“Cassie? I need to talk to you about something,” Mom said to me in the morning. What a surprise. After last night I knew we would be having this conversation. She sure hadn’t wasted any time—I was in the bathroom getting ready for school. I had just brushed my teeth and was doing a quick toothpaste survey, seeing if I’d ended up with a white toothpaste drip. I swear, every day I end up with a spot of toothpaste in a different location. It’s like a game of Where’s Waldo.
“What?” I said. I knew what.
“It’s about Ian.”
“What about him?” Defensiveness crept up my spine, settled somewhere in my throat.
“Look, I don’t know what the situation is….”
“There is no situation,” I interrupted. Which was mostly true. There wasn’t going to be a situation anymore.
“Okay, fine. If that’s the case, great. There are just things you don’t understand here, about this. If you were to get involved … okay, Cassie, stop with the face. Let’s just say you were. It’s not a simple thing. Not even for you.”
“I know that. That’s why I’m making my own decision about it. You don’t have to tell me that.” I was angry. I didn’t feel like I was the prime concern here. “Tell me, though, because, you know, I just don’t get it. I don’t get why Dino should have such a problem with me and Ian, anyway. Can’t Ian have friends? What, he’ll be contaminated like the kid who lives in the bubble? Or does Dino just not want me to be happy?”
“Come on, quit it. It has nothing to do with Dino not wanting your happiness. He’s got a responsibility to Ian. Ian’s got to stay focused. Dino’s got to stay focused too. It complicates things unnecessarily.”
“For Dino.”
“For Dino, for Ian. For Ian’s family. Ian is coming here for training. Professional training. This is his life course we’re talking about. He needs this scholarship. Think about him, too. Dino had to have a talk with him last night.”
“Oh, great. Just great.” Humiliation. Like we were a couple of kids caught playing doctor. Shit.
“He can’t be coming over here with you on his mind when he needs to be dedicated to that violin right now. There’s a lot at stake here. Yes, for Dino, too. The structure, the chance to help this kid succeed—it’s a stabilizing force. It means a lot to him to have the chance to help Ian make it. Cassie, let’s just… if we keep things … uncomplicated …”
“I already told you, I’m not going to get involved with him. You can tell Dino to relax. Ian’s going away, I know that. It’d be stupid.”
“Exactly. I don’t want to see you get your heart broken, either.”
“It’d be stupid,” I said again. “Nobody has to talk to anybody anymore.”
“Dino’s record deal, this concert—it’s all final. His three pieces have got to be finished by March. He’s got to write. Ian’s audition is right before that. Let’s just get through those two things. Remember what’s best for Ian, if you care about him. Help me out here.”
“Mom, okay.” Jesus. I got it. It was over. Finished. I’d decided that before she even opened her mouth. Before Dino ever opened his to Ian.
“Things will calm down after March.”
“All right,” I said.
“I love you, and I’m sorry things are crazy right now.”
“I love you, too,” I said.
“You got toothpaste there by your collar,” she said.
I walked past their open bedroom door and could see Dino’s figure in bed, the hunch of his bare shoulders. Even as he slept there you could feel the unease in his form. I resented the lack of peace he had brought my mother and me, resented the fact that you could look at that sleeping back and see a possible eruption, a mountain of problems rather than the quiet security that sleeping shoulders should make you feel. I wanted the safety of someone folding warm laundry, or plunking down a bag of capably chosen groceries, or fixing a broken lawn mower. But in that bed was the meteor we lived with instead, who brought unshaven torment and sheets of notes written in almost clichéd fury and shoved in the kitchen garbage along with the coffee grounds and crushed Cap’n Crunch box. It occurred to me then that all we want a good part of the time is to feel in safe hands.
If you’ve ever made a decision not to have something you really want, you’ll know how I felt over the next few days. Sure, there were these moments of resolve, of Zen-like peace that lasted all of a few seconds. But mostly I was pissed off. At my mother and at Dino and at the world that didn’t arrange things in a better way. At my own chickenshit self.
