by Jo Cotterill
I add another handful of grated cheese to my potato. I feel a bit weird. Lennon is nice—so nice, in fact, that it makes me feel unsettled. He’s so different from anyone else Mom has gone out with. He’s interesting and talks about himself in an interesting way. Chris used to talk about himself too, but it would always be about how much money he was saving for a new car, or how some insurance firm tried to scam him, or how some idiot stole his parking space at work. Lennon talks about learning things, and being unhappy, and finding something you love to do. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a man talk about those things before. Not unless you count Mr. Collery in second grade, who was really good at sorting out friendship problems and bullying because he actually listened and was sympathetic, and told us about his own experiences of being bullied at school.
But Mom doesn’t usually go out with people like Mr. Collery. And when Lennon was talking about using music as a way to express stuff he couldn’t tell people . . . it made me think of my pink poetry book under my pillow, hiding all my secrets.
Mom sighs happily. “I don’t want to jinx things . . . but I really think he’s something special.”
I glance at her. “Did you really like his music? The record player and everything?”
“Of course I did. Well—” she digs at her cheese-less potato “—I wasn’t sure to start with. It takes a bit of getting used to. It’s not the kind of music I normally listen to. But that’s good, isn’t it? I mean, trying something new? And I wouldn’t want to upset him when he’d brought it over specially.”
So she pretended. Another mask. Like me pretending to find something funny when it isn’t.
Is everyone pretending? I wonder.
Chapter 15
To my disappointment, Lennon doesn’t come around again for a few days. But he has lent me his harmonica, and I listen to lots of Stevie Wonder and Sonny Boy Williamson, and then I come across a man and a woman who do harmonica duets of pop songs, and I watch them for hours.
Playing the harmonica isn’t as easy as it looks. In the first lesson I find online, the man explains how to play a single note. The clever thing about harmonicas is that when you breathe out it plays one note, and when you breathe in it plays a different note. In the same place! Two notes from the same hole. But it’s hard to play just one note at a time because the holes are close together, and other notes leak into your mouth.
Mom’s not impressed. “Do you have to play the same thing over and over?” she says, rolling her eyes.
“It’s called practicing,” I say. “I can’t get good at it if I don’t practice, can I?”
“Yeah, but how long before you can play a tune?” She’s just received another delivery and is busy unpacking it all. “They’ve left off my Gleam ’n’ Glow again! Louise is going to kill me. She’s been waiting for six weeks now.” She taps a message into her phone and sends it. “I’m going to find out if the other agents have got theirs. I’m beginning to think someone at the warehouse doesn’t like me.”
She starts digging around in the box again, so I try another run of notes on the harmonica.
“Oh, Jelly, for goodness sake!” she suddenly snaps. “Can’t you go and make that awful noise in your bedroom? I’m trying to concentrate.”
Wow, she is in a bad mood today. I’m almost at the door when she suddenly says, in a pretend-casual voice, “Oh, by the way, Nan and Grandpa are coming over this evening.”
Ah. No wonder she’s in a mood. “What time?” I ask, trying to pretend I don’t mind.
“Six. So . . . I dunno, tidy your bedroom or something.”
My bedroom is clean already. “OK,” I say. I go to my room and put the harmonica away. I don’t feel like playing now.
By the time they arrive, Mom has cleared all the packaging from the living room and vacuumed it, plumped the sofa cushions (“Don’t sit on them, you’ll squash them!”), straightened out the coffee table, and lit a scented candle.
The first thing Grandpa says when he comes in is, “What’s that godawful smell?”
Grandpa isn’t a tall man. He’s wide and stocky, with feet that turn out a bit like a penguin’s. He’s not fat but somehow takes up a lot of room. When he sits down, he spreads his legs apart, which Mom calls “manspreading” and it’s true I’ve never seen a woman sit like that. Grandpa’s eyes are gray-blue, and they’re almost always annoyed.
