This Song Is (Not) for You (7 page)

“That is the coolest thing you have ever done,” Ramona said. We were at school on Monday, under the stairwell by the music department, where we first met. I was showing her the pic on my phone of the poster. “I get grounded, and you immediately go off and do the coolest thing ever.”

“You went glitter bombing with Tom,” I reminded her.

“Yeah.” She paused and cocked her head to the side. “When I go off with Tom, we do something subtle and quiet, but Tom and you go do something loud and inyourface.”

“I get the feeling that Tom is the sort of guy who brings the hidden side out of a person,” I said.

Ramona smiled. “You get it now, don’t you? You understand why we needed him in the band.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I do. I don’t know how you knew, but you were right.” She smiled again and adjusted her book bag.

“I really like him,” she said.

“Yeah, me too.”

“I mean—I mean I
like
like him, Sam. Tom.”

“Oh,” I said. I’m such an idiot.

“Is that cool? I don’t want to mess stuff up with the band.” She shrugged her shoulders and averted her eyes, then glanced up at me from under her eyelashes. So pretty.

Damn her for being so pretty.

“Of course it’s cool,” I said. “I want you to date whoever you want.”

I want you to want to date me
, I didn’t say.

Ramona got this soft, sad look on her face.

“You’re such a good friend to me,” she said.

The warning bell rang, reminding us that we were supposed to be headed to class.

“I’ll see you after school for band practice!” she yelled, and turned and ran up the stairs, away from me.

Away from

me.

I’m hanging out with Ramona at her place today. She and her dad live in a condo in the city. It’s nice, but it’s not anything like Sam’s mom’s brownstone, which has four stories and the kind of sprawling lawn one rarely sees in metropolitan areas.

Ramona’s front door has a tiny patch of grass with a green giggling Buddha sitting by the door. The inside is crowded with the grand piano and her father’s bookshelves. It’s obvious that they are a family focused on intellectual pursuits.

We’re in her bedroom now. Her dad reminded her to leave the door open. She has a posters of Chopin, Björk, Kathleen Hanna, and Evelyn Glennie on her walls. Her bedspread is pink and girlie. I didn’t expect that.

“For elementary school, I went to this hippie charter where we had this class called ‘Art with Found Materials,’” Ramona is saying. “We literally went to junkyards and made stuff. And yesterday”—she holds up a large tin can with a long spring attached that dances just above the floor—“I remembered the day I made one of these.” She finishes with a flourish and shakes the can.

The spring sways and thrums, echoing inside the can. It sounds like a thunderous, ominous wind filling the room. It sounds like the wind inside my car, the noise I’ve been trying and failing to replicate electronically.

(Ramona is probably the coolest girl I know.

And I don’t know why I said “probably.”

She just is. The Coolest.)

“I also know how to make a tambourine out of bottle caps,” she says. She sits down on the carpet next to me.

(She reminds me of Sara,

but at the same time,

I’ve never met anyone like her.)

“We should do a piece where you and Sam play homemade instruments, and I record you guys and play it back with weird effects,” I say.

“Yes!” Ramona shouts. She flings her arms wide and the spring rattles.

I laugh.

“What?” she says.

“You,” I say. I’m smiling, and so is she.

But I’m still unprepared when she leans forward to kiss me.

Maybe I should have been expecting it, but I’m just not good at these things.

So I have to make a decision fast.

I think I might like to be with her like that,

(kind of)

and she
is
the coolest girl I know.

So we kiss.

I like it.

But after a while it’s just

A little boring.

A little wet.

And afterward we hold hands, which I like, and we talk about going to the art museum with Sam, which sounds fun.

And Ramona smiles this secret smile now, reveling in this thing I only kind of understand.

Tom.

Tom.

Tom. Tom. Tom.

Tom.

TOM.

I kissed Tom.

Then we smiled, and we talked and we laughed, and before he left for home, he kissed me good night and told me he’d call me.

It’s all so natural.

So right.

TOM.

Tom. Tom.

I can’t believe I actually did it.

I leaned forward and I kissed him like I was this cool, confident chick.

I was worried that he would think my kissing was awkward.

I hadn’t actually kissed someone since eighth grade.

And a guy like Tom who is so cool, he’s got to be experienced.