It wasn’t the kind of pissed off that was raging and full of energy, but the variety that was flat and snappish and lethargic. I was going through life in a fog, an expression that was true in every sense. I felt like I was watching and not really participating, like my life source had called in sick and was wrapped up in a quilt somewhere, zonked on cold medicine. And the fog was a literal truth, too—for those days it lay around in wispy streams, around the water and on the lawn in the morning, as if the clouds had pushed the wrong elevator button. That’s what fog is anyway—lazy clouds. Clouds without ambition. The fog was eerie and beautiful, soft and thoughtful, and it usually lifted in the afternoon to an annoying display of sun that made the October orange colors so bright that they hurt your eyes. Everything glistened with dew, and it was vibrantly cold out. I didn’t want that, the cold that made you want to put on a big coat and do something useful and happy, like rake leaves. I wanted the rain again, or just the fog, looking miserable and spooky.
I went through the motions at school, caring even less than usual about the fact that Kileigh Jensen highlighted her hair or that rumors were flying about what Courtney did with Trevor Woodhouse, which everyone knew anyway by taking one look at them. The things that I might have laughed at, the fact that Sarah Frazier wore enough makeup for her and two of her closest friends, for example, or the coincidence that Hailey Barton’s bra size doubled right about the same time that two Chihuahuas disappeared from the area, didn’t even seem very funny.
My emotions were manic-hormonal, and when Jeremy Libitski got up and turned in his math test after, I swear, five minutes, I started to get all panicky. By this time you know better. You know there’s some kid who always turns in his test after five minutes and you have that oh-shit moment of realization that you’re still on the second question. You know to tell yourself that he’s either some super-smug genius or just went along answering B to everything. But I panicked, and even the easy stuff seemed suddenly complex to the point of total confusion—Name:, for example. This is how messed up I was.
On Friday it was Halloween, and I decided to go to Brian Malo’s party even if I wasn’t really in the mood. I thought that maybe being with my friends would help me remember where I was before I even met Ian Waters, and remember that I existed fine without him before. It’s strange, but you can feel excitement in the air on Halloween night, even if you’re staying home, as if all the energy of those little kids too jazzed to eat dinner is just zipping around the atmosphere. We carved pumpkins the night before, and I Just Said No to those intricate designs that take three days without food or sleep to carve—haunted houses and cat faces and Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper done in gourd. I did two triangle eyes and a frown and tried to put a tooth in there, but it fell out and I had to stick it back in with a toothpick. Mom, who for the last few days had been talking to her friend Alice a lot on the phone and walking around Dino as if she were carrying a feather in cupped hands, carved the same thing she did every year, a music note. Dino came out of his study and watched us light the candles and sat there in the dark with us, which is probably a metaphor, come to think of it. Since Mom confronted him with the blank pages, he’d been defensive, then well behaved. It reminded me of Mom (a leadfoot) when she gets a speeding ticket. First, she’s ticked off at the cop. Then, for three days running, she won’t go a notch over the speed limit. After that, she’s back to her old extreme and dangerous ways.
When I left, Mom and Dino were doing something they never did—just sitting on the couch and watching a movie. Very regular couple. Very non-genius of Dino. His arm was around my mother, sucking up. This was what his illness was like. A crash. Then enough quiet to make you think it might be getting better. Then an earthquake. And Mom would just buy into it. That’s how bad she wanted things to be okay.
I walked to Brian’s, because I liked to see the little kids with their costumes flowing out behind them as they ran, their parents calling Thank you! to open doorways, the miniature ghouls and power guys and gypsy girls. I remembered sweating like a sumo under rubber masks, and as a kindergartener, parading around the classes of big kids. I remember pouring out my candy on the floor when I got home from trick-or-treating, picking out the Butterfingers and separating similar things into piles. I remember my Mom wearing a witch hat to answer the door, and my Dad holding my hand when we crossed the street, and me sleeping in my bride costume when I was six. Yes, okay, I had a bride costume, so don’t give me any crap about it. That night, the streets were full of the sound of tennis shoes running on pavement and of the spooky music some people played when they answered their doors. The air smelled like singed pumpkin lids and the beams of flashlights bounced around the darkness, and for some reason it all made me want to burst into tears.
