What Mr. Mattero Did (2 page)

I don't know. Maybe I should have tapped away on that keyboard anyway and let my mother find out. See, I've always thought we should have told our mothers first. “Let
them
march into Mrs. Fernandez's office,” I had suggested to Jenna the very first time we ever talked about it. “Our moms are going to find out anyhow.”

“Claire, this is something we have to do ourselves,” Jenna had argued. “Besides, my mom's not home this week.”

Nothing new. Jenna's mom is a flight attendant and she's away a lot. Paris one week. Honolulu the next. No wonder it was so easy to lose track of her. I used to think she was such a good mother, too. She was always bringing Jenna stuff: cute little fish earrings, flashy pareos, cool bathing suits—and those fancy macadamia nuts. She used to give us each a jar every time she flew in from Hawaii. Ha! I ought to tell her sometime how I used to eat maybe one nut and chuck the rest in the backyard for the squirrels because they're like two hundred calories for about five of them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a part of me that's a little bit mean, too. But you know what? If you took a good look at my life sometime, you'd see why. Still, it just kills me to think about how I envied Jenna because of her mom. I mean, my mother seemed sooooo incredibly boring next to hers. All my mom did every day was stay home, working on her food list, doing stacks of laundry, fawning and fretting over my little brother and sister—mostly my brother—and asking me annoying questions like: “Claire, have you done your homework yet?” “Claire, did you pick up your room?” “Claire, is that all you're going to eat?”

Sheesh.

But now that I think of it, Jenna's mom should have been a little bit more like
mine
. Hey! And maybe none of this would have happened. Who knows?

“Look, Jenna, we can wait until your mom gets back,” I had suggested, in my most kindest, most sane voice.

Jenna grew quiet when I said that. I know Jenna missed her mom. You could always tell when her mother was flying. (I guess I should put that in quotes or something—the word “flying.”)

Suddenly Jenna pulled the elastic out of her ponytail and shook back her long hair. “I'm thinking of getting more highlights this week. You wanna come with me?”

I stared at her. If arrows could have come out of my eyeballs, they would have.

“Claire, come on, you should come with me—”

“Jenna!” I hated it when she didn't finish a conversation. “I said maybe we should wait till your mom gets back.”

“No!” Jenna had shot back.

It sort of shocked me, her tone. It had a nasty edge to it. I pulled back.

Jenna softened her voice. “Look, we already talked about that.” And instantly, like she pressed a button or something, her eyes got all red and watery, too, like she was going to cry.

“Remember?” Jenna asked. “We all agreed—we have to tell someone
now
.”

What is it about her? You look at Jenna and you think, here is a girl who has everything going for her, but somehow she can make you feel sorry for her like nobody I have ever known in my entire life. So I may have hesitated and rolled my eyes. Maybe I even cussed at her under my breath. But I went along with it. At that point I committed.

I could kick myself, though—
real hard
. And I still say that if our mothers had all known first, it might have played out different. With a little more warning, Suzanne's mother might not have gotten so off-the-wall hysterical, and for sure, Jenna's father wouldn't have come barreling into school the way he did, swinging his fists. God, that was awful. I just can't believe it. It got everything—
everything
started off on the absolute wrong foot!

2

Melody

I DIDN'T KNOW
any of the seventh-grade girls who marched into the principal's office that day. We have a fairly large middle school—hundreds of kids—and even in my eighth-grade class I didn't know everyone. Up until the day when my life collided with Claire's, I had no idea who she was. Same for the redhead, Suzanne. I did recognize one of the girls, the one named Jenna. But I couldn't figure out
how
I knew her until one day weeks later when we passed each other outside the police detective's office.

Odd how some of the most profound events of your life—things that can change you as a person forever—happen when you least expect it. At the exact moment those girls walked into the principal's office at Oakdale Middle School and started everything, I was alone in the music room arranging the chairs for band practice.

I had a study hall that period, and I knew the music room was a mess. It was not a big deal. I was in the music room a lot when I had extra time: organizing music, stacking and unstacking the chairs, wiping the blackboard, clearing Diet Coke cans off the teacher's desk, picking up trash. I didn't do it because I love music or for extra credit. I did it because I wanted to do it—and because Mr. Mattero is my father.

Dad is very particular about the seating arrangement for band, so I did it according to his plan, plus I was careful to count, giving every two chairs a shared music stand because we didn't have enough for everyone. Well, all except for Sasha and Orlando, who were, respectively, our sole cello and trumpet players and needed their own music.

I didn't mind helping my father. Organization is not his strong point (an understatement), and Dad was very appreciative. Besides, while I pushed chairs around and unfolded the metal stands, I was simultaneously rhyming in my head and trying to find a phrase that rhymed with “drops of water”:
playful otter . . . springtime squatter.
I wanted to be a writer—a poet, actually—and my best friend, Annie, and I were both writing something for the spring edition of
Wings
, our school literary magazine.

Just when I had the last chair in place, my father walked into the room holding a tall stack of CDs in his hands and using his chin to keep the pile stable. “Hey, Mel,” he said, taking small but quick steps toward his desk.

I was surprised to see him. “I thought you had a teachers' meeting?”

“I did.” He bent over and tried to settle the CDs on his desk, but the stack was so high it started to topple over, and we both rushed to stop it.

A loud clatter shattered the quiet. Throwing open my arms, I stopped about half a dozen from careening off the side of his desk.

“Good catch!” I exclaimed when Dad caught one an inch from the floor.

“Close indeed!” he agreed.

We both laughed. Dad straightened his keyboard tie, a birthday present from me, while I pushed my eyeglasses back up on my nose. Then I flipped my long braid back over my shoulder, and together, Dad and I restacked the CDs.

