A Crooked Kind of Perfect (4 page)

I move off the bench so she can sit and play the song for me. Like everything else I've learned, "Those Were the Days" is mostly melody, so Mabelline Person's right hand moves around a lot on the top keyboard, but her left hand just plays a couple of chords on the bottom keys. C. G. C. G. She yawns.

"Keep the metronome speed on four," she says.

"Okay," I say.

She looks at her watch, then folds up her yellow papers and puts them in her purse. She stretches again. She looks at her watch again.

"Any questions?" she says.

"Nope," I say.

She looks at her watch
again.

"Okay," she says finally. "I'm off."

As soon as the door clicks behind her Dad peeks into the living room.

"She's gone?" he asks.

"She 's gone," I say.

"Well, then," says Dad, holding up a silver spatula like a microphone. "ARE YOOOU READY TO RUUUUMBAAAAAAAAAAAA?"

I flip the rhythm switch to Rumba, push the tempo up to six, and start again on "Green Acres."

And then Dad starts singing, holding up the spatula like a pitchfork and hooking his thumb on the strap of his imaginary overalls.

I add a couple of trills—little flutterings of notes—to spice things up.

Dad sings about farm living. He shakes his hips.

I switch the rhythm to Tango and change my playing to fit.

Dad puts the spatula between his teeth and tangos across the room, then spits the spatula out for his finale. But before he can sing a note, the doorbell rings.

It's Mabelline Person.

"That was you playing that. I saw you through the window. That was you," she says.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I know I'm supposed to stick to metronome."

She stomps into the living room and starts flipping pages in the Perfectone songbook. Finally she stops at "I Dream of Jeannie."

"Watch," she says.

I watch. Not only does her right hand fly around the upper keyboard, but her left hand moves pretty quickly, too.

"See my foot?" she asks.

Her foot? There are pedals attached to the Perfectone D-60. Ten of them. I've stepped on them getting on and off the bench, and I know that they play different notes, but I've never had to use them in a song before.

"These letters across the top indicate what pedals you play," she says over her shoulder. She is still playing "I Dream of Jeannie." "The pedals are arranged just like keys on the keyboard. See? B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D, plus sharps and flats. I want to see what you can do with this next week."

Miss Person gets up and goes to the armchair. She pushes her hand around under the cushion. "There they are," she says, pulling out her keys.

"You?" She points at me. "Metronome."

"And you?" She whirls around to face Dad, who is hiding in the curtains. "Maybe a belly dance for this one."

The only grown-up my dad really talks to in person, other than Mom, is Hugh the UPS guy. Hugh has big teeth and a bushy mustache. He's bald and in the winter you can see steam rise off his head.

Hugh just delivered Dad's latest Living Room University course: Rolling in Dough: Earn a Dolla' Baking Challah. He's sitting at our kitchen table having a cup of coffee.

"One time," says Hugh, "I'm dropping off a package for this old guy and he says, 'Hey, I got a thing I need shipped. You got a big box?' Now, normally, I tell people that they gotta find their own boxes, right?"

"Right," says Dad.

"But this guy is a true geezer and I got a spare box in the truck, so I give it to him, right?"

"Right."

"And he looks at the box and says it's kinda small, but if he curls the thing up, he might be able to get it in the box okay. But he's gonna need some help, 'cause the thing he's gotta ship is kinda heavy, right?"

"Right," me and Dad say together.

"So, I got a light day and this old guy seems real
confused about how he's gonna pack this heavy thing up, so I go in to help him, right?"

"Right."

"So the old guy, he leads me through the house and into his bathroom and I'm thinking this is weird, but I go with it, and he flips on the bathroom light and what do you think is in there?"

Me and Dad don't know.

"An alligator! The guy's got a three-foot alligator in his bathtub! And I'm flipping out! I jump up on the toilet so I'm out of the reach of these alligator jaws and I'm screaming like a girl—no offense, Zoe—but it's a flippin' alligator!"

Dad's eyes are wide and I'm laughing, picturing big, bald Hugh balancing on a toilet seat, screaming his head off.

