by Deb Caletti
“Talent?” I said. “You’ve got more than a talent.”
“Mr. Cavalli thinks my playing lacks passion.”
“Well, he’s got too much of it. Way too much.”
“That’s what it takes to be great, he says.”
“Then maybe it isn’t such a good deal to be that great,” I said. Passion—you had Dino on one side with way too much, and the Powelsons on the other with absolutely none. The cable truck had come and gone, and now their house glowed blue again from television light. There had to be a happy medium somewhere.
I was standing next to Ian and his bike. He picked up one of my cold hands. He rubbed it between his own to warm it. He let it go again. Friends could do that. Friends could wish that he didn’t let go.
“Bye,” he said. He smiled, pushed off hard on the pedals and set off down the road. I watched the back of him disappear.
I heard one of our upstairs windows slam shut. Angrily. Dino had been watching us, I realized. And then I realized something else—Ian had ridden off with the performance tape still in his pocket. Maybe the reason Ian came over had nothing to do with the tape after all.
“Ian Waters.” I said his name into the darkness.
I rubbed my arms against the cold. The feeling I had gotten when our eyes met—I tried to shake it. Anyway, it was no big deal. Really. Because I had it all under control.
People don’t crack up in a linear, orderly fashion. A person on the brink can do something really wacky—believing he can be heard through his cable, for example—but then return to his regular old self for days afterward. It’s a great way for you to convince yourself that things are okay enough. Then something happens again. And again. Until the creepy things are coming closer and closer together, and regular is farther and farther apart. It’s an elevator ride—down, up. Down two floors again, and up seven. Up again to the highest floor, where the cable will snap and the car will drop in fast, mind-blowing destruction.
Dino was okay for most of the week after he cut our cable. Then on Friday night, Dino, Mom, and I decided to go out to dinner before I went over to Sophie Birnbaum’s. During football season my friends and I sometimes go over to Sophie’s in an informal ban of the display of caveman hormones going on at our school stadium. We play marathon Monopoly with our own system of money using M&M’s, our reward for having to put up with cheerleaders flashing their asses at us during the afternoon assembly, and for being forced to clap for the football players with their D-plus grade averages.
We had dinner, and Dino was driving back. Mom and I were discussing whether I needed a ride home after Sophie’s or not, when Dino spoke.
“I’ve ruined him, I’ll guess,” Dino said. “That’s why he’s stalking me.”
Just like that, out of nowhere. The air in the car went cold.
“No one is stalking you,” Mom said. “Quit that.”
“He’s jealous that I’m succeeding without him.”
“Who?” I asked.
“You know who,” Dino said.
Mom caught my eyes in the rearview mirror. Her eyes said, I know. I heard the same thing you did. They said, Please, Cassie. Keep your mouth shut.
“He’s probably driving one of those outhouse trucks. What are they called. Porthole potties.” Dino chuckled to himself. Porta-Potti, he meant, and it might have been funny. I might have laughed, imagining the poor sailor who would look out of a porthole potty. I might have cracked up at Dino being so hilarious about some guy stalking him, because of course it was a joke. But I didn’t laugh. I was scared.
Insanity, see—it’s hilarious until it’s deadly serious.
Mom was scrambling eggs the next morning and talking on the phone. She wasn’t paying attention to them the way she should have. They were getting brown on the bottom.
“I’ve got to go, Alice.” Alice was Alice Easton. Mom’s good friend and a clarinet player in their orchestra. They often carpooled together. Alice was the warm kind of person who baked a lot. We were always getting things from her like banana bread and cookies and muffins. Good kind of friend to have. “I’ll try. Okay. Bye,” Mom said, and hung up. One of those kind of hang-ups that happen because you are suddenly in the room.
“I thought you were going to make him take his medicine,” I said. Here was my message: Fix this, I was saying.
“I never said that. I said I was going to talk to the doctor. Which I’ve done. No one can make him, Cassie. The doctor says we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
“Terrific. What’s next? The CIA is going to talk to him through the television? Who does he think is stalking him?”
“William Tiero. Look, it’s pointless to try to make sense of this.”
“William Tiero? Why William Tiero?”
