Look Both Ways (16 page)

Zoe sits down on the end of my bed. “I’m sorry, but I think you’re going to have to own it,” she says. “If you don’t tell them and then they figure it out, it’ll be much worse than if you said something, right? Just act like it’s not that big a deal, and maybe that’s how they’ll act, too.”

“It’s
not
that big a deal,” I say.

Maybe if I repeat it enough times, I can convince myself it’s true.

I mean to tell my other friends about my mom. I really do. But I keep putting it off, and by the time we’re walking to Haydu Hall for class the next day, I still haven’t said anything. Zoe keeps looking at me like,
What are you waiting for?
But I think there’s still a chance I could get away with this, and I don’t want to ruin everything if I don’t have to. Every time one of my friends jokes around with me or asks my opinion about something, I soak it up and try to fix the feeling of camaraderie in my mind. If things don’t go as I want them to, this might be the last time I’m allowed to be part of the group.

My plan is to drop my friends off in the classroom, say I’m going to the bathroom, and then wait for my mom in front of the theater—she loves making a grand entrance, so she’s always late to everything. I figure we can get all the gooey “I love you, I missed you” stuff out of the way in private, and then she’ll treat me like any other student the rest of the day. I almost believe this is going to work, that everything’s going to be fine.

And then we enter room 214, and Livvy whisper-screams, “Guys, that’s her!”

My mom turns away from the piano, where she’s been chatting with Pandora. When her eyes land on me, she breaks into a nine-thousand-watt smile and holds out her arms.

For a split second, I consider turning away and pretending I don’t know her. It’s possible she’d get the message and back off. But that’s completely insane; that’s not the person I want to be. So my mom is famous. Fine. Zoe’s right; it’s time for me to own it. If my friends think I bought my way into the company, I’ll prove them wrong by rocking this workshop. My mom already told me I’ll be ahead of the game today. I’ll show everyone I do have Lana Blake Shepard’s genes in me after all.

I deserve to be here,
I whisper inside my head. And then I walk straight into my mom’s arms.

“Brookie,” she croons as she wraps me up in the folds of her voluminous dress. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Despite all the stress her presence is causing me, she’s my mom, and I love her, and it really is great to see her. I breathe in the familiar smell of her lotion and the cinnamon incense sticks she keeps in her closet.

“Hey, Mom,” I say a little more loudly than necessary, in case anyone is confused.

I once saw one of those charts psychologists give autistic kids to help them parse people’s facial expressions—cartoon face after cartoon face in neat little rows, labeled “angry” and “scared” and “sad” and “excited.” When my mom finally pulls away and I look out at the rest of the company, it’s a lot like scanning one of those charts. Livvy, Jessa, Kenji, and Todd are staring at me with total shock and disbelief, like they’re not exactly sure who they’ve been hanging out with all this time. Pandora looks like she wants to punch me, but she always looks like that. Zoe has a huge smile on her face, and for a second I think she’s proud of me for stepping up, but then I realize her eyes are firmly fixed on my mom. I don’t see any expressions I’d label as “supportive.”

“Is she for real?” Jessa mutters to Livvy, and I pretend not to hear.

My mom is totally oblivious. “Hello, everyone!” she says. “I’m Lana, and I’m thrilled that my dear friend Marcus has invited me to teach your vocal performance master class. I’ve had the privilege of teaching several Allerdale apprentice companies, but this one is particularly special to me, for obvious reasons.”

Jessa leans over and whispers something to Zoe, and my roommate gives a half shrug and mouths,
I’ll tell you later.

“We’ll begin with a guided relaxation exercise,” my mom says. “Everyone lie down on your backs, close your eyes, and concentrate on my voice.”

My friends will pepper me with whispered questions if I go anywhere near them now, so I lie down right where I am, next to Pandora and Natasha. My mom kicks off her shoes and starts pacing the room, and the sound of her barefooted gait is as familiar to me as the Manhattan traffic that constantly rushes by my bedroom window. “To attain optimal vocal technique, every muscle and tissue in your body must be a relaxed, supple resonator,” she says in a lulling, steady voice. “We’re going to relax each of our muscles, one by one. Start at the very top of your head. Picture your scalp melting like an Italian ice on a hot day….”

