Dear Little Jo,
I had to help with a roof after school yesterday. All the rain the last couple of weeks has put us behind schedule. By the time we wrapped up it was almost seven, so I figured I’d probably missed the talent thing at school.
But Sylvan got it into his head that I had to attend this particular extracurricular event. I tried saying, Never mind, it’s no big deal, but he started telling me how he’s been worried about me since football dried up.
You’re all bunched up under your skin, he said.
What’s that supposed to mean, I said.
You’re like a dog in a cage, he said, biting your own fur and bashing your head against the bars.
Okay, okay, I’ll go, I said, just to get him to stop with the dog comparison.
So I guess I did exactly what you predicted, Jo. Snuck into the back row of the auditorium. I took a seat next to a man with partly gray, shaggy hair and a black cowboy shirt. One of the many dads in the crowd, right? Could have been anybody.
A couple minutes later, after this group of rappers finishes up onstage, it’s intermission, and the guy next to me turns and offers me his hand and says, Hi there, I’m Lyle.
Of course it’s Lyle. Now that the lights are on this guy looks exactly like you, Jo. The cowboy shirt is unbuttoned and under it he’s wearing this T-shirt that says GOT GRASS? with the word grass in blue letters. No way I would have worked out that little inside joke if you hadn’t mentioned in one of your letters that it’s bluegrass music your dad plays.
He’s offering me his hand but my hands are still filthy from shingling. Tar-black nails and dried blood all across my knuckles. I sort of show Lyle my hands to apologize for not shaking his, and of course he asks me what I’ve been up to. So I tell him about Kurlansky Roofing, and before I know it he’s taking down the number because apparently your roof has needed reshingling for about a decade.
On the other side of your dad is this guy Cody, who Lyle tells me plays bass in their band. Cody says he used to work for a roofing company as a teenager too. He flexes his bicep and says, You’ll be thankful for that job later in life.
You know how when you’re in an audience and you talk to the stranger next to you, and then for the whole rest of the show it’s like you’re sort of watching it together? I mean it’s not like you say anything more to the person or even glance over at each other much. But somehow it feels like you’re sharing your reactions with each other. That’s pretty much how it was for your dad and me. Some of the kids in our school are really bad. It’s not even lack of talent so much as lack of judgment. Trying to tap-dance to a Beyoncé song is never going to be a good idea no matter who’s doing it. And that thing with the yoga and the yodeling. That was one of the times Lyle and I sort of looked sideways at each other. He did this whole elaborate coughing maneuver into his fist to cover up his laughter. You could probably hear him from backstage, Jo.
Shayna’s voice isn’t at all how I imagined. I guess I expected some airy, folky sound. You know those songs with the cutesy chorus and the verses with too many lyrics crammed in? Instead Shayna sounds like a sixty-year-old chain-smoker. And I’m saying that in a good way.
Watching you two onstage Lyle can’t even help himself. He leans over and goes, Those are my kids up there. Grinning like a maniac with fatherly pride.
Shayna is a good singer but I have to say the real shocker was you. I mean you never said anything about playing the mandolin. Okay yes, I had to ask Lyle what the thing was. I’d never seen one before.
You said you were Shayna’s backup band but you didn’t say you were going to sing. And you didn’t say you were so good at it. Your voice is the opposite of Shayna’s. Higher than hers, for one. It made me realize I’ve never really heard you talk, even. It’s weird to know so much about the way a person thinks without ever having heard their voice. When you sang it was this high, pure kind of sound. I don’t know. It felt like I recognized you and didn’t recognize you at the same time.
Then the judges did their thing. One of them compared your sound to Donny and Marie Osmond and Lyle said, You’ve got to be kidding me. He was laughing but actually looking sort of irritated about it.
Cody said, She should be in the band, man.
Don’t tell her that, Lyle said, or I’ll have her down my throat about it twenty-four-seven.
Exact same sound as Rapha, Cody said. That could have been Rapha up there.
Lyle didn’t answer, and Cody sort of ducked his head and gave Lyle a quick little pat on the shoulder as if to say sorry. I guess Rapha must be Raphael, a.k.a. your mom?
I asked whether you and Shayna took voice lessons et cetera. Lyle said it was never really necessary. You could tell he was trying not to brag, not to talk about you too much, but he couldn’t help himself. While the next kids were performing he leaned in and told me how you, Jo, quit talking for almost a year when you first started school. They had you tested and everything, Lyle said, but then he discovered that you really liked to sing, and it was as if you somehow didn’t realize that song lyrics were words. So Lyle would sing with you all the time. Not just real songs but made-up stuff, songs about How was your day? and What shall we have for dinner? so that you would communicate with him that way. Even Shayna got in on the action apparently. The year our life became a musical, Lyle called it.
I think I dozed off for a few of the remaining acts. Three hours on a roof and no time for supper will do that to you. Sorry I didn’t stick around afterward to congratulate you in person. When I heard the vote-with-your-phone system was glitching out and they would have to recount, I said a quick goodbye to Lyle and Cody and took off.
This morning I heard that somebody else won. I hope you’re not taking it personally, Jo. You and Shayna weren’t flashy enough is all. You should be proud because I know your Hopkirk motto is Be real and be true. On the way home last night I remembered that and I thought, That’s how they sounded up there. Real and true.
Sincerely,
AK