Behind the Song

by K. M. Walton

  “Remind me why we’re doing this again?” Her mom looked overwhelmed.

  “Because you needed a fresh outlook,” Corinne reminded her. “And you also said that you were going to start breaking things if you had to live with the coral another minute.”

  “I said that, didn’t I? Thanks, Mom,” her mother said.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Corinne played along as she put the juice away. “Dusty Satin is going to be a life-changer.”

  “I hope so.” Her mom really seemed to think it was as simple as that, a blue over a pink.

  Corinne was crossing back toward her work area when her mom clutched her arm. “I know I’ve said this before. I just don’t want you to get hurt. She’s got issues.”

  Corinne took a breath and tried to squash down her annoyance, tried so hard not to snap at her mom, who was well meaning and high strung and surrounded by hours of work ahead and, other than Sadie and possibly Corinne’s therapist, was the only person who seemed to believe that Corinne was not a crazy weirdo at heart. “And I’ve said this before. She’s my friend, Mom. Everyone has issues. I do, too.”

  Of course, not everyone’s issues involved going to the emergency room on a Saturday night.

  “It’s just the intensity of the thing that worries me.”

  “Worry about something else,” Corinne said, pointing to a pile of containers on the countertop. “Like your Tupperware collection. You really need to get a handle on that.”

  At the door, Sadie made her presence known with a rapid-fire knock. She was wearing a purple skirt that matched the now-purple streak in her hair and carrying a plastic bag filled with Oreos. “Provisions,” she said. “In case the party is too lame.”

  She took the steps two at a time until they situated themselves in Corinne’s room, which after so many Saturdays like this one felt like “their” room—not that she would have ever said that in front of her mom.

  Sadie started unzipping her bag and throwing piles of clothes everywhere.

  “Where’d you get all that stuff?”

  “Oh you know, I robbed a mall on the way over.” Sadie grinned, flinging a pair of ripped jeans onto the floor, the tags still dangling from the label.

  Corinne had to wonder for a moment if she was kidding. “You didn’t, right?”

  Sadie laughed. “No, I just brought all the stuff my mom bribed me with this month. Plus, we have to coordinate, right?”

  They settled into their Saturday routine. Corinne plugged in her phone and paged through to find the right playlist. They had a whole series going, with titles for future situations in their lives. Our Next Summer Mix (for after they graduated but before they left for their respective colleges). Our Boring Weekend Mix, Our Next Door Neighbor mix (for when they got older and moved in to adjacent apartments downtown). College would have to come first, and who knew where they would even end up, but Corrine didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about having to live without Sadie, who was the only person she really felt safe with. So what if Corinne was a social reject at her own school? She only needed one friend, and Sadie made her feel like not fitting in made them better than everyone else.

  Between them, they agreed on girl groups and Beach House and Velvet Underground and anything that came out of Sweden. Sadie especially liked nineties Britpop, bands with moptops and mopey lyrics, and she introduced Corinne to Blur and Oasis and Stone Roses. They would belt out the words until they’d funneled all their feelings into them, until there was only one meaning for the songs and it belonged to them alone.

  They rarely hung out at Sadie’s house. Corinne had only ever seen it from the outside. It was huge and white and modern. She told Sadie that she thought it looked like a movie set.

  Sadie had just snorted. “Yeah, a dystopian hellscape. I like your house so much better, and your mom always has those good sweet potato chips.”

  It would’ve been so much easier to hang out at Sadie’s without any parents watching her, but she never seemed to want that. Corinne didn’t really get what was so great about her three-bedroom house with the white vinyl siding, the one that looked like all the others on the block, but she had the sense sometimes—a lot of the time, really—that Sadie liked living vicariously through her normal family who got along, and her married parents who were always home.

  Of course Corinne’s mom had noticed this, too.

  “She’s a stray kitten, isn’t she?” she said once, after Sadie had spent the entire weekend with them.

  “She is not,” Corinne shot back quickly. “She just likes it here.”

