Open Mic (4 page)

“Oh. That was really good,” she said.

“Thanks. I’m gonna assume your act is not, then, since you won’t do it.” I cocked an eyebrow at her. A dare.

“I don’t have to take that from a Jew,” she said. Her face was deadpan, her voice neutral, but her eyes were sparkling. A challenge.

“Whatever, slanty-eyes,” I answered in an equally serious tone. “Go back to the rice paddy.” I mentally winced in preparation for if it didn’t go over well, but —

She burst out laughing, a sound like a bell, much more delicate than the tone of her regular speaking voice. I started laughing, too, and then the door opened. “Gretchen?”

Gretchen’s face froze. She made a noise that was probably meant to be “yes” but came out more like a squeak, then got up and went inside. The door closed, and for the next five minutes, all I heard was excruciating silence. No applause. No talking. Certainly no laughter. She was either whispering her entire routine and they were whispering their appreciation, or she was bombing.

Bombing
big-time.

I was suddenly very, very nervous again.

Another long, excruciating, silent minute as I stared at the wall clock, clinging tensely to my violin, silently fingering arpeggios up and down, up and down, up and down. Finally, the door opened and she came out.

“That went well,”
she said with an exaggerated gesture of both arms. It took me a second to realize that not only was she being sarcastic; she was also being sarcastic
about
being sarcastic, overemphasizing the fact that she was using a cliché. It took me another second to realize that I totally did not have time to analyze the layers of somebody else’s behavior right now. Because I was next.

My heart pounded. My hands shook.

“Do you wanna go out with me sometime?” I blurted.

Gretchen laughed. The bell sound again. The first laughter I’d heard in almost ten minutes. “Ha, thanks,” she said. “Okay, I feel marginally better.” Then she saw my face. “Oh. You’re serious.”

“Yeah,” I said. My voice caught in my throat halfway through, turning the end of the word into a weird gurgle. Great.

No laughs now, just a smile.

“No,” she said.

“Oh.” I looked down at my violin.

“I don’t want to be the girl who just, like, totally screwed up her thing and feels all bad about it, so then has to get a self-esteem pick-me-up from some guy asking her out, if that makes any sense?”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay. I understand.” I didn’t understand. I didn’t see how the two things were even related, but it didn’t seem like pointing any of that out was going to endear me to her.

“Nice seeing you again, though!” She flashed me a grin and was out the door.

Dammit.

They called my name. I picked up my violin and went inside.

It was as silent during my performance as it had been during Gretchen’s. I was once again very, very nervous. Sweaty hands. Shaking fingers. I didn’t drop anything, but let’s just say the number of times I messed up the first few phrases and asked to start over was more than zero. (It was six.)

But when I came out, Gretchen was back. Sitting there. Perched in the same chair she’d been in before.

“Okay,” she said. “I changed my mind. Yes.”

“What?” I asked, still shell-shocked from how truly badly I’d just screwed up. An hour of practice every day for the past month, and yet . . .

“Yes, I’ll go out with you sometime,” she said. “Uh . . . unless . . . you changed your mind. In which case forget it, forget I said anything —” She got up, blushing a little, and started heading for the door.

“What? No! No, I mean yes — I mean no, I didn’t change my mind,” I said, following her. “Uh . . . why did you change yours?”

“I can’t tell you that,” she said. “Asians are supposed to be inscrutable, remember?”

“I don’t remember,” I said. “I don’t know what ‘inscrutable’ means.”

That made her smile.

And I was so pumped up, I dropped my bow, which hit the floor and broke.

And Gretchen, that tiny, cute monster, that impressively slow walker, that possibly-bad-but-possibly-just-nervous-would-be-talent-show-stand-up, laughed and picked it up for me.

