A Crooked Kind of Perfect (6 page)

I would play the piano if I had only one hand.

If it was the right hand.

Not the left hand, though.

I can't play with my left hand.

I would have to practice all the time if I only had my left hand.

All the time.

Which, if I was a prodigy, I wouldn't have to do because I would be so talented that all I would do is read the music once and then I would sit down and play and it would be perfect. Even the left-handed parts. Perfect.

Which I can't.

Which is why I'm quitting.

Which is what I am going to tell my dad.

If Wheeler ever leaves.

Wheeler stays for dinner.

Then he stays to do his math homework. We're learning units of measurement. How many ounces go into two and a half cups? How many ounces go into three pints?

"Easy," says Wheeler.

He scribbles the answers in his notebook. Twenty ounces. Forty-eight ounces. He doesn't even look at the measurement chart.

"Bakers know these things," he says.

I don't know these things. I know how many mistakes I can make in a single bar of music (fourteen). I know how many times I want to play "Forever in Blue Jeans" again (zero). I know how much I want Wheeler Diggs to go home (infinity).

"Wheeler, it's seven o'clock," says Dad.

Wheeler shoves his notebook into his backpack. "Thanks for helping with science," he says.

"No problem," says Dad. "See you tomorrow."

"See ya," says Wheeler. "See ya, Zsa Zsa."

I stare at my measurement chart. "Sixteen ounces in a pint," I say. Wheeler turns and shuffles down the
hall. The front door clatters shut. "Thirty-two ounces in a quart. Four quarts in a gallon. Nine gallons in a firkin."

Dad flips a dish towel onto his shoulder and sits down next to me. "What's a firkin?" he says.

"I thought bakers knew these things," I say.

"I'm still workin' on firkins," says Dad. He bumps my shoulder with his. I'm supposed to bump him back, but I don't.

The only sound in the room is the scrape of my pencil.
16 gallons,
I write.
23 quarts.
Finally, Dad pushes himself up from the table.

"How come Wheeler's own dad doesn't help him with his science homework?" I say.

Dad sits back down. "You know Wheeler's parents are divorced, right? Well, Wheeler lives with his dad and his dad works late."

"Why doesn't he help him when he gets home?" I say.

Dad runs his palm along the tabletop. "Have you ever met Wheeler's dad, honey?"

I shake my head.

"Me neither. I asked Wheeler to describe him once. Wheeler said he had a racing stripe—a long line of suntan down his left side from driving so much with the window open."

I laugh, picturing a grown-up Wheeler-looking person with a half-tanned face.

"Seems Wheeler's dad just isn't happy unless he's in motion. If he's not working, he's jogging or mowing the lawn or going out for long drives in his pickup. He's as uncomfortable caged up in his house as—"

"As you are outside of ours?" I ask.

Dad chuckles. "Guess John Diggs needs to feel the wind in his hair as much as I need to feel this linoleum under my feet."

"What about what Wheeler needs?" I ask.

Dad pats the table a couple of times. He looks at me like he does when he's helping with my homework. Patient. Waiting for me to figure things out for myself.

"Wheeler needs to be here?" I ask, but even as I do, I know the answer.

"And what about you?" asks Dad. "What do you need?"

All this time I've been waiting to tell my dad that I'm quitting, but now that he 's ready to listen, I'm not ready to say it.

"I need to know how many gallons are in two and a half firkins," I say.

Dad pulls his chair tight up to mine. "Let's figure it out."

Thursday, I don't play the organ.

Friday, I don't play the organ.

Saturday, I don't play the organ.

Saturday night, me and Mom and Dad are watching TV. During a commercial Dad asks, "How come you're not playing the organ?"

I just shrug my shoulders and then that show about the guy who's this crazy neat-freak detective comes on and Dad starts watching TV again.

But Mom is watching me.

I don't look at her, but I know she is watching me.

I should tell them I'm quitting.

I should.

But I don't.

I just watch the detective on TV get all weirded out about being in a crowded elevator. I watch and Dad watches and eventually Mom stops watching me and goes back to watching TV.

I will tell them I'm quitting tomorrow.

