Our growing fear of life with him intensifies
with every evening phone call
from the special ed program director,
with every e-mail documenting “discrepancies”
between his “individualized education plan”
(IEP, to those in our world)
and what they now believe he can accomplish
in their classroom.
In the window of hours while Steven is away “learning,” Mom keeps our house
a showpiece of calm colors,
creates scrapbooks full of deceptively happy memories,
and scours the Internet
for a doctor, a diet, a drug that can help retrieve
her once adorable, odd little boy
from inside the puffed overlay of oily, angry man-child,
or at least keep him safe,
keep us all safe.
“Gotta go. Early practice this morning.”
I am out the door before Dad blames Mom
for Steven’s untied shoes
and announces his usual plan to be home late from work.
Before Mom coaxes Steven into his jacket, Dad’s car.
Mom has long since given up
on getting real affection from Steven,
but there’s this look on her face
every time she stands in front of Dad
as he picks up his briefcase, buckles his watch,
grabs his keys,
but doesn’t kiss her good-bye.
I always try to be gone before that.
8
I pull my car into the school lot, look for Dave’s Fiesta.
It is mostly black, with a red hood and one red rear door
salvaged, I guess, from another ancient Ford.
It has not yet arrived at its usual parking spot
near the row of maple trees on the far side of the asphalt.
I’m not sure if it’s disappointment
or the moist fall chill that makes me shiver,
but I zip my fleece jacket
before I grab my backpack and trumpet case,
squint up at the hazy sky,
head for the front doors of Evergreen High.
Jazz Ensemble,
7:15 to 8:10 a.m.,
Tuesday through Friday:
best 220 minutes of my week.
Nine boys, four girls:
trumpets, saxophones, clarinets,
a trombone, a bass, drums;
melodies, rhythms, riffs, and improvs;
occasional bad notes, squawks, laughter.
No wailing.
9
There are more guys than girls in the jazz world,
next to no lady trumpeters (oh, there are a few).
But it doesn’t matter because, for me,
jazz trumpet is all about one guy:
Miles Davis.
He made this famous album in 1959
called Kind of Blue,
which is kind of, always,
how I feel.
That album gets into your bones,
goes and goes;
starts, hesitates, reaches out, feels
for the music, the sound, the thing you want to change.
Always grasping for the unattainable makes you
kind of excited,
kind of sorry.
10
Mr. Orson taps his music stand.
We’re all waiting to get started
because today is Thursday: Jam Session.
We’ll play through tons of music, hardly stopping,
just letting the music roll, feeling good, letting go.
“Before we start today,
I’d like you all to welcome Callum O’Casey.”
“Er, um, it’s just Cal,” comes a quiet Irish brogue
from thin lips, moving so slightly
it takes a moment to realize he’s the one speaking.
“Just Cal for short.”
The other three jazz girls sit up at the sound of his accent,
look sharp toward the saxophone section.
Cal-for-short’s long legs stretch into the aisle.
As he speaks, a dark pink blush starts at his ears,
spreads to his fresh, pale cheeks.
He’s wearing untucked brown plaid flannel and holey jeans.
His baritone sax, slightly tarnished, dull yellow metal,
lies across his lap, braced so lightly in his hand
it seems like he doesn’t even need to hold on.
“Good to have a bari again, Cal,”
Mr. Orson says with emphasis.
“Had one graduate last year and we’ve been missing it.”
And we’re off.
It’s November,
which means jazz versions of Christmas carols,
plus the Ellington piece we’re learning
for the Northeast Battle of the Bands competition.
Cal-for-short can read music, man,
because that bari is already coming in strong,
giving the numbers that deep undertow thrum
they’ve apparently been missing,
though I didn’t really know it
until the bari came back.
11
Lots of guys and all the other girls
stick around after practice to welcome the new player.
But through the glass, I see the back of Dave Miller’s head,
so I close my case, stash it on a shelf, dash into the hall.
“Hey!” I give him a shove.
“Hey back. You missed a good movie last night.