“I don’t know, Cassie. They’ve had a long history together. One of those love-hate things. Epic drama of good intentions and bad blood. I don’t want to talk about this now, okay? I’m exhausted. Just … I can handle him. Try not to worry.”
“I don’t really see how that’s possible.”
“Let me worry. The good thing is … well, he’s writing,” she said. “He’ll finish his writing, and things will get better. I promise.”
When you think of Hemingway and William Styron and Virginia Woolf and Robert Lowell and Mozart, think too of the people around them. The brothers and friends and wives and nieces and daughters. Think of all of the people who had to be normal in crazy conditions. Who had to pay bills and figure out what to have for dinner. Who worried, and tried to understand, and called doctors, and placated in their attempt to define and control what wasn’t even of this world. Who acted as the stabilizing force, the pull of the moon on a wobbly earth, calming its own natural impulse to spin out of control. And think of those who couldn’t hold on to their own sanity while being pulled down by others. Liszt, who went mad himself dealing with his crazy family, including his daughter with three kids out of wedlock with Wagner; and poor Robert Frost, with his nervous breakdown after trying to pay for all of his family members in insane asylums. And Theo van Gogh, devoted caretaker, who died six months after his mad brother. Sometimes, the job would have been too much.
I decided to get out of there. It wasn’t just the night sky that was tumultuous, filled with smashing air currents and forces of nature at their most raw and untamed. My house felt that way too. Depression is a force, paranoia is a force, huge moving masses that affect everything in their way, same as continents colliding. And just like looking through a telescope when the weather gets cold, the instability in the air makes the images blurred and confused. I wanted to be in a place where I could count on things being calm and making sense.
I walked to Dad’s. I had to pass Ian Waters’s house, the small cottage near town that now had a new coat of paint and some flowers out front since he’d moved in. I felt a little surge of glee seeing his tennis shoes on the front porch. I admit, I walked past kind of slowly, hoping he’d see me and come out, but the house looked quiet. It was probably a good thing. All week I’d been working hard to keep the thoughts of my new friend where they should be. I tried not to keep meeting his eyes in my mind. Eight months, I reminded myself, and he’d be off with his violin. I’d be lucky if he had time for a letter after he went to Curtis.
When I got to Dad’s, I just hung out with him and helped him change the oil in his car. Afterward we drove over and picked up Nannie from Providence Point, and Dad made us all dinner. I didn’t want to talk to him about what was happening at home—God knows how he’d take that and run with it. I just wanted to be with him. He made this great buttery pasta that probably had a gazillion calories, and then we played Crazy Eights and Nannie cheated. She beamed with victory and rode home with the most smug look you ever saw. It reminded me exactly of Zach Rogers earlier that day when we got back our math tests. He waved it over his head like an Olympic flag, in spite of the fact that he mysteriously got every one wrong that I did, and that during the test I could feel his eyes rolling around my pap
er, sure as marbles on tilted glass. Dad and I drove Nannie back home, and learned that we’d only gotten a glimpse of what was apparently a fullblown immersion into a life of crime. I dropped her purse on the way out to the car, and about five thousand restaurant sugar packets spilled out, along with two thousand little squares of jam and another several thousand tiny cream containers.
“Mom. What’s this?” my father asked.
“What’s what?” she said, scooping them back in with knobby fingers. “I don’t see anything.”
“Why do you need to do this? You take your coffee black. If you want jam, I can get you jam.”
“I can’t hear you,” she said.
“The jam.”
“I can’t hear a thing he’s saying.” Which was a pretty great problem-solving technique, if you ask me.
“You got good taste,” I said to Nannie. “They’re all blackberry. My favorite.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Dad said.
Before she went inside Providence Point, Nannie squeezed a five-dollar bill into my palm and a couple of jam packets. I kissed her cheek. “Go easy, Nannie,” I said. “We don’t want you convicted for condiment theft. You go to that prison, you’ll meet big-time operators. Maple syrup stealers.”
“I got catsup in my brown purse,” she said.
