sits down beside her.
“Just some band thing.” I take the brochure back,
grateful for Justine’s “talk later” gaze.
“How’s choir?”
She rolls her eyes. “You know. Christmas carols.”
“I love Christmas carols,” Ned says.
“That so, Little Drummer Boy?”
It’s Dave Miller,
not sitting down or anything but, empty tray in hand,
kind of lingering near where we are.
A holy-cow-Dave-has-come-by-my-table-
two-days-running
(also partly a wow-Dave-really-doesn’t-like-Ned) giggle
escapes my lips along with a wet shard of cracker,
which I smear away quickly with the back of my hand.
“At least I like something.”
Ned lifts his longish nose into the air.
His Adam’s apple slides up the front of his thin neck.
“I like some things.” Dave grins
and nods his head at my bowl of soup. “Not that.”
“How do you know if you don’t try it?” I ask,
even managing a flick of the hair, a hint of tease in my tone.
“Isn’t that the question?” He looks at me pointedly.
I think of The Movie House, the pits,
the places to which Dave has invited me,
the places I haven’t gone,
the things I’ve imagined about him. I swallow.
The acid residue of tomato broth stings my throat.
“Okay,” Justine pipes into the silence,
“we all like something. We all hate the red soup.
Except for Daisy.
You gonna sit down, Dave?”
I turn my lips
into what I hope is a careless yet inviting smile, eyes on Dave.He grins back but shakes his head.
“Think I’ll go catch a few rays of sunshine
before the bell.”
Justine and Ned and I follow him with our eyes
as he tosses his soda can in the recycle bin,
deposits his tray, saunters out the cafeteria door.
“Good that you stayed with us, Daisy.
That guy is such a jerk,” Ned says.
There is almost too much to parse:
the implied “us” of Justine-and-Ned.
Ned approving of my actions in that parent-like way,
calling Dave a jerk, even though Ned was the one
flaunting snoot-in-air attitude.
“You should know, Ned,” is my retort
as a memory flashes into my mind
of a day in second grade:
After using the bathroom,
I accidentally tucked my skirt into my polka-dot tights,
exposing my underpants
and a full view of the backs of my legs
to the entire class.
Halfway back to my seat, I noticed Ned giggling.
When he caught my eye, he looked down,
saying nothing.
It was Dave who stood up from his chair
(without asking Ms. Martin, our teacher’s, permission),
walked over to me, and whispered,
“Hey, better fix your skirt.”
Dave didn’t get in trouble.
At that moment Ms. Martin looked up from her desk,
saw, understood,
came over to my desk,
and wordlessly straightened things out.
Now Dave is always tardy, breaking rules,
while Ned fund-raises for our school by selling flowers,
and I don’t know who is right and who is wrong,
only that, if you lived in my house,
attended Autism Family Support Group meetings,
you’d find it hard to be self-righteous either way.
There must be something icy in my gaze,
because Ned now sports a wounded expression.
Justine puts a comforting hand on his forearm.
“Don’t take out your frustration on Ned.”
“I’m sorry.” I stand up fast.
The Overton brochure flutters to the floor;
I say “Got it” before Ned can bend to retrieve it for me.
“Really. I didn’t mean anything. Gonna head for band.”
Now they’re watching me as I set down my tray,
make for the door.
24
The bell hasn’t rung.
I wish I could make myself keep walking
to the end of the hall,
out to the back bleachers
where I’m sure Dave is “catching rays.”
He probably doesn’t hold on to things
like memories of mis-tucked second-grade skirts.
He doesn’t wave signs asking people
to vote him into a powerless Student Council office.
It feels like he lives, instead of always making plans—
the opposite of my eternally scheduled life
that offers so little pleasure in the now.
Maybe that’s why I can be hot for Dave.
If he doesn’t want to get to class on time,
doesn’t want to go to college,
I bet he has his reasons.
Maybe he needs extra time to rumple his hair
so it looks that good.
