She knelt beside Lucia. “Honey, what did you do?”
“I was mad.” Luz looked down at the hooves in her hand and began to cry. “I was so mad, Mom. I’m sorry. I ruined Bandit.”
It was better to hurt things than to hurt people or animals, Andrea told her. But better yet, if you were mad, you should let it out with your words. Or your music. “Breaking something might feel good in the moment,” she said, “but as often as not, you end up with something you can never fix.”
She and Lucia put the yearling back together with superglue and clothespins, but it never stood steady again. Thin scars of glue ringed every mend.
It was a warning flare: coincidence or inheritance? How much could she raise Lucia, and how much of Lucia’s becoming was not only cultural but cellular? Andrea had done everything she could to keep Lucia steady and safe, even as she parented against the wind. To be a single parent and a lesbian parent, with a Spanish last name no less, she felt she had to work three times as hard to be credible in the straight world. Among their chosen family and friends, they were deeply at home; after hours and on weekends, they had a luxurious, abundant, supportive community. But then there was school and work and the doctor and the dentist and the Internet. There she was not a parent but a mom, a species held in somber, near-spiritual regard while being for all practical purposes steadily crushed by the forces of public policy, like the American bison.
At least family court always favors the mother, Andrea reminded herself now. She pressed her hand to her chest. But what if I’ve been a bad one? What if I’ve fucked up? What if she turns into Ryan and takes off one day, never to return?
The music stopped.
Lucia’s voice came through the door. “Mom? Are you crying?”
Andrea pulled herself up from the floor and wiped her eyes on the hand towel. “Oh, no, Luz, I’m just having allergies.” She sniffed loudly for good measure. “Finish your song and then let’s go to bed.”
“Already?”
Andrea opened the door and there stood Lucia in her flannel polar bear pajamas and pink socks. Andrea fought the urge to scoop her into her arms like a little kid, which suddenly she wasn’t anymore. “How about this, cub. You can leave the light on and read as long as you want.”
Lucia looked surprised. “Is this because I’m almost ten?”
Andrea said, “Yes. Yes, it’s because you’re almost ten.”
Practice
ON WEDNESDAYS, LUCIA AND SYDNEY WENT TO THE Girls Rock Institute, which was basically rock camp but after school. Rock camp and GRI were housed in a former machine shop between a trailer park and an industrial intersection; inside the warehouse, the warren of rooms were painted blue and purple and green or paneled in cheap fake wood, the industrial carpet was wrinkled and dirty, and the walls were covered with posters and printouts of women musicians. In the blue room, a wall of gear held shelves of pedals, picks, cables, and mics. The practice rooms were tiny former offices tricked out with seasonal fans or space heaters on the floor, amps, and drum kits. There were power strips everywhere.
Rock camp was the anti-school. In school, Lucia did all her work and tried to keep a low profile as she ate lunch with her handful of friends. There were some unpleasant girls in the fifth grade this year who already fancied themselves mature and who’d taken their new seniority and precocious puberty as endowed power. Sydney had lucked out in the school lottery and attended Buckman, the arty elementary school in Southeast. But at rock camp, you were just whoever you were, or better. You didn’t have to be cool to be cool. The counselors and band coaches and interns liked you. Campers argued sometimes but no one got to be the queen of anything.
The Tiny Spiny Hedgehogs set up in their preferred practice room, a closet-sized space at the end of the hall. It was cramped, but it had a hefty amp Lucia liked, plus a window that overlooked the warehouse’s narrow parking strip and the thick wall of blackberry bushes looming behind it. The bushes were off-limits now because a camper had found used syringes there during the outdoor silk-screening workshop.
While Sydney set up her keyboard and their band coach, Shannon, turned on the amps, Lucia played “Stethoscope” on her unplugged guitar.
“Is that new?” Sydney said. “I like it. It’s fast.”
“It’s not mine. It’s by some band called the Cold Shoulder.”
“I remember that band,” said Shannon, digging a patch cord out from the back cavern of an amp. “God, I haven’t heard that name in forever.”