My mom works her way through every muscle in the body—“Relax your abdominals. Let them sink right into the floor….Relax your psoas….Relax your vaginal muscles, if you have them….Relax your sphincter….”—and I try my best to get caught up in her spell and let go. But my mind is already skipping ahead to the exercises we’re going to do next. She’ll probably ask me to demonstrate something for the class. I let my leg muscles melt into the floor and prepare to embrace that opportunity, even though my stomach is tying itself into knots the way it always does when I have to sing at Family Night.

Then again, no matter what happens, this master class can’t possibly be as bad as the last one.

When we’re totally relaxed, we form a semicircle around the piano, and I position myself next to Zoe. Mom makes us yawn, paying attention to the way our airways open up. She makes us tense our shoulders like we’re carrying heavy suitcases and then drop them. We shake our heads like horses as we do lip rolls to keep our neck muscles from tensing. I can tell some people are getting antsy to show off how well they can sing, but I like going back to the basics and reminding myself where my voice is supposed to come from.

When we finally do start to sing, we begin with simple arpeggios. “Feel the connections between the notes,” my mom calls as she circles the room. “Pretend you’re pulling a long, warm strand of taffy straight up from your diaphragm and out of your mouth.” She pauses next to Pandora and lays a hand on her shoulder. “Not so much vibrato, sweetheart. These exercises are for you. There’s no need to impress anyone.” Pandora looks like she’s swallowed a mouthful of lemon juice, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. Mom pauses next to Zoe for longer than usual, and when we’re done, she says, “
Lovely,
dear.” My friend shoots me an ecstatic smile, and it hurts to know I’ve never made her that happy.

The exercises get more and more complex over the next twenty minutes, and then Mom announces that we’re going to take a short break. I’m not ready for my friends to confront me yet, so I link my arm with Zoe’s and steer her toward the front of the room instead of heading out into the hall. “Mom, this is my roommate, Zoe,” I announce.

“Of
course
! I should’ve known you’d be the one with the best tone in the room.” My friend holds out her hand, but Mom ignores it and pulls her into a hug. When she lets go, Zoe looks so overwhelmed, I’m afraid she might faint. “I’m so thrilled to meet you,” my mom says. “Thank you for being such a good friend to my Brookie.”

“Yes. I mean, thank you! I mean, you’re welcome!” I’ve never seen Zoe starstruck before, and it’s completely adorable. Her words tumble out and trip over each other as she says, “This is seriously the best voice class I’ve ever had. I mean, I’m not saying my voice coach at home is bad. She’s actually really good, but this is better? So thanks.” She laughs. “Sorry.”

My mom smiles. “Your coach taught you very well. You’re extremely talented.”

“Thank you!” Zoe looks at me like,
Can you believe this?

“I hear you’re going to Juilliard in the fall?” Mom says.

“Mm-hmm. I’m so excited.”

“You’re going to be a star,” Mom tells her. “Juilliard is exactly where that voice belongs.”

“I…
Wow.
”

My mom squeezes my friend’s shoulder. “I’ve got to run to the ladies’ room, but we’ll have plenty of time to talk at dinner.”

“I’m going to come with you, actually,” Zoe says, and she follows my mom out of the room. I don’t really want to listen to them flatter each other anymore, but I trail behind them anyway. As long as my mom is within earshot, nobody’s going to confront me about her.

When class resumes, Mom hands out copies of “Anything Goes” by Cole Porter. We sing through the song a few times together, and when we all sound confident, my mom says, “As you see, anyone can learn a song. The notes, the words—those aren’t difficult. The real meat of being a singer lies in being able to bring your own intentions and emotions to the text. Sometimes you discover things about a character that aren’t apparent in the lyrics, and it’s important to be able to express those things as clearly as what’s on the page. What I’d like you to do is take ‘Anything Goes’ and create a narrative behind it, something that gives it
intention.
Are you singing it to your uptight mom so you can convince her to let you wear something revealing out of the house? Are you singing it to your girlfriend, who’s about to dump you for another man? Think about which words to stress. Think about active verbs. ‘Seduce.’ ‘Placate.’ ‘Dominate.’ Let’s take ten minutes to work, and then we’ll perform for each other.” She makes it sound like an adventure.

