Voice Lessons

by Cara Mentzel

  “Sing with me, Cara,” she asked. “At karaoke, sing something with me.”

  Oh shit.

  Dee had tossed her request for a sister duet at me like it was as light and harmless as a playing card. I had a vision of us belting into microphones like Joan Jett and Debbie Harry, then realized I was neither Joan nor Debbie—not even close.

  “It would mean a lot to me,” she added. Dee had to know that she was asking a lot, but it felt like she was asking as a kindness, an attempt to put all the heavy crap behind us and sing like we had when we were little. Before I was self-conscious or afraid to sing. Before I was afraid to fail her. Way back when singing was playing, and playing was fun.

  But I knew that singing with Dee after her rehearsal dinner wouldn’t be like singing a lullaby to Avery in our private corner of the universe. It meant standing up in front of a hundred familiar and unfamiliar faces and offering up the perfect opportunity to compare me piece by piece—note by note—to my sister, something I’d worked hard for a long time to avoid. In my mind, if I agreed to sing with Dee I needed either the ability to sing well or the confidence not to care. And I was fairly certain I didn’t possess either of the two.

  Whenever someone learned I was Idina Menzel’s sister they still always asked, “Can you sing?” They asked it before anything else—usually right before, “Who’s older?”—and they asked with the nonchalance of a barista wanting to know if I preferred whole milk or nonfat.

  “Can you sing?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The safe answer was always no. Though sometimes I made light of it and said, “In the shower and in the car.”

  To get onstage and provide evidence that I couldn’t sing was another matter altogether. With an audience I’d very likely suck. I’d suck in front of Jon and my parents, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, Mom’s friends, Dee’s business manager and two agents, the groom, his family and hot friends—the latter, a gross understatement. If I got up onstage and sang karaoke with Dee, it wouldn’t be, “No, Dee’s sister can’t sing,” but would very likely be, “Whoa. She really can’t sing.”

  I can’t do it.

  I wanted to say yes to Dee, which made me wish I could sing more than ever. My singing ability remained fleeting, and unreliable. Like my blueberry pie, my voice came out differently every time. Would it have been so difficult to spread the wealth a little bit, to more fairly distribute the Mentzel-Goldberg gene pool? I didn’t need to sing like Dee, but the basics would have been nice—to hold a microphone and a tune at the same time. I wanted a voice I could count on, pretty or raspy, loud or soft. But even as an adult, I was embarrassed to want it. When no one was around, I tried to sing. In the car driving, I tried to match pitch with a random song, or harmonize with Radiohead’s “Creep.” I practiced singing in the shower, where the acoustics were in my favor, and in the vacant house, where the emptiness was in my favor. Often I sang with my sister’s songs because those were the ones I knew best, the ones I’d sung over and over and over, “Take Me or Leave Me” or “Still I Can’t Be Still,” her version blasting in the background. Once I even recorded myself for objectivity—What do I sound like?—and listened quickly before anyone caught me or I was sidetracked and forgot to delete the recording. But I had a vocal range the width of a nickel. I started a song in one key, only to switch midway through the song to hit the higher notes or reach the low ones. I struggled to match pitch. I could hear a tune in my head, but then couldn’t find the notes once I opened my mouth. I could hardly imagine singing in front of people and guessed it would be like smiling while being strangled; I’d be hard-pressed to sing when I could barely breathe.

  Avery had connected the tracks, formed a large oval across the carpet, and was sitting in the middle of it. The phone was still in my hand, Dee on the other end, the “Sing with me?” question still patiently waiting, and the singing shit back for a visit. I hated that I couldn’t sing. I hated that Dee felt guilty about it and I felt inadequate. If I had a magic wand, my favorite spell would be “Singing shit begone!” I’d wave that fuckin’ wand and stop wishing I could sing, stop caring what everyone thought of me, and stop wondering what could have been if … I’d wave that wand and grant myself the wish I wanted more than anything, to be the bold, unapologetic woman who would welcome the chance to sing karaoke with her sister, and who would love it. I was tired of waiting to become that woman, and so I answered Dee, “Yes.”

  Yes.

