Lemonade Mouth (25 page)

Late that afternoon the five of us are assembled on the front steps of Mrs. Reznik’s duplex apartment. Her address was easy to look up because she lives right in town. In my arms is a big plastic container of chicken soup we made ourselves at Olivia’s. Stella knocks.

We wait for a long time. Nobody answers. Stella tries again.

Olivia eventually shrugs. “Maybe she’s not home.”

More time passes and still nobody comes. And it’s only then that it occurs to me how our idea of surprising Mrs. Reznik might have been a mistake. Maybe we should have called first. And then disturbing questions start to form in my head. When was the last time anybody actually heard from her? What if Mrs. Reznik is lying dead on the floor in there?

Wen shifts his weight from one foot to another. “Should we knock one last time or just give up?”

But that’s when we finally hear something. Somebody shuffling. A throat clearing. “Hello? Is someone there?”

I’m so relieved to hear that familiar cough. “It’s us, Mrs. Reznik. Lemonade Mouth. We heard you’re sick so we made you some chicken soup.”

After a pause, I hear the lock unlatch and then the door opens, but only as far as the inside chain allows. Mrs. Reznik’s eye and nose appear in the crack. “Oh, it
is
you,” she says, her voice raspy. There’s an uncomfortable moment where everybody’s just standing there not saying anything. It’s hard to tell if she’s happy to see us or if she wishes we’d leave her alone.

“We don’t mean to disturb you,” says Olivia. “You’re probably feeling too sick for company. We can just leave the soup and go.”

“No, no. I’m a little better today. Let me undo the chain.” The door closes and then after a brief moment it opens again, this time wide.

And what I see nearly makes me drop the soup.

It’s Mrs. Reznik all right, but not like I’d ever seen her. And it isn’t just that she’s wearing a bathrobe and slippers. What catches my attention the most is her head. Her elaborate brown wig is gone. Her real hair, I now see, begins startlingly high on her forehead, and is short, wispy and gray.

I think she senses that we’re all staring because she seems to straighten her back and hold her head higher, like she’s determined to maintain her dignity.

“Are you sure this is all right?” I ask, absolutely mortified now.

But Mrs. Reznik remains composed. “Yes, please come in,” she says calmly. “Just give me a few seconds to make myself presentable. I’ll be right with you.”

After that she disappears through a doorway while we wander inside. The apartment is small and smells of cigarettes. I find a little, tidy kitchen and leave the soup on the counter. Embarrassed, everyone drifts into the living room. It’s modest but cheerfully and neatly decorated. There’s an armchair, a sofa, a TV and lots of pictures, most of them photographs of people I don’t recognize. There’s a button pinned to one of the lampshades that says, “I’m Pro-Accordion, and I Vote!”

Nobody looks comfortable, but we’re here now so what can we do?

“Check this out,” whispers Charlie, nodding his head toward an enormous bookshelf that completely covers one wall. It’s filled top to bottom with CD’s and old vinyl LPs. I scan the titles. Lots of classical, but an impressive mix of other stuff too. Amy Beach, John Cage, Patsy Cline, Tommy Dorsey, Ella Fitzgerald, The Gypsy Kings, Gary Karr, Edgar Meyer, Leontyne Price, Jonathan Richman, Michelle Shocked and even a whole row devoted just to the Beatles. Everything’s in alphabetical order.

“I’m sorry I don’t have much to offer you,” Mrs. Reznik says, finally joining us after what seems like forever. “Would you like something to drink? Tea?” She has her wig on now so she looks more like how we’re used to seeing her. Instead of the robe, she’s now wearing penny loafers, slacks and a silk blouse with a scarf. There’s even a little makeup around her eyes.

“You’re not supposed to offer us anything,” I say. “You’re sick.”

She waves her hand dismissively. “Oh, I’ll live. It’s just a really bad cold. Honestly, I’m practically over it.”

She takes a seat. In the oversized, winged armchair she looks tiny. She gestures for us to sit. Wen and I settle on the rug. Charlie, Stella and Olivia take the sofa.

The conversation starts out pretty stiff. Even though she was the one who brought us together, none of us really knows her very well—even me, after all the individual lessons. She isn’t an especially easy person to get close to. She thanks us for the soup. We talk a little about how we were about to play our third Bruno’s show. Soon, though, we sort of run out of things to say. Mrs. Reznik’s hands stay rigid in her lap. She seems unsettled at having company and I wonder if we’re the first visitors she’s had in a long time. After a silence that seems to last forever, she reaches for a pack of cigarettes on the little table beside her. She puts one in her mouth, lights it and takes a deep drag.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Olivia says. “And I know it’s none of my business, but did you ever think of quitting smoking?”

I’m surprised and even a little embarrassed that Olivia actually said this, but Mrs. Reznik seems to take the question in stride. “My doctor keeps telling me to,” she says, slowly exhaling a giant fog of smoke. “But I tell him that when I die I want to be buried with my lighter in my hand and a menthol ultramild in my mouth.”

She says it so seriously that at first I don’t realize she’s kidding. But then a wry smile appears on her wrinkled face. Wen starts laughing and she does too, and I realize it was just a joke, her way of telling us that, for better or worse, she’s comfortable with who she is and doesn’t plan to change. On the one hand it’s kind of sad because I think smoking is such a nasty habit, but on the other hand, who am I to make another person’s decisions for them?

