The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away

by Frances O'Roark Dowell

  “That’s probably why you married her,” Petey says, nodding.

  His dad nods back but doesn’t elaborate. “Why don’t we listen to a CD?” Mr. McIntosh suggests after a moment. “Name your poison.”

  “Do you have the new Paul Simon CD?” Petey asks. “Mom really likes it. Except it’s not really a CD, since she got it on iTunes. Last night at dinner we were trying to figure out what do you call a CD that’s not actually a CD you can hold in your hands. Marylin said maybe you call it a playlist, but me and Mom thought that sounded weird. ‘How do you like the new Paul Simon playlist?’ It doesn’t sound right.”

  “I don’t know what to call anything these days,” his dad replies amiably, pulling into Woodcroft Shopping Center. “Book on tape or audiobook? Who knows anymore?”

  “Audiobook,” Petey says. “Everybody knows that.”

  “Everybody your age knows that,” his dad says, parking the car in front of Pulcinella’s, where they’re going to pick up their pizzas. “You’ve grown up in a world devoid of cassette tapes. But for people my age, it’s more confusing.”

  Petey waits in the car while his dad goes inside to get the pizzas. It’s interesting to look at his dad like he’s a stranger. How would he describe him to the police? Tall, kind of skinny, messy clothes. Even when his dad is dressed up to go someplace important, a big meeting or a conference, there’s always something out of whack. His shirts don’t stay tucked in, his ties are off center, his shoes need polishing. Today Petey’s dad is dressed pretty casually, so there’s not too much that can go wrong, but some of the hair on the back of his head is sticking out, like he forgot to comb it, which he probably did.

  Petey checks out his treat bag to see if there’s any candy in it. Hardly anybody’s mom puts candy in treat bags; mostly it’s just pencils and animal-shaped erasers that don’t really work. But every once in a while you get lucky. You get a mom like Seth Halladay’s, whose treat bags are famous all over the fourth grade for being filled with full-size Snickers bars and Pixy Stix.

  There’s nothing to eat in today’s treat bag except astronaut ice cream, which is just freeze-dried something, and in Petey’s opinion, tastes awful. He’ll take it to school on Monday to see if he can trade it for something good. He wonders if Marylin likes astronaut ice cream, and then he wonders if there’s anything Marylin has that he’d like to trade for. Probably not. Marylin keeps some candy in her room—Petey knows this because he checks out her drawers every once in a while, a strictly spy-related maneuver, nothing personal—but it’s stuff he doesn’t like very much, like Skittles, which to Petey are just second-rate M&Ms.

  Now that he thinks about it, Petey hasn’t done one of his spy maneuvers in Marylin’s room since she quit cheerleading. She’s there a lot more now, usually with her friend Rhetta, who Petey likes okay, though not as much as he likes Kate. Kate is Petey’s dream woman. Smart, athletic, pretty, and nice to fourth-grade boys. And now she plays guitar and wears cool black boots. Petey hopes she’ll be in a famous band someday and invite him backstage at one of her concerts. He thinks if he’s friends with a famous person, maybe Collin Waits will quit calling him Geek Boy and trying to push him off the monkey bars at recess.

  Petey’s last spy maneuver was when Ruby and Mazie came over so Marylin could tell them she was quitting the cheerleading squad. Petey stood as still as he could outside of Marylin’s room, his ear to the door. He’d read somewhere that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer. He’d immediately thought of Mazie, who was the worst friend Marylin had ever had, in Petey’s opinion.

  “We’re not doctors who make house calls,” Mazie said. “Why don’t you tell us why we just had to come over? Like we don’t have anything better to do than to come to your house—which smells, by the way. You need to get your carpets cleaned.”

  Marylin ignored this, but Petey sniffed the air a few times to see if he could tell what Mazie was talking about. The house smelled fine to him. It always smelled fine. That Mazie must be crazy.

  “I just wanted to let you know in person that I’ve decided to leave my position as cheerleader,” Marylin said. Petey liked how she sounded very professional, like someone on TV.

  “Your what?” Mazie’s voice got all snarly—or at least, snarlier. “Your position? What do you think this is, a law firm?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  The other girl, Ruby, said, “You mean you’re quitting the squad? Do you think we really care?”

  “I guess I thought you might. I mean, the routines will have to be changed. Nobody else can do a double back walkover, for one thing.”