But he kissed me back. He likes me too.

Tomorrow after school we’ll go to Sam’s garage and make music together.

We’ll hold hands and laugh.

We’ll be boyfriendandgirlfriend and all will be well.

(And I’ll forget to ache when I look at Sam.)

I knew this day would come, so it was easy to pretend that I didn’t mind. I knew that someday, someone would see Ramona the way I do.

I knew there would be someone who she wanted too.

I’m not saying that this doesn’t hurt like hell.

Because it does hurt like hell.

It hurts like hell.

There we were, sitting on the floor of my garage as if it were an ordinary Thursday, listening to the final mix on our best song. It’s the most professional-sounding thing we’ve ever done.

Tom sat cross-legged and lamented our earlier and loooonger winter break. We’ll be off three days before him, but we go back to school only two days before him.

Ramona had her hand on his knee.

And it’s amazing how this simple fact changed everything.

Her hand was so still.

Still in a way that Ramona never is, never is with me.

Her fingers draped over his kneecap and rested on the denim of his jeans.

At school today she said, “Tom and I are together now.”

And I said, “Cool,” as if it was, and then we talked about other things. Apparently Emmalyn has been ignoring Ramona, which she thinks is grand. But this was all I could think about: how later I would be sitting here. Sitting here with them.

Ramona’s fingers had chipped nail polish on them.

She never paints her nails. She must have done it last night (for him), but of course the polish was already chipped.

I thought about her hand on my knee—a soft, quiet weight telling me that she’s mine. Now that I could see her with Tom, the picture was there in my mind, with me in his place.

“Guys, this song is amazing,” she said to us. Her fingertips pressed into his knee, not mine. “We’re a real band now. Not just kids fooling around in a garage.”

I guess that’s how she thought of us before Tom.

April and the Rain.

Just kids.

In a garage.

And maybe the band is much better now.

And maybe I really like Tom.

But right now I wish we’d never met him.

Another girl who wants something from me that I don’t know how to give.

Another friend I’m terrified to lose.

Another girlfriend.

But maybe this time it’ll be different.

Maybe I’ll be different.

Maybe this time I’ll feel what everyone else seems to know how to feel.

Maybe this time I won’t screw everything up.

And maybe Sam won’t hate me for “stealing” Ramona.

’Cause that’s another thing I have to worry about.

This is why sex seems like a big waste of energy to me.

• • •

The afternoon before Thanksgiving, we drive to Soulard together in my car, with Sam in the backseat. I’ve got the handheld recorder that has allowed me to capture everything from rain on the porch roof to my mother cooking bacon. We’re planning on walking around and asking different people what they’re thankful for and recording their answers. I’m gonna run some effects on the voices, and Ramona and Sam are gonna make the music to play under it.

We park at Grift Craft because I know Teddy won’t mind. Teddy is the owner. As soon as I learned to drive, I became such a regular customer that Teddy and I got to talking. And talking led to long discussions about music and art, and now he gives me work on the weekends for cash under the table. I haven’t mentioned that I have a job to Ramona or Sam yet because I already feel so outclassed by them.

(I know that’s dumb, and they aren’t snobby types at all, but emotions aren’t logical, okay? Plus, they might disapprove of me stocking yarn on the black market.)

It’s a gorgeous autumn day, crisp and bright. The gold leaves glow against the redbrick buildings. College students back home and mingling with their high school friends are parking their cars and walking to the bars that fill the gentrified neighborhood.

They are ripe pickings for our picking. Recording. (Whatever.)

We do a few test takes to make sure the recorder is working, and then I jump in front of the first twentysomething I see.

“What are you thankful for?” I shout at her. She jumps back, startled, and blinks at me.

“My dog,” she says. Her friend laughs at her and tugs on her arm, dragging her away from the crazy kids with a microphone in the street. I pass the mic to Sam.

“Do you have anything to be thankful for?” Ramona asks a passing man. He’s older—thirtyish. Sam readies the mic under his chin. He scowls at us.

“Privacy,” he barks. This time Ramona laughs, and the sound registers on the recorder. She has such a pretty laugh.

She grins at me and tucks some hair behind her ear.

I appreciate how pretty she is, like a rambunctious sunset.

I should feel something more than I do.

