So Lyrical

by Trish Cook

  “I do?” As always, Bebe made me feel like she knew exactly what I was going through.

  “Trace, I have fallen on my ass so many times I’m surprised there’s not a permanent bruise on my rear end.”

  “You have?”

  “Yup. I actually started writing about strong, sexy women who always get the guy in the end because they are the total antithesis of me.”

  “You did?”

  “Honestly,” she said, punching me softly on the arm. “I was never one of those girls who had every guy drooling over me. You know, like the ones with the stripper names.”

  “Hate to be the one to point it out to you, but ‘Bliss’ is a stripper name,” I said, trying to conceal a smile. “And how can you say the guys weren’t after you? You’ve got tons of pictures of rock stars groping you.”

  “I was trying too hard with the Bliss thing,” she said. “And everyone who ever met those guys probably has pictures like that, too. Didn’t you learn your lesson with Billy Squier? You imagined I’d had some sort of wild affair with him when the truth was I was just another starstruck fan who met him once.”

  “But what about the Night Ranger dude? Or Loverboy? Or Corey Hart?”

  “Same, same, and same.”

  “Wasn’t there anyone famous you actually became friends with?” I asked. I wanted to say “lovers” but chickened out at the last minute.

  “Sure,” she said, smiling. “I actually had some really good times hanging out with the E Street Band. They were totally cool.”

  Score! “Does that mean you and Bruce . . . ?” I ventured, sticking a big toe—a real one, not like Robb’s misplaced appendage—into the sea of Is he my daddy?

  Bebe laughed and waved off my question with a flick of her wrist. “Oh, please, Trace.”

  “So you’re saying you didn’t live up to your stripper name with him, then?”

  Once again, Bebe sidestepped my question. “Really. You should know by now I’m more nun than stripper.”

  It was fairly close to reality, at least these days. To my knowledge, Bebe hadn’t gone on a date in over a year, and I was positive she hadn’t had sex in even longer. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if she told me her virginity had grown back.

  Bebe took my hand and stared at my palm like she could figure out what was going to happen next from the lines on it. “Can I hear about heavenly parts now?”

  “Heavenly was slow dancing with Zander.”

  “I used to love to slow dance with your father. Our song was ‘Fourth of July, Asbury Park.’ ”

  “Never heard of it,” I said. “Who the heck does that one?”

  A secret little smile took over Bebe’s face and she looked lost in a dream. “The Boss, of course,” she said, sending my heart into near convulsions. How could my father not be Bruce when every time I brought the subject of my dad up, the word Springsteen always followed close behind? “There’s a line in it that goes, ‘Love me tonight and I promise I’ll love you forever.’ ”

  “That sounds romantic,” I said, hoping Bebe would forget herself in the memories and tell me more.

  “Everything was romantic for us,” she said. “But I should’ve seen what was coming next from the final verse. That’s the one that goes, ‘Love me tonight for I may never see you again.’ ”

  “So how did everything change from forever to never, anyway?” I was so close to finding out who my dad was, I could almost taste it. And his initials, I assumed, were “BS”—hopefully not standing for “Bullshit.”

  Bebe snapped back to reality. “Never mind.”

  I knew I was probably pushing things just a little too far, but I had to try. “Bebe, it’s crystal you two were totally into each other. What could’ve possibly come between you?”

  “Distance,” she said, sighing and looking like a lost little puppy. “We were just going in different directions.”

  Distance, as in the number of miles between Jersey and the various stadiums across the world my dad was playing at, maybe? “Where were you headed that he wasn’t?”

  Bebe looked at me with hurt eyes and held my gaze long after I wanted nothing more to do with our little staring contest. “Trace, when will you accept the fact that he decided I wasn’t the one?”

  “Even if you weren’t, Bebe, why wasn’t I?” I asked her, those damn tears spilling out yet again.

  “It’s not as simple as that,” she said, wrapping me in her arms and gently rocking us back and forth. “Nothing in life is.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Hard as I tried to answer the phone that was ringing so rudely in my ears, I couldn’t do it. Drool had sewn my lips to my pillow. My eyes were glued shut. Serves me right for coming in so late, I thought.

