The Lucy Variations (25 page)

“Legal Tender”, The B-52s
– My mom used to play this in the car all the time when I was little, and it always worked to keep me entertained. I guess she was really into the B-52s when she was young. (I try to picture her at a show – can’t do it.)

“More”, Usher
– I know, but Reyna has brainwashed me. Good workout song.

Changing gears:

“Everybody Knows”, Ryan Adams
– It’s those two little drumbeats in the intro that kill me. Every time.

“Fold”, José Gonzáles
– Look up the lyrics. Exactly where I am right now.

“Lodestar”, Sarah Harmer
– Starts like no big deal and turns into this epic masterpiece. Inspired by a D. H. Lawrence poem. It’s basically perfect.

“Sugar on the Floor”, Elton John
– Another one of my mom’s, from a collection of rare masters and B sides. There’s an Etta James version, too, which is just okay IMHO. Elton makes it sound sadder. Too sad. So:

“Happier”, Guster
– I discovered Guster one night when I went down some Internet wormhole. I have this song in my head, like, all the time.

“The Rifle’s Spiral”, The Shins
– Current obsession. Play count over 100.

“Challengers”, The New Pornographers
– No comment.

“Symphony No. 5, third movement”, Ludwig van Beethoven, as performed by the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein conducting
– Some performances of this are too slow, or the horns aren’t loud enough. This is my favourite version, and I wish everyone knew the third movement the way they know the first.

“Four Seasons, Op. 8, Winter: Allegro con molto”, Antonio Vivaldi, as performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Itzhak Perlman conducting and on violin
– And some performances of THIS are too fast. Or you don’t really hear it because it’s so familiar. Somehow this recording makes it sound new every time.

“Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor”, Johann Sebastian Bach, as performed by Matt Haimovitz
– Sort of in love with Matt Haimovitz. And I wish I could play cello. Maybe I will someday.

“Metamorphosis I”, Philip Glass
– I’ve been learning this one. Weirdly satisfying to play. The repetition means something, though I haven’t yet figured out what.

Listen to the playlist online

The author has chosen to narrate the story through the third person narrative; discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this perspective, and the connection between the reader and Lucy. Explain your reasons.

Over the course of the novel, Lucy’s moods are often reflected and linked to the places around her. Find three examples where her physical surroundings directly correspond to Lucy’s emotional state. What do you think this technique adds to the novel?

“
Because every thought she had, everything she observed around her, every conversation, every experience, everything that made her laugh – she imagined telling him, or him watching.
” Seeing and being seen are recurrent motifs of the book; discuss the ways in which the author presents the idea of the self as a “performance”.

“
I take this as your final decision, Lucy. Do not come to me tomorrow and say that you’ve changed your mind.
” Lucy’s grandfather is absolute in accepting her decision to quit. Why do you think he does this? What did you think of her grandfather?

Compare and contrast Lucy’s relationships with the male characters outside her family (Will, Mr. Charles, Carson) and her relationship with her father and brother. How do they differ? Can you see any common themes?

After the fundraiser, Will tells Lucy that “
I swear to
God
…I never had anything but the best intentions. Maybe with the career stuff, recently, I went off track. Okay, not maybe. But with the ‘everything else’, I really was, I tried to be, my best self with you.
” Do you believe Will? Can you sympathize with him? Did your impression of Will change during the book?

Lucy comments that: “
Even her best friend, Reyna, didn’t know and wouldn’t care that she could nail a Rachmaninoff allegro.
” Consider Lucy and Reyna’s relationship. Do you think Reyna’s place outside Lucy’s world of music brings her and Lucy closer together or further apart? Why?

“
Decisions were made the usual way: Grandpa Beck steamrolling over everyone, aided by her mother, her dad standing off to the side letting the whole thing happen
.” Discuss the dynamics of the Beck-Moreaus, and the way in which they are portrayed throughout the book. Do you think Lucy’s summation of them here is fair?

Listen to Philip Glass’s
Metamorphosis
– what feelings does this piece evoke? Why do you think Lucy chooses to play this for her comeback performance?

Look at Lucy’s “Love List for Will”. Put together a playlist of your own, choosing songs that are particularly important to you. Which songs evoke the strongest memories for you and why? Discuss the reasons and stories behind your choices.

From: MMK333

To: heart_homeDen

Subject: Re: [lovegrows] Christmas wish

Date: Jan 1 03:09:47 AM UTC-6

I am writing in response to your Love Grows post from Christmas Day.

I think I might have what you’re looking for.

It should be available on March 1. Or around March 1.

Right now I am living in Omaha, but this is not where I want to be. So if you pay my way, I will bring it to you in Denver. If that is where you really live. No offence but a lot of people on this site lie. I know they all say don’t send money and don’t send tickets and don’t do this and don’t do that. Rules don’t always apply, though, and you never know what another person has gone through to end up here. After reading your post, I knew you would understand this.

No lawyers. No agencies. That’s why I am on this site. If either gets involved, I will disappear with the item in question. I don’t mean to sound threatening. That’s just the situation.

I would like to come a little bit early and have the matter taken care of there. This way we can get to know each other. I’m not asking for money. Just expenses. It’s getting hard for me to stay here much longer.