  I gave birth to Jacob safely at home in my bed. His hair was as dark as Avery’s had been light. His eyes were black, his skin the color of a gingersnap. At five pounds twelve ounces, Jacob was the smallest baby I’d ever held, but he was strong, a tight bundle of muscles. Avery crawled into bed next to me and I watched as he lovingly ran the tip of his forefinger over Jacob’s brow. Brothers, I thought to myself. Ha!

  “Aunt Dee Dee” came to visit that week. She’d recently had a small part in the film Kissing Jessica Stein and a series of theater projects: Kate in an off-Broadway production of The Wild Party that never moved on, Amneris in Aida (but as a replacement, rather than originating the role), and as one of myriad rotating performers in the Westside Theatre’s production of The Vagina Monologues. While these roles were some of my favorite Dee performances—as Kate she got to fake pee onstage—the momentum of Dee’s career seemed to have abated and she was discouraged. Discouraged, but driven. Dee was always driven.

  I was in my bedroom and Dee was giving Avery a bath when I heard her call to me from across the hall.

  “Cara, Avery and I want to show you something. Grab the video camera!” (A baby-shower gift from her.) I crossed the hall with Jacob cocooned in a sling hanging over my left shoulder, and found Avery standing butt naked in the tub with a faux-hawk molded from shampoo suds. Dee was sitting on the closed toilet lid.

  “Avery and I need you to film our commercial,” she said. At the mention of their commercial Avery pressed his lips together into an infectious smile, and then added with high-pitched enthusiasm, “For soap!”

  “I can’t wait,” I said from the doorway, then opened the flip-out screen of the camera. “Ready when you are.”

  “Do you remember your lines, Avery?” Dee asked.

  “Yep,” he answered and reached over to lift the yellow bottle of Johnson & Johnson baby soap from the ledge of the tub. When he leaned over I noticed his wet eyelashes were clumped into a few distinct points and a wave of adoration swept through me.

  Dee said, “Take one: Johnson and Johnson Baby Soap Commercial, starring a brand-new big brother, Avery.” She clapped her hands together to simulate a clapperboard and said, “Action!” and Avery raised the soap bottle up over his right shoulder.

  “This Junsun Junsun soap is sooo great,” he started. “It doesn’t hurt if it gets in your eyes.” He looked over at Dee for his next line and she rubbed her hands together. He picked up the cue and continued. “You wash your hands with it if they get dirty,” then he paused, “or if you pick your nose … so you can touch the baby.” He pushed the bottle toward the camera and smiled again as if his grin were the punctuation at the end of his sentence.

  “Cut,” Dee said. “Nice work, Avery! You’re a natural at this.” He was, and she was too—a natural auntie.

  The calendar glared at me from the day I agreed to sing with Dee until the day we left for Jamaica. I routinely imagined the details of our karaoke set. I imagined the songs we might sing, felt the adrenaline and buzzing of my hyperactive nerves, and then practiced deep breathing until my anxiety dissipated. And still the date shouted at me from every calendar, “Look at me! Look at me! Over here!”

  When I arrived in Montego Bay, everywhere I turned I saw symbols of relaxation. Placid water and white curtains blowing in the breeze. Stunning villas and infinity pools. Lounge chairs, hammocks, and frothy beverages; a crowd favorite called the Dirty Banana, which still makes me laugh, was made with bananas, Kahlua, and cream. Beauty surrounded me—lush greens, blue skies, my
sister in an off-the-shoulder midriff-revealing cotton top, and her groom, the gorgeous, dark Taye Diggs, in a fedora. The resort was the same place he’d given Angela Bassett her “groove back” in the film How Stella Got Her Groove Back in 1998. There were sea urchins to entertain Avery and fluffy white towels under beach umbrellas to shade four-month-old Jacob during naps. And of course, there was karaoke.

  Before the rehearsal dinner, Dee was kind enough to find me a sitter and, like typical sisters, we played dress-up. She loaned me a pink satin sundress. It was fitted over my chest, which I liked because it allowed me to place nursing pads over my breasts without having to wear an unflattering, nursing bra. Braless and pink, I slicked my hair back into a tight ponytail and was ready for an evening to remember.

