Song of Summer

by Laura Lee Anderson

  It’s on one of these walks that I see an old man. He’s walking among the little buildings, and when he sees me, he smiles and says something through his impossibly long beard. He’s like someone out of a storybook—a spry but bent man who walks a little hunched over, although he doesn’t need a cane. Yet.

  I shake my head and point to my ear. “I’m deaf,” I mouth. He nods and thinks for a minute before reaching into the front pocket of his overalls, pulling out a card that says, “Lenny Starr, Chautauqua groundskeeper and professional dreamer.” I nod and hand the card back to him but he waves for me to keep it. I see him thinking again. He looks like one of those old Felix the Cat clocks whose eyes move back and forth. A grin lights his beard, revealing teeth that are too perfect, and he beckons for me to follow him.

  I eye him up and down. I could take him if I had to. What have I got to lose?

  I follow him through the musician’s village and down one of the main streets of Chautauqua. He takes me to the amphitheater. It is a gigantic cement-and-wood structure that seats thousands on wooden stadium seating. But Lenny’s not taking me to the audience. He leads me down the steps, down the steep inclines, all the way to the stage, where I’ve never been before. I look up at the thousands of seats and imagine performing in this space. It’s frightening. Robin said she’s performed here with All-County choir every year since middle school, but she’s never had a solo. She should have. After what I saw last week… they should’ve given her a solo.

  Lenny is waiting by a little door right next to the stage. He beckons for me to follow him and I do. We go through a little hallway and into another, smaller, door. I feel almost like I’m in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, except Willy Wonka is a slightly frightening man with a ponytail who smells like clove cigarettes, and there’s no candy.

  Maybe I feel more like Alice in Wonderland.

  I duck after him, into a room lined with pipes. Not the kind for smoking but the kind that you might pour water into. Big pipes and little ones. They cover the walls in descending or ascending lines, like bar graphs illustrating direct relationships. There are little slits and holes in the pipes. It takes me a second, but I realize where we are:

  We’re inside the organ.

  There’s a huge pipe organ installed in the Chautauqua amphitheater. It’s one of the biggest outdoor pipe organs in the world. Every Sunday it plays for an interfaith service and organists come from all over the world to give it a try. And I’m inside of it.

  I look at Lenny and he waggles his eyebrows at me. He points at himself, then he spreads his arms wide and indicates the pipes—all of them. He points to himself again.

  “You take care of this?” I mouth and sign.

  He nods and smiles through his beard and hugs his chest. He loves it. He beckons for me to follow him farther, and he goes through another door. There’s a yellow sign on it that says, “Touch nothing!” in bold black print. He points at the sign seriously before going in the door and motioning for me to follow.

  It’s pitch-black. The minute he flips on a switch, though, I see that I am surrounded by huge pipes. Giant wooden pipes and metal pipes line the walls and are in a clump in the middle of the room, all safely partitioned by railings. They are polished to a high shine and are the size of sequoias in this little room. There are two stools on the floor. Lenny sits on one. He looks at his watch, then points to it, nodding and holding up a finger, telling me to wait.

  We sit together in the little room. The minutes tick by. I’m trying to figure out the best way to leave when Lenny looks up at me. He points to his watch again, then takes a pair of dirty earplugs out of his overalls pocket. He offers me a second pair with a silly look on his face, then stuffs them back in his pocket, almost doubled over laughing at his own joke. I indulge in a smile. Why in the world did he bring me down here?

  All of a sudden, a deep vibration shakes the ground, the stool, the sac around my heart, the space between my cells. I leap to my feet, eyes wide, heart pounding out of my chest. My feet feel unsteady on the ground and Lenny is looking at me, grinning. Someone is playing the organ. A vast, low note.

  All of a sudden, I feel the note shift! The vibration is… lighter somehow. It doesn’t move me at my core, but it tingles in my extremities. It’s a higher note than the one that was just being played! I can feel it! I’ve felt thumping bass before. I’ve felt dull, indistinct changes at loud concerts where everybody’s screaming and it feels like the air is charged with electricity.

