The Sound of Letting Go (22 page)

The drive Saturday morning is without incident.

Well medicated, Steven sits obligingly,

forehead tilted against the window,

focusing on the headrest of Dad’s chair.

Dad makes no wrong turns.

By ten o’clock, Mom is urging Steven from the car and

up the well-swept brick steps that lead to the front door.

Everyone at Holland House is so
nice
.

Insanely compassionate,

morbidly understanding,

as we sit in their community room

with its soothing, gray-green walls,

chairs upholstered in inoffensive, symmetrical

blue-and-green squares.

No sharp edges anywhere.

Everything simple, subdued, ever-so-faintly piney.

It smells of anti-antiseptic,

as if whoever chose the stuff with which

they washed the tabletops, mopped the floors,

knew to avoid the aromas of ammonia, bleach.

Everything about this place is so mild, generic, unremarkable;

so
nice
.

“Wasn’t that fun, Steven?”

Mom chitters on the way home.

She makes no mention of the slap he gave the caretaker

who tried to put a crayon in his hand,

or the way I’ve chosen to ride home

in the third row of Dad’s SUV

to avoid the edges of Steven’s hand-twisting,

head-snapping attempts

at processing our unusual morning.

“Very nice people.” Dad glances into the rearview

mirror. “Capable staff.”

“And so clean. It smelled so fresh, didn’t it, Daisy?”

I rub my unembellished eyes.

My late-night practice session made me too tired

to line them with kohl this morning.

The dark glaze on my nails has worn off at the edges.

My nails do not like the feel of polish.

It’s as though they are being suffocated

under a layer of shellac.

Fingertips that cannot breathe surely can’t play, I think.

And jazz band or no, I keep playing.

Ever since I picked up a horn

in the “mixed abilities” music class

to which Mom took Steven and me

when I was in third grade,

the trumpet has been part of me:

a layer, unlike polish, that I cannot chip away.

“It smelled piney,” I say.

It’s not quite two when I escape from home.

On the way to the Arts Center, I stop by Bouchard’s

for a colossal cup of steaming Bear Mountain Blend,

sniff deep the smoky aroma that chases the smell

of sanitized evergreen from my nose.

“Cal tells me you haven’t been in jazz band,”

Aggie greets me bluntly.

“Not Cal’s business.” I press my lips together.

“It’s mine, though. I don’t want to waste my time

teaching music

to somebody who won’t share.”

Dark brown roots divide Aggie’s scalp from the shock of white-yellow hair.

She is wearing a prim blue shirt and khaki slacks.

“What’s with the outfit?”

She tugs at her L.L.Bean sleeves.

“I’m having dinner with my folks after this,

so I’m toning down the ink with some preppy.”

I smile at my trumpet case,

consider designing a new bumper sticker—

“Tone Down That Ink with Some Preppy”—

on Mom’s new color printer, something twisted,

contradictory in pink and green and black and purple.

“Everybody’s telling me to get back to jazz band,” I sigh.

But I don’t make any promises,

just pick up my horn and play through tones and scales,

start in on the Ellington piece.

Let in the good feeling of someone hearing me play,

pretend I am sitting beside Miles Davis, John Coltrane, sharing like Aggie said.

Even after banishing the pine smell with strong coffee,

it’s hard to play away the vision of tepid colors,

studied smiles,

long corridors of beige linoleum tile.

My teacher listens awhile to my pallid playing,

her eyes thoughtful.

Then she unbuttons her blue oxford, shrugs it off

to reveal a much-more-Aggie tie-dyed T-shirt underneath,

and picks up her darling piccolo trumpet from its stand.

“Maybe what you need to do right now is keep sharing,

keep reaching

for that sound, even if so much around you seems wrong;

even if you feel lost and judged and sure of nothing.”

She puts the trumpet to her lips

and launches into Louis Armstrong’s “Wild Man Blues,”

one of our favorite tunes to improv together.

We play it clean, then jazz it up,

twist the melody, take turns showing off.

I don’t even ask myself if Aggie will cover herself up again

before she sees her folks,

just let the rest of our hour roll by, faster than light yet suspended in time

like the best improvs should be.

Packing up my trumpet case, I feel looser, lighter

than when I came into Aggie’s practice room.

Until I see him sitting in the hall,

two sax cases on the floor by his chair.

“Nice to see you, Daisy.” Cal stands up.

“Been a while since you’ve been at jazz band.

Is everything okay?”

“You had no right to talk to Aggie about that!

It’s none of your business whether I come to jazz.”

Cal toes the big bari sax case with his brown-laced shoe.

His forehead creases,

fair skin reddening just like Justine’s does

when she isn’t certain what mistake she’s made.

“I didn’t mean to upset you. Honest.”

“I don’t need anyone else trying

to keep me on a schedule, Cal O’Casey.

So you just go be a good boy and don’t be late

for
your
lesson.”

I sound like I am channeling

Ashleigh Anderson’s condescending twang.

