Just Like a Musical (6 page)

Joshua’s living room door was slightly open.

“Who’s there?” I heard a weak, grainy voice.

“It’s just me, Mom. I’m here with my friend Ruby.”

Joshua’s mother invited us to come in. He shrugged his shoulders, giving me an apologetic look.

“Oh, look at that hair!” she said when we entered the room. “It looks just like the sunset.” She looked at me with an absent smile. There was a closed book in her lap. The radio was playing some old, sentimental tune. Despite the deep wrinkles around her eyes, she was giving off the impression of a vulnerable girl.

“Will you sit with me for a while, sweetheart?” she said, tilting her head to meet my eyes.

It wasn’t a question; it was a plea.

“Later, Mom, I promise,” Joshua said. “We have some important things to do now.”

“Oh, you and your screenplays,” she waved her hand and opened the book with her trembling fingers.

Joshua’s room was just as I imagined it. I felt at home the second I crossed the door sill. The green-painted walls were covered in movie and indie bands posters, and his shelves were crammed with CDs. An open book was lying face down on the bed:
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
by Milan Kundera.

“I found another address this morning,” I said, sitting on the bed, my hand smoothing the creases on the striped black-and-white bed cover.

“Will you call the others?” he asked, sitting beside me.

“Let’s call with this one first. Maybe she still lives there.”

“Okay, let’s try to find the phone number,” Joshua said, opening his laptop.

According to the White Pages, Gordon Chase from Oklahoma was still living at the same address as sixty years ago.

“He must be ninety,” I said. “Maybe he’s even dead… What do you think?”

Dumb question, Ruby.

“I certainly hope he’s alive enough to pick up the phone,” Joshua laughed. “Okay, here’s the phone. I expect you to sail through this.”

“Well, I don’t want to dampen your excitement,” I said, “but I’m kind of nervous. I’m not sure I w
ill exactly shine.”

All the way to Joshua’s home, I was hoping that he would offer to call Sarah himself and set me free from that atrocious agitation I was going through. But he suggested nothing like that, and I didn’t want to make a fool out of myself by asking him. Who in the world has a fear of telephones, you might ask. Well, I do. It’s called telephonophobia, and it’s not that rare, in fact. Of course, it’s still weird, no matter how many people have it. Joshua and I… well, we are the proud owners of an amazing arsenal of weird conditions. Together, we’re invincible. So… I don’t like anything about phones, but what I hate the most is talking to unknown people. I always imagine them sitting in their homes carefree, without a hint that the phone is about to ring, and then I speak into their sleepy ear, just like that, out of the blue – a stranger abducting their peace. And this time my anxiety was doubled; I was about to make the most important call of my life. My numb fingers picked up the phone.

“Hey, isn’t it late in Oklahoma now?” my cowardice spoke through my dry mouth as I dialed the number.

“No, they’re actually only two hours ahead,” Joshua said, smiling at me
. 

For a second, I almost hoped that no one would answer. But that wasn’t the case.

The voice on the other side was bone dry and wheezy. I felt like the old man’s lips were scratching my eardrums through the telephone receiver. He told me that Sarah didn’t live there anymore. I asked him if he happened to know her new phone number.

“Of course,” he said, coughing, “She lives just down the street and her phone…”

I nodded my head, smiling silently.

“Moron!” Joshua groaned at the top of his horrible Tourette’s voice.

“Did someone just say ‘moron’?” the old man asked.

I looked at Joshua, terrified. He was standing in the corner of the room, his palm pressed against his mouth.

“No, sir,” I tried to sound convincing, “I mean, yes, but it was my parrot; my brother gave him a really bad education.”

I looked at Joshua
; his eyes grew wide. I could see he was chewing the inside of his cheek, trying not to laugh.

“Is this some kind of a joke?
” asked Mr. Chase.

