by Beth Goobie
Mom. Dad, she thought, touching their glassed-in faces. If only ... A gulping sigh took her, and Meredith blinked back a rush of tears. If only she could have five minutes with them now, she reflected—to hear what their voices had sounded like, the kinds of things they had liked to say. The true things, she thought fervently. The real things. Not the endless stories she made up inside her head—scenes of being welcomed home from school by her mother, or playing catch in a big back yard with Dad. It wasn’t that Meredith didn’t like Aunt Sancy—love her, in fact, but ... Well, she thought, touching the two faces again. Parents are where you come from. They used to have bits of you inside their bodies. They are you, sort of. Aunts can never be that.
Possibly the saddest thing in her life was that she could remember next to nothing about her parents. Try as she might to dredge up something tangible, all Meredith could recall were blurred fleeting moments—a memory of her father’s laugh, or of standing in warm window-light and holding her mother’s hand. At least, she thought that what she was remembering was her father’s laughter and her mother’s hand, but if she was really honest, she didn’t know. Life before her fifth year was pretty much a blank space, like an erased chalkboard; Meredith was only able to recall specific experiences after her parents’ deaths, when Aunt Sancy had taken over. And these memories tended to involve the Goonhilly side of the family, due to the ever-present tension that had existed between her aunt and her Polk grandparents before their deaths.
Letting Gus Polk’s picture drop onto her stomach, Meredith picked up a second framed photograph and set it next to that of her parents. Taken a year after Ally’s and James’s deaths, it showed her Polk grandparents, Johanna and Dave Polk, leaning against their BMW in their front drive. Tanned and golf-course trim, they looked like the ideal retired couples portrayed in investment ads. And, thought Meredith, homing in on her grandfather’s face, they look like Dad—Granddad Polk even had that same mushed-up looking nose.
Even with her grandfather’s boxer’s nose, however, she had to admit that, like ole Gus, her grandparents looked too good to be true. In their late fifties, both were laughing blonds without the slightest sign of gray hair, and not a wrinkle lined either forehead. Face jobs? pondered Meredith, studying them. Botox? Even Granddad?
Aunt Sancy’s open hostility had restricted both the number and length of Meredith’s visits with her Polk grandparents, and, as a result, her memories of them were sparse—a big house that echoed as she ran through it, a vast manicured lawn, the scent of the BMW’s leather-covered seats. Overriding all of this had been the weight of her grandparents’ sadness over their only child’s death—invisible but constant, even behind their photogenic smiles. “A brilliant law student,” Meredith could recall her Grandfather Polk sighing. “He graduated at the top of his class. Prominent firms were lining up to interview him. Such a tragedy. Such a waste.”
And then there was the way that sadness had mutated into a flash of disappointment at every visit, the moment her grandparents had initially laid eyes on her. As if, somehow, her physical appearance took something from them—something they had been anticipating, had somehow assumed belonged to them. At the time, Meredith had felt it but hadn’t understood it. Now she did. It’s the way I look, she thought, observing her grandparents’ carefully arranged smiles. Not like him. Your son. No, your only grandchild turned out looking like the daughter-in-law—a Goonhilly. And the Goonhillys look like aliens from outer space next to the Polks. If ole Gus somehow managed to come back from the dead and we met up on Polk Avenue, he wouldn’t look at me twice.
Instinctively, Meredith glanced right and found herself smiling fondly at the elderly couple displayed in the last photograph standing on her night table. Dressed in matching velour track suits, her Goonhilly grandparents were snuggled together on a psychedelic, flower-power couch. Both were wearing the fuzzy rabbit-head slippers Meredith had given them the Christmas before they had died, within a month of each other, at a nearby seniors’ home. While Meredith didn’t currently resemble either of them, she knew she would someday. Right down to the rabbit-head slippers, she thought, smiling affectionately at their chubby faces. In contrast to her limited recall of her Polk grandparents, Meredith’s memories of her Goonhilly grandmother and grandfather were endless. And not in one of them, not even for the most fleeting of moments, could she remember seeing hesitation in their eyes when they caught sight of her. She lit up every room for them, and they let her know it. There had been no BMWs parked in front of the Goonhilly bungalow, no velvety, manicured lawn. The back yard had been dominated by her grandfather’s rabbit pens; his hair had resembled Einstein’s; and Grandma Goonhilly had thought dieting was for the birds. “Grandma Goonie” was what she called herself, and when Meredith had enthusiastically taken up the habit, the elderly woman had chuckled with delight.