  The answering machine clicked on and the minute the message ended, Brina starting yelling into it. “Pick up, Trace! You’re not gonna believe what happened last night!”

  I unstuck my face from the pillow and felt around the nightstand for the phone. “Huh. Mummpphhhh . . .” I could feel myself falling back to sleep as I mumbled what might have been construed as a greeting in a very rude culture. I’m not the most pleasant person in the morning.

  “Wake up,” she yelled. “You gotta hear this.”

  “What time is it?” I groaned. Brina knows calling me before noon on a weekend is sacrilege, punishable by the silent treatment for the rest of the day.

  “Noon.”

  I stuck my nose against the clock. Ten a.m. “In what country?”

  “Look, will you forget about the time? I think I know who slp is, and it is friggin’ shocking.” Brina dangled the last part out there, just waiting for me to pounce on it. I took my time. I didn’t want her thinking she had a better adventure than I.

  “You know what’s shocking? I fell flat on my ass in front of the Country Day debutantes and then for an encore, I told my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend my father was a rock star.”

  “My shocking outshocks your shocking any day,” Brina said. “Guess who gave me a ride home from the ball?”

  “Billy Squier?”

  “Who?” My friends always turn into owls when I mention one of Bebe’s bands.

  “Never mind,” I said, adding, “He’s not my father, you know. I’m actually this close to being convinced Bruce Springsteen is, though.”

  “Trace, listen, I know you’re obsessed with finding your dad, but I never thought that’s who drove me home,” she said. “I actually hooked a ride with Mr. Perry. Wanna know what his first name is?”

  “Stupid?” I couldn’t believe Mr. Perry would give Brina a ride home after all those rumors flew about him and the volleyball girl last year.

  She ignored me. “Steve.”

  “Like the guy from Journey?”

  “Who?” she asked, all owly again.

  “The lead singer from one of Bebe’s bands,” I said, feeling like I was showing someone new around my house. “So what happened?”

  “I ran into Steven, I mean Mr. Perry, just before I made you go to the bathroom with me. I told him my tale of woe and he offered me a ride.” She sounded all mushy-gushy.

  “Brina, get real. He was just being nice.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Did you go home with him?” I asked, wanting to see if there were any really juicy parts to this story that didn’t involve blood. “Did you kiss?”

  “No, but I think he wanted to. We talked and flirted the whole way,” she said. “He kept asking me for directions to my house, but I knew I couldn’t invite him in or anything. My parents would go insane if they found me making out on the couch with a twenty-something-year-old guy.”

  “Brina, I really don’t think Mr. P. would have accepted your invitation inside,” I said. “And he’s more like a thirty-something guy.”

  “Think what you like. I was getting vibes from him.” Brina has this theory that she can actually feel vibrations from people who like her. It’s a load of crap. Miss Cleo has a better track record predicting things
that actually come true. “Anyway, I made him drop me off at Bobby Pantano’s party instead. It was too early to go home.”

  Get to the gore already, I thought. “At what point in this story do you start bleeding?”

  “After that asshole wrestler, Stu, turned into Robb all over again and tried to maul me in the bathroom. So I kicked him in the family jewels and walked home.”

  So very Brina-ish, walking home in November. And still no mention of the blood. “What about the blood?” I asked, fed up.

  “It wouldn’t have been an issue if I hadn’t shotgunned so many beers,” she explained. “And the stiletto heels didn’t help, either. Had to go barefoot.”

  Dopey move. “Smart move,” I told her.

  “Whatever. When I got home, I was so tired. Everything was spinning and I just wanted to go to bed,” she explained. “But my feet were a little cut up and you know how my mother is about her white carpets. . . .”

  “So you decided your best bet was to sleep outside?” I interrupted.

