by Betty Hicks
If he sees my school, he’ll nudge Mom; then they’ll both sit up and watch the day-care closings. If La Petite Academy shows up, I’ll hear their low planning voices, deciding whose schedule can best be rearranged to stay home with Denver, my little brother.
But I’m awake this early for a different reason. A reason so secret that I would never even tell Jil, because best friend or not, she would think it is way too weird.
I am awake to see the snow.
Not to see if it snowed. And not to let out a tiny whoop, yawn, and crash back into bed to sleep late—like normal thirteen-year-old girls do.
No. I set my alarm clock so I can see the snow before anyone else does. To see the downy cover that drifts over my front yard and actually lights up the darkness with its smooth white shine. I want to see it before Denver plows into it and fills it full of footprints and snow angels. And ruins it.
I want to see it neat.
The way I keep my room.
Sometimes I wonder how I can even be related to Mom, Dad, and Denver. The three most un-neat people in the history of the world.
Slobs.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my brother.
And for parents, mine are okay.
But … sooo embarrassing.
I pull the cord slowly to open my curtains. My room has a picture window that takes up most of one wall and looks out onto our front yard. To me, it’s a real drum-roll moment, like when the curtains part at the beginning of a play and there’s a whole new world hidden behind them. A room filled with soft, rich, velvet furniture, smelling of pipe tobacco. Or a big city square crowded with old-timey streetlights and boys in knickers waving newspapers and shouting, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!”
I smile at the scene opening outside my window.
Snow.
Clean. White. The ground completely covered. At least four inches worth. The bushes have huge cotton-ball clumps on top. And best of all, there’s a flat river of ice-milk where the street should be.
No school. For sure.
I climb back into bed, hug my knees to my chest, and look out at how perfect it all is. I figure I have at least thirty minutes before Mom grabs a broom and whacks all the snow off the bushes, so the weight of it won’t bend and break the branches of her boxwoods.
I wonder if I’ll need to babysit. Mom and Dad would never make me watch Denver all day, because I can’t. Like a tiger in your tank, says Mom. Or, if he were any busier, he’d be twins.
Nobody, except parents or experienced professionals, can handle Denver all day.
But they might need me for an hour or two. Dad teaches Eighteenth-Century Lit and Epic Poetry at Duke. Between classes he shuts himself inside his campus office, surrounded by a million little scraps of scribbled-on white paper, and translates poetry from Latin or Greek or Gaelic or something. He turns it into English that still doesn’t make sense.
Mom’s an environmental scientist who does a bunch of different things. Some days she wears steel-toed boots and a hard hat and runs groundwater pump tests. Other days she puts on nice clothes and meets with developers and industries. Her favorite job is wading around in rubber boots doing what she calls pond research. I call it pond slime–search.
Anything outdoors makes her happy. Since it snowed, though, she probably won’t work outside, and she may have to put on her good clothes, look professional, and meet with money-crazy clients. That’s the part of her job she hates.
I watch the whiteness glow even whiter as it slowly gets lighter outside, and hope that I can spend most of my day at Jil’s house. She lives three streets over. No distance at all if I cut through two backyards. But because of the snow, I’ll stick to the streets. I hate messing up someone else’s smooth yard as much as I hate it when Denver wrecks my own.
Jil’s house is amazing. It’s three times bigger than mine and has a basement with a pool table, a zillion video games, and a refrigerator full of Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, root beer, Evian—you name it. It also has built-in stereo speakers, a giant plasma TV screen, and more DVDs than I can count. In the living room, there’s a black grand piano so shiny that I can see my face in it.
But those aren’t the main reasons I hang out there.
Honest.
I hang out there because I love how neat it is. Everything in order. Or filed away. Labeled. And because my house gives me a headache.
I wait until I think Jil’s got to be awake—around ten o’clock—and then I call her. Denver has been up long enough to watch one episode of Dragon Tales, two Blue’s Clues videos, and turn our beautiful front yard into a crime scene of snow abuse.