“Did you know them?” Lucia asked.
Shannon sat back on her haunches. “Not really. They were a guy band that played around town for a while. There were a lot of those. That must have been the mid-, late nineties.”
“Were they good?”
Shannon shrugged. “I don’t even remember. They were one of those bands where for a minute it seemed they were going to break out and be really big. Then they broke up. I don’t know that song you were playing but it sounded good, coming from you.” She held up the purple cable. “You guys need to put these away on the gear wall when you’re done, by the way. Don’t just stuff it in the amp.”
“Sorry,” Lucia said. “Do you know Jesse Stratton?”
Shannon laughed. “Nope. Just stories.” She stood and brushed off her knees.
“What stories?”
Sydney gave Lucia a skeptical look. “Why are you obsessed with this old band? Can we practice now?”
“A girl I knew went on a date with him once, and he was playing his own album on the tape deck when he picked her up.”
Sydney stamped her foot. “Let’s go, Luz.”
One hour, two minor arguments, and half a new song later, the Tiny Spiny Hedgehogs packed up their gear. Sydney’s mom was always late to pick them up, and they secretly liked it. They’d sprawl on the donated couches by the entryway, reading battered copies of Bitch and Bust and Rolling Stone and eavesdropping on the teenage interns, their idols.
Today while they waited, Lucia told Sydney about the record with the picture of her guitar on it. Yes, she was totally sure it was her guitar. No, she hadn’t asked her mom about it. “I started to at dinner but she got all awkward and changed the subject. It makes me think there’s something going on.”
Sydney started to fidget with excitement. “We have to find out ourselves. Let’s research.” Sydney seized any excuse to get on a computer.
They begged Ariel to let them use the iMac in the recording studio, claiming they had to look up the lyrics to a song they wanted to cover. Ariel was eighteen, with a lip piercing, dark shaggy hair, and a denim vest stenciled with the name of her band on the back. Though she was a monster on the drums, she was gentle as a bunny and always danced with the kids during lunchtime shows at camp. They loved her.
“As long as you promise not to touch anything but the computer,” Ariel warned as she unlocked the door. “Or it’s my ass in trouble.”
They promised.
The studio had carpet and fake-wood paneling, microphones with round mesh screens hovering in front of them, PAs and mixing boards and hundreds of levers and knobs that they didn’t know how to use yet—you had to be fourteen. Lucia inhaled deeply. The air was thick and smelled like gear and something quiet but alive.
They squeezed into a broad rolling office chair together and wheeled up to the desk. Sydney commandeered the computer and swiftly verified that the Cold Shoulder Lost EP cover did indeed depict Luz’s guitar. “Holy buckets of rats.”
“I told you!”
They turned up a handful of photos of the Cold Shoulder, three guys posed in various configurations. But they could find no evidence anywhere of Jesse Stratton playing the blue Telecaster.
“Maybe 1999 was before the Internet,” Lucia said.
“People still took pictures.”
Lucia wrenched the keyboard away from Sydney and typed jesse stratton.
They learned that after the Cold Shoulder, Stratton had released one record under his own name, then mo
ved to Brooklyn and continued to make music as a solo project called Deep Dark Woods. He seemed to mostly play a Rickenbacker or an acoustic. His website turned up a 404 error page.
“This is weird.” Sydney drummed her fingers on the desktop. “Wait, did you read the inside thingie of the record? Who took the picture?”
Lucia realized she had only glanced at the insert long enough to see that it didn’t have any lyrics printed on it.
Back home, she took the record from behind her bed and pulled out the insert. The single square sheet had a collage of black-and-white photos of the band playing. A brief list of thank-yous. And at the very bottom, photo credits—first for the live shots and head shots, and then there it was: Cover photo and design by Andrea Morales.
Questions
ANDREA WAS ON HER HANDS AND KNEES UNDER THE KITCHEN SINK, unscrewing the U-pipe section of the drain. Lucia appeared behind her; she could see the kid’s denim knees and Converse, one turquoise and one purple. “Mom, I have a question.”