Maybe he thinks deep thoughts
while he sits,
whittling sticks with a school-banned pocketknife,
stealing glances at the sky.
Dave makes me want things. Not good-girl things.
I’ve never done anything beyond kissing a boy,
but now I whisper under my breath,
“I wanna get under you, Dave Miller,”
and other phrases I’ve heard
on the HBO movies I watch at the end of the night
after Steven’s in bed and my parents have retreated
to their Civil War bases:
Mom in the kitchen, Dad in his office.
“I want you.”
“I need you.”
“I burn for you.”
I picture myself riding with Dave in his patchwork Fiesta,
stopping in a wooded spot,
without a time or plan to return to reality.
Sometimes the dream turns rough, dangerous,
As if we were mafia lovers by a New Jersey highway;
other times things are soft, gentle, PG-13,
in a meadow of flowers in saturated hues.
I am a good girl he rescued from embarrassment,
a bad girl wearing studded bracelets.
Everything I know about sex
I’ve learned from HBO.
25
Friday is the worst night of the week,
the beginning of the eternal weekend,
two whole days without school for Steven,
without yoga for Mom:
without a real excuse, like work, to set Dad free.
Around when Steven turned ten,
Dad added running, then golf,
to his hours of ever-increasing “ambition” at the office.
I don’t like it, but I get it.
I think one reason I’m so good at trumpet,
practice so much,
is that it’s always an unassailable argument
to escape from my family.
26
New Hampshire State Youth Orchestra
fills Saturday mornings. I confess,
my heart belongs more and more to jazz
(Dave Miller aside)
than classical,
but it’s good practice, with pretty good musicians,
and Justine sometimes meets me for Thai food after.
“So, what did your parents say about Overton?” she asks
as we divide an order of chicken satay between us,
ask for extra peanut sauce.
“I didn’t tell them.”
“Daisy, they’d be thrilled Mr. Orson wants to
recommend you.”
It’s hard to explain the complexity of my worries,
even to Justine,
who loves my mother’s cookies,
who still says she’s willing to come over
and hang with me and Steven
when my folks aren’t home
even though she’s a little bit afraid,
even though I don’t really ask her anymore.
“I think I want to surprise them.
You know, they could use some good news.”
“But isn’t there an application fee?”
Justine is always practical.
And this I do dare ask, because Justine has a credit card
and a mother who, guilty over her divorce,
hardly ever questions, while my parents,
though they usually give me what money I ask for
(since I hardly ever do),
always ask the what, where, why,
start conversations I don’t always want to have.
“Do you think we could put it on your credit card?
I’d pay you back.”
“Su-ure,” Justine says.
I can see in her eyes she’s not convinced,
knows there’s more to this story.
I promise myself I’ll explain the whole thing
soon.
As soon as I get accepted, tell my parents the truth.
Sooner, maybe.
27
Sunday is for trumpet practice—
as much as I can get
between spelling Mom for a trip to Safeway,
keeping watch on Steven
while Dad golfs and Mom cooks,
sitting at our kitchen table foursome for dinner
while Mom regales us with some complicated story
about looking for a venetian bronze planter
for the back patio
and the sales clerk repeatedly showing her pieces
made of brass.
Dad looks as miserable as Ned Hoffman in the wake of Dave Miller,
which makes me travel inside my head
to an HBO place where I imagine Dave and me
doing something they preface with
AC—Adult Content,
N—Nudity,
before running the opening credits.
And when I’m not thinking that,
the secret I am keeping from my parents
pulses in the front of my brain
until I worry the words “Application to Overton”
will burn through the inside of my skull,
the letters emerging like a charred tattoo across my brow.
“Delicious dinner, Mom.”
I rush my half-eaten plate of roast chicken,
braised kale, to the sink,
resist the urge to cover my forehead with my hand.
28
“What are your musical inspirations?”
My fingers hover over the school library media center keyboard as I search my mind for the words
to answer my first Overton application question.
If they mean what makes me keep on playing,
the answer is too complicated for words on paper.
