“It's so nice that the two of you are finally getting along,” my mother the conscience/clairvoyant concludes, beginning to drag herself and her vegetables back towards the house. “It's a very special thing, to have a sibling.”
Chapter Eleven
November 22nd
We're tuning up in the garage when Trace whips it out, a tiny black velvet box. I set my violin down in the soiled space on his bed where we were, moments before—and watch his profile for some kind of clue.
“Don't worry!” he laughs, catching the flinty look in my eye. “It's not what you think, just open it.”
My heart skips a beat as I gather the small, fuzzy box up in my palms, holding it like a bird that might fly away. Needless to say, no man has ever given me jewelry. I top out at “Forgive-me-for- yelling-my-wife's-name-while-I-was-inside-you!” flowers, so...this is a big deal.
“You shouldn't have.”
“Open it first, woman!” Trace is smiling as he sits down heavily on the stool.
It's officially a few days away, our big secret audition, and the plan runs thusly: in the morning, we'll give my parents an adorable send-off to keep their mind off questions. Trace will prepare a tasty, un-vegan breakfast (because apparently, he's a “wizard with eggs”) and we'll drive them to the airport for the conference. Instead of depositing the car at home, we'll drive on to the big apple. In this part of my fantasy, our dinky old family Volvo is a red convertible, and I wear a silk scarf and Jackie O. sunglasses while the two of us stream down the highway like rock stars.
We'll get to the hostel in Brooklyn, where a friend of Mr. Gavin's will hook us up—and then get to bed early. I'm scheduled to go before the strings department at 10:00 am, while he's appointed to work with the jazz people at 10:30 am, in a building across the street. We're both going to meet up after and not say anything about how it all went down—the plan is to just go to town on one another for a single glorious, romantic, free-from-all-the-fake-ass-jerks-at-school evening. A sort of counter to the fact that the morning will have likely decided both our futures.
Once Trace decided to apply to music school, it was surprisingly easy to get the ball rolling. I dragged him before Mr. Gavin one early morning, and insisted the two start working together, so Gavin could write a recommendation letter. Trace hasn't been acing his new classes since moving in with us, but Melanie wasn't kidding in the fall: he's done well enough, despite a patchy school system. He's got an average academic record, sufficient SAT scores to apply to college and not look insane. Luckily, the audition is the thing for Juilliard.
“You know, tickets to a Broadway show don't usually come in a little velvet box,” I hint. “You could have just handed me an envelope.”
“Har dee har har. You can't guess it. Just open it.”
Though I kind of want to hold my little bird box forever, finally I comply. I lift the tiny, and surprisingly heavy, lid. Inside I find—on a satiny white cushion—a sterling silver chain, elegant and thin. Lifting the lid fully, I realize the chain leads to a charm, about the size of my thumbnail, a violin.
“That part's platinum. So I guess you don't polish it the same.” Trace has snuck up behind me, positioning his head so he's perched above one of my shoulders.
“Oh my God.”
“Here.” With a flourish I can't help but read as pride, Trace carefully lifts the necklace from its tiny cushion, and separates its fragile clasp. I reach behind me to lift my hair off the back of my neck. His fingers tickle me when they join at one of my vertebrae, and the chain slides cool and calming down my throat.
My foster brother leans forward and kisses me on the back of the neck. It's soft and quick.
“I just wanted you to know that these last few weeks have been really special,” he begins, his mouth still hovering near my sensitive skin. “Cue the world's tiniest violin...”
I reach down and pluck the charm from where it's fallen, between my breasts. Pinching it between by fingers, I hold it up so Trace can see it.
“We're all set.”
“You're funny.”
“I know.”
“I love you, Jo.”
“What?”
It's something about the words being uttered aloud in space. Suddenly, we can't take it back—these sordid hook-ups, all the lying to my parents. We’re beyond the dreamy fiction we've created and outside in the cold real world. Instead of looking at him, I walk a few paces away.