“Thanks, Mel,” he said. “Hey, and thanks for setting up the chairs.”

I nodded a welcome and pointed. “I organized the music, too. See?”

My father glanced at the neat piles of sheet music on his desk. “Great,” he said. “Perfect. But could you do me one more favor before you leave?”

“Sure.”

“Would you haul out that small viola from the storage room and rosin up the bow? I've got a sixth-grader, Lee somebody, who wants to try it.”

Frowning, I crossed my arms. “Dad, you gave the little viola to Maura Shannahan.”

At first, my father's face went blank—then it sagged with disappointment.

I stared at him. “Don't you remember? You gave it to her a week ago. She's already broken the A string! I had to put a new one on for her yesterday in band.”

“Yeah, you're right,” Dad said. He put a hand up to his forehead and rubbed it slowly, the way he does when he's thinking. Then he looked at me and winked. “Think I can talk her into a clarinet?”

I couldn't help but grin. “Probably,” I said, but I was sure he could because my father is amazing when it comes to convincing kids to try new things. If he wasn't, we wouldn't have a middle-school band
or
an orchestra!

Dad rolled his shirtsleeves up and was getting back to work when the intercom came on. The light blinked, and the school secretary's loud, nasal voice accosted us:
“Mr. Mattero?”

I turned and walked away, pulling my braid over my shoulder and twisting the end of it (a habit when I'm composing). I went back to writing that poem in my head, wondering if maybe
melting snow, things will grow
had more possibilities than
water, otter,
or
squatter.

But when I think back on that moment—because Dad got called down to the office a minute later—I glimpse a snapshot of my father's face, and I can see all over again how upset he was, knowing he'd have to disappoint little Lee somebody who had wanted to try the viola. And I think of how my dad hated to squelch anyone's enthusiasm for music because he was really dedicated. That was the one true thing I have always known for sure: that my dad loved teaching music to kids. For twenty-two years, he taught music, half of those years at Oakdale Middle School.

My father thought everyone in the world needed to master at least one musical instrument while they were young: “It teaches self-discipline and creative thinking,” he would tell you, would
beg
you to understand. “It builds self-confidence!” He went crazy when the school board threatened to cut music out of the middle-school budget to save money. “This would be a tragic mistake,” he was quoted in the local newspaper. The clipping is still on our refrigerator. “Music and art are the building blocks that make people and our society a vibrant and viable world!”

Of course everyone in my family played an instrument—or two or three. (Even if you didn't really want to, I should add.) My older sister, away at college in Indiana where she is majoring in music and education, is a piano and flute virtuoso. Not to mention the fact that my sister composes some of her own pieces. She's a regular little Mozart in training. Every year in high school she was selected for All State Orchestra, and her goal is to be a music teacher—like my dad! Believe me, she is a very hard act to follow.

My brother, too, could be in the teenage music hall of fame. Not only does he play drums and guitar (for the rock band he organized in the sixth grade), but he's terrific on the saxophone, too. And he has the best ear of all of us when it comes to picking out a new tune. Don't be looking for him on the music circuit though. My brother, a sophomore in high school, is also the second-string quarterback for the Wallinsburg Cougars. His dream is not only to come from behind and lead an eighty-yard drive to win a playoff game against rival Rockville High School, but to hustle and make a million dollars as a professional football player for the Washington Redskins.

Still, it's music, music, music in our house. And just look at our names! My sister in college is Song. My brother is Cade, which is short for Cadence (the harmonic ending in a piece of music). There's me—Melody. (Did I forget to credit myself with the viola?) Even our cat is named Harmony.

I know,
I know
. It's all a bit much. But please don't compare us to the Brady Bunch because we're not dumb like that. It's just my parents' style, that's all. Underneath it all, they're really nice, really smart people. My mother, Mary, runs a plant nursery and plays flute in the community orchestra. She let me repaint my entire room lavender last summer, and she's hired someone to rebuild her old computer from work so that she can give it to me and I can have my own. My mother is the glue that holds our family together. And she stood by my father the entire time. She is still standing by him. I guess I should add that, too.

My father, Frederick Mattero (everyone calls him Fred)—well, up until this all happened, he was just a normal person. And he has been a great dad. I will never forget how he coached my soccer team in fourth grade, even though he didn't know anything about soccer. And how my dad—every summer since I was eight—has taken just me on a fishing trip down the Rap pahannock River in Virginia and doesn't even care if I don't fish. While he casts around and reels in dinner, I sit on these flat rocks in the river and write poems. Then, while we're sitting by the campfire, I read him the poems I wrote, and he actually listens and he always has something meaningful, something insightful, to say about them.

But there are a kazillion little things my dad does—my dad
did
—for lots of people, not just me, that made him so special. I mean, his blueberry pancakes on Sunday morning, his turkey tacos, his sense of humor, all the help he gave Cade's band (even filling in one night when the drummer got sick), and the way my dad always knows the right thing to do. Gosh, and all the houses he's fixed up with the Habitat for Humanity people at church—and the kitchen with all the new cabinets that he renovated for my mom.

Sometimes, it doesn't make any sense that this has happened.

It keeps coming back to me—the last conversation Dad and I had before the weight of the world was upon him—and me—and my family.

After the intercom came on and Dad got called down to the office, everything changed.

Dad pushed a clarinet case against the wall with his foot and left, mumbling that he'd probably forgotten to get his homeroom lunch count in on time again and how Mrs. Fernandez shouldn't be wasting his time with stuff like that. I had finished setting up the chairs and then returned to study hall with my journal to work on a poem about spring that I never finished.

I don't know. It's hard to describe, but I'm different now. And it's not just the poetry I never write anymore or what happened to my best friend, Annie, and me. It has more to do with how I see my father, how we all see my father, and where we go from here.