A Crooked Kind of Perfect (11 page)

"You okay?" I ask him.

Dad uncurls the paper.

"I'm fine," he says.

"Mona Kinzler?" calls a judge.

Mona stands and hands her packet to her mom. She gives her music to the judges. She sits down at the Perfectone M-80. Everyone is quiet.

Mona plays.

Just like yesterday, everyone is smiling.

Dad is smiling.

His leg is not bouncing and he is smiling and he puts his arm around me and I feel like Mona's music is in both of us. Like it is in all of us.

When Mona finishes playing, everybody claps and Dad says, "Bravo."

Then the doors open and a bunch of people walk out and another bunch of people walk in and the smiles fade and people start talking again about how stuffy it is in this room and how come they don't let you bring food in here?

"You're next, huh?" Dad says.

"I'm next."

I look at my music. I hear it in my head. I hear myself singing and Wheeler singing and Dad singing.

But Dad is not singing. Dad is leg-bouncing. Tapping and bouncing and looking over his shoulder at the doors.

"I'm proud of you. It must be really hard to play in front of all these people," he says, looking at the doors again.

"You want to go?" I ask him.

"No," he says. He kisses me on the forehead. "I want to stay."

They call my name.

Swoosh-click.

I hand Dad my competition packet.

"You can go if you need to," I say. "I'll be okay."

"I'll just keep sitting," Dad says. "You go have fun."

I bring my music to the judges. "I'll be playing the D-60," I tell them.

I check the On switch.

The Perfectone D-60 is ready and wheezing.

And just as I am about to start, I hear it.

Swoosh-BANG!

The doors.

Poor Dad,
I think.

Just keep playing,
I think.

Rock Beat #3.

oneandtwoandthreeandfourand

Bum

Bum

Bum

Bum

I play.

And even though I know that I am reading the music and my fingers are pressing the keys and my foot is tapping the pedals and the sound is coming from the Ultra-Gold speakers of the Perfectone D-60—even though I know all that—it feels like the music is coming from right inside of me.

I gather my music from the stand and slide off the bench and turn around and see that people are smiling. The judges are smiling and Mona and Judy are smiling and Becky and Mika and a lot of other people in the room are smiling.

And way in the back, by the doors of Meeting Room G, my dad is standing there smiling.

And next to him is my mom.

And she is smiling, too.

Dad is still clapping when I get to the back of the room.

"Thank you very much," I say. I curtsy. I don't think I have ever curtsied before. It feels good, though, so I do it again.

Dad looks a little pale. But he is still smiling.

"I'm going back to the room," he says. He gives me a big sweaty hug. "I'm proud of you," he whispers.

"Becky Depschak?" says the judge.

"Let's find a seat," says Mom.

Swoosh-click.

Becky Depschak walks to the front of the room as me and Mom find a seat behind the judges.

"Now how does this work?" asks Mom, and I hand her the
HOW
IT
WORKS
sheet.

"Becky will be playing 'Istanbul (Not Constantinople)' on the Perfectone J-70," says a judge.

Before Becky can flip the Merengue switch, Mom takes out a pen and marks up
HOW
IT
WORKS
, underlining "lowest score will be dropped" and "style and appropriate selection" and "top five performers earn
trophies." Mom sees me watching her. She moves her pen down to the last line of
HOW
IT
WORKS
and circles two words.

"Have fun!"

Mom has a mirror in her purse.

Actually, it is two mirrors with a little hinge between them so you can open it and see if your makeup is the same on both sides of your face.

Or, if you angle it just right, you can use it to look over the Perform-O-Rama judges' shoulders and see what marks they are making on people's music sheets. Which is what my mom is doing.

She watches how many mistakes each person gets and reads the comments the judges write.

She has written down the names of all the competitors and drawn columns next to them, with little slash marks for each mistake. She writes down the judges' comments, too, in code, with plus signs and minus signs and stars.

This is how Mom has fun.

Mika Soddenfelter finishes "Theme from
Kojak"
and Mom snaps her mirror shut.