If he actually loves me, I'm forced to consider what will really happen after this weekend. Will the fairy tale just neatly converge around us? Will we both get into Juilliard? Will my parents just accept us? The real world's not like that. The real world is...Eric—lying, sad men in relationships they can't leave, in jobs that don’t thrill them. The real world is full of the cruel kinds of parents and partners. The people who left Trace originally—gave him up, sent him here.
I have been in elaborate denial.
“I need to know where you got the money for this necklace, T.”
“Whoa. Where is that coming from?”
“It's just something I need to know.”
“I didn't steal it, if that's where this is going.”
“Be serious. For once, please.”
“Jo, did you hear what I said before?”
“Tell me the truth.”
Trace looks around the room, like the wall will offer him an answer—or the TV, or the drum kit. He looks thrown, and I've never seen him look thrown. He's always in complete control. I shift from foot to foot on the dirty carpet, so the thin chain slides a little across my skin. Suddenly, it's like something toxic on me. I reach around behind me and fumble for its clasp.
“Don't do that.”
“I can't accept this, if you bought it with drug money.”
When I look up from the floor, I see that Trace's expression has changed. He appears resigned, now. He smiles, even. A little sadly.
“How could you lie to me? About something so huge?”
“I never lied. You saw what you wanted to see.”
“And what was that? What do you imagine I wanted to see?'”
“The hard-working ghetto kid who pulls himself up by his bootstraps. The well-adjusted black teen jock. The secret musical genius –”
“That is so unfair.”
“You know, I see right through you Joanna. You love to have the perfect reason to explain yourself out of taking a chance. It's just like with this music shit—would you even be here, trying, if I weren't here to make it fun? Would you have ever thought of going to school for this, if some teacher hadn't told you?”
“I could say the exact same thing to you!”
“At least I don't jerk people around. I know what I want, I go for it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You let that motherfucking Mahoney use you, and then you went crawling back to him. And why? Why, because you were so afraid to take a chance on someone who actually cared about you. Just like you're afraid to go to New York, tell your parents about us, grovel to Claudia, or say you love me, too. Because these things aren't practical, and they don't fit into your perfect little conformity scheme.”
“At least I'm not selling for that asshole Hank Gilmore. At least I'm not buying expensive, useless crap with cocaine and weed and God knows what else money!”
I'm so hot I wouldn't be surprised to find my face tomato-red in a mirror, like Yosemite Sam after a tango with Bugs Bunny. I gather up the necklace in my palm and squeeze it until the metal hurts my skin. Then, I toss it onto the floor, where it writhes for a second like a snake.
“I'm not willing to go down for something like this, Trace. This isn't an adventure you can sell me on.”
“You have no idea what it's like for me, rich girl. You have no idea where I come from, and no right at all to judge.”
“You deal drugs to the popular kids at my high school. Mahoney has a file on you. The whole school talks about it. All this stuff is not exactly subtle. You cam
e into my family's house, and now you've put each of us in danger. I have every right to judge.”
“Great timing. Don't forget that.”
Trace turns away from me, and I recognize in his back the same fury he must've felt when he learned he was locked in a basement with me. But this time, I don't go to him. You're not wrong, I tell myself, after the garage door has slammed behind me and the gravel is crunching underfoot. He just confirmed every rumor you've ever heard about from Gilmore, and those shady basketball kids. He might be cute and wonderful and talented, but you can't have people bring you down, Jo. As hot tears fill my eyes, I absently clutch my naked throat.
* * *
Trace isn't in school the next day, but Eric is patrolling the morning hallway crowd, as per usual. I know him well enough by now, to detect the glint of malice in his expression, when he sees that I'm hovering by my locker alone this morning. I turn away, when he brushes uncomfortably close by me—but as he strides away, I can't help noticing the return of his wedding ring.