Serial killer with an ax really messed up a town.”
“Sounds like Oscar material.” I smile
an I-am-smart-but-not-too-smart-
for-you-to-think-I’m-sexy smile.
At least, I hope I do.
“After, we drove down to the pits.
Belden brought some great home brew.”
Dave and Josh Belden and the rest of those guys
hang out with the girls who wear bars of black liner
underneath their eyes, who jangle
with boot and belt buckles, chainy stuff.
Their place:
a circle of fire pits near the picnic tables at the town park.
They’ve carpeted it with cigarette butts,
amped up the tables with neatly carved expletives
and the occasional X-hearts-Y proclamation.
I do not wear heavy makeup,
have nothing pierced besides my ears.
My clothes are generic except
for the Sharpie-drawn flowers and music-note stamps
that enhance the canvas of the Keds I wear every day.
I don’t drink,
don’t deface property beyond stickering my trumpet case.
But there’s something about the badassness of Dave Miller
that makes me sorry I missed The Movie House,
wonder about the taste of Belden’s home brew.
With a start I realize that I’ve drifted away,
feel my eyes on Dave’s face,
my expression surely more wistful than sexy.
He is looking at me curiously.
I’ve been silent too long,
dreaming last night had been different,
that I’d been with Dave.
Though now, with him standing in front of me,
I am a total idiot.
“Um, yeah, home brew. How do you make that?”
Dave scratches his already-mussed hair,
which somehow makes it look even bette
r.
“I didn’t make the stuff. I just—”
“Oh, never mind. Sounds like a fun night.”
I start wishing I was in a slasher film,
that someone with an ax would come and strike me down right now before I can say anything MORE stupid than I have already.
I am definitely one of the characters they’d kill off
early in those movies. Right now, it’d be a relief.
Instead of an ax, it’s a sound that comes to my rescue:
the warning bell for homeroom.
“Well, guess I gotta go,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Um, it was nice talking with you.”
My mouth won’t stop moving.
He gives a little laugh, calls over his shoulder,
“You’ve always been a funny one, Daisy Meehan.”
I watch the back of him for far too long.
12
“Thank you for gracing us with your presence,
Ms. Meehan.” Mrs. Pendleton glances up from her desk.
“Sorry.” I duck my head and slide into my seat,
embarrassed by my staring-at-Dave-Miller delay.
I’m a good student, rarely late,
and I doubt she’ll mark me tardy.
“Students, I’d like you to welcome . . .”
And homeroom is another rendezvous
with “Um, er, just Cal” O’Casey,
who seems to be appearing everywhere I am.
From the seat in front of me, my best friend, Justine,
turns around to shoot an oh-my-God,
hottest-accent-ever look of awe.
“He’s in jazz band,” I whisper.
Her expression morphs into raging envy.
“I’m gonna learn to play the triangle,” she whispers back.
I giggle. Justine can always make me laugh.
Even when I’ve been up half the night, alone in my room,
listening to the music-less sounds of Steven smacking walls,
my parents fighting over whether to restrain or medicate,
then, if it ends, their clumping staggers down the stairs
to dose themselves with wine.
“Care to share the joke, girls?” Mrs. Pendleton says.
“Oh, I was just saying that maybe someone
should buddy up with Cal,
help him find his way around the school.”
Another thing about Justine: she’s got a pair.
“And that’s funny?” the teacher persists.
“Depends on the buddy, I suppose.”
Justine smiles with mock sweetness.
No girls like Mrs. Pendleton.
She is too pretty, too young;
her firefighter husband is too cool, too cute;
and she steals the attention of too many junior boys
from us junior girls.
Not that it’s her fault.
She’s all ambitious young teacher,
struggling to awaken us country bumpkins
to the wonders of environmental science.
There’s a picture of Mr. Pendleton on her desk,
and I’ve caught her texting him during class
on more than one occasion.
I look over at Cal O’Casey,
wondering if he’s fallen victim to the Pendleton charm,
but he is looking down
at his brown, lace-up shoes,
which might be stylish in Ireland
but are simply geekishly adorable in Jasper, New Hampshire.