I knew by the vibrations in his voice that he was ready to hang up. The whole thing was slipping through my fingers like sand. I made an effort to pull myself together and said in a most endearing voice,
“I’m very serious, sir. I’m Julia Wrigley's daughter. You might not remember her, Mr. Chase, but my mother and Sarah went to middle school together. Actually, they were quite close friends. The skinny one with pigtails… sounds familiar? Anyway, I wanted to inform Sarah that my mother passed away recently. She left her some old photographs.”

He swallowed it. How could he not swallow such a heartbreaking story? I watched my hand, my proud, steady hand, as it scribbled down Sarah’s phone number on the corner of the notebook that Joshua handed me.

I hung up and sighed with relief.

“Who’s Julia Wrigley?” Joshua asked.

“How would I know? But she surely got her last name from a chewing gum,” I laughed, nodding toward the pack of Wrigley’s.

“You were magnificent,” he said and shook my hand theatrically.

The door slowly opened. Joshua’s mother entered, holding a big tray of brownies. She smiled at me, caressed my hair, and left without saying anything.

“This is the first time she’s baked since we moved into this house,” said Joshua quietly, looking through the window.

One more number needed to be called. 

“My tongue is dry,” I said, standing up. “Can I have a glass of water, please?”

“Of course. I’ll be back right away,” he said, stepping out.

I glanced around the room. My eyes settled on a framed photograph on the nightstand. As I drew near, I saw it was a photo of a little girl with braces and auburn hair, holding a teddy bear.

“Is this your sister?” I said when Joshua came in with a glass of water. “She’s so pretty.”

“Was pretty,” he said, turning his back to the photograph. “And I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I told my mother not to put it in here, but she just won’t listen.” He took the photograph from the shelf and put it into a drawer without looking at it.

“Sorry again. Let’s finish what we started, okay?”

I took a deep breath and, guided by my previous victorious presentation, I dialed Sarah’s number. Six long signals, each of them fortifying the pounding of my heart, separated me from an indifferent female voice.

“Sarah’s not here, she’s out,” she said. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was filing her nails or peeling an apple. She told me to call again in half an hour.

Those were the longest and most discouraging thirty minutes of my life. Joshua was in such a bad mood that I even wondered whether I should just leave him alone and call Sarah from my own home. We barely spoke. When I took the phone again, my confidence was rather feeble.

“Sarah speaking.”

I felt my heart climbing up to my throat.
I can’t remember what I said exactly. Now it seems to me like all the words commingled into one big, screaming word salad, and I’m pretty sure I sounded rather schizophrenic. I remember saying “birth mother”, “hospital”, and “say goodbye”. But what Sarah said was sobering. It slapped me in the face like a heavy, cold palm of rancorousness.

“I don’t want to hear about that woman ever again,” she said in a perfectly cold voice.

How foolish of me was not to take into account the possibility of Sarah not wanting to get in touch with Mrs. Wheeler. From the beginning of this venture, all I saw as possible hurdles were the inability to find Mrs. Wheeler’s daughter and my lack of confidence. I never thought that she wouldn’t be willing to even hear about her birth mother, let alone visit her while she was on her deathbed. What reckless romantic force made me think that we lived in a world where abandoned children shone the light of forgiveness on their parent’s last days on Earth? Too many movies perhaps?

I called Sarah’s number one more time.

“Just leave me alone, please.” That was everything that I heard before she slammed the phone down.

I was defeated.

“It seemed too easy; I knew it wasn’t going to end well,” I said, stretching my shaky hands to take the glass of water again.

“So what are you going to do now?” Joshua asked, staring at his toes. Despite his question, he didn’t seem interested in Mrs. Wheeler’s destiny, her daughter’s destiny, or even mine.

“I don’t think there’s anything more I can do.”

“You’re just going to give up, right?” he said with a strange, bitter look on his face.

I moved my hand to catch the sunbeam that was dancing above the floor.

“I don’t want to, but I don’t know what else to do.”

We sat in silence for more than a minute before I decided to break it.

“Let’s go spend some time with your mom”, I said, taking his hand. It was warm and moist.

He raised his eyes toward me, slowly shaking his head.

“We promised her,” I said.

“Okay.”

