11

I’m sitting on the edge of Harper’s pool with my journal in my lap and my feet in the water. I’m all the way at the deep end while the other girls splash and jump and laugh in the shallow end.

I know I look weird sitting here all by myself, but I’m very close to finishing some lyrics that I think will make Gavin cry. I could go sit by the adults, but I can’t listen to Mom talk about Costa Rica one more time. Sometimes I don’t want to be a kid, but I don’t want to be an adult either.

Even if I weren’t working on my song right now, I’d probably still want to sit here by myself. Harper will always be one of my best friends, even though her family moved out here to the suburbs a few years ago, but some of the new girls she hangs out with are tough to be around. If I don’t know a certain word, like chiffon, they’ll look at me like I’m brain-dead, but if they don’t know my kind of word, like staccato, then I’m a show-off or a know-it-all.

Harper calls out to me from across the pool. “Time’s up, rock star.”

She knows I like it when she calls me a rock star even though I pretend I don’t. I wrap my journal safely in my towel and finally jump in.

I swim away from the girls and straight to Harper. “What word rhymes with husband?”

She pulls her wet hair into her mouth and starts chewing it. That’s how she does her best thinking. “That’s a tough one.”

“It doesn’t have to be a perfect rhyme,” I say. “It just has to be close.”

“How much money do you get if you win this thing?”

“It’s not that kind of contest. I just want everyone to hear my song and know my name.”

“Boring,” she says, splashing water at me.

My best friends love me and my strange memory, but even they don’t understand why I get so crazy about being forgotten. I guess we all have our own things to worry about. Harper stresses out about getting one wrong answer on a test, and Wyatt prays that the new Star Wars movie will be more like the books, and Naveyah gets totally depressed when the Giants lose a game. I suppose it just depends on what sorts of things you notice, because I didn’t even know there were books for Star Wars.

I dunk my head under and come back up when I’m out of air. “Did you hear about that actor?”

“What actor?” Harper says.

“He’s on a show called The Long Arm. He was on the news because he made a big fire in his backyard.”

“I didn’t hear about it.”

“He’s really famous.”

“What’s his name?”

I tell her Gavin’s name and she promises to search for him on her new phone. She doesn’t keep any songs on her new phone because she says there’s no point when you have the Internet, but I’m hoping she’ll at least put my song on her phone when it’s finished.

She spits the hair out of her mouth and says, “Almond.”

“What?”

“A rhyme for husband.”

“It doesn’t really work,” I say.

Harper drops her lips to the top of the water and starts blowing bubbles. “It would help if I knew what the song was about.”

That’s one thing I love about her: If you give her a puzzle, she won’t quit until she solves it. I decide to give her a clue even though I know she’s going to make fun of me.

“The song is about remembering.”

It’s hard to hear her, because her mouth is halfway in the pool, but I’m pretty sure she says, “Of course it is.”

I’m ready to make Gavin cry but he’s not in his bedroom or in the bathroom or in the studio. I peek into the courtyard and see the back of his head with Dad’s studio headphones covering his ears. He’s sitting at the table, staring down at his phone.

I grab the Gibson and step outside and tap Gavin on the shoulder. He whips his head around and grabs his chest. I think I frightened him.

I wiggle my walrus finger tusks.

“Oh,” Gavin says and he flaps his blackbird wings, but only once. He looks back down at his phone. “What was the exact date that Sydney came in January?”

“He got here on the twenty-fifth. Why?”

He doesn’t answer because he’s busy typing. It seems like he’s writing a book because he’s typing so many words. He finally finishes and puts the phone on the table. “Sorry,” he says, taking off his headphones. “What’s up?”

It’s time to get down to business, which means it’s time to talk about what I want to talk about. “I thought about what you said about the song and I think I fixed it.”

The other day when I showed Gavin the drawing of Sydney and I saw how sad he looked, I knew I should write the lyrics about Sydney. If these lyrics don’t make Gavin cry, I don’t know what will.

