Breathing Underwater (27 page)

I gasp out my last note, a high C, and it’s over.

Then silence again.

Then applause.
Big
applause.

Sean grins at me from the piano bench. I grin back.

Okay. So I can, on occasion, rock.

Back in my seat, I listen to the fifth girl to sing “On My Own” from
Les Miz
. She’s also the worst. I feel bad for her. Then the girl with the eyebrow ring, who does the witch’s rap from
Into the Woods
, and who is so good I sort of hate her, and a six-foot-tall football player type who actually sings “I Whistle a Happy Tune” from
The King and I
badly while everyone tries not to lose it.

And then it’s over. “You’ll hear one way or the other next month,” the director tells us. “Thanks for coming.”

People start leaving. I want to say something to Eyebrow-Ring Girl, compliment her on how incredible she was, but she’s already gone. I stoop to pick up my music.

“Hey,” a voice says behind me.

I look up. It’s Sean Griffin. People are walking out.

“Hi,” I say. “Um, thanks for playing for me.”

“No problem. You need a ride somewhere?”

I took the train here, and I have to take a bus home from the train station. But I can’t get in a car with some guy I don’t know, just because he’s a good singer. With my luck with guys, he’ll turn out to be a perv or a serial killer.

“Uh, no thanks,” I say. “My mom’s picking me up.”

“Oh, okay.” He grins. Up close, his eyes aren’t really blue, but they’re not green either. I wonder if they’ve changed since I first looked. Weird.

“Bye.” He walks away. When he reaches the door, he says, “Hey, Caitlin.”

“What?”

“I’ll see you at school.”

It takes me a second to realize he means
this
school. I laugh. “Oh … if I get in.”

He laughs too. But he says, “You will. With a voice like that, you can do anything you want.”

He’s gone before I can say anything else. I look around. The room’s cleared out, and I’m all alone. The sun’s streaming through the dirty windows, and I watch Sean as he goes to the street. Then I watch his back until he is totally swallowed up by the glare.

Opera_Grrrl’s Online Journal

Subject: Hi!

Date: April 5

Time: 9:37 p.m
.

Feeling: Thoughtful

Weight: 115 lbs. this morning (Eek!)

Days Since I Auditioned for Miami HS of the Arts: 23

Okay, so here’s the deal. My former shrink, Lucia (*long* story), was after me 2 keep a journal. “Write your thoughts,” she said. “U don’t have 2 show anyone.”

i.e, a pointless exercise. No thx! I do enough of those in SCHOOL!

Besides, who wants a notebook where anyone can read my “thoughts?” Like, what if I got hit by a bus??? I can just picture it: Mom, drumming her pink-manicured nails on my hosp. bed, all “Oh, sugar dumpling, I know u feel bad, but could u possibly explain this little thing on page 15?” Again: No thx!

But some of my friends started keeping these online journal things, & I thought that would be better. The anonymous thing is cool. The *world* can read it, but my ex-boyfriend, Internet stalkers, etc. (“etc.” meaning my mother), won’t know it’s me. The journal name, Opera_Grrrl, is my secret identity. Think Clark Kent/Superman, Bruce Wayne/Batman
.

Okay ......... some important details:

Name: Well, I’m not going 2 tell you that (see above)

Age: 16

Occupation: Student @ a high school in Fla. (but thinking about making a change)

Hobbies/Interests: See above......... I love 2 sing!!!

Pet Peeves: People who think my hobbies & interests are weird

Dating Status: Unattached

The question ur all wondering about (even tho probably no 1 is reading this): The reason I had a therapist is b/c I recently broke up w/the boyfriend from HELL!!!

What is the Boyfriend from Hell? It is one who seems really perfect:

• wicked-hot

• nice car

• showed up on time

• brought flowers

• wrote poetry

But also:

• hit me

• told me I was fat

• said I should only hang out w/his friends b/c mine were all losers

• said no one would ever want 2 be w/me but him

• said my singing was stupid

• and, um, did I mention, HIT ME???