  “Calm down. I’m not criticizing,” her mom said, but Corinne heard the judgment in her voice. She made it sound like Sadie was some needy lonely freak, but it was so not the case. “If you keep hanging out all the time, other people will probably think you two are a couple.”

  She was probably kidding, but Corinne snapped because her mom’s anxieties always cut through to her own. “Homophobic much?”

  “You know I’m not. I just think it’s kind of intense. You can’t rescue her, you know. You need to think about your own health, Corinne.”

  “Mom. You’re always telling me to socialize, and now I am. Please.”

  In Corinne’s bedroom, Sadie was trying on dresses—a few of the ones she’d brought from home and some from Corinne’s closet. They were the same size in pants and shoes, but tops and dresses were iffier—Corinne had bigger breasts and a little potbelly she was forever trying to hide. Sadie was leaner, probably from skateboarding and soccer, and her build was more boyish by nature.

  “This one is pretty fly,” Sadie said, flaring out the skirt of a bright emerald baby doll, then doing a three-quarter turn to check the back view before spinning around to the front again. “Not sure it works with these boots, though.” She made a face at herself in the mirror.

  Corinne tried not to think about the party, tried to get lost in the fashion show. Maybe they wouldn’t even have to go. Sadie had been known to change her mind.

  “What about this one?” Corinne offered her a mini shirtdress with a check pattern and buttons running all the way down the front. It was new, and she hadn’t had a chance to wear it, but she knew it would probably fit Sadie better anyway. Sadie’s taut stomach was exposed in the changeover, and Corinne made sure to look away.

  “You don’t have to do that, you know,” Sadie said, and Corinne blushed.

  Corinne herself picked a tank dress she’d worn all summer and layered it with a long-sleeve top underneath. She slid on a faux fur vest, some black tights and her high-tops.

  “You’re so creative!” Sadie said. “I would’ve never thought to put that together.”

  “Are you sure?” She wouldn’t even try it if Sadie hadn’t been there to encourage her.

  “Totals. Only you could pull that off.”

  Corinne’s mom knocked on the door and opened it wide enough to show her face. “Girls? We’re leaving now.”

  Her parents were going out to LaScaza’s for dinner, since the kitchen was torn up.

  “Hi, Sadie,” her mom said, polite and a little distant as usual. Of course this just made Sadie try harder to win her over.

  “Have fun!” Sadie said with a broad smile. “They have the best meatballs!”

  “Where are you two going?” Corinne’s mom asked.

  “A friend’s house,” Sadie said.

  Her mom frowned. “A party? Do you think you should—?”

  “Not a party,” Corinne cut in. “We’re just watching a movie at Dara’s. We won’t be late.” She could already hear the lecture coming. Plus, because Sadie and unknown kids were involved, there would be extra degrees of discomfort. Her mom would bar her from going, probably.

  Her mom lingered at the door for a moment and Corinne held her breath, waiting for the axe to fall.

  But she just
said, “Okay, guys. Leave me Dara’s phone number and address in the kitchen before you go.” Then she left.

  “She’s so cute,” Sadie said, and it annoyed Corinne. Her mom wasn’t cute at all. She was annoying, and Sadie couldn’t even see how hard she was judging her, building a case against her. It was also embarrassing how overprotective her mom seemed, when Sadie could come and go as she pleased. Now she might get caught in a lie.

  “She’s okay,” Corinne said, cuing up their SATURDAY NIGHT YAY playlist and they both settled on the bed to listen, staring up at the poster of two sloths bicycling on Corinne’s ceiling. Corinne wasn’t even sure why she had it …when she’d first found it she’d thought it was funny or something, but now it seemed juvenile. She’d been meaning to get a better poster, of one of the bands they both liked.

  “So the party…I’m not really sure…”

  “Come on,” Sadie said. “It’ll be so funny. I really want you to be there. I can’t go by myself!”

  “It’s just not my thing, parties,” Corinne said.

  “I know. You’re shy. But you’ll get over it. You’ll see.”