  “Not outside, exactly. More like on our porch.” I could just see Brina shivering on the uncomfortable wicker furniture with her feet oozing all over the jute rug. This would drive Mrs. Maldonati only slightly less crazy than Brina’s bleeding on the pristine living room velvet/plush.

  “Is that where your parents found you?” I asked her.

  “Luckily they didn’t,” she said. “Sully did.”

  The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. “Sully?”

  “You know, my little brother’s jock friend—the tall guy with dreads and a pierced eyebrow?”

  “He’s pretty hot,” I said. And he was. “In a very funky, sophomore kind of way, of course.” I felt the need to add that last part because it’s totally taboo at our school for a senior girl to even notice a sophomore guy. Not so the other way around, of course. There was that damn chauvinism again, rearing its ugly head.

  “I don’t know about hot, but he was certainly a gentleman—probably the last one on earth,” she said. “My left boob had fallen out of my dress when I was passed out, and Sully was polite enough to cover me up before he carried me into the house. Then he washed my feet, helped me into my pajamas, and put me to bed.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Oh, I wish I was, but it gets even more embarrassing. I decided to go sleep in the bathroom so I wouldn’t have so far to go to throw up,” she explained. “And that’s where my mom found me. She thought I tried to commit suicide when she saw me lying there in a pool of blood.”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I was laughing too hard.

  “You haven’t heard the best part of all yet,” she said.

  “Your mom banished you to living in the doghouse?”

  “No, nothing that extreme,” she said. “But she did make appointments for me to see a nutritionist and a psychologist. Thinks being fat is making me crazy.”

  “You are not fat,” I said. “You’re perfect just the way you are.”

  “Try telling my mom that. She still hasn’t gotten over being called Chubby Debbie in sixth grade,” Brina said. “And anyway, that’s still not the best part.”

  “What is?”

  “You’re going to be my personal book carrier all week. My mom made me go to the ER this morning, and a very cute resident gave me a tetanus shot and put both my feet in soft casts. I’ll be on crutches the whole week.”

  “Oh, crap,” I said. This was so like Brina, it wasn’t even funny. If she’s got a headache, it’s not just a headache—it’s a brain tumor. A swollen gland is lymphoma. And now her sore, scraped-up feet had warranted a vaccination and casts. “I betcha this is a total turnoff for slp,” I teased her.

  “Who, Steven? I don’t think so,” she said. “I got another love letter from him in the mail today.”

  “Give it up, Brina,” I said, exasperated. “Mr. Perry is not slp.”

  “You know, now that I think of it, you actually haven’t heard the most shocking part of my night yet,” she said. “Know what Mr. Perry’s middle name is?”

  “No.” I hoped it was Xavier or Zacharias. Anything but an L one.

  “It’s Lee.”

  “I’m coming over right now,” I said, jumping out of bed way earlier than I ever would have without a crisis.

  When I walked through Brina’s door fifteen minutes later, she threw the latest slp poem at me, stuck her hands on her hips, and waited impatiently as I read it.

  Brina,

  I like to save you from the bad guys

  Always want to be your knight

  But you’re still in the dark about who I am

  Maybe you should shine your light on me

  slp

  “Brina, you said this came in the mail, right?”

  “Right.”

  “It couldn’t possibly be from Mr. Perry, then.”

  “Why? Why couldn’t it be?” Brina wanted to know.

  “Think about it. He just dropped you off at ten o’clock last night.

  Even if he scribbled the note right after and threw it in the nearest mailbox, it still wouldn’t have gotten here already,” I said. “We are talking about the U.S. Postal Service here, not FedEx, right?”

  “Let’s just see what the postmark says, little Miss Smarty-pants,” she said, turning the envelope over for a better look.

  I peered over her shoulder and my jaw dropped to the floor. There was no postmark. No stamp, either. Slp must have dropped it through the Maldonatis’ mail slot sometime between last night and this morning.

  “That still doesn’t mean it’s from Mr. Perry,” I said. Well, OK, it looked pretty fishy, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “How can you even say that?” she asked. “It’s so obviously him.”