The other usual suspects are surprisingly absent—I can't hear or see Claudia, giggling evilly with her new best friends. Neither the popular girls nor the basketball guys are commanding attention. For a moment, it's like I might've dreamed the past few weeks. I feel as anonymous and alone as I used to feel; drifting through these hallways from the newspaper, the counselor's office, the orchestra pit, and then home.
Just as I'm resigning myself to this odd, new alternate universe, Mr. Gavin rounds the bend. He's a pretty tiny guy, when he's excited (which is usually) he reminds me of a human bullet, or something. He shoots through a crowded space, seeming to wend around the legs of the taller folk. When he sees me, he gathers a whole new kind of energy. I don't dare move, for fear I'm bowled over.
“I was worried I wouldn't get a chance to say good luck!” he says between arduous pants, once he's reached my side. “The pair of you are going to do great this weekend. I just know it. A team for the ages.”
The earnest expression on his face nearly breaks me. Because there's no way I can tell Mr. Gavin that the whole thing's off with his favorite students, and it's all my fault. I can't say I'm too afraid to go to New York alone, just like I'm too afraid to do almost everything. Instead, before he can ask where Trace has skipped off to, I thank him.
“Don't look so nervous, Jo!” he calls, unsuspecting, to my back. “You'll be perfectisimo! And when you both get back, tell that foster brother of yours I want to see him. There's a Buddy Rich bootleg he has to hear.”
I duck into the nearest girl's room. After a hasty check below each stall, I let myself crumble against the paper towel dispenser. Sobs leave my body as if someone's ripping them from my lungs.
This morning, my parents had asked where Trace was, making no connection between his late-night disappearance and my puffy, red eyes. As they'd debated whether or not to call Melanie, their brows fraught with worry, I'd slipped out of the house unseen and run the mile to school for the first time in weeks. The cold air on my skin had been the only thing that helped erase the memory of the prior evening. The crushed expression on his face. The limp necklace, on the carpet. His bright drum kit, sitting in the room like it too was expectant and hopeful and ready to live happily ever after.
In the school parking lot, as sweat ran down the back of my neck, I'd received a text message:
Tell your parents thank you from me, and that they don't need to worry.
Good luck with everything, J.
It had looked so final. I'd started a few different replies, but none looked right on the screen. What I had to say to Trace couldn't be said in a stupid text message. Then I'd tried to call him, but found no answer on the end of the line. Instead, I'd rung my mother. “Get in touch with Melanie,” I'd told her. “I think Trace is in trouble.”
The first bell rang. Then, the second. I waited to feel relief, but the tears kept coming in waves—it reminded me of the one time I'd ever been drunk, and how violently sick I'd been the next day. That had been a few mornings after Eric and I had first gotten it on, in fact. I remember how Claudia had rubbed my back in the bathroom as I threw up all night, and covered for me in the morning, telling my parents we'd studied so late into the evening that I needed to sleep late. She hadn't asked a single question, that whole night.
“What, you're feeling sorry for yourself now?”
When I open my eyes—now gummy with tears—I see that I've conjured my ex-best friend. For the first time in a while, she's wearing traditional Claudia garb: a red V-neck sweater, skinny jeans, and big hoops of gold jewelry, and wherever jewelry can go on a human. She's half-smiling at my snotty reflection in the mirror.
“What do you want?”
“I saw you weren't in English. Figured I'd find you here.”
“Oh.”
We stare at one another for a second, before Claudia bends her head to root through her tin-can license plate clutch. That's so C—to have one nutty accessory, distinguishing her sexy news-anchor look.
“I'm sorry,” we both say, at the same time. I fall into her arms like a baby. Claudia rubs my back with long, maternal strokes, and I let myself sob grossly into her shoulder.
“That was so shitty of me. I should've told you from the beginning that I liked Trace.”
“You should've told me from the beginning that you liked Eric. This is what best friends are for, dummy.” I feel her laugh around me, her shoulders heaving. “And I'm sorry I've been so high-school about everything. I can't believe I let Leslie May and those monster-bitches convince me that you were a downtown slut.”
