Don't Blame the Music (11 page)

“I did at first. Then I found out that listening is more fun than performing. Plus, I like money. I'm going into construction with my father. Rock music is no way to earn a living.” He laughed. “I guess I don't have to tell Ashley's sister that.”

I'm Ashley's sister, I thought. Not Susan. I want an audience too, I guess. People who applaud
me,
not lose their thoughts to my sister. “You do think the record's a good idea then?” I said.

“Yes. And remember what I said about Shepherd. Don't let her know about this. You and I will meet Carmine and Luce to get a few details. Check with the record company they're dealing with. Prices. Numbers. You need a real report for the yearbook meeting. Neat little folders and columns and stuff. That's Shepherd's kind of thing. But don't tell a single other person about your idea. Shepherd would love to do you in.”

“I'm not sure why,” I said.

Whit laughed. “Sure you are. Sweet suave Anthony glanced in your direction and successful sultry Shepherd can't stand it.”

I began to laugh. It was so neat to think that Whit had watched, and understood, and cared.

“Keep laughing, kid,” said Whit. “Beats all those tears you keep shedding.”

“I'm sorry about the other day.”

“Don't worry about it. After you left we talked. I mean, it's natural your nerves are on edge. Look at all the stress you're under.”

Whit, Carmine, Tommy, and Luce understood—while Cindy, Anthony, Jeffrey, Emily, and Shepherd had no concept at all?

The bell rang. Passing period was over. We would both be late to class. As crimes go, it's not much of one. And after Ashley, I have a lot more perspective on minor versus major crimes!

Whit gave me a totally unexpected hug and turned and ran down the hall to his next class.

I stared after him. I could feel the hug pressure from arms that were very strong, from a person enough taller that he had to bend to hug. I should hug more often, I thought, or better yet,
be
hugged more often.

Shivers of pleasure ran over me. I could hardly wait for school to be over so I could join Whit in the band room.

When the final bell rang, I had already decided that Whit and I would go together. I had planned out several dates, and several substitutes in case he had different ideas. I was thinking of my clothes and decided that dating Whit called for an entire new wardrobe. One, preferably, that could be kept hidden from Ashley.

Whit was not there.

Carmine was.

Hulking, stupid, unwholesome. Acne growing on his face like fungus.

I didn't walk all the way into the band room.

“Hi, Susan!” said Carmine eagerly, waving at me. A little boy's gesture in a big man's body. “Whit told me. Great idea. You're really clever, you know? Whit said you were, but I didn't believe him.”

Another ego boost. Carmine had had to be argued into thinking I could be clever. Carmine, who probably couldn't even
spell
clever.

I walked closer. This was, after all, the boy who had made up the melody—a very good melody, too—when we composed to my poem.

“We're going over to Ransom Recordings and Printings. They do like you know any kind of reproducing at all, you know? Books and papers and letters and records and tapes and you name it, you know?”

“Sounds perfect,” I told him.

He beamed. “I called Mr. Ransom. We have an appointment and everything.” Carmine looked surprised by this. “I didn't think he could fit us in on such short notice,” Carmine confided, “and a Friday afternoon, and all, but Mr. Ransom said it was no problem.”

Carmine did not know that nobody would dare be busy when Carmine wanted to drop by.

Carmine took my arm and led me to the door. “Is Whit coming?” I said nervously. “Nope,” said Carmine. “He wanted to, but he hadda make up a test or something. Said to say hi and keep it a secret.”

Should I go? If there was any type that your mother warns you against, it's Carmine's type. Especially my mother. “Why is he so sure it needs to be a secret?” I said.

“He don't like Shepherd Grenville. But then, who does?”

In my crowd nearly everybody liked Shepherd. I was not sure who made up Carmine's crowd. One of the good things about a high school this size is you can just avoid the thousand or so kids you think are rotten.

Carmine led me to a car that was an equivalent of the one in which Ashley arrived home. I prayed that nobody I knew would see me in it. I could just hear Emily, laughing gales of laughter for the rest of the carpool year.
Beethoven loves Carmine
—in catchy singsong. And if my mother ever saw us, she would have cardiac arrest. Bad enough that daughter number one had fallen down the sewer—here went daughter number two.

