23

I wake up with a very crummy feeling because every new day is also an old day and today’s new day is also Grandma Joan’s birthday.

Before I get out of bed I spend a little time thinking of my favorite Grandma Joan memories, like when she made pancakes and the flame shot high into the air and she didn’t even notice and Dad called them hibachi pancakes (Sunday, February 3, 2008). And when she jumped around in the bounce house with me at the Italian festival and the man yelled at her to get out because she wasn’t a kid (Saturday, May 9, 2009). And I think of when she played “Jealous Guy” on the piano and she changed the words to I’m just a jealous wife (Thursday, December 24, 2009). But all these memories only make me feel worse.

I spend half the day trying to fill up all my new free time. I watch TV and go with Mom to the supermarket and write in my journal, and I check where the walrus is swimming (Bald Head Island, North Carolina). Now I’m in the living room in front of the computer but I’m just staring at it because I haven’t decided if I should listen to music or play a game or watch a video or if I should just get up and walk around. Nothing I do is anywhere near as fun as writing songs and sharing memories with Gavin, and both of those things are over now.

Gavin and I finished our song the other night and Dad sent it into the contest and now we have to wait a couple of months until we find out if we’ll be selected as finalists and invited to the award ceremony in New York City. I was so busy trying to finish the song in time that I never paid attention to how long it would take for the contest people to get back to us. I don’t know if I can wait that long because waiting is the worst thing ever invented.

It’s especially hard now that Gavin and me have finished all my Sydney memories. It got a little annoying to have to sit there and tell Gavin every tiny thing, but now that it’s over, I wish it weren’t. No one has ever asked me so many questions about my memories or cared so much about what I have to say. Gavin never thought I was acting like a know-it-all when I was trying to be very careful about telling him exactly what happened. I wish we had a new project to work on so I could go downstairs right now and wake him up and tell him that it’s time for us to get started.

My time with Gavin isn’t the only thing I’m losing. It didn’t really sink in that the studio would actually be closing until the other night when we were all downstairs recording and I had a feeling like I wanted to be doing that exact thing forever, making songs with Dad and Gavin, and that’s exactly where I wanted to be doing it, in Dad’s studio. It’s almost August already, which means that pretty soon Dad will start moving all of his stuff out.

It’s like when the school year ends and you clean out your cubby. The teacher takes all your projects off the wall and you stuff your projects and pencils and erasers into your backpack. You take it all home with you because next year you have to go to a whole new classroom, which I hate because I’ve got so many memories in the old classroom and I never want to leave. But this is even worse because there’s no new classroom to move into. There’s no new studio. Where will Dad record? Where will he put his piano and guitars and desk and couch and drums? Where will he hang all his John Lennon pictures? Where will I write my new songs? If I win the contest—when I win the contest—my fans will want to hear more songs and I can’t write here in the living room with Dad’s smelly sneakers by the door and Mom working at the kitchen table and the mailman ringing the doorbell with a package and the phone always ringing like it is now.

Mom finally answers it. “Yes, this is Paige Sully,” she says. “Oh, right, I’m sorry. Yes, I’ve been meaning to get back to you. I was going to talk it over with my husband. It totally slipped my mind.”

Things don’t slip Mom’s mind too often.

“I see,” Mom says. “So she would be in front of an audience?”

Now I’m really listening because I’m pretty sure she is me. I watch Mom reach into a drawer and pull out a pad and pen.

“And you’re featuring only kids for this, right? Yes, it does sound interesting, but you know, the timing isn’t great. I know. I realize that. Maybe there’s a future show that would be right for her. I understand that. We’ll just have to take our chances. Yes, we’re going to have to pass on this one.”

Mom moves her pen across the pad without lifting it off the paper even once.

“Yes, I’m positive,” Mom says. “I’m sorry too. Thank you.”

She hangs up the phone and I turn back to the computer, but I’m not even looking at what’s on the screen because I’m watching Mom’s reflection as it gets bigger and darts away.