Today he gives Mom a brief hug and then holds her by the shoulders, looking her up and down. “You all right?” he says. “You look tired. Hope you’re not burning the candle at both ends, especially if they all smell as bad as this one!” He bursts into raucous laughter and his eyes slide across to me. “How are you, Jelly? Growing fast, aren’t you? What are you feeding this girl, Arlene? She on steroids or something?” He laughs again.
I feel myself shrivel inside.
“Dad . . .” says Mom weakly. “Jelly is fine.”
“Of course she is,” says Nan, who as usual has faded into the background. Now she comes forward and gives me a hug. She feels light and fragile, like a bird, and she smells of talcum powder and worry. “She’s perfect, aren’t you?”
I smile back at her, but no one takes any notice of what Nan says because Grandpa doesn’t listen to her, so she never gets her voice heard.
Grandpa sits down on the sofa, taking up almost all of it. “I see you still haven’t mended that shelf, Arlene,” he says, his gaze fastening on a gap on the wall that’s been there for a while, ever since a shelf gave way. “Can’t your man fix it? That Chris guy?”
“I’m not seeing Chris anymore,” Mom says, and clears her throat.
Grandpa makes a pfft sound and shakes his head. “Let another one slip through your fingers, did you?”
“He wasn’t very nice,” I blurt out, because Mom looks stricken. “He didn’t treat Mom well.”
Mom glances at me, but her eyes are hard, not grateful.
“It takes two to tango,” says Grandpa, which makes no sense to me at all.
“I’ve got to sort dinner,” Mom says, turning away.
Nan jumps up. “I’ll help, love.” She trots out after her.
I do not want to be left in the room with Grandpa. But as I follow the others, Mom turns and says in a low voice, “Jelly, keep your grandpa company.”
I bite my lip. “Umm . . .”
“Why not tell Grandpa what sports you’ve been playing at school?” Nan suggests, reaching out to smooth my hair back from my face. “You know he loves sports.”
I heave a sigh. I do know Grandpa loves sports. Watching, that is, not playing them. He’ll watch almost any sport because he loves to complain about referees and umpires. “All right,” I say, and drag my feet back into the living room. Respect your elders, Mom says. He’s the only grandpa you’ve got. So I force my mouth into a smile.
“Am I going to be offered a drink?” Grandpa says mildly as I approach. He’s leaning forward and examining the DVD shelf. “What a load of nonsense your mother watches.”
“Would you like a drink?” I ask.
“Glass of wine, thanks.” His eyes are still on the shelf. “What kind of romantic rubbish is this?” He plucks out a DVD with two smiling couples on the front. It’s The Holiday, a film Mom’s watched about fifty gazillion times.
“Grandpa would like a glass of wine,” I call to the kitchen.
“What color?” Mom shouts back.
“What color?” I ask Grandpa.
He shrugs. “Whatever.”
“He doesn’t care!” I relay to the kitchen.
Honestly, you’d think our apartment was huge.
I don’t really know what to say to him, but Grandpa is still looking at The Holiday. He taps the picture of the blonde woman. “She’s not so bad. Look at her big smile!” He sits back, dropping the DVD onto the coffee table and spreading his legs again. “Young women are too serious these days. All of this feminism stuff—what happened to just having a good time?”
I don’t really understand what
Grandpa is talking about. My mom runs her own business, and when she goes out with her friends, she has a good time. I’m not sure if that makes her a feminist or not.
Nan suggested I talk about sports so I clutch at the first thought that comes into my head. “When I go to Marston Junior High, I’ll be learning rugby.” Rugby is one of Grandpa’s favorite sports.
He stares at me. “What? Marston what?”
“My new school,” I say. “In September. They do rugby in the autumn.”
“They teach girls rugby?” he says. “For the love of Pete, why?”
Oh, brother. Wrong thing to say.
“Rugby’s a man’s game,” Grandpa starts up. “Girls don’t need to run off aggression like the boys do.” He gives a bark of laughter. “No point teaching girls rugby—they’ll be far too worried about breaking their nails or getting muddy!” Then he starts going on about how girls should play “safe” things like basketball, which has no contact, and tennis, because they look good in short skirts, and I close my ears, nod along, and start composing a poem in my head.
