middle of the big sofa, which I’m sure would be romantic without Harry squirming on dad’s lap. Rosie next to Ebba, Ebba’s arm around her. Juliette and me on the other sofa, our legs extended and our feet touching, and the big bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. Before this movie is over, there will be popcorn all over the floor and down the sides of the sofa cushions; that’s just part of the deal.