“Fire away.”
“Do you know what really happened to my guitar?”
“What do you mean, love?” She emerged into the light and sat up. “Is it missing? Did something happen to it?”
“I mean a long time ago, before it was mine.”
Andrea set down the wrench. “Tell me what you’re talking about.”
“I saw a picture of it with the neck all broken. Like really broken.”
Fucked. That was the word. Andrea pressed her lips together. If Lucia had been going through her box of old Polaroids, Andrea would have to explain some drunken hijinks and far too many cigarettes. And that time in college when she and Vivian had wrapped themselves, nude, in clear plastic cling wrap. And—who knows what else. “Where’d you see that?”
“On the cover of a record. It said you took the picture.”
“Oh. The record.” Andrea frowned. Surely that EP was long out of print. “Where did you see that?”
“I think it was at Sydney’s house,” Lucia said vaguely. “I just wanted to know if that was my guitar. I’m pretty sure it is.”
“Yeah. Someone had smashed it up, so I took a picture of it before I got it repaired, and the band liked the picture. They thought it would make a good image for their last record, since they were breaking up.”
“So it was your guitar, and someone broke it?”
“No, it wasn’t mine then. It was given to me as sort of . . . a gift.”
“I thought you got it from The 12th Fret.”
“I got it fixed at The 12th Fret.” Andrea wiped her brow. Lucia should be the one to role-play the immigration officer from now on.
“Did Jesse Stratton give it to you?”
“Jesse?” She laughed at the thought of Jesse Stratton giving her anything but a practiced suave grin. “No.”
“Then who?”
Forward, Andy, she thought. How to say as little as possible as truthfully as possible? “It belonged to a guy named Ryan. He played drums in that band. That was his guitar.”
“Did you buy it from him?”
“He gave it to me. Well—you could say I gave it to him, too. I mean, originally, it was his. He broke it. I took it to the shop and got it fixed. Like it is now. All better. And all yours.” Andrea picked up the wrench again, ready to return to the fixable problem under the sink.
“Wait, if you gave it to him, why do I have it?”
She stopped. “He left it here, Luz. When he left Portland. For good.”
“He didn’t want the guitar?”
“Well . . . no, I guess he didn’t. Or he didn’t want it enough to come back for it.”
“Why didn’t someone mail it to him?”
“Luz,” Andrea said sharply, “I have to finish clearing out this pipe, and it smells like wet death down here.”
“Sorry. I was just curious.” That forlorn voice.
Andrea hated herself when she snapped at Lucia. “I know.” She exhaled heavily and pulled off her rubber gloves, one finger at a time. “Honey, would you mind getting me a glass of water? My hands are all gross from these gloves.”
Lucia filled a pint glass with water and handed it over. She sat down on the floor in front of Andrea and looked at her expectantly.
“Actually,” Andrea said, “I did offer to send it to him. And he said no, and that I should just keep it.”
Lucia waited for more, then said, “That’s it?”
“That’s it. And now it’s yours.”
“But that’s crazy. It’s a really good guitar. Beatriz even said so the first time she saw it.”
“It’s an awesome guitar.”
“Why wouldn’t he want it back?”
“I never knew him well enough to understand how his mind worked, babe. Just count yourself lucky. That guitar was meant for you.”
Andrea could feel the flush rise in her cheeks, and she took two more fast drinks from the water glass. Lucia was studying her face. “You know what? I need plumber’s tape. When Beatriz comes in from the garage, tell her I had to run to Lowe’s, would you?”
“Can I come?”
“No, you should stay put. I’ll be right back.”
This was the story Andrea and her friends had hashed out together, the one they agreed was the smartest, honest yet vague, life-affirming: Lucia’s bio-dad was a friend who had helped out Andrea. He gave her a seed so that Lucia could join her in the world, and he left Portland before Lucia was born. He didn’t really want to be a father, Andrea explained. But he was a good friend in the end, because he gave Andrea the best gift she ever received.
