Behind the Song

by K. M. Walton

  I mean: I was the Ina Bauer who sliced the rink’s long diagonal. I was the height of a second axel, this one up and up and up, delayed. I was the smooth landing edge of my double lutz. I was my own cutting speed. There is a place for us, there is a place for me, and in that moment my place wasn’t on the edge, but out there, under the lights, with a dress a seamstress had made especially for me and pearls in the place of rickrack. My place was there, beneath the bright fluorescents, with my mother and my father in the stands. My place was there, with my coach standing tall like she hoped I would keep standing tall. Keep standing tall. You’ve got this.

  My song.

  My moment.

  “Somewhere.”

  So much yearning, and that needle in that groove. Oh. Let it play.

  Until the song ends, and the program, too. Until I plow myself into a stop and curtsy to the crowd, curtsy to my parents, curtsy to my fans, wherever they are. I leave the ice and I hug my coach, I slip my skate guards on, wobble away. Later, when the scores are posted, we learn that my music had played a few over-regulation seconds too long. My “Somewhere” was excessive; deductions were required. My first place became a different place. I had, according to the rules, extended my welcome.

  I would never skate competitively again. I would join the high school cross-country team and then the winter track team and then the spring track team, and when next my parents looked down upon me from the stands, I would be covered with mud and tattered by errant cleats and wearing the maroon of Radnor High. It would seem to them—and, for a while, it would seem to me—that I had left my skating self behind.

  But the girl with the bones hollowed out by song is still right here. She’s never stopped jumping right-to-left in a left-to-right world. She has perpetually stood on the edge of things and only rarely, and for but brief moments, and with inevitable deductions, found her way in. She has sought the opposite of ordinary in the people she has loved, the friends she has made, the stories she has told, the way she’s told her stories.

  She is still out there on the ice, bending her knee and leaping, and sometimes when she lands, the page she finds looking out at her is the ice itself, a frozen river, speaking. Which is what happens here, in a book called Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. Imagining a boy and the ice in another century.

  He’ll slide, and I’ll hold. He’ll carry on, west, and the boys on the east bank will begin their hollering back at him, “The ice won’t hold,” but he’ll say, “I’m going forward.” Announce it, the announce it loud, without turning, for it takes something to keep your jaunty up, and only I ever know for certain how solid as stone and slick I am. How wide he might go, how far he might fall, how thorough I am with the cold. There will be leaves trapped on my surface, colors of fall. There will be twigs and the wings of a bug. An iced-in mitten and the turned-out pages of a book and the leaking orange of a dulled-by-winter sun. His jaunty full upon him now. His walk tripping into a run, and he’ll leap and land, his blades still on his shoulder, and I’ll be solid. “Ice is for taking,” he turn this time and call, and the others will holler again from the edge. Strap on their skates and razor in.

  Imagine taking a needle to the point of blood on your palm. Imagine drawing that needle around and around, leaning in on it, forcing an edge, tearing at the creases and the lifelines, the ridges and slightest hills that forecast your happiness. Imagine the skin giving way.

  That’s skating.

  Or sometimes, revisiting her young self with the hope of speaking to the right now of young selves, the girl with the bones hollowed out by song summons a frozen pond at night and a girl on that pond, a girl who is alone, a girl whom others have seen (and almost always treated) as merely useful, a girl who longs to be seen—at last, for once—as beautiful. Who wonders: Is anybody out there?

  From the quasi-autobiographical young adult novel, Undercover:

  It is a fabulous thing, skating at night. I can think of a song, and the song will turn itself on, and it is the only thing that matters for a while. I can lift up my arms and my soul drifts. I can bend and my knees will be percussion. I can twizzle and my hips will be a mash of the divine. Maybe I’m beautiful when I’m skating at night. Maybe I’m the queen of the stars.