Brian’s party was noncostume, but a few people were there anyway in bloody and gory wounds and cat ears and the like. Michael Worthman, who I had a crush on last year, came as Minnie Mouse, which doused any lingering sexual chemistry. Beth Atkins, a girl who made costumes for drama, came dressed as a cow, demonstrating that it takes guts to wear an udder. Jeff Payley wore a dog costume, and went around shaking his butt and saying, “Look, I can wag my tail!” I ate pumpkin seeds and wondered why, as the experience is vaguely like munching on toenails. I talked to Zebe, who was wearing fishnet stockings and glow-in-the-dark fangs that she had to take out in a rather drooly fashion whenever it was her turn to answer.
“Michael Worthman’s been checking you out all night,” Zebe said.
“He’s wearing a dress. With polka dots,” I said.
“Hey, his legs look great in it,” she said, raised her eyebrows up and down, and popped in her fangs again.
I left after a couple of hours, telling everyone I had a sore throat and wanted to go home to bed. I didn’t talk to Zebe about Ian and me, because for starters, nothing existed between us. I was still out of sorts, and all of the cheer around me was just making me feel crappier. Only a few boys who were too big for trick-or-treating were still on the street, and Mom had blown out the pumpkin candles. When I came in, Mom and Dino had already gone to bed and there were only a handful of Sweet Tarts packs and boxes of Dots left in the candy bowl. Mom’s taste in candy stank—she always went for the low-fat stuff in case we had any left and she was tempted to eat it. Dots were as far down on the evolutionary candy scale as you go, but I took a few anyway, which only goes to show the level of my general dissatisfaction. I went upstairs and got in bed, ate Sweet Tarts and disgusting cherry Dots in the dark. I tried to fend off images of Ian coming down my street that first time I saw him, of his face when I left him that night. That kiss. God, that kiss. I tried to get rid of overly sentimental pictures of my mother handing my father a cup of hot cider after we would come back home with our candy on Halloween nights. It occurred to me that if you loved it sucked, and if you didn’t love it sucked, so either way you were screwed. Maybe love was better. At least sometimes you got chocolates.
My resolve was weak, so I was glad I didn’t know Ian’s phone number. I reminded myself for the zillionth time that I had to do what was best for Ian, too. I felt on the edge of tears, as if I could have cried at the sight of a drooping plant. Some kind of grieving was working around inside of me, and I didn’t want any part of it. I got up to pee, and went downstairs for more candy or a glass of milk or a miracle cure. For some reason, I can’t even tell you why, I went into Dino’s study and pulled the Cavalli biography from the shelf. I sat right there on the floor, with the open book on my lap.
Lutitia Bissola, neighbor: The boy had his first concert for us, in the piazza. Anyone doing their shopping stopped to watch. His mother and father held hands and listened, and Mrs. Mueller, I think it was Mrs. Mueller who started it, put the bouquet of flowers at the child’s feet when he was finished.
Francesca Bissola, neighbor: It wasn’t Mrs. Mueller. It was Honoria Maretta. But after she put the flowers down, everyone else began laying down objects.
Honoria Maretta, grade-school teacher: I put the flowers down, yes. He was my student, my boy. He was like a son to me. He would come to my house to see my cat sometimes, and I would give him books and pizzelles. They were his favorite. I would bake them on a Sunday, when he might come over My only little child, among all my students.
Francesca Bissola: Alberto what’s-his-name put a loaf of French bread by the flowers.
Lutitia Bissola: Alberto Terreto. He put the bread down. And then there were other things. A zucchini. A melon. A lemon branch. Little offerings, laid at the boy’s feet. Even Father Minelli had opened the doors of the church with the sound of the playing and stood there listening, his face turning red from the sun.
Francesca Bissola: His face was red from too much wine. The sun had nothing to do with it. He was a boozer, God rest his soul.8
I smiled. In spite of myself, and in spite of the Dino-hero-worship, those people from Sabbotino Grappa could get to you. The words brought you to another time and place. Escapism was a nice thing sometimes. Personally, I don’t see the problem with escapism and denial, those friendly twin coping mechanisms. I carried the book back to my room, read some more until the hot sun of Italy made me sleepy enough to turn out the light.