"I liked that last one." She marks a two in Mika's mistake column, but adds a little star. "He should get extra points for having fun," she says.

Mika did sound like he was having fun.

In fact, everybody sounded like they were having fun. A lot more fun than yesterday.

"I'm sorry you missed Mona," I tell Mom.

"Missed me what?" I turn to find Mona and Judy standing behind us. I hope they didn't see Mom's mirror trick.

"Missed hearing you play," I tell her. "You were great again."

"Thanks," she says. "You were great, too."

"Awards aren't until four o'clock," Judy says. "Mona and I are going to the Birch Valley Mall for lunch. You two want to join us?"

When Mom looks at me, I nod and she pulls out her cell phone. "Let me check with Domestic Affairs," she says.

And then she goes into the hallway to call my dad, and Mona starts talking about how cute Mika is and how there is this boy at her school named Tony and how he looks like Mika except he's taller and has glasses and brown hair and green eyes and how he likes her and she likes him except he 's not really her boyfriend or anything.

"Do you have a boyfriend?' she asks me.

And the first thing that pops into my head is Wheeler. But Wheeler is not my boyfriend. Wheeler is a boy. And he is my friend. And I think he 's cute in a messy kind of way. But he's not my boyfriend. I think all that. And then I think how weird it is that I thought of Wheeler and not Colton Shell, who isn't my boyfriend either, but at least Colton Shell likes me. I mean,
likes me
likes me.

"No," I say.

And then Mom comes back in.

"Let's go," she says.

By the time we get to Bust-A-Burger, we are starving. It took us forever to find the Bust-A-Burger because the stores in the Birch Valley Mall are the same as in our mall at home except they are all rearranged, so even though you think you're near Bust-A-Burger because you can see Mango Tango and Twisted Mister Pretzel, really the Bust-A-Burger is on the whole other side of the mall but the Mango Tango people aren't sure whether it is downstairs next to Lo Fat's Kitchen or upstairs by Three Blond Mice. It is by Three Blond Mice.

There's a girl in the booth across from us who is wearing her Fireside Scout uniform, but instead of her badge-sash thing she has pulled a Brat T-shirt over her scout blouse.

"I hate that Brat stuff," says Mona. Actually, she says "I hape fat Braff fuff " because her mouth is full of Bust-A-Burger, but I know right away what she means.

"Everybody wears it at my school," I say.

"Why would you wear something that says you are spoiled and mean?" says Mona.

"Maybe it's true," I say.

"Wouldn't that be funny if everybody wore shirts with true stuff on them?" Mona laughs. "Like 'No Mind of My Own' or 'I Hope This Shirt Makes Me Look Cool'."

"Aw, I remember wanting so badly to look cool," says Judy. She points her burger at my mom. "Do you remember Giggles?"

"Giggles!" says Mom. "Of course I remember Giggles!"

"What are Giggles?" asks Mona.

"They were just the absolute coolest jeans ever," says Judy. "They had a little polka-dot pattern on the pocket. And if you didn't have a pair you were just nobody."

"I hated that," says Mom. "I felt like such a loser."

Judy nods.

Mom used to worry about being a loser?

"They were so expensive. I saved up babysitting money for months to get a pair," says Mom.

"I wore mine until they fell apart," says Judy.

Mom takes another big bite of her burger.

"And now," says Judy. "I must pee."

Mona stands. "I'll go with you."

"Anyone else?" Judy asks.

Me and Mom shake our heads. We have really strong bladders. It is one thing we have in common.

When Judy and Mona are in the bathroom, I ask Mom if she wore her Giggles until they fell apart.

"I never ended up buying a pair," she says. "Your granddad worked at Ford then and there were layoffs." Mom takes a sip of her pop. "There were more important things to spend that money on. I had other jeans."

I think about this. About Mom wanting to be cool and having to spend her cool-jeans money on something else.

Then Mom says, "If you want one of those Snot shirts, we can get you one."

"Brat," I say.

"Pardon me?"

"Not Snot shirts, Mom. Brat."

