The Sound of Letting Go (6 page)

The bell hasn’t rung.

I wish I could make myself keep walking

to the end of the hall,

out to the back bleachers

where I’m sure Dave is “catching rays.”

He probably doesn’t hold on to things

like memories of mis-tucked second-grade skirts.

He doesn’t wave signs asking people

to vote him into a powerless Student Council office.

It feels like he lives, instead of always making plans—

the opposite of my eternally scheduled life

that offers so little pleasure in the now.

Maybe that’s why I can be hot for Dave.

If he doesn’t want to get to class on time,

doesn’t want to go to college,

I bet he has his reasons.

Maybe he needs extra time to rumple his hair

so it looks that good.

Maybe he thinks deep thoughts

while he sits,

whittling sticks with a school-banned pocketknife,

stealing glances at the sky.

Dave makes me want things. Not good-girl things.

I’ve never done anything beyond kissing a boy,

but now I whisper under my breath,

“I wanna get under you, Dave Miller,”

and other phrases I’ve heard

on the HBO movies I watch at the end of the night

after Steven’s in bed and my parents have retreated

to their Civil War bases:

Mom in the kitchen, Dad in his office.

“I want you.”

“I need you.”

“I burn for you.”

I picture myself riding with Dave in his patchwork Fiesta,

stopping in a wooded spot,

without a time or plan to return to reality.

Sometimes the dream turns rough, dangerous,

As if we were mafia lovers by a New Jersey highway;

other times things are soft, gentle, PG-13,

in a meadow of flowers in saturated hues.

I am a good girl he rescued from embarrassment,

a bad girl wearing studded bracelets.

Everything I know about sex

I’ve learned from HBO.

Friday is the worst night of the week,

the beginning of the eternal weekend,

two whole days without school for Steven,

without yoga for Mom:

without a real excuse, like work, to set Dad free.

Around when Steven turned ten,

Dad added running, then golf,

to his hours of ever-increasing “ambition” at the office.

I don’t like it, but I get it.

I think one reason I’m so good at trumpet,

practice so much,

is that it’s always an unassailable argument

to escape from my family.

New Hampshire State Youth Orchestra

fills Saturday mornings. I confess,

my heart belongs more and more to jazz

(Dave Miller aside)

than classical,

but it’s good practice, with pretty good musicians,

and Justine sometimes meets me for Thai food after.

“So, what did your parents say about Overton?” she asks

as we divide an order of chicken satay between us,

ask for extra peanut sauce.

“I didn’t tell them.”

“Daisy, they’d be thrilled Mr. Orson wants to

recommend you.”

It’s hard to explain the complexity of my worries,

even to Justine,

who loves my mother’s cookies,

who still says she’s willing to come over

and hang with me and Steven

when my folks aren’t home

even though she’s a little bit afraid,

even though I don’t really ask her anymore.

“I think I want to surprise them.

You know, they could use some good news.”

“But isn’t there an application fee?”

Justine is always practical.

And this I do dare ask, because Justine has a credit card

and a mother who, guilty over her divorce,

hardly ever questions, while my parents,

though they usually give me what money I ask for

(since I hardly ever do),

always ask the what, where, why,

start conversations I don’t always want to have.

“Do you think we could put it on your credit card?

I’d pay you back.”

“Su-ure,” Justine says.

I can see in her eyes she’s not convinced,

knows there’s more to this story.

I promise myself I’ll explain the whole thing

soon.

As soon as I get accepted, tell my parents the truth.

Sooner, maybe.

Sunday is for trumpet practice—

as much as I can get

between spelling Mom for a trip to Safeway,

keeping watch on Steven

while Dad golfs and Mom cooks,

sitting at our kitchen table foursome for dinner

while Mom regales us with some complicated story

about looking for a venetian bronze planter

for the back patio

and the sales clerk repeatedly showing her pieces

made of brass.

Dad looks as miserable as Ned Hoffman in the wake of Dave Miller,

which makes me travel inside my head

to an HBO place where I imagine Dave and me

doing something they preface with

AC—Adult Content,

N—Nudity,

before running the opening credits.

And when I’m not thinking that,

the secret I am keeping from my parents

pulses in the front of my brain

until I worry the words “Application to Overton”

will burn through the inside of my skull,

the letters emerging like a charred tattoo across my brow.

“Delicious dinner, Mom.”

I rush my half-eaten plate of roast chicken,

braised kale, to the sink,

resist the urge to cover my forehead with my hand.

“What are your musical inspirations?”

My fingers hover over the school library media center keyboard as I search my mind for the words

to answer my first Overton application question.

If they mean what makes me keep on playing,

the answer is too complicated for words on paper.

It’s not just the compositions I’ve learned and played

and heard.

It’s not just so I can be an easy source of pride

for my parents.

It’s not just because a tiny part of me still believes

Mom’s long-abandoned pile

of medical journal clippings

about music freeing the autistic mind.

It’s not even just that I can’t imagine stopping

because I know, like Miles Davis

halfway through
Kind of Blue
,

that I haven’t reached the end, an end . . .

If they mean why I’m writing this application,

it’s because I need to know that, someday,

I might be able to escape from my house.

I need to do something besides practice and help, cower

and wait.

Summer is far away,

but I think I can survive at home that long.

Then I need to get into Overton. Or go
somewhere
.

Can I write that?

I open another window on the computer,

search for “summer teen music programs.”

There’s one in California that I recognize,

several at colleges here in New England.

Some look too expensive; others have application fees

I’ll find a way to manage.

I start a list with Overton at the top.

Then six more places.

Enough.

I close the search window,

refocus my mind on the essay.

Mom has yoga tonight,

and I can only stay a few more minutes.

There’d be little risk of my parents catching me writing

the application essays at home.

They’re so busy taking care of Steven

and avoiding being in charge of Steven

and holding on to some kind of life around Steven

that sometimes it feels they’ve half forgotten

I’m even living there.

Still, I feel safer doing it here at school.

“Musical inspirations, huh?”

Dave’s hand rests casually on my shoulder as he reads the screen.

I shiver at his touch,

thrilled yet instantly on guard

against my summer plans

becoming part of the unspoken yet known lore of Jasper,

picturing Andy Bouchard offhandedly asking Dad,

“Has Daisy heard from Overton yet?”

as he hands him a cup of strong, black French roast.

I stand up, turn to block Dave’s view of the monitor.

“Don’t see much of you in the library.”

“Then you haven’t been looking hard enough,

Daisy-brains.

I come by most Monday afternoons at some point.

Like to read in that chair.”

Dave points to the egg-shaped, plastic-and-pleather

chair that forms a weird centerpiece

between rows of fiction.

I often steal the occasional half hour in the library

on Monday afternoons.

Wouldn’t I have remembered

seeing Dave lounging in egg leather?

I look at my watch. It’s almost five o’clock.

“Shit! I’m gonna be late for—

It’s my mom’s yoga night and—”

I save the document onto my flash drive, shut down,

cram the application, list, textbooks,

papers into my backpack.

Run for the parking lot.