Tara stood up and took a deep breath of air and held it. When she was done, the hiccups were gone. “I mean, Hector speaks Spanish, and you have your middle name,” Tara said.
My middle name is Le Yuan, which sounds nothing like Imogen. My grandfather picked it so it would sound sort of like Lauren. David’s middle name is Da Wei—same deal. “Are you saying my middle name is weird?” I said.
“Not weird-weird. Just different.” Tara wrinkled up her face. “Don’t be mad. I know I don’t ever say it the right way, that’s all.”
Here’s the thing—I didn’t share my middle name with a lot of people because no one ever said it the right way. But I had told Tara because we were best friends.
“Thanks a lot,” I said.
“You’re the one who doesn’t even write down her middle name on the school forms,” said Tara. She turned to Hector. “She always writes down L.”
“Because no one gets it right,” I said.
“Which kind of proves my point,” said Tara.
“Are you guys fighting? Aren’t you supposed to be best friends?” Hector said.
Supposed to, I thought.
“We’re not fighting,” said Tara. “Besides, Lauren is the one who’s mad, not me.”
“I’m not mad,” I said.
“You’re doing that thing with your mouth,” said Tara.
“For the record, being able to speak Spanish is not the same as saying weird stuff,” Hector said.
“I didn’t mean weird! Not in the way you guys are making it out to be! I meant it as a compliment. You don’t even have to think when you see the name Imogen; you just say Imogen.” This time, she said the name correctly.
I knew Tara meant what she said, that she meant it as a compliment, and that as a True-Blue friend, I should take it as one. But it didn’t make me feel good. It just made me feel different.
THE NEXT DAY WE HAD DINNER AT Safta’s house. I went into the bathroom to wash my hands. The sink was the color of mint chocolate chip ice cream, only without the chips. The toilet was that color, too, and on it I found …
Mini!
I yelped. Mini stared at me, flicking her tail but not moving off the seat. Safta ran down the hall. She made a lot of noise, even though she was wearing tennis shoes.
“Don’t shout! I’m training Beatrice Minerva.”
“Training Beatrice Minerva to do what?”
Safta motioned for me to follow her back into the hall. “A lady needs her privacy.”
I looked at Mini. “Why?”
“To do her business,” Safta said.
I leaned back so I could peek through the doorway. Now that I looked more carefully, I could see that Mini was sitting on a clear plastic circle with a small hole cut out of the middle.
“It’s more sanitary than a litter box,” said Safta. “I saw a commercial for it on TV. Every week, I just cut the hole in the circle a little bigger, until she’s used to the toilet seat.”
“That’s …” I was going to say “weird.”
“Better than picking up after a certain dog,” said Safta. “And it’s better than having litter all over the floor, too.”
“Cats aren’t supposed to—” I stopped myself. “Whoever thought a cat could use a toilet?” I asked.
“Someone who got tired of cleaning out litter boxes,” said Safta. “A very smart someone.”
“Don’t you worry about her falling through the hole?” I asked. “She’s so little.”
“It isn’t like the deep end at the pool,” said Safta. “And cats can swim.”
“I bet whoever came up with it got laughed at a lot,” I said.
She shrugged. “You should always be willing to laugh at yourself, but others? Psssht. Forget about ’em.”
I thought that would be easier to say once I was out of junior high.
Mini hopped off the toilet seat and strolled out of the bathroom with a sharp meow. Safta picked her up. “Such a good girl, Beatrice Minerva!”
I wondered if Safta’s Jewish geography—her ability to make a connection to any Jewish person in the world through her dentist, her favorite bagel shop, or her cousin’s mother-in-law’s best friend—could work its magic for Patsy Klein. Safta always said she knew someone who knew someone.
“Do you know of any Jewish people in country music?” I asked as we headed to the dining room.
“Let me think about it.” But Safta seemed to only be thinking of Mini. “Beatrice Minerva used the toilet like a nice, clean kitty,” she announced.
“Did she flush?” asked Dad.
