by Mary Amato
More silence … just the rustle of leaves as he searches through them.
“I’ll come back when it’s light and look for it tomorrow,” she offers.
He keeps looking.
“Are you mad at me?” she asks.
He doesn’t say anything.
“This is kind of ridiculous,” she says. “It’s just a pick.”
“It’s not just a pick.” Tripp kicks the leaves aside and continues to look.
“Fine,” she says.
He can hear her covering the guitar with blankets, closing the shutters. When she climbs down the ladder, he moves aside to let her down, and she opens her cell phone to help him look. Her phone buzzes.
“My dad again.”
“That’s okay. I’ll look for it myself,” he says.
She answers. “Hi, Dad, I’m on my—” She listens. “No! … I’ll be home!” Her voice tenses and then snaps. “No! … Five minutes. Dad! I’ll be home in five minutes.” She closes her phone. “This is bad. I should’ve answered his call right away. When I didn’t pick up, he called Annie.” She starts to pace. “This is so bad. I told him I was at Annie’s, and Annie just said she had no idea where I am. So now they both know I lied.”
Tripp keeps looking at the ground, and she explodes. “I’m sorry, but just so you know, I think this whole reaction here is not very nice. Somebody once said to me, ‘Why get worked up about something that isn’t that important in the big scheme of life?’ I mean, it’s a little piece of plastic. How much did it cost, like seventy-five cents? Compare that to what it took for me to get this guitar, to get here. And now I’m in trouble.”
Tripp doesn’t say anything.
She storms off.
LYLA’S HOUSE; 8:08 P.M.
When Lyla arrives home, her dad is waiting by the door.
“I do not appreciate your lying to me. Where were you?”
Lyla walks in and sets her case down. “Please do not make this into a big deal. I was going to go to Annie’s, but then I changed my mind because I haven’t been getting along so great with her lately. I should have called and told you. I just wasn’t thinking.”
“So where did you go?”
“I just walked around for a while.”
“With your cello?”
“I went to the park on Walnut and sat for a while,” she says.
“Sat for a while? Doing what?”
“Just thinking. Is it against the law to sit and think?”
“I don’t like this tone, Lyla.”
“I’m sorry. Really, Dad. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not like you. Why didn’t you answer my call?”
“I had the ringer off. I’m sorry, Dad. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Well, keep the ringer on, Lyla. That’s the reason you have a cell phone. So I can reach you.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Why did you bring your cello home from school anyway? Dr. Prevski told you that she wants you to practice on your mom’s.”
“I know. Mr. Jacoby made everybody bring their instruments home for the weekend because the school is cleaning out the storage rooms.”
He shakes his head. “I’m very confused by all this. And Annie sounded really upset.”
“Annie is always upset, Dad.”
The doorbell rings. Trick-or-treaters.
“I’ll get it,” Lyla says, picking up the bowl of candy. “I’m going to practice in here so I can get the door.”
The home phone rings, fortunately, and he goes to answer it.
She hands out the Halloween candy and then rushes to put the empty cello case in her bedroom and to get her mom’s cello. In the living room, she sets up a chair and her music stand and is about to start playing when her phone buzzes.
Tripp/I found the pick.
Lyla/I’m so happy for you.
Tripp/I’m sorry. hard to explain.
Lyla/yeah. Gotta go.
Flushed, Lyla puts her phone away and picks up her bow. For the next hour, she plays as a penance for her sins; she plays to reassure her dad that everything is all right; she plays to keep her mind off the worry that she has made some fatal mistake with Tripp; she plays because the house itself seems to demand the music from her.
After a while, there is another knock.
There is Tripp, out of breath, standing in the yellow glow of their porch light. Before she can react, he puts a letter in the bowl, takes a candy bar, and leaves.
Dear Lyla,
I was upset and maybe I am a psycho, but I want to explain about the pick. It has to do with my dad. My favorite thing to do with him was to go to our place by Little Deer Lake. It’s this piece of land in the woods with this lake behind it, and the idea was that we’d build a cabin eventually, but I wasn’t strong or big enough to do actual construction, so we did small stuff first. We dug a fire pit and put logs in a circle around it. Then we made wind chimes and hung them up in the trees. Another time, we made a mailbox, which was funny because who would send us mail there? Each time, we’d pitch a tent and light a fire. We’d kayak and take hikes during the day, and at night sit around the campfire and talk about what the cabin would look like.
The last time we went, we found a note in the mailbox. It was a thank-you note from a guy who said he and his friends were hiking and they used our fire pit. He said how much they liked the mailbox and wind chimes, and he left his guitar pick folded up in the note. We thought that was so cool, and I put the pick in my jacket pocket.
