Set Me Free (7 page)

Amelia had been home about ten minutes when Lydia pulled up in her enormous brown Chevrolet and stood outside the house, demanding
that Amelia get in the godforsaken car already or else Lydia would die of boredom right then and there. Amelia had known it
would be a matter of minutes before her best friend arrived. They had been friends so long, they couldn’t remember their lives
without the other.

But Amelia knew that the trickiest thing about having an old friend who’s a best friend is that she’ll
have
to know everything—it’s one of the benefits—and the only even remotely possible way to lie to her face is to race through
your true story, fast, leaving out those parts of the truth that are inconvenient or weird. When your best friend squints
at you and cocks her head and looks dubious, you can just blame your awkwardness or embarrassment or squeamishness on something
that makes both of you laugh. Amelia had
been gone for five weeks and now she would have to look Lydia in the eye and confess some true things and delete others, all
the while remembering every last thing she said. Lydia had a mind like a steel trap.

They went and got Mexican.

“So apparently, you didn’t get your license yet. What did you do in the big city? Take the bus everywhere or hire a chauffeur?
Or was that hottie taking you around?” The girls were settled in a booth, and Lydia had the advantage. Light from the street
shone into Amelia’s face, and Lydia’s shadowed expression was hard to see.

Amelia grinned. “Shut up. I’ll get my license by Christmas, I swear. And there wasn’t much ‘getting around’ in Portland anyway.”
Amelia ran an imaginary bow over the strings of an air violin.

“Yeah, right. Looks like I’m going to be chauffeuring you well into our eighties.” Lydia took a sip of water from the plastic
glass. “So we’ve done the small-talk shit. Now tell me everything about the guy. His name’s Wes. Right?”

Amelia extricated the menu from its habitual place behind the napkin holder and salsa installation.“Do you want to split some
nachos?”

“Don’t tell me you officially got some action!” said Lydia, hitting Amelia’s arm across the tabletop.“Lookin’ good, lookin’
good! Sooo?”

“No, seriously, do you want to split some nachos?” Amelia couldn’t help but smile.

“Oh, you are such a bitch.” Lydia lifted her head and announced to the crowded restaurant: “My little baby girl’s all grown
up! Someone touched her titties—”

“Shut up!” Amelia hissed, blushing.

Lydia put one hand on her hip. “Spill it.”

That was the moment Inez came to take their order. “Good to see you again, Amelia. Your poor father’s been eating here breakfast,
lunch, and dinner. Missed your company, that man.”

“He’s the one who sent her away,” said Lydia. “Exiled to Portland, poor thing. While the rest of us live like kings.”

“I’ll have the chicken taco,” said Amelia. “Spicy. And nachos. And a lemonade.”

“And for me”—Lydia scanned the menu as if she hadn’t read it a billion times before—“let’s see, a burrito, I guess. A vegetarian
burrito. And a Coke. And Inez?”

“Yes?”

“Congratulate our little Amelia. She’s becoming a woman.” Lydia sighed blissfully as Inez rolled her eyes and left to take
the next booth’s order. Lydia smiled smugly at Amelia. “They grow up so fast.”

“Vegetarian, huh?” Amelia asked. She wasn’t going to take the bait. “What happened to your love of raw meat?”

“Don’t get me wrong; I still love it theoretically. But my goddamn brother got a grill for his birthday, and he’s been serving
us ‘the perfect steak’ for, like, weeks on end. The thought of cow almost turns my stomach these days. But don’t think I forgot
about Wes. Spill it, bitch. I want to know everything.”

The time to lie had arrived. All the way back in the car with her father, Amelia had feigned sleep and schemed about what
she would say to Lydia. The story Lydia would want to hear was called “My Life with Wes.” But the complete story made Amelia
feel so nauseated—so ashamed—there was no possible way to put it into words, even if she’d wanted to. She also knew that to
talk about Wes was to talk about music, the topic of which always pushed Lydia away. A rapturous exposition on the musical
dimensions of duets with Wes would get Lydia off her back immediately.

Once upon a time, Amelia and Lydia tried to have music in common. When Lydia was six and wanted to play the violin just like
Amelia, Elliot had made it possible. He’d gone to Portland and bought a half-size violin, and taught the girls together on
Saturday afternoons. He smiled proudly as they sawed their way through basic duets. As far as he was concerned, the girls
were great. But Amelia and Lydia understood reality: Amelia was good, really good, and Lydia was, well, scratchy. She could
sing the notes with her voice but couldn’t quite draw them out of her instrument. Her
stubbornness kept her going until she was ten, but that was that. Basketball took over. It was fine that the girls had different
skills, but on raw days, they both felt the dangerous pull of music’s symbolism, of the things that everyone who looked at
them saw but no one dared mention: the big happy, scrappy family vs. the lonely father and daughter; the deep poverty of the
reservation vs. modest, tasteful living right next to the reservation; and brown skin vs. white.

