The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt (17 page)

“No, I don’t,” I said. “Believe me, that wasn’t as good as it sounded. Anybody could do that.”

Spinky slapped one hand against her forehead, then nudged me with her shoulder.

“Mox, please.You’re like one of those little music geniuses that goes on the Ellen talk show.”

I shook my head.

“I’m really not a music genius, Spinky. Trust me—I’ve met a few. Yes I can play some things well, but so can thousands of other people. It’s very ordinary.”

Spinky laughed.

“That. Was not. Ordinary,” she said. “What you just played . . . What was it, anyway?”

“Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. But that was only the first movement. Someone super-good could play the third movement to tempo.”

“Why? What’s so special about it?”

I sighed.

“It’s . . . you know. I’m sure you know it. It’s famous for being hard. It starts like this . . .”

I played a few lines from it, wincing at every mistake. My rendition would certainly have made Beethoven relieved to be deaf. I stopped playing, and Spinky let out a soft whoop.

“Wow!” Spinky said, clapping her hands together. “That was incredible!”

I shook my head.

“No, Spinky, seriously. It’s supposed to be played almost twice that fast. And I make mistakes all through—you just don’t know the notes well enough, so you don’t notice. Maybe if I took six months and worked with Mr. Tate I could get it. Anybody could if they were willing to put in the zillion hours slogging it out. I’m enough of a doofus to spend that many hours in a practice room. Anybody could do it. You could.”

Spinky stared at me with a wild grin on her face. Then she cracked up, still looking at me.

“Okay, Mox, let me get this straight.You only sound like a fantastic musician—but you aren’t actually one—you’re just a boring person who spends too much time in the practice room, which anyone could do.”

“I’m just saying it’s way more boring than you think—plenty of people can play better than I can, and I can play what I play because I’m a music nerd and I have nothing else to do with my free time but practice.”

“Yeah? Does music nerd show up in your Personality Log anywhere?”

I groaned.

“Of course not.That’s part of the personality I was trying to get away from.”

“Why?”

I stared at her. She looked genuinely perplexed.

“Why?” Spinky repeated. “Why wouldn’t Eccentric Gifted Music Genius make it onto your list? It sounds pretty cool.”

“That doesn’t really describe me. And it isn’t especially cool either.”

“You don’t get to decide that,” Spinky said. “I stood here and listened to you play Beethoven. I’m here to tell you, it was cool.”

“I made mistakes. Even if you didn’t hear them, the truth is I make mistakes even in the easy movement.”

Spinky nudged my shoulder, still grinning.

“Moxie, you don’t need Yoda to waddle through the door and extract the obvious wisdom here. Everybody makes mistakes. I make fantastic ones. Look at this.”

She showed me a small tattoo on her arm, a word comprised of several Chinese characters.

“You think getting a tattoo was a mistake?” I said.

“Nope. I love my tattoos. But I wanted to save money, and I went to this totally cheap place to get this one. I wanted the word PEACE written out in Chinese. The guy had a book—he looked it up. But Helen Cho, this girl in my grade from back home, told me the guy got it wrong. Way wrong.”

“It doesn’t say peace?”

“Nope. It says DISCO.”

I laughed.

“I know, right? Pretty big mistake. Not that anyone would know if I didn’t tell them. But actually, I think it’s hilarious. It’s so me, you know? A total Spinkyism.”

I laughed again, looking at that cryptic tattoo. Then my short-term memory came back, and I looked down.

“Do you think I should leave school?” I asked.

“Leave school as in run away?” Spinky asked, astonished. “What, did the circus make you a better offer?”

“I’m a laughingstock at Eaton now.”

Spinky gave me a frank look.

“You’re a funny girl, Moxie,” she said. “I’ve never met anyone who cared so much about what people thought of her. And then you have this incredible talent, which you basically hide so people will think you’re something else.You’ve got to give up trying to control that.You can’t
tell
anyone ‘This is who I am.’ We’ll all figure it out by ourselves. I have.”

I peered at her, my hair hanging in my face.

“You have?”