I smile back at her.

Sam isn’t looking at us; he’s holding the recorder out in front of a group of bleached blonds.

“What are you thankful for?”

“My friends,” one shouts.

“Me too,” I say. I smile at Ramona and look over my shoulder at Sam. He glances at us and looks away. But he doesn’t look angry. He passes the recorder to Ramona again. She dashes off in the direction of an old woman walking an ancient poodle.

“Hey, man,” I say. I can’t look at him, and I realize I haven’t figured out exactly what I want to say. “I don’t want to take her away.”

“No…” he mumbles. Ramona grins in reply to the old woman and turns to run back to us. “We’re cool, dude.”

We haven’t met eyes. We watch Ramona race back to us, her smile beaming at us both.

I can do this.

I can balance this.

I can still have this.

“So, you’re
dating
this Tom now?” Dad says.

“This Tom?” I say. “He’s
this
Tom now?” We’re in the kitchen. I’m spooning jambalaya out of the Crock-Pot. Pretty much all of Dad’s cooking is Crock-Pot based. For most of my life, I had no idea that this was weird, but now I think it’s weird that it’s weird, because everybody should cook with a Crock-Pot. It’s so convenient and you can make almost anything.

Anyway.

“Yes, Moany,” Dad says. “He’s
this
Tom for now, but he’ll become
that
Tom if I see any trouble with him.” I roll my eyes and sit down on the other stool at the kitchen island, across from him.

And yeah. Dad’s name for me is Moany. Or sometimes Moany-Moans. When he’s teasing me for being whiny, he calls me “Her Moaniness.” That one really drives me crazy.

“He’s nice, Daddy,” I say. “You’ll like him.” Overall Dad really is cool. And he’s a good cook. Don’t let the Crock-Pot thing throw you.

“Does Sam like him?”

“Of course Sam likes him!” I say. “Do you think that I could like a guy who Sam didn’t like?”

“It’s a common enough trope in modern storytelling. Almost as common as the platonic friends who are secretly in love.”

Really, I can’t roll my eyes enough at the man. I mean, he always talks like he’s on NPR, and he also thinks that he’s subtle.

“Sam and I are just friends,” I tell him for the forty-millionth time, because it is technically, my own feelings aside, true. “Tom is my boyfriend now, and he’s nice and smart and unique. And we’ve started a new band with him. We’re Vandalized by Glitter now. We have this fuller, strange, new sound now.”

“Well,” Dad says, “I’m sure he’s decent enough if you like him, but bring him around again soon, okay? I want to get to know
this
Tom sooner rather than later. And make sure that he doesn’t cut into your piano practice. Your mother went on her first tour when she was twenty-one, remember.”

“I know,” I say. “I practiced for two hours yesterday, and I can do three hours tomorrow.”

“And don’t forget that you have finals at the end of the month. School is just as important as piano.”

“I know.”

“You’re a talented pianist, Ramona. I just want you to live your full potential.”

“I know, Daddy,” I say.

But I’m a talented drummer too, Daddy
, I do not say.

When I’m with Ramona, it’s not that bad.

She’s so happy that it’s making her extra goofy, and I’m spending so much time laughing that I sort of forget why she’s so happy. When I pick her up for school, she’s awake and giggling and telling me about something she saw on the Internet the night before. At school Emmalyn has done at least one terrible thing to report on, and on the way to my place for band practice, Ramona is bursting with ideas and observations for Vandalized by Glitter. I want her, but it’s always been that way.

When I’m with Ramona and Tom it’s worse, but it’s not that bad.

They act almost the same, and they only kiss good-bye, so I can always try and miss it.

It’s when I’m alone,

(And it’s always dark by then.)

It’s when I’m alone that it’s bad.

And I think about how much I want to be with her. How much I want to touch her and kiss her. How much I just want to sit with her and say in an ordinary way, “I love you, Ramona.”

Ramona.

Ramona is with Tom.

I can’t hate Tom. Tom’s a cool guy. Tom’s my friend.

Ramona’s a pretty girl; of course Tom would like her.

It’s just that I want to be with her. I want to be the one, the one that gets to have her love, the one who gets to touch her face. I want to be the one she wants to have with her. The one she calls her one.

But he’s not me.