Good

by S. Walden

  “Whatever. You already said it,” I muttered. “And it’s true anyway.”

  Avery spent the next ten minutes trying to explain how being a partial American Girl doll was actually a good thing. I listened politely. When we hung up, my thoughts immediately drifted to Mr. Connelly and if he thought I was like an American Girl doll. And then I wondered why he would even know what that was.

  I remembered the CD he let me borrow. It became a nightly ritual to play “Midnight in a Perfect World” right before I fell asleep. I checked the time. Still early, but there was nothing else to do, so I pressed PLAY on the stereo and crawled under my sheets. I knew it was wrong, but I imagined Mr. Connelly in bed with me, holding me close while we tried to pick out all the different parts of the song. And then he whispered in my ear that it was a perfect song to listen to on a perfect night beside a perfect person. I only halfway believed him. It was a perfect song. And it could be a perfect night. But I was far from a perfect person.

  ***

  “Where is everyone?” I asked, poking my head in the doorway Tuesday afternoon.

  “I’m not tutoring today. I have a doctor’s appointment,” Mr. Connelly replied. “Did you forget?”

  “Ohhh, that’s right,” I said. My heart filled with instant excitement. Two hours! All to myself! Dad didn’t need to know the session was cancelled. I practically salivated at the idea of unmonitored time to myself. Where would I go? The mall? A movie, perhaps? Maybe I would just drive around, heading nowhere in particular, just happy to be free, even if it was for a short period of time.

  “What are you thinking, Cadence?” Mr. Connelly asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Nice try,” he said.

  My face broke out into the widest grin. “I have two hours,” I breathed, eyes big and glassy. Like I was in a daydream—a too-good-to-be-true wonderful, delirious daydream.

  “To do what?” Mr. Connelly asked.

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what I do so long as I do something. Two hours!”

  “Cadence, I think the smart thing would be to go home,” Mr. Connelly said.

  I looked at him like he betrayed me. “No.”

  “If your dad finds out there was no tutoring session today and you’re not home, things could go south really fast,” Mr. Connelly said.

  I was instantly pissed. “Do you understand that I have no freedom? My parents watch me like a hawk, afraid I’ll fall in with some other bad group and rob another convenience store. This is probably the only time all year that I’ll be able to go somewhere or do something that they’ll know nothing about. And I’m not passing on that chance.” It was a complete lie, but he certainly didn’t need to know my arrangement with Avery. And anyway, I didn’t need him to be my teacher right now. I needed him to be a sympathizer.

  Mr. Connelly smiled wearily. “I’d just hate for you to lose your driving privileges.” And then he added more quietly, “I’d hate to not see you after school Thursday.”

  I was shocked. I couldn’t believe he said it. Why would he hate to not see me Thursday?

  He turned his back and continued packing his bag. He pulled the strap over and across his body, then closed and locked his desk drawers. I hovered in the doorway waiting for him to look at me. He took his time adjusting the bag, looking everywhere except my direction. I grew bold.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why would you hate to not see me at tutoring Thursday?” I couldn’t believe my own courage.

  Mr. Connelly looked me square in the face. And then his eyes travelled to a spot just above my head. “Because you’re failing math. And I’d like to see you improve.”

  I exhaled. I felt like a tire that had been punctured by a fat, unforgiving nail, deflating fast and hard to nothing.

  But his eyes moved, my brain kept telling me. Don’t get discouraged. His eyes moved.

  “Where do you plan on going?” Mr. Connelly asked, walking towards me.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, trying to hide my disappointment. It didn’t matter what my brain told me. Didn’t matter that Mr. Connelly couldn’t look me in the face when he obviously lied to me. I wanted to hear the truth. “Maybe a movie.”

  Mr. Connelly checked his wristwatch. “Not enough time.”

  I nodded. “Maybe the mall then.”

  He grimaced. “Why would anyone wanna go there?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I said. “It’s a teenage thing.”

  He chuckled. “I was a teenager, too, once.”

  I shrugged.

  “You like that CD I let you borrow?”

  “Yeah. I should probably give it back to you, huh?” I chuckled nervously. I’d had his CD for weeks with no plans to return it. I didn’t want to.

  “Keep it for as long as you’d like.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. And if you like that, there’s an independent music store on Roswell Road that sells a bunch of it. It’s not more than five minutes from here. You can go and listen to some stuff on records. Completely different experience. You may like it. And it’d be a hell of a lot better than wasting your time at the mall,” he suggested.

  “What’s a record?” I asked teasingly.

  Mr. Connelly rolled his eyes. “I’m not that much older than you. And what is the world coming to when young people have never heard music on vinyl?”

  I giggled. “I seriously never have.”

  “Then you need to go. Listen to anything. I don’t even care, so long as it’s an LP.”

  I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but I thought if I asked what an LP was, he might have a heart attack.

  “What’s the name of the store?” I asked.

  “Curb Your Dog Music,” Mr. Connelly replied with a grin.

  “Curb Your Dog?” I asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Whatever. The point is that it’s a good place. The owner’s a good friend of mine. His name’s Dylan. Just ask him to help you find some stuff,” Mr. Connelly said. “Now don’t waste any more time.”