“We haven’t gotten to that part yet,” said Safta.
“You’re an amazing kitty, Mini,” said Mom. She didn’t pet Mini, because she had already washed her hands. She was sitting next to Dad and across from David. I couldn’t prove it, but it felt like she was avoiding me. I took the seat next to David. Safta sat at the head of the table. A brisket with carrots and potatoes was in the middle of the table.
“Bao Bao is also amazing,” said Wai Po, who sat at the other end of the table. She had packed her own plum sauce to put on the brisket, even though the flavors didn’t necessarily go together. “He just isn’t a show-off. The other day, he found one of my shoes.”
“You mean he was eating one of your shoes,” teased my dad.
“How else is he supposed to carry a shoe? Between his paws?” asked Wai Po.
Even though he wasn’t there to hear these insults, I felt bad for Bao Bao. He was used to being the entrée, but now he was a side dish, too.
“It’s all a matter of expectations,” said Safta. “High expectations for good behavior.” Suddenly she clapped her hands together and shouted, “Nudie Cohn!”
For a second, I thought it was one of Safta’s sayings, like keinehora or oy gevalt. But it turned out that she hadn’t forgotten about my question.
“Nudie Cohn is a friend of your grandpa Joe’s cousin Artie Lipsitz,” she explained. “He’s in country music, but he’s not a singer. He makes costumes. He made one for Elvis and lots of stars. Nudie suits, they’re called.”
“Nudie suits?” David nearly spit out his food, and everyone at the table went on high alert. Ever since the Thanksgiving choking incident, we’ve been careful to pay more attention to such things. “Like naked?”
“His real name is Nuta Kotlyarenko. It’s Ukranian.”
I was disappointed that Safta did not have a connection to the Kleins, but at least she had one to somebody. Expectations were a funny thing. I had asked my question because I believed in Safta’s Jewish geography. But sometimes expectations kept people from doing things, like Wai Po from studying physics. And sometimes they got people—or cats—to try new things, like using the toilet. Mrs. Tyndall hadn’t cast me because she thought I wasn’t what people were expecting. I didn’t know how to change any of that, the good or the bad.
Maybe there was a song for these feelings. Patsy probably had one. Was there a word for not knowing if trying a new thing was good or bad? If I should keep trying to make good things happen? I didn’t know it, but I knew who did.
When we got home, I got the phone and dragged it into the bathroom. I dialed and waited.
“Nashville Nick on WTRY. What can I play for you?”
“Hi, Nash. It’s Lonesome L.”
“How is the world’s newest Patsy Klein fan?”
I twirled the cord around my finger. “That’s a tough question.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” He really did sound sorry, which made me feel better.
“I was thinking a new Patsy song might make me feel better.” I paused. “Nothing is going like I expected right now.”
“Let me think.” Nash made a clicking noise with his tongue. “This seems to call for an extra-special Patsy song. I think I’m going to dig into my vault and find her duet with Bobby Lord.”
“A duet?” I thought of Tara. Of “Winter Wonderland.”
“Sure. This was a song that someone suggested, and Pat
sy and Bobby sang it together on the spot. They weren’t expecting to do that, and the song turned out great. It’s called ‘Remember Me.’ ”
Patsy’s voice was so beautiful, it was hard to imagine it with anyone else’s. But I was willing to try anything. “Okay.”
“You’ll have to give me a few minutes. I don’t play this song very often, but I think you’ll love it.”
It took Nash five songs to find “Remember Me.” I imagined him running back and forth between the shelves and the turntables, keeping the music playing while he looked. “Remember Me” starts with just Patsy, and then the other singer joins in, and they take turns singing alone and together. When Patsy sang with Bobby Lord, her voice seemed sweeter, like the middle of an Oreo cookie against the deeper flavors of the chocolate wafers. I closed my eyes and let myself float on the sound.
I called Nash back after the song was over. “Thanks,” I said.
“Thank you for reminding me that song was there,” said Nash.
“When I hear Patsy, I don’t feel like my problems are solved, but at least someone understands them,” I said.