Mom has run four dryer loads of the same wet snow-suit, made two batches of snow cream, and heated up one monster pot of hot chocolate.
Denver is small, but major.
Jil answers her phone on the fourth ring.
“You awake?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she lies.
“Get up!” I yell.
“Okay. Okay. Okay. Hold your horses.”
“You sound like my mother.”
“I like your mother,” she mumbles sleepily.
“Me too,” I say. “Sometimes.”
I mean, what’s not to like? If only she weren’t so messy and so … so … I have to search for a word to describe my mother. Blah, I think. That’s it! She’s just so blah.
“Now, get up!” I shout at Jil.
“You want to come over?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Now.”
I click off the phone and grab my coat, which is still damp from last night. Dad has morning classes, so he’s gone, but he’ll be back by one o’clock. Mom has to leave by noon to meet a client. That means I have Denver-duty for the lunch hour in between—which gives me two whole hours at Jil’s house.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” says Mrs. Lewis, opening the front door after I ring the bell. “But so cold.” She hugs herself and shivers, her laugh soft and welcoming, like music. “Quick, come inside.” She touches my sleeve, then tugs me into the warm house.
“Yes.” I totally agree. The snow is beautiful. But so is she. Smiling, friendly, and looking perfect, even in a bathrobe, fluffy slippers, and zero makeup.
“Snow day,” she explains, sweeping her hand over her not-dressed self. She points to the stairs and adds, “Jil’s upstairs.”
I hurry up the stairs, straight to Jil’s room. For an hour, I watch her brush her teeth, comb her hair, make her bed, and eat a bowl of Rice Krispies with big, juicy red strawberries sliced all over it. Then she has an English muffin spread with homemade fig jam. Her refrigerator is always filled with colorful ripe fruit, even in winter. Her pantry shelves look like a magazine ad for healthy living.
The food at my house looks like the packaged stuff that comes in cheap gift baskets. No kidding. Moldy beef sticks, imitation garlic cheese spread, and tiny little sample jars of orange marmalade.
I hate orange marmalade. If you ask me, it tastes like barely sweetened ear wax.
“Let’s play ‘Chopsticks,’” I beg.
Lately, I have fallen in love with the piano at Jil’s house. We play duets on it. Easy, kid ones like “Chopsticks.” But I want to learn a real song. Something serious and symphonic that will convince my parents that I deserve a piano. And lessons.
“Money doesn’t grow on trees,” says Mom.
“Remember the violin,” says Dad.
In fourth grade, I begged them to buy me a violin and swore that I would play it forever. That I would practice every day. That someday, I would sit in the first chair for the New York Philharmonic.
And I might have, too. But nobody had clued me in about how violins work. You have to push one set of fingers down on the strings while the other hand slides a long bow back and forth over the strings, pulling notes out.
But they’re not precise notes. Because there is no guide, or button, or ivory key that tells you the exact spot that will produce a B-flat or an A. Your fi
ngers just have to know that somewhere on that long string, between some lines that are way too far apart to help, is an E, or an F-sharp.
My fingers never knew how to find such demanding places. One day I could put my finger high up on the second string and get a good sound. The next day, out would squeak some off-key note that wasn’t right at all. The whole thing seemed messy to me.
But a piano! Each white key, each black key—an exact note. No guesswork. All I have to do is hit the ivory rectangle to the left of the two black keys, and out comes the most perfect C you ever heard.
A piano is precise. Neat. Everything in its place. Every day.
Jil pulls up the bench and begins to play a stream of beautiful notes.
“You’ve been practicing.”
She shrugs. “Some.”
It’s so unfair. I would kill to have a piano and lessons, and Jil could care less about it. What really slays me is that Jil is adopted, which means that she totally lucked into this awesome house and family.
“What is that?” I whisper.
The sound flows out from her fingers, a smooth river of notes, ascending, repeating, over and over. Then, lower. Suddenly punctuated by a bright splash of new sound. Higher.
