Before, After, and Somebody In Between (25 page)

…

With my audition coming up, as much as I’d like to, I can’t afford to stay in bed and turn into a fossil. Day after day I work on my
composition, scribbling at school, in bed, and even on the toilet. Night after night I’m up till all hours, playing
Sleepers, Awake
without an accompanist. No straight A’s for me this semester, thank you very much. But who cares about Nathaniel Hawthorne, or why
X
equals
Y
when your whole future, your whole existence is majorly at stake?

When my big day comes, I’m screwed from the start because I have nobody to go with me. Richard has an emergency court hearing, and Nikki drags Claudia to
her
dress rehearsal “for emotional support.” Jittery and depressed, I take a cab to University Circle alone. After all our plans, after all his help, Danny’s not with me on the most important day of my life. It feels so wrong.

When I first see the school, I’m kind of disappointed. Just an old granite building with a crummy little sign: Great Lakes Academy of Music. Inside, though, it’s cool and pleasant with glossy wood floors and huge arched doorways. I huddle on a bench in the hall, waiting my turn, trying hard not to listen to the kids ahead of me. Compared to these pros, I suck, suck, suck!

I’ve already tuned my cello fifteen times today, but I do it again to keep my mind off the competition. The C string seems off, and now I could smack myself for not bothering to spring for an electronic tuner, for thinking I’m so smart and so cool to be able to tune the strings by ear. I guess I could borrow one, but then I’d look amateurish, unprepared…

“Gina Kowalski?”

Numb with dread, I pry myself up, meander into the main room, and sit down in front of the panel of unsmiling strangers.

“Wachet auf,”
the head honcho announces.
“Sleepers, Awake
by J. S. Bach.”

My right eyelid twitches. “Um, my accompanist couldn’t
make it, so…” But he just beckons to some kid who jumps up, spits out his gum, and stakes claim to the piano bench.

Okay, that was easy. I breathe deeply, blank out my brain, raise my bow, and start to play. My eyeball spasms the whole time, and my armpits are drenched, but except for a couple of itty-bitty mistakes, I play it through perfectly.

“I believe you have a composition to show us?”

By now I’m having one of those out-of-body experiences. My spirit, high up in a corner, watches me saw through the music, the notes strained and foreign in this huge echoing room. They Xerox a copy and scribble across the top:
Gina Kowalski/Variation on a Theme by Rupert Campbell.
Rupert Campbell, they’re thinking. Who the hell is he?

Then: “Very nice. Thank you. We’ll be in touch.”

41

As my own dumb luck would have it, my birthday, March twenty-second, falls on the same day as opening night of
Swan Lake.
Richard and Claudia want to take me to dinner, but Nikki’s pitching a fit. Because it’s
her
special night, she wants to hog the whole day. No sharing the glory, and especially not with me.

Claudia says, reasonably, “Nikki, the show isn’t until eight. We have plenty of time to go out.”

“I don’t feel like it. I’m too stressed out. Why can’t you guys pick a different night?”

All eyes fall on me, and boy, talk about stress. But really, who cares if we go now or a month from now? Heck, even Momma couldn’t be bothered with my birthday this year. No card, nothing.

“Okay with me.” But my jawbone is throbbing.

“Well, it’s not okay with me,” Richard tells Nikki. “I don’t recall ever skipping
your
birthday, so if you’re that stressed out, you can just stay home.”

Claudia tries to smooth that one over. “If we leave now, we’ll be out of there by six. You’ll still have a couple hours before the curtain goes up.”

“Mom, it takes me that long just to put on my damn makeup!”

Richard holds up a hand. “Either come with us now, or stay home and sulk. This conversation has gone on entirely too long.”

“Fine!” Nikki shouts. “Go without me. Who cares?”

“Wait,” I butt in. “It’s no big deal. We can go some other time.” Anything, anything to stop the arguing.

But Nikki only scoffs. “Gee, thanks, Gina. Now you’re everyone’s little darling.”

“Nikki!” Richard’s voice hits us like a thunderbolt.

“Well, it’s true! She’s just like Rachel, always sucking up to you guys. Gina this and Gina that! Well, I’m sick of it, okay? You all make me si—”

Richard’s hand shoots out, landing smartly on Nikki’s left cheek. “And I’m sick of your mouth,” he says, deadly calm.