  That night I rode a Bauer down the center of the pond. I put a spiral on an edge, then lunged. I did a waltz jump and another waltz jump, until I had gravity in my pocket. I skated for what felt like hours, then sat for a while on the dock. Out in the woods I could hear the crunching of sticks beneath the feet of squirrels, the hooting of an owl, the wind. If there were deer between the trees, they hid in the shadows. If there were raccoons, they were one hundred percent stealth. I didn’t know where the ravens had gone. I imagined them clumped up in trees.

  Or sometimes the ice becomes that place where a mystery is passed, one to another. Where someone on the edge is noticed and reached toward and told a little secret. Where the past becomes the future, where frustration becomes hope.

  From the Philadelphia Centennial novel, Dangerous Neighbors, a scene on the frozen Schuylkill of 1876, a lesson in learning to spin:

  The skater is coming toward Katherine, arms outstretched. “It isn’t that hard,” she says, “once you get the knack of it.”

  She takes Katherine’s hands into her hands. Her grip is strong. She strokes toward an empty place, and Katherine glides beside her. “I’m Katherine, by the way,” she says.

  “Oh,” the skater laughs. “I’m Elizabeth. But most people call me Lizzy.”

  It’s a good name, Katherine decides at once. She breathes and it doesn’t hurt as much. She swallows, and she’s still alive.

  “Think of stretching your arms around a huge patch of sky,” Lizzy begins. “And then of pulling the sky in hard, against your heart.” Lizzy takes several quick strokes in a straight line, does something with one foot, holds out her arms. “Like this,” she shouts. “Like this. You see?” Her coat kicking up, her summer skirt whirling.

  It turns out not to be so very hard. Speed, power, balance, the sky pulled toward the heart—she’d never be able to explain it to another, but it works somehow, an alchemical mix that blurs Katherine’s edges and gives her a fizzing, fuzzed-out feeling.

  Because the writer I became, the writer I’m still becoming, remains bound up with the music in my bones, remains instructed by the edges, remains grateful for my early instruction in the opposite of ordinary. The writer I am is forever reaching for that long-ago but not lost moment when the song inside me was also the song that others heard. When what I felt and how I was seen were the one same powerful thing.

  There’s a place for us.

  There’s a place for me.

  Somewhere.

  Yes. It’s all I’ve needed.

  Author photo

  by William Sulit

  If Beth Kephart could be a song, she would be a song. Not an instrument, not a singer, but the song itself. Instead she is a writer of books, some might say too many books. Memoirs and young adult novels and middle grade novels and corporate fables and a book about teaching memoir writing, even an autobiography of a river. She’s still trying to get the writing thing right. Meanwhile, she’s having a lot of fun teaching what she finally does know at the University of Pennsylvania and at Juncture Workshops: junctureworkshops.com. More about Beth can be found at beth-kephart.blogspot.com.

  ABOUT YOU NOW

  A SHORT STORY INSPIRED BY OASIS’S “WONDERWALL”

  By Elisa Ludwig

  I chose to write about “Wonderwall” by Oasis because it’s a timeless pop song that, to me, really captures the essence of longing and the secret, exclusive kind of love you have when you’re just learning what love is. Also in there, and (hopefully) in the story I wrote, are Big Human Experience themes like the frustration of not being able to express yourself, the fear of not knowing what your future holds, and the t
ender hope that there’s one person out there who really gets you.

  —Elisa Ludwig

  Corinne happened to be thinking about Sadie right at the moment her phone rang. This was not at all unusual. Sadie’s lilting way of talking, her scratchy laugh, her random and vehement opinions had tunneled into Corinne’s brain to the point where sometimes she no longer heard her own voice in her head.

  “Hey Coo-Coo. Whatcha doing?”

  Corinne felt her breath quicken. She looked across the kitchen to where her mom was packing up boxes of mugs, crumpled newsprint paper lying in puffs around her. “Oh, just helping get the kitchen ready. We’re painting tomorrow.” She’d cupped her hand over the phone, she realized, but there was no hiding who was calling.