It’s so strange how you never know what’s coming. We went home, and everything was normal. And then that Tuesday, I got called to the office during math class, and my mom was standing there crying. She took me into the parking lot and told me that my dad was in the hospital. He had a brain aneurysm. I wanted to go see him, but she wouldn’t let me. That night, I had to stay at home with my aunt, and I just sat there wondering what was going on. Then my mom came home the next day and said he died. I didn’t cry. It seemed completely unreal. Then all these relatives came. My dad was Jewish, and Jewish funerals happen really quickly, so the next day, I was at the cemetery, feeling numb, wearing my big jacket over my suit because it was cold. At one point, I stuck my hand in my jacket pocket and when my fingers found the pick, my skin tingled like it had an electric current running through it. Instead of listening to the Rabbi, I kept rubbing my thumb over the pick, thinking about all the times my dad and I spent together at the lake. It gave me something good to focus on. It wasn’t until the casket was lowered into the ground that it hit me. The Rabbi handed my mom a shovel, and she started to sob, and then she got ahold of herself, and the sound of the dirt hitting the casket went straight into my chest. It was like—boom. Your dad is really dead. He’s not coming back. Ever. I felt the truth of it for the first time, and this huge sadness exploded inside me, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I started crying, and I just held on to the pick in my pocket and started talking to my dad in my head. I told him how much I loved him and how much fun we had at the lake and then out of the blue I told him that I was going to get a guitar and learn how to play. A month later, I got one.
I never told anybody about the pick until now. When you dropped it, I thought I was going to die, but I didn’t know how to explain all that because I knew you’d feel really badly if it was gone for good.
Now that it’s back, safe and sound, I thought I should explain.
Cell phone light was a good idea, Ms. Even. And we wrote a whole song tonight.
—Mr. Odd
TRIPP’S HOUSE; 9:57 P.M.
Lights are glowing in the windows of his house when Tripp rides up the driveway. As he puts his bike in the garage, his phone rings. He sees that it’s Lyla calling, and instead of walking in, he sits on the concrete steps to his front door and answers.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Are you eating Halloween candy?” he asks.
“No. I should. Chocolate is good. Full of antioxidants.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“My dad thinks I’m asleep.”
“Already?”
“I know. I have MYO and a recital tomorrow. My dad is a big believer in sleep.”
“Did you get in trouble?”
“It’s okay.”
“What about Annie?”
“That’s another story. She isn’t talking to me.”
“I’m sorry.” He adds, “I’m really glad you opened the door. I’m kind of afraid of your dad.”
Lyla laughs. “How come?”
“I’ve seen him a couple of times. He looks very … intense.”
“When have you seen him?”
“Picking you up from school and videotaping at school concerts.”
“Yeah. He’s intense.”
“I was wondering … wouldn’t he be sad if you went away to Coles?”
“If I get in, he said he’s willing to move. He’s an accountant, and he can work pretty much anywhere. Hey, thanks for the letter. I’m glad you told me about the pick. I’m sorry I grabbed it, and I’m glad you found it.”
“I didn’t want you to think I was crazy. I mean, I know you think I’m odd, but I’m not crazy.”
“Hey, I uploaded the MP3 of ‘The Pomegranate Waltz’ to our website. The harmony sounds great.”
“Can’t wait to hear it.”
“I think I hear my dad,” Lyla whispers. “I’d better go.”
“Do you want to meet at the tree house tomorrow?”
“Can’t. I could come on Sunday, though.”
“Do you mind if I go by myself tomorrow?”
“That’s what it’s for.”
“Thanks.”
“Bye.”
Tripp slips into the house and goes straight to his room. He puts on his headphones, calls up their website, and listens to their song. Their voices fit together so perfectly, it makes him, for the first time, actually like the concept of perfection.
NOVEMBER 1. SATURDAY.
TREE HOUSE; 4:31 P.M.
NOVEMBER 2. SUNDAY
TREE HOUSE; 1:31 P.M.
Tripp is in the tree house. He hears the crunch of footsteps first and then Lyla appears below.
“Hark!” He leans out the window, his face flushed and happy. “I brought chocolate and some very juicy news.”
“Yeah? Good juicy news or bad juicy news?”
“Sort of good and bad. Come up and I’ll tell you.”
“How long have you been here?” She starts climbing up.
“Two days. Just kidding. I have been trying to stay as far away from my house as possible. The air in my house is toxic.” He picks up the guitar so there is space for her to sit down.
“I need tree air, too,” she says. “Yesterday was so hard. Annie and I aren’t really talking, but we have to carpool to MYO, so we’re sort of just pretending that nothing is wrong when we’re around our parents. And at lunch today, my dad was going on and on, planning the Coles audition, and I wanted to tell him that I don’t want to go. But I can’t. It’s really tense.” Her face is full of worry. “And then when I was walking over here, I was thinking about how this whole tree house thing isn’t going to last. I mean, it’s going to get too cold and we’re not going to be able to play because our fingers will freeze and your mom will send you to Crenshaw and—”
He stops her. “First of all, we are going to have record high temperatures this fall and winter, so our fingers won’t freeze off. Second of all, I’m going to get my grades up so my mom won’t send me to Crenshaw. And third of all, you’re just going to tell your dad that you don’t want to audition for Coles. And—”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can. And fourth of all, and here’s the good juicy news.…” He does a drumroll on top of the guitar. “We have a gig.” He smiles.
“What?”
“Listen.” He pulls out his phone and calls up his e-mail.