He may not be ready
for Justine’s American sense of humor.
“That’s a nice offer, Ms. Jenkins,”
Mrs. Pendleton says to Justine.
“Would you care to be said ‘buddy’?”
“I, um—that’s okay.” Cal drags his eyes up from the floor.
“I think I can manage a’right.”
A couple of girls actually swoon over his last, Irish word.
Justine sticks her chin out, her eyes set.
I know she’s willing her pale, freckled skin not to blush.
I make a mental note that, accent or not,
Callum O’Casey is a bit of a jerk.
13
Some days I just can’t bear all those stories they tell
in Advanced Placement United States History—
they call it A-PUSH, like that makes it cooler.
It doesn’t.
Not that I disrespect the Declaration of Independence,
the Constitution, all those rebels, free thinkers,
George Washington, Ben Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson.
I get it. They wanted freedom.
Well I do, too.
But you can’t really have freedom
without making someone else a kind of prisoner,
can you?
14
Justine and I sit at the same table every lunch period,
where we’re joined by a few band friends of mine,
some drama types she knows,
and the occasional Extremely Serious Schoolboy—
the kind she and I seem to attract— the ones who rule
the Student Council and Entrepreneurship Club.
Today the lunch is turkey and gravy,
which is gross to look at but which I secretly like.
I like the fake mashed potatoes,
made from hot milk and potato flakes,
a product that would never see
the perfect interior paint colors of our house.
I like the tiny chunks of turkey,
the tasteless peas, and the whitish sauce.
I like the cookie that comes on the side:
cool, nearly stale, chocolate chips firm.
I like not having to think, to choose;
just slop it on my plate
and I’m all good, thank you.
Today, Ned Hoffman from
Students Against Drunk Driving
is making eyes at Justine.
I poke my fork into the smooth white mound of lunch,
look across the aisle. Callum O’Casey is being lit upon
by three blonde cheerleaders,
I guess because his accent charms, because his red hair
stands out in the crowd.
Though I kind of think they wouldn’t let him
get into their pants—an honor
reserved for the Varsity Football starting line.
I lean away from Ned, who is earnestly telling Justine
about some flower sale fund-raiser
attached to the upcoming Black-and-White Dance,
strain to catch fragments of Cal’s description
of his cultural exchange program:
how lucky he was to be allowed to come,
even though the school year had already started;
how he’ll be staying with the Ackermans,
his host family, until June. Just like in homeroom,
his expression is a little strained, his cheeks a little pink.
He seems surprised and confused
by the attention he’s getting. I guess he doesn’t know
how exotic he seems here in Jasper.
“Well, I think you should sell pink roses, too.
Red is just so . . . dramatic,”
Justine says loudly, returning my attention to our table.
“Don’t you think, Daisy?”
“Um, yeah.” I nod, remind myself
that Cal was rude to my friend—who, right now,
might need a rescue from her determined s
uitor,
and who loves things that are pink.
“Pink flowers are terrific.”
“See?” Justine’s flashing eyes refocus on Ned.
Instructions about what girls like pour from her lips,
keeping any more of Cal’s words from reaching my ears.
I close my eyes and imagine the music of Cal’s brogue,
the lilt
the tempo of an Irish folk tune,
the kind my parents tell me they used to listen to
when they first fell in love—
as if they are in love anymore.
15
My parents tell the stories
of their courtship, their marriage, their life before kids
to me—only me—never Steven.
I alone hold their history in my brain.
I am the only child in the house
who mourns the loss of their romance,
the only one who can hear in the tones of their voices
longing,
rejection,
apology,
a broken connection between hearts,
between people.
The bell rings.
The din around me quiets.
The sounds of Ireland empty from my brain.
“See you later.” Ned, looking mildly defeated,
stands up and heads for the cafeteria door.
Justine and I look across the aisle
to where Cal O’Casey has gallantly stacked
The Sound of Letting Go Page 2