Diva

by Alex Flinn

  I also tried 2 tell Mom my whole theory about Dr. T-J & the opera and how he’s lying 2 her if he says he’s going 2 take her someplace so public. But she just gave me one of her you’re-just-sooo-jealous-b/c-you-wish-you-were-cool-like-me looks and said, “Caitlin, you don’t get it. December’s a long time off. He’s planning on *leaving* his wife by then. We’ll be 2gether.”

  When I asked why he didn’t just leave his wife now, she explained (slowly) that these things take time and we (we!) just had 2 be patient.

  God! I’d puke but I’m trying not 2 eat.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 19

  I’m standing in the back of the Church by the Bay on Key Biscayne, where Sean works. After two weeks of rehearsing the group numbers and playing phone tag with Sean, I finally passed him a note Friday.

  I know it’s a longshot, but do we ever get to sing in the same room?

  That’s when he said maybe we could get together after his last church service. The choir’s singing some tuneless hymn. I can hear Sean’s voice over all the others. The minister says a final prayer, then invites everyone into the social hall for coffee and cake, sponsored by Mary Somebody in honor of Grandma Somebody’s ninety-fifth birthday.

  Mom and I used to go to church. She started, I think, as a way of making connections for real estate or meeting guys, neither of which worked. But it did get my mind off the fact that I wasn’t visiting my father weekends, like every other divorced kid on the planet. Not that that bothered me or anything.

  I see Sean gesturing from the choir area. Most people left for their refreshments, but Sean and one other guy stay back.

  Sean introduces us. “Rudy, this is the girl I was telling you about—the singer.”

  I start a little. Sean told someone about me? I didn’t think I was the slightest blip on his radar screen.

  “Caitlin, this is Rudy Escobar. Rudy’s the baritone section leader here.”

  “What’s a section leader?” I say.

  “Basically,” Rudy says, “someone with a decent voice who sings loud enough to drown out all the old men in the choir.”

  “Rudy, that’s not nice.” But Sean’s laughing.

  “Sometimes the truth isn’t pretty.” Rudy touches my shoulder. “Oh, honey, before they hired Sean and me, the tenor and bass sections were to die from.” He looks around to see if anyone’s listening, even though he’s talking at the top of his voice, which is loud. Real loud. “Half the men were mumbling into their music. The rest were singing “Shall We Gather at the River” like it was The Flying Dutchman.”

  Sean cracks up. The whole time Rudy’s talking, I can’t stop staring at him. He’s a total bronze statue—tall, built, with brown skin and one of those short beards like professional opera singers wear. I don’t usually go for the Latin lover type or guys with facial hair, but this guy’s … um, everyone’s type.

  “Hello?” He passes a hand in front of my eyes. “Are you okay?”

  Oh. Excuse me while I die.

  I recover. “You know Wagner’s operas?” I ask, remembering The Flying Dutchman. A brilliant save.

  “Who doesn’t?” He grins. “Baby, opera is my life. I was named Rudy—not after some abuelo but after Rodolfo in Bohème. My mama sung me to sleep with Mozart, and now—here I am—God’s gift to the operatic stage.”

  “Which basically means he’s a sophomore music student at U of M,” Sean says.

  “Only for now, Sean. In a few years, it’ll be…” He gestures with his hands like there’s a huge billboard behind us. “Rodolfo Escobar—live at the Met!”

  I laugh. In my whole life I’ve never met a guy my age who knew anything about opera. Now, I’m in a room with two of them.

  “Rudy said he’d play the piano for us,” Sean says.

  We start warming up, with Rudy playing exercises on the piano. He starts low and runs me higher and higher. When I reach a high D (the last good note I possess), he asks, “Can you do one more?”

  “Only if you like screaming,” I squeak.

  “I bet you can. Want to try?”

  I take a deep breath, think up like Rowena said, and go for E-flat.

  Rudy stops playing. “Beautiful!”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Sean says. “She’s really something.”

