Tell Me Something Real (21 page)

I got in.

Months of mastering pieces, practicing the same ones over and over until I was good enough to record my audition tape, paid off. It was worth it.

My eyes feel swollen from tears and my heart feels tight with grief and pride. I can't help but grin even if I don't know what the future holds.

“Now, play,” Mrs. Albright says, returning my smile. I smooth out the music, messing up over and over again as I play, but she's right: After a while, I don't think of anything but the notes.

The first day of school, I walk the halls like a ghost, looking at the faces of my classmates, thinking,
I am not one of you or you or you or you . . .

Last night, Caleb gave me instructions: Don't make eye contact with anyone; look at the ground and walk with purpose. This way, everyone will leave me alone. These were his survival techniques from his last months at school. I half expected him to tell me how to combat hypothermia and bear attacks, dangers of the wild.

He keeps his promise and calls every day, just after dinner so we won't be rushed. Quick to run out of words, I end the calls after a few minutes, then long for him all over again. He's become a spiritualist, a medium who summons Mom whenever he calls. I listen to his voice, his stories about outings with his dad, their ambiguous plans to return to San Diego, only to catch glimpses of Mom, nothing but memories, recollections of her sitting at the table
or baking chicken pot pie. His calls raise the undead.

At school, I heed his advice. Mrs. Albright opens the music room early and I rush there, head down, to review my class schedule. No surprises—the same college-prep classes, the only difference from last year is chemistry instead of Earth sciences, precalc instead of trig.

Mrs. Albright takes the seat next to mine. “What did your dad say about the conservatories?” she asks.

“I haven't told him yet. I can't up and leave for boarding school. I wish that Point Loma and the San Diego Conservatory hadn't rejected me. Maybe I could go to the Coronado magnet arts school? I know it isn't a conservatory, but I could take more piano classes there.”

I reach for one of Mrs. Albright's cherished pencils and doodle on my class schedule, spirals, tendrils, and waves. I want to transfer—no question—but I couldn't do that to my sisters. Or even to Dad. I find myself thinking about the conservatories at random times: in the shower or while I'm cleaning the house or braiding Marie's hair. How could I transfer when the guilt of leaving would strangle any joy and creativity I have? I wish I could escape to music camp for just a week. If I ever get the chance, maybe I'll move to Idyllwild, high in the mountains. I've always been happy there, safe and enveloped in music, surrounded by others who love it as much as I do.

Conservatories and camp and the mountains are meant for the future. Not now.

Gently, Mrs. Albright plucks the pencil from my hand. “They're not that far away,” she says. “Both are in driving distance, just up the coast. You have a gift, Vanessa. Music is a part of you. Every few years, I have a student like you, except you're different. You've been through something none of them have. I want you to have the opportunity to play through your pain.”

“It's too much to figure out,” I say.

“Did I ever tell you what inspired me to learn the piano?”

I shake my head.

“When Beethoven started to lose his hearing, he sawed off the legs of his grand piano. Then he lay on the ground right next to it, and pressed his ear to the floor and played. Imagine going to such lengths to hear a single note of music. I couldn't believe someone had that much passion. I wanted to feel that way.

“I'm not saying transferring will be easy, but I see something in you. I worry that you'll lose it if you don't devote yourself to music.”

When I gaze out the window, I see the boys' cross country team running around the field. They resemble Canada geese, flying in formation, migrating to their next destination. Some of the guys run without shirts. A few of them are as tall as Caleb, others runty. All skinny, but not skinny like Caleb, whose body shows hints of his past health, his broad and once muscular shoulders, his chest temporarily concave. I look away.

“Okay,” I say. “I'll talk to my dad.”

She nods her head, serious instead of smiling. “As your teacher, that's all I ask.”

When I leave the music room, I hear Adrienne all the way down the hall. I rush past everyone, the entire junior class lining the lockers, trading summer vacation stories. Her shouting is urgent as a fire alarm. They all start turning their heads, craning their necks to see what's going on: my sister shoving her boyfriend against a locker.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she screams. “How could you do this to me?”

I drop my backpack and run to her, functioning like a human shield so she won't hurt Zach. I stare straight into her eyes, absorbing her fury. She looks right through me.

“Let's go,” I say. “We can go to the beach. Anywhere you want.”

“I want to kill my stupid EX-boyfriend!” she screams. Her face contorts with rage.

I turn to Zach, who stands guppy-mouthed and shocked.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I told Tina and Kim that they shouldn't bring up your mom. I thought that would be easier on Adrienne, you know, if they knew what was going on.” His voice shakes and I realize that I've never seen Zach upset. Bummed about beach closures and bad pop quiz scores, but not
upset
.

And I've never seen Adrienne this angry.

She pants, out of breath like she just finished running a
marathon. “You had no right to tell anyone anything about me. I can't believe I ever went out with you. Don't ever talk to me again. Don't call me. You can go fuck a donut for all I care!”

I yank her arm and drag her to the front entrance, past the reviled senior English teacher, Mrs. Hacker, who shouts for us to stop.

The door slams shut and I release Adrienne, leaving fingerprints on her skin from where I clutched her arm.

