19 
No Drumming at the Table
19 “What the heck is that ugly thing?” Dolly asks. We’re helping Mom get dinner ready in the kitchen, and it’s the first time either one of them has laid eyes on my new drum, which I told them I borrowed from Mr. Sinclair, the goofy, mustachioed music teacher who actually does have a bunch of weird bongos and other things lying around his office. I’m sitting on a stool and giving them a sample of my flashy new skills.
“It’s called a rada,” I say. “Sorry it’s not as beautiful as your impossibly perfect cello.” And it’s true that there couldn’t have been more of a contrast between the rada—with its rough, wooden sides; crude pegs; and worn-down, sweat-stained cow-skin head—and Dolly’s finely polished, two-thousand-dollar cello, which my mom had to buy on layaway. “But I’m going to be better on this drum than you’ll ever be on that stuck-up old thing.”
The truth is, of course, I’m a total beginner on this drum, and will be for a long, long time. But there is a feeling I get when I play the rada, when I practice my patterns, that I can do anything, be anything. That I can be a good musician one day, or talk to a girl who’s as beautiful and cool and mysterious as Bijou without feeling like I’m going to have a panic attack. I saw Bijou watch me while I was playing. She wasn’t looking at me like I was some pest who couldn’t take no for an answer. She was looking at me like I was someone worth getting to know.
“Alex, you know I support you taking an interest in something,” Mom says.
“I’m gonna play it for Musicale this year,” I say, the thought occurring to me at exactly the same moment the words are coming out of my mouth. It’s a cool idea, though. Musicale is a big deal at St. Cathopher’s, an open call for anybody in fifth grade and above. Everybody from both schools is required to watch, and the show usually lasts almost three hours. But I’ve never been able to sign up, because I’ve never been good at anything. Until now.
“That’s wonderful, Alex,” Mom says. “I’m looking forward to hearing you play some more. But until dinner’s over, please put the drum—”
“It’s called a rada,” I say. Dolly giggles.
“Sorry, please put the rada away until dinner’s over.”
“Yeah, no rada-ing at the table, bro.” Dolly smirks.
This is the first time the three of us have had a meal together in weeks. We’re preparing salmon steaks marinated in soy, ginger, and garlic, and Mom gets a small cut on her right thumb while slicing spring onions.
“Ack,” she says. “I need to run up and get a Band-Aid. Can you guys take over here?”
We can, and we do. I squeeze lemon juice into the marinade, and Dolly makes a salad.
“So, is this, like, revenge against me playing the cello all these years?” Dolly asks. “Or are you trying to work your way into a certain Haitian girl’s good graces?”
God, I’m an idiot. Of course Dolly was going to put two and two together. “But don’t tell Mom, okay?” I whisper.
“I won’t, I won’t. But you should really be more careful. Mom’s no fool.” Dolly throws a handful of chopped carrots into the salad bowl and starts working on the dressing, whisking oil and vinegar, mustard, and honey in a small bowl. “I have to say, though, you do sound pretty good on that thing, for just a few days.” And she looks genuinely impressed. I’ve never been good at anything before, really, and the whole family knows it.
“Thanks,” I say. And unable to resist, “If my drumming keeps you up, remember the five hundred million mornings your cello has woken me up at the crack of dawn.”
“That drum is so much louder than my cello.” She puts a stainless-steel pan on the grill, lights the flame underneath, and drizzles some olive oil on the pan’s hot surface.
“Don’t be so sure about that. That oversize ukelele can shake the picture frames off the walls.”
“So, how’s it going with her, anyway?” She lowers her voice. “Are you guys a couple yet?”
Dolly plops three chunks of salmon steak on the pan. They pop and sizzle. She tends to them with a metal spatula and waits for my answer.
“Definitely just friends. I don’t really know how to, you know, make it more than that.”
“All your friends are trying to get you to make your move, right? Be the big stud?”
“I don’t know. Kind of, I guess.” I decide to take a risk and trust my sister. She is, after all, older and supposedly wiser. She’s had a boyfriend. Just nerdy Jerome, a violinist with bad acne and a jittery, nervous laugh, but still. “Dolly, is she going to want me to? You know, to make a move?”
“Well, probably, yeah. But it doesn’t have to be anything major. The important thing is that you show her that you like her. And you do that by doing what comes naturally, not by pretending to yawn so you can get your arm around her.”
Okay, so my sister’s advice is the exact opposite of Nomura’s. But which one of them is right?
I sidestep the question for now. “How would I ‘make a move’ anyway? We’re not even allowed to be alone together for a single minute.”
“Strict parents, huh?”
“It’s her aunt and uncle, and it’s way beyond strict. It’s like she’s completely outlawed from having contact with not just boys, but even girls her own age. It’s completely forbidden.”
“Wow, that’s pretty old-school. Can you imagine Mom trying to control us like that, every moment of our lives? Did they just move here or something?”
“They’ve been here for thirty years. I don’t think they’re going to change.”
“Well, in that case, maybe you’ll have to … get creative.”
“I already have.”
“Umm, bad idea,” Mom says, walking into the kitchen and applying some pressure to her bandaged finger. How much of our conversation did she hear? “Whoever we’re talking about here? Her family has rules, and they need to be respected.”
“Even if they were written in the Middle Ages?” Dolly says.
Mom ignores the comment. “Just like our family’s rules need to be respected.”
Exactly, like rules about me hanging out in a dollar van, or going to a rara jam session after dark in Prospect Park when I told her I was studying with Nomura.
“What are our family’s rules, exactly?” I ask.
“Yeah, Mom,” Dolly says, smiling. “What are they?”
“Rule number one: honesty,” Mom says, definitely not smiling. “If you guys follow that rule, then we don’t really need many others.”