  Rudy nods. “You’re right. She’s like ‘La Stupenda’—the great Sutherland.”

  Joan Sutherland was an opera singer before I was born. I can’t believe he knows about her.

  “Only with better teeth,” Sean adds.

  “Better everything,” Rudy says. “Like Joan Sutherland if she was a hottie. You know you’re a hottie, right?”

  I actually giggle and forget that the scale said one hundred and sixteen this morning.

  “Rudy, we’re in a house of worship,” Sean says.

  Rudy claps his hand over his mouth. “Oops! Sister Mary Michael would so wash my mouth out with soap.” He crosses himself.

  I giggle again. I have this great thought. “Is everyone in college like you?”

  “Like me, how?” Rudy exchanges a look with Sean. “Gifted and incredibly modest about it?”

  “Like, do they know about opera and stuff?”

  “Well, not the frat boys with the beer bongs, or the football team,” Rudy says. “But the opera students are mostly like me. Only I’m the best, of course.”

  “Of course,” Sean echoes.

  “Wow,” I say. “People I know don’t know anything about art or music, and they think I’m weird because I do.”

  “You’ll love college, girl,” Rudy agrees. “I was so over high school. Even the so-called artsy people weren’t into what I was. I’m trying to introduce Sean around, see about getting him some scholarship money for next year.”

  “I’ll need it,” Sean says.

  Which gets me thinking. Worrying, actually. I’ve always figured I’d go to a college with a good music program like Indiana University or Oberlin (no way would Mom let me go someplace in New York City, but Indiana sounds so … wholesome). But I wonder if I’ll need a scholarship too. We sure don’t have extra money lying around. Mom’s always said she’d make sure Dad pays, but I don’t think he’s actually required to pay for anything after I’m eighteen. So why would he? Because he loves me so much? Not likely. I push the thought back again.

  Sean picks up our sheet music. “Shall we start?”

  I’m grateful to be able to concentrate on singing. We sing really well together, and Rudy shouts, “Brava!” when we finish.

  “Hey, don’t you mean bravi?” Sean says. “For both of us?”

  “Nope. I was just applauding her. Your head is swelled enough.”

  “Whatever.” Sean looks at his watch. “Oh, gotta go. Family command performance.”

  “What else is new?” Rudy says. “Cut the cord.”

  “You’re so sensitive,” Sean says. We walk to the parking lot. I glance at my watch. We’ve been here over an hour, but it seems like ten minutes. I go for my bike.

  “Need a ride?” Rudy asks.

  I start to say I could use the exercise. Then I stop myself. Why not go with him? The guy’s completely nice, and he must be safe since he’s Sean’s friend. Not everyone’s a stalker. And I met him at church. Not to mention his complete hotness. “Sure.”

  He loads my bike into the trunk of his old Camry and I give him directions. I want to ask him a million questions, about college, about opera. About Sean too. But I end up sitting there dead, stupid silent.

  We’re almost at my house when he says, “You hang with Sean much at school?”

  “Not really. I was actually surprised when we got assigned to do a duet together. At school, he’s always simulating sex with his girlfriend.”

  Rudy raises an eyebrow. “You mean Madame Misty? She’s not his girlfriend.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “Nah, she’s … not his type. He’s mentioned you a lot, actually.”

  “Really?” This, together with the in
fo that Sean isn’t dating Misty, is incredible.

  “Yeah. He thinks you’re really talented.”

  “Oh.”

  I smile and try not to be disappointed. I mean, I want people to think I’m talented. Right?

  “Do I have a college fund?”

  Mom’s in the living room, watching QVC. She glances up from the fire opal pendant they’re displaying, but doesn’t reply. Okay. Let’s try something else.

  “Is Dad going to pay for college?”

  Still nothing. The screen switches to a Dooney & Bourke bag. Mom leans forward and takes down a notepad to write down the info.

  “Oh, god. So we have no plan?”

  Mom looks away from the television. “Well, of course I have a plan, Caitlin. That’s what I’ve been telling you. You think I don’t worry about this stuff?” She looks back at the bag. Two hundred dollars.