After she’s gone, I find Mom’s pad in the kitchen drawer. On top of the page is my name and below that is a long list of other names and phone numbers and one of them is Dr. Robert Brickenmeyer. Somewhere near the middle of the page there’s one whole line of information crossed out with Mom’s pen. It’s a person’s name, a phone number, and all the way to the right it says: The Mindy Love Show.

I’m in front of the TV at exactly eleven o’clock. I’ve heard of The Mindy Love Show but I’ve never actually seen it before. I’ve got my journal open to a fresh page because I want to write down any ideas I have while I’m watching.

The first thing on the screen is a photo of a bald man in a suit. I hear a lady’s voice: “Three years ago Arthur Ballibloc was living the American dream. As the CFO of a Fortune Five Hundred company, he could’ve had pretty much anything his heart desired.”

As the lady speaks, the photos change. All the photos show the same man.

“But today, Arthur has no use for money. He gave it all away when he became a freegan. Now Arthur survives solely on what he obtains from his environment. We’ll find out how a man goes from high roller to dumpster diver when I sit down with Arthur and the family he left behind, next on…”

The man’s face is gone and now I see rows and rows of people sitting in a theater. A tall lady in a skirt shows up from behind a curtain and she walks easily in her high heels down to the front of the stage. Her smile is sweet, but not too sweet, which is how Principal Hershwin is. If the audience claps any harder, their hands are going to break off and fly away like butterflies.

The lady says, “Who loves you?”

And the crowd shouts, “Mindy!”

She waits for the people to quiet down and she tells us more about this Arthur guy. I can’t get interested in Arthur because I’m more interested in the way Mindy is talking about Arthur, like he’s someone really important. “Please welcome my guest, Arthur Ballibloc.”

The audience whistles and cheers and claps and I want to join in but I have no idea what we’re so excited about.

Arthur looks nothing like his photos. He’s not fat anymore and his teeth are muddy and his beard looks like something a mama bird would try to raise her babies in.

I’m so focused on what’s happening on the TV screen that I don’t hear Mom walk past me on her way into the kitchen. “What are you watching?”

I grab the remote control and turn off the TV. “Nothing.” I hop up off the floor and go downstairs. I hurry through the studio instead of taking my time because it doesn’t give me the best feeling to be here anymore now that it’s so dark and no one is using it.

Gavin’s door is only a little open so I make it all the way open. He’s in bed, staring up at the ceiling. I hop onto the mattress and crush his foot by accident. He seems annoyed, but beds are supposed to be jumped on and it’s not my fault his legs are so long.

“Have you ever seen The Mindy Love Show?” I ask.

He speaks in a very lazy voice. “Isn’t that one of those sad daytime talk shows?”

“No, everyone on the show is very happy,” I say, opening up my journal in case I need to look at my notes. “Do you remember how Sydney said I should be on TV? Well, someone from The Mindy Love Show called Mom and it sounds like they want me to go on their show.”

“Good for you,” he says, but not like he really means it.

“I think you should come with me and we can play our song on TV.”

Gavin smiles, but only because he feels bad for me.

“Think about it,” I say. “It’s perfect because this way even if we don’t win the contest, people will still hear our song.”

“I appreciate the offer, Joan. But I don’t think I’m up for it.”

Ever since we rode the train back home from the chicken restaurant yesterday, Gavin has been in one of his quiet moods, the kind he was in when he first came to our house. But I can’t let him be quiet now. I need him to sing.

“You’re lucky that people know who you are,” I say. “I’m still trying to get people to know my name because they can’t remember it unless they know it first. Don’t you want to help me do that? I can’t play the song without you. You’re my partner.”

There’s something wrong with his face. He looks exactly like a blackbird today. There’s a shadow all over him. “Yeah, well, I’m not a very good partner.” He lets out a long breath, like I’m making him very tired.

“Yes, you are,” I tell him. “You’re a great partner. We just need a new project. We can’t just lie in bed for the next two months.”

“Two months?”

“That’s when they announce the finalists for the contest and then later in the fall they have the ceremony in New York and they choose a winner and they put the winning song on their website so the whole world can fall in love with it.”

I go into the studio and find the ad for the contest on Dad’s desk and bring it back to Gavin. I can’t believe I never showed it to him before.