This offer is good until one week from today. After that I will seek other solutions. I’m sorry if I’m rushing you, but you have to understand – I’m trying to do what’s best. I have attached a picture of myself and as you can see I am white and in good health and not bad-looking.

A lot of people in my situation might have a problem with some of the facts you mentioned in your post about you. Not me, because I think I understand.

If you accept me, I accept you.

Please write soon.

Mandy

Dad would want me to be here.

There’s no other explanation for my presence. Sometimes it’s like I exist – keep going to school, keep coming home, keep showing up in my life – only to prove that his confidence in me, his affection for me, weren’t mistakes. That I’m the person he always said I was. Am. That I know the right things to do and will always do them in the end, even if it takes me a while to get there and even if I fight the whole way.

We were the same that way. Are. Were. He was, I am. When he was here, I knew who I was. If I forgot, he’d remind me. In theory, I should be the same person now I was then. He died, not me. So I’m trying to be that person, still, even though he hasn’t been here for ten months now.

But let me tell you: it’s epically, stupidly, monumentally
hard
.

Hard to deal with people who are only trying to be nice, comforting. Hard to not hate all my friends who still have their dads. Hard to smile and say “thank you” to all the random strangers I deal with in a day who don’t know any better than to act as if the world is a good place.

The hardest thing of all is loving my mom without him to show me how. Loving, maybe, isn’t the best way to put it. Obviously, I love my mom. Understanding, appreciating, showing kindness and compassion and basic friendliness towards – which, you know, are the things that express love, because otherwise it’s just a word, right? – those are the challenges.

Especially understanding. Especially when she’s making lunatic decisions, like the one that’s led us here to the train station at seven o’clock on a Monday morning. Instead of celebrating Presidents’ Day the way it’s meant to be celebrated – with sleep – we’re waiting for the human time bomb that’s about to wreck our lives. Wreck it more, I mean. That’s my opinion, and it’s no big secret. Mom knows how I feel about this; she just doesn’t seem to care.

It’s a grief thing. Anyone from the outside looking in can analyse what’s going on and see it, except she claims this isn’t about that, not directly. Eventually I had to stop arguing with her; my rants only make her more stubborn about seeing this through. Not that I’m unfamiliar with stubbornness, and not that I’ve done such a fantastic job handling my own grief. But at least I’ve tried to limit the stupid shit I’ve done so that I’m the only one who gets hurt.

This? This affects three lives. Soon to be four.

“Sun,” Mom says now, stretching to see out the high, narrow panes of the station windows. There’s a glimpse of winter sky growing blue. When we got here, we found out that because of security rules, we couldn’t actually wait out on the platform, which somewhat shattered Mom’s romantic vision of how this whole thing would go down. Threat level Orange tends to do that.

I know I shouldn’t say this – I know it as surely as I know the earth is round and beets are evil – and yet here it comes: “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

Mom, still staring up at the windows, lets her bag slide off her shoulder and dangle from her elbow. “Thanks, Jill. That’s tremendously helpful.”

If I had any sense, the edge in her voice would shut me up. Alas. “You’re not obligated, like, legally. You didn’t sign any papers.”

“I’m aware.”

“You could put her up for a night in a hotel, then pay her way back home tomorrow. You could say, sorry, you made a mistake and didn’t realize it until you actually saw her and it hit you.”

Mom hoists her bag back up and walks closer to the doors under the
TO TRAINS
sign. Once there, she strokes her left jawline, where I know there’s a small mole, almost the same colour as the rest of her skin, so you don’t really notice it, but it’s raised enough to feel. When she’s nervous, agitated, pissed off, or deep in thought, she runs her fingers over it non-stop.

I sink my hands into the pockets of my pea coat, trying to warm them up and also feeling for my phone.
Don’t check it
, I think.
Don’t check for a message from Dylan because there won’t be one.

Mom looks so lonely over there. No Dad beside her to rest his hand on her shoulder, the way he would. I could do that. How hard can it be? I move closer. Tentatively lift my arm. She turns to me and says, “You’re the sister, Jill.”

My arm drops.

The sister. It’s so hard to get there mentally. Yes, when I was a kid, I desperately wanted a baby brother or sister, but at seventeen it’s a different scenario.

Mom looks at her cell phone and fluffs her cropped hair. It’s a new look for her, one I’m not used to yet. “Why don’t you go ask if there’s a delay.”

I leave her there to her mole and her thoughts.

The station, with its soaring ceilings and old marble floor, is echoey with pieces of conversations and suitcases being rolled and the
thwonk
ing of a child’s feet running up and down the seat of one of the high-backed wooden benches. “No, no, Jaden, we don’t run indoors,” the mother says.
Thwonk thwonk thwonk.
“What did I just say, Jaden? Do you want to have a time-out?” Pause.
Thwonk thwonk thwonk thwonk.
I can see the top of Jaden’s head bobbing along as his mother counts down to time-out. “One…two…”
Thwonk.
“Three.”
Thwonk thwonk.
“Okay, but remember you made the choice.”

Jaden screams.

This is what we have to look forward to.

Why my mother would want to put herself through all this again is a mystery to me, no matter how she’s tried to explain it. When she announced over tuna casserole six weeks ago that she was going to participate in an open adoption, I laughed.

She frowned, fiddled with her napkin. “It’s not funny, Jill.”