“Come on,” she says. It's her turn to pull me along, and I'm never more grateful to go to a huge high school. I don't recognize half of the people we pass, blending in with thirty-five hundred other kids, a cover of anonymity.

We stop at the art classrooms, at a patch of grass protected by several giant eucalyptus trees. Adrienne pulls me to the ground. I hate the way she gasps for breath. She's never looked more like Mom.

“You know,” she says, “the whole school will find out by lunch.”

“Maybe it won't be that bad.” I know she's right, though, and I already imagine all the eyes on me, the whispers, the pointed fingers.
She's the one with the crazy mother.

“God, he had to tell Kim and Tina of all people? They're the ones who told everyone that Bethany Carson got knocked up. I love them, but they're shitty friends when it comes to stuff like this. He's so stupid. I can't believe he did this to me.”

I lose some of my sympathy for Zach. Our lives are going to be a living hell. I don't know how I'm going to face everyone in class, not if they all know.

“Let's go,” I say.

Adrienne surprises me by shaking her head. “Not yet. We can't let them scare us off that easily.”

“Wait,” I say. “No one did this on purpose. Zach was trying to help.”

“You need to wake up, little sister. People are going to be assholes, and some of them will try to use this against us. Me, anyway, and I'm going to go all
West Side Story
on them when they do.”

“Give me the car keys,” I say.

“Are you going to go joy riding with your permit?”

“I need a place to go, Adrienne.” Already, my chest feels boa constrictor tight. Mrs. Albright will let me stay in the music room as much as possible, but she won't permit me to miss all of my classes.

She tosses me the keys. “I'll meet you right here. Don't be late.”

I've driven Dad's car, a cream-colored Mercedes, not at all a family car. Even after two years, it still smells new, barely used compared to Mom's Datsun, prematurely aged from our countless border crossings. Sticky from spilled soda and road trip snacks.

When I slip into the driver's seat, I place my hands in the same position that Mom does, just above the center, at ten
and two o'clock. Always in the same spots, even when she drove through the storm. Precise, but then again, liars rely on precision.

I expect to feel like her, somehow, by occupying her car, her seat. I glance in the rearview mirror. She would have seen me in the reflection, always sitting behind her, always hoping she felt well enough for the trip. But I only feel nerves as I head north on the Pacific Coast Highway.

The empty stretch of sand never seemed so desolate. Not a single surfer dots the waves, nor a fisherman on the rickety pier. I don't bother locking the car. The man recognizes me and waves. After years of buying food from him, did Mom ever ask his name? I offer a polite hello, but otherwise wait for the clams in silence.

My feet freeze midstep. I intended to eat the clams at the end of the pier, something Mom and I used to do. But when I look at the ocean, at the endless expanse of blue, I can't will myself to walk. The planks creak beneath my weight, and in between the worn wood, I watch the water wash to the shore, covering the creatures burrowed under the sand. Gulls caw overhead, scavenging for scraps, and a hollowness fills me, something so deep and desperate that I think I'll never escape.

I toss the clams into the water.

I'm seized by the desire to drive her car off the pier, not to commit suicide, but to destroy her vehicle of deceit. It was a mistake to come back here, to think that I could
take comfort in nostalgia, even something so commonplace as fried food on the beach. She robbed me of that.

Slamming the car door shut, I smack the center of the steering wheel with my open palm, a slap that sounds the horn. The glove compartment gapes open, sending paper to the floor. I reach for the clinic brochure, black-and-white, with photos of the courtyard, the welcoming fountain, and the grounds like it's a hotel. The text tells a different story.

The Laetrile molecule chemically reacts with healthy enzymes of noncancerous cells before effectively destroying active cancer cells. This process produces results in a matter of months, but in some cases, a matter of years.

To accompany the therapy, patients must adhere to a strict diet, including taking the following dietary supplements.

Within weeks of Laetrile therapy, most patients show signs of increased energy and activity, pain relief, fall of blood pressure, and improved appetite.

Sitting in her seat, placing my hands on the faded traces of her fingerprints, won't help me understand. Just like tormenting Dad won't give me answers. Only Mom can tell me why she did this, how she decided her children are disposable, are nothing to her. I crumple up the brochure and toss it out
the window, hoping the wind will carry it to the water for a sailor's burial.

The music comes slowly, an unconscious tapping on the steering wheel. I rush out of the car to chase the brochure, rolling down the cement sidewalk like a tumbleweed. I could pull my notebook from my backpack, but this paper, these words and images, are my accompaniment. I scrawl notes in the margins. I scribble over words of false hope with my first piece of music, writing until it's time to meet my sister.

Adrienne scrambles out of the car before I turn off the engine.

“I mean it, Zach. Get the hell away from my house. GO!”

She tosses her backpack at him, which he dodges with ease. He picks it up, doing his best to act like everything is normal. But I see the pain in his eyes, and it reminds me of why I like him. Zach is good and pure-hearted, a guy from a book, the goofy, cute sidekick. And in his case, in this moment, profoundly stupid.

“Okay, A, I'm going to let you calm down.”