Chapter 16
Grandpa has another glass of wine with his dinner, which is overcooked because Mom left the meat in for too long. She’s always nervous when they’re here. Grandpa helpfully points this out. “If you want a husband,” he tells her, “you’ll have to improve your cooking.”
I think Grandpa is perhaps a time traveler. He must have come from about a hundred years ago to say things like that. Sanvi’s dad runs a restaurant and he’s an amazing cook. Sanvi says her mom is nowhere near as good as her dad at making curry and chapatis.
“Maybe Mom doesn’t want a husband,” I say cheerfully, trying without much success to cut through my slice of beef.
“Jelly . . .” says Mom, in a kind of hopeless, please-don’t way.
“Of course she wants a husband,” Grandpa says. “She’s always wanted to get married, ever since she was a little girl.” He grins. “Used to spend hours designing her wedding dress, choosing her bridesmaids—remember how they were always changing, depending on who her friends were?” He suddenly addresses Nan, who flinches slightly in surprise.
She smiles. “Oh, yes. Sometimes it was Jessica and Ruby. Other times she’d have fallen out with them and it’d be Vicki or Candice.”
“Candice?” Grandpa says. “Oh, yes—the black girl. Didn’t her father go to prison? Typical.”
I chew my beef fiercely. Grandpa looks down on practically everyone. Trying to point it out is like trying to drain a lake by standing in it and using a bucket. It’s too big, you don’t know where to start, and you know you’ll never make a difference. Plus it’s likely to drown you.
I can see why Auntie Maggi argued a lot with him. Auntie Maggi believes in things like homeopathy and libraries, saving old trees, and helping the homeless. Grandpa thinks anything herbal is “New Age trash” and that the homeless “should get jobs like the rest of us.” It’s quite hard to like Grandpa, but Mom keeps trying, so I do too.
After dinner Grandpa switches on the TV without asking and finds a sports channel, though he grumbles that we don’t have the ones he likes. “I’ll have a cup of tea while you’re making one,” he calls.
No one was making a cup of tea, but now they are.
I help Mom and Nan in the kitchen, washing and drying and putting things away.
“How are things with you, Jelly?” Nan asks, passing me a saucepan to dry. “It must feel strange, being in your last year of elementary school. Do you feel ever so big?” Then she gives a little gasp and gets horribly flustered. “I mean, big because you’re one of the oldest in the school, not big because . . . You’re not big, you’re beautiful, never let anyone tell you different. Oh, dear.”
“It’s all right,” I tell her, though inside I am sighing. “I know what you meant. Yeah, I do feel old. Everyone looks so little. It’s cool being in the top year at school though.”
Nan is still flushed and flustered. She shoots me a trembling smile. “Are you looking forward to moving on? Will your friends be going to the same school with you?”
“Yes,” I say. “Kayma and Sanvi are coming to Marston Junior High too. It’s way bigger though; I don’t know if we’ll be in the same classes.”
“I’m sure you’ll make lots of new friends,” Nan says. “You’re such a bubbly sort of person—it’s a great asset.” She pats me on the shoulder. “People like confidence, they’ll be drawn to you.”
I smile back. Nan has no idea all my confidence is pretend.
“I think you can take up a new instrument in your first year,” Mom says. “I’m sure I read it somewhere.”
My jaw drops. “Really? Really really?”
She laughs. “It’s about time you learned an instrument.”
“The harmonica is an instrument,” I say.
“Harmonica?” Nan asks. “What made you pick that up then?”
“Oh,” I say, “it’s because—”
Mom interrupts, “Oh, you know how she gets these obsessions over things, Mom. Harmonica is the latest. She’s watching all these videos and teaching herself.”
I close my mouth. Mom doesn’t want me to mention Lennon, that’s clear. So I smile at Nan and say, “When I’ve learned how to play properly, I’ll play you a tune.”
“That would be lovely,” Nan says. “Maybe your mom can sing along. Always did have such a nice voice. I remember her singing in the school nativity. Angelic, she was.”
“Dad said I couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket,” Mom comments.