  “That’s so handy of you,” Sadie drawled. Her compliments always sounded like teasing. “House makeover?”

  “We do a room every year,” Corinne said. “My mom likes to keep it fresh.”

  As she was talking, she heard her mother sighing extra loudly. Maybe she didn’t want Corinne telling Sadie about her paint obsession. Or maybe she was annoyed that Corinne was wasting time talking when she should be helping. Or maybe, probably, it was because it was Sadie on the phone.

  “Dude, you should get paid for that. It’s child labor.”

  “Believe me, I’ve tried,” Corinne said.

  “Well, if you can tear yourself away, there’s a party tonight in Chestnut Hill. Galloway Prep kids…should be totally amazing in an ironic and depressing way.”

  “That’s a good thing?” Corinne asked. Most days she was game for Sadie’s plans, because her own plans usually involved watching stand-up comedy specials with her parents. Maybe this party would be better, she thought. If Sadie would be there, it might be. Besides, she didn’t know how to object, not with her mom standing right there. If she’d even said the word party out loud, her mom would freak out.

  “Oh yeah. I need you to be there with me to witness the wackiness. I’ll swing by at five. We can get dressed before we head over.”

  Corinne would have been more worried about what she’d just agreed to if she wasn’t so distracted by her mom watching her closely now. She was spinning a masking tape roll around on her finger, and she had a bursting look on her face, like she was waiting for Corinne to say something.

  Corinne couldn’t ignore her, not when she was looming like that. “Hey, can you, like, watch the lawn tonight?” Corinne asked.

  “Oh, that was a muscle spasm. I won’t hit the lights again,” Sadie said.

  Corinne pressed the off button on her phone. “Sadie’s coming over later,” she informed her mom.

  “Newsflash,” her mom said, getting back to work. “When isn’t she coming over? Let’s hope she doesn’t bash our garage door this time. The neighbors already think we’re trashy as it is.”

  Her mom cared way too much about public opinion. She couldn’t even choose paint colors without consulting seven different celebrity magazines. “It wasn’t her fault. It was dark. She couldn’t see.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t looking. And why haven’t her parents offered to pay for the damage at least?”

  They both knew the answer to that question. Her parents didn’t know where Sadie was most of the time. Her parents probably didn’t know Corinne’s name, let alone that she used to have driveway lights.

  Corinne’s mom blew the air out of her nose now, which was an improvement over the complaining, a sign of self-control. “I suppose she’s staying over?”

  Corinne nodded.

  “Next thing she’ll want a key. But would be nice if you mixed it up once in a while. Hung out with someone a little more…wholesome.” She thought people should be like breakfast cereal.

  “Because my phone’s ringing off the hook,” Corinne shot back. Everyone in her school thought she was crazy, after the incident last year. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not in big demand.”

  Her mom looked away, finally. “You need to let go of that.”

  Easy for her to say. Why was it so weird that Sadie came over every week? They were best friends. They lived in different suburbs, and that was what made it special. Corinne knew they’d really chosen each other—it wasn’t a friendship based on convenience or cafeteria seat arrangements.

  They’d met at a summer theater program at University of the Arts in the city. It was Sadie who sought Corinne out, that one day when she followed her onto the Broad Street sidewalk where Corinne usually waited for her mom to pick her up when the session ended.

  “I love your shoes,” Sadie said. “I think you are going to be so awesome as CB’s Sister.”

  Their performance of Dog Sees God would be the first time Corinne had ever really been on stage and she was trying not to freak out about it, because even the mere thought of standing under lights dressed up like a goth chick made her immediately start breaking out into a prickly sweat.

  “Yeah?” And Corinne was actually sweating now, her heart beating fast. She didn’t trust herself around people. Not anymore. And the way Sadie was just acting like they were already friends was disconcerting.

  “You just have that spark, you know?”