We were together, you and I

Our love reached up to the sky

When you left, my heart sank deep

Now I skip dinner so I can sleep

I think about the times we had

When we kissed I was so glad

I thought one day you’d be my husband

I can’t believe what has happened

I can’t go home ’cause you’re not there

I’m all alone and really scared

All I have is a memory

A memory

I keep breathing but I have no air

I keep crying ’cause it isn’t fair

All I have is a memory

A memory

I leave the last chord ringing and I wait for the clapping but there isn’t any. His eyes look annoyingly dry. “You’re not crying.”

“You want me to be honest?” Gavin looks at me a long time and it makes me change the way I’m sitting in my chair. “The verses seem pretty generic. I would stay away from the clichés. They make the lyrics feel disingenuous.”

“You’re dissing generous.”

“Sorry. I’m not saying it right. What I mean is I don’t hear you in that song. You’re singing about kissing and having a husband. I’m not sure what that’s about.”

“It’s hard to find a rhyme for husband.”

“I think the chorus is pretty sweet,” Gavin says. “The way the lyrics work with the melody and it feels personal, you know, because you’re talking about memories. I think you should keep going with that.”

I’m pretty sure he just gave me a compliment, which is my favorite thing to get. But there’s one problem. “Are you sure you didn’t cry?”

“Joan, I think you should forget about the whole crying thing.”

I hate when people tell me to forget about things because it shows me that they really don’t know me at all. But Gavin is giving me a friendly smile so I force myself not to be mad at him.

“How did you used to write your lyrics?” I say.

He picks up a pebble from the concrete and bounces it in his hand. He makes his palm into a tennis racket and swats the pebble against the brick wall. “I never played any instruments like you do, so it was different. Ollie and the band would give me the music and I’d just wander around with my Walkman.”

I know what a Walkman is because Dad has one and that’s how I listen to Grandma Joan sing her song.

“I would just keep listening to the music until something came to me,” Gavin says.

“What if it took a really long time for something to come to you?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “I wasn’t in a rush. I’m still that way, actually. It’s not always a good thing.” He stops talking for a second, like he wants to think about what he just said, and then he says, “It’s just about relaxing and not overthinking things. Just letting things happen naturally.”

But I can’t relax because I am in a rush. I don’t have time to wait for the best lyrics to pop into my head. I’m starting to wonder if I picked the wrong partner for the contest because whenever I think of an idea, Gavin tells me it’s no good. I thought Dad was a tough audience but he’s usually tougher about the music than the lyrics.

Speaking of Dad, I haven’t had a chance to show him my song yet because he’s been getting home so late each day and then he’s busy in the studio finishing up his projects. I really want to make sure I’m writing a song that will go deep into his system, because his system is a good test for other people’s systems, because he’s been doing music so long.

But right now I’m stuck with Gavin. He said some nice things about my song and some not-so-nice things but I can only think about the not-so-nice things. I’m wondering if I can ever give Dad or Gavin or anyone else a strong feeling.

And now I’m hearing someone else’s voice in my head. It’s Gavin’s voice and it’s not just in my mind, he’s humming a song, and it takes me a few seconds to realize that the song is mine, my chorus. It sounds so real coming out of his mouth and so pretty and it makes my arms tickle and the feeling goes up my back and into my head and all over my face.

“You’re going to sing the song,” I say.

“What?”

“When we’re in the studio. You have to, it sounds so good, and I can’t sing, not like you.”

I’ve listened to the album Dad and Gavin made many times and it sounds very messy but Gavin’s voice makes you feel like you’re listening to something important.

“Joan, I haven’t sung in almost twenty years. I don’t think it would be any good.”

“Dad’s recording it, so it’ll be great.”

Gavin doesn’t say anything else and that’s fine, because I know that sometimes saying nothing is as good as saying Okay or Yes or You know what, Joan Lennon, that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard.

“What color tie was he wearing?” Gavin asks.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to do another Sydney memory today, but I’m learning that if you want Gavin to do things, like help you write your song and also sing it, you have to keep pushing him.

“Black,” I say. “Sydney is wearing a black tie.”

