The Sound of Letting Go (16 page)

“Aggie is an amazing teacher, isn’t—”

Cal O’Casey begins a sentence he doesn’t finish,

taken aback, perhaps, by the black of my sweatshirt,

the Keds I carefully covered last night

with brown skeletons and squares of dark green,

the thick kohl lines around my eyes.

Even the unflappable Mrs. Pendleton pauses at my desk

en route to the front of the classroom.

I don’t need judgment from someone wearing

a barely-acceptably-teacher-length skirt,

just turn my raccoon eyes away.

Justine sighs.

“Just in time for me to start dating Ned,

you turn into Goth Girl.”

“Hope I don’t wreck your chances in the student council election.” Words I meant to sound teasing

come out with a bitter edge

that freezes Justine’s smile.

“Yeah, well . . .”

is all she says before Ned arrives, walks to her desk

with a proprietary saunter that makes me wonder

if the two of them did even more

than Dave and me on Friday night.

“Sorry, Daisy, I’m a bit confused,” Cal says.

“Is Justine running for student office?”

At the front of the room,

Mrs. Pendleton stoops to pick up a pencil,

which makes a few of the boys inhale audibly.

To her right, I see Shelby, already sitting down,

pushing her notebook into alignment

with the edge of her desk.

“Nah,” I say halfheartedly to Cal,

my eyes fixed on Shelby but seeing Steven,

imagining what it might be like for him

in a classroom like this.

“What were you saying about Aggie?”

“She’s a bit of all right, i’n’t she?

The way she plays a horn.”

Cal is looking past me now,

to a vision of Aggie, the musician in her,

just like I’m looking past him to a dream of my brother.

And I see in my mind’s eye Steven’s gaze:

distant, distracted, like both of us now.

Maybe he, too, is always looking for some faraway thing

that makes perfect sense inside his head;

it’s just that he can’t tell anybody.

“She charges a lot,” Cal continues,

“but the Ackermans are letting me earn money

by raking their leaves—and I’ll shovel their driveway

when the snow starts—

so I can pay.

She’s worth it.”

I look hard, maybe for the first time,

at Cal’s holey jeans, worn brown shoes, and think

maybe he’s no more ordinary-middle-class than I;

that maybe there are secrets behind his quiet smile,

reasons for the passion that throbs through his bari

like I’ve never heard before.

I try to remember how many different shirts I’ve seen

him wear,

can count only three.

Tally in my mind the price of the myriad matching sets

of Nike and adidas sweats and tees Mom buys for Steven,

sporting graphics of bats he will never swing,

baskets he will never make.

He likes smooth fabrics,

elastic-waist pants that require no belting,

adapt to his increasing size.

I think Mom likes the way that, from the back,

the outfits make him look pretty much like a normal, chubby guy.

I shake myself back into the conversation with Cal.

“Aggie’s definitely worth it.”

My voice comes out surprisingly soft.

Halfway through A-PUSH I realize

Dave has not texted me since Saturday night,

when I let him do those things,

when I did those things with him.

The North battles the South

in Mr. Angelli’s clipped New England monologue,

an accent that somehow lacks the drama or passion

I imagine for war

or love.

My mind drifts to an HBO moment.

I play back me and Dave on the bench by the lake,

only this time my hair is longer,

my shoes are three-inch stilettos,

and Dave . . .

Dave says words like “you’re beautiful” and “I love you”

and “I’ll call you before you even make it home.”

I am lost in Adult Content and breathing fast

when the people around me start to shuffle, pile books.

Some sound in my fantasy must have been the real zing

of the bell.

Mr. Angelli and Cal stand over me.

I wonder if they can hear

the skittering of my horny heart.

“Daisy,” Mr. Angelli begins,

oblivious to the mess before him.

“Cal here is having a bit of trouble mastering our

American history, so I’d like you to work with him

on the next project: writing a short autobiography

of a fictional Civil War–era slave.”

“Er, a slave?” I murmur doltishly.