  Corinne almost laughed in her face. The theater program had been her mother’s idea; she thought it might help Corinne build confidence and channel her anxiety. Corinne hadn’t been particularly excited about drama, but the idea of going to the city every day, of getting out of her little suburb where everyone knew about last year, was enough to convince her.

  The girl was still standing in front of her, waiting for her to say more, and Corinne was drawing a blank. She felt like she had to acknowledge the compliments somehow, but she didn’t know the right way to do that without sounding like a fake. So she just smiled.

  “You’re Corinne, right?”

  Corinne nodded. She already knew Sadie’s name, too, because there were only twenty-six kids in the program, but up until that point she hadn’t really looked at her closely.

  “You’re playing Tricia,” Corinne said. It was a smaller part, a mean girl who sleeps with her friend’s boyfriend.

  “Yep. She’s kind of badass, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, but I wouldn’t want to know her in real life,” Corinne said.

  “No, probably not. I know plenty of girls like that. I don’t take their shit.”

  Now with Sadie’s face right in front of hers, Corinne noticed she had a brown shag cut with a streak of pink that had to have been bleached first—Corinne knew, because she’d tried a similar thing once, with disastrous results. Sadie had intent green-gray eyes and a striped skater hoodie and a smile playing at the corner of her lips like she was about to dare Corinne to do something wild. Corinne was flattered by the attention, and a little scared of her.

  The next day Sadie called Corinne over to where she was sitting in the auditorium while their teacher worked on the blocking for one of the early scenes. Then they’d started texting each other during the boring stretches in between rehearsals, Sadie sharing her random theories about the world.

  Like:

  S. There are only 35 people in the world. Different people, I mean.

  C. Why 35?

  S. I don’t know. That’s all I’ve counted.

  C. What about the rest?

  S. Combinations. Mixing and matching. Don’t you ever notice that? Everyone is so much the same.

  C. Who am I?

  S. Oh, you’re one of the originals, of course. As am I.

  Or:

  S. Love is a shared delusion. It’s not a real thing.

  C. That’s cynical.

  S. I like kissing.

  C. But you don’t think people really fall in love, like, ever?

  S. I think they agree to jointly believe it. BTW, three o’clock is totally checking you out. And he’s so hot.

 
Corinne looked up then and saw that John, a lanky guy with a man-bun, was scratching his butt. He wasn’t hot. And he definitely wasn’t checking her out. She was only slightly less invisible at drama camp, and that was thanks to Sadie.

  “Made you look,” Sadie mouthed, and they both cracked up.

  That was five months ago. The play went okay except for the one line Corinne flubbed in the third scene, but she knew she’d never have gotten through it without feeling Sadie behind her, cheering her on. Summer ended and they were into fall and then winter, and by now it was a given, the two of them.

  Corinne had friends at school still, but no one asked her to hang out on weekends. There was no one who chose her, no one who belonged to her, no one who seemed to get her like Sadie did. And certainly no one who seemed more interesting every time she hung out with them. Sadie was like a shiny secret charm Corinne had found by accident and carried in her pocket. Because it turned out that it wasn’t Corinne that had the spark at all. It was Sadie. But Corinne would let her keep on believing it if she wanted to.

  “Can you help me grab those condiment cups?” her mom asked.

  Corinne, who was taller, reached up and felt around for the two little dishes she’d never once seen her parents use. Part of the painting process was purging and reorganizing. This time around, her mom was determined to fit her entire set of good china in with the regular everyday stuff.

  She handed it to her mom.

  “I know I look hideous right now.” Her mom put the dishes down and dabbed at the sweat on her forehead. Like Corinne really cared how her mom looked. “Does Sadie know we’ll be up taping and priming tomorrow by eight? Because we’re getting an early start.”

  They always did. “It’ll be okay.”

  Corinne took some juice out of the refrigerator and chugged it from the carton, since all the glasses were being sorted into boxes of KEEP and GIVE AWAY.