So Lyrical

by Trish Cook

  I detached myself from her death grip. “That’s what I love about you, Brina. You’re about as deep as a puddle.”

  The morning Zander, Brina, and I left for our East Coast drag-the-skeletons-out-of-the-closet tour, my alarm went off at six a.m. It blasted thunderous waves all over my room, and I started having nightmares about surfing a tsunami. When the noise didn’t stop, the dream did.

  I groped around my nightstand haphazardly, located the SNOOZE button, and slammed it down hard. A second later when I realized what day it was, I started rushing around like I’d been shot out of a cannon, taking all of about ten seconds to pull on my clothes, brush my teeth, and run my fingers through my hair. Then I ran down the stairs two at a time, grabbing my backpack and a Pop-Tart on my way out.

  As I headed toward the door, I noticed Bebe drinking a cup of coffee in semidarkness at the kitchen table. I was surprised to see her conscious so early in the morning. Usually, she gets up late and doesn’t say a word until she’s had a full pot.

  “Did you stay up all night?” I asked Bebe.

  Mr. Perry came shuffling out of the bathroom in his robe and slippers. “I’ll take that as a yes,” I said, embarrassed for us all. “Good morning, Mr. Perry.”

  “I think if we’re gonna keep meeting like this,” he said, “you might as well call me Steve.”

  “OK, Mr. . . . uhhhh . . . Steve.”

  “Have it your way, Trace,” he said, laughing. “I am now Mr. Steve to you. Outside school, of course.”

  Bebe took a slurp of coffee and let me have it. “Trace, just answer one question before you leave. Why the sudden urge to go see your grandparents? Usually you leave skid marks after our two weeks at the shore with them.”

  Good point. “I missed his silent but deadly burps?” I improvised. Grandpa’s forever laying two fingers across his lips and exhaling hot, smelly air and then asking, “What smells like pork?” It’s a real kneeslapper after the tenth time in one day, let me tell you.

  “Sweet,” Mr. Steve said, trying not to laugh.

  But Bebe wasn’t buying it. “Anything else I should know about?”

  Yes, I thought. I am planning to dig up your secrets, Bliss, and find my dad. “No, of course not,” I said.

  More suspicious looks. “Uh-huh. Be safe, call me every day, and keep Brina out of trouble,” Bebe said. “Oh, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  Like that would be so hard—no getting pregnant. I thought I could handle it. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Bebe.”

  The doorbell rang. It was Brina. She tried to come inside, but I pushed her back out and closed the door behind us. “I just wanted to wish Bebe a happy New Year,” she said.

  “Bebe’s still asleep,” I lied.

  “Oh,” Brina said. “I thought I saw her in the kitchen window.”

  “That must’ve been me,” I lied again.

  “Whose car is this?” she asked, running her finger along the Mini Cooper as we walked down the driveway. “It kind of looks like that hot car Steven drives.”

  “It’s a loaner,” I lied a third time, proud of my quick thinking. Then I realized Bebe’s Bug was parked right in front of it.

  “But—” Brina started to say.

  “It’s a long story,” I told her, and left it at that. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep the charade up.

  Brina, Zander, and I touched down in Newark a few hours later. My grandparents were waiting for us at the baggage claim, holding up a pillowcase done up in glittery rhinestones that read Trace and Friends, You the Shizzy! I could barely stifle the giggles that were bubbling up from my stomach as I wondered when they’d gone all gangsta rapper on me.

  “Wow, Grandma,” I said, hugging her, “that’s quite a reception.”

  “Yo, my new BeDazzler is . . . pee-hat,” she said, turning to hug Zander and Brina, as well. “Grandpa be givin’ it to me for my birthday and it’s totally . . . uh . . . hyper.” The best part of my grandmother trying to be 50 Cent or whoever she was going for, other than the fact that she got every phrase just wrong enough to make it hilarious, was that she was so damn sincere about it.

  “I think you mean ‘phat,’ honey,” Grandpa said, opening his jacket up to reveal a ribbed wife beater with phat daddy BeDazzled into it. You just had to give it to those two for cuteness.