  Corinne felt herself relenting. It was now or another time, but she would have to go to a party eventually. Maybe this was the best way, with Sadie.

  “I felt so depressed this week,” Sadie admitted quietly, as the string section opened the first few bars of “Bittersweet Symphony.” “I can’t wait to leave or start college or just—something.”

  “It’s going to pass,” Corinne said, but she felt inadequate trying to give advice. How could she, when she was so screwed up herself? That’s why they were such a good match. At the same time, she worried that Sadie didn’t have anyone else to talk to. At least she had Dr. Mittleson. What if Sadie was really alone in the world?

  “You don’t know how lucky you are. I mean, when I came in your mom was doing laundry.”

  “Laundry is not lucky. It’s just chores.” She would have traded Sadie’s problems for her own in a heartbeat. At least Sadie’s problems didn’t make her an outcast.

  “I think Jorge is having another affair,” Sadie said. “It’s so gross. He can’t not screw people.”

  “Does your mom know?”

  Sadie shook her head. “She’s so clueless. If she didn’t drive me crazy with her Real Housewives of Pennsylvania act I would almost feel sorry for her.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t care.”

  “It doesn’t matter if she cares. It’s wrong!” Sadie shouted. “I care.”

  “Just remember: Pretty soon you won’t have to deal with it.”

  “I know.” Sadie stared up at the ceiling and whispered, “I don’t know what I would do without my Coo-Coo.”

  “I don’t know what I would do without you,” Corinne said back. “I would be ridiculous and normal and boring.”

  “Everyone else is normal and boring,” Sadie said. “I told you there were only a handful of originals. That’s us.”

  When they lay there like this, Corinne wondered what it would be like to kiss her friend, if that would be an okay thing to do or if it would be totally weird. She couldn’t really separate out if she wanted to have Sadie or if she just wanted to be her. They could try it, she decided. They had the kind of closeness where they could just try it, and you never knew. Not now, of course, but sometime.

  There had been that other night, when Sadie came over in tears. Her stepdad had gotten drunk again, called her mother a gold-digging bitch and her mother had retreated into her bedroom with pills. Corinne was proud that she’d been the one Sadie confided in. But also, she’d felt that melty feeling, the confusion over who was who and what was what.

  “I just don’t see how she could do this,” Sadie gasped through sobs. They’d lain on this bed then, and Corinne had listened and rubbed her back while she vented. “He’s a horrible person, and she just wants to pretend nothing’s wrong at all. I’m never gonna be like that, like either of them. Fuck alcohol, man. Fuck pills.”

  “It’s coping mechanisms,” Corinne said. “That’s what my therapist says.”

  “Wonderwall” was playing that time, Liam Gallagher’s longing voice distant but comforting.

  Corinne wanted to say more. It was a good opening. She could have told Sadie more about what happened to her, why she had landed in therapy. Sadie knew about the therapy, but she didn’t know about the hardest part.

  “I love this song,” Sadie sniffed.

  “Me too,” Corinne agreed, feeling the urge to confess pass. She had to be there for Sadie. She looked so small and vulnerable, it was like pieces of her were breaking off right in front of Corinne. It didn’t make her any less cool—it made her seem more tragic and glamorous, if anything.

  “It’s kind of played out, but you have to admit it’s brilliant.”

  They’d just listened for a while. Corinne remembered how natural it was, to just be together without talking and take in a perfect moment. How odd, when Corinne had actually been a little scared of Sadie in the beginning. Now she could almost take her for granted. She was pretty sure that Sadie felt the exact same way, that they needed each other, that they were each other’s armor.

  She was still holding Sadie when Sadie fell asleep. She had just lain there, not daring to move, worrying about whether she would wake Sadie up even though her hands stung with pins and needles.

  Now Sadie was jumping up, springing up off the bed and swiping on lip gloss. “Come on, we gotta get there soon. Post-keg-tap, pre-puke. It’s the golden window of opportunity.”