  Ruby laughed. “Believe me, Marylin—you’re replaceable.”

  “Highly replaceable,” Mazie added.

  There was a pause, and then Marylin said, “Anyway, I already told Coach Wells, and she was totally understanding about it. I hope you will be too. It’s just right now, I’ve got so much going on, and I’m sort of worried about my grades—”

  “Face it, Marylin,” Mazie interrupted her. “We win. We wanted you gone, and now you’re going.”

  The problem with being a spy, Petey thought, was that you had to keep your feelings out of it. If he weren’t observing the spy code, he would have busted through the door right then and there and socked Mazie in the nose. What a rotten human being!

  “You’re wrong,” Marylin replied quietly. “I’m the one who wins, because I don’t have to live by your rules anymore. Anyway, we’re done here. You can go now.”

  “Come on, Mazie, this is stupid. If Marylin wants to ruin her life, let her.”

  Petey scurried into the bathroom before the door opened and he was discovered. He stood there in the dark, his heart pounding so loud in his ears he was sure everyone in the house could hear it.

  A few minutes later, Marylin opened the bathroom door and found Petey standing in the dark. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Just thinking.”

  “In the bathroom?”

  “I do some of my best thinking here.”

  “Well, why don’t you think about setting the table before Mom gets home from work?” Marylin suggested. “If we get done eating early, maybe we’ll have time to go get ice cream after dinner.”

  Petey wanted to tell Marylin that he was proud of her for standing up to Ruby and Mazie, but he couldn’t. That would be breaking the spy code, and Petey never broke the spy code. Instead he said, “I’m glad you’re around more now. It’s more fun when you’re here.”

  Marylin gave him a strange look, but then she smiled. “It’s nice to be home.”

  Petey thinks about this now as he looks out the car window and sees his dad coming back with the pizzas, which they are taking home to eat like a regular family. Petey prepares himself for the unbelievable torture of riding in the car with right-out-of-the-oven-hot-pizza smell. Somebody should bottle that smell, Petey thinks. Someone should sell it like perfume.

  “So, man to man, how do you think Marylin’s doing these days?” his dad asks after he’s put the pizza in the backseat and started up the car again. “You think she’s okay?”

  Petey thinks about this. “Well, she definitely seems happier than she did when she was still a cheerleader. She hardly ever cries anymore. But I think she sort of misses it. Being a cheerleader, I mean.”

  “Do you think she’s unhappy?” his dad asks, sounding worried.

  Petey shrugs. “She’s got a boyfriend, and she’s got friends. Kate comes over sometimes now, but she and Marylin are always arguing about stuff. Last time she was over, Kate was talking about getting a crew cut. I thought Marylin was going to have a cow.”

  His dad laughs and says, “Old Kate. She’s a good egg.”

  She’s a great egg, Petey thinks. And then he remembers he’s on a mission. He leans back casually, tapping his fingers against the window, la la la, nobody here but us chickens. “So, you’re staying for dinner, right?”

  “Your mom invited me,” his dad says.
“We both think it’s a good idea for the four of us to do something together every once in a while. As your sister pointed out to me today on the phone, we’ll always be a family, right?”

  “Right,” Petey agrees, deciding not to add that they’d be even more of a family if his mom and dad stopped being divorced. Petey likes to be more subtle than that.

  As soon as the car pulls into the driveway, Marylin rushes out to meet them. Either she’s really hungry, Petey thinks, or else she’s got some big news. Did their mom finally agree to let them get a dog?

  “Well, she sure looks happy right now, doesn’t she, Pete?” his dad asks, and Petey nods. He likes it when his dad calls him Pete. He sits up a little straighter in his seat. One day he’s going to be tall like his dad, and then Collin Waits better watch out.

  “Come see my room!” Marylin calls as Petey and his dad get out of the car. “Rhetta and I worked on it all afternoon, and it’s perfect. Except that it needs paint. Could you take me to Lowe’s after dinner to get some paint, Dad? I was thinking a really light yellow with just a touch of orange in it. A totally light peachy color. And maybe you could help me paint tomorrow? Because Mom’s no fun to paint with. She’s too nit picky.”

  Petey sees his dad hesitate and wonders what the big deal is. Is it because his dad doesn’t live in their house? Is there something weird about painting a room in a house that used to be yours but isn’t anymore?