1. We later found out it was a yoga retreat in the Bahamas called, for some reason, Agony & Ecstasy. It may not have been a yoga retreat. (
back
)

2. Because the alternative, which was what happened last year, is for my hands to get so sweaty that my bow slips right out of my fingers and breaks. My old bow cost six hundred dollars, so you can imagine how happy my parents were. My new one cost seventy-five on craigslist, and I had to drive all the way across town to pick it up, at some dude’s garage that appeared to be housing a ferret-breeding facility, so you can imagine how happy I was. (
back
)

3. Assuming no grievous injuries occurred. I, despite what Katie Finkelstein would tell you about a certain second-grade field trip to a working dairy farm, am not a monster. I had nothing to do with that cow kicking her in the head, although I did laugh; again, this was only because it was clear that she wasn’t injured. Just hilariously humiliated. (Fine, seven-year-old me was sort of a monster. I’ve mellowed with age.) (
back
)

4. My style has actually been described by my teacher at various times as “staid,” “stoic,” “zombie-like,” and “Did you take a Vicodin or something?” (
back
)

When I was little, my great-aunt Ma Tante used to feed me breakfast. That was when she had a straight back — so long ago, I wasn’t wearing glasses yet, if you can imagine. I must have been about three. My parents were at work, my big sister at school, so it was just Ma Tante and me.

As she dipped my bread in coffee, I got distracted by tiny particles floating in the beam of light entering the window above the kitchen sink. Ma Tante, ever vigilant of my feelings, asked what I was staring at. The peanut-butter-lathered bread I had been chewing stalled in the crook of my cheek. I pointed to the snowfall of particles. It seemed like the most magical thing I’d ever seen.

Ma Tante smiled. “Magical,
non
?” she asked, echoing my thoughts. “Things are always floating around us. But just like that sunbeam, it takes the light in our hearts to see magic that is invisible to most people.”

From then on, wherever I went, I searched for magic around me.

“Voilà,”
Ma Tante would say to alert me to the tiny, everyday miracles in progress.

It was our secret.

I liked it better back when Tara and Tina were ignorant. Ever since the earthquake, this office’s two medical assistants (or, as Ma Tante playfully refers to them, “the lookalikes”) think they know everything about me. It’s only been five minutes since my sister, Anne, dropped us off here, yet I’m already annoyed.

A sympathetic expression stretches the corners of Tara’s eyes as she waits for my reply. She’s taller and older than her sister.

“Yup — I’m fourteen now.” I nod, squeezing the last bit of polite from my reserves. “And yes —
both
my parents are from Haiti.”

“Oh, you see, TiTi?” Tara nudges her sister with the back of her hand. “I told you!”

I shrug. People have assumed this before — that I’m only half Haitian. Or at least, those who can’t understand how a person with longer hair or lighter skin could come from Haiti.

My great-aunt is positioning her metal cane below her seat as she settles into her chair, getting acquainted with its contours in preparation for the long wait before her name is finally called. The doctor’s office is filling up quickly. Over the past few years, as Ma Tante’s painfully curved back has pulled her closer to the earth, the matching-scrub sisters started jumping her nearer to the top of the waiting list. But it’s still going to take time. Lots of it.

“Go sit down, baby,” Tara says, taking pity on me. “We’ll call your auntie’s name when the doctor is ready.”

I harrumph to myself on my way to the empty seat next to Ma Tante.
When the doctor is ready.
I could bet any money he isn’t even in. It never fails — halfway through our wait, the top of the good doctor’s ample-sized dome can be seen bobbing past the driveway-facing window. He thinks he’s sneaking in, but his conspicuously big head always gives him away.

Maybe it’s because he serves the elderly. Or perhaps he’s really Superman in disguise and there’s always one too many emergencies going on at the local hospital. Whatever his story, Dr. Bighead’s rarely in his office. Patients crowd the first floor of the converted old-time mansion that’s rotting in the East Ward of our fair city. Waiting.

The one TV hanging precariously high in the corner is the waiting room’s only timekeeper. Each program’s theme song chimes the passing of yet another thirty minutes. From daytime talk shows to the evening news, they wait.

