“What?”
She sniffled. “Because I didn’t mean to do that,” she said. “I just like it when you’re happy, Uncle Michael.”
He put his arm around her, lifted her up onto his lap. “And I like it when you’re happy,” he said, tickling her sides.
She giggled, then smiled.
Michael held her close. “Listen,” he said. “I can’t say for sure that Jenna and I will always be happy together. Your mom can’t say for sure about Desiree, either. Once upon a time, we were all happy in different places, with different people. And who’s to say that someday there won’t be some other person, when we’re in some other place?”
“But that’s not fair,” said Tracy. “That’s not right.”
“You’re right,” said Michael, “but we can’t control the future, and we can’t rewrite the past, no matter how much we’d love to. All we can do is enjoy the here and now.”
“I guess,” said Tracy. His answer wasn’t good enough. No grown-up’s answer ever was. But it would do, for now.
“So,” he said, standing up and hoisting her up as he went, “you want to go see a concert?”
* * *
Veronica had forgotten how boring the song was. At nearly nine minutes long, and minus the epic video starring the epically gorgeous Stephanie Seymour, there were long stretches of piano playing and oohing and ahhing from the backup singers where she felt herself stifling yawns. But, when the final guitar solo drew near, when the band stripped the opus down to its core, just the piano and the drums, when it was time for her to climb the steps that led to the top of the piano, she was ready.
She focused on the guitar as she began, drowning out everything but the music, which she let envelop her. But in the middle, in the middle it occurred to her that there was something more she wanted to see in this moment than her fingers bending the disobedient strings to her will. She was nervous to look out into the crowd, because splitting her focus, especially during a solo, had always seemed like hubris to her. But then, suddenly, she remembered her dream, remembered the message her younger self had tried to impart. Veronica looked down. She was standing on top of the piano. On top of it! She would have laughed, if laughing were allowed in a serious rock and roll moment like this. Instead, she turned her gaze to the front row, to the little girl who sat—no, stood!—there.
Tracy’s mouth was agape when Veronica locked eyes with her, still not comprehending that this was her mother up there, wailing away. But then Veronica said something to her daughter with the guitar, something crazed and filled with passion, a plea: “Let go.”
That was when Tracy began to headbang, along with everyone around her. People pointed, as if to say “Look at that bad-ass kid,” then got back to their own raucous response, recharged by her exuberance.
Look at that bad-ass kid, thought Veronica. My kid.
Atop the piano, Veronica lost herself in the music, playing the shit out of her guitar—playing the shit out of it—until they all came crashing down together.
IV
Those Worn-Out Records
September 2001–November 2010
To: Michael Silver
From: Tracy Silver
Subject: George Michael
Date: September 21, 2001
* * *
Uncle Michael,
I have so many questions. Like, first, why am I supposed to write Dear before your name? We learned how to write letters in school this week and the first thing the teacher wrote on the board was Dear, and I was like why do we write dear? And she wouldn’t answer. She rolled her eyes at me, told me I’d already asked my share of questions for the day, and asked me to be quiet. Then she turned her back on us and started scratching the chalk across the board again. The noise made my teeth hurt. Back in Boston, we had these really nice whiteboards and the teacher used markers which didn’t make any sound at all and they smelled like strawberries. Down the Cape, it’s like the ancient century or something. It’s like that show Little House that Mom watches at the end of a long day, when she’s curled up under her grammie’s old afghan and trying to go to sleep. Mom had a crush on the girl on that show. Did you know that? She told me she tried to count the girl’s freckles once, and that she called her dad Pa for a whole week, just to see what he would do. He never answered to it, never took his eyes off NESN until she said it like sixty billion times.
Anyway, why am I supposed to write Dear Uncle Michael? You’re the one who knows these things. That’s what Mom says. We were eating macaroni and cheese the other night, the two of us with spoons eating it right out of the pan because Desiree was at work and Mom didn’t want to make any extra dishes, and she says to me: Michael is our fountain of useless information. Ask him. But I think that’s dumb. You always have the answers to my questions, and my questions aren’t useless.
