The Sound of Letting Go (18 page)

It is not until I see Cal

in jazz band on Tuesday morning

that I realize I’ve booked myself an awkward afternoon:

a three o’clock Dave-and-Cal-and-me library triangle

that certainly won’t fit into the oval egg chair.

I slide the mouthpiece onto my trumpet,

wishing I’d realized this soon enough to call Justine

and get some advice on unraveling the mess I’ve made.

But no, I am on my own,

trapped between Cal’s quick grin

and the back of Dave’s messy-perfect head

leaning against the band room window.

Time always goes too fast in jazz band.

Today is no exception.

We wrap with a swing medley of Christmas tunes

I usually enjoy,

though I pretty well trash my feature in “I’ll Be Home

for Christmas,”

rushing through like a squawking beginner.

I am trembling from my lips to my toes.

Cal is careful packing up his instrument,

so it’s easy to shove my trumpet case on the shelf,

escape the band room before he has the chance to talk

to me.

Dave is smiling, eyes closed, earbuds in,

listening to a tune, softly mouthing the words

as though this hall were empty

of the throngs of hair-swinging,

style-judging, ball-tossing,

book-worming high schoolers.

Hey, la-la. It’s gonna be okay today.

Hey, hi-hi. It’s gonna be all right tonight.

I recognize the refrain.

It’s a song by one of those folksy rock groups

whose name is some random combination

of nonprimary color and funky notion:

Black Rainbow,

Gray Fantasy,

Shining Obsolescence.

Not unlike the Irish ballads

Dad used to sing for my lullabies:

The lyrics are a mixture of anger and reassurance,

hurt and heart,

and if they have no conclusion,

they just fade the tune away.

I envy rock musicians’ escape into refrains,

into mantras of easy words

to validate their drumbeats and oft-simple melodies.

Sometimes, it seems to me that lyrics turn pure sound

to lies—

the words forced to fit music that says so much more

when left

unexplained.

I tap Dave’s shoulder.

He doesn’t startle as he opens his eyes,

takes in my made-up face,

my somber sweater and jeans.

“Hey there, Daisy-brains. You’re looking dark today.”

“I can’t meet you in the library this afternoon.

I mean, I’ll be there,

but I’m supposed to do some tutoring and . . .”

My tumble-rush of an excuse

for something that’s really perfectly innocent

comes with the heat of a rising blush

that turns my shivers to sweat.

“It’s okay,” he says, grabbing my damp hand.

“How about we pick up again Saturday night,

back at the lake?”

I nod.

It’s that easy.

“Catch ya at lunchtime, too, maybe.”

Dave pushes away from the wall,

slides his hand behind my neck,

brushes his mouth against mine just as Cal comes out

of the band room.

I see the Irish edges of his upturned lips go straight.

He turns the opposite way from Dave and me.

Never that easy.

In A-PUSH, Justine passes me a folded magazine page.

A model poses in torn black tights and a plaid pinafore.

“Goth and Prepster meet in the middle?”

is scrawled in Sharpie across the top.

I turn from Mr. Angelli’s unemotional recounting

of the horrendously bloody Battle of Antietam

to give her a giant smile.

Justine—my best friend—child of divorce,

expert in compromise,

all-around hilarious girl.

If she likes Ned, I’ve got to give him a chance.

I know she’s already doing the same for me and Dave

even without my asking,

even without my knowing

what “me and Dave” really means.

“Dave asked me out for Saturday night,” I whisper.

A squeak emerges from Justine,

loud enough to draw Mr. Angelli’s attention.

But he just shrugs and returns to his map.

“Your AP scores will not be enhanced

by gossiping during class.” The Angelli-style reprimand

is delivered in the same dry tone

he uses to detail gruesome Civil War atrocities.

His eyes don’t flare with Mrs. Pendleton’s irritation,

passion, which I don’t like but I get.

For a second I try to imagine a Mrs. Angelli—

I’ve heard there is one—

but all I can picture

is a woman in a long brown prairie dress and bonnet chastely reading history books;

nothing HBO at all.

Justine waggles her finger, murmurs, 

“Will
not
be enhanced,”

and we shake with silent giggles.

“Where are you and Dave going?” Justine asks.

“To . . .” I don’t want to say the pits.

I have asked Dave for very little and now I see

he’s given me exactly that:

a chance to lock lips again underneath a chill sky.

Maybe I want Dave to pick me up at the door,

take me to a meal, ask me to a dance.

“We’re working on a plan,” is all I can think to say.

“La Parisienne was awesome,” she replies lightly.

I’m certain there’s no way Dave could afford such a tab.

Since his folks broke up, he’s lived in the older part of town

where seventies split-levels pepper squat lots

with postage-stamp backyards too small for swing sets

and sandboxes.

I think of Cal’s holey jeans,

Steven’s high-priced tracksuits,

Shirley’s extravagantly feminine bathroom.

How many La Parisienne dinners would it take

to match the price

of a year of residential care for my brother?

How many elegant pink prom dresses

might buy a daughter’s forgiveness

for a father who left his only child?

I wonder if Justine knows her restaurant suggestion

is out of Dave’s reach

but needs, despite her love for me, to twist a knife,

prove there’s a guy out there who wants

to spend time with her.

I don’t like the way boys have driven

little wedges into our friendship, pushed Justine and me

to instances where we treat each other

with Ashleigh Anderson–style unkindness.

Maybe, though, this is one of those times

that I should use my talent for quiet,

for acceptance—

let my best friend have her moment

to flounce her pleated skirt and walk away.

“He your boyfriend?”

are Cal’s first words to me in the library.

“Who?” I reply dumbly as if I don’t know,

buying time to think of the answer I don’t have.

“That Dave fella.”

His gaze is clear, his lips set straight.

He is holding a spiral-bound notebook in his right hand.

A pencil is tucked behind his ear.

“I don’t know. You wanna get started on some history?”

I walk toward the row of private study rooms at the back

of the library.

Cal follows me.

Cal sets biographies

of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass,

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
,

and half a dozen other books

on the study room table.

I look at the names, the titles on the covers,

all familiar to me, people and stories

about which I have been taught since grade school,

but books I have never read.

“Have you read all these?”

“Some. Others, just pages here and there.

I am wonderin’ if we should try writin’ about a lad

or a lass,

someone stuck on a Southern plantation

or someone who’s made it on that Railroad to freedom.”

There’s something about the way his voice breaks

on that word,
freedom
,

that makes me look up from
When I Was a Slave

with its frightening cover illustration of a bleak-faced family standing before an endless field of cotton.

I picture Cal, alone, on an airplane from Ireland;

imagine slave children being sold from their parents, shipped away to other plantations,

to strange, unfamiliar worlds.

When I look back down, the faces on the book’s cover

have all turned to Steven’s.

“Let’s make it a boy.”

My voice struggles for its don’t-pity-me tone;

my lips tighten

as if I’m about to buzz a high C on my trumpet.

Even after I’m able to swallow,

my eyes feel embarrassingly wet.

“And let’s make him . . . free.”

“Right then,” Cal replies softly.

He sits down in one of the wooden chairs.

I sit down, too.

The dusty library air is electric with secrets

almost palpable in the thick quiet that bounces between

Cal and those books and me.