I’ve done this exercise a couple of times before, and I usually pick a jokey active verb that doesn’t reveal anything about me. But today I want to do something that proves I belong here. I decide to sing about exactly that: proving myself, proving it wasn’t all a lie when I screamed
I deserve to be here
into the mirror.
I may not have been a superstar right out of the gate,
I’ll tell the apprentice company through Cole Porter’s words,
but I have something to offer. I am worthwhile.

I label the top of my handout with the word “VALIDATE.”

I’m pretty sure my mom is going to pick me to go first, so I’m extra careful and deliberate about my emotional arc. By the time the ten minutes are up, I have some pretty solid ideas for how to make this song about me. When my mom gathers us back around the piano, my heart starts pounding and my lyrics sheet grows damp in my sweaty hand, but I tell myself I can do this, that I
want
to do this. If I don’t make a good impression on the other apprentices now, I’ll probably never have another chance.

“Let’s get started,” my mom says, and her eyes sweep over the group. When they land on me, I shift my weight and prepare to get up, even though I’m so nervous now that I feel a little dizzy. But then her gaze moves to my right and settles there.

“Zoe, would you like to go first?” she asks.

Okay, this is fine; I didn’t really want my mom to single me out or give me special treatment. Guests always get to go first on Family Night, and this is kind of the same thing. Maybe she didn’t want someone seasoned to go first and influence the rest of the group. But as Zoe moves to the front of the room, looking excited and full of emotional arcs, I can’t help thinking there’s something else going on here. Maybe my mom
does
want to start with the strongest example, and she knows I’m not the right person to deliver it.

“Should I tell you my active verb first?” Zoe asks.

“You can go ahead and sing.” Mom turns to the rest of us. “Let’s see if we can guess Zoe’s intention.”

The accompanist starts playing, and Zoe closes her eyes. When she opens them again, her whole physicality is different—she looks hopeful but vulnerable and unsure. Even though “Anything Goes” is a bouncy, confident song, Zoe sings it hesitantly, but with an undercurrent of quiet, tentative flirtation woven through every line. It’s like she’s trying to gauge someone’s interest in her, but in such a subtle way that it wouldn’t be too embarrassing if she were rejected.

My mom usually doesn’t believe in applause during class—she says it changes the energy of the space—but she’s the one who starts clapping when Zoe is finished. “That was marvelous,” she says, and my friend’s smile lights up the room. “You brought a whole new set of emotions to that song. Well done, Zoe.” She turns to us. “Who wants to tell us what you thought Zoe was conveying?”

Livvy raises her hand. “She kind of made the lyrics sound like, ‘I think you might like me, but I’m not totally sure.’ ”

Zoe beams. “That’s exactly what I was going for!”

“Good,”
my mom says. “This is a wonderful example of how a singer can really make a song her own. What was your active verb, Zoe?”

“My verb was ‘assess,’ ” Zoe says. For a split second she glances at me, but I can’t tell if it’s on purpose.

My mom picks Todd next, and he sings the song like he’s landed in a foreign country and has absolutely no idea what’s going on; his verb is “bumble.” Jessa sings it supersarcastically and explains that her verb is “scorn” and she’s singing to a guy who cheated on her. Pandora unsurprisingly picks “seduce” and sings the song like she’s trying to convince someone to cheat. Everyone sounds really,
really
good, and the longer I sit there waiting for my turn, the less confident I feel. Each time my mom calls up a new person, I find myself thinking,
Don’t choose me, don’t choose me.
I start to wonder if she’s saving me for last. I hope she’s not; I’m not sure how long I can hold this much tension in my body before something snaps.