So this past Dec., I broke up w/him, & I actually went 2 court and got a piece of paper that says if he comes 2 close, I can call the cops & they will throw his butt in jail
.

That’s when I got the shrink. I went for a month or 2, sat in a circle w/other girls who’d had bad boyfriends, talked about them, wrote poetry about them, did interpretive dances about them, role-played what we’d say if we saw them, cried, etc., etc., etc ........... then I got tired of wallowing in my problems so I stopped going. I use the time for practicing my singing now. *That’s* therapy
.

But every once in a while, I think about getting back together w/Nick. How wacko does that make me???

Which is why I’m also thinking about switching schools
.

The author would like to thank the following people: Mariel Jones and Joan Farr, for sharing their experiences with Miami-Dade County’s courts and counseling programs; Richard Peck, for getting me started; Felizon Vidad and Barbara Bottner, for helping edit my drafts; my husband, Gene, and my daughter, Katie, for their support; the members of my critique group, for all their encouragement; my mother, Manya Lowman, for always thinking I’d be a writer despite ample evidence (like my high school English grades) to the contrary; my editor Antonia Markiet, for her knowledge and experience and, especially, for listening; and my agent, George Nicholson—for being the best.

My special thanks to Joyce Sweeney, a great writer, teacher, and friend.

Want to know what happened to Caitlin?
Read
Diva
and find out!

My mother, in her sweet way, always reminded me that Daddy wasn’t my real father. “Be on your best behavior, Emma,” she’d said since I was old enough to remember. “He could ditch us anytime.” Sooo comforting. I don’t know why she said those things. Maybe she was jealous. True, Daddy and I looked nothing alike. He was tall and slim, blond and hazel-eyed, while I was short and clumsy with frizzy hair the color of rats. Yet on days like this one, as we sat across from each other at Swenson’s Ice Cream, it seemed impossible that I wasn’t Daddy’s and Daddy wasn’t mine. We had been together since I was three, after all; ten years since he and Mother had married. If I’d known my other father, the father that
had
left, I didn’t remember him. This was the only dad I had.

It had been his idea to spend the day together, “Daddy-Emma time,” without even Mother. I’d found out just the night before. He’d come home from work and told me he’d gotten tickets to the national tour of
Wicked
. It had been sold out except for nosebleed top balcony seats. At least, that’s what Mother had said when I’d begged to go. But Daddy told me one of his clients had given him second-row seats and he was taking me as a special surprise.

I’d breathed a secret sigh of relief. He and Mother had been arguing all week behind closed doors, alternately whispering and yelling, the sound muffled by television shows I knew neither of them watched. I’d sat in the family room, worrying in front of endless
Full House
reruns. Maybe Mother was right and they were getting a divorce. Maybe I’d end up like Kathleen, this girl in my class who’d had to be a flower girl in her own mother’s wedding. Maybe I’d lose Daddy. Occasionally, I’d hear my own name. Mother would say something like, “What about Emma?” and Daddy would reply, “What about Emma? I’m thinking of Emma.” Thursday night, Daddy had said, “I won’t discuss this anymore, Andrea!” and the house had gone silent.

But now, I understood. The whispered conversations had been about this. Mother was obviously angry because she’d wanted to go to the play herself, but Daddy was taking me. Me!

Our seats had been so close I could see the actors spit when they sang, and the play had been perfect, perfect for me because the ugly girl, the weird girl, the girl no one understood was the heroine. I identified with Elphaba, the outcast, except for the part about magic powers. Perfect, also, because Daddy had taken me, which meant he got it. He understood me as my mother never could.

After the matinee, we went for dinner, and even though I’d ordered an adult cheeseburger instead of the kids’ meal Mother would have pressured me to get in the name of “portion control,” Daddy let me get a Gold Rush Sundae too. “Not much of a meal without ice cream,” he’d said, and I agreed. I tried to eat slowly, like a lady, and also to make the day last longer. Plus, I had on a new dress, BCBG, and I didn’t want to stain it. Dad said, “What do you want to do now?”