The next time Ian came for a lesson, I waited in my room until he was safely inside Dino’s office, then I hightailed it out of there before they even started tuning. In my current state, I didn’t even dare listen to Ian play. I didn’t trust myself not to do something humiliating and out of control, same as you fear shouting out some swear word while you’re at a church service. I could just see myself flinging open the door and throwing myself in his arms or something ridiculously schlocky. Or else I’d start weeping at the sound of that violin, picturing the notes drifting all the way to Italy, winding their way among the leaves of the olive trees.
Getting out, that was the main thing. Fall was still doing the cold, crispy thing, so I put on Mom’s navy peacoat and borrowed Dino’s lambskin gloves and hat that made him look like a bank robber. I stepped out the front door. Dog William had fallen firmly and steadfastly in love, and was looking happier than he’d ever looked in his life, lying on the grass with Rocket. His lips were curled up and his teeth showed, and anyone who says dogs don’t smile is dead wrong. At least someone had their relationship life sorted out. He even looked kind of cute again. Rocket was sprawled out, looking serene and sphinxlike, and you could already tell who was the boss of the couple. I kicked through the leaves on our road, passed old Mr. and Mrs. Billings’ house. Their pumpkins, out on their porch, now looked a bit caved in, same as Mr. Billings’s mouth without his dentures.
Something about Dog William’s happiness pissed me off, and I took my sour mood down the road and kicked at leaves. Goddamn, I mean, even a dog handled his life better than I did. I looked up, and saw that banana yellow Datsun stuck in the road. There was Bunny, Ian’s brother, and Chuck, Bunny’s friend—the metaphysical nonmotorcyclists—standing there beside it.
“Get the jack,” Bunny said.
“What jack? Monterey Jack?” Chuck chuckled. “Jack-in-the-box?”
“You don’t know jack shit,” Bunny said. “In the trunk. And the lug wrench.”
“What’s it look like?” Chuck was as big as a dump truck and was wearing a fringe vest with beads. He had a lovely braid, I don’t know, maybe two inches long.
“You know what it looks like. A big cross. With knobs. Quit stalling. Jesus.”
“Do you guys need some help?” I asked. “I’m about two seconds from a phone.”
“Hey. The teacher’s kid,” Chuck said.
“Ian’s friend,” Bunny said.
“Whoo hoo. You saved me.” Chuck raised one arm, did a little victory dance. It reminded me of when you set a big bowl of Jell-O on a hard surface. “Rescue chick.”
“No problem,” I said. “Should I call a tow truck?”
“Tow truck, my ass,” Bunny said. “It’s a flat tire. Get back there and find the jack,” he said to Chuck. Bunny shook his head. “Sheesh. He’s never changed a flat before. We could be here all day.”
“You know, my house is right there. I could call someone for you.”
“I’ve changed thousands of tires,” Bunny said. “It’s him that hasn’t. This is a learning experience.”
“I hate learning experiences,” Chuck said.
“Learning experiences suck,” I agreed. “Anything that’s called a learning experience, you know, run for your life.”
“What a couple of whiners,” Bunny said.
Chuck had the trunk open and was fishing around inside. “Is this the lug wrench?” He held up a hat with ear flaps.
“I hope neither of you has worn that thing,” I said. “Very Elmer Fudd.” Chuck tossed it to me and I yanked off Dino’s burglar hat, put it on. “Cozy,” I said.
“Oh, man, you two are a handful,” Bunny said. I was starting to have a really good time. “You two will try my abundant patience.”
“Okay, okay. The lug wrench,” Chuck said. He took it out, held it up in one hand as if it had the weight of a toothpick.
“You blocked the tires already? Good. Now loosen the bolts while the car’s still on the ground.” Bunny folded his arms, watched Chuck sit down on the asphalt.
“Cold ass,” Chuck rubbed his huge butt. He stuck the lug wrench on one of the bolts. “Knee bone connected to the shinbone.” He gave it a crank. It freed easily, a knife through warm butter. “Big friggin’ deal,” Chuck said. He sure looked pleased with himself.
“Don’t congratulate yourself until the job is done. You can’t change a tire and pat yourself on the back at the same time. Not enough hands,” Bunny said.
Chuck whipped through the second bolt, but the third stuck. I learned a whole bunch of cool new swear words, in inventive combinations. Sweat gathered at his temple and in the nooks and crannies of his shirt. I could smell the sour odor of underarms under stress.