Pretty soon everyone else is laughing too and I have to admit, it
is
pretty funny.

After that, we all seem to relax a little. We end up drinking tea after all (I make it) and gabbing about a lot of things: the school, how crazy it is that they keep playing “Skinny Nancy” on the radio, Mrs. Reznik’s life growing up in Philadelphia, her time in the Newport Philharmonic. I ask her about a black-and-white shot on the mantel where she’s sitting at a table full of handsome looking people in fancy dresses and tuxedos. Turns out, one of them was Prince Albert of Monaco. I’m amazed. I try to imagine what it must feel like to be in the company of royalty.

“Oh, don’t be too impressed with titles,” she says. “Still, though, you don’t eat with a prince every day.”

Wen asks about a serious-faced young woman who appears in several of the photographs.

“That’s Gina, my daughter. She lives down in Florida.”

“Do you see her often?”

“Once or twice a year, depending.”

Funny, I had no idea she even
had
a daughter.

As usual, even as the rest of us are chatting and laughing, Olivia doesn’t say much. But I notice that she seems to spend more time watching Stella, Charlie, Wen and me than she does watching Mrs. Reznik. I wonder what’s going on in her head, but I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that Olivia will forever remain a mystery.

My eyes are drawn again to the picture on the mantel, the one with Mrs. Reznik and Prince Albert, and I wonder once more about being in the presence of royalty. But then I turn back to see the current Mrs. Reznik, older and even more dignified, listening with an amused smile as Stella tells a funny story. She really is an impressive person—accomplished, kind, oddly charming, uncompromising in her views but generous with her time. In her giant winged chair, she even looks like she’s holding court.

And suddenly I no longer wonder what it would feel like to be in the presence of royalty. Because I realize I already am.

CHARLIE:
Upside-Down Universe

A lot of surprising things were happening around that time it seemed like my whole life was turned on its head and everything suddenly felt like it was moving incredibly fast.

After WRIZ began to play our songs in their regular rotation even more people started showing up to see us at Bruno’s. After only 3 packed shows Bruno agreed to let us play on a weekend.

I was actually feeling ambition for the 1st time ever. Even offstage. I watched a lot less TV and started working harder at school. So my grades improved. Which got my Mother off my back. I even began paying attention to how I looked in the morning I picked out a clean shirt every day and combed my hair. OK so I still didn’t have Mo, the 1 girl I thought about all the time, but at least there were a bunch of other girls talking to me now. And sure, without Lemonade Mouth most of them would never have looked at me twice but who was I to complain?

The biggest bombshell came when I found out that Naomi’s campaign to sign us up for Catch A RI-Zing Star actually worked. Another band on the original list had to drop out so WRIZ called us only 2 weeks before they were supposed to tape the Show. The news that we got a spot took a lot of people by surprise. Especially Ray Beech and Dean Eagler. Mudslide Crush had been trying for years but had never been selected. Of course most of that crowd had been badmouthing us for a long time but now it got even worse. The day after we found out about the Competition, Ray and Dean and their friends showed up to school in handmade T-shirts that said stupid stuff like

LEMONADE MOUTH KILLED MY PUPPY
or
GOT LEMONADE MOUTH? USE MOUTHWASH!

“What’s the matter with everybody?” I overheard Ray grumbling to Scott Pickett. “They act like those freshmen are God’s Gift to Losers or something what a scam! Damn freaks are just too stupid to see through it.”

But it didn’t really bother me. By now the fact that our success bugged those guys so much was beginning to feel kind of like a compliment.

It was all an incredible rush.

And even though I knew we were a long shot at best I still couldn’t help thinking about what might happen if we actually won Catch A RI-Zing Star. Look at Desirée Crane. OK sure she was pretty much a 1-hit wonder but “Call a Doctor, I Bin Infected (by Your Love)” had been all over the radio for a whole summer. And this was the Competition that started it all.

After our 4th Bruno’s show I was breaking down my set when I sensed somebody walk up behind me. “Not bad Charlie.” A guy’s voice. “You really know how to play.” I turned and almost fell over when I saw who it was.

Scott Pickett.

I wasn’t sure if he was serious or if this was just an opening line before some kind of slam. But I said “Thanks.”

“I’m happy for you.” With his thumb he gestured over his shoulder to the big crowd that’d come to see us. “This whole Lemonade Mouth thing. Mo told me you guys were pretty good. I didn’t believe her at 1st but she was right. I’m a fan.”

I think my jaw might of hit the floor. For a few seconds we stayed frozen with me crouched on the ground and him just standing there looking uncomfortable until he finally said “See you ’round” and walked away. I felt completely weirded-out.

But then I had a thought. What if this was just him trying to inch closer to Mo? I’d seen the hangdog face he had whenever she was nearby. Maybe he figured that if he sucked up to me then I would tell her what a great guy he was and eventually it’d help him get her back?

But maybe that was too cynical. Something Aaron would come up with.

In any case, Scott acting friendly to me at
all
was weird. But like I said there were a lot of surprising things going on around that time.