Second question: why does your email address end in 669? I heard my gramps say once that 666 is the sign of the beast, whatever that means, but yours is 669. So what does it mean? I was on Google, googling, and nothing came up. I thought of asking Mom why nothing came up, but I knew she’d just tell me to use Yahoo instead, because she’s a yahoo. At least that’s what Desiree says.
Oh, and Mom let me get an email! But you probably figured that out, since you’re reading this right now.
Okay, now the important stuff: what is it with Mom and George Michael? Is it just the pretty girls in the videos? Is that why she only watches them when Des is at work? And why are the girls always in their underwear? I mean, except for when they’re in those suits with the huge shoulders?
Mom got mad at me on Sunday, when I was supposed to be in bed. I couldn’t sleep and I could see the light of the TV from under my door, and then I heard it: George Michael singing about being someone’s father figure, and that’s what everyone tells me you are to me, my father figure, so I thought, maybe this one is appropriate. Mom and Des are always telling me, when they want me to go to bed so they can watch grown-up things, that this show isn’t appropriate. And this show isn’t appropriate. And this book. And that email isn’t appropriate (until now). But this was a song about father figures, about you I figured, so I decided to check it out. I got out there and on the TV the girl was in her underwear, her back up against the wall, and it looked like George Michael was going to kiss her, but then she slapped him. And I was like, is he her father figure? Is that what the song’s about? But if that’s what it’s about, if she’s me and George Michael is her Uncle Michael, then why is she in her underwear and why is he trying to kiss her like that. So I ask mom and she jumps off the couch, says a bad word, and hits the eject button on the VCR so hard that she says another bad word and starts shaking her finger.
And she’s kissing the finger, sucking on it like a baby, when I notice what’s on the TV now, now that the VCR is off. It’s the planes flying into the towers again. And Mom is too busy with her finger to realize that I’m not crying because she scared me, or because she yelled, but because, well…
Anyway, then she notices. She turns around, she sees the great ball of fire exploding out of the building, and she flicks the knob on the TV to turn it off. Then she gets down on her knees and holds her arms out wide so I can have a hug.
And I ask her what would have happened if you and Jenna had waited an extra week to move to Hawaii like I wanted you to. What if you had listened to me, Uncle Michael, when I was crying over my hot dog and my Doritos on Labor Day after you told me you were leaving the next day, that you had to? Boston to California, early on a Tuesday morning, so you could make the next flight from L.A. and be in Honolulu for dinner. If Uncle Michael had listened to me, I told Mom, if he’d waited a week, he’d be dead. Dead, dead, dead. And Auntie Jenna too. And I’d never have any cousins. And
I had to stop typing there. But I’m not crying anymore. I’m brave now. You don’t have to worry about me.
Anyway, that’s why she let me get an email finally. I said, Uncle Michael is my father figure and if I don’t get
to talk to him then I’m going to slap him the next time I see him. Except not in my underwear, because that would be weird.
Love,
Tracy
P.S. It took me a week to write this, even though Ms. McCorkle says I’m defiantly the most precocious eight-(ALMOST NINE)-year-old she’s ever met. I had to shout out to the living room a bunch of times to ask Mom and Des how to spell stuff.
* * *
P.P.S. When I let Mom read parts of this—I covered up some of it with my hand—she laughed when she read defiantly precocious. She tells me that’s not how you spell defiantly, that it has all Es and no As, and that spell-check is messing things up. But that is defiantly how you spell defiantly. Right?
To: Michael Silver
From: Tracy Silver
Subject: The Romantics
Date: May 17, 2004
* * *
Dear Uncle Michael,
So, they did it. They did it without you. And I know you know this—you’re on speaker with Mom in the other room, you have been for a while now, and the two of you have singing about measuring life in love for what feels like 525,600 minutes—I know you know that they did it without you. But they’re leaving stuff out. Like all the important stuff.
