The Sound of Letting Go (23 page)

Sweater straightened,

I slide back up onto the passenger seat,

turn on the radio.

A thumping rap recounts things that are hot, irresistible.

I wish there wasn’t a party at the pits,

or that Dave hadn’t brought me here—

that we were alone together

somewhere.

He turns down the volume, lets out a long breath.

“This was not what I expected from tonight.”

He tries to take my hand.

A wave of anger makes me cross my arms over my chest.

“What were you expecting?

If you want more than a make-out buddy,

you have to ask a girl on a real date,

with a restaurant reservation and a menu.

Not marshmallows and Belden’s brew.”

“I didn’t mean . . . Shit, Daisy,

I was hoping we could be . . .”

“Be what?” My face feels like fire.

“Playground pals again? We’re seventeen years old.

You’ve barely talked to me since grade school.

Then these past few weeks . . . I don’t understand.

You’re a badass slacker and I’m a band geek

with a totally messed-up family.”

“Don’t play the messed-up family card with me!”

I am not used to the steely glint in his eyes.

“When we were still playing on the swings, everyone

in this town knew my mom was screwing around.

Except me.”

“I didn’t,” I lie,

just like Justine after my flubbed solo with the orchestra,

even as I remember Mom and Dad

discussing the messy Miller marriage

at our own kitchen table,

back when Steven was small enough to manage

and my parents believed their love for each other

was built of steel, not sand.

“I’m gonna bring the marshmallows down to Belden.”

Dave’s voice is cold with disbelief.

He gets out of the car, slams the door a little too hard.

Is it wrong to tweak the pitch of memories

so the bad ones don’t play in our hearts in minor keys?

How does Jasper choose

which of its townspeople’s many unsecret secrets

to keep?

Why do I cling so hard to the echo of Ned

laughing at my upturned skirt

but let myself forget that feeling, after hours spent

pushing cars alongside Steven,

of him pelting the little metal toys at my head,

my back—

how I would run to Mom, bury my face in her shoulder,

and both she and I would cry?

What was Dave hoping we could be?

The question leads me down to the lake.

“Sorry I got so angry,” I whisper to Dave.

“Things are bad at home.”

He hands me a marshmallow speared onto a sharp twig,

gently kisses the top of my head. “Don’t get burned.”

I lean against his shoulder,

still afraid to ask what he wants,

what he wanted that very first day I caught him waiting

outside the band room at school,

because I’m not sure what answer I’d want him to give me.

What truth.

What lie.

We let words fall away,

just laugh when every other marshmallow

erupts into flames,

pull our sleeves over our hands so the cold beer bottles

don’t freeze our fingers.

Until I finally feel ready for Dave to take me home.

The house is quiet when I get home.

Mom has fallen asleep on the living room couch,

a sweaty, muscle-bound guy on the television

promising her rock-hard abs

in twenty minutes a day.

I don’t wake her. Just hit the TV “off” button,

switch off the lights,

tiptoe up the stairs.

Gentle snores slide under the door of Steven’s bedroom.

Before the divorce,

before the room was repainted in girl-power pink,

Justine and I used to sneak into her dad’s office

where, hidden in a bottom drawer,

he kept his
Playboy
magazines

and one inexplicable
Playgirl
,

which we explored to tatters.

I try to imagine Dave

beneath his flannel boxers, low-slung jeans,

looking like one of those baby-oiled photographs;

think of Steven,

how often, now,

his hands stray into his pants.

It drives my mother crazy,

uncertain whether to reprimand or ignore,

or cry.

Is Steven any different from me?

What does his mind do when his fingers travel there?

Does he imagine, with the sensation,

a face,

a loyalty?

Does he fear a betrayal?

A lust unrequited by love?

I should be more elated by Dave’s Sunday morning text:

“Missing you till Monday.”

Steven’s waffle unburnt,

routines in place, Dad spends the morning

repairing the cracked kitchen drywall.

He stays with Mom after lunch,

so I can go down to the basement

and start trumpet practice before the sun sets.

It feels like a day in the normal house

I sometimes dream about.

“We visited one of those autism homes

for Steven this weekend,”

I admit to Justine as we drive to school Monday morning.

“What was it like?”

“I don’t know. Clean. Calm. It seemed okay.”

The subject pinches like a new pair of shoes,

but each time I take a step, give up a few words,

the leather of my pain stretches,

makes a little more room for me to breathe.

“Clean is good. More than can be said for my bedroom,” Justine says.

I smile. “Yep, you’re a slob.”

“Ned can’t stand the clutter.

I swear, he tries to fold my clothes

every time he comes through the door.”

“
Every
time?”

She blushes.

We pull up to a parking spot

right by the front entrance of Evergreen High.

Lunch is teriyaki beef and sautéed carrots—not bad.

After, Dave invites me to hang out behind the school

and I go,

closing my mind to the “A-absent” and “T-tardy”

symbols accumulating on my attendance record,

to A-PUSH’s imaginary Jeremy

and my neglected real-life tutee, Cal.

We don’t talk about Saturday night;

just watch the high clouds floating over the playground,

agree on our hopes for Thanksgiving snow,

kiss enough to make me late for concert band class.

“Daisy, I have e-mailed both your parents and yourself.

No one has replied about your absences from zero period.”

Even though the class has started,

Mr. Orson comes out to talk to me in the hall.

His eyes, full of gentle concern,

take in my heavy-shaded lids,

my unembellished black sneakers.

“I haven’t stopped practicing, Mr. O,” I assure him.

“This isn’t like you. Mrs. Pendleton told

me your parents are making some”—

he hesitates—“changes at home.”

I stumble backward,

more stunned than if he’d slapped me.

My Monday charade of gorgeous normalcy is shattered.

“Changes,”

I whisper inside my head.

Seven harsh letters ricochet round my skull.

I try to quiet my heaving chest,

wait for some answer, any words at all,

to will their way to my lips.

“Then you know why.”

“I wish I could let you take more time.

But I can’t falsify the attendance record,

and if you have too many unexcused absences,

you’ll be automatically failed.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder.

“The jazz band needs you.

I think you need them, too.”

He smiles, but I can’t smile back.

Behind him

I see every concert band member’s eyes

boring curiously through the interior window,

watching us.

I bend down, pretending to fix my sneaker lace, whisper

the knife-word that’s never been wielded at me before:

“Failed.”

It feels strangely satisfying—different,

like my dramatic eyes. Kind of easy, too—

not so much an action

as a nonaction, a silence, a not-being-there.

“You know,” Mr. Orson continues,

“I wrote some glowing recommendations for you this fall.

I never imagined you were the kind of person

who would give up music

just because other parts of your life got difficult.

I pegged you as one who would, despite anything,

hold on.”

“I thought so, too,” I whisper,

eyes focused self-protectively inward.

I straighten my back, lift my chin,

try to channel Justine

as I follow him into the band room.