  The tiki-lit buffet was outstanding and lined the shore. Guests held kitschy piña coladas in pineapples with little umbrellas. When a storm rolled in, the staff deftly transferred all the necessities to a covered porch nearby. Then it was time.

  Let me be very clear, there was none of that fifteen minutes of fame, karaoke wanna-be-a-superstar crap at this rehearsal dinner—these were actual superstars. Many of the attendees were talented singers—so many, in fact, that Dee could have sold tickets. I knew Dee and Taye’s Broadway friends could sing, but apparently every other actor and actress could sing, too. Whether they’d been on Broadway as dancers in the ensemble or were Broadway stars. Whether they were actors who did a guest spot on a sitcom or starred in a soap opera, they had Broadway-worthy voices. Even one of her agents killed it with a rockin’ rendition of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” I gawked at five beautiful men who stood in a line and sang, “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” and the groom, signed up against his will, who sang “Day-O” from his early career days performing at Tokyo Disney.

  The show was well under way when Dee approached me, the black binder with the list of song options in her hand. “You up for this?” she asked.

  “Yep,” I answered, but my throat tightened like I was seconds from a tongue depressor and strep swab. I found a phony smile and stuck it on my face.

  “‘Enough Is Enough’?” Dee asked, remembering we’d listened to the song growing up, on a cassette tape of Donna Summer’s On the Radio: Greatest Hits right after “Sunset People.” The song was actually titled “No More Tears,” but the chorus repeated the words “enough is enough” so many times that that’s how people usually remembered it. Donna Summer sang the song as a duet with Barbra Streisand, one of the few duets between two women. I used to know the song well, but that evening I could only be sure I knew the first two lines, lines that in total added up to four appropriate words given the weather, “It’s raining,” and “It’s pouring.” Dee and I never discussed what song we’d sing. We probably should have; it might have helped my nerves, but despite the significance of our singing together, I’d been trying to play the whole thing down. Breathe. Relax. It’s only a big deal if you make it one.

  I agreed to the song, and Dee walked our request up to the karaoke deejay. I didn’t know how many people were ahead of us or how long I had before our turn. If I hadn’t been nursing, it would have been prime time for a drink. But quickly I heard the deejay announce, “Dina and Cara singing ‘Enough Is Enough,’” and hearing the pairing of our names, “Dina and Cara,” reinforced that we were sisters, first and foremost. Dina and Cara signed together on the bottom right corner of a Mother’s Day card. “Dina and Cara, 1980,” written on the back of a photo. Or, “Dina! Cara!” shouted up the stairs from the kitchen, “din-ner!” Dee found my hand and clasped it in hers. I watched my feet as we walked through a mess of white folding chairs to the patio stage. We fumbled with the microphones and took our places in front of the crowd. I looked up and faced sixty or so disheveled partiers, including my mom and dad and at least a dozen of my sister’s closest friends, all their eyes fixed on us, fixed on me. I faced the music.

  I traded the chance to sing the only words I knew for the opportunity to delay the embarrassment, and let Dee start. She began, “It’s raining. It’s pouring. My love life is boring me to tears.” Ah, that was the next line. Her voice drifted through the air and lingered in the space after her last note ended. I picked up the next verse. The mic made it impossible for me to hear myself. I had no idea how my breath translated into sound. I couldn’t feel the notes as I sang them. I couldn’t hear the notes as I sang them. My throat felt numb, and still I tried to cram air through it as the hot-pink words jumped around the blue karaoke screen. I abandoned all hope of singing well.

  Adrenaline kept me afloat, and when the tempo picked up, Dee and I huddled together, bouncing up and down, shouting “Enough is enough” at the tops of our lungs. When we briefly bounced apart I watched Dee. She was beaming in her white cotton and lace skirt, her matching blouse, her bronze skin and prominent cheekbones. She was giddy and silly and childlike—my favorite kind of Dee. Our bouncing grew into impassioned jumping, my heels hitting the floor repeatedly. The movement coupled with my vision of Dee managed to knock something loose, and a weight fell from my shoulders. Just like that, I let go. My throat not so much numb as irrelevant. I wasn’t paying attention to my singing anymore. I didn’t care about being able to sing. I only cared about being a sister and being with Dee. I only wanted her to be happy.