It’s not just the compositions I’ve learned and played
and heard.
It’s not just so I can be an easy source of pride
for my parents.
It’s not just because a tiny part of me still believes
Mom’s long-abandoned pile
of medical journal clippings
about music freeing the autistic mind.
It’s not even just that I can’t imagine stopping
because I know, like Miles Davis
halfway through Kind of Blue,
that I haven’t reached the end, an end . . .
If they mean why I’m writing this application,
it’s because I need to know that, someday,
I might be able to escape from my house.
I need to do something besides practice and help, cower
and wait.
Summer is far away,
but I think I can survive at home that long.
Then I need to get into Overton. Or go somewhere.
Can I write that?
I open another window on the computer,
search for “summer teen music programs.”
There’s one in California that I recognize,
several at colleges here in New England.
Some look too expensive; others have application fees
I’ll find a way to manage.
I start a list with Overton at the top.
Then six more places.
Enough.
I close the search window,
refocus my mind on the essay.
Mom has yoga tonight,
and I can only stay a few more minutes.
There’d be little risk of my parents catching me writing
the application essays at home.
They’re so busy taking care of Steven
and avoiding being in charge of Steven
and holding on to some kind of life around Steven
that sometimes it feels they’ve half forgotten
I’m even living there.
Still, I feel safer doing it here at school.
“Musical inspirations, huh?”
Dave’s hand rests casually on my shoulder as he reads the screen.
I shiver at his touch,
thrilled yet instantly on guard
against my summer plans
becoming part of the unspoken yet known lore of Jasper,
picturing Andy Bouchard offhandedly asking Dad,
“Has Daisy heard from Overton yet?”
as he hands him a cup of strong, black French roast.
I stand up, turn to block Dave’s view of the monitor.
“Don’t see much of you in the library.”
“Then you haven’t been looking hard enough,
Daisy-brains.
I come by most Monday afternoons at some point.
Like to read in that chair.”
Dave points to the egg-shaped, plastic-and-pleather
chair that forms a weird centerpiece
between rows of fiction.
I often steal the occasional half hour in the library
on Monday afternoons.
Wouldn’t I have remembered
seeing Dave lounging in egg leather?
I look at my watch. It’s almost five o’clock.
“Shit! I’m gonna be late for—
It’s my mom’s yoga night and—”
I save the document onto my flash drive, shut down,
cram the application, list, textbooks,
papers into my backpack.
Run for the parking lot.
29
“Where were you?
I texted four times!”
Mom accuses, before adding,
“I was worried.”
“I was in the library studying.
I lost track of the time.
Just go to yoga now. It’s fine.”
But Steven has noticed Mom’s frantic, angry tone;
> picked up something about the sweat on my upper lip,
my rushed footsteps.
His hands start to twist, eyes roll upward,
searching or maybe seeing nothing.
“Look what you’ve done,” Mom says.
She turns to my brother. “Steven. Steven, are you okay?”
She knows better than to reach for him, touch him.
Together we watch.
“Want a cookie, Steven? Chocolate chip,” I try.
But he flinches at the burping whoosh
that opens the stay-fresh cookie bin.
“Damn. I haven’t taken him to the bathroom yet,”
Mom murmurs.
“Come on, Steven, let’s go watch Batman.”
I stupidly try to take his hand,
but he yanks it away, twisting his palms together.
With a wail, the pacing begins, slow and awkward,
around the edges of the kitchen.
He smacks his head against the doorframe.
Mom and I are frozen statues watching a tornado:
transfixed, terrified, unable to take cover.
“I’m calling your father.
Did we forget your meds this morning, Steven?”
she asks in her calming voice as she moves slowly
toward the phone,
trying to help him connect with some idea, some word, some safe, ritual notion
that will halt the danger, reconnect him to our world.
She pauses, holding the receiver as if it might sting her.
“I haven’t had to interrupt him at work in weeks.”
“Don’t!” I cry out.
The Sound of Letting Go Page 4