  Grandma patted his tummy and smiled. “You’re not fat, boo,” she said, a look of concern crossing her face. “Or is that ‘boop’?”

  Grandpa consulted a little pamphlet he extracted from his back pocket. “ ‘Boo.’ It means someone close to you, like a boyfriend or girlfriend.”

  “And that’s you, boobie,” she told him. “Let’s boing, kids.”

  We all looked at her, not quite getting where she was going with that one. Grandpa referred to his trusty pamphlet again. This time, I was able to make out its title: Rappin’ with the Younger Generation.

  “It’s ‘bounce,’ schnookie,” he told her. Grandma looked like she was about to cry.

  “When we found out you and your home fries were coming to visit over Christmas vacation, Trace, we took a class at the senior center to make sure you were feeling us up—”

  “I think that’s just plain ‘feelin’ you,’ Mrs. Tillingham,” Brina gently corrected her.

  “See? I just can’t get it right. And now you’re going to think I’m a winkster.”

  “Wanksta,” Zander whispered in my ear, eyes twinkling with unvoiced laughter. “This is going to be even more fun than I thought.”

  “Grandma, you don’t have to talk differently on account of us,” I told her, patting her shoulder and thinking how sweet it was she and Grandpa had gone to all that trouble. “You’re off the hizzle just the way you are.”

  Grandma looked pleased as punch, as they used to say back in the day, and Zander started coughing to cover his snickering. I just shrugged, smiling back at him so hard my cheeks hurt. Grandma didn’t need to know that my friends and I never used hip-hop lingo like “off the hizzle.” I much preferred to let her think she was cooler than words.

  Things were pretty quiet in the car as we drove to my grandparents’ house in Red Bank—with the exception of Grandpa’s frequent gaseous interruptions, that is. Since last summer, his punch line had evolved into “What smells like bacon?” Zander laughed along like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard; actually using the correct term for a change, Grandma commented that Grandpa had “the dragon,” aka bad breath. Poor Brina had to roll down her window, I assume to combat the smell and car sickness.

  Still, we made it to their modest ranch house in the burbs relatively intact, considering. And we were no sooner over the threshold when Grandma started buzzing excitedly around us, desperate to show off our “diggity-dogs,” whatever they were. As it turns out, Brina and I were assigned to the mildewy guest room with the pompommed bedspreads. My grandparents had obviously taken great pains to update our digs in anticipation of our arrival, because there were now posters of rappers all over the walls and a humongous boom box on the nightstand that looked like it was left over from the early eighties. Probably was. Where Grandma had gotten the idea I was into rap, I’ll never know, but she seemed pretty obsessed with the whole thing.

  “So what do you think?” she asked us, practically jumping up and down by that point.

  “It’s awesome,” Brina said.

  “Plush,” I added, flipping through the cassettes Grandma had carefully stacked next to the tune box. Let’s see, there was Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, Snow, and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Stuff even Bebe must’ve been too embarrassed to admit she’d bought way back when, preferring to leave her musical indiscretions in some old shoe box in the attic instead of toting them along to her new home in Winnetka. The dated rappers with less than zero street cred were in weird contrast with the real ones staring us down from the walls.

  “Don’t you just love that Dog Snoopy?” Grandma said, pointing to the wall next to my bed. “He’s so . . . beauty-li
cious.”

  I couldn’t believe she could possibly have a crush on Snoop Dogg, but I let both the implication and the misspeak fly. “Absolutely, Grandma,” I told her, and changed the subject. “So Zander’s staying in Bebe’s old room?”

  “Oh, no, honey,” she said, flinging open the door of my mom’s former digs. “We kind of converted it into an exercise area.” Inside, a brand-new treadmill, recumbent bike, and free weights sparkled a little hello at us. I was still marveling at the weird extreme makeover my grandparents had given themselves over the past few months when Grandma dropped a real stinker on Zander.

  “Here’s your room, Z-man.” It seemed he was going to have the supreme pleasure of camping out on the plastic-covered floral couch in the den.

