Beginners Welcome

by Cindy Baldwin

  I cleared my throat. Mitch and I had agreed to split the presentation into two equal parts: I’d start with an overview of what the egg-drop project was supposed to test, and then she’d share photos and descriptions of some of the prototypes we’d experimented with before coming to our final design.

  “When an egg is dropped from a great height, there are a lot of forces that work to make it drop quickly,” I said. My hands were shaking as they held the projector remote. “The law of gravity causes the egg to speed up as it heads toward the ground. Newton’s first law of motion says that an object that is falling will keep falling unless something acts to stop it. So if there’s nothing to slow the egg down or change the way it falls, it will break when it hits the ground. That’s what went wrong with our egg last time. There wasn’t anything to slow it down, and there wasn’t enough to cushion it when it hit the ground, so it broke.”

  I met Mitch’s eyes. “Sometimes, a person can make a choice that causes a lot of forces to work against something that’s important to them. Like a class presentation. Or a friendship. And if they don’t do something to change the fall or cushion the landing, then those things might break, just like an egg. I’m sorry, Mitch. I should have realized the way you were feeling before Friday.”

  “Two more minutes, Miss Fitzgerald,” Mr. Barton said, but his face was soft and sympathetic.

  I chewed on my lip. Mitch didn’t say anything at all.

  How much more was I supposed to open up my heart?

  I clicked the projector remote and kept going with my regular slides.

  After we finished our oral presentation, Mitch and I followed Mr. Barton out of the classroom.

  “Since you’ve already had a chance to do the drop, Miss Harris, I’d like you to be the observer this time,” Mr. Barton said.

  Mitch nodded but didn’t say anything. She hadn’t said anything except for what was on her presentation script. She hadn’t acknowledged what I’d said during my part of the presentation at all.

  I thought of the lost quarter with its two faces: holding on and letting go.

  I wasn’t ready to let go of Mitch.

  It was windy on the roof. I held the egg in its duct-tape-and-straw pyramid over the edge while Mr. Barton gave a countdown.

  When he got to zero, I dropped it.

  Even from two stories up, I could hear Mitch’s whoop of triumph as she picked up the unbroken egg and waved it in the air.

  45.

  On Friday the lunchtime cafeteria was even louder than normal. Voices clamored around me as I moved through the lunch line and got all my stuff. All the talking and laughing and yelling sounded like some other language I didn’t know how to speak anymore. I was in a tunnel, a tunnel made up of sadness and guilt and grief and hope and I didn’t even know what all else.

  I sat at a table with an open seat and spread a book in front of my tray: Bridge to Terabithia, which seemed depressing enough to fit my mood lately. But even as I cracked the tab on my soda and let the pressure hiss out, I couldn’t make my brain focus on the words.

  Instead, I was thinking of Ray on Tuesday, there underneath his sea-green hospital blanket. Open your heart.

  I had never been the kind of person to do big, brave things. Between the three of us, that was always Monica. She was the smart one, the one who came up with all the best plans. Meredith was the gutsy one, who gave us pep talks and made us feel like we could make Monica’s plans a reality. And me . . . I was the sidekick. The follower. The one who just went along with things.

  But today—today needed to be different.

  I put the book back into my backpack and slung the bag over my shoulder before picking my tray back up. It took me a few minutes of standing and letting my eyes wander over the cafeteria before I saw her, slumped in a corner with her head down, her white beanie like a signal flag.

  The seat next to her was empty.

  I gripped the sides of my tray so hard I could feel my pulse in my fingers as I walked toward her. When I slid it onto the metal table next to hers, the thunk was like an explosion.

  I thought again of the piano at Brightleaf. Open your heart up. Open your heart.

  “I want to tell you about my friend,” I said. Mitch was eating mechanically, pretending like I didn’t exist. “The one I had to go find last week. His name’s Ray Owens. I was right, Mitch. He was sick—really sick. And nobody else in the world knew it.”