I was up before both of them this morning, slumped back into the cushions of our lumpy old couch, and I was scrolling through comments on my latest LiveJournal. Des’ dinosaur of a computer was heavy and hot in my lap, but I kept scrolling because I didn’t want to work on the extra book talk that Mrs. Carlson is making me do to show the rest of the class “how it’s done.”
Their voices were quiet at first, as if they were trying not to wake me. But I could tell that, whatever the deal was, it was not a good deal. So I closed the lid of the computer and set it on the coffee table next to the plate of toast I’d been nibbling on. Then I tip-toed toward their bedroom and leaned my head against the wall.
“Yeah,” Des was saying, “okay, but are you saying we take her out of school just so we can be the first?”
“You want to take a chance and wait until after school?” asked Mom.
“What chance?” said Des. “You think they’re going to be all ‘Just kidding’ and it’ll be illegal again by three o’clock?”
And, of course, that’s when I knew what they were talking about for sure. So I stomped over to their door and pounded on it with my fist.
The door creaked open, Mom hiding behind Des and wrapping a sheet around herself. She sleeps naked, my mom. Maybe I’m not supposed to tell you that. Maybe you didn’t need to know that about your cousin. But I’m mad, so I’m telling you everything.
“Did we wake you?” asked Des.
“You said!” I said, shaking a finger at them. “You said you were going to wait until Uncle Michael could be here. And Aunt Jenna and Uncle Matt and Auntie—”
“I know,” said Des, nodding slowly, giving me that mom look that Mom is totally bad at.
Actually, it was kind of a dad look. So I said, “You’re patronizing me” and they looked aghast that I knew the word, their eyebrows raised, Mom holding a hand to her mouth to hide a laugh. “There’s not supposed to be any patriarchy in this house, but, but you’re patronizing me!”
“Those two words,” Des was saying, “they aren’t—” but I wasn’t listening.
“You said you were going to wait until the whole family could be here,” I reminded them. “You said Uncle Michael was going to go online and become a priest so he could do the ceremony, and that would be so funny because he doesn’t even believe in God.”
“It would be funny,” Des told me, again with the look, but now taking hold of my shoulders too, running her cold hands over my arms. “It would be lovely. But your mom and I have waited a long time already.”
“And why would Uncle Michael want to be here anyway?” Mom asked. “Remember,” said Mom, a smirk on her face, “I stole Des away from him. She was his first crush. Think about it: do you want to be there in twenty years when Lincoln marries Brian Meltzer?”
I screwed up my face and stuck out my tongue. You know how I feel about Lincoln. I cried when he told me he only likes boys, but now it’s our mission—we shook on it—to find each other the perfect boyfriends. “Lincoln Baker is too handsome for dumb Brian Meltzer.” I said. “And,” I added, “Brian only likes girls.”
“Really?” they said at the same time, casting a sideways glances at each other and looking surprised.
“Every time a girl gets her boobs,” I told them, “Brian is the first to notice. And he, like, never stops noticing. The way he looks at Alicia in health class…” I shuddered, stuck out my tongue, and pretended to gag.
“Get dressed,” Mom said.
I rolled my eyes and told her “You get dressed!” Then I stormed off to my room.
And then, and then—guess what?!? We weren’t even the first in line at town hall. The two old guys who power-walk down Old Wharf every morning, the ones where Mom has always been like “They are” and Des has always been like “No way,” they were standing there holding hands. They smiled at us as we got out of the car and Des smiled back, but Mom couldn’t look at them. She looked at me instead, rolled her eyes, and mouthed “I told her.”