  He placed his hand on my shoulder and gently nudged me aside. His touch was electric, and I tried not to jump. I didn’t want him to know he had that kind of shock value.

  “How old are you, Mr. Connelly?” I asked as we walked out of the building together.

  “I don’t know if I’m allowed to share that kind of information with you,” he replied, opening the door for me.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “I don’t have any friends anyway.”

  “I see you sitting with Avery at lunch,” he said.

  He noticed I sat with Avery at lunch? What? Was he checking up on me?

  “Um, she’s not really a friend,” I replied.

  “Oh.”

  I cleared my throat. “So how old?”

  “Well, as long as it’s our secret,” he said. “I just turned twenty-eight.”

  “Whoa.”

  “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “I thought you were, like, twenty-two or something,” I said. I could not be in love with a 28-year-old man. Just too old.

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” Mr. Connelly said, laughing.

  “You just look younger. But I guess that’s a good thing. For adults anyway. To look younger than your age.”

  “And teens want the exact opposite, right?” Mr. Connelly asked. “You wanna look older.”

  “Enough to buy beer,” I agreed.

  He shook his head. “God, I miss high school sometimes.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks. “What?”

  “Did I say something wrong?” Mr. Connelly asked, turning around.

  “I’d say so!” I cried. “Something sacrilegious, at least! You miss high school?”

  “It’s not horrible for everyone, Cadence,” Mr. Connelly said, smiling. “I had fun friends. It was a good time.” He thought for a moment. “Now that I think about it, though, I could have given my parents less
to worry about. I was a little bad.” He winked at me.

  I didn’t want him winking at me. I didn’t want to have this conversation any longer. I felt like a complete loser. It was bad enough I had a ridiculous crush on him. I didn’t need to know how cool he was in high school.

  “So you think you’ll check out that record store?” he asked.

  I nodded. I didn’t need to know how cool he was in high school, but I was desperate to learn about him now.

  ***

  “I’m supposed to ask for Dylan,” I said, walking into the most disorganized store I’d ever seen.

  “That’s me,” the young man behind the counter replied. “Can I help you with something?”

  “Well, my . . . friend sent me here and told me to ask you to pick something out for me to listen to on vinyl.” I hoped it came out right. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to put an article in front of “vinyl.” The vinyl? A vinyl?

  Dylan smiled. “Never heard anything on a record before?”

  I shook my head.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one,” I replied. I don’t know why I lied.

  He nodded. “So we’ve got a newbie.”

  “You’re not gonna give me a long, drawn-out history of records, are you?”

  Dylan burst out laughing, then shook his head. “No. I’ll spare you. Have you ever seen a record player?”

  “Duh,” I replied, though I hadn’t.

  Dylan grinned. He knew I was lying. “Say, who sent you?”

  “Uh, Mark Connelly,” I replied.

  “Ohhh, Mark,” Dylan said. “Yeah, he called a little while ago. Left something for you. You’re Cadence, right? One of his students? What are you doing in high school if you’re twenty-one?”

  My face turned the color of a tomato. “He left me something?”

  “Yeah,” Dylan said. “If you’re Cadence, anyway. You fit the description. Short. Blond hair. Blue eyes.”

  “He described me?” I almost fainted. I’m not joking.

  “Uh huh.” Dylan searched the back counter until he found a record. He pulled off the sticky note that read “Cadence” and handed it to me. “He called me a little while ago. Said you’d be in today. He thought you might like this.”

  I took the record tentatively, scanning the front cover that featured two men rifling through records in a store much like the one I was in now.

  “So I’m thinking you’re not twenty-one,” Dylan said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know why I said that. Maybe so that you’d take me more seriously.”

  “I take anyone seriously who walks into my store,” Dylan replied.

  “Good business practice,” I said.

  “So how old are you?” he asked.

  “Almost eighteen.”

  “Which means you’re seventeen.”

  I nodded.

  “And you think your musical tastes are changing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you heard this album before?”

  “Yes. On CD.”

  Dylan nodded. “Would you like to hear it sound even better?”

  I smiled. “Yes.”

  “Well, come with me,” he said, and led me to the back of the store. “I’d no idea Mark was in charge of your musical education, too.”

  I blushed and turned my face.

  “Doesn’t surprise me, though,” Dylan went on.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, stopping in front of a strange device that looked like something from a ‘70s movie.

  “Mark was always taking on pet projects in college. Before he got big into instrumental hip hop, he was pushing some bullshit environmental cause. One of our friends showed a tiny bit of interest, and that was it. He was off and running like a maniac.”

  I bristled. I didn’t like the idea of being a “pet project” for my math teacher. Moreover, I didn’t like that he saw me as an impressionable young girl in need of guidance. Even if it was only musical guidance. I should never have taken that CD from him. I should never have come here.

  “So this is a record player,” Dylan said. “And here’s how it works.”

  He took the record from me, pulled the vinyl from its sleeve, and placed it carefully on what he called a “turntable.” He turned on the player and picked up the “arm.”

  “Now, here’s the tricky part. You have to be very careful when you place the arm on the record. See the needle on the tip?”