He guided me to the living room, pulled the door open, and said, “Mom, Ruby wants to talk to you.” Then he turned to me. “You’ll find me in the park… if you want.”

“Sit down, honey,” Joshua’s mother said. “And don’t take it personally; he’s just sad, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. I know he likes you.”

My eyes followed his back as he walked out of the room
.

Mrs. Peterson sat beside me, holding a family photo album in her hands. The paisley pattern of her dress looked like a hypnotic wheel.

***

I didn’t go to the park. I went straight home and fixed myself a drink.

About two years ago, right after my father forgot to pick me up at the airport and I spent three hours waiting there like an orphan, I developed this recipe for a push-the-sadness-away cocktail. I’ll generously share it with you now. You might need it sometime.

2 oz. of black and white movie

1 oz. of espresso

3 drops of happy, made-up childhood memories

1 splash of dim light

1 pinch of cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously and strain into a martini glass. Drink alone in a locked room.

It usually works, it really does. But this time it didn’t. To run off like that, leaving a girl with your mother? I don’t know how to deal with my own mother, let alone a woman who talks about how her dead daughter loves pickles. Loves, not loved. No, Veronica Lake can’t make you feel better when that happens. And if you add a dying friend whose long gone daughter doesn’t want to hear about her, even Audrey Hepburn is powerless.

I grabbed my coffee mug and tiptoed to the front porch, hoping that my mother wouldn’t see me.

“Where have you been today?” I heard her voice behind me as I sat on the swing bench.

“Just walking,” I said, sipping the coffee and trying to sound relaxed.

“With that boy?” she asked, looking into my eyes. I didn’t answer. “That boy who was with you in our neighbor’s house yesterday?”

So she knew. I glanced at her face and realized that she wouldn’t stop her interrogation until I answered.

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“Unfortunately, he’s not. And I don’t think I’ll ever see him again. I guess that makes you feel happy,” I said, and ran off to my room to take the keys to Mrs. Wheeler’s house.

I was lying on Mrs. Wheeler’s sofa, trying to sob myself to death, when my cell phone rang and scared me. It was Joshua, exactly two hours and twenty-seven minutes after he’d left me in his house. I hesitated for about four seconds before I answered.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” his voice resonated in my ears.

“It’s okay,” I said, feeling a strange mixture of dolefulness and relief wrapping around my spine.

“Will you meet me?” he said.

“Uh… yeah, I guess so… when?”

“Now.
Now, please. I’ll go crazy if I don’t see you. I know that’s selfish, and I know that I’ve been acting like a prick, but please don’t say no.”

“Fifteen minutes,” I said.

I ran my fingers over Mrs. Wheeler’s bookshelf, went to the bathroom to wash my tear-smudged face, glanced over the living room one last time, and went out into the warm night. My mother was still sitting on the front porch. I waved to her.

“Hey, where are you going?” she said, standing up and folding her arms.

“I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Ruby, it’s late…”

Sometimes my life turns into a musical. The outside world just fades away, and the song starts playing in my head, sad and beautiful at the same time, and I sing along, and I dance inwardly until my inner feet start burning with pain. Oh, how I dance with those gentlemen in dark suits and girls in pink dresses with ponytails and bright eyes! The beginning of this secret musical usually follows the sound of my life cracking down. And it always happens while I’m walking down the dark street.

Someone grabbed my shoulder and the music stopped.

“I’m so sorry,” Joshua said, pressing my head against his chest.

“It’s okay, really. It’s my fault; I shouldn’t have mentioned your sister.”

“Of course it’s not your fault,” he said, still holding me tightly. “I would like to talk to you about her, but I just don’t think I’m ready yet.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder. He kissed my hair. The night was green, the town looked like a post-apocalyptic movie scene, and his skin smelled of oranges. The lamp post turned off, trembled for a second or two like a child when he tries to shake off a bad dream, and then turned on again. A white cat ran across the street, her tail bristled.

“I want to do all the wrong things,” I said, raising my head from Joshua’s shoulder.

“Like what?”

I spread my arms out to the sky.