Picking up the book on local history, Meredith again pondered the line drawing of her acclaimed ancestor. I don’t think this is really you, she decided, scowling at it. It’s just a guy—the way some artist imagined the great Gus Polk would look. You’re an illusion, Gussie. A fake. Complete and utter.
Briefly, her gaze flicked down to the rifle in the man’s hand. See! she triumphantly told herself. Even the hand is wrong. It’s in the right, but it should be in the left. I’m sure it was the left.
Decisively, she snapped the book closed.
Friday morning, Meredith arrived at home form to find the music classroom door closed and half the class milling around the already busy hall. What’s up? she thought. Concert Band practices are Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Weaving her way through the crowd, she joined Kirstin, who was peering in through the window in the classroom door.
“What’s going on?” Meredith asked, edging onto tiptoe to see in.
“Some kind of meeting,” said Kirstin. “The Concert Band, Woolger, and the Phoenix.”
Meredith snorted. “The Phoenix” was Mr. Sabom, Polkton Collegiate’s principal. A man with a large balding spot, he had taken to combing a long length of hair across the top of his head. Several years ago, this had led to unforeseen repercussions when an enterprising yearbook photographer had snapped a picture of the principal running across the teachers’ parking lot on a particularly blustery day, the long length of hair lifting vertically from his scalp. The ensuing yearbook candid had been labeled “The Phoenix,” and, years later, the nickname continued to rise from students’ lips on fiery, if giggly, wings.
“They don’t have their instruments,” said Meredith, scanning the scene before her. There, on the other side of the window glass, sat four rows of students, listening intently as Mr. Sabom spoke. Conspicuous on the rear riser was Gene, leaning against the back wall beside the double bass. Two meters to his left sat the drums, presided over by a set of blond dreadlocks, which, in turn, presided over a decidedly bored face.
Larry Navasky, thought Meredith, observing the drummer carefully. In his grad year, Larry was the sort of person one would expect to find inhabiting a drum set; his was a butt predestined to rule rock ’n’ roll thrones. Eyes narrowed, she scrutinized the tip of the cigarette pack peeking from his shirt pocket, the ragged tear in one jeans knee, and the casual way the drumsticks hung from his hands even when he wasn’t playing—so loosely, they appeared almost fluid. Bach, flowing from these fingers like water, she remembered Reb saying, and suddenly Meredith wondered if the same could be said about all musical instruments—if, for instance, notes from the tuba, the trombone, or Gene’s double bass also felt like flowing liquid to the musician. Personally, she didn’t have a clue—as far as she knew, no one in her family, Polk or Goonhilly, had ever displayed an aptitude for music—and it had never occurred to her to wonder about playing an instrument, what it might feel like, what the gift of that experience might be.
Turning to Mr. Woolger, Mr. Sabom nodded; with a wave of his baton, Mr. Woolger dismissed the band, and four rows of attentive faces dissolved into individual students rising to their feet. T
hen the door swung open and Meredith stepped back to avoid the surge of exiting bodies. For a second, she saw him so close she could have reached out and touched him—Larry Navasky, boredom flushed from his face as he tossed a comment at the band’s lead trumpeter. Then he was gone, his cool rock ’n’ roll butt passing through the doorway at the end of the corridor and out of sight.
Pressed to the wall, Meredith waited out the stream of departing students, then followed her classmates into the music room. Several band members were still lingering in their seats; over by Mr. Woolger’s desk, the teacher and the principal continued to talk; at the back of the room, Gene was running his hands carefully over the double bass. Stepping up onto the third riser, Meredith checked the drum-set seat for gum wads, Double Bubble or otherwise, and parked her butt. A moment later, the xylophone shifted slightly as Gene slid in behind it and sat down.