“Cal has the reading list and the details.”

Mr. Angelli points to a paper in Cal’s hand,

gives me a nod, expecting no resistance.

Despite my dangerous

new nails-and-sneakers color scheme,

it doesn’t occur to me to resist anyway.

“P’raps we can meet up after school today,”

Cal suggests.

“I, um, babysit on Mondays,” I tell him.

“How about tomorrow?”

“Okay. Say, the library at three, then?”

It’s a logical place and time.

Cal can’t know that Dave and I

kind of got our start—if anything is started—

in the egg chair.

“Sure.”

“Hey, Goth Girl!” Justine catches up with me

in the parking lot after school,

Ned a few paces behind her.

“Please don’t call me that.”

“What do you want me to call you?”

Justine’s Monday outfit is absent its usual touch of pink.

Instead she wears a crisp white blouse over a pleated

blue mini, very “naughty schoolgirl,”

or perhaps not so naughty

with those three-quarter sleeves

mimicking Ned’s “ready to work” effect.

Are we so easily transformed by boys?

So quickly angelified

or darkened

by their attention

or disaffection?

“Just plain Daisy’s worked since forever.” I try to smile.

Now Dave is sauntering around the side of the school.

Should I keep chatting with Justine?

Fill the time required for him to reach the parking lot?

“I know you’ve got to go home now,” Justine says.

“But wanna come for ice cream with me and Ned

tomorrow after school? You could invite . . .”

“I’ve gotta do some tutoring.”

Ned wraps his hands around Justine’s good-girl middle,

his cheek pressing against her flat-ironed hair.

“Tutoring. That’s cool,” he says.

“What kind?” Justine asks.

“Helping Cal O’Casey with A-PUSH.”

And maybe, just maybe, I’m a little glad

to see the lift in her eyebrows, the second’s hesitation

before she completes her turn into Ned’s arms.

I cling to the steering wheel,

trying not to look in my rearview mirror at Dave

reaching his Fiesta’s parking spot,

pocketing his phone,

flipping through his ring of keys.

It starts to rain as I pull onto Main Street.

Wishing for the drop of five degrees

that would transform the wet to snow,

I switch on the windshield wipers.

There is never a perfect wiper speed

to smooth away the rain:

Kind of like making out, the fast setting is too fast;

the slow too slow to clear the driver’s view of the road through the falling water.

“Hey, Daisy,” Mom calls as I come in the door.

“Hi.” I’m puzzled by her jeans and sweater.

“No yoga tonight?”

“No, something different.”

Her smile fades into confusion as she takes in my eyes,

my nails.

“You look . . . different, too.”

That’s when two text lines from Dave

buzz into my phone.

“Why’d you run from the parking lot just now?”

“I’ll, uh, be right back.

Just gonna drop my backpack in my room.”

Steven’s head turns slightly as I double-time it

up the stairs, but even darkened Keds

don’t make much noise on hardwood.

I set my bag by the door, which I push carefully shut;

sit on my unmade bed.

Heart pounding, I look at the lines again,

wishing I could call Justine right now, ask her what to do.

I could, I guess, but I know that would mean my story

might be shared with Ned.

Ned Hoffman:

a perfectly decent guy

and the embodiment of all that is frustrating

about small-town life.

Ned Hoffman, who also knows about everyone’s sordid sagas. Though everybody does in Jasper,

not everybody makes you feel like, when they look at you,

all they see are your unsecret secrets.

Ned Hoffman does.

Ned Hoffman, who is now kissing my best friend.

“If you don’t text back,

I’m gonna dial this phone and actually call you.”

More lines zing from broken-family, stepchild,

make-out-buddy Dave.

Has Ned heard about that yet?

I ransack my memories of HBO romances,

wonder what to type back to Dave,

but no sexy high-fantasy

or teen-about-to-die-falls-in-love story I can recall

suggests the words I should use,

the words that could hold the longing,

the uncertainty in my heart.

That’s kind of blue.