The first time Lucia asked about him was at age three, when they unwittingly went to Oaks Park on Father’s Day. “Do I have a father?” Andrea froze but Meena stepped in like a champ and said all families were different: some had fathers and some had mothers and some had both.
As Lucia grew older, more questions arose:
What was his name? (John, Andrea said. Which was legally Ryan’s first name.)
Do I look like him? (Not really. You sort of have his eyes, and your hair color is halfway between his and mine.)
Do you have a picture? (I don’t. We didn’t take as many pictures in those days. It was expensive to develop.)
What was his job? (He cut hair, mostly.)
Why did he leave? (He was the restless kind. He never stayed anywhere long. One day he just took off. But I wasn’t surprised.)
Did he not want me? (It was not like that. He didn’t want to be a dad, not to anyone, but he did want me to have you, and you to have a good life. He knew that I would love you double.)
Can I meet him? (Honestly I don’t know what became of him, baby. If he ever gets in touch with me again, I’ll let you know.)
Andrea pulled into the lot at Lowe’s, turned off the car, and called Beatriz’s cell phone.
“You went to get plumbing tape? I have some in the basement, dummy.”
“Is Lucia in the same room as you? Can you go somewhere she’s not?”
Andrea waited while the falling rain thickened on the windshield, blurring the world. “Okay, I’m in the bedroom,” Beatriz said. “What’s up? Are you okay?”
Andrea’s breath was tight and shallow in her chest, each inhalation a gasp. “I think she’s going to figure it out. She’s going to figure out who her—who the man who is her father is. I don’t know what to tell her, Beatriz, I don’t know what to tell her. I’m not ready.” The air in the car thickened, humid as breath; it seemed as beige and dingy as the upholstery. She rolled the window down an inch and tried to drink the cool gray air outside. She pressed her hand against her pounding heart, as if she could hold it quiet. Such a cliché, the heart, until fear or love struck and it got literal, became the muscle of the feeling.
Beatriz told her the first thing to do was leave the parking lot. “We’ll figure it out, Andy. Go stand in the lumber aisle and smell the wood. Then get back in the car and come home.” Come home. It was all Andrea had ever wanted to hear.<
br />
Andrea wouldn’t discuss it until Lucia’s light had been safely out for a full hour. Then she closed the bedroom door behind them and explained in a hushed voice. The song Lucia was playing. The odd questions about the guitar. Somehow she’d seen the album cover. “She’s onto something. Fucking Internet! I don’t know how to stop it.”
“She’s smart, Andy. If you don’t tell her who he is, she’s gonna figure it out anyway. Better she hears it from you than from one of your friends. Or the fucking Internet.”
“I don’t know if she’s ready.”
“I think she’s more ready than you. What are you afraid will happen?”
“Worst-case scenario? That he’ll want her.” It had always been there, usually latent, sometimes not, the fear that Ryan would somehow find Lucia and stake his claim. Andrea knew it was irrational, that he was hardly the kidnapping type (but who ever took up with someone they thought was a kidnapping type?), and there were abandonment clauses that probably stripped him of his legal rights, but still. She had forbidden everyone she knew from posting pictures of Lucia on Facebook or MySpace or wherever people were now posting their antic evidence and self-portraits, where they gazed coyly into a webcam, looking at themselves looking at themselves in arm’s-length images that somehow managed to be both vain and insecure.
Beatriz set her hands on Andrea’s shoulders and held her steady. “He’s the one who left and never came back.”
“But do you know why he didn’t come back?” Andrea sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “I told him not to. I told him I didn’t need him. It’s my fault.”
“What do you mean you told him?”
“He’d been gone a week. I finally tracked him down with caller ID. He was in some random town in Minnesota. I told him not to bother coming back. And he didn’t. What if Luz learns that? What if she hates me? I can’t have her hate me. Not already. Not until she’s a teenager, at least.” Andrea dropped her gaze as Beatriz studied her face. What did she see now?
Beatriz said, “If he had really wanted to be in her life, he would have found a way.” Andrea looked up. “You were still here, right? Did you change your name? Did you go into hiding?”
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