On the way back home, Dad turned on the radio, hit his palm against the steering wheel to the rhythm of some eighties station. All eighties, all the time, lucky us. I was praying he wouldn’t sing along, then wondered if God would punish me for only checking in with him during times of convenience: 1) when something monumentally awful was about to happen, 2) before a test, 3) when hoping something embarrassing would happen to the homecoming princesses riding around the school track up on the backseat of a convertible, and 4) when I sensed a parent was about to act in a manner that would make me wish for those paper bags they give you on airplanes.
“You’re awfully happy tonight,” I said. “Have you been drinking Optimism in a Cup?” That’s what he called coffee.
“Nope. It’s a natural high. Life is good.”
“Hey, you’re in love,” I said. I pictured a female accountant version of Dad, and hoped she didn’t have kids I’d have to deal with. Poor Zebe has a stepsister who actually goes to our school and is in her chemistry class. She sits and files her nails and studies her split ends like they’re about to discover a cure for cancer, Zebe told me. She carries a pink purse with her initials in rhinestones.
“No, I’m not in love.” It began to rain and Dad turned on the wipers. His eyes were as shiny as the wet pavement under the streetlights. “I’m just close to finding out something important.”
“Oh yeah? The meaning of life? Why dogs roll around on dirty towels?”
“Better.”
“If it’s about Dino, Dad, I really don’t want to know.”
“Fine. I won’t tell you.”
“I think it’s wacky you’re snooping on him.”
“I don’t have to tell you a thing.”
“Okay, fine. Tell me.”
“Hand me an Altoid.”
“Jesus, Dad, okay, I said tell me.”
It started to really pour, the way it can in the Northwest. Dump, is more like it. It’s the kind of rain that makes you wonder if a monsoon could really be much worse. The kind of rain that can make even a gas station minimart with a creepy cashier look cozy and inviting. Dad switched his wipers to manic mode.
“‘Bermuda, Bahamas, come on, pretty Mama,’” Dad sang. “‘Key Largo, Montego, ooh, I want to take you …”’
I folded my arms, stared out the window. Some poor dweeb got stuck walking his dog in the rain—if he lifted his head, he might drown like a turkey. “You know, for a parent, you’re really pretty childish.”
“Okay, okay,” Dad said. “I’m having a little trouble locating Mr. Cavalli’s birth certificate.” Dad raised his eyebrows and smiled. His teeth looked really white in the darkness.
“So what. The guy’s old. Foreign country. Some ancient hill town, for God’s sake. People with no teeth. Women with mustaches.”
“We’ll see.” He looked smug. Right then he looked just like his mother after she won at Crazy Eights.
Here’s what I thought then. I was surrounded by lunatics. Dad was as bad as Dino. Okay, maybe not, but you know what I mean. It occurred to me then that there was very little in the world that wasn’t ridiculous to the point that it made no sense. Putting on neckties was pretty weird, when you came to think of it. Ditto nylon stockings, and grown men using sticks to knock little white balls into cups, and government-access television stations. What the hell was normal, anyway? I mean, my God, something is strange with the world when pompoms are a status symbol. Aliens would someday look at us with completely baffled expressions. Dogs already do.
I’d let my father have his lunacy, mostly because there wasn’t anything I could do about it anyway. Control is easier to relinquish when you have no choice. Besides, I told myself, what he was doing was harmless, wasn’t it?
Here was another funny but not funny thing. Remember the poor dweeb walking his dog in the rain? That poor dweeb was Dino, and that was Dog William, made unrecognizable by hair glued to his body with water and by his miserable expression. When I came home that night, Dino’s wet wool coat was hung over the stair rail, smelling like a barn animal. His soaking socks were curled up in something that resembled embarrassment on the hall floor. He was walking around the kitchen in his bathrobe, his curly hair straight as a pencil, nothing like the simmering photo of him on the cover of his Paris journals. It struck me that Dino had aged. Maybe since the day before. Mom was drying Dog William in a towel. He looked cute for the first time in his life.
“Jeez. What happened here?” I said.
“Dino felt like a snack. Got caught in the rain,” Mom said. She didn’t seemed concerned. In fact, she seemed content, just drying off poor old Dog William.
“Hey,” I said. “I saw you. I didn’t know it was you.”
“You could have given him a ride,” Mom said. Yeah, I could have just invited him right on in the car with Dad. It’d be a nice, calm ride. Like when they transport violent criminals across state lines.