He reads the front of the ad and turns it over to look at the other side but the other side is an ad for something else. “Joan, look, I think it’s cool that we did the song. And I appreciate you letting me be a part of it. It came out great. I think you should feel really proud of it. I am.”

It sounds like he’s about to say but.

“But,” he says, “I don’t think you should get your hopes up about this contest.”

“Why? You don’t think we can win?”

“I’m not saying that.” He tosses the ad onto the bed. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. You’re putting so much into this and sometimes things just don’t go like you plan.”

I remember him saying the same thing to me once before, back when we were talking about why he and Sydney didn’t have a baby. And now he’s turning his head to the wall and I’m turning my head to the door because I know exactly what’s happening here: he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me now that I’ve already shared all my Sydney memories.

It’s like when the smartest girl in the class, Wendy Wang, asked to be my partner for the trivia game on Wednesday, November 14, 2012, and I thought it was weird because Wendy never seemed to pay attention to me before and all of a sudden she was acting so nice to me. But then after we lost the game she was bored with me again and I realized she wanted to be my partner only because she thought my memory would help her win.

I’m all by myself again and I’m surrounded by only sad things, the studio and Grandma Joan’s birthday and Gavin, except the studio isn’t something I can make be any less sad right now, and the same goes for Grandma Joan, but maybe that’s not true about Gavin.

I slap my forehead very loudly. “Okay, I guess I have to tell you the truth now. I lied when I told you there were no more Sydney memories left. I actually have one more.”

He rolls over. “What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t want to tell you before, but now I’m ready to tell you.”

“Joan.”

“Let’s get started. It’s February fourteenth. No, I mean February fifteenth. Yes, February fifteenth, 2013. It’s a Friday. Sydney is walking through the door. Look at him. He looks so nice with his shirt and his pants, they look like blue pants, yes, they’re blue pants, and of course he’s not wearing socks because he hates socks and there’s his bracelet, which you’re wearing now. Wow. He looks so great. His ears are very long too. I see that. They’re so long. And do you want to know what he says? He says, ‘Hello, Miss Joan,’ and then I say, ‘Hi, Mr. Sydney,’ and he says, ‘How are you?’ and I say, ‘Good. How are you?’ and he says, ‘I’m good,’ and then I say, ‘How is Gavin doing?’ and he says, ‘Oh, Gavin is home in California and he’s doing great and I love him so much.’”

Gavin is very still.

“And then I say, ‘I’ve never met Gavin. I’d love to meet him one day.’ And Sydney says, ‘I think you would really like him because he’s nice and he’s helpful and he’s smart and he’s tall and he’s got very nice eyes.’”

“He says all that?” Gavin asks.

“Yes.”

“Those are nice things to say.”

“I think so.”

He shuts his eyes a long time and then he finally sits up on the bed and he looks at me like Dad does when he’s waiting for me to stop fooling around. “I know what you’re doing, Joan, and it’s really sweet, seriously. I don’t even know what to say…”

I guess he’s not lying when he says that last part because he doesn’t say another word. He’s not even looking at my face anymore. He’s looking down at my hands. I look down too and I see my journal.

“Did you have that journal when Sydney was here in January?” Gavin asks.

“No,” I say and then I realize why he’s asking—because he’s wondering if my journal has something important about Sydney. “The journal I was using back in January is upstairs in my bedroom.”

He nods like I should go get it right now, so I do. I run up to my room and grab the journal from January and by the time I’m back, I’ve found something.

“After Sydney left that day,” I tell Gavin, “Mom asked me to go downstairs and strip the bed and empty the garbage. There was a paper bag sitting on top of the trash can and I knew it was from the cupcakes that Sydney brought home to us and I loved those cupcakes, so I drew the logo in my journal.”

Gavin gets off the bed and takes the January journal from me. He finally has his energy back.

“Does this help you?” I ask.

He stares at it for a while and then he types into his phone. He reads his screen and he says, “It looks like there’s only one Kroftman’s and it’s in Brooklyn.”

“Is that good or bad?”

He squeezes his chin like people do when they’re thinking very hard. “I don’t know,” Gavin says. “But I need to find out.”