  But this. This is all around me. It’s like I’m swimming in it. Or it’s a sauna and it’s thick around me. And all of a sudden, I feel it. There are more notes. There are hundreds and thousands of notes, and they’re all being played in different times and rhythms but they all fit together and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

  My chest grows tight and images flash through my mind—Trina as a baby when my parents brought her home, the old couple that lives up the street who’s been married for sixty years, the sunset from my window seat on the plane overlooking the Atlantic.

  Seeing Robin for the first time.

  The music might have something to do with it, but it’s just the first domino in a chain reaction. It’s proof of the inkling that there are things out there bigger than me—love and beauty and life—the things that compose a soul sense. And I don’t have to hear music in order to feel love, but one enhances the other.

  So maybe music doesn’t awaken a soul sense. Maybe it just reminds us of the times when we’ve felt it before.

  I look at Lenny with wet eyes. “Thank you,” I sign.

  He inclines his head and leans against a pillar, a satisfied smile under his beard. I sit on the stool that was assigned to me and I listen. My whole body listens.

  It’s an hour before the organist is done playing. The vibrations resonate in my chest one last time and I feel them echo in the outer parts of my body until the air stops flowing through the pipes. I open my eyes, which had been closed. I start to thank Lenny one more time, but he’s asleep, snoring against the railing. I carefully exit the room and run back to my house.

  I can’t just let her go. I can’t just let her go. I need to give it another chance. I dig through the pile of stuff on my once-tidy dresser, looking for a card…

  I find it and visit the website. “Asaph the Flutecrafter,” scrolls across the screen. I click on “Contact Us” and see that the store is located in Finleyville—about a half hour away.

  I pound down the stairs and into the living room, where Mom looks up from her book with a question in her eyes.

  “Where are you off to in such a rush?” she asks.

  “I have to buy something!” I sign.

  “What thing? Are you okay?”

  “An instrument! For Robin!”

  Her face turns guarded. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Carter. She hurt you pretty bad.”

  “I know! But it doesn’t have to end like that.”

  What I don’t say is that maybe I touched her soul the first time she saw me. Like she touched mine. Maybe the music will stir her like it stirred me.

  Mom looks away and sighs, shaking her head slightly. I wave my hand to get her attention.

  “Please, Mom! Please. Can I take the bike out?”

  At that, she sets her jaw. “No, Carter. We’ve talked about this. You’re grounded from the bike.”

  “But it’s important!” I sign. “So important!”

  “I’m sorry, Carter. No bike.”

  My mind races. “Then can I take the car? Or can you give me a ride? It’s not far!”

  I see her thinking about it.

  “Please,” I sign. “Please, Mom.”

  She looks at me, face grim, and I see her answer before she gives it. “No,” she signs. “I can’t. I don’t think it’s a good decision and I won’t help you make what I think is a bad decision.”

  “Please!” I sign. “You always say that you want us to make mistakes and learn from them! Let
me make this mistake!”

  She shakes her head again. “You made your mistake. You kept the bike out past dark without telling me. That was your mistake. I hope you learn from it.”

  My mother is immovable. I clench my jaw.

  “Fine,” I sign. I stiffen, turning toward the stairs, keeping everything under wraps until I shut my door. Then I throw myself on my bed and punch the pillow. Barry’s car is in the shop. It’s no use asking Dad. My parents are fanatics about being “on the same team.” It’s hopeless.

  Unless…

  I drag myself back to the computer, where “Asaph, the Flutecrafter”’s page is still on the screen. I scroll through the inventory. Robin’s flute is called a “pennywhistle,” I discover. I scroll through until I find the little brass whistle that had Robin so entranced. I choose an engraving: “Songbird,” in script. I choose a bag: navy blue velvet. I choose a case: teak box with brass fittings. The whole thing takes about an hour and sets me back a good bit; about half the money from Barry’s ASL lessons. I know better than to ask my parents for the cash. But it’s worth every penny. I’ll have it sent to her house. I just wish I could see her face when she opens it. I find the FAQ section and read through it. Yes, everything on the website is in stock. Engraving only takes one day. It should ship the next day. After choosing two-day shipping, I know she should get it by the end of the week, when I leave for home.