“I don’t mind the rain,” Dino said. “Good for the skin.” He pinched one of his cheeks. He was pretty cheerful for someone who appeared recently shipwrecked. It must have been a good day—the weirdness of the car ride the night before had disappeared as quickly as it had come.
“He looks sweet,” I said, pointing my chin toward Dog William.
Dino batted his eyelashes.
“Not you,” I said. “The dog.”
“My heart is broken,” he said.
“How’s this?” Mom put the towel around Dog William’s face. It hung down his back, nun-style. “Sister Mary William.”
“Dog with a bad habit,” I said.
Dog William had enough of religion and took off like he was late for his bus. He was probably rolling around on the carpet, fluffing up and getting dog hair everywhere.
“I got us something,” Dino said. He opened the brown bag that was on the counter. Really, it did this soggy tear, as the bag, too, was drenched. Dino held up a package of Hostess Cupcakes and a packet of Corn Nuts. Hey, good taste. Usually he won’t put anything near his mouth that doesn’t have some hyperculinary aspect to it. Sun-dried gorgonzola, rosemary cilantro crepes with raspberry sauce, that kind of crap.
He opened the cupcakes, even approached them the right way, by peeling off the icing and eating that first. I had a little surge of positive feeling. One of those maybe-everything-will-be-okay rushes of hope that usually only comes to me after a big swig of Zebe’s espresso. Dino put his arms around Mom. He lifted up her hair, kissed her neck. She leaned into him, and I could see the chemistry between them. I hated to see it, but I did. I knew it explained some things about why Mom was with him.
Dino left the kitchen and went into his office in his bathrobe. I heard him tun
ing and then the brief fits and starts of playing, which meant that Dino was writing. Mom made a cup of tea, sat down at the kitchen table, and warmed her hands around the mug. I had some too, even though it was the kind of tea that tasted like licking a grass welcome mat. Mom tilted her head and we both listened to Dino create, as Mom’s own cello leaned in the corner like a bad drunk. She looked pretty. She took a barrette from her pocket, pulled her hair back. Her face was peaceful. She smiled. “He had a good day of writing. An awesome day,” she said.
“He seems really happy,” I said. She did too.
“He said that for the first time in his life, it’s coming easily. Maybe I was worried for nothing.”
“That’s great, Mom.”
“We may make it to March after all,” she said.
“You don’t have to lurk back there,” I said to Siang Chibo the next day after we got to my house. “Just walk with us, for God’s sake. The stalking has got to go. You make me feel like I’m in one of those horror movies where you know something awful’s gonna happen and the girl’s car never starts.”
“I can’t walk with her. She makes me nervous.”
“Who, Courtney? Just pretend you’re watching bad TV That’s how I get through most of the school day.”
“She makes me feel like a loser.”
“Don’t ever feel that way. You are not a loser. You are so smart. Courtney could only fantasize about being so smart. You know how some people laugh at their own jokes? Courtney can’t. She doesn’t get her own jokes.”
Siang smiled. “Is Mr. Cavalli here today?”
“No. He’s at the dentist getting his teeth cleaned. Gingivitis.” Lie. But I tried to toss Siang some reality every now and then. Just to keep the adoration at manageable levels.
Disgusting gum disease didn’t dampen Siang’s enthusiasm one bit. “Let’s go in his office.”
“Ooh, okay. That’ll be a memory I can put in my scrap-book. You can’t touch anything, though, because he’s been writing. If you mess anything up in there, I’m dead.”
I knew I’d made a mistake the second I opened the door. At first I only saw the mess of papers, empty pages, all empty white sheets strewn around on the desk and the chair and the floor and around by the windows. It was easy for your eye to be drawn to the one page that wasn’t blank, the one that was smeared with blood. It was crumpled up, as if it had been used as a towel to clean up some bleeding, and that’s probably just what had happened. It lay among some shards of glass, a pile of crystally chunks, the remnants of the frame that had held William Tiero’s picture that had obviously been thrown against the wall, same as that wineglass. The force had knocked the print that hung above his desk, those yellowy flowers, askew. It was barely hanging there, threatening to crash to the floor.