Now, it's my turn to laugh. The image of Claudia schmoozing around town with those Basic Bitches, sipping lattes and arguing over tasteful purchases at the mall—it's suddenly ridiculous to imagine that relationship sustaining.
“I missed you, foo.” She peels me away from her shoulder, and wrinkles her nose at the damp patch I've made. “It's okay, you can buy me a new one. When you're in New York.” She smiles.
“A little bird called Mr. Gavin.”
“Oh, Claudia. But it's—Trace is gone.” A fresh wave of sobs starts in my stomach, and carries itself up to my face. My best friend draws me in again.
“He's a smart guy, Jo. He knows how to work the system. You shouldn't worry.”
“But it's all my fault. He told me he loved me and I freaked out. I called him on all the drug stuff and now—now, I don't know where he is. He ran away last night.”
Claudia is silent for a second, she just keeps rubbing my back and stroking my hair. I can't even remember the last time my mother was this comforting.
“Jo, listen to me. I know you guys had a musical connection, but—okay, it's like that Beatles song, right? 'There's no one you can save who can't be saved.'”
“What?”
“I dunno. I'm saying, don't worry. Trace is technically an adult. So are you. For once in your life!”
I look into Claudia's big brown eyes, and feel myself smile. Behind us, I'm vaguely aware of the bathroom door creaking open to admit someone—but I'm too busy hugging my best friend to care.
“Joanna? Joanna Prine?”
“Beat it, whoever you are. I'm too busy loving on this really great lady.”
“But there's a message for you in the office? Loren Kiehl is here to meet with you.”
The shrimpy freshman girl before us waves a little pink hall-pass in our direction, by way of proof. On closer inspection, I see that she looks a bit freaked out to have walked in on this love-fest.
“Who the hell is Loren Kiehl?” Claudia sniffs, by now blinking back tears of her own. It's too late to stop the emotion train once it's left the station. “Wait. Is that someone to do with Trace?”
I search my brain for the familiar name's source, but in the fog of the morning's activity realization reaches me slow. The freshman girl shifts from foot to foot, agitated.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Dartmouth. It's the Dartmouth lady, from
a few weeks ago. Shit.”
“You didn't tell me you had a Dartmouth interview scheduled for today!”
“I didn't know that I did.”
“I got the note from Mr. Mahoney? In the counselor's office?” She looks super uncomfortable now, and begins to back away. I don't blame her. If I were in her place, I'd think I was being punk'd.
“That slime!” Claudia shrieks, putting the pieces together a second before I do. Which, of course, bodes just swell for the Ivy League college interview I'm apparently due at, ten minutes ago.
“Just don't go. Tell her you're sick, and you need to reschedule. Or better yet, tell her you've made other college plans, and you don't want to waste your time.”
But what surfaces first, is my parents' expressions. It's one thing to deceive them with the whole Juilliard-audition-heist, but how would they react if they knew I'd deliberately sabotaged my chances at having college options? Juilliard was technically more selective than Dartmouth; if I flunked this interview on purpose, it wouldn't exactly guarantee my slot in music school. Suddenly, I felt like the biggest idiot in the world. Of course Eric was bound to exact some kind of sneaky, future-ruining revenge.
“Or maybe he just believed in you,” Claudia says, eerily intuiting my thoughts. “He might've scheduled the interview weeks ago, for all you know. Just figuring you could nail it on a moment's notice.”
“Should I go back to the office, or?” The freshman girl is basically yelling to us from outside the bathroom, now. People will be flitting through the halls, on their free period senior passes.
“No! Wait! Shit!”
“Joanna!”
“Hold up, pee-wee!” I take a long look at myself in the mirror, in assessment: mousy brown hair, falling straight to my shoulders. The get-up of someone who's stopped trying: Disney princess sweatshirt and droopy jeans. My face is thankfully clear of blemishes, but my green eyes are puffy and red from crying.
A Family Affair: My Bad Boy Foster Brother Page 13