“Never count your chickens before they hatch,” Bunny said.
“Shut the F up, Bun,” Chuck said, and let loose a stream-of-consciousness array of nasty terms in Bunny’s direction.
“So why are you letting him make you do this?” I asked. Maybe it wasn’t such a good time to bring it up. Chuck was grunting like a pig stuck under a fence.
“Learning. Experience,” he exhaled. “Personal. Growth.”
I wanted to laugh. Picture again what I was seeing. This motorcycle guy in a fringe vest with a two-inch braid, wrestling a tire and sweating bullets and gasping about personal growth as his buddy watched over him with the folded arms of a sadistic PE teacher.
“You got to do what you fear,” Bunny said. “Embrace the unknown. You keep yourself sheltered, you over-protect yourself, you might as well stay home and become an agraphobic.”
“Agoraphobic,” Chuck grunted.
“Agraphobic probably means you fear farmland,” I said.
Bunny ignored us. “Growth is in the feared places.”
“Did you steal that from a Star Trek movie?” I said. “It sounds slightly ominous.”
“There!” Chuck said. “Hot damn.”
“Excellent. Step two.”
I watched Bunny instruct Chuck to jack up the car and remove the tire. Kyle and Derek, Courtney’s two little brothers, got off the school bus and came over, slung their backpacks to the ground and watched.
“I saw this guy get crushed by his own car on True Traffic Tragedies,” Kyle said. Kyle was twelve and wore slouchy pants. Derek was a year younger, but was bigger than his brother.
“Gee, thanks for sharing,” I said.
“If we had our video camera, we could film this and win a thousand bucks.”
“I saw this other guy get his leg pinned on Road Rescuers.”
“That looked so fake,” Derek said.
“No blood,” Kyle agreed.
“Hey, guys, there’s back-to-back episodes of Fat People on Bikes this afternoon.” Bunny looked at his watch. “Starting now.”
“Oh, cool,” Derek said.
They picked up their backpacks, headed off. “Fat People on Bikes?” Chuck said.
“Hey, they believed me, that’s all I care. Little television monsters.” I guess he and Dino had one thing in common, which would have made Dino shudder.
“That’s all they do. All day, every day,” I said.
“I hate it when kids don’t participate,” Bunny said. “They could be outside playing ball. Collecting bugs.”
“Hanging out at ye old swimmin’ hole,” Chuck said.
“Shut the F up, Chuck. If you don’t participate, you’re just taking up oxygen.”
“Life is a banquet. Approach it with hunger,” Chuck said. “Hey, I’m done, right?”
“Wow, it looks great. I just hope it doesn’t fall off when you’re driving,” I said.
“I saw that on Terrible Traffic Traumas,” Chuck said. I smiled. I really liked those guys.
“Now you’ve had your learning experience,” I said.
“Congratulations, Chuck, you big idiot,” Bunny said.
“Thanks, man,” Chuck said. “Sorry about all the things I called you back at the lug nuts.”
“No problem. I’ll consider us equal for what I said to you when you made me call Sonja for a date.”
“You should’ve heard him,” Chuck said to me.
“I hope this Sonja said yes,” I said.
“With my good looks? What do you expect.”
“He was trembling like a baby bird,” Chuck said.
“Anyway,” Bunny said, in a lame effort to change the subject. “We better get going. Hey, Lassie, thanks for your help. It was great hanging out with you.”
I laughed. “Cassie,” I said.
“Cassie? Man, I could’ve sworn he said Lassie.”
“Woof,” I said. “Lassie?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe your folks were real animal lovers.”
“Bunny, you F-ing fool,” Chuck said.
“You thought it was Lassie, too,” Bunny said.
They climbed into the car. The small spare tire looked shy and inadequate on the Datsun.
“Jesus, you stink,” Bunny said to Chuck.
Chuck yanked the paper Christmas tree deodorizer off of the rearview mirror, thrust it under his shirt, and gave it a swipe under each arm. “Smellin’ like a rose,” he said. Then he started the engine, gave a wave, and drove off.