Just like the smooth expanses of snow rolling across the lawns that I saw on my way over here. I’d spotted a bright red cardinal landing in a tree, a sudden fluttering flag of amazing color against the smooth, clean white.
The music sounded just like that had looked, surprising my heart and making it swell up the exact same way.
“‘Moonlight Sonata,’” Jil answers.
“Teach me.”
“Sure.” Abruptly, she stops playing.
I put my left hand where she tells me. Then I hit three notes. Pinky, to middle finger, to thumb. Ascending. Tah-dah-dah. Tah-dah-dah. Tah-dah-dah.
I sound almost like Jil! Cool! This is easy.
“Okay,” I say, excited. “Now, show me the right hand.”
This part is harder. I can’t make the happy splash of sound come in at the right time, so I go back to practicing the low, smooth tah-dah-dahs that my left hand is loving.
“Dez,” says Jil.
“Yeah?” I answer, happily tah-dah-dahing.
“There’s something really important I have to do,” she says.
Plink-plunk-plunk. My fingers lose their rhythm.
Not now, I think. I pretend I don’t hear her, and try to find the right notes again.
Tah-dah-dah. Tah-dah-dah. Yes!
“Dez,” she says louder. “Listen to me. Please.”
I rest my hands on the keyboard. Trying to hold my place. Hoping I’ll get to come back. I can’t remember the last time anything felt so perfect to me.
I turn my head toward Jil, sitting beside me, looking weird. Pulling her earlobe.
“You know I’m adopted. Right?”
“Of course I know you’re adopted,” I say. But my brain is spinning into the far reaches of the stratosphere, trying to grasp what that could possibly have to do with me learning to play her piano.
As it turns out, it has nothing whatsoever to do with it, because the next thing she says is, “I’ve decided to find my birth mother.”
“Your what?” I drop my hands from the keys and twist my whole body to face her.
“My birth mother. You know. My real mother. The-one-who-actually-gave-birth-to-me-but-didn’t-keep-me.”
The last part spills out of Jil’s mouth like a thumb racing across the piano keys in one long, fast, jarring note. Her face is flushed a hot, sweaty pink.
I stare.
“And Dez,” she whispers. “You have to help me.”
Chapter Four
Jil and I are back at my house, ready to babysit my brother. Mom is lecturing me on the how-tos of Denver-duty.
1. How to get Denver to eat if he doesn’t want to.
2. How to get Denver to nap if he doesn’t want to.
3. How to get Denver to breathe if he doesn’t want to.
“Mother,” I say. “It’s only for one hour. I can do this.”
“His blinkie’s in the dryer,” she continues. “Make sure he washes his hands. Don’t cut his sandwich in half or he won’t eat it.”
“Mom!”
“I just want to make sure—”
“Go!” I say. “You’ll be late for your meeting.”
She rolls her eyes and adjusts the blouse under her suit jacket so that the collar comes out over the lapels. I’d bet anything that shirt still has yesterday’s mustard stain on it, and that she’s covered it up by buttoning her jacket. My mom, the scientist, whose clients think she’s neat, tall, smart, and professional.
Well, she is smart, professional, and tall. But neat—ha! She’s never worn anything neat in her life, except to meetings, because she has to. Her home and everywhere-else uniform is gloomy gray sweats in the winter, and ankle-length cotton shifts with no waist in the summer. Accessorized with clunky tennis shoes and a fanny pack slung low on one hip. She looks like a tourist.
Comfort is the fashion creed at my house.
The way I see it, Mom and Dad were born at the wrong time. They should definitely have grown up in the sixties, when they would’ve had so many more creative outlets for their hippie genes. They were totally made for flower power, war protests, and living in communes.
Instead, they were teenagers in the eighties, when the best they could do was follow The Dead. The Grateful Dead, that is. That’s how they met. Love at first sight, over a VW bus. My mom spotting my dad, a body-pierced soul mate selling green-and-yellow tie-dyed T-shirts.