Amelia took a sip of water. “You know those Bach partitas that I’ve been trying to memorize for, like, I don’t know, maybe
ten years? Well, Wes plays them so fast, so technically perfect, you can’t even hear his vibrato, it’s just the way he touches
the strings! And his bowing! He uses the whole thing!” Sitting there in the little restaurant in Stolen, Amelia felt how flat
those words sounded. She knew this wasn’t what Lydia wanted. She shrugged. “You know, he’s, like, two years older than Sadie
and me. I told you that, right? He’s Sadie’s brother? He’s taking a fifth year, an extra year—you can do that.”

Lydia raised her eyebrows. “You mean he failed school? Was he held back?”

“No, no, no, it’s nothing like that. People do that at Benson.” Amelia paused. “You know, if they’re really talented and they
can’t decide whether or not they want to apply to Juilliard or just regular college.”

“Oh yeah.” Lydia looked straight ahead. “I forgot. You music prodigies do things a little differently than the rest of us.”

Amelia could feel herself getting mad. “C’mon, Lydia. Don’t be a jerk, okay?”

“Well, what am I supposed to be? You go away for two months, and you write me twice and call me for, like, twenty minutes.
Oh yeah, and you get yourself a new best friend.” Amelia could hear the hurt in Lydia’s voice. “Sadie.” Lydia pronounced the
name carefully. “That’s what she is, right? Your new best friend?”

Amelia felt both amazed and relieved, but underneath pulsed a
sadness she couldn’t name. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She looked across the table at her real best friend. “Lydia. This is
me.
Amelia. Remember?” What she wanted to say but couldn’t was simple: There’s no way Sadie could ever be my best friend, and
you know why? I lied to her and she didn’t even suspect a thing, but I don’t even know how to
talk
to you, Lydia, because you know me so well, you can see right through me.

It
had
been easy to lie to Sadie. Amelia had simply stood in the sparse dorm room, crying, after the conversation with her father.
The moment her roommate returned from dinner, Amelia looked up and blurted out, “My dad’s making me go home.” She hadn’t planned
to say this; she’d just said it. Sadie had bought it right away. She’d protested some:”He has no right! This is your life!
What will I do without my cool roomie from Stolen?” Amelia had little trouble playing the stern-but-fragile-long-grieving-widower-with-only-a-daughter-in-the-world
card—he needs me!—and Sadie had helped her pack.

What hurt most was that there was no good story to tell Lydia about Wes because Lydia never would have liked or even approved
of Wes in the first place. Wes
or
Sadie. They were dazzling and horrible and enticing. They were from Portland, but they boarded because their parents wanted
them to have “the full-immersion experience.” Amelia soon discovered that this meant Sadie and Wes were big partyers and their
parents didn’t actually want to be parents. They wanted their children to be someone else’s responsibility, and they’d pay
handsomely for that service while jetting off to the south of France, Turkey, Bali, Anguilla.

Sadie was not especially talented at the cello, but she had a lot of good stories, and a car, and knew all sorts of bohemian
places to hang out. Even though Amelia was kind of afraid of her at first, she was also drawn to her, because Sadie was beautiful
and funny and sarcastic. And, oh yes, because of Wes. Wes wore the same pair of dirty Levi’s every day, rolled his own Drum
cigarettes, and had the most beautiful blue eyes that Amelia had ever seen.

When Amelia met Wes, it was the Friday of the first week of classes. She’d returned to her dorm room and opened the door to
a flurry of activity and a blast of cigarette smoke.

“Close the door! Close the door!” Sadie insisted. “We disabled the smoke alarm in here, but we can’t mess with the ones in
the hallway.”

Wes nodded in Amelia’s general direction.

“I can come back,” said Amelia, her hand on the doorknob.

“Oh God, no.” Sadie giggled. “He’s my
brother.
Ewww.”

“Who’re you?” asked an unfazed Wes, taking his cigarette between his pointer and middle fingers. His bare forearm moved in
slow motion. A knit cap was tugged down over his ears, and the shadow of a real shaved beard darkened the lower half of his
face. Amelia almost blurted, “Who’re
you?”
but she already technically knew who he was and didn’t want to seem like an idiot. God, he looked good.