  I’d finally resumed breathing and was—dare I say it, having fun—when thanks to all the jumping, something else came loose—one of my nursing pads. It snuck beneath the seam under my bust and took a detour out the bottom of my dress, landing plop! like a silver-dollar pancake into a puddle on the patio floor. I looked up at the pool of confused eyes that strained to make sense of it. Seriously? I’d worried for months about embarrassing myself during karaoke, but it never occurred to me that my undergarments—or lack thereof—would be the source of that embarrassment, rather than my vocals. Not once had I imagined having to explain to the attendees of Dee’s wedding exactly what a nursing pad was and why one of mine was on the floor. I did the only thing I could think to do. I dug my hand into the top of my dress and pulled out the remaining troublemaker. I flung it like a miniature Frisbee into the crowd, a gesture that was well received with raucous cheers and whistles. I retrieved the other pad from the puddle and flung that one as well. Dee and I were hysterical. It was clear, I wasn’t a singer. I was a mother. But I’d gotten what I wanted. I’d become the person who loved singing karaoke with her sister—a sister I was about to need more than ever.

  PART III

  FLYING HIGH

  Lesson 7

  HOW TO FAIL

  Despite motherhood being all I’d ever wanted, I wasn’t a perfect mother and I wasn’t a perfect wife. At my worst I was depressed, sleep deprived, and had a temper I’d never had before. I worried that I was changing in ways I didn’t want to change, often feeling impatient yet meek and insecure.

  My relationship with Jon was also changing. My love for him had become elusive. I looked for it everywhere: at the passenger side of the car when he opened my door first, in the beautiful bed frame that he built for us, in his green eyes and the dimple I’d once adored, in his social charm and willingness to help family and friends. It seemed my feelings for him were the direct result of where I focused my attention. I could convince myself that everything was all right simply by deciding to look one way and not another. By choosing to love that he’d do the dinner dishes while I bathed the boys, instead of worrying why he’d choose to do dishes rather than spend time with them. By appreciating how much time he invested fine-tuning business plans instead of complaining about how little attention he paid to me. By calling him at work just to say I love you, because maybe the more I said it, the more I acted like it, the more my love would be true. And I wanted to love him. I wanted my marriage to work.

  But Jon had a temper, too, and when I was able to be objective, I knew I’d slipped into the familiar role of mediator in our family. Among other things, I didn’t like how he raised his voice with Avery, twisted his d
oughy arm because he was laughing too loud in a movie theater, or yanked him by the ankle if he wouldn’t sit still to put his shoes on. Over time I realized I was mediating and managing and exhausting myself making sure everyone was okay all the time, making sure no one felt too sad or too angry and no one ever got hurt.

  While I didn’t always like Jon’s behavior with the boys, nothing about it ever seemed black-and-white to me, not easy to judge as bad, wrong, or sufficient reason to leave him. Furthermore, I was so fixated on my own shortcomings, I had a hard time holding him accountable for his. (Even now, there’s a shakiness in my heart where the internal conflict continues, where I weigh my mistakes against Jon’s and question my right to pass judgment, and worry that I’m being too hard on myself—or not hard enough.) I was often confused. Where was the line between a poor-parenting moment—the kind most of us have had on a bad day—yelling at an inconsolable toddler, for instance, instead of holding him tight and kissing his sweaty forehead? Where was the line between acceptable and unacceptable?

  I didn’t know until the night I decided Jon had crossed it.

  The table was set. Three place settings and one high chair on the end of a rectangular mahogany table. I lifted the pan with the salmon off the burner and scooped the steamed veggies into a large ceramic bowl. Jacob was already in the high chair, sliding soft carrots shaped liked pennies around with his palms, and Avery was playing at his train table in the den off the kitchen.

  “Aves, go wash your hands,” I called across the room, my voice traveling into the vaulted ceilings as Jon walked in from work. He set his computer bag against the wall and I finished zigzagging through the kitchen from countertop to fridge to stovetop to table to countertop again. It was a hot summer evening and an orange sun peaked over the distant mountain horizon like a watchful eye. Jon kissed me on the cheek.