I shifted uneasily on the seat. The upholstery was very torn. I kept feeling as if little rodents probably had burrowed into the openings.

Oh, well, this was Whit's friend. I trusted Whit. He had been kind to me, said nice things, was helping me. Carmine fell into the category of calculated risk.

Mr. Ransom of Ransom Recordings and Printings was a tiny man, about Ashley's size and weight. Carmine towered over him, but to my astonishment, they were old buddies. They laughed, greeting each other, and sort of punched each other and did this little dance of greeting that involved fists and footwork.

I really do think that men are very strange.

Mr. Ransom immediately shoved a chair beneath the backs of my knees, so that I had to sit down or topple. Carmine perched on his huge messy wooden desk, shoving papers out of the way, and playing with the sharp point of a spindle.

“Now the cost per unit,” said Mr. Ransom, “no, dear, don't write this down, I'll give you a sheet on it.”

He flung open a file drawer—the room was lined with anonymous unlabeled file drawers—and threw a piece of paper at me. Being paper, it just fell to the ground. Carmine loped across the room like a puppy to retrieve it, stabbed it with the spindle and brought it to me with a flourish.

“Now the way we record,” said Mr. Ransom, “no dear, don't write this down, I'll give you a sheet on it.”

He talked with the speed of a typing class dictation record, but he interrupted himself every line or two to insist that I should not write anything down. Clearly on slow days he entertained himself by drawing up fact sheets. Carmine was kept busy retrieving. Eventually Mr. Ransom tired of this method of communicating with me and began making paper airplanes of his fact sheets.

I grabbed the one that almost flew by my ear. “But we can do it, right?” I said. “My idea is possible?”

“Possible? My dear, it's brilliant. Of course you can do it. All it takes is money.”

Well, I would let Emily worry about that. Anyhow, Shepherd had just asked for innovative and unusual ideas; she hadn't said they had to come cheap.

The next paper airplane sailed way above my head, and in spite of a valiant leap Carmine missed it too. It sailed on into the receptionist's office. She hardly missed a beat typing, but merely hurled it right back.

“I would like to work here,” I said to Mr. Ransom. “This is my kind of place.”

“You would, my dear? No money in it, my dear. Hustle, hustle, hustle, that's the name of this game. Long hours, low income. But it's fun, the way I do it. I think life should be fun. I mean, who needs it if it's not fun, you know what I mean?”

I knew what he meant.

“Now you give me a call, dear, when you know what you're doing. These figures aren't precise. I could do a little better for the high school. Went there myself, you know. Thirty-nine years ago. Isn't that astonishing? Got my fortieth reunion coming up. May as well impress their socks off, you know. Show 'em the Yearbook of the Century. Our yearbook was probably the most ordinary one of the century. We could make a display, my dear, what do you think of that? Like a seesaw. You can be up. I'll be down.”

He laughed hugely, reached up to give me a hug, did the same dance in reverse with Carmine, and out we went.

“I adored him,” I told Carmine.

“Yeah. Me too. Lotta people you meet in this world, you know, they think they're like royalty or something. He's good stuff, Mr. Ransom. I'd like to work there, too. He told me to go in the Marines for four years first.”

“Why?”

“He says they'll straighten me out. I'm not sure I want to get that straight, you know what I mean?”

We drove along like old buddies, cemented by the record idea, by both of us liking Mr. Ransom so much.

I'm something like royalty myself, I thought. A real snob. I wouldn't look at Carmine or at Whit or the rest of Crude Oil as anything but scum. I never gave them a chance. I bet when they made lists of snob princesses, I was right up there with Shepherd and Emily.

But no more.

I sat happily staring out the window. I was a good person. A friend to all. No barriers.

And then I saw that we were just one mile from Iron Mine Road.

My mother could not see me in this car. A boy with a volcanic complexion? In this dreadful car?

All day she would have been coping with Ashley and maybe Bob. She would pass out if I drove up with Carmine. “Carmine, just drop me at the corner, okay?” I said nervously.