“Of course. You’re a creative person with a very kind heart, a great sense of humor, a flair for the dramatic, and a wide variety of interests. Not to mention being able to play amazing things on the piano. And apparently, you have this tiny obsession with being different people depending on who you’re talking to . . . and there’s only two ways out of that.”

“What are they?”

Spinky stood up.

“Get over it, or check yourself into the nuthouse.”

Option one, on the whole, looked like the better choice to me.

I’d
like to be able to report that word did not spread about my Personality Logbook, so that I was left to absorb the lesson I had learned in my own good time.

I’d like to be able to tell you that. But I can’t. Kate didn’t have all that many friends. In fact, I don’t know who she even liked other than Spinky. But the word had managed to spread itself to a few people, who spread the word to a few more, and you know how that goes.

I worked on Variation 28 constantly. I had a day and a half until the talent show, and now more than ever I was sure it was what Mr. Tate hoped and believed I would perform.

I’d also finally taken to heart Ms. Hay’s advice that one should never put off till tomorrow what one can do today. I outlined a supposedly comic presentation for the talent show. It was light, corny, glib, and could not be less representative of what I’d really learned in EE, and at Eaton. I hated it.

If I was really going to put the whole Personality Log behind me, if I was really going to just be Moxie Roosevelt Kipper, with all her wrinkles and karmic zits, I was going to have to abandon my talent show comedy outline. I knew that. But I had no idea what to put in its place. I was just going to have to rely on faith—or dumb luck—that something would come to me.

 

“There is nothing wrong, I promise,” I said, shifting the phone to my other ear.

“I don’t understand, then,” my mother said. “Why in the world don’t you want us to come?”

“I do want you to come,” I insisted. “Just not for the Open Visit weekend. I have to get up in front of the entire school and perform.”

“Exactly,” my mother said. “We want to be there for you, Moxie. You know I’ve never missed one of your recitals.”

I hadn’t told her I was considering tackling 28. If I had a shot at convincing her not to come to the talent show, she’d have to think the piano part was totally unimportant.

“But this isn’t some big recital, Mom,” I said. “You’ve heard me play the Goldberg Variations a hundred times. That part’s going to be fine. But like I told you, I have to get up there and supposedly be funny and talk about myself.”

“Moxie, what exactly could you say about yourself in front of the entire student body that you don’t want me to hear?”

I took a deep breath.

“It’s not that I don’t . . . I can’t really—Mom, listen. It’s not what I’m going to say, so much as how . . . I’ll tell you all about it once it’s over. It’s not even finished yet—I don’t even know what I’m going to say, exactly. I’m just stressed out, and I’ll be more stressed if I know you’re coming out to see it.”

“Moxie, I don’t see the problem. What would I see that would cause you stress? You haven’t lost a limb or something, have you? Oh my gosh, I know what it is.”

“Mom . . .”

“You’ve dyed your hair like that Sporky girl, haven’t you? That’s what this is all about. Moxie, I—”

“Mom! It’s Spinky, first of all, not Sporky, and certainly not ‘that Sporky girl.’ And no, I haven’t done anything to my hair. Or lost a limb,” I added.

“If you’re under stress, I can help you, Moxie. I’ll come and bring some—”

“Mom!” I said too loudly. Then I took a breath. “Mom,” I said, in my best quiet and reasonable tone. “I am appealing to you as my mother. The thing is, I was kind of stupid my first month at Eaton. I did some things that weren’t so great.”

My mother took a deep breath—the kind she usually reserved for the editorial page of the
New York Times
.

“Moxie, are you in trouble? You haven’t been . . . Did you—”

“I haven’t broken any rules,” I said quickly.“Or even laws, for that matter. I’m not in that kind of trouble. I just . . . I sort of made myself out to be somebody I’m not. And now I’m trying to find my way back.”

“Sweetie, why would you make yourself out to be anything other than the extraordinary girl you are?”

I sighed.

“Conversation for another time, maybe. Like, when I’ve figured out the answer. But in the meantime, I have to do this stupid talent show thing and it’s embarrassing, okay? And I just need some space for it. It’s kind of like the changing room at Macy’s. I can try the dress on, but I really need to get out of my old outfit without you watching me.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It sounds like the subtext is that you need me more than ever.”