After Mom confronted Dino about the blank pages and his lies, Dino did appear to get down to real work. Supposedly this was what we were wanting, but I didn’t know why. The pressure of having to create and the creation itself were what led him to a disturbing restlessness and increasingly odd acts. Several times I heard him awake in the night, creaking down the stairs, performing in his office, and then clapping for himself when it was over. During the day his usual perfectionism was in high gear—he would remake a bed Mom made, rewash the dishes, pour out coffee that was made for him and make it again “properly.” His testiness increased. He would turn every innocent remark into a perceived criticism of him. It’s a nice day, you would say. And he would snap in reply, Did I say it wasn’t a nice day? Just because it’s a nice day and I don’t remark upon it doesn’t mean I’m a pessimist He bit Mom’s head off for giving him the wrong size spoon, yelled at me for walking too heavily down the stairs, leading me to have Brief Fantasy Number One Thousand and Twelve, whereby I borrowed Nannie’s old bowling ball and sent it crashing down two flights.
I was living with a bolt of lightning, never knowing when or where he might strike. I spent a lot of time in my room, ate dinner as fast as possible. Headphones are great when you live in a disturbed home—I started wearing them at night, so I could pretend a peace that didn’t exist. Worst of all, though, Dino started up his freaky obsession with William Tiero again.
The newspaper is gone, Dino said one morning.
Probably late, my mother replied.
Maybe he wants my paper, Dino said. He wants me to wonder where it went, to wonder if he has been here to take it He is messing with me.
God, it gave me the creeps. There was this feeling of horrible anticipation, of knowing that things would not keep going this wrongly and suddenly right themselves. No, wrong like that would keep building. Wrong always seemed to double and grow like cells under a microscope. Right could be steady, but wrong fed upon itself. Sometimes I wished “it” would just go ahead and happen, whatever “it” was.
Mom looked like she was losing weight, in spite of the fact that Alice’s loaves of banana bread were increasing. Dino’s working, the writing—it seemed to pour a life-giving liquid onto old, sleeping torments of his. He started smoking, too, a habit he’d given up years ago. One cigarette after the other he smoked, horrible bursts of nicotine poison filling not only his lungs but mine and Mom’s and Dog William’s, getting into the strands of our clothing and even making the bread left out on the counter taste bad. You’d find snakey bits of ash all over—in coffee cups and saucers, and once in Mom’s potted ficus plant. I hated those cigarettes. They were a visual reminder of a growing disease.
“I don’t understand something,” I said to my mother one afternoon. We were having a domestic mother-daughter moment, folding laundry together, which was a rarity in our house. When you’ve got a working mother, I’ve noticed, you learn to live with dirty clothes, talking yourself into the fact that no one will really notice the blotch of yogurt spilled on the leg of your jeans, or you learn to do laundry yourself, or else you learn to root through stacks of clean/nonclean clothes for a pair of socks, with the skill and speed of a pig hunting for truffles. Zebe’s mother is a graphic designer, and Zebe has used adaptation number two. She is so good at the laundry she could do the presidential underwear. Everything in her closet is folded and organized by color, but I still love her anyway. At our house we usually do the root-and-find method, although Dino’s clothes always manage to get done. Something about seeing my mother iron his shirts really pisses me off. I know she hates to iron. I know she would rather go out in sweats than get the wrinkles out of cotton, yet there she is, starching and pressing Dino’s clothes. Fast forward to Brief Fantasy Number One Thousand Five Hundred—two big steaming iron-shaped holes over the boobs of each of Dino’s shirts.
Anyway, we were folding clothes. “I don’t understand something,” I said, which I think I already mentioned. “If composing causes Dino this much pain, why doesn’t he quit? Why doesn’t he take up fishing or something? Embroidery? A low-stress occupation like forest ranger?”
Mom held one matchless sock in her hand. She thought about this. “Because quitting would cause him more pain,” she said finally.
“I don’t get that. If something causes pain, then bam, get rid of it,” I said. I was thinking of Ian. Okay, I thought about him endlessly. Okay, I had daily arguments with myself over my desire to just give in to my feelings and to say to hell with what Dino might think. But I was mostly holding all of that at bay. Fear can give you more strength and resolve than anything else I can think of.