“The corner of Iron Mine?” he said. “But it's another mile to your house, Susan, and that's not a good road for walking. No shoulder. The stone walls are right on the edge of the road. I don't mind taking you home.”

“No, really,” I said, reaching for the door handle. “I love to walk. This is fine. Stop right here.”

Carmine stopped very fast. “At your service,” he said in a hostile voice.

I licked my lips, trying to think of a way to explain this. Some reasonable excuse.
You look depraved, Carmine. You look like a rock star druggie and my mother can't handle it if you chauffeur me around.

“I'll have to tell Whit,” said Carmine. “He thinks you're a cut above your crowd. But you're just like Shepherd. So get out.”

“Carmine, it's not the way it looks. It's—it's—”

“Get outta my car.”

I got out of the car.

Boys don't cry. Carmine wasn't crying.

But I had stabbed him.

A
LONE.

I needed to be alone badly. I could feel my bedroom waiting for me: soft and quiet, removed from—

But it was not removed.

It had Ashley in it. And black Satanic torn tape instead of gentle embroidery.

I wanted to sob for hours, and beat the mattress with my fists and pretend none of it had happened. Or pretend I was brave enough to make a phone call to Whit and explain, and pretend that he was kind enough to understand and talk about it.

But when I dragged up to the front door—what with having to jump out of the way of every approaching car, and then try to miss the stone walls and the poison ivy, it was a long long walk—I was too tired even to go upstairs to my own room. I dumped my books on the hall table and slouched into the kitchen. I felt like something in a compost pile. Rotting at the bottom.

But what a wonderful smell in the kitchen! Warm and good and welcoming. Fresh bread. My mother had been baking. Four loaves of piping hot bread sat on the counter: two dark and crusty, two light and buttery. Mom and Dad were leaning against the cabinets, eating slices just cut from the hottest loaf. Hot bread doesn't cut well, so their slices were thick and shapeless. Slathered with butter. It was like a peace offering.

I didn't bother with a knife, and just ripped a hunk off the same end and chewed. Heaven.

Ashley regarded us all in disgust. We didn't ask her what was disgusting. We just ate on.

“There's soup, too,” said my mother. “But maybe we should at least sit down to eat that.”

“Mmmmmm. What kind?” said my father through a mouthful of crust.

“Split pea and hambone.”

I leaned over the huge copper pot. Everything looks better in the right container. This pot was made for pea soup. The soup was thick, dotted with slivers of ham and flecks of onion. We could hardly bear to waste time setting the table, and sat down without ceremony to spoon in soup and rip off more bread while it still steamed.

Ashley ate nothing.

“What's the matter, dear?” said my mother.

“That isn't even food,” said Ashley. “What kind of people get their jollies from vomit green soup and plain bread? Why aren't we having
food?
Lamb chops or steak or something. Something edible.”

Very carefully my father set his spoon down. Very carefully he wiped his mouth with his napkin and very carefully he hung on to the side of the table before he addressed Ashley. “When you are earning your own income,” he said, “and when you have your own kitchen, you may provide your own lamb chops. Until then, eat what's served and like it.”

“Heil Hitler,” said Ashley. She began sawing at the other loaf of bread: the crustier, darker bread, which had cooled enough to be easy to cut. Cutting was something to do and she enjoyed it, slowly producing slice after slice. They fell like dominoes onto the tablecloth.

Ashley said,
“Susan
doesn't have to earn a living.
Susan
gets to eat what
she
wants.
Susan
—”

“Is still in high school,” said my father. “You will recall that it was your choice to leave school and your childhood behind. Now at twenty-five you suddenly want to be treated like that teenager again? Forget it, Ashley. You're an adult. Start behaving like one.”

“Country preacher,” she accused him hotly. She made country preacher and Adolf Hitler sound equally horrible. I wanted to laugh. Except that she meant it. She was furious with Dad, and she really thought he was a Hitler, and a country preacher.

“You have to do something productive,” said my father, waving the spoon, and in my eyes the spoon turned into a hymn book and I thought, She's right. Once he gets launched on a sermon there's no stopping him until he's rammed the moral home. I wanted to whisper that to Ashley; I wanted to be sisters, friends, share a joke together.