“Hey, Ms. Big,” he said congenially.
Meredith radiated light. “Hey, evil Oh Henry! eater!” she replied. “That was pretty quiet for a band practice.”
Gene grinned wryly. “We start practicing next week,” he said. “Sabom and Woolger called today’s meeting to discuss a possible band trip.”
“Cool!” said Meredith. “Where to?”
“Miami,” said Gene. “Some kind of high school band festival.”
“In February, I hope,” said Meredith. “Ditch the parka for a swimsuit.”
“I wish,” said Gene. “It’s early May. And it’ll mean fundraising all year—car washes galore, selling calendars and chocolates.”
“Your soul?” Meredith added helpfully.
“Not my soul!” gasped Gene, cringing in mock horror.
Meredith snorted. “Hey,” she said again. “I have a question—about playing music. I don’t know anything about it.”
“Nothing?” asked Gene, looking surprised.
“Well,” admitted Meredith, “there was playing the recorder in music class in junior high. But other than that, riding the back of my aunt’s Harley is the closest I’ve ever gotten.”
Gene’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve got the bass section down, then,” he said neutrally.
Meredith giggled. “Well, what I was wondering,” she said, then paused as Morey stepped onto the second riser ahead of them and sat down. Unexpectedly, a flush rose in Meredith’s cheeks. There was no denying it—the question she was about to ask felt, well ... dumb. Next to debates about David Beckham and the Stones, it was decidedly uncool. Unfortunately, she hadn’t realized this until she had opened her big mouth, and now, with both Gene and Morey watching her, it was too late to back out.
“Well,” she said again. “The notes you play—and the tuba guy, and the drummer, and all the other players ... do they feel like water flowing off your fingers? I mean ...” Overwhelmed by the enormity of her looming dumbness, Meredith faltered. No two ways about it—she sounded so Grade 10. “Well, is it like something you can actually touch?”
Her flush deepened; there was definite heat eating up her face. On the second riser, Morey was observing her with an openly quizzical expression. Gene, however, didn’t appear to have noticed anything amiss.
“Notes,” he said thoughtfully, staring off into the middle distance. “Something you can touch? Yeah—that’s a good way of putting it. But only when you get good at what you’re playing. After you’ve been practicing it for a while.” Turning to look directly at Meredith, he smiled, his eyes quiet but intent—as if noticing her, really taking her in, for the first time.
“What’s that like?” asked Meredith, trying to work out what he was telling her. “Touching music?”
“Touching music?” repeated Gene, small surprise flickering across his face. “Like touching the wind, I guess. Except, just like it is with the wind, music is mostly touching you, rather than you touching it.”
“Yeah, but with music, you’re playing it,” Meredith reminded him.
“True,” agreed Gene. “But the music you’re playing was around before you played it, just like the wind comes from somewhere else before it touches you.”
“Okay,” said Morey, breaking into their conversation. “But you’re still the one playing the music. So you’re the one in charge—you’re directing it.”
Gene smiled, his eyes going vague. “What’s your instrument, Morey?” he asked mildly. “What d’you play?”
Pulling himself upright, Morey emitted a distinct huffiness. “The accordion,” he said with pronounced dignity. “I had three years of lessons—from Grades 3 to 6.”
“What happened to kill your illustrious career?” asked Gene.
“A broken arm,” said Morey. “I lost interest while it was healing ... okay, before I broke my arm. But I can still play a damn good polka.”
“‘Roll Out the Barrel?’” interjected Seymour as he slipped into place beside him.
“I can roll out the barrel anytime,” affirmed Morey. “What about you, Seymour? What can you play?”
“On the accordion?” asked Seymour.
“On anything,” said Gene.
An expansive expression on his face, Seymour leaned back in his chair. “Other than the recorder in junior high, not much,” he admitted.
A slight grin caught Gene’s face, and he glanced sideways at Meredith. “That just so happens to put you in the exact same category as Meredith,” he said. “Still stuck in junior high. She never got past the recorder, either.”
Seymour stiffened noticeably, and Meredith thought she saw Gene’s grin widen. “I guess I’ll have to take up the accordion,” Seymour said evenly. “Catch up to Morey, here.”