  I walk between her and the television. She can’t buy two-hundred-dollar bags when I’m going to have to work as a singing waitress at Macaroni Grill after high school. “I missed the part where you told me.”

  She actually takes the remote and clicks off the TV. “With Arnold, baby. When I marry him, it will be like a built-in life—the house, the cars…”

  “The man.”

  “Well, of course the man, Caitlin. But he’ll help with your future.”

  “Do you love him?”

  She doesn’t answer right away, and I wonder what I hope she’ll say. If she loves him, that’s pathetic because he’s using her. But if she doesn’t love him and is screwing with his marriage, that makes her … can’t say it.

  “He’s a sweet man, Caitlin. We’ll have a good life with him.”

  It makes her a … I think about asking the question again, but I decide I don’t want to know the answer.

  “Who was that nice-looking young man I saw you with?” she says.

  Typical. Let a hot guy drive me home and that she notices. “He’s just a friend.”

  “Well, he was very … presentable. I was worried that everyone at that school was like that girl you brought home last week. The one with the … eyebrow ring.”

  I remember how Gigi described Mom: “Stepford wife without the husband.”

  “So I’m glad you’ve made some nice friends.”

  Not that you know anything about him, except that he’s “presentable.”

  “Yeah, I’m glad too.” I turn the TV back on, trading QVC for a way out of this conversation. She missed the purse—ha! I wait until she zombifies in front of the screen, then leave.

  * * *

  Opera_Grrrl’s Online Journal

  * * *

  Subject: Raised by Apes

  Date: October 11

  Time: 3:00 p.m.

  Listening 2: La Traviata

  Feeling: Happy

  Weight: 116 lbs.

  Remember in the movie Tarzan when he doesn’t think there are any other creatures like him ............ then he meets Jane. That’s how I feel today ....... there are whole *departments* in universities where people actually “get” opera & don’t think it’s weird .... won’t think *I’m* weird. I can’t wait for college ............ but I hope we can afford it w/out Arnold!!!

  * * *

  I’m on my mother’s computer. QVC’s still on in the living room, so I think it’s safe. Mom has this program she uses for real estate, where you can get information about different properties—like look up an address and get the owner’s name and how much they paid for it, or look up a person’s name and find out where they live.

  I type in MIKLOSHEVSKY, ARNOLD.

  Three addresses come up. One’s an office building near downtown. Another’s a condo—probably an investment property. I know Mom would say it’s good he has investments. The third is a house in Coral Gables, near where Dad lives.

  I write that one down.

  CHAPTER 20

  In Drama, Gigi and I are doing this scene from The Glass Menagerie. Gigi plays Laura, a shy girl who’s such a mess she can’t even go to a typing class without puking on the floor. I play Amanda, Laura’s witch of a mother, who lives in this dreamworld of the past where she was belle of the ball. She can’t handle that she’s stuck with no husband and a loser daughter.

  Yes, I’m playing my mother. Miss Davis assigned the parts.

  I definitely reek less at acting than dance (I mean, I can speak), but I still … well, suck. And I hate everything about Amanda, from her Southern accent (which I absolutely cannot do) to the all-too-familiar way she bullies her daughter. I’d never have chosen this scene. Even the lines are pretentious. Example: “… little birdlike women without any nest—eating the crust of humility…”

  Like, hello? What does that mean?

  So it’s not a huge surprise when Miss Davis says, “No. That’s not it at all.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Gigi says.

  “This is a powerful scene,” Miss Davis says. “A powerful example of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. Amanda is motivated to make Laura change, and Laura is equally motivated to maintain the status quo. But it only works if each character’s motivation is crystal clear.” She turns to me. “How would you describe Amanda?”

  “She’s a complete … um, witch.”

  Giggles from the few people who weren’t asleep.

  “Would you care to elaborate?” Miss Davis says over them.

  Not really.

