Girl, Unstrung

by Claire Handscombe

  “Libby loves her,” I tell my dad.

  “See,” he says. He hands me the silverware. “Finish setting the table. I’ll go get them.”

  Thirteen

  I check my phone during the break at orchestra one Tuesday in November and I have a text from Katie. Though what I see first isn’t who it’s from, it’s what it says. I KISSED A BOY AND I LIKED IT!!!!!

  Immediately, as I stand right there with my back against the foam acoustic panels and my backpack between my feet, my brain splits into two halves like it always does when people tell me good things about their lives. Half my brain (don’t ask me which half, my theory isn’t full developed yet) is all, like, what, who, where, when. In the case, I know the how at least technically, and the why I assume is obvious, but I want to know everything. I’m wishing I didn’t see it while I was at orchestra. I’m going to be so distracted now. It’s not like I haven’t seen the movies, or heard other girls talk about it, but Katie is (was? is!) my best friend and there are certain details only your best friend will tell you. Like, what does his tongue taste like? How did you control the flurry of butterflies in the pit of your stomach? Where did you put your hands? And the eternal question, which I’ve googled but whose answer still seems unclear: where, oh where, did you put your nose?

  And then the other half of brain, at the same time, is all, What? But what about me? It’s not that I have time for boyfriends and all that stuff or even that there’s any particular boy I want to miss. (Well, except maybe swoopy-haired Tim, but I’m not falling into that trap – I know he’s only using me, though I can’t figure out what for. Something to do with Madison Harper, I guess. She played my dad’s daughter on TV for a while, so that makes her, what, my screen half-sister? We hung out a bit around then, and whenever she posts something on Instagram and tags me in the picture I get a zillion new followers, mostly girls our age. I’m under no illusions that it’s because they like my glob of freckles or want to know more about why the viola is clearly the best instrument in the world or because they like my artsy pictures of sunlight streaming onto crisp new sheet music. I guess for some people it might be fun to bask in Madison’s reflected glory but I’ve already been basking in my dad’s and my mom’s my whole life, and who knows, maybe one day I’ll get to bask in my sister the ballerina’s, and I’d quite like some of my own glory, you know?)

  Anyway, I digress. You’ve probably noticed that I have a tendency to do that a lot. My point is that the only guy I might consider kissing is swoopy-haired Tim, but I also wouldn’t consider kissing him because I don’t want to kiss someone who will be thinking about Madison Harper the whole time. Eww. So I guess my brain is actually splitting into halves of halves at this point and it’s kind of no wonder I’m having trouble with Scheherazade when we come back to it after the break.

  “Clara Cassidy, are you with us?” Mr. Giovanni says, pausing mid-bar.

  “Yes, yes, sorry,” I mumble, and I can feel my cheeks getting pink. I’ve never been called out like this at orchestra – any orchestra – and it’s mortifying. This is what I mean about boys and not having time for them. One text about one boy, who isn’t even my boy, and I’m a total mess. I try to focus. I tap my foot in time and I count out the bars of rests: One two three four, two two three four, three two three four. But half my brain is still on Katie’s text. It’s bad enough that she’s left me behind and gone to LACHSA without me. But now she’s leaving me behind on this too? Shouldn’t the LACHSA code forbid this kind of thing, discourage anything that that doesn’t contribute to a laser-like focus on the arts? After all, I’m giving up the chance to go on a ski trip where I too could potentially be kissed (only by Tim, admittedly, and I don’t want that, but then again there will be other boys there, so maybe not only by Tim?). I am giving it up so I can practice for my LACHSA in-person audition, because I’ll definitely get past the video audition part this time. This is it. The beginning of the Rest Of My Life. The first bullet point on my Big Life List. What is a kiss compared to that?

  Unless... unless I make sure I can play the music perfectly even before the ski trip and maybe take my viola with me to sneak in a few run-throughs while I’m in Colorado? Maybe that would work? Because if Katie is going to be kissing boys then I should be kissing boys too. It’s only fair.

  Fourteen

  Ever since I can remember, we’ve always gone to see The Nutcracker the weekend of Thanksgiving. It used to always be Friday, till we (I) convinced mum and dad to let us actually use the best shopping day of the year, so now we go on Saturday. Well, except for Juliette, who goes every day because she’s in it every day. She started when she was five, as a mouse. The mice don’t actually do any real ballet, but they do get to wear pretty costumes and run around on stage and be around the ballerinas who think they’re all oh-so-cute, probably feeling nostalgic for their own childhoods, and that’s what made her want to take lessons, I think.

  The performance we go to is at the Pasadena School of Dance – dad always takes the opportunity to lecture us about the importance of supporting local art – and because they’re smaller and less prestigious than some other places, they were auditioning even non-dancers for the mouse roles. She was only just five, and super small, and super sweet. She was a mouse for four years and now that she’s nine she gets to be a party girl, her long hair all ribbons and curls, a fuchsia bow around her waist.