Dad is out of eggs. Usually we have stuff delivered by GiddyUpGrocer! but it is Sunday and our GiddyUpGrocer! order won't come until Tuesday and Dad is in a popover crisis. You can't make popovers without eggs.

"I'll get some," says Mom. She gives Dad a wink, then turns to me. "You want to come with?"

Mom never asks me. It's faster just to go out by yourself and dash into the market without dragging somebody else along who might start begging for a bag of Better Made potato chips. Which I wouldn't do, because today is the day I am going to tell everybody that I am quitting, and thinking about telling everybody that I am quitting is making my stomach all twisty and I couldn't eat anything, anyway.

Soon as we're in the car, Mom flips on the radio. WCLS. There's this show on that I've never heard before, with all these teenagers playing classical music. There 's a studio audience and every time one of the teenagers finishes playing, the audience hoots and claps and the host has to beg them to settle down so he can do his interview.

"So, Daniel, how long have you been playing the cello?" he asks and Daniel Cello-player says, "Since I was a kid," and this makes the audience laugh. Mom laughs, too.

"You stay in the car, okay?" says Mom. "I'll get the eggs and be right out." She turns off the car, but leaves the key in the ignition so the radio keeps playing.

Daniel Cello-player is talking about how he started playing the cello when he was five. "But I didn't get good at it until I was eight. Before that I didn't practice much."

"And how much do you practice now?" asks the host.

"It depends on how much homework I have," says Daniel, and the audience laughs again. I don't get what's so funny.

"Probably I practice about two or three hours a day," he says. "Plus I'm in orchestra at school, so that's another hour."

Four hours a day.

"And this piece that you played today, the Bach Cello Suite no. 3, how long have you been working on that?"

"That's a competition piece. I started working on it in the fall. I still mess it up sometimes." The audience laughs again. "This part still trips me up," he says, and
then he plays for a minute or two. I don't hear any tripping.

The audience doesn't, either, and they hoot and clap some more.

Then the host asks Daniel if he has a girlfriend, which seems kind of nosy to me, but Daniel doesn't mind.

"I do. Her name is Kelly," he says.

"And does it bother Kelly that you spend so much time practicing when you could be going to the movies with her?"

Mom opens the car door and slides in, setting the bag of groceries at my feet, just as Daniel is saying that Kelly understands that when you love something as much as he loves the cello, you make sacrifices. Besides, Kelly plays the oboe and practices more than he does. This makes the audience laugh again, and then Daniel starts in on another number.

"Beautiful," says Mom. "He makes it sound so easy, doesn't he?"

He does. It sounds like the notes are lifting themselves off the cello strings. It's hard to believe that a teenager with homework and a girlfriend is making that sound. Who knew you'd have to work four hours a day to make something sound so easy?

"What do you say we drive around for a couple of minutes, so we can hear the rest?" Mom asks. "The popovers can wait."

I nod, and as we turn a corner, the grocery sack tips over and a bag of Better Made potato chips slides out.

"Crunch quietly," Mom says.

I'm not quitting.

Instead, I will practice four hours a day. I will get up early and practice. I will come straight home from school and practice. I will stay up late and practice.

At the Perform-O-Rama, I will play and people will hoot and applaud and stomp their feet until the judges tell them to settle down.

And after I perform, radio people will show up to interview me and ask how much I practice and how I got to be so good in such a short time and if I have a boyfriend. And I will give them witty answers and they will ask me to play "Forever in Blue Jeans" one more time and I will.

And sometime, weeks later, my mom will be driving along listening to WCLS and they'll play my interview and she will drive right past work so she can keep listening to me.

1. Get up.

2. Eat breakfast.

3. Go to school.

4. Do school stuff.

5. Come home from school.

6. Practice "Forever in Blue Jeans."

7. Eat dinner.

8. Do homework.

9. Practice "Forever in Blue Jeans."

10. Go to bed.

11. Repeat and repeat and repeat.

Even though Mom is home, Wheeler is staying for spaghetti, so I set an extra place at the dinner table.

"Was that your Perform-A-Palooza piece you were playing when I came in?" Mom asks.

"Perform-O-Rama," I say. "Uh-huh."

"And when's the Perform-O-Rama?"