Mom laughs at herself, which is kind of strange. I don't remember her ever doing that before, but she laughs at her mistake and says, "Right. Brat. If you want a Brat shirt, we can get you one."

I tell her thank you but I don't want one. And I really don't. But it feels good to be asked.

Mom says okay. And then me and Mom sit side by side and chew and watch our reflection in the Bust-A-Burger condiment island until Judy and Mona come back.

And when they do, Judy is singing.

"Mom," sighs Mona.

"Blame Zoe," says Judy.

Mona blames me. "You played so well this morning, she can't get your song out of her head." Judy knows the words? She does.

"Money talks
But it don't sing and dance
And it don't walk

As long as I can have you here with me
I'd much rather be
Forever in blue jeans."

The Brat Scout stares.

"Mom!" sighs Mona again.

My mom looks at her watch. "We'd better get going."

We walk fast from the Bust-A-Burger side of the Birch Valley Mall to the Mango Tango side and then out into the parking lot where, even though I am eleven years old, my mom holds my hand all the way to the car.

(A-B-C) + (X-Y-Z) + ((A-B-C)+(X-Y-Z))/2 = Total Score

This is what Mom has written on the back of my conference packet.

"It's really very simple," she is saying. "The A, B, and C are the positive comments minus the number of mistakes minus the number of negative comments given by judge one. X, Y, and Z represent the same categories for judge two."

I don't understand, but I nod.

If Dad were here, he'd explain it to me. But Dad is not here. Mom said he had something he wanted to take care of at home, so he drove home early.

"Don't worry," she told me. "He has his cell."

I worry anyway.

"Now," she says, "since you are unable to tell me if anyone played better or worse on Saturday than they did today—"

"Except for me," I say. "I played worse."

"Except for you," says Mom. "Since you have no idea about anyone else, we will take the average of the
totals for judge one and two to represent judge three." She points to the line with the number two on it.

I nod again. "Average," I say.

"Now all we have to do is plug the numbers from the grid into our formula and we'll have a pretty clear indication of what the final rankings will be," says Mom.

"Except for me and Mona," I say.

Mom doesn't say anything. She is plugging.

The Birch Valley Hotel and Conference Center ballroom is packed. So packed that Mom and Mona and Judy and me couldn't even find four seats together so Mona and Judy went up front to sit on the floor and me and Mom moved a ficus so we could sit on a windowsill.

Every seat is filled. Everywhere I look there are moms and dads and kids. There are Perfectone people with Upgrade buttons handing out
MEET
THE
PERFECTONES
! brochures and Perfectone volunteers in Perform-O-Rama Mama shirts shooing kids away from the trophy tables. People are saying no matter what, I'm proud of you and stop touching your sister and elegant cherry veneer and I am never eating another Bust-A-Burger as long as I live.

Up in the front of the room I can see Mona and Judy.

They wave. I wave back.

Mom has her head down. She is still plugging numbers into her formula. She is smiling.

Mom looks pretty when she smiles.

"If you could all find your seats, please?" There is a Perfectone man at the podium in the front of the room.

"There you go," says Mom. She is done plugging. "Given the information we have—which is not complete, of course—the trophy list should look like this."

Mom hands me the conference packet.

Mika Soddenfelter
Roger Patel
Margaret Barstock
Andy Markowitz
Victoria Dewsbury

"Those are your winners," says Mom. She taps on the packet with her pen. "One, two, three, four, five."

"I'm Benjamin Bemmerman, regional manager for the Perfectone Corporation," says the man at the podium. The Upgrade button people clap.

"You need to put Mona on this list," I whisper to Mom.

"Congratulations to all of you who participated in this, the twenty-sixth annual Southwestern Michigan
Regional Perfectone Perform-O-Rama," says Benjamin Bemmerman.

"How did she play?" Mom asks me.

"Like Horowitz," I say.

Mom writes Mona's name at the top of her list. She scratches out Victoria Dewsbury. "Sorry, Vicky, no trophy for you," she says.

Poor Vicky.

"And how did you play?" Mom asks me.

I know I made mistakes on Saturday. Five of them. Maybe six. But this morning?