  She was, of course, stoked about it when she got the part and that was when she made dad install a barre and mirrors downstairs so she can practice obsessively. Mom’s house doesn’t have a basement or anywhere else where it could easily go, so she’s here a lot more than the rest of us. These last few weeks, when we’ve been at dad’s, we’ve hardly seen Juliette. She disappears down there constantly. It’s unclear how much of that time is spent actually at the barre doing actual exercises, and how much is spent just prancing around in front of the mirror, imagining being on pointe and getting to dance Clara one day. But she says she’s serious. So we’ll see.

  The first year after the divorce we all went together, except for Harry who was four and hyper and unlikely to sit still through even just one act of ballet. He stayed at home with the babysitter. It was super awkward, actually, you could tell mom and dad had just had a fight (just a little disagreement, honey, my mom told me when I asked her about it afterward – ooookay then). They both just sat there with these smiles, the kind you can tell are forced because your lips are making the right shape but your eyes don’t change from when you’re frowning. The advantage of having so many kids is that we can make up a significant physical barrier between them, though with Harry at home and Juliette on stage that only left me and Rosie, which wasn’t quite enough to cut through the ice. So since then, even though things are much better between mom and dad now, we alternate parents for The Nutcracker. This year, it’s dad and Ebba’s turn.

  “I used to go every year with my parents too,” she’s told us at least three times, in an effort to bond with us or something. “I love The Nutcracker.” Like that’s any huge coincidence, like everybody doesn’t love The Nutcracker. There are plenty of people who like ice cream or puppies or think the best Harry Potter movie is clearly Prisoner of Azkaban, but that doesn’t mean I want them to come live in our house.

  I’m sitting between dad and Harry, with Rosie and Ebba the other side of him. Harry, of course, is fidgeting, shifting his weight from one butt cheek to the other. He told us this year he was sick of being left out and he wanted to wear a tux and bow tie and come with us (he looks ridiculous and adorable at the same time, if that’s possible), but a few minutes into act two he’s probably thinking that popcorn and his annual viewing of Home Alone would have been a wiser choice. He was riveted for the first half, sitting the stillest I’ve ever seen him sit and with the straightest of backs, but the spell was broken at intermission. I think he thought that was the end and couldn’t quite believe he had to go back in there and sit and not speak for as long all over again. I want
to put him on my lap, but I don’t know if it’s okay to do that, if he’ll be too high and block the view of the people behind me, so I take his little warm hand in mine instead. Sometimes he just needs to know that we see him, that we know he’s there.

  Ebba’s super-focused on Juliette, watching every step, willing her to get them right. Not that she needs to. Juliette is graceful and elegant – at nine years old! So unfair! – and she’s confident, too, every jet and échapé and pas de bourrée in the right place, at least to my “non-dancer’s” eye. I can actually hear Ebba exhale when she’s done, like she’s been holding her breath the whole time.

  At the curtain call, Juliette is smiling wider than I’ve ever seen her smile, showing off the gap between her front teeth. She looks so pleased, and she should be. She did well, and she knows she did well, and if there’s one feeling in the world that’s better than that, it’s the feeling of other people knowing you did well, too, and standing up and wolf-whistling and shouting Brava! She’s still smiling, still pink her under her makeup when she comes out of stage door to find us.

  “I’m so proud of you,” dad says, hugging her. “So proud, so proud.” Ebba puts her arm around her and squeezes her tight. “You were wonderful, honey.” Juliette beams up at her, her eyes full of worship. They walk back to the car like that, Ebba’s arm around Juliette, laughing and comparing ballet memories and dreaming together of the day when Juliette will get to be Clara. The thing is, though, I’m Clara. I’m supposed to be the one with the starring role.

  No-one stops us to ask for dad’s autograph. No-one spoils this moment for Juliette. Dad’s holding Harry’s hand, swinging his arm, and Rosie’s talking about some author she thought she saw in the audience. And even though this is California, I’m suddenly cold.

  Fifteen

  I’ve practiced and I’ve practiced and it’s time to record my video for the LACHSA audition. The closing date isn’t till January, and it’s only the beginning of December, but I want to be prepared, to get my tape sent in plenty of time. What if they watch them in the order they’ve received them? I know from sitting backstage at recitals that the more solos you listen to, the more they all blur into each other. By the fifth Telemann in G Major they’ll be bored of the syncopation and less easily impressed by the fast notes or the cadenzas. I don’t want to risk that being me.

  For some reason they specifically want the home-made kind of video. Mom says it’s so as not to disadvantage the people who don’t have the money for professional video sessions, which I guess makes sense. It’s not like I would hate being professionally recorded. It could be fun, could give me a taste of my forthcoming career. But I don’t want any unfair advantages. I don’t need them, either. I’ve practiced and I’ve practiced – I had to take a lot of Advil – and I even had extra lessons, two a week instead of one for the last month. I made dad and Ebba sit still on their blue sofa and mom on her brown leather one, and listen and tell me if there’s anything wrong, not that they know a ton or have anything close to perfect pitch like me, but it can help to get feedback from the untrained ear, and it definitely helps my nerves to play in front of people, especially people I know. Having one of them hold an iPhone to record me won’t be as big of a deal after they’ve already watched and heard me.