  “It’s positively ghetto fabulous,” Zander told her, plunking his bags down next to the sweaty monster of a sofa.

  “Is that good?” Grandma whispered to Grandpa. He consulted his pamphlet for a second, then smiled and nodded. A wave of relief flooded her face.

  “I hope you kids don’t mind, but Grandma and I have our break-dancing class at the senior center today and we’ve got to get going or we’ll never learn how to do head spins.”

  “No problemo, Grandpa,” I said, relieved to be able to laugh about this whole scene so far with my friends without having to do it behind my grandparents’ backs. “We’ll just hang out and relax.”

  “I was thinking maybe you kids should take a nap,” Grandma said, acting like we were still in preschool. “Because we’ve got everything all planned out for the rest of the time you’re here. No doubt, you are going to go all wigwam.”

  I couldn’t begin to imagine what those two hepcats had in store for us, but it was sure to be frightening. I was beginning to dread the next few days, and regretting that I’d dragged my friends halfway across the country on a wild-goose chase. If my grandparents hadn’t told me anything important about my dad in the past seventeen years, why in God’s name had I thought they’d start now?

  Once those wild and crazy sexagenarians took off, we collapsed on the couch laughing. It crinkled and stuck to any exposed skin, making us crack up even more.

  “I am going to be a pool of sweat sleeping on this thing,” Zander said once he caught his breath.

  “Too bad they decided to get all healthy on you,” I told Zander. “Bebe’s room actually used to be pretty cool. I always loved looking at her photo albums, and one time I even discovered a secret drawer where she kept all her notes and letters from high school.” I was so lost in the reminiscence I barely recognized the supreme opportunity we had in front of us.

  It was Brina who pointed it out to me. “Chica, how long did your grandparents say they’d be gone?”

  “About an hour and a half. Why?”

  Brina walked over to me and knocked on my head. “This is our one and only chance to find out something juicy about your dad, sweetness. Your grandma said she’s got us all booked for the rest of the trip. So let’s find out where they stashed Bebe’s stuff and see what skeletons start jumping around.”

  I could practically feel my blood pumping through my veins—I was so ready to do this thing. “You’re right. Everything must be in the attic. Let’s go.”

  The only way to get there was to remove a smallish square part of the ceiling in the guest room closet, pull down a rickety old ladder, and somehow squeeze your body through the ridiculously tiny hole without killing yourself. Good thing none of us had much bulk, though I was pretty curious to see how Brina’s curves were going to survive the test.

  I made it through the opening without a hitch and flicked on a light so my compatriots would be able to see when they joined me. Wads of dust flew up with every footstep I took, filling my nostrils to the brim. A second later, I was showing off my talent for sneezing uncontrollably no less than eight times in a row. It drives Bebe bonkers. As if it weren’t an involuntary reaction. Like I was doing it on purpose.

  Zander clambered up next. He had a bit of a rough time figuring out how to maneuver his shoulders though the hole, but finally did this thing where he kept one shrugged around his ear and the other slumped down his side. I gave him a little kiss on the head as the top of his body popped through. “So glad you could make it,” I said.

  “The Z-man always finds a way,” he said, hoisting the rest of himself up into the cramped little space. “This is it, Trace. I can just feel it in my bones.”

  I shot him an evil grin. “I love feeling your bones,” I told him. “Jumping them, too.”

  Brina’s head appeared next in the attic. “You promised, no sex talk with me around,” she said. “I haven’t scooped a guy in so long I’m going crazy.”

  “Maybe I could be of assistance,” Zander said, grabbing one of Brina’s hands and trying to help her the rest of the way up. After some struggling, the upper half of Brina’s bodacious body finally made it through the little hole.

  With that, a big green monster made an appearance in the pit of my stomach, kicking at all my internal organs until I felt like I was going to throw up. “The hell you will.” I was going for lighthearted, but ended up sounding more like a shrew. I know it’s lame to be jealous of something your boyfriend said kiddingly to your best friend, but when your best friend looks like Brina it’s hard not to get crazy.

  “Don’t worry, boopie,” Zander told me. “You’re the only shorty for me.”