"And the old guy starts yelling, 'She's dead! She's dead, you idiot! She's not gonna bite you, she's dead!'" Hugh takes a swig of coffee and shakes his head. "Turns out his bathtub alligator—Ramona was her name—died that morning and the guy wants to ship her down to Florida to his ex-wife, thinking she'll bury Ramona near a swamp or something so Ramona can feel at home during her long dirt nap."

"Did you help him?" I ask.

"I'm not touching no just-dead alligator!" says Hugh. "UPS wouldn't ship it, anyway. But I love imagining his ex-wife opening up a big old box thinking she won the sweepstakes and finding a dead alligator grinning at her."

Me and Dad laugh. Hugh's almost done with his coffee, but I don't want him to stop telling stories. "Is that the craziest customer you ever had?" I ask.

"Probably the craziest, yeah. But we get lots of them. Just yesterday I'm over in East Eastside and this lady sees my truck and comes running out of her house through the snow in her bare feet telling me she 's got a return to do and what would it cost to ship a grand piano. Crazy, right?"

"Right," I say.

"Does anyone here know how to play an instrument?" Mrs. Trimble asks. Our regular music teacher, Mr. Popadakis, has pinkeye and isn't here today, so Mrs. Trimble has to take over.

"I play violin," says Hector Kheterpohl.

Mrs. Trimble looks around the music room. There are no violins in here, just an upright piano and a plastic box full of percussion instruments: tambourines, maracas, bells, a triangle. Mrs. Trimble passes them around the room.

"Emma has a piano," says Britt.

"Not anymore," says Emma. "I took one lesson and I hated it, so my mom sold it to Rewind Used Music and got me this awesome DJ station. I got a turntable and CD player and some amps and all this cool stuff that my dad has to figure out. Then we can have dances at my house and me and Joella can be the DJs."

"I already know how to be a DJ because of my mom," says Joella. Like we'd forget. Like Joella doesn't wear a WPOP T-shirt every day she's not wearing a Brat shirt.

"Well, we don't have a DJ station in here," says Mrs. Trimble. "I guess we'll just have to shake these things and sing something. 'Old MacDonald'?"

Sometimes I think Mrs. Trimble forgets we are in fifth grade.

"You have a piano, don't you?" Emma asks me.

"An organ," I say.

"That's close enough," says Mrs. Trimble. "Come play something and we'll all sing along. Do you know 'Old MacDonald'?"

I don't know "Old MacDonald." But I know "Green Acres." It feels different to play on one long keyboard, but I figure out where to put my hands and I start playing. At first, I miss the Perfectone D-60's Rumba switch, but pretty soon everybody is shaking their tambourines and maracas and it sounds okay.

"Are there words to this song?" asks Mrs. Trimble, and a couple of kids laugh. And then Wheeler Diggs starts singing about the land spreading out both far and wide. You can tell which kids watch TV Land because they know the words, too, and sing with him.

When "Green Acres" is over everybody claps. And then Mrs. Trimble asks if I know another one and I play "The
Scooby-Doo
Theme." Almost everybody
knows the words and people are singing and laughing and I start feeling like it would be okay if Mr. Popadakis had pinkeye forever.

But then the bell rings for lunch and Mrs. Trimble makes everybody pass their instruments to the front and Emma and Joella start talking about how when they have dance parties there will be real music and we all head back to our classroom to get our lunch bags.

And Wheeler Diggs bumps me in the hall. "That was cool," he says, and he punches me in the arm, which hurts a little, but in a good way.

Wheeler Diggs never does his homework.

He never answers in class.

He always buys a milk shake and a plate of Tater Tots for lunch.

He calls most people by their last names: Polzdorfer, Olivetti, Mueller, Shell.

He wears orange sneakers and his jeans are ripped and raggedy at the hem. He wears a faded jean jacket all the time, even indoors, even when it is sticky hot out. And in the winter, he doesn't put another coat on over it, either. Just shoves a U.S. Army sweatshirt on underneath.

Usually, Wheeler Diggs is a mess.

Except his hair.

On anybody else, his curly hair might look goofy, but on Wheeler Diggs it looks just the right kind of wild. And it's dark, which makes his blue eyes look even brighter. And his smile, which is kind of lopsided, looks like he 's trying not to smile, but he can't help it.