  I looked closely and nodded.

  “That’s what plays your songs, but it can also scratch the record. So slowly and carefully is the name of the game,” Dylan said, lowering the arm and gently placing the needle on the outer edge of the record. “I don’t use cueing levers. Those are for amateurs.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I replied.

  “Oh, it just places the arm for you. Supposed to be a safer way to cue up your music, but I’ve got a pretty steady hand. Minimal scratching. See?”

  I giggled. “Uh, yeah. Totally.”

  Dylan grinned. “Vinyl is played from the outside in. If you want to hear the songs in order of the playlist.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’ll see the arm move towards the center as the record plays,” he explained. “CDs are played from the inside out.”

  “Oh.” I listened to a bit of popping and crackling before the first track started.

  “Anything in particular you wanna hear?” he asked.

  “Well, I’ve listened to the whole CD already,” I said.

  “What songs did you like best?”

  “Um, I really like ‘Stem/Long Stem’,” I replied. I felt silly saying the title out loud. I didn’t think it belonged in my mouth.

  “‘Stem/Long Stem’ it is,” Dylan said and stopped the player. I watched as he waited for the turntable to come to a complete stop before lifting the arm off the vinyl. He flipped the record, turned the player on once more, and placed the needle on the second band from the outer edge. A bit more crackling and popping before the song started.

  We listened in silence for a time, and I tried my hardest to hear the subtle variations with the vinyl version, but I confess that the only difference seemed to be intermittent hissing sounds overlaying the music.

  “I don’t get it,” I confessed. “It just sounds dirty to me.”

  “You’re killing me, Cadence,” Dylan said. “This is music in its purist form.”

  I smiled sheepishly. “Do DJs have bands? I mean, how are they incorporating all these different instruments?”

  “Jesus. Christ.”

  “What?” I asked indignantly. “How the hell should I know?”

  “DJs use samples.”

  “Okay?”

  Dylan shook his head. “A sample could be anything. A clip from a news broadcast. I clip from a song, a speech, a movie. Sound effects. Anything, really. And the DJ blends them all together to make a coherent song—a new sample, of sorts.”

  “But they’re not really creating anything new,” I argued.

  Dylan gasped and stopped the record player.

  “Are you kidding me?” he asked. “Then you’d have to say that about every musician. No one made up the notes on a piano or sounds on a guitar. But each musician manipulates those existing notes to create something fresh and new. Something original. Sampling is no different.”

  “Okay, I get what you’re saying.”

  Dylan turned the player back on. “Why do you like this song? I mean, really good choice. Just wondering.”

  I scratched my head and shrugged, staring at the opposite wall. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him. He might think I was trying too hard to be deep or complex. But the truth is that I liked this song the second I heard it because it was me, right on the edge of goodness, right on the edge of choice—that space between moving towards something positive or falling into the abyss. I chose to fall. One time. Just once. And now everything had changed, and I couldn’t stand the darkness.

&n
bsp; “Cadence?”

  I continued staring, thinking about that moment I agreed to snort cocaine for the first time. The only time. And just one line. It burned my nose, but then it was like a sparkling crackle, much like the popping of the vinyl. I stood up after I inhaled the white line, but my body kept rising, rising higher. I remember lifting my arms, convinced angels were grasping my hands and stretching me. I was flying and being stretched at the same time.

  “Cadence? You all right?”

  I jerked my head in Dylan’s direction. “Thanks for letting me listen. I’ve gotta go.”

  “Well, wait. Lemme give you back your record.”

  “Huh?”

  “Mark bought it for you,” Dylan said, placing the vinyl gently in its sleeve.

  “What? I thought he just set it aside,” I replied, taking the record. What on earth would I do with it? I didn’t have a record player.

  “No, he bought it.”

  I was flattered and angry. Mr. Connelly had no business buying a record for me! It was embarrassing, and I could only imagine what Dylan was thinking. I glimpsed his face and thought I caught a half-grin.

  “What’s so funny?” I demanded.

  “What are you talking about?” he replied. And then he added quietly, “Hey, no judgment.”

  “I can’t take this,” I said, shoving the album in his hands.

  He pushed back. “Paid for. Take it up with your math teacher.”

  I huffed and turned on my heel. I’d take it up with my math teacher. You better believe I would.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed in Mr. Connelly’s face.

  I drove to school early and went straight to Room 212. I didn’t knock on the door either. I just barged right in and let fly.

  “What do you mean?” He dropped his pencil on the desk and looked up at me.

  “That record! You bought me a record!”

  “What’s the big deal? You told me you like DJ Shadow.”

  “You planned it!” I said. “You had that record waiting for me!”

  “Yeah, I called Dylan to set it aside for you. I’m confused. Why are you upset?” Mr. Connelly asked.

  I was infuriated. He knew precisely why I was upset. I was perfectly content to harbor a secret crush on my teacher—one I knew would go absolutely nowhere. It was one thing to fantasize about an inappropriate relationship. It was quite another thing to actually pursue it. And he was pursuing me. It took forever, but my seventeen-year-old brain finally figured it out! It started on the first day of school. The handkerchief. That motherfucking handkerchief!