“Sometimes that’s all we need in this world,” said Nash. “At least for a while, to tide us over.”
A FEW NIGHTS LATER, MOM BROUGHT home a course catalog from a law school. She showed it to us at dinner.
“Look at all these classes!” She thumbed through the pages the way some kids looked at the Sears Wish Book.
The class names made no sense to me. What was civil procedure? And weren’t torts a kind of cake?
“Why would you want to take all those classes?” I said. “They look boring.” Wai Po shook her head at me.
Mom put the catalog away.
“You should tell her,” said Dad. “About Detroit.”
Mom lifted an eyebrow. Even though my dad had only said the word Detroit, it seemed like he had a specific story in mind. I hated it when my parents talked like this, in code.
Mom sighed. “You know how Detroit used to make a lot of cars?” she said. Why was she talking about cars? We nodded, and she went on. “The city has really been struggling. One of the reasons is that more people are buying cars from Japan and Europe.”
I had seen bumper stickers that said BUY AMERICAN. THE JOB YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN. David and I nodded again, and Mom kept talking. “A few years ago, there was a Chinese man named Vincent Chin. He was about to get married, so he went out with his friends for a bachelor party. He lived in Detroit.”
I still wasn’t sure what this had to do with anything, but she kept talking. “Two auto workers who had lost their jobs saw Vincent Chin at a nightclub. They thought he was Japanese, and they got into a fight. They were all thrown out, but the two men went looking for Vincent. They found him.” She looked at my dad to see if she could keep going. Safta and Wai Po looked at their hands.
“One held him down while the other one beat him with a baseball bat,” she finished.
David made a tight noise in his throat. Wai Po covered her eyes. Mom took a drink of water.
“Did he survive?” asked David.
“No,” said Mom. “He didn’t. They buried him on his wedding day.”
“What happened to the men?” David asked. “They’re in prison, right?”
My mother shook her head. “The judge said they didn’t seem like the kind of men who should go to prison.”
“No justice,” said Wai Po. “Those poor parents.”
“Vincent Chin should have told them he was Chinese, not Japanese,” I said.
“That’s not the point,” said Mom. She turned to Dad. “I think Lauren might have been a little young for that story.”
If there was one thing I hated more than my parents talking in code, it was talking about me like I wasn’t there.
“David wasn’t too young,” Dad pointed out. “And he’s only a year older.”
Comparing me to David was strike three.
“May I be excused?” I asked. I stood up before anyone could answer.
I TRIED NOT TO THINK ABOUT Vincent Chin, but he became like a ghost in my head, darting in and out. Even during my classes, it seemed like he was there. It wasn’t until I got to rehearsal that something else filled my brain. The songs and dance steps blotted out everything else.
When the ensemble finally got onstage to rehearse, Mrs. Tyndall decreed that we would not move on to Hula-Hoops until we achieved the proper sound. “You indicated on your forms that you were at least at an intermediate level in your Hula-Hooping skills, so I’ve decided to focus on singing for now,” she said.
We’d all seen the Hula-Hoops backstage in stacks. It seemed a waste not to use them, but no one was going to argue with Mrs. Tyndall.
Duncan, Andy, and Max Burka, who was playing Brenda’s dad and who was also in my Hebrew school class, called me over after Mrs. Tyndall made her announcement.
“What’s up?”
Duncan looked at Andy, who looked at Max. I thought maybe they were going to ask me to ask Cheryl if she liked Andy as a friend or more than a friend, since Andy always sat next to Cheryl during rehearsals.
But Duncan scratched his neck. “How long does it take to learn how to Hula-Hoop?”
I looked at them. “You don’t know how to Hula-Hoop?”
“I know how to solve the first two layers of the Rubik’s Cube,” said Andy defensively.
“I can do a kickflip on my skateboard,” said Duncan.
“I can almost moonwalk,” said Max.
“The name of this musical isn’t Watch Me Moonwalk, Kickflip, and Solve Two-Thirds of a Rubik’s Cube,” I said. “It’s about Hula-Hooping.”