I feel bad, but I cannot stop.

Instead, I keep going, hip thrust out mean-girl style,

clutch my trumpet case in one hand,

and give him a dismissive little wave with the other.

Cal does not reply.

Just picks up his instruments,

crosses to the practice room threshold,

knocks on the door.

“Mornin’ to ya, Miss Aggie. Ready to play?”

lilts back to my ears

as I turn, walk down the hall, out the door, to my car.

Dave gets to our house at ten past seven.

My parents hover in the doorway:

two greyhounds, ears cocked back,

listening for dangerous sounds from Steven,

whom they’ve planted in the family room,

watching a cartoon about cars.

“You remember Dave,” I say.

He runs his hand through his hair.

“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Meehan.”

“Well, time to go.”

My sneakered feet feel for the invisible line,

wonder if it will stop me

from dragging Dave down the walkway to his car.

“Sheesh, Daisy, you could’ve let me spend a minute

with your mom and dad.

Maybe say hi to Steven. I used to live right there.”

He points to the house the Allen family lives in now,

with their two normal towheaded boys

and healthily chattering toddler daughter.

“Steven isn’t like you remember him.”

“What’s he like?”

The trillion-dollar question.

If there were an answer,

the decision whether to nod and smile

when my parents admire

the clean, fresh smell of Holland House would be simple.

What “Steven” does Dave remember,

that he would dare to say hello?

I buckle my seat belt. “He’s not too good. Let’s go.”

I reach for the radio, for once relieved

by the pounding beats of Dave’s alt-rock station,

for the repetitive lyrics about wanting to get close,

not wanting to get burned,

that suddenly make total sense

and don’t require conversation.

We’re at the town park in ten minutes.

Dave pulls into a spot under the trees.

I don’t wait

longer than it takes for him to turn off the Fiesta’s

rumbly engine. I don’t want

to join Belden and the crew I see in the distance

already clustered around a fire

they’ve built in one of the community barbecues.

“I brought marshmallows for the s’mores.”

He gestures to a grocery bag in the back seat.

“It looks cold out there,” I say.

Instead of opening my door,

I clamber over the gear shift onto his lap.

“And I’ve had such a long day.”

He gives me a funny grin, puts a hand on my cheek.

“You always surprise me, Daisy.”

“What? Not Daisy-brains right now?”

I press my face into the heat of his palm.

In answer, he draws me to him.

Every kiss sends a tingling thrill deeper

into my chest, my stomach, down.

I want “Adult Content.”

I want “Some Nudity.”

I don’t want to be the town’s-pride-trumpeter,

Accepted two years running to Honor Band of America

(I didn’t apply this year

since Mom is afraid to be home alone).

I want to be neither reliable nor extraordinary;

neither sound nor silence,

but just a girl kissing a tousle-haired bad boy.

I want to be
now.

I let my lips open, feel Dave’s tongue connect with mine.

Condensation clouds over the car windows.

Straddling his lap, I slide my hands to the buttons of his shirt.

He puts his hands over mine, finishes unbuttoning,

shrugs it off.

I tug my sweater over my head,

struggle out of the second sleeve.

The clack of my watch against the driver’s side window makes me giggle.

Dave gives a growling laugh.

His lips move from my mouth down the side of my neck

to my shoulder.

His warm hands slide up to my breasts,

so I have to arch my back to keep kissing him.

I think I would do anything to forget today,

to make time stop now, this night.

But maybe it’s regret for wearing practical,

laceless underwear or the dropping temperature outside

that makes this more difficult than our first time at the lake.

I press against Dave,

feeling for that stilling magic in the heat of his skin.

Try to close my mind to the picture

of Justine doing this with Ned;

to the image of my parents sitting angrily on the couch, waiting for my return;

to the worry that someone from the bonfire by the lake

can see us through the steaming car windows.

As Dave reaches behind to undo my bra,

there’s a thump on the roof of the car.

“Hey, Miller.”

It’s jack-in-the-box Josh Belden,

popping over to cool our heat once again.

“You gonna pony up some marshmallows?”

“Get away!” I shriek, flailing for my sweater.

Dave wraps calming arms around me.

“Give us a couple minutes, okay?”

“Shit, sorry man.”

Belden retreats to the waterside.

I crumple onto the front seat floor,

try to scramble back into my clothes,

as desperate to get away from this humiliation

as I am determined not to go home.

Dave lines up the buttons of his shirt.

“You okay down there?”

“I’m, uh, I’m fine.”

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

I retie the right, black-heart-and-red-diamond-

embellished Ked, which has somehow come unlaced.

“Belden didn’t see anything,” he assures me.

“And he wouldn’t say anything anyway.”

“Do you remember in second grade,

that time my tights got stuck . . . ?”

Even in the dim light cast by the faraway fire,

I can see the flash of Dave’s carelessly hot grin.

“Wouldn’t admit it if I did.”

Past the bonfire crowd,

the full moon is suspended marshmallow-white

over the blue-black water.