  I’m just about to hit Send when I change my mind; I mail it to myself.

  Chapter 35

  Robin

  “Robin? You up there?”

  I’m lying on my bed with my feet up against the wall, playing blues riffs. “No!” I yell. “Someone else is in my room playing B. B. King!” Blues is not always my thing, but it’s great for technique and super fun to jam to.

  Jenni pokes her head around the door frame. “Ha-ha. Glad I caught you. Just stopped by to drop something off. Can’t stay too long.”

  I make a face and sing, still upside down. “Ba-bananaNA. I have a buddy… Ba-bananaNA. And she’s so cool… Ba-bananaNA. We are both seniors… and we’re almost back to school! I got the bluuuuuues…”

  Jenni joins in. “I got the ‘my-rich-guy-summer-fling-is-going-back-to-Albany-’cause-it’s-almost-time-for-school’ blues.”

  I stop playing the guitar.

  “Aw, I’m sorry.”

  Jenni shrugs. “It’s okay. We both knew it was just a summer thing.” She plops down on my bed, causing the guitar neck to bounce and my hands to fumble. “Anyway, I made my first online sale. Somebody bought two keychains and asked for a vest!”

  “Really?” I look up.

  “Yeah! Pretty cool. They’re paying, like, a ton for the vest.”

  “Nice,” I say. “Congrats.”

  “Here: catch.” She throws a pile of soft cloth in my face. Once I get past the initial sweet smell of homemade waffle cones, I smell spiced oranges and motorcycle exhaust and Asian food: Carter’s house.

  After a flood of memories, my right hand takes the pile of sweet-smelling cloth off my face. It’s my All-County select choir sweatshirt.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “It’s your All-County sweatshirt,” says Jenni.

  “Thanks. I mean, where did you get it? I’ve been looking for it for a while.”

  “It’s been in my car for forever. Trina gave it to me to give to you a couple of days after you guys broke up. Sorry.”

  “I’m glad it’s not lost.”

  “Yeah.” She pauses a minute. “So how are you doing?”

  I shrug. “Fine, I guess.” My fingers start to noodle around in the key of A. “Better than last week, you know? Kind of wish I’d known it would just be a summer thing.” I bend a C-sharp until it’s a D. “Did you know? That it would only be a summer thing for me and Carter?”

  Jenni shrugs. “I didn’t know. I guessed, maybe. Just because of logistics and whatever. But it really seemed like the real thing to me.”

  I sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, it really did.” My hands stretch, fiddling with the baby E string, going into a range only classical musicians or rock gods can perfect. Jenni makes a face. “I think I could forgive him,” I say for the millionth time, “if he hadn’t lied to me for the whole summer.”

  Jenni nods.

  “Like, if he’d told me that he has an implant but just doesn’t want to wear it… I think I could have handled that. But he never told me! He just let me think that he could hear absolutely nothing! That it wasn’t even a choice for him to hear my music!”

  Jenni looks away, studying my Decemberists poster too intently. Something’s up.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she says.

  “What?” I ask again. “Come on, Jenni. Tell me. I can take it.”

  She begins to play with the split ends in her hair. “I just… I don’t know if that’s true. Can you imagine somebody that you like—”

  “Love—”

  “Love… telling you that he could listen to your music, he could hear it, he just doesn’t want to? How crappy would that feel?”

  I let that question bounce around in my head and my fingers slow to a stop. “Pretty crappy,” I say finally.

  “So… you still think you would have stayed with him if he’d told you?”

  “Well, there would have been a chance anyway.”