“Judge Judy’s on,” the large woman spread out over two chairs mutters to no one in particular. “Been here since
Good Morning America.
”

Ma Tante’s done her share of waiting. She’s been their patient — right word for sure — for over a decade. Some of my cousins are physicians, and I’ve heard them asking Ma Tante (on more than one occasion) to switch doctors. The old lady’s too loyal to Dr. Bighead. She thinks he can do no wrong. But from where I sit, all he does is prescribe her more and more horse pills. And make her wait hours to be seen. Ma Tante doesn’t speak English, so one of us waits with her. That is, until my older sister, Anne, learned to drive. The past few times, we’ve dropped Ma Tante off and popped in five hours later in time to translate her consultation. Not today, though. Anne dropped us
both
off, promising to be back minutes after we call her. I couldn’t go home with her today because she said she had to go straight to a meeting.
Yeah, right.
Must be a really cute “study group” this time.

“Sal’ di?”
Ma Tante asks in Creole when I reach her. She wants to know what all the discussion with the lookalikes was about.

“Rien,”
I respond respectfully — i.e., in French — as I was raised to do when addressing an adult. I protect Ma Tante from the truth. It would hurt her to find out that, after all these years, the lookalikes have no clue that she is Haitian. Besides, Ma Tante thinks everyone adores her. And what’s not to love? Most folks see this charming old lady with a peaceful gaze and a curved back and they have to restrain themselves from crouching down to hug her.

Ma Tante likes to flash her toothy smile and give away the only English offerings in her cherished possession. “Tank hyu,” she answers, no matter what people say. Plus, Ma Tante treats Dr. Bighead’s office like a nightclub. She dresses to the nines for her monthly appointments. Besides church, it’s the only time she gets to go out these days. Today her flowery peach dress matches her hat, and she pulls an ornately embroidered handkerchief from her clutch purse.

“The lookalikes probably wanted to know where I’ve been,” she says proudly, patting her forehead with the hankie. “They haven’t seen me in a while.”

“
Everybody
misses you when you’re not around,” I say.

She knows I’m teasing. “That’s because they like how they feel about themselves when they see me,” she says with that wisecracking tone in her voice.

“Vraiment?”
I ask, a bit surprised that she’s in the mood to talk. Ma Tante’s obviously glad for my company — which makes me feel bad about sulking. Usually in public, she likes to keep the appearance of being a quiet, sweet old lady — not the hilarious, observant woman I enjoy being around. “Really? And why’s that?”

“One look at my wrinkles, and they’re excited they’re not as shriveled up as me.”

We tumble into a silent giggle. Me, shaking my head no and Ma Tante gesturing
oui.
But as messed up as it sounds, Ma Tante’s probably right. Most people don’t recognize the gems in front of them. And to me, Ma Tante is the most precious kind.

“That’s not true, Ma Tante,” I say, and rub her forearm, enjoying the easy movement of her loose chocolate skin. “You’re a beautiful queen.”

“Aaah, Simone.” Ma Tante sings out my name in a delight that reveals she knew what I was thinking.

“Aaay, Simone?” This time my name rings out from a deeper voice. “Simone Thibodeaux?”

The first thing that catches my eye is his T-shirt. It’s blue like his jeans, but with bright-orange letters that grab me. It reads
CARE-A-VAN
and under that,
Transporting Seniors to Caregivers.
The brain works superhero-fast. Quicker than an eye blink, I recognize the name of the volunteer group kids at my school sign up for in a frenzy to reach their monthly community service quota. Another millisecond later, my eyes dart up to the shirt wearer’s face. What’s Louis Milton doing way over in
this
part of town? He’s from the West Ward.

“You’re a volunteer here, too?” he asks.

“Um, no,” I mutter, suddenly self-conscious. I clutch my phone. Why did Anne have to dump me here
today
?

“Oh,” he says, and I can see he understands.
You’re from the East Ward.
Before I can busy myself with a fake text, he continues. “Nice running into you, though.”