  “Can we just assume for the moment that it isn’t?” I said, hoping beyond hope it really wasn’t. It would be a huge scandal if anything ever happened, not to mention the fact it could cost Mr. Perry his job.

  “OK,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “If that’s the way you want to play it.”

  “Brina, what would it take for you to go out with slp?”

  “If he wasn’t Mr. Perry?” she asked. “ ’Cause I would totally go out with him in a heartbeat.”

  “Right,” I said. “Slp is not Mr. Perry.” I figured maybe if I repeated it enough, Brina would start to believe me. Even if I wasn’t sure I actually believed me. After all, every other guy in school was gaga over Brina. Why would Mr. Perry be any different?

  “I guess he’d have to be totally hot, then,” she said. “Too tall, too short, too fat, too skinny, too brainy, listens to crappy music like Bebe, or has a horrible singing voice like you? Any one of those and no way.”

  I sighed. “Well, that just about rules out everybody in the world.”

  “Yup. Everybody except the hotties.” She grinned.

  Next stop on this trip, guilt. “So his looks and coolness factor are the only things that matter?” I asked Brina. “Even after he wrote you all these great poems?”

  “You just don’t get it, do you, Trace? You can’t choose who you fall for. It’s purely a chemical thing.”

  I tried to think of sexy guys who didn’t fit her mold to show that you don’t always have to stick to your type. “What about Justin Timberlake?” I asked.

  Brina stuck her finger down her throat and pretended to puke. “Britney’s castoff? Too skinny. Too curly. Too girlie, for that matter.”

  “OK, so he was a bad example. What about Tobey Maguire?”

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t do a thing for me.”

  I punted in desperation. “Jason Biggs?”

  “You can’t possibly think I’d date a guy who put his dick in a pie.”

  “He was acting, Brina.”

  “Oh, that’s different,” she said, nodding. “OK. Sure, I’d give him a chance.”

  Finally. The opening I was waiting for. “So why not give slp a chance, no mat
ter who he turns out to be?” I asked quietly.

  “I absolutely intend to,” she said. “Because he’s not the pie fucker. He’s Mr. Steven Lee Perry.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “Yes, he is,” Brina said stubbornly. “And by the way, I was just kidding about Jason Biggs. I wouldn’t give him a chance, either. Not a single one.”

  I sighed. Poor slp. I wanted to tell him to forget the poetic notes. That all his romantic ideals were wasted on a girl like Brina. And that unless, by some off chance, he actually was a certain hot guidance counselor, there was simply no hope for him.

  At school, Brina regaled everyone with the thrilling tale of how she ended up with not one but two casts on her feet. She embellished her story a bit more every time until all the kids at school believed she was a cross between Wonder Woman, all three of Charlie’s Angels, and Lara Croft.

  Unfortunately, all she ever said to me was “Trace, can you get my backpack?” and “Trace, pull a chair over for my feet,” and “Trace, hold the elevator—I’m gonna be late for class!” Never mind that being at Brina’s beck and call made me late for class all the time, with three detentions to prove it.

  After a full week of this, I was feeling hunchier than ever, and not just in the metaphorical sense. My neck and shoulders were positively killing me from having to carry around both our backpacks, though Brina never even noticed.

  My loyal servitude ended on Saturday when her casts came off. Even Brina must have finally realized the torture she’d put me through all week, because she invited me over for her special homemade gravy and pasta to thank me for all my help.

  “Smells heavenly in here,” I told Brina as I walked in the kitchen. Her T-shirt was stained with tomato sauce and there were little dots of flour on her nose and cheeks. “By the way, that’s a good look for you.”

  She walked out into the hallway and stared in the mirror. “All the fat Italian models are wearing it this season,” she said, coming back into the kitchen laughing.

  “For the millionth time, you are not fat.”

  “Says who?” That nasty remark came from Brad, Brina’s little brother. He always reminds me of a golden retriever puppy, tripping over these big hands and feet he hasn’t quite grown into yet. “Hey, chicas, it’s Hip-hop Day at the rink. Wanna go?” he asked us.