“I want to smoke, and drink, and scream, and eat ice cream until I throw up, and rob a bank, and run away to Canada…”

“How long can you go like this?” he laughed.

“Forever.”

“I’m not sure about the bank, but I think I can help you with other things,” he said. “Wait here, I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

I sat on the edge of the sidewalk, pulled my phone out of my pocket, and turned it off. The sound of blinds lowering rattled through the night. The shadows on the building across the street were so deep that I almost expected the noir film crew to emerge from behind it.

It took Joshua a little more than ten minutes to come back, but when I jumped into the car and took a look at the back seat, I could see the reason, and it was a good one – a bottle of silver tequila.

“The cigarettes are in my pocket,” he said.

“How did you this?” I asked, still looking at the bottle on the back seat.

“I have a fake ID.”

“Clever,” I said. “Where are we going?”

***

We went to the Crater Hill, a place where the full moon shines like a giant light bulb above the world. Joshua pulled out a blanket from the trunk.

“Okay, let’s have a little picnic,” he said, spreading it under a sycamore tree.

“It’s checkered,” I said.

“What?” His eyebrows drew together.

When a happy movie family goes on a picnic, its members usually lay their happy bottoms on a checkered blanket. And the sky is blue, and the grass is soft, and children quietly play by the lake. My mother and I never went on a picnic. Because of the ticks, of course. As for my father, he was always too busy when I was visiting him in Chicago. I used to think I would never lay my bottom on one of these checkered blankets. I guess life carries many surprises.

We opened the bottle of tequila. The liquid slid
down my throat with unexpected ease.

“You’re a natural,” Joshua said, lying down and putting his head on my lap.

“Can you believe that I’ve never had a drop of alcohol?” I said. “I mean, I’m seventeen.”

Streetlights
twinkled in the distance. I wanted to run my fingers through his hair, but when I tried to move my hand, it remained deadlocked between my yearning and my chickenheartedness. If only I had experienced something similar before, I would have known what to do. But, no – I had never been on a date, I had never been kissed, I had never had someone’s head on my lap. How was I supposed to know what to do?

“Can I have a cigarette now?” I said, rubbing my palm against the dewy grass.

He reached in his pocket, pulling out a pack of Lucky Strikes. He lit a cigarette and handed it to me.

“So you smoke?” I asked him, exhaling.

I felt the sudden urge to throw up. My stomach lurched monstrously.

“No, I don’t, actually,” he said. “Well… sometimes.”

“This is my first cigarette,” I said proudly.

“Yeah, I can tell,” he laughed, taking his iPod out of his pocket. “Give me your ear, please.”

“My ear?”

“I mean, literally.” He straightened up, moved a strand of hair out of my face, and put one earbud in my left ear and the other one in his right. “I heard this song yesterday and thought that you might like it.”

Do you know what perfection is? It’s Bill Callahan’s voice in your ears, plus Joshua Peterson’s breath in your hair, plus starlight above you, plus the taste of freedom on your palate. Reality broke into pieces and put itself together into a beautiful kaleidoscope of shivers and treetops. Joshua’s chin touched my temple. My shaky fingers went through his hair. His lips slowly slid from my burning cheek to the corner of my mouth and tenderly opened my trembling lips. Our first kiss was soft as a cotton flower and salty like the sea.

When the song was over, he slowly pulled the earbud out of my ear and whispered, “How about another glass of tequila?”

The moon peeked from behind the clouds, splashing light on our knees. All the things I had never done crawled into my mind. I had never been to the Carter Hill by night. I had never walked in the rain without an umbrella. I had never been kissed. I had never slept in the grass.

“Sure,” I said, “and a cigarette, please.”

“You won’t give up, will you?” he said, laughing.

“Not tonight. This is the night when I do all the wrong things, remember?”

“I hope they were not all wrong.”

“No, they weren’t,” I said, trying to stop the sweet trembling that was creeping from my toes to the top of my head like a giant centipede. I looked at Joshua out of the co
rner of my eye. The curve of his upper lip was like child’s drawing. And it seemed unreal that I was there, and that he was sitting so close to me, and that everything can be so impeccable.