And then there’s the part that came later, when they got married and named their kids Destiny and Denver.
If I could’ve had my choice, would I rather have been tagged with a town in Colorado, or the touchy-feely drama-noun that I got stuck with?
I don’t know.
Either way, it’s embarrassing.
Did I mention that my father wears shirts that look like pajama tops and quotes poetry in the middle of conversations?
Which is why I don’t understand Jil at all. She has an incredible mom, an incredible dad, an incredible everything. And now she wants to go round up some woman who is a total stranger so that she can have … have what? Two mothers? A spare? Just the new mom? Can I have her old mom?
As the kitchen door closes behind my mother, I pick up a sponge that looks as if it cleaned up World War I and toss it into our garbage can. I open a new pack and wipe the kitchen counter where Mom spilled jelly while she was starting to make Denver’s sandwich.
“Jil,” I say as I pull out a clean knife and spread peanut butter on a piece of bread, “why do you want another mom?”
“It’s on the wrong half,” says Denver.
Huh?
I look down at the slice of white bread on the counter. The one I just spread with peanut butter. The piece next to it, the one that Mom prepared, is covered with grape jelly.
“The jelly goes on the other one.”
“It’s important,” says Jil.
“That the jelly goes on the other one?!” I exclaim.
“No,” she says. “That I find my mom.”
“Oh.” I slap the two halves together.
“Don’t cut it!” yells Denver.
“Don’t worry,” I tell him, plopping the sandwich on a chipped plate and sliding it across the island to where Denver sits perched at the bar counter, his feet dangling two feet off the floor. He’s still wearing his snow boots, and there’s a puddle of water where the ice he dragged in has melted onto our scarred fake-tile floor.
“I thought there was a law,” I say to Jil. “I thought you couldn’t find out the identity of your birth parents until you’re eighteen.”
“What are birth parents?” asks Denver, staring suspiciously at his sandwich as if he’s trying to decide if his tongue will fall off if he eats it with the peanut butter on the wrong side.
Jil makes a zip-it motion across her lips
and glares at me.
“Eat your lunch,” I tell Denver. Then I reach across and flip his sandwich over. “See?” I say. “I fixed it.”
He picks up the sandwich and looks underneath. Then he takes a tiny bite. What Mom doesn’t know is that I can make Denver do things he doesn’t want to without all her tricks. I have my own tricks. But my best one is not putting up with his weirdness.
I pour apple juice into a bright green sippy cup and set it down beside his plate. “Let’s go in the den.” I motion Jil to follow.
“You can’t leaf me,” Denver complains.
“I’m not leaving you. I’m just going in the other room. So you can prove to me what a big boy you are.”
Then, for his dining entertainment, I pop a Disney song disc into his blue plastic player.
“’Kay,” he answers happily, taking a bigger bite of his sandwich.
“She called my house,” says Jil as soon as we get out of earshot of bigmouth boy. Denver has a bad habit of repeating things he’s not supposed to know.
“Who called your house?”
“My real mother.”
“You mean, your birth mother.”
“Same thing.”
I gape at Jil. I’m not so sure it is the same thing.
Jil sits down on our sofa and looks up at me. Expectantly. Excitedly.
I slump onto the seat of Dad’s recliner, careful to keep it upright. Crinkly bulges greet my butt. I lean forward slightly and sweep the lumpy pile of magazines and weeks-old newspapers to the floor.
“I heard them talking on the phone,” says Jil. “Mom and my real mom. Only I didn’t know it was her until later.”
Jil is sitting on the edge of our couch, leaning forward and moving her hands as if she’s telling a ghost story.
“I heard Mom saying stuff like ‘But we agreed. No contact until Jil is older,’ and ‘I’ll send more pictures. Please. Don’t call here again.’ When she hung up, I asked her who it was, and she said, ‘Wrong number,’ with her face all red and splotchy-looking. Then she flew straight up the stairs to where my dad was reading in their bedroom, and slammed the door.”