The Sound of Letting Go
Page 3
two girls’ trays beneath his own,
getting set to clear their table.
16
I am the keeper of secrets,
I think, as Justine shoves tinfoil into her paper lunch bag, confesses: “I wanted to die
when that boy shut me down in homeroom.
I mean, what a jerk.
Couldn’t he have just taken my hospitality?
I can’t believe I thought he was cute
when he first walked into the room.”
“You didn’t.” I try to comfort her.
We walk toward the exit.
“It was just when he spoke. That accent’s pretty hot.
But he’s not so cute.”
“You’re the best friend ever.” She smiles.
Usually, she waits beside me
through the dump-your-hot-lunch-tray line,
then we head together to our fifth-period classes:
hers, choir; mine, concert band—
oh yeah, the dynamic duo of coolness.
But today, I see surprise in her eyes; she’s gone with a wave.
“You’ve got a good appetite for somebody so thin.”
In a flash, I understand Justine’s departure:
Dave Miller is behind me,
standing so close his elbow brushes mine,
which makes my guts jump, my tongue go stupid.
“Been a long time since breakfast,” I say.
Not my worst reply at all. I steal a look at his tray,
as empty as mine.
“Admit it,” I tease, “you like those mashers!”
He drops his fork into the bin,
slides his tray onto the metal clearing shelf,
raises his arms up mockingly.
“Guilty as charged, officer.
I have high-class taste, just like you!”
“Um, would you move it!”
Ashleigh Anderson demands, doesn’t ask.
She’s heeled and blonde,
behind us with Cal in tow, who’s quiet again,
looking down.
I shove my tray onto the shelf
and glare at them both on Justine’s behalf.
“C’mon, Dave,” I snark.
“Let’s get going to our gourmet cooking class.”
Surprisingly, he follows.
17
“So, you coming?” he asks as we clear the cafeteria door.
“Coming where?”
“I’m gonna go have an after-lunch relax out back.”
He grins that shaggy Dave Miller grin.
“I can’t. I have concert band.”
“You’ve already done band once today.
Fifteen minutes. They won’t miss you.”
Two nose-ringed girls pass by us at the lockers,
wave to Dave.
I imagine the “out back” he’s headed for:
a smoky, not-college-bound,
what-the-heck-we’ve-got-detention-anyway
stand of bleachers not far from the dumpsters.
My trumpet is waiting for me on the band room shelf.
Concert band music is not nearly as much fun to play as jazz.
The group is larger, more amateur. Still,
the flutter in my heart fizzles.
Am I miserable as I say,
“No, I am first chair of the trumpets,”
and scurry away?
Am I miserable when, after school,
I watch his Ford Fiesta squeal out of the parking lot,
then turn my Subaru in the opposite direction?
“Dream a Little Dream of Me,” from the Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald album in my car’s CD player,
serenades me down Main Street,
past Bouchard’s Flower and Gift Shoppe.
Small-town folks don’t like chain stores.
We flock through Bouchard’s horseshoe-shaped doors
even though the place is owned by Andy Bouchard,
who took up with Dave’s mom, broke up the Miller family.
It was she who encouraged him to put in the coffee bar.
But other peoples’ affairs
aren’t anybody’s business in Jasper,
and we all prefer Bouchard’s Special Blend
to what the baristas pour
into those franchise-familiar
green-and-white cups one town over.
New Englanders are proud people.
We don’t talk much about what’s going on
behind other people’s doors.
Nobody’s business but their own.
We don’t talk about everyone’s secrets,
even though we know them.
What happens inside my house is nobody else’s business, too.
But I know Dave knows my family’s story as well as I know why he’ll never be spotted drinking a latte at Bouchard’s.
So I hope he understands, or at least suspects
that I’m dreaming of him
even as I drive toward my quiet neighborhood,
down my well-landscaped street,
right on time.