“Oh, Cassie, nothing’s that simple. Very few things are that black-and-white. I wish they were. Nothing’s a hundred percent good. Nothing’s a hundred percent bad.”
“Okay, eighty-nine percent. If it’s that bad, get rid of it. Eighty-nine percent is enough.”
“You’re talking like a scientist,” she said. “Some things can’t be measured. Let’s say you love astronomy. But let’s say it causes you some problems. Back pain, eye strain, I don’t know.”
“We’re talking mental anguish. Astronomy doesn’t cause that.”
“What if it did? What if, say, I don’t know. Maybe this isn’t a good comparison. Say you couldn’t get into a school to study it. Say your math skills weren’t good enough. Say you really had to struggle or something. What would you do?”
“Give it up.”
“But you love it.”
“It depends how much I love it versus how much pain,” I said.
“Love is not something that can be measured, Cassie. Sometimes love just is. Sometimes it’s a force with its own reasons. Reasons we don’t necessarily understand, but with a power that is undeniable.”
“You sound like an After School Special.”
Mom sighed. “Fine. Never mind. Sometimes you can cattle rope your heart and sometimes you can’t, is all.”
“Now you sound like a country-western song.”
“I’m shutting up with my motherly wisdom. You’re on your own.”
“He’s giving us all cancer. He’s giving the ficus cancer.”
“I’m going to make him smoke outside,” she said, though we had already agreed about her ability to make him do anything.
“I think he should become a bank manager,” I said.
“Without his music, Dino wouldn’t know who to be.”
Two nights later I went to a school music concert. I usually didn’t go to these things, but Siang had told me that she was doing a solo and hinted around that she’d like me to come. I wanted to do something nice for her after her kindness that day in Dino’s office. Usually once I got home on a cold night, any good plan I made didn’t seem as good as staying inside and warm, especially a plan like listening to classical music, which I got more than enough of anyway.
But I didn’t change my mind—I went out into the cold night and fought the cars jamming the parking lot, and found a seat with Sophie Birnbaum and her parents. Sophie’s little brother played the viola and was in the concert too. His group played first, and Sophie and I grimaced at each other at the squeaky parts and made fun of some of the names in the program, like Harry Chin.
I was having a grand old cultural time when Siang’s group came on. She looked so thin and scared when she walked up to the microphone in her long black skirt and white blouse, her hair straight and shiny black, almost blue, under the lights. I could see her hands shake, and all I could think of was the time Marna Pines puked right on stage during the second-grade play and how no one ever forgot it. Poor Marna would always be remembered as the girl who threw up right during her solo, stopping the show cold until the janitor could come out and deal with the whole matter with his mop and sawdust. Forever after she would be Pukey Pines, or one notch up on the cruelty ladder, Upchuck Woodchuck, due to her slight overbite. I didn’t want anything like that for Siang. Sure, her Dino hero worship drove me nuts, but there was something more than fandom at work in the way she tilted Dino’s painting straight again. Siang was a good person.
The orchestra had a false start, causing some of the audience to snicker. Then the orchestra began again, and Siang came in with a forceful stroke of bow against violin, her chin down, her fingers flying. Jesus, there was Siang with her little Indiana Jones Boy Sidekick voice and her annoying habits, just taking control of the whole situation and kicking the shit out of that violin, which I know isn’t exactly an appropriate musical critique but true anyway. The audience didn’t move. She just had them there right with her. My heart just got all full. I was so proud of her.
After the concert I waited for Siang and told her how great she was. Her parents told me about eight times that it was good to meet me, beaming at me as if I had just given them one of those huge Publisher’s Clearinghouse checks for a million dollars. I found the frosted sugar cookies at the cookie table and brought back one on a napkin for Siang and then headed back outside, feeling satisfied and happy and hopeful, though I’m not exactly sure why. I got out of the school parking lot, and instead of going home, I was overcome with a strange urge, which was to drive down to the ferry terminal, near the little house on the corner where Ian now lived.