“The last layer is much harder than the other two,” Andy said.
“Obviously,” said Duncan. “’Cause then you’d solve it.”
“How’d she let you in if you were beginners?” I said.
“I said I was advanced,” said Andy.
“Me, too,” said Max.
“I don’t remember what I put,” said Duncan. He looked slightly embarrassed, probably because at this point, my mouth had fallen open into a large, round O.
“You lied?” I said.
“It was not lie,” said Andy in his Russian accent. Then he switched back to his American one. “I could be advanced if I actually Hula-Hooped.”
“But you didn’t know how when you tried out,” I said. “I know how to Hula-Hoop, and I only put down intermediate.” Now I was kicking myself for not putting down advanced.
“Will you help us?” asked Duncan.
“You’ll probably be fine,” I said. “I heard that Mrs. Tyndall is bringing in a Hula-Hoop expert to teach us some tricks.”
“Please,” said Duncan.
“How bad are you?” Hula-Hooping was like reading for me. I knew that at one point in my life I couldn’t do it, but I couldn’t remember what that was like anymore. And I wasn’t sure how to teach it.
Duncan motioned for me to follow him backstage. He picked up a hoop from the forbidden stack. “This will only take a second.” Duncan spun the hoop around his waist. The hoop spiraled one, two, three times before clattering to the ground.
“You need to move your hips,” I told Duncan.
“I did,” said Duncan.
Andy and Max also took turns. It didn’t seem possible, but they were worse than Duncan.
“Have you actually even seen someone Hula-Hoop before?” I asked. “You’re supposed to try to keep the hoop around your body, not on the ground.” I picked up a hoop and showed them. “You have to find a rhythm.”
“So will you help?”
I was tempted to say no. But then I remembered how they had all bailed me out that day when I was wandering around instead of being at rehearsal. “Well—”
“G—” Duncan froze. His eyes grew wide.
“What?” I stood still and lowered my voice. “Ghost?”
Duncan pointed behind me with a single finger. I turned around to see Mrs. Tyndall instead, which made it twice as d
isappointing.
“I thought I heard something,” she said. “I also thought I had made it pretty clear that members of the ensemble had not yet earned the right to use the Hula-Hoops. Only the leads may use them.”
I stepped out of the hoop and quietly put it back on the pile. It wasn’t fair; the boys had also been using the hoops—they were the whole reason I even had one—but she wasn’t looking at them. She was only looking at me.
“Mrs. Tyndall, Lauren was just—” Duncan started.
She put up her hand, stopping him. “I’m quite aware that Lauren is dissatisfied with my casting choice. I suppose she’s looking for ways to show off.”
What? I wasn’t showing off. My whole body buzzed. The worst part was that Mrs. Tyndall didn’t even sound mad. She sounded like she pitied me for even harboring the foolish idea that I could have been cast as Brenda Sue. I pity the fool.
I looked at Duncan out of the corner of my eye. He was shaking his head very slightly.
I made up my mind—I’d help the boys. Not because they totally deserved it. And not because Mrs. Tyndall deserved a perfect show. But it was us against her. I wasn’t a show-off, but I had news for Mrs. Tyndall: The ensemble was going to steal the spotlight.
First we had to get the singing right.
I thought about Patsy Klein and Bobby Lord singing together. They hadn’t even planned it, and they sounded so beautiful together. They also sounded like they meant the words of the song—remember me, I’m the one who loves you when everything else goes wrong. I passed around a question to the ensemble when we got to our seats.
What are you thinking about when you sing “Everything Is Still the Same”?
Dinner
Homework
How everyone sounds better than me
I think about my grandma because she used to sing to me.
I wonder why I can’t think of the words ahead of time, but then I can sing them at the right time.
How to get to the next level in Ms. Pac-Man
I thought maybe half the group would feel the same way I did—that the song was about wanting things to be different, about how sameness can be comforting and a trap at the same time. But maybe I was the only one.
Not Your All-American Girl Page 7