  I heaved a little internal sigh of relief as I joined the effort to pull Brina through to the other side. But no matter how hard Brina tried, or what Zander and I did to help her, Brina could not get her booty to clear the circumference of the attic entryway.

  “Great. My ass has embarrassed me to a new low,” Brina said, slamming her hand down on the attic floor. Dust flew everywhere, covering her hair, face, and shoulders. “Just bring me a box to sort through here.”

  I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from dissolving into wild laughter. All whitish gray with dust, Brina looked like a bad replica of a bust you might find at a flea market alongside the velvet Elvises and the paintings of dogs playing poker.

  “Don’t you dare look at me that way,” Brina said, screwing up her face at me. “Just bring me some clues.”

  While I’d been busy trying not to bust a gut over Brina’s appearance, Zander had been hard at work finding Bebe’s old stuff. He placed a box labeled Desk in front of me, one marked Bookshelf in front of Brina, and took the one that said Bureau for himself.

  “Let’s rock,” he said, glancing at his watch. “We only have about an hour before those darn winksters get back.”

  “What would happen if they caught us up here?” Bust-o-Brina wanted to know.

  “Grandma for sure would get all weird,” I said, opening the top to my box and sifting carefully through the contents. “She still hasn’t accepted the fact that Bebe got knocked up that summer. Wants to think it was some divine act of God instead of a hot ’n’ horny one.”

  I picked up Bebe’s yearbook and started reading the inscriptions her classmates had scrawled throughout. There was the same old, same old.

  Stay as sweet as you are! Don’t ever change.

  You’re a great writer. Have fun at Fairfield.

  Do bongs!

  And then there was something else entirely.

  Remember the time we TPed Jon’s house? Let’s do Bruce next time!

  Next to that entry, an addendum in Bebe’s distinctive scrawly handwriting declared: Been there, done that. And hope to do it again, as often as possible.

  “Look here, Z.,” I said, pointing to the “Jon”—whom I assumed to be Bon Jovi—and “Bruce”—whom I assumed to be Springsteen—references. I took it Bebe had been talking about more than just childish pranks with the Springsteen one.

  “That’s funny, but it doesn’t prove anything,” he said. “She could easily have been kidding. Teenage bravado and all that, as my mom would say.”

  “What? What?” Brina screeched, wiggling around in her mo
le hole.

  “Just that Bebe and her friends made a habit of decorating Bon Jovi’s house with toilet paper. Possibly Bruce’s, too,” Zander said, putting Brina out of her misery.

  “Or maybe she was doing something else with Bruce,” I added. “Something more interesting. And naughty.”

  “Naughty, schmaughty,” said Zander. “Keep moving. We’re on a deadline here.”

  We were all so absorbed in being amateur detectives, we must’ve lost track of time. Because the next thing we knew, Grandma and Grandpa were busting back through the door singing “U Can’t Touch This.”

  “Shit,” I whispered, looking up at my friends in horror. I really did not want to have to explain this whole thing and then watch Grandma get all bummed out, not to mention go blabbing to Bebe about our little caper.

  “Put everything back where you found it,” Zander urged us in a low voice. “And let’s get outta here.”

  I was about to shove Bebe’s yearbook back into the musty old box when something went sliding out of the back cover and escaped to the dusty floor below.

  “Can you grab that, Z.?”

  Zander bent down to pick up what turned out to be a picture and handed it to me without looking. “Here you go.”

  I almost threw the thing back into the box without checking it out, but then thought better of it. I stared down at the photo and rubbed my eyes. There was no way this could possibly be happening. “Score,” I whispered, giving Zander both a thumbs-up and a deer-in-the-headlights kind of look.

  “What is it?”

  “Only the key to my universe,” I said, as mesmerized by the picture as the little girl from Poltergeist was by the TV screen.

  “Yoo-hoo, home fries,” Grandma called. “Dinnertime!”

  “Where could those peeps be?” Grandpa mused, seemingly opening and shutting every door in the house. His footsteps were getting louder, and clearly we were the next scheduled stop on his search.