  Corinne struggled to shift gears. Sometimes Sadie moved so fast it was hard to keep up with her. “Yeah. Okay.” She stood up, too. “Let me find my wallet and jacket.”

  Corinne drove them in her beat-up Honda, with Sadie navigating from the passenger seat. She figured her mom’s beloved lawn might be safer that way. “Turn at the next light. Did you know that Senator Rowell lives here?”

  Corinne didn’t. The houses were certainly fancy. At Corinne’s school, no one lived like this. But because Sadie went to Fontwell Academy, she was tapped into a whole world of small, elite schools with names like Platt and Darnell and Plymouth Friends. Corinne hardly knew anything about them, other than what Sadie told her, and Sadie always made it sound like she hated the rich kids, she hated all the snobbery, that she only went because Jorge paid for it and her mom insisted.

  “So do you know these people? Like, well?” Corinne asked.

  “Oh, I’ve hung out with them,” Sadie said vaguely. “They’re fine.”

  Outside of the front door, Corinne’s knees started to buckle. A picture of the Penn State party flickered inside her head. She saw herself on the tiled floor of a filthy bathroom, in fetal position, hyperventilating, Jen and Margit standing by her asking her over and over again if she could talk.

  No, she couldn’t go there. She had to block it out. It had happened once, but that didn’t mean it would happen again.

  But what if Sadie was the center of attention and Corinne was stuck, waiting awkwardly on the sidelines? What if she started to feel scared again, the walls closing in? What would she do?

  That’s ridiculous, she told herself. She’s your best friend. You’re in this together. She wouldn’t invite you if she didn’t think you’d have fun. Maybe she doesn’t know about the thing, but she knows enough to know you need some protecting. And if you get sick, she’ll understand.

  In times of crisis you know who your real supports are, her therapist had said.

  She had to prove it to herself, and her therapist, too, that she could do things like this.

  On the step Corinne took Sadie’s hand, too afraid to look her in the eye as she did it.

  “Aw, you’re sweet,” Sadie said.

  When the door opened, though, Sadie’s fingers flexed open, dropping hers.

  “Saaaaad.” A guy with longish blac
k hair opened the door. He was wearing an oxford with the sleeve buttons undone, so the shirt flapped around his arms like wings.

  Sadie high-fived him. “RD! Yo yo yo.”

  The guy eyed up Corinne.

  “This is my friend,” Sadie said. “I’m allowed a plus-one, right?”

  Plus-one? She was probably trying to be funny, but it struck Corinne as an odd thing to call your BFF.

  “No doubt, no doubt,” the guy said, nodding and sweeping his hand to the side to allow them in. Maybe this was supposed to be the ironic part? Or was it the awesome part?

  She took a deep breath and followed, trying not to let her racing thoughts get the better of her. Sadie led them to the keg in what had to be a five-car garage and filled up two Solo cups. Without asking Corinne, she handed her one.

  I thought you don’t drink, Corinne wanted to say, but she felt like it would sound too prissy. She wasn’t supposed to drink, either, because of her medication. But what else were they supposed to do at a party? Knit and trade recipes?

  Still. She wished she’d had more of a plan—she’d just assumed Sadie wouldn’t be drinking.

  People were arranged in clumps around the living room, around the den, around some other rooms that Corinne didn’t have names for. Sadie waved to some of them. One guy swooped her in for a kiss on the cheek. Another guy squeezed her waist as they moved by him. “Give it up, Dittman,” she scolded him.

  Sadie had never mentioned any of these people. It wasn’t so surprising that Corinne didn’t know everyone she knew—they went to different schools. But who was RD? Who was Dittman? Had she hooked up with either of them? She pictured Sadie coming to a party at her school, how everyone would be pretty much ignoring the two of them. Sadie was like a celebrity or something.

  They passed through another long hallway, which was narrow and crowded with people that were all cramming into the kitchen. “Excuse me,” Corinne said, trying to inch past two beefy dudes who hardly moved. Her heart skipped into triple time; her palms felt slick. She was way too conspicuous. She sipped at her beer, hoping it would calm her.