Saturday, March 14, 2009: Mom and Dad and Sydney are dressed up real fancy and my babysitter is listening to Mom’s instructions. Sydney looks at my pajamas, which have different color hearts on them, and he says, “Miss Joan, where did you get those?” and I say, “I don’t know, my mom got them for me,” and he says, “I have the same ones at home,” and I say, “Really?” and he just smiles and that’s when I know he’s joking. I smell something minty and I see that he has gum in his mouth. I ask him for a piece and he hands me one and he says, “Five dollars,” and that’s another joke and this time I know it right away. But then I’m not so sure because Sydney says, “It’s all right, you can owe me.” He’s holding a big white envelope that’s too big for his pocket and this time he’s wearing socks, but he doesn’t seem too happy about it because he keeps reaching down and pulling the socks up.

“I wanted to go to that wedding,” Gavin says, after I share it all with him. “That’s how you know you really like someone. You want to be their date at some stranger’s wedding.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

“We’d been dating only a few months. Syd wasn’t ready to show me off to his old friends. He didn’t trust me.”

“Why not?”

“Because men—” He stops. “We tend to change our minds a lot. He wanted to make sure I was serious.”

“Like when I asked my parents for my own guitar and they wanted me to use one of Dad’s guitars first to make sure I was going to stick with it and not get bored of it after a week like I did with the indoor trampoline Grandpa bought me.”

“Exactly,” Gavin says, winking, which I’m jealous of because every time I try to blink just one eye, both eyes end up blinking. “For the first few weeks Syd never let me sleep over. Every night, he’d kick me out.”

“That’s mean.”

“I thought so. But it made it even more satisfying when he finally let me stay. Anyway, please go on.”

I drink some more lemonade because I’m not used to talking for so long. I’m wondering how Mom does it, how she stands in front of her class and speaks all day. “Everyone says good-bye and then they leave for the wedding.”

“Was it cold out?” Gavin says. “Were they wearing jackets?”

“Yeah. Sydney is wearing a long coat that has a belt attached, which I think is pretty cool. And he’s carrying a pair of headphones, a kind I’ve never seen before.”

I draw a little sketch in my journal so Gavin sees what I mean:

“Those weren’t headphones,” Gavin says, moaning a little. “His ears were always cold. He’d wear that thing around Los Angeles. Can you imagine?” He starts laughing. “One time we were parking the car and the valet said, ‘Sir, you dropped your headband.’”

He’s cracking up now. I’m almost laughing too because laughs can be contagious, but I wish I knew what was so funny. When Gavin finishes his laughing party, he crosses his arms and closes his eyes and says, “When did you see him next?”

“The next morning it takes a long time for the grown-ups to get out of bed. Dad wakes up first and he cooks crepes and I’m very excited because Dad is very good at making breakfast. I ask Dad what we’re doing today and he says when Sydney wakes up he’s going to get back to setting up the studio, which is almost finished. Then Mom wakes up and Sydney wakes up too. He comes through the door and it looks like he’s been up for a while because he’s already dressed and he’s wheeling his suitcase across the floor. He comes into the kitchen and he says ‘Good morning.’”

“Good morning,” Gavin says. His eyes are still closed. I don’t know what to say back, so I keep going with the memory.

“And then Dad asks if he wants a crepe and Sydney says, ‘I shouldn’t—’”

“‘—but I will.’”

Gavin is right. That’s what Sydney said. “And then Dad asks how he likes his coffee and Sydney says, ‘A splash of cream and a mound of sugar.’”

“You should really cut the sugar,” Gavin says.

“What?” I say.

“Use the stevia,” Gavin says. “You just have to get used to the taste.”

I look around the courtyard but there’s nobody else here and that’s when I realize who Gavin is talking to.

“What time will you be home?” Gavin says.

I keep quiet and listen.

“We’ll be shooting late tonight but maybe we can do breakfast. I’ll bring it to you in bed. I don’t want you to get up. You can skip it, can’t you? Just lie there and don’t move and I’ll make you whatever you want. Would you do that for me? Stay in bed? Just this once?”

There’s no answer, just some birds chirping. I raise my voice over them: “Gavin.”

He opens his eyes. The light blinds him at first, but then he sees me. His face turns reddish from the sun and he reaches around for his phone and headphones and says, “I think that’s enough for today.”