  This time I didn’t just tell her about who Ray was—I told her about what he meant to me. I told her about the long, lonely afternoons while Mama was working, the way the apartment grew and echoed around me, so incredibly empty. I told her about the ghost, the way it would act up sometimes when I was home alone, the way it felt like the sadness would rip me right down the middle if I stayed there. I told her about my scooter and the way it had carried me all around Durham. To Brightleaf.

  And I told her about Ray. About his music, the magic it made, the way I’d begged him to teach me. How I’d thought maybe playing piano like Ray did would help me feel closer to my daddy again. How Ray had gone missing last week and I’d worried more and more, until I’d finally skipped school Friday.

  How I’d found him half-dead on his kitchen floor.

  How he was still in the hospital, pneumonia eating up his lungs, his leg in a cast. How he’d be in a rehab center for at least a month after he got discharged from the hospital. I even told her about Clara—how lonely she must be without Ray, how much I worried that Queenie wouldn’t be able to keep going over to feed and walk her for the whole time Ray was in rehab.

  By the time I’d finished, tears were burning in my eyes right there in the crowded lunchroom. Somehow I couldn’t seem to will them away like I always had done.

  “Sorry,” I said, sniffling, my head down. A fat tear rolled off my nose and splashed onto my lunch tray.

  A napkin slid its way into my view, pushed by Mitch’s freckled fingers.

  “Don’t be sorry,” she said, the ice melted out of her voice. When I looked up, Mitch was biting her lip. “You can be done being sorry, okay? Honestly, you’ve said it enough times I’m getting really sick of that word. I think we both kind of screwed up. So let’s start again.” She reached her hand over. “Hi. I’m Mitch Harris.”

  I sniffed again, but laughed, too, as I shook her hand. “Annie Lee Fitzgerald. Nice to meet you.”

  “So. Your house is haunted, huh?”

  46.

  Sunday morning, Queenie showed up at our apartment.

  “I invited Mrs. Banks over for coffee a little later,” Mama had dropped casually into our breakfast conversation. “She’s going to help me with some scholarship applications. And she says she has good news for you about Mr. Owens.”

  Queenie brought the scent of floral hair spray and sunshine when she came. She seemed too big for our apartment—not because of her size, but because she had the kind of personality that filled any space she stepped into. Like Daddy had. The little braids she usually wore in her hair were pulled into one big, fat braid across her head today, and her dark skin glowed in the light that came through our apartment windows.

  “Annie Lee, honey, I’ve missed seeing you round the mall,” she said, gathering me into a hug. Then she hugged Mama. “And Joan, it’s lovely seeing you again, too. I’m so glad you called.”

  “Mama said you have news about Ray?” I asked as Queenie slid off her shiny black clogs and set them next to the front door.

  “Good news! I got the call this morning that Ray’s doctors are discharging him tomorrow morning to the short-term-care facility. They’re hoping he can be out of there in about a month, but they said he’s in no condition to be living on his own yet. He’ll need a lot of care these next few weeks while his leg and his lungs heal. It’ll be awhile before he’s moving around independently again.”

  “That’s wonderful,” said Mama. I couldn’t say anything at all—my heart felt like a balloon expanding in my chest, filled with hope and happiness.r />
  “Oh!” Queenie said, patting at her pockets. “That reminds me. I visited Ray yesterday and he gave me something to give to you.” She handed me a piece of notebook paper, folded in quarters.

  I unfolded the paper. It was a note, in Ray’s spidery handwriting.

  Dear Annie Lee,

  It’s going to be some time before I’m back to myself, these doctors say. I don’t know yet when I’m going to be in any kind of shape to go back to playing at Brightleaf. But I want you to keep your sights set on that piano competition anyway. You find a way to practice those songs, and remember: you’ve got everything you need inside you. All you have to do is be brave and let the music out.

  Love, Ray

  “What does it say?” Mama asked.

  “He wants me to keep practicing,” I said, not daring to meet her eyes. “He wants to make sure I still compete in the DPTA program in December.”

  There was a long moment of silence.

  Finally, Mama spoke. “Honey, you can’t go to Brightleaf by yourself anymore to practice.”