18
I live in a house of metronomes
ticking back and forth, back and forth,
with no better purpose
than to keep the tempo from changing; not
to guide musicians in a song, to create a symphony,
but simply to keep the chaos always nipping at our toes
from biting off our legs.
Mom’s yoga is Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
so Thursday is a good night to get homework done.
I read passels of A-PUSH,
conjugate French verbs in the pluperfect tense,
ruing my stubborn refusal to take Spanish,
my idiot argument that I wanted to read
Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables in its original language.
Sometimes I feel guilty
that I resent learning French when Steven
can barely form a handful of words.
His sounds, when he makes them, are atonal,
uninflected, as if he cannot hear himself.
For Steven, sound is an enemy.
Noises too high, too loud, lead him to self-harm—
twisting his palms until they’re bloody,
smacking his head against walls, floors.
And so he has silenced the rest of us in this house.
We tiptoe, whisper, exist in an even, steady cadence
that belies the sadness, the frustration,
even the laughter we might release
behind some other front door.
French finished,
I head to the basement for trumpet practice,
so it won’t disturb Steven.
When he was younger,
he seemed able to tolerate more music.
I played my trumpet in the family room, and Mom
used to harbor dreams
that he would become one of those savant-like people
who, despite myriad challenges, had a talent to share—
a gift to give the world.
Back then, our house was filled with paintbrushes,
crayons, tambourines, and recorders,
and when Steven drew on the walls
or smashed an instrument to bits,
she would just grab a sponge or broom and try again.
Now, the toys have been put away
with the good china and sharp steak knives,
the picture frames and crystal vases.
Now it’s only once in a while that I try playing for him:
gentle tunes with narrow ranges, repetitions—
“Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Frère Jacques”—
easy, steady notes.
But on those rare occasions,
I don’t think I am just imagining
that I see his face muscles relax, his body still.
I picture his mind escaping to some faraway place
where he can communicate,
grow up,
understand, and maybe
really love us.
That face tells me when I’ve played a perfect note.
19
Friday breakfast
again at the island,
three others sitting at that table.
Toaster waffles cut in nine precise pieces
to please Steven, comfort him;
just the right smear of butter,
perfect soaking of syrup,
and Mom, grinning, saying “Isn’t this a lovely morning,”
as if the words, her lyrics for the day, could make it so;
as if the morning could be anything more
than another preamble, another overture
to a future none of us can predict or understand.
Sometimes I close my eyes and see the four of us in it.
More often, the image is just Mom and Steven and me.
Dad has gone off and found someone else to love,
someone without the baggage,
the pain we bring him.
Mom goes to yoga every night
and I am still there, watching Steven,
waiting for my own life to begin.
I’ve got to escape this place.
20
Can music people read each other’s minds
from all the way across town?
Know today is the day someone needs to be rescued?
Mr. Orson catches me after jazz band—
which is good because I don’t see Dave Miller
in the hall, so my mood would’ve sunk
if it weren’t for his hand on my shoulder.
“Daisy, I’d like you to take a look at this.”
The school music director puts a booklet in my hand.
“It’s an application to the Overton Music Academy’s Summer Jazz Intensive.
If you’re interested,
I’d be happy to write you a recommendation.”
I know the place. Kids from that summer program
get accepted to Juilliard—
the high note of collegiate music programs—
get invited to play with national orchestras,
score recording contracts . . .
I know, too, that it’s in Pennsylvania,
enough miles from home
to make visits from my family practically impossible.
I imagine a new future scenario, another trio:
Mom, Dad, and Steven making do for the summer
while I am in Philadelphia,
City of Brotherly Love,
home of the great Ben Franklin of A-PUSH fame.
Suddenly even history is more appealing.
“I know you’ve got a challenging family situation,”
Mr. Orson interjects into my reverie.
“If it’s not something you could—”
“Oh, no. I could. I mean, I would love to apply.
Overton looks amazing.” I fan the pages in my hand,
barely glancing at the details, the words, the price—
at anything beyond the promise
of a rest,
a few weeks away from home,
a break from the cursed routines
that serve nobody but Steven.