“Okay,” Dolly and I say. Dolly gives me a look, like Yikes.
We set the table and put down the food in silence, and I’m hoping Mom won’t start asking questions that actually put “rule number one” to the test. But no such luck.
Before we’ve even taken our first bite, Mom says, “Alex, do you want to tell me who you and Dolly were talking about, and what exactly your relationship with her is?” Mom has that look of trying to control her emotions after hearing something that has really bowled her over. But is it really so shocking that I’m interested in a girl? I’m in seventh grade, after all.
Without any other options (or time to think of any), I go ahead and tell her everything I know about Bijou. She’s from Haiti, she’s been here less than three months, she lives with her superstrict uncle, and she has a brother who’s an awesome drummer.
“That’s all you know?” Dolly laughs. “Maybe you should try asking her a question or two sometime.”
“Dahlia, be nice,” Mom says.
“You think I don’t want to? I’d love to know more about her, but it’s hard. I’m really supposed to start firing away with superpersonal questions with everyone hovering around us all the time?”
“These Haitian parents are heavily into supervision,” Dolly says.
“So am I,” Mom says, looking stern. And then, to me, “Alex, you really don’t know what happened to her—wait, what’s her name again?”
“Bijou.”
“Very pretty. You don’t know anything about what happened to her family during the earthquake?”
“That was three years ago.”
“That might seem like a long time to you, but it’s really not. Did she lose anyone? Her mom or dad?”
“I don’t think so. She talks about her mom sometimes, and I think her dad’s been … out of the picture for a while now.”
Mom shrugs and gives a short laugh. She knows a little something about out-of-the-picture dads. “So why did she move here, then?”
“I don’t know.” I have to admit, in all this time, I hadn’t really thought about it before. It’s been hard enough to keep up with Bijou in the present, much less subject her to nosy questions about her past.
“Maybe you should find out,” Dolly says, as if I needed to feel any stupider right now.
“Dahlia, enough,” Mom says. “Alex, do you know how Bijou lived in Haiti? Was her family in the camps?”
“I think she lived in a house.”
“Really?”
“They used to have servants, before the earthquake. I think they might have been rich or something.”
“Are you sure about that, Alex? I don’t think there are very many people in Haiti who have, or who ever had, servants.”
“Mom, you’ve never even been to Haiti. Not everybody there is poor, no matter what you see on the news.”
“Alex, please don’t use that tone with me.”
“I’m sorry. I just don’t see why it’s such a big deal that I was with somebody who happened to be in an earthquake.”
“It was more than just any old earthquake, and I think you know that. What I’m trying to say is, a young girl, with everything she’s been through, the complexity of her emotions must be absolutely overwhelming. She may have post-traumatic stress disorder.” Post-traumatic stress disorder. Okay, that’s something I’m going to need to look up. “Even if Bijou was lucky enough to avoid any major tragedy during the quake, moving to a new country, being so far away from her mother for the first time, it’s … a lot.”
“But she seems fine to me.” I almost said, She seems fine with me.
“She might appear fine on the outside, but believe me, with what she’s been through, below the surface, things are bound to be way more complicated.”
“So I shouldn’t be friends with her because her life’s been hard?”
“No, Alex. And must you turn this into an argument? I am not saying you shouldn’t, or can’t, spend time with her. But I am saying that you should be aware of her circumstances. She has a lot on her plate right now, and it might be a lot for a boy your age to take in.”
“I’m old enough, Mom. I understand things.”
Dolly rolls her eyes, and I remind myself to get her back for that as soon as Mom’s out of sight.
“Alex, just promise to talk to me, even if it’s awkward, okay?” Yeah, like that’s going to happen; I’m going to talk to my mom about what’s happening between me and the first girl I’ve ever liked. “Keep me posted on how things go with her?”
“You never make me tell you about what it’s like when I hang out with Nomura, or Ira. Why is Bijou any different?”
“Because she’s a girl, you dummy,” Dolly says, shaking her head. I know I’m being ridiculous, but aren’t I allowed to keep this stuff private?
“I have to report on my activities all of a sudden, because I like a girl?”
“You don’t have to be so dramatic,” Mom says. “But if you put it that way, Alex, you’re still young enough that I should know who you’re with after school. If you say you’re studying with Nomura, you’d better be studying with Nomura.”
Wait, does she know I’ve already thrown a couple of half truths her way? Knowing that my agro approach to this conversation has backfired badly, I say, “Okay, Mom,” hoping this’ll be enough to end it.
“I can tolerate a lot from you kids, but I won’t put up with lying. Honesty is everything to me.”
“I get it, Mom. Promise.”
But she’s not done. Not quite yet. “And I still don’t want you on Flatbush, or anywhere east of there, after dark.”
She gives me an I-mean-business look, and I wonder whether or not I should mention that I was there the other day. Or that I’m about forty-five hours away from my first group date. I decide to keep it to myself for now. The Pavilion’s in a “good” neighborhood, after all. So does Mom really need to know?
On Friday, I find another envelope in my locker. The same neat block letters, the same violent underlining.
What do you really know about her, anyway? She’s lying to you. About everything. Better to dump her before you learn the truth.
I scan the hall. Mostly lower-schoolers. Like last time, I get the eerie sense that someone is watching me, that somebody, somewhere, is waiting around for me to open the note. Wouldn’t that be where the satisfaction would come from in writing such a thing? Wouldn’t the author want to see my reaction, see whether I got nervous, scared, or angry?
My first thought, of course, is that it’s Rocky, Trevor, or both. Whoever you are, I sure hope you feel good about yourself, Mr. Anonymous. I hope you’re having the time of your life.