  I say, “She pushes her daughter around. She wants to run her life. She thinks she’s really smart and comes up with schemes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s … she wants to marry Laura off.”

  “Why?”

  I think of Mom the other day, talking about marrying Arnold. “She wants Laura to marry some rich guy to support them.”

  “Why?”

  Don’t you know another word? “So she doesn’t have to keep working or move in with their relatives. She doesn’t care about Laura or think how hard it is for her to talk to people or do new things. She’s completely selfish.”

  “But Amanda wouldn’t see herself that way. Someone once said, ‘A villain is the hero of his own story.’ So you have to see Amanda’s side. What is her side?”

  I think about Mom, about how she rationalizes. “She’d probably say she’s doing it for Laura’s own good. She wants Laura to be happy, and if Laura keeps being such a wuss, she’s going to end up old and alone like…” I stop.

  “Like her mother?”

  I nod. “But Laura doesn’t want those things. She wants to sit home and play with her glass animals. She wants to be alone.”

  “Does she really want that?”

  “Yes. It would be so easy, only her mother doesn’t care what Laura wants. She keeps talking about all the boyfriends she had when she was young, to show Laura she could get a man and Laura can’t. She thinks Laura’s a loser.”

  I’m not doing a very good job, seeing Amanda’s side. But Miss Davis nods.

  “Do you think Amanda ever had any dreams, Caitlin?”

  But the bell rings, so I don’t have to think about Amanda and her dreams. People run like rats from a sinking ship. Miss Davis says, “Okay, we’re going to start rehearsing for the show in class, so we don’t have any more time for scenes, but I think you girls should work on this on your own time. Friday, everyone come prepared to rehearse the first act finale.”

  Gigi elbows me on the way out. “Our own time. Like we have all this free time.”

  “She’s doing it for our own good.”

  We break into unreasonable laughter.

  Gigi’s number (one of her numbers) is a duet with Sylvanie, a tribute to Judy Garland, who did movie musicals in the 1940s. So now, we sit with Sylvanie and her friends in the cafeteria, or sometimes go to The Pit, where I try to avoid GrandMa’s cookies. I thought it would be weird sitting with them, like when I started dating Nick and sitting with his friends at lunch. We didn’t have anything to talk about. But now I know that when you�
�re in a show with people, you can talk about the show … endlessly.

  Except today, Gigi’s talking about what I’m eating. My new plan (after the baking chocolate incident) is to bring a nutritious lunch from home—like a sandwich on pita bread—and a bottle of water. Maybe the reason I’m pigging out is I’m not letting myself eat enough. Anyway, I’ve been doing it for a few days now, and I’m down to 113.

  “That’s all you’re eating?” Gigi says.

  “My jeans are tight.”

  “Well, yeah, Caitlin. That’s because they’re a size zero.”

  I think of Peyton and Ashley. “They’re a two.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “There’s a huge difference. Like ten pounds.”

  Gigi rolls her eyes. “I think you could do at least a size three without the marching band playing the ‘Baby Elephant Walk’ when you walk along the sidelines.”

  Of course this school doesn’t have a marching band, much less sidelines.

  “I wear a seven,” she says. “Am I fat?”

  Of course she’s not fat. But she’s also tall. I never notice anyone else’s fat.

  “Caitlin thinks I’m fat,” Gigi announces, pouting.

  “Girl, you’re way too fixated on weight,” Sylvanie says.

  “I didn’t say she was fat!”

  “No, but you’re always sitting here with your celery,” Sylvanie says. “Makes me feel like eating more, just watching you.”

  I take a bite of my sandwich and look at them like, Happy? I try to chew real slow to make it last longer. Peyton and Ashley could take an hour to eat a side salad. “Can we talk about something else? Please?”

  “So, are you, like, singing opera in the show?” Sylvanie says.

  “Um, yeah. I have a duet.” I glance over to where Misty’s sitting, assuming Sean’s there too. He isn’t. It’s Wednesday and we haven’t practiced since Sunday.