“I’m Sadie’s roommate. I’m Amelia,” she said, extending her hand, then withdrawing it, not wanting to look too dorky, too
eager.

“Nice,” he said. “No Chink this time, Sade. Good job.”

“Oh God, pay no attention to him. You are so racist, Wes! He totally doesn’t mean it, Amelia, that’s just how he jokes. See,
for the last two years, I’ve gotten some tiny Asian girl named Ming-Bo or Satuko to share a room with, and they’re totally
compulsive, total, like, neat freaks.” Sadie jumped up and ran to Amelia and put her arms around her. “No one as cool as you,
my wonderful roomie. See how much we love each other?”

“Good luck,” Wes said to Amelia. “My sister’s a psycho.”

“Shut up, Wes. Don’t be a dick. Amelia’s, like, really cool. She grew up on an Indian reservation.”

“For real?”

“Not
on
the reservation, technically,” said Amelia automatically. “I live about twelve miles away from the Neige Courante reservation.
My father runs a school there.”

“Where is that?” asked Wes, leaning forward in his chair, interested.

Amelia tried not to blush. “Here in Oregon. On the other side of the mountain. Near the town called Stolen?”

“Cool,” said Wes, nodding. “Fucking cool. I bet you’ve seen some great shit.”

Amelia shrugged. She wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, except that it was a good thing to have seen this “great shit.”l guess
so,” she said. “But mostly, it’s pretty boring. I mean, it’s the country. There’s not much to do except study. And play the
violin.”

“Right,” said Wes. He looked her straight in the eyes.

“Where do you live?” she asked.

“Over in Borden. The dorm of losers. I call it ‘Boredom.’” He nodded toward the window and leaned back, balancing his weight
on two legs of the wooden desk chair. Then he smiled. “So, sis, are we going to do this or not?”

“Yeah. Lights-out is in fifteen minutes. So you have to sign out right now and then go hide in the car. Pick us up in half
an hour.”

Amelia knew Sadie was talking about sneaking out, and that it was completely against the rules. Despite that, Amelia desperately
hoped the “us” included her.

“So what about you, Amelia? You up for it?” Sadie asked her. “We’re going to this great party. It’s Friday night, and I’m
not
going to spend it sitting in here waiting to die.”

“But how will we get out?”

“Wes is an expert at this shit. We already cut the screen, and lucky for you, we’re both skinny enough to fit through the
window. And Wes stashed the groundskeeper’s ladder, didn’t you, my most wonderful big brother of all?”

“See you down there,” Wes said, walking past them. As he brushed past Amelia, she could smell the sweat of him, the salt of
him, and it made her feel a little happy and a little embarrassed. She could feel herself blushing. “Sure,” she said, “I’m
in,” as the door clicked shut behind him.

Later that night, after the party, as the three of them sat on a picnic table in Sellwood Park and searched the night sky
for shooting stars, Wes asked Amelia if she’d like to be his little sister. That meant she would play second violin to his
first in a duet partnership. It was a Benson tradition. Highly skilled upper-class musicians could choose a little brother
or little sister to mentor in duets; later in the fall, they would hold an informal performance and a sight-reading competition.
Amelia was overwhelmed.

“But you’ve never heard me play!” she protested.

Sadie laughed. “Oh, yes he has! He thinks you have talent.”

“But when? When could he possibly have heard me?” asked Amelia. She’d made a point of practicing in the soundproof rooms in
the basement of Haines Hall. She was, and always had been, a respecter of the rules.

“Remember when I asked you to help me with that Haydn passage? That was a setup! Go on, Wes, tell her yourself,” Sadie said,
shoving her brother.

“I was outside the window.” He smiled slowly, spoke even more slowly. “I was checking you out.” He shrugged. “So is it yes
or no?”

If things had turned out differently—if Wes had been the kind of guy he’d seemed at first, and not the kind of guy who shoved
a roll of eleven hundred-dollar bills into a girl’s hand to make her do what he wanted—Amelia could have told Lydia everything.
She could have sat in this little restaurant in Stolen and told her best friend about the Bach Double, and the thrilling rush
when Wes hastened the pace in the Vivace movement and Amelia, naturally, followed, feeling the music entering her not as a
series of memorized notes and corresponding motions but as risky joy, and how, as a result, she’d played better than ever
before. She could have told Lydia how it had felt to hold Wes’s still-warm violin under her chin, to feel the vibrato in her
fingers turning the notes to honey, to feel the beautiful resonance of darkened wood. She would have told Lydia about the
kiss.