So, they’re married. They got married and we went out for breakfast at a diner over in Dennis that Mom said your grandparents used to take you to during the summers, and that was it. We came home, we crawled under their covers, and we watched Julia Roberts movies until they decided it was late enough in the day to call you in Hawaii. They let me have the laptop when I said was bored halfway through Steel Magnolias, which is when I started to write this and the LJ that I’m totally posting when I’m done sending this to you, but they wouldn’t let me leave. It’s their wedding day. Aren’t they supposed to kick me out and do married people stuff? Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? You and Aunt Jenna didn’t hang out with all of us after your wedding. I remember how much gravel your tires kicked up as you peeled out of the driveway that afternoon. I remember how you guys waved once and then set your eyes on the horizon, driving off into the sunset. You guys knew what was what. But not Mom and Des. They sat in bed, with me, and watched old movies.
My mothers are like the least romantic people ever.
Don’t you think?
Love,
Tracy
To: Michael Silver
From: Tracy Silver
Subject: Fleetwood Mac
Date: September 30, 2006
* * *
Dear Uncle Michael,
I’m 14 now, and it’s one of those 5 days a year when you’re 14 years older than me instead of 15, and I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except that I tell you every year right before I ask if you’re mad at me for stealing your birthday thunder.
I imagine you in the hospital, 14 years ago, waiting your turn to hold me, lurking in the shadowy corner of the room as they pass the new baby around. You’re hoping they’ll forget you in this particular game of hot potato. I imagine you wondering if your mom will still take you on your annual shopping spree at the comic book store, or if this will be the year she finally says no, that’s enough, it’s time to grow up.
If I close my eyes, I can see you slouching your way to your locker on that Monday morning, a few days after they made you hold me, made you hold me until they could snap a twentieth photo just in case. I can see you standing there, forehead pressed against the locker’s grates as you fiddle with the combination. And I can see Des put her hand on your shoulder, and you turning to see the first girl you ever crushed on hard. I can see you finally seeing the truth in the tears she has cried over me, cried and wiped hastily away in her car that morning. She wishes you a hurried “Happy birthday” and then rushes off. You knew then that she was in love with your cousin after all, in love with my mom just like everyone tried to tell you. I can you see you shouting to her, “It’s going to be okay!” and everyone staring at the two of you in the suddenly silent hall—the red-eyed sen
ior and the sophomore with locker slits carved now into his forehead. They stare, then they hide behind their hands or their lockers or each other to giggle at your earnestness.
I think of all that, then I think of how unfair it was that someone so kind had to wait so long for another person to love. You didn’t meet Robin for another two and a half years, right? Unfair.
Not as unfair as the news yesterday, though. Not anywhere close.
I know you’re in love with Aunt Jenna now, that you have been for a long time, but how could you not be dying inside after yesterday? When you saw the headline, the photo of the guy with the gun in his hand and Robin’s record under his arm, how could you have stopped yourself from weeping?
I’ve seen every video that was ever taken of Gideon’s Bible. I’ve seen you singing “Go Your Own Way” with Robin at your senior talent show more times than I can count. And if mp3s wore out like records used to, I could totally be a cliché right now. But they don’t, so I’m sitting here typing this with my headphones in, my iPod warm on my leg as it blares “Two Roads Diverging” for the two-hundredth time. I’m sitting here typing this and I’m counting the cracks in your voice, in your thin veneer, as you say goodbye.
Has Aunt Jenna ever listened to this stuff? I hope not, because I’m sure she would hear it too. Girls are smart like that. And she probably wouldn’t even let you know she was hurt. But she would be. Maybe that’s what she’s hiding behind her big old sunglasses in this photo Mom has on the fridge. It’s of your fifth anniversary, I think, from earlier this year. You two are on the beach by your house, you tan and Jenna more freckled than I’ve ever seen her, and you’re both hiding: you behind a smile full of too-polished teeth and she behind the sunglasses. Have you ever peeked behind her façade, Uncle Michael? Have you ever looked to see if she has seen what I see? You should.
Missing Mr. Wingfield Page 11