To: [email protected]
From: PomegranatePlayers
Date: November 2
Re: wedding
Dear Thrum Society,
We have an Internet alert set up so that every time someone posts an item with the word “pomegranate,” we are notified. The MP3 of “The Pomegranate Waltz” is just beautiful. We’d like to book you to play for an upcoming wedding, which will be at our place on Saturday, November 22, at noon. Short notice, I know. Our musician friends who would ordinarily perform are out of the country for the next few weeks, and as soon as we heard your song and saw that you’re located only an hour from our place, we thought it was a sign that you should join us. Please let us know if you’re interested and how much you charge.
Ruby Darling
The Pomegranate Playhouse
Loblolly, MD
Winner of the Best Regional
Theater Award, NETC
“You wrote that,” Lyla says.
“I didn’t. I swear. Ruby Darling, whoever that is, wrote it.” He hands her the phone so she can see for herself. “The bad news is that we can’t do it because it’s the day of your Coles audition. Still, I think it is amazing that she wants us.”
Lyla reads it again. “I’m going to be really mad at you if this is a joke.”
“It’s not a joke.”
Lyla grins. “Wow.”
“Indeed.”
“I think we should go for it,” she says.
“We can’t.”
“She says it’s an hour from here. The wedding starts at noon. My audition is scheduled at six.”
“Isn’t your audition in Boston?”
“No. They set up these audition spots all over the country. November twenty-second is the DC audition. I could tell my dad that I have to be somewhere during the afternoon and promise to be back in time.” She starts bouncing. “Okay. Okay. Here’s the plan. I mean the big plan. First, you’re right: we have to get your grades up. I’ve been thinking … there’s a physics test and an algebra quiz coming up. So, since you can’t play in the little room anymore, let’s use our lunchtime to study together. I’ll be your Benjamin Fick.”
“But then you’d miss out on the little room.”
“The guitar isn’t there anymore, so I don’t need the room. What we need to do is come here so we can practice for the wedding. I was thinking that I could tell my dad that I signed up for something that meets Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays after school, and then I could meet you here every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday.”
Tripp smiles. “You’re a genius.”
“Thank you.”
“But how would we get to the wedding?”
“We shall take a cab! And we’ll be back in time for the audition, so I won’t get in trouble.”
“Wow. Sounds like a plan.” Lyla smiles. “Let’s sing.”
TRIPP’S ROOM; 10:01 P.M.
Mr. Odd! I have hatched a brilliant new miniplan to add to our big plan. I’m supposed to give my cello teacher money for the next four private lessons. But if I tell her I can only do two lessons and keep that money, then we’ll have enough to pay for a cab to the wedding and back. How about it? Your partner in crime, Ms. Even
Ms. Even! You are becoming ever more devious. A brilliant plan, indeed, like Bonnie and Clyde. But I’ve been thinking maybe we’re not ready to play in public. —Mr. Odd
Do I hear a bawk? Bawk?
Yes. Yes.
Remember, you are an aardvark, not a chicken. We’re going! Send me Ruby’s address so I have it. Your job is to e-mail Ruby back and say yes.
NOVEMBER 4. TUESDAY.
ROCKLAND HALLWAY; 11:25 A.M.
Tripp/hey, talent show audition today. are you trying out with Annie?
Lyla/nope.
Tripp/you okay with that? I feel bad like I caused it
Lyla/don’t feel bad. i didn’t want to do it. did you e-mail Ruby?
Tripp/yep.
Lyla/woohoo!
NOVEMBER 5. WEDNESDAY.
CAFETERIA; 11:27 A.M.
“You should like science right now,” Lyla says, pulling her sandwich out of her bag. “Forced vibration and resonance.”
“Ms. Peakly has a way of turning any material into burned toast,” Tripp says, biting into his sandwich.
A table of girls is watching them, and Lyla guesses that they will report what they’re seeing to Annie. Lyla doesn’t care. She turns her chair so that she can’t see them, rummages in her backpack, and pulls out two pencils. She hands one to him. “Okay, let’s review what happens when you strike one tuning fork.” She taps her pencil against the table and holds it up. “What happened when you did this in class?”
“We didn’t do it. Peakly lost control of the class and made us read without talking.”
“Well, if I make my tuning fork ring, then the vibrations send a chain reaction through the air all the way to your tuning fork.” Lyla makes waves with her fingers moving from her pencil to his. “Then if our tuning forks are identical, yours will ring even if you don’t hit it.”
“One bell can make another bell ring?”
She nods. “It’s called resonance. One object vibrating at the same natural frequency of a second object causes that object to vibrate. That’s why we say the phrase ‘that resonates’ when we agree with something someone says.”
He stops eating. “Okay. That matches my Thrum Theory.”
“About inanimate objects?”
“No. That’s my Vibe Theory.” He leans in, blocking out the noise of the cafeteria, and looks at the pencil in her hand. “Here’s my Thrum Theory. I think every soul vibrates at a certain frequency,” he explains. “It’s sort of like each soul has a sound that is its signature—and your soul just wants to feel the vibrations of this sound. I think the vibrations of my soul and the vibrations of the guitar match each other, which is why it feels so right for me to play it.”