“Oh, you mustn’t take that kind of thing seriously,” Nan says. “He likes his little jokes. And everyone agreed you looked beautiful in that white dress, with tinsel in your hair. The other moms said I should sign you up as a child model.”
“Why didn’t you?” I ask.
“Grandpa wouldn’t have it.” Nan glances into the living room and lowers her voice. Not that she needs to. Grandpa is glued to a Formula One race, and the noise from the zooming cars would drown out anything we were saying. “Said modeling wasn’t decent. He doesn’t approve of anything like that. Fashion, the beauty business . . .”
There’s a tiny pause. Mom’s lips have gone very thin.
Nan’s eyes widen in dismay. “Oh, sweetheart, I didn’t mean you. We’re very proud of you for running your own business, you know we are. We just want you to be happy.”
Mom says nothing.
Nan glances into the living room again and sighs. “Grandpa doesn’t mean to upset anyone. He just is who he is, you know?”
There doesn’t seem to be much anyone can say to that.
Chapter 17
The next time Lennon comes around, I am practically bursting with excitement. I’ve taught myself a tune on the harmonica, and I’m so nervous, it’s slippery under my hands and I have to play it three times before I get it right.
He beams at me. “Brilliant! I know it too—it’s by the Hollies. One of my favorite songs. Great job. You must have been practicing loads!”
“All the time,” Mom murmurs, but she says it nicely. She went a bit shy when Lennon arrived. She even blushed!
“Hey, can I play along?” Lennon asks. He gestures toward his guitar bag by the door.
A thrill runs through me. “Um . . . I guess.”
He gets out the guitar and starts tuning it, picking at a string to make sure it matches a note on another string. Then he strums a couple of chords and looks up at me. The guitar nestles in his lap like a well-behaved pet. “Shall I count us in?” he asks.
“OK.”
“Two, three, four . . .”
I don’t play it very well, but it sort of doesn’t matter, because Lennon strums gently along underneath my tune, waiting when I take a little too long to find the next note, and not trying to go too fast or anything. It makes me feel . . . well, I’m not sure. Like there’s something inside me that I didn’t know was there.
When I finish, I have to swallow because I have this weird feeling lik
e I need to cry.
Mom says quietly, “Aww. That was lovely.” Her eyes are all shiny as she looks between me and Lennon.
Lennon smiles and says, “Shall we do the whole song? The harmonica solo comes in the middle. I’ll tell you when to come in.”
And then, sitting right there on our sofa, in the very spot where Grandpa sat and spouted his venom, Lennon sings this beautiful song about love and brothers and long roads, and Mom and I sit spellbound and watch his fingers dance across the fretboard. When Lennon says, “Ready for your solo, Jelly?” I drop the harmonica in my haste, because I’ve forgotten I needed to play. But he waits for me to start, as though it’s no bother at all, and I play it much better this time, and then he finishes the song, and Mom sniffs and says, “I need a tissue,” and runs off to the bathroom.
Lennon smiles at me. “What do you think?”
I don’t say anything right away, which is unusual for me. “It feels like . . . ice and honey,” I say. “Sweet and chilly at the same time.”
His smile widens so far it sets diamonds sparkling in his eyes. “A perfect way to describe it. You’re quite a poet, young lady.”
I hesitate. “I do write poems actually.”
“You do? That’s great. Your mom never said.”
“She doesn’t know,” I say, my eyes flicking quickly to the bathroom. “Don’t tell her—”
Mom comes back in, and I feel panicky. But Lennon begins to strum something new, and he gives me a gentle nod before he says, “Want to hear one of mine this time?” and I know he’ll keep my secret.
Mom curls up in the armchair and watches Lennon as he sings a song about a girl who doesn’t know he’s there. Her eyes are soft and her whole body looks different. It takes me a moment to realize she looks relaxed. Mom’s usually on the go: Even when she’s sitting drinking green tea and talking to me, her body is tense, as though ready for the next thing. Right now though she looks . . . still. Calm. And the expression on her face . . . I’m not sure I’ve seen it before. The tiny lines around her eyes have disappeared.