“Sometimes I wish I was like one of those women from noir films,” I said, “strong, and fierce, and ready to do anything. Like Phyllis from
Double Indemnity
, you know.”

Okay, alcohol makes me say silly things. I know that now.

“A murderer?” he laughed.

“Well, not a murderer, just… strong.”

“They’re crooked,” Joshua said, taking the bottle.

“Okay, maybe they are. A little. But they’re still awesome. And they always get what they want,” I said, taking a sip.

Tequila from plastic glasses – that’s raw romance. That’s badass. I’m drunk. And I’m in love.

“And I would like to have eyes like Elizabeth Taylor.”

“I object!” he shouted, pulling his ear. ”I think your eyes are much prettier than hers.”

“But hers are purple!” I almost jumped to my feet. “Everybody knows that Elizabeth Taylor had the most beautiful eyes ever.”

“No,” he said, pressing his palm against my warm cheek. “I prefer hazel to purple. I prefer hazel to any other color in the world.”

I’m not really the kind of girl that knows how to accept compliments. Not that I get many of them, especially from men. Of course, old Mr. Barlow from the grocery store always tells me that I’m cute. I’m not sure that I should even count that. And a drunk construction worker once whistled at me and shouted, “Nice legs!” And that’s about it.

“Thanks, I guess,” I whispered.

“So what are you going to do about Mrs. Wheeler?” Joshua said.

The idea flashed through my mind like a comet. I looked at the sleepy town below the hill, imagining my mother freaking out and calling my phone number for the millionth time. I pictured Mrs. Wheeler under the snow-white bed cover, I looked into my heart, and I said, “I’ll go to Oklahoma.”

“What? Your mother’s going to kill you!”

“Well, I don’t care.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have to do it. I have to. I know you understand,” I said. “She’s my friend, she’s got no one but me.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” he said.

“What about your job?”

“I’ll take a few days off,” he said, wrapping his arms around his knees.

“You would do that for me?”

The moon went behind the clouds again. A bird perched in the tree above us, uttering a sharp call.

“I would be a fool not to do that for you.”

We decided to finish the bottle of tequila some other time, folded the blanket, and drove back to our drowsy town.

“Call me when you’re ready to go,” he said, gently brushing his lips over mine.

***

The moment I got out of Joshua’s car, I saw my mother, who was sitting on the front steps with her head in her hands.

“Who’s that?” she yelled, jumping off the steps and grabbing my shoulder.

“That’s Joshua,” I simply said, trying to pass her and get inside.

“Where’s your phone?” She grabbed my wrist.

“I left it at Mrs. Wheeler’s house. I’ll go get it tomorrow.”

“Have you been drinking?” She sniffed my breath.

“Yes, mother, I have been drinking,” I said, “and guess what? I haven’t disintegrated and vanished!”

“But you know that you have to take proper care of your liver,” she said,
emphasizing every single word.

“There is nothing wrong with my liver!” I screamed. “And there’s nothing wrong with my heart! There’s nothing fucking wrong with me!”

You know those moments similar to an out-of-body experience when you watch yourself from the sidelines, and you look and sound strange to yourself, so strange that you can hardly believe that the girl who’s yelling and cursing and flailing her arms is actually you? But she wears your light-blue buttoned shirt, and she has a cowlick on the left side of her forehead just like you, so she must be you indeed. Well, this was one of those moments.

“Look, Ruby,” my mother said, suddenly lowering her voice, “I’m very tired and very disappointed. Go to your room. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

I couldn’t have asked for more.

I dashed into my room and crammed my backpack with T-shirts, underwear, cosmetics, books, and a bunch of necessary things. Then I dumped it out and started all over again. When I had finally finished, I turned off the light and went to the window. The light in Mrs. Wheeler’s living room stabbed me like a cold iron sword. It took me a second or two to realize that I was the one who had left it on. And it was then that I became absolutely sure about the necessity of my decision.