“Eat my dust,” said Morey. “‘Barrel House Boogie,’ here I come.”
The final bell rang and the national anthem kicked in, ending further conversation. As Morey turned to face the front of the room, his hands took up position on an invisible accordion, cranking out a raucous “O Canada” boogie. An unmitigated grin split Gene’s face, and he raised an eyebrow at Meredith. Instinctively, she grinned back.
Pulling a sheet of foolscap from his binder, Gene scribbled something across it and passed the page to Meredith. She scanned it quickly. Music, the note said, touches you. Outside and in, where you didn’t know you could be touched. Places you didn’t know you had inside you—music finds them for you. Like riding a Harley that can fly.
The smile that found Meredith then was pure and full of light. Glancing at Gene, she beamed and he nodded, his gaze warm but careful. For a second, she wondered if she had done something wrong—smiled too brightly, perhaps—but then, rereading the note she realized, No, it’s what he wrote. It’s so ... open. Anyone would be careful after that.
Gently, almost reverently, she folded the sheet of foolscap, opened her own binder, and slid the page into the front pocket under a Big Turk wrapper.
Later that afternoon, she discovered gum on her bum again. This time she was in a corridor, headed to her last period history class, when someone abruptly stumbled against her from behind. A muffled oomph! sounded, followed by an even more muffled apology, but by the time Meredith turned around, the stumbler had vanished, leaving no one in the vicinity—at least, no one looking guilty or off-balance. With a shrug, she continued down the hall until someone tapped her shoulder. Turning around, Meredith saw a Grade 11 student she knew from afar as Ronnie Olesin.
“Hey!” said Ronnie, a mocking grin on her face. “I’ve got news for you, dozo.”
What Meredith knew about Ronnie was that she was someone best avoided. Burly and obese, Ronnie had a habit of throwing her weight around and had been suspended twice last year for fighting.
“Oh, yeah,” Meredith said carefully. Unease walked softly up her back. It wasn’t just Ronnie’s reputation that was putting her on edge—there was something in the girl’s pale blue eyes, their strangeness ... the way they grabbed onto whatever they were looking at and hung on. Frankly, she gave Meredith the creeps. Trying to be subtle, Meredith took a step back.
Ronnie stepped fo
rward. There, in those blue eyes, Meredith could see it—triumph at having made Meredith cede space.
“On your bum, moron!” said Ronnie, her grin widening. “You sat on some gum.”
“Gum!” repeated Meredith. For a second, she gaped at Ronnie, then pivoted, positioning herself with her back to the wall.
“That’s what it looks like,” singsonged Ronnie, obviously enjoying Meredith’s discomfort. “Unless you got some kind of weird disease growing on your butt.”
With a dismissive snort, she turned and moved off down the corridor, leaving Meredith with her back to the wall and cautiously feeling her own butt. To her dismay, she felt it almost immediately—a gooey lump plastered across one of her rear pockets, freshly chewed like yesterday’s, but much smaller. Which made sense, she reasoned to herself, if it had been planted by the fake stumbler a moment ago—a hit-and-run act like that would have been harder to pull off with a giant wad.
But why, she wondered, her thoughts churning, would someone choose her butt out of a crowded hall? And why had gum wads materialized on her person twice in one week? The chance of either being a random attack was pretty much annihilated by there being two of them. Well, she decided miserably, the next step was to get to the closest washroom unnoticed and check out the damage. Yesterday she had been wearing navy; today her shorts were pale blue.
Please please don’t let it be grape-flavored, she thought, and headed down the hall.
chapter 6
The weekend passed quickly, a golden blur that Meredith absorbed from the back of her aunt’s Harley as they traveled to and from a Hamilton car rally. The following Monday dawned with her feeling sunburned, content, and a long way from Friday’s hallway gum-wad attack, but still cautious enough to don a pair of black shorts. The second wad appeared to have been Wrigley’s Spearmint, and her pale blue shorts would thus live to see another day, but just barely; the stain was discernible, even after washing, if you knew to look for it, and someone did seem to be looking for it—her butt, that was, rather intently.