  “You mean there would have been a chance that you could have bugged him enough to put it in and listen to you play so you could blow his mind and fulfill a void he never knew he had!” She swings her arms around in what is supposed to be an imitation of me, then calms down and looks me straight in the eye. “I know you, Robin. You wouldn’t have let it rest.”

  I shrug. “Maybe… I mean, people change.”

  “And that’s probably why he didn’t tell you. Because he wanted you to like him the way he was. Without him having to change.”

  I sigh and roll off of my bed, leaving my guitar lying on it. “Well, he still shouldn’t have lied.”

  “And I agree with you there. He shouldn’t have lied about something so big. But I can see why he did.” She picks up a magazine from off my floor and I get the sense that the conversation is over. We can only rehash this breakup so many times.

  I walk over to my computer and she sits next to the guitar on my bed, her back against the wall, engrossed in whatever article she’s reading.

  “Maybe I’ll unblock him.”

  “It’s up to you.”

  “We’ll see.” I wiggle the computer mouse and the screen wakes up—YouTube. The videos that are recommended for me are lining the side of my screen. Among all of my favorite music videos I see, “Cochlear Implants: A Simulation.”

  I’ve seen that video recommended for me before—must be from all of the CI activation videos I watched before. I don’t know why I haven’t watched it. I guess I just thought that it couldn’t be that different from hearing the way I hear. After all, Trina’s chirpy little voice sounds just like every other nine-year-old I know. How could she be hearing different things from all the rest of us?

  I click Play. It’s not really a video; there are no people in it. There aren’t even any pictures. It’s just a sound bar with words. “Sentence, voiced,” it reads, “1 channel.”

  One channel? What does that mean? Evidently not much, because what comes out of my speakers sounds like sandpaper or static.

  “What’s that?” Jenni looks up from the magazine.

  “Some video about cochlear implants,” I say. “This is supposedly what it sounds like to hear with one.”

  “It doesn’t sound like much,” she says.

  “I think it gets better,” I reply as “4 Channels,” scrolls across the screen. But the sounds coming from my speakers still don’t sound human, let alone like speech. “8 Channels,” and I can kind of understand a few words. “12 Channels” sounds like words, but I don’t know what they are. Finally, “20 channels” comes up. “A cat always lands on its feet,” says a robotic voice that sounds so
mething like a multivoiced chorus of Borg aliens from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

  “That’s it?” Jenni says. “It doesn’t really sound human.”

  “Yeah… ,” I say.

  Then the sentence plays again, just a plain recording of the person. Like every other recording I hear. And what I thought was a Borg chorus is a child’s voice.

  What?

  I shoot a look to Jenni. “Whoa… ,” I say.

  I click on Replay Video and listen again. This time I catch the words earlier, at the twelve channels mark, because I know what the kid is saying. But it still doesn’t sound like a kid. This time when the kid is done talking, I realize that the video hasn’t finished yet.

  “Jenni! They’re going to play music!”

  She puts down the magazine and watches the screen from across the room. “What’s it say?” she asks, as text appears on the screen.

  “Just that this kind of music is the easiest for CI users to understand. It’s a solo instrument that’s not too high or too low, with a strong beat.”

  But the first track, played on four channels, sounds nothing like that. I laugh. It’s not a single-note instrument at all! This song is a rocking industrial piece that sounds like something out of Stomp. Poles bang against sheet metal and electronic static distorts the percussion.

  I turn around and laugh to Jenni. “This is awesome! Too bad the description’s wrong.”

  She smiles and nods but avoids my eyes.

  Eight channel sounds a lot like four channels. The beats are cleaned up a little, but it’s still the same rhythmic industrial piece. The song continues on into twelve channels. If anything, it sounds worse. The beats have developed some deep, strange, sonar-like echo. It sounds like somebody’s breathing into a microphone with the pickup turned way too high.

  I shoot a confused look at Jenni. “It’ll get better,” I say. “It’s not at twenty channels yet.”