"In two weeks," I say. "The day after my birthday. You are still taking me, right?"

Mom nods, filling in the calendar she keeps in her head. I wonder if she's adding my birthday to the calendar, too, or if it was already there alongside her meetings and deadlines and presentations.

Then she looks at Wheeler. "And you're the kid who eats my dinner when I'm not here?"

Wheeler nods.

"I couldn't let him leave," says Dad. "He's co-creator of the Amazing Maple Tart, debuting tonight at Chez Us."

"Debuting?" Mom asks. "Half of it is already eaten."

"We gave some to Hugh," says Wheeler.

"And we had to test it," says Dad.

The Amazing Maple Tart is amazing. I catch Mom sneaking a taste.

"This is good," she says. "I may have to double your Living Room University budget if this is the return we get on our investment."

Dad grins.

"You know," says Wheeler, "we should sell this."

"There 's only half left, Wheeler," says Dad. "And it's lopsided. Who's going to buy half of a tart?"

"I mean whole ones," says Wheeler. "We can bake them and sell them to restaurants and grocery stores." Wheeler waves a fork in the air. "Oh! And to the snack bar at Danny's Chomp and Bowl! Bowlers will pay big bucks for something that tastes like food. And we can get our own delivery van with our company name painted on the side—maybe Tarts 'R' Us or Kings of Tarts or something—and we'll be so famous that little kids will see our van and come running out of their houses like we 're in the ice cream truck and we can sell them slices for a quarter and if they don't have a quarter we can sometimes just give them a slice because we'll be millionaires."

I've never seen Wheeler like this before, all sparkly-eyed and grinning.

"Listen to him!" Mom laughs. "All worked up about a crazy dream."

"What 's so crazy about it?" I say, and then, of course, I know.

Wheeler's just a kid. He can't drive all over Eastside. He can't sell things to strangers. He can't talk tarts with restaurant owners and snack bar people.

And neither can my dad.

The Fireside Scouts' month of cookie selling is up and there are empty seats in the lunchroom again, but when I go to sit in one, Wheeler Diggs calls me to his table.

"Sit here, Zsa Zsa," he says.

And I do. I sit there and then Colton and Henry and Danny start asking if I brought any cookies and I tell them no, but I've got a shoe box full of mini éclairs.

"What are those?" says Wheeler.

What are those? Wheeler is asking what are those?
He should know; he made them,
I think, and when I start to tell him so, I see this look in his eyes. This please-don't-tell-these-guys-I-wear-an-apron-at-your-house-every-afternoon look.

So instead I open the shoe box and let everybody find out about éclairs for themselves. Which they do.

"Thank you," says Colton. He says it all polite and with a little smile. And he 's wearing a new shirt. And his hair is combed. Did I miss something? Is it picture day?

No, everybody else is wearing the same scraggedy clothes they always do.

"Yeah," says Henry. Then he swallows a big gulp of air so he can burp out a proper thank-you for me.

"And Earth's temperature rises five degrees," says Wheeler.

"Huh?" says Henry.

"Didn't you read your science book, slob?" asks Wheeler. We're studying global warming. Our science book says that cows burp methane gas and scientists think that's making a gas blanket around the world and heating everything up. Which is what Wheeler tells Henry.

"You're saying I burp like a cow?" says Henry.

"Yeah," says Wheeler.

"Cool."

"I thought it was cow farts," says Danny.

"Book says burps," says Wheeler.

"Termite farts are worse than cow farts or burps," I say. I learned it when my dad was taking Bugs to Bucks. There's this whole chapter of fascinating facts about bugs and why you should kill them. Termites chew on houses, but they don't digest them very well, so they're always farting up wood chip gas and releasing even more methane than cows do.

"Is that in the book?" asks Danny, who is suddenly interested in science.

"No," I say.

"Then how do you know?"

I don't want to tell them about Bugs to Bucks. Because then they'll ask if my dad kills bugs for a living and I'll say no and they'll say what does he do and I'll have to tell them that he stays in our house all day earning degrees that he'll never use.

"Because she's smart, fool," says Wheeler. "She hasn't damaged her brain sitting around inhaling her own fumes." Thank you, Wheeler.