Nikki flees, clutching her face in shock. Me? All I can do is stand there, unable to believe what I saw with my own eyes. A livid Claudia pulls Richard aside, and for once in my life I have no desire to eavesdrop. I fly upstairs, hating the fact that it’s my own birthday that started this mess.

Nikki strolls in as I’m wrestling with a pair of pantyhose. One big red handprint covers her left cheek, so now I guess her makeup will take her twice as long.

“Sorry, Gina.” She doesn’t sound sorry in the least. “I’m such a bitch sometimes.”

I hoist up my pantyhose and yank down my dress. Does she expect me to dispute this?

“It’s just that I’m so stressed out, I don’t know what I’m saying half the time.”

If I hear the word “stressed” one more time, there’s gonna be one less swan dancing around that lake.

“So, anyway. Have a good time, and I hope you like the ballet. And I hope everything goes okay between you and Danny tonight.”

Now
this
gets my attention. “Danny?”

“Yeah, didn’t you know? He’ll be there with his folks, and …” She fiddles with her pink leg warmers, and I detect a hint of a sly smile. “Well, he’s bringing Caitlin. You’re all gonna be in the same box together, so I thought I’d give you the heads up.” She breezes back out with a strangled “Toodle-oo!” over her shoulder.

Danny and Caitlin. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Do they honestly think my idea of a fun time is being trapped in a confined space with Danny and his ski-skank?

I whip off my clothes, throw on my pj’s, and stagger downstairs to tell Richard and Claudia that I’ve unexpectedly been stricken down by a gory virus. After a brief and somewhat suspicious interrogation, they give me my birthday present, a complete CD set of Bach’s
Brandenburg Concertos.
Lulled into mindless oblivion by flutes, violins, and harpsichords, I burrow under my warm quilted spread and do nothing but vegetate.

By midnight everyone’s back, and man, you’d think it was opening night on Broadway. The Brinkmans gush on and on about Nikki’s “stage presence” and how it’s only a matter of time before she snags a major role, blah-de-blah. I nod politely as I try not to imagine Danny and Caitlin holding hands, sneaking adoring looks…

Nikki’s radiant, and wired as hell. “Oh, Gina! I’m so sorry you missed it.”

Yeah, I bet you are.

She flits up to bed and Richard follows, ruffling my hair as he passes by. Claudia makes me some hot cocoa and asks how I feel.
Poking at the marshmallows floating in my mug, I finally admit I wasn’t sick, I just didn’t want to go.

Her perfectly mowed eyebrows fly up in an arch. “Gina, why?”

“I didn’t want to have to sit with Caitlin, that’s all.”

“With Caitlin? Honey, Caitlin wasn’t there.”

Did I hear her right? “Danny didn’t bring her?”

“No, Danny didn’t bring anyone. Why would he bring Caitlin, for goodness sake?”

Because that’s what that lying, conniving, despicable daughter of yours told me. Shit! This means that if I’d been there, he’d have been stuck with me all night. He would’ve
had
to talk to me. There’d be no graceful way out of it.

I’ve lost my taste for hot chocolate. “Guess I’ll go back to bed.” And hopefully lapse into a year-long coma. Anything to keep me from murdering Nikki.

“Gina, wait. Are you doing okay? Are you happy here?”

“Sure I’m happy.” Well, maybe not at this moment, but, yes, I’m basically happy. Can’t she tell?

“Well, I want you to know, we’re glad you’re with us. Nikki too, although she doesn’t always show it.” Claudia’s smile wavers. “I’m not sure if you know this, but we lost our other daughter a while back.”

Omigod. Somebody finally said it.

“Her name was Rachel. She was a year younger than Nikki, and—well, it’s been hard on all of us, but especially hard on Richard. He and Rachel were very close…” She trails off, losing focus for a second. “You’re a lot like her, Gina.”

That last sip of cocoa curdles in my stomach. Is this why he took me in? Because I remind him of his dead daughter?

Claudia pats my shoulder, her smile a shade too bright. “Well, it’s getting late. Remember to turn off the light, okay?”

I nod woodenly. And then as she starts through the kitchen door, I ask her what I’ve wanted to know since the day I moved in here. “How’d she die?”

Claudia stops, but doesn’t turn. “She was hit by a car.”

My scalp prickles, but at the same time I’m thinking that people get run over all the time, so what’s the deep, dark secret? “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” Claudia says quietly, and walks out the door.