Which is why, sometimes, every once in a while,
somebody will smile back. And sometimes, most of the time, those people will get punched in the stomach. Which is why even the kids who sit with him at lunch are a little bit scared of him and why, really, Wheeler Diggs doesn't have a best friend, either.

"Slow the metronome down. Put it on three," says Miss Person.

I slow it down. This is my second week of playing "I Dream of Jeannie" and my feet keep tripping over the pedals. My hands, though, are doing what they're supposed to.

"Okay," she says. "That wasn't horrible. You're getting used to the pedals, and your fingering was pretty good." She scribbles something on her yellow papers.

"Am I a prodigy?" I ask.

Miss Person snorts. She pushes the cap back on her purple pen. "You have some talent and you work hard. I'll take that over prodigy any day."

Hearing that makes me feel good. But not as good as being called a prodigy would have.

"Is your dad around?" she asks.

"Dad!" I yell.

"Sweet brother of Bach, don't yell like that. You'll apoplex me."

Dad comes into the room. He's wearing a Living Room University apron and has flour up to his elbows.

"I don't usually do this with beginners," Miss Per
son tells him. "But I'm recommending your daughter go to the Perfectone Perform-O-Rama this year. She's ten, right? When's her birthday?"

"May fourteenth," I say before Dad can answer.

"Just our luck. The competition starts on May fifteenth. She'll have to compete against the eleven-year-olds—most of them will have been playing for a couple of years—but I don't think she'll embarrass herself."

"Where is the Perform-O-Rama?" asks Dad.

"Birch Valley," says Mabelline Person. She pulls a flyer out of her purse. "At the Birch Valley Hotel and Conference Center. May fifteenth and sixteenth."

"Is that a weekend?" asks Dad.

"Yes. There are performances Saturday and Sun-day—with awards on Sunday afternoon."

I see Dad relax. The Perform-O-Rama is only an hour away and on a weekend. That means Mom can take me and Dad won't have to drive or be around all those people.

"I'll have to check our schedules, but it sounds good to me," says Dad.

"Fine, then," says Miss Person. "Let's get back to work."

Hey,
I think.
How come nobody asked me if I want to do this?
And that's what I say.

Miss Person is quiet.

Dad is quiet.

"I'm sorry, honey," he says. "Do you want to play at the Perform-O-Rama?"

I think about how it felt to have my fingers gliding over those keys, how Miss Person looked when I finished playing. It felt good. Really good. Not as good as it would to play the piano, but...

"YES!" I yell.

"Mozart's postman!" gasps Miss Person.

I flip on the metronome and let my fingers dream of Jeannie all over again.

At our next lesson, Mabelline Person gives me a CD and a stack of Perfectone songbooks:
Marvelous Movie Memories, Hits of the Fifties, Hits of the Sixties, Hits of the Seventies, Hits of the Nineties.

"What about the eighties?" I ask.

"There were no hits in the eighties," says Miss Person.

Sticky notes with numbers scribbled on them are stuck to some of the songbook pages. "I've made a recording of each of the songs I think might work for you. You can tell which is which by the numbers on the stickies," she explains. "Listen. Look at the music. Try out a couple of the melodies. Two weeks from now, we'll need to start working exclusively on your Perform-O-Rama selection."

"Two weeks?"

"Do you not own a calendar? There are only seven weeks until the Perform-O-Rama. We really ought to pick next week, but I want you to get in one more week of pedal work before we select a piece," she says.

Only seven weeks!
I think. "Chopin's toaster!"

"You said it," says Miss Person.

When you play piano, you don't go to Perform-O-Ramas. You give recitals.

A recital is a dignified affair.

There are candelabras at a recital.

People sit in velvet chairs and sip champagne and look over the program. There are always programs at a recital.

At a recital, you play Mozart and Beethoven and Strauss and Bach.

You do not play
Hits of the Seventies.

Something is horribly wrong with the lunchroom.

Fireside Scouts have taken over.

Three tables are covered with green cloths and pyramids of Fudgy-Buddies and Minty-Chips. Which means there are three fewer tables for sitting at. Which means that a sixth grader has taken my until-you-get-a-new-best-friend spot at Emma Dent's table.

There are fourth graders at third-grader tables.

There are sixth graders at fifth-grader tables.