  I still get self-conscious when I perform. I always have those clichéd dreams right before a recital, where I’m on stage naked, and that’s totally how I feel when I play in front of others: look at me, here’s a little piece of my soul, please don’t crush it. I’m standing in front of you being the best I can possibly be, please tell me it’s good enough. Tell me you love my playing. That it moves you or makes you want to play the viola too or convinces you once and for all that neither the violin nor the cello are any match for its beauty. The stakes for this taped audition are even higher than all of that, because as well as the LACHSA people seeing how good I am, I also need them to see how good I could be, how much potential I have. So it’s a good thing I’ve exorcised some of my nerves on my parents already.

  The other kids are with dad and Ebba this week, so I’ve come to mom’s empty house, to the silence here, to practice a few final times and have her record me. The light falls differently in my room here, and at certain times of the evening there’s a patch of sun almost like a spotlight, and I love playing in that. And when it’s just the two of us, mom and me, she likes to try to have more deep and meaningfuls than we get to in short car rides, Gilmore Girls style, and honestly, it’s kind of nice to have her all to myself. I like that she takes the time to do my hair differently every day as I sit on the floor in front of her, my back against the leather sofa. That’s usually when she asks me the more personal questions. I think she thinks I’ll be more honest if I don’t have to look at her. And it’s true, I really am more honest in those moments, but I think it’s because having someone’s hands in my hair relaxes me. I told mom that once and she laughed.

  “Honey,” she said. “You wouldn’t know relaxed if it walked up to you and smacked you in the face.” But when she’s brushing my hair it feels like relaxed is smacking me in the face, the sound of the bristles over and over like playing scales when I’m trying to calm my nerves before a concert. I feel safe, somehow. Like it’s okay to be me. Like it almost – almost! – doesn’t matter if I get the highest grade in the math test or get accepted into LACHSA.

  “You excited about skiing?” she asks me today, French braiding the left side first.

  I am. I’m counting the days using an app on my phone, but I can’t think about it properly yet. Not till this audition tape is done. Focus on the thing in front of you: my second viola teacher used to say that a lot. Don’t worry so much about what’s coming next. Get great at the first movement of this concerto, and then we’ll talk about the second. But then my next teacher was the opposite. She was the one that started me off on taking those grade exams musicians do in England – there are eight of them, and you can pass or get a Merit or a Distinction – because of something about me being achievement-oriented. The next teachers went with it too. Anticipate! she would say, not letting me turn the page until I’d already started playing what was on the next one. Anticipate! Always know what’s coming next. So I blame both of them for my confusion, but it was the advice of that second one that really stuck with me.

  “I can’t wait,” I say to mom, even though I’ve always thought that was a weird turn of phrase. Clearly I can wait, because I’m going to have to. And when you have to do something, you make yourself able to. Whatever it takes. No choice.

  “Which of your friends are going?”

  Friends is a strong word for the loose collection of people whose names I know and whose smiles I return as we jostle past each other in the hallways. But I rattle of the list anyway. “Olivia, Nguyet, Alicia, Abigail, Tim.” I didn’t mean to mention Tim. His name just slipped out, I guess because it’s always there at the back (okay, the front) of my brain, on the tip of my tongue. Katie calls it mentionitis. “Did I tell you Tim invited me skiing? Have I mentioned Tim? Did I tell you I met this guy called Tim?” It’s unnerving how much she sounds like me. I think she’s trying to make me laugh when she does that, but I elbow her and tell her to shut up.

  My mom’s hands are half way down my scalp on the right now, which means we have to wrap up this conversation soon, because otherwise I’ll have to look at her, and while we’re on this topic, I definitely don’t want to do that. I can fell I’m blushing, and I don’t want her to see that.

  “Tim?” she says. I don’t think you’ve mentioned him before.” In my head I can hear Katie do the snort-laugh she does, and her sarcastic voice. No, never. Never ever. I haven’t actually mentioned Olivia, Abigail, Nguyet, or Alicia to mom before either, but she’s only interested in Tim. Like there might be a reason I’m mentioning him now and a reason I never have before. Which is very heteronormative of her. Like, how does she know it’s not Abigail or Nguyet or Olivia or Alicia I have a crush on?

 
I guess she’s my mom, and that’s how.

  It’s not a crush, anyway. More of an intrigue. An interest, purely out of curiosity. An appreciation of his swoopy hair and his long eyelashes and his chin dimple.

  “Yeah,” I say. And then, probably because of the magical powers of the hair braiding, I add, “it was him that invited me on the trip, actually.”

  “Oh,” she says. So casually. I can feel her undoing some of the brain on the right side. “It’s uneven,” she says. But I know her game. She’s buying us more time for this conversation. “And you like him, this Tim?”

  “You’re a poet and you don’t know it,” I say. I am good at this deflecting thing, but my mom will not be deterred. Her hand pauses on my hair, waits for me to really answer.

  “Remember my school recital? When a guy came up to get a selfie with dad? Big fan and all that unoriginal crap?”

  She’s still not braiding, but probably now it’s because she is digging into her memory. There’s a lot to keep track of, what with four kids and their four sets of friends, and, I am pretty sure, a boyfriend’s children and their set of friends.

  “Hair all in his eyes?” she tries.