42

Another appointment with Zelda, and I am so not in the mood. I’m still mad at Nikki, and even madder at myself for letting her trick me into missing that ballet. And all Zelda wants to talk about is Momma, Momma, Momma.

“I spoke to her social worker at the halfway house. She’s had a few job interviews, and she’s taking good care of herself. And yes, she’s still sober and doing very well on her medication.”

“What medication?” I ask narrowly.

“Antidepressants, I believe. To help level out her moods. And,” she adds, “she’s very anxious to see you.”

“Wow. That’s a switch.”

“Martha,” Zelda begins in her sing-song accent, “why do you always have to be so sarcastic? Is this a defense mechanism with you? Is it so difficult to be pleasant? Are you always so angry at the whole world?”

Shocked by the attack, I can only stare for a second. “I’m not angry!”

“Yes, you are. You’re angry, and you’re scared.” I try to speak, but she steamrolls right over me. “And you know what? You have
every right to be, but you need to acknowledge it. Don’t let it eat away at you, hmm?”

“I’m not angry,” I repeat loudly. “Why should I be angry?”

“Why indeed? You are exactly where you want to be right now, aren’t you? And even though it’s only temporary”—God, I wish she’d quit saying that—“you’ve seen exactly what your life could be like, what
you
could be like if you put your mind to it. You are safe, you are happy—but you still have so much anger, and so much pain, and you have to deal with that, Martha. Yell at me all you want, say whatever you want to say to me. I don’t care, this is my job, and it doesn’t bother me in the least. But don’t lie to yourself and pretend everything is rosy, because it’s not.”

“Okay,” I say, just to shut her up.

“Okay what?”

“… I’m angry.”

“What about?”

Ha! Like I even know where to start. “Okay. First of all, my boyfriend dumped me. And Nikki hates my guts, and I did nothing to her, nothing!” I tick off each item, one by one. “Oh, and I just found out that the reason I’m with the Brinkmans is because they think I’m a lot like their dead freaking daughter.”

Zelda soaks this all in. “Well, first tell me about your boyfriend. Why did he dump you?”

Aside from the Brinkmans, I’ve only told Chloe and Faith about Danny. But even then I had to use some lame, made-up excuse—
oh, we just decided to see other people for a while
—because how can I tell them the truth? With Zelda at least, I don’t have to dance around the real story.

“ ’Cause he found out about me,” I admit.

“Found out what?”

“Everything. My mom. Getting expelled. How I’m really not from Columbus.”

“You mean you never told him?”

I kick the leg of her fancy desk. Why can’t she just give me the lecture and be done with it?

“How did he find out?”

“I have no clue.”

“How old is this boy?”

“Um, almost eighteen,” I admit in a tiny voice.

“I see. Were you sleeping with him by any chance?” I splutter all over myself, amazed at her nerve. That’s all the answer she needs. “Well, you’re a smart girl. I assume you used some kind of protection, hmm?”

“God!” My face feels like somebody shoved it into a gas grill. “Do you, like, even know what the word ‘privacy’ means?”

“I am not here to judge you, Martha. But you are the one who brought it up, so maybe it’s something we should discuss.” She watches me pick at a nail, tearing off a bloody shred. “It’s very painful to lose someone you love, but …well, it hurts even more when you blame yourself. It makes it harder to let go.”

Man, this lady can flip back into shrink mode at the drop of a hat.

“Who cares? It’s over. I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

“That seems to be the way you deal with everything. Your boyfriend. Your mom. That shooting incident last fall.” I yank the bulky collar of my sweater over my face, but Zelda only waits till I run out of air. “Why didn’t you tell the young man
why
you ended up with the Brinkmans? I mean, if you thought he was serious about you, and you obviously did, why did you feel you couldn’t tell him the truth?”

I finger Danny’s necklace, my Valentine’s Day gift, my one last link. “Um, I don’t know. Because I’m basically a coward?”

“A coward.” Mild surprise. “Why do you think you’re a coward?”

“Well, you’re the one who keeps saying I’m scared.”

“Being scared and being a coward are two different things.”

That’s news to me. “So what’s the difference?”

Instead of answering, she asks, “Martha, what were you thinking about that night on the fire escape?” I never told her about the fire escape, or anything else about that night. I wonder how she knows. “What made you go out there?”