21
In homeroom, Justine puts one earbud in my ear,
keeps the other for herself.
We sit with our heads together, listening
to Billy Joel’s classic “Piano Man” on her iPod—
she loves good lyrics even if they’re decades old.
It’s a song about a washed-up musician
who’s never made it anywhere,
but people ask him, always, for a song.
And it’s like another sign, another “don’t be like that,”
egging me on, telling me to apply to Overton
even though, despite what I told Mr. Orson,
a note of doubt is already flattening my optimistic tune.
Would Dad let me apply and leave Mom with no one
to spell her for yoga—hell, for a trip to the grocery store—
since our last willing babysitter quit
after Steven’s new teenager-strong legs
kicked a hole through the front hall closet door?
If I asked them together,
would Mom come to my defense while Dad was all
too-much-money-too-much-time-too-much-stress
until I was the too-much that drove him off
beyond the office late nights,
weekend golf outings, ever-longer “runs”?
“What is it?” Justine asks.
I am sitting beside her,
index finger still pressed against the one earbud,
listening to silence since the song has ended,
the final bell has just rung,
and Mrs. Pendleton, in an offensively flattering blue skirt,
is walking up to her desk.
I am not ready to say the word Overton out loud,
so I just giggle,
“Oops, I was thinking about music,”
which is always kind of true.
Justine snorts. Her eyes stray to the evil Cal O’Casey,
whom I can only hate so much
because he plays his saxophone like nobody’s business
and never complains
about having all the crappy bari lines.
In fact, it seems to me his biggest flaw
is that he says mostly nothing, asks for nothing,
refuses help.
If it weren’t for his brogue attracting so much attention,
I think he’d manage to disappear.
22
I can’t believe I’m sorry
that in history class we’re gunning toward the Civil War.
Now I want to roll back to October,
revisit the first Constitutional Convention,
see the Liberty Bell in glorious, glorious Pennsylvania.
They’ve put poor Cal in this class, though
his entire knowledge of American history seems to consist of insights into the psyche of mad King George.
Justine glances at his bewildered face,
whispers, “Bet now he wishes he had me for a tutor.”
That’s what you get from the logistics of a small-town
public school:
only two foreign language options
and an Irish kid drowning in A-PUSH.
“That Ellington piece was somethin’ this morning.”
Cal catches me and Justine at the door after class.
His words aren’t a question,
and I don’t know how he wants me to reply.
“Think we have a shot at the Battle of the Bands finals?”
That’s a question with an easy answer.
Even though I think Cal plays almost as well as me,
and he’s right,
the Ellington piece sounded amazing this morning.
“There are lots of entrants,” I say.
“We’re up against private schools and big-city programs.
So the odds aren’t great.”
“Music is tough like that.
So much about compet
itions, getting accepted places.
Winning. More like football, er, soccer,
than most people know.”
“That’s true.” I feel my face crinkle into a smile.
“Enough music talk.” Justine links her arm with mine.
“It’s time for lunch.”
23
A bowl of frighteningly red soup sits before me,
its tomato base enriched with every meat and vegetable
that didn’t get used up earlier in the week.
Good old “Friday Soup Surprise”
doesn’t taste as bad as you’d think.
I eat hot lunch every day,
not just because I’m too lazy to pack
but because it sets me free from Chez Autistic Frère
(that’s partly French, thank you)
a few minutes faster.
I crumble eight packs of generic saltine crackers
into the ruby swill,
add pepper.
Not so bad.
“I don’t know how you can eat that!”
Justine pushes mandarin oranges around her plate.
“Just close your eyes,” I tell her.
“Like you were doing in homeroom?
What was that look on your face?
Dreaming about Dave Miller, maybe?”
“Not only.”
I push the Overton brochure across the lunch table.
“Oh. My. God. You have to go!” she squeals.
“Go where?” Ned, in a light gray shirt and khakis,