Ack. Would she ever relent?!

“No subtext, Mom,” I said, trying not to sound exasperated. “I promise you I will give you an absolutely faithful blow by blow once it’s all over. But please. Please please. Let me fly solo on this one.”

There was a silence. I could practically hear my mother chewing on her lower lip—a classic sign of indecision.

“You know, Moxie, that you’re a very special ...That is, it isn’t just because I’m your mother that I think . . .You are a person with many special gifts, and . . .”

“Mom.”

“Moxie.”

“Mooooommmm. . . .”

She sighed.

“All right. On one condition.”

“Name it,” I said eagerly.

“Don’t make up your mind today. Give it twenty-four hours. If you still feel the same way, your father and I will respect your wishes.”

“Thank you, Mom,” I said, biting back sudden tears. I was relieved . . . and more terrified than ever. She could have her twenty-four hours. I wasn’t going to change my mind. I was officially on my own.

“Twenty-four hours. I want your promise, Spanky Cheeks.”

When in extremity, it is wise to permit parents to verbalize the most excruciating of nicknames without objection. I swallowed the rising lump in my throat.

“I promise, Mom.”

“And I don’t even want to think about how I’m going to explain this to your father.”

“He’s a guy, Mom,” I said, finally pulling it together. “He’s not detail-oriented. I bet he won’t even ask. He’ll probably think it’s boy-related.”

“There are no boys at Eaton.”

Except for Luscious Luke.

“Okay, but still.”

“Twenty-four hours, Mox,” she said.

“You are an outstanding parental paradigm,” I declared.

“Mmmm. So I’ll hear from you tomorrow?”

“You’ll hear from me tomorrow. Kipper to Kipper.”

She sighed.

“Okay, sweetheart. Make sure I do.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“Love you too, Moxie Roosevelt. Good night.”

I hung up, shaking but relieved. I had now removed one of two major obstacles to my Self-Confidence Through Comedy presentation.

The second being that I needed a plan B, and I didn’t have one.

I kept
carrying around my old outline—the one I’d written that I now couldn’t bear the nightmarish thought of using. Even the night before the show I had it folded up in my pocket, making a little square dent in my jeans. For the last few days, every time I started thinking about standing up there with my awful bubble-gum-wrapper jokes, I’d freak out and run to the practice rooms to hide between the keys.

Tonight—my last night—was no different. I’d been lying low during dinner, trying to study for my algebra midterm, when my mind started picking over the same scab. When I got to my favorite practice room, I slid onto the bench and warmed up my fingers with some scales and chord progressions. The chatter in my mind fell away to the single focus of fingers on keyboard. It was the day before the talent show. If I was going to be able to play Variation 28 correctly to tempo, I had to be able to do it now.

I began to play.

I chased my thoughts away as Haven had taught me in meditation, and played without thinking. And it worked. It worked like a charm. Twenty, forty, eighty bars in and the music was flowing, my trills were fluid, my eighth notes to speed. I was playing it perfectly! I was doing it! At least, I was doing it until the thought that I was doing it appeared in my mind. Suddenly I became more focused on the thought than the music.
I’m halfway through Variation 28 with no mistakes
was flashing like a strobe in my mind. Please, no mistakes! What about that tricky hand crossover in the section where—

I hit a wrong note, then two more, and suddenly the flow I had found a minute before was gone.

I balled my hands into fists and struck the keys, taking pleasure in the sound of the musical bang.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it. There wasn’t a section in the piece I now could not play through. I just had to stop my mind from jumping in and ruining it. Could I get up in front of the whole school and play Variation 28 the way I knew I could play it? Could I face Mr. Tate if I flaked out and played something easier—something safer? I could live with not knowing for sure what piece I was going to play . . . Music was music and some part of me believed it would all work out the way it was meant to, because it always did. I allowed myself that second of relief, only to be blindsided by the limp and stale noodle of my supposed comedy routine rearing its ugly head.