  “I know.”

  “And we can’t afford to buy another piano right now.”

  “I know.”

  Queenie cleared her throat. “Joan, what if I was to offer to tend Annie Lee after school some afternoons? She could get off the bus closer to Brightleaf and come check in with me as soon as she got there. My shop’s right by the atrium with the piano she plays on. If she did her practicing there, I could hear her and keep an eye on her, and when she was done, she could come sit in my salon and do her homework.”

  Mama pursed her lips. A trickle of hope ran through me. Silence wasn’t a no.

  “How would she get home?” Mama asked.

  “The salon stays open till seven, but most evenings I leave around five—one of my stylists closes up. I’d be happy to give Annie Lee a ride home. Or if you got off earlier than that, I could keep her with me at Brightleaf until you could come get her.”

  I didn’t breathe.

  “I suppose that would be okay a few times a week,” Mama said. “So long as you get your homework done and don’t wander off, Annie Lee.”

  I threw my arms around Mama, like I hadn’t done since I was a little kid, and held her tight. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  Mama hugged me back. “I know what music means to you, honey, and I don’t want to take that away from you, even if it needs to look a little different from now on.”

  “Now that’s settled,” Queenie said, “I do have one other piece of news about Ray, but it’s not quite so happy.”

  I let go of Mama and turned back to Queenie. My hand went to my pocket, looking for the quarter that wasn’t there anymore. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s about Clara,” Queenie said. “With Ray in a care center for at least another month, I think we’ve got to find another solution for his dog. I know she means the world to him, but I just can’t keep getting over there every day to feed and walk her. And I wish I could bring her to live at my house, but like I mentioned, my husband’s allergic.”

  I looked at Mama. She shook her head. “Don’t even think about asking, Annie Lee. We’d get kicked out of this apartment right quick if we tried to bring a dog in here.”

  “I was thinking,” said Queenie hesitantly, “we might need to find another home for Clara.”

  “Like, forever?” I thought of Ray in the hospital on Sunday. Don’t know what I’d do without that old dog.

  Queenie nodded. “I’m afraid so. Last night when I was visiting Ray, one of the doctors was there with him. He said that Ray will need a walker from now on, and he isn’t supposed to walk long distances without somebody there, in case he falls again. I just don’t know if he’ll ever be able to take care of Clara all the way again.”

  Ray would hate the idea of Clara going to the shelter. I could just picture the look on his face at that idea.

  “I know, Annie Lee,” said Queenie. “I don’t like it either. I wish I could keep caring for her, but it’s too hard to fit into my schedule. And I’m not as young as I was, either. I twisted my ankle up walking Clara two days ago and it hasn’t felt the same since.”

  “Does Ray know?” I asked.

  “I think so, yes,” Queenie said gently. “He thanked me yesterday for taking care of her and said he knew I couldn’t keep it up forever. I just wish I knew a good place she could go. Sending her to the shelter seems pretty cruel.”

  The seed of an idea, green and tender and bright, burst into my brain.

  “I think I might have a solution,” I said. “But I’ve gotta go send an email.”

  That night, I dreamed.

  It was the umbrella place again, filled up with more light and color than it ever had been, the shaving-cream-and-paper smell of Daddy strong in the air. So strong, I realized, as soon as I realized I was dreaming—so strong because I was standing there beside the glossy grand piano with Daddy’s arms wrapped warm and strong around me. As solid—as real—as anything I’d ever felt.

  I breathed in deep, like maybe if I tried hard enough I could breathe Daddy right into my lungs, and then I burst into tears. Crying was all I seemed to be doing these days.

  “Oh, Al,” Daddy said, and I could feel the vibration of his voice against my hair. The same heart that had given up on him at the church gym all those months ago was beating slow and steady, thrum-swoosh-thrum-swoosh-thrum. “I miss you, baby girl.”

  “I miss you, too,” I said, the words wobbly and weak. “I miss you so much.”