Maybe it was Siang’s bravery that made me do it, frail and breakable Siang showing so much power in front of that audience, or maybe what was really knocking around inside my brain was what the metaphysical motorcyclists without motorcycles had been saying about fear. Mom’s voice was there too, I think (although she would not have been happy to be a motivating factor), talking about love as a force with its own reasons. Maybe all three things collided together and formed something new, some philosophical Big Bang in my brain, I don’t know. What I do know is that I parked across the street from Ian’s house. My body was cruising along without my permission—it got right out of the car and walked to the door, and it was only after I knocked that my brain caught up and I realized what the hell I had actually just done. The optimistic energy I’d been infused with after the concert had evaporated instantly, reminding me of my other failed surges of Yes! like the time I decided to redecorate my room with some leftover paint we had in the garage and got as far as the door frame before I realized I was tired, far from finished, making a mess, and running out of orange.
Now I just stood by Ian’s door, looking at this mosquito with its dangly legs all caught up in this spider’s web by their porch light, and thinking a panicky Shit! Oh, shit! I heard footsteps and a dog barking, Rocket, no doubt, and I had the urge to jump into the huge juniper plant, the same way as when we used to play Ding Dong Ditch when we were kids.
The door opened. Ian’s mom stood in the doorway, with Rocket peering around her legs like a shy toddler, and I wished I had something to hand her—one of those peanut butter cookies I was going to stick in my pocket back at the cookie table, a pamphlet about a politician, or a trick-or-treat bag (weeks late, but still).
“Mrs. Waters?”
“Yes?”
She had Ian’s eyes, but they looked different on her, wrinkled at the edges, like they knew things that had made her tired. She was wearing a T-shirt with some metal rock group on it, which surprised me. Golden wings spread out with a skull between them, and pictures of scary-looking guys. She was holding a towel, drying her hands, and I could smell something warm and buttery cooking inside. She opened the screen door and held it open with her foot. Her hair was pulled back, and her forehead was broad and sturdy. Ian’s mother. The one who taught him how to be in the world and who told him to clean his room and to get in the car because they were late.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m …” Okay, real functioning words were required, and if it says anything about my character, the first ones that sprang to mind were a lie. A bad one, too. The name that first popped into my consciousness was not my own but Harriet Chin.“Cassie Morgan. A friend of Ian’s.” I put my hand out for Rocket to sniff. She put her black nose against my palm and licked my fingers.
“Oh!” Ian’s mom said.
“Ian studies with my stepfather, Dino Cavalli.” What a shameless name-dropper I was.
“Cassie. Come in! I’m Janet. Ian’s mom. Ian’s not here, but please. I know this sounds very fifties housewife, but I was just making cookies. I had this incredible craving for fat and sugar.”
I liked her already. Her toenail polish was chipped. And anyone who has a craving for fat and sugar and gives in to it is okay by me. “No, thanks. I better get home. I just stopped by to say hi because I hadn’t seen him in a while. I’m always gone when he’s around lately.” I peered around her, into the house. Ian’s home. It was very sparsely furnished; well, pretty empty, actually. Trés minimalist.
“Well, I’ll tell him you came by. Are you sure about coming in? I gorged on dough, and now there are warm cookies. I’m going to make myself sick if someone doesn’t stop me. Hormonal chocolate frenzy.”
“What is it with that?”
“I have no idea, but I’m worse than the lions with the zebra carcass on Animal Planet.”
“Well, good luck. I wish you cold milk and the ability to fit in your jeans tomorrow.”
“Amen. I’ll tell Ian you came by.”
I crossed back over the street, got in the car that had already grown cold. Okay, so his mother was cool, too. I turned the key, just watched the dashboard lights glow for a minute. I looked over at Ian’s house, at the yellow light in the windows, at the lawn growing frosty-tipped in the cold night, sparkly by streetlamp. Small house, with a porch that needed painting, same as his mom’s toenails, and what I guessed was one of Rocket’s tennis balls in the driveway gutter. This didn’t have to be as large as I was making it out to be, or as scary. This was a houseful of normal, faulty people leading normal, faulty lives, and Ian was one of them. I liked the people in his world. And he did not, I realized, hold the secrets of the universe or the power to destroy. He was just himself, with a spirit and a talent who also lied to the dental hygienist about flossing every day, just like the rest of us.
I sat there, and my heart opened up, just a little. Go where you fear, Chuck and Bunny said. Participate. I could hear my heart make room. Maybe, is what it said.