  Daddy pulled away, his arms on my shoulders so he could look at me. He looked and looked and looked, like he was drinking me all in, like maybe he wanted to breathe me just as much as I wanted to breathe him. I could feel it all, every bit of it: The pressure of his fingers against the bones in my shoulders, the breeze that snicked its way through my hair, the beat of the sun that shone somewhere above those rainbow umbrellas floating through the sky.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  Daddy shrugged. “What does it seem like to you?”

  I looked around. “Like nowhere. And everywhere. Like—” I hesitated, my words making even less sense than my thoughts. “Like a beginning and an ending.”

  “I think you’re probably right.” Daddy reached into his pocket and pulled something out—something that glinted quicksilver in the sunlight as he flipped it over and over.

  “My quarter! Where’d that come from?”

  “Didn’t you say this is a place of beginnings and endings? Well, then.”

  I sighed. “Will I ever stop missing you?”

  “I don’t know, baby girl,” said Daddy, hugging me quick and tight again. “But I know I won’t ever stop missing my Al.”

  I thought of Ray, of the Margie-shaped hole in his heart. And I thought of just how hard I’d held on to the ghost, ever since Daddy died, even on the days I hated all the memories it brought us. I’d been holding on so hard all summer to everything I had lost—Daddy, the M&Ms, the way life had been before Daddy’s heart had stopped in that church gym.

  But it was time to let go now. I knew it, deep down near my belly button, in the same way I’d known that something was wrong with Ray.

  Sometimes love meant holding on.

  But sometimes it meant letting go.

  I hugged Daddy even tighter, a couple of tears squeezing out from the corners of my eyes.

  And then I let go.

  “Now,” said Daddy, sliding onto the piano bench and patting the space beside him. “What do you say we make some music?”

  When I woke up the next morning, there was no stubble clogging the drain, no scent of aftershave.

  The television, the record player, and the oven were all silent and still, and Mama was silent and still too, standing in the empty bathroom and looking at the clean, shining sink.

  Without saying anything, she reached an arm out and tugged me in close. I didn’t need to hear her say it to know, deep down in my bones, that the ghost was gone. It was
a little bit sad and a little bit of a relief. I thought of what I’d told Daddy in the dream the night before:

  Like a beginning and an ending.

  For the first time in days, I found myself wandering into my bedroom and pulling from my nightstand the little piano contest paper.

  Beginners welcome.

  And somehow, in that same deep-down place that knew that the ghost wasn’t coming back, I knew something else: Mama and me, we were going to be just fine.

  47.

  Do you remember how to get there?” I asked, my insides flipping like my stomach was full of tap-dancing butterflies.

  Mama rolled her eyes. “Yes, Annie Lee, I do. Cool your jets.”

  Her hands, I noticed, weren’t quite as white on the steering wheel as they usually were.

  Clara whined at my feet. She’d come obediently when we’d picked her up from Ray’s house, but I could tell she was just as nervous as I was. Her tail thumped once against the floorboards.

  “It’s okay, girl,” I said, rubbing her ears. “It’s okay. We’ll only be a few minutes.”

  Mama drove along the highway until the Pizza Huts and AutoZones had dropped away into tree-lined streets with huge lots, then pulled into a long gravel driveway with a green-shuttered house at the end. I unbuckled my seat belt and gripped Clara’s leash, wishing I could swallow the butterflies out of existence.

  I let Mama knock on the door. Monica opened it, her smile as nervous as mine; I wondered how she could seem so much like a stranger, after all those years of best-friendship.

  “Come on in,” she said, her voice too bright and cheery.

  We followed her inside, Clara hanging back by my legs.

  “Joan! Annie Lee!” Mrs. Hsu rushed forward to wrap Mama and I both into hugs, beaming. “It’s been too long!”

  “Jenny,” said Mama, returning Mrs. Hsu’s hug. “It’s good to see you.”

  “And I suppose this is Clara,” said Mrs. Hsu, crouching down to look Clara in the eyes and rub her face. Clara didn’t pull away or bark. Dr. Hsu may have been the vet, but I’d never met an animal who didn’t think Mrs. Hsu walked on water.