  “Maybe, honey, we’ll see,” his dad says, which as far as Petey is concerned is Parent Talk for “no.”

  “Please, Daddy?” Marylin says, coming over to Mr. McIntosh and grabbing his arm, so that he almost drops the pizza he’s carrying. “It’s really important to me. Really, really important.”

  “Yeah, please, Dad,” somebody else says, and Petey’s surprised to realize that it’s him. He’s the one holding on to his dad’s other arm. And he’s even more surprised to realize that he’s the one who’s about to cry.

  I’m going to be really tall someday and everything will be fine, Petey tells himself to make the tears go away. He stands up super straight. “I’ll help,” he says to his dad. “It would only take a couple of hours.”

  “We better get inside before this pizza gets cold,” Mr. McIntosh says. “Your mom hates cold pizza.”

  Petey follows his dad and Marylin inside the house. It’s hard work being a spy, he thinks. The world is full of secrets and danger. All you can do is observe and ask questions. All you can do is try to get to the bottom of things.

  “Hey, Mom,” he calls out as he walks into the kitchen. “How do you like Dad’s shirt? Pretty nice, huh?”

  His mom glances over at his dad. “Well, since I gave your dad that shirt, I guess I like it a lot. He always looks nice in it.”

  “He’s a handsome guy,” Petey agrees. He looks at Marylin, and she looks at him. Petey bets she’s thinking the same thing he is. She’s thinking there might be hope after all. Maybe that’s a mistake and they should believe their parents when they say they’re not going to get married again. That they’re happy just being friends.

  Maybe. But Petey would rather hope for something bigger. He’d rather hope that one day his parents will live in the same house again. They don’t even have to get remarried. Petey doesn’t care. He just wants everyone together, like a family that doesn’t have to keep saying, “We’re still a family.”

  He wants to be a part of a family that knows it’s a family without ever having to say a word.

  When Kate used to play basketball, her favorite part of the game was after it was over, when she felt all used up in a good way. She’d take a shower, put on clean clothes, and notice how good clean clothes felt, fresh and cool against her skin, the light scent of the fabric sheets her mom used just barely there but nice. After a game, whatever she put in her mouth tasted amazing, chips, pizza, spaghetti, it didn’t matter. Her body hummed with the happiness of having spent sixty minutes stretching and jumping and sprinting up and down the court a hundred times.

  And now, sitting on the roof outside her bedroom window after band practice, she feels the same way. Like she’s had the best workout of her life. Like her muscles have been uploading oxygen all afternoon.

  Kate has just started roof sitting. She got the idea from a comic strip where a teenage boy sits on his roof a lot and thinks about stuff. One day, walking home from the bus stop, Kate realized she could do the same thing—that it would be easy to slip out of her bedroom window onto the part of the roof that overhung the front porch. So now she’s a roof sitter, and she thinks she’ll always be a roof sitter, because, as it turns out, her roof is the best place in the world to get away from everyone and do some real thinking.

  What she wants to think about now is band practice. Two days ago it never occurred to her that she could be in a band, and then yesterday, Friday, this girl named Torie Reisman came over to where Kate was digging raised beds in the student commons garden and said, “Hey, I heard that you play guitar. My dad just said I could use his drum kit out in the garage, so I’m trying to get some kids to come over and jam tomorrow. You up for it?”

  Kate didn’t even know Torie Reisman. Well, she knew who Torie was, seventh grader, pretty smart, computer lab rat, jeans and T-shirt, hair always pulled back in a ponytail. Kate never would have guessed she was also the kind of person who would have a drum kit in her garage.

  “Uh, yeah, sure.” Kate straightened up and brushed the dirt off her hands. “Although I guess I should ask what kind of music you want to play.”

  “I’m still figuring that out,” Torie told her. “I’m sort of into the music my dad likes, just because he plays it all the time in the car. Like, the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen and stuff? But I also—I don’t know. I mean, I just got an iPod? So I’ve been downloading all kinds of songs, and I kind of like everything. So I’m open.”

  “Cool,” Kate said. “Have you ever played drums before?”

  Torie shook her head and grinned. “Never. But I heard you’re pretty good on guitar. And this girl Carter Ricks, who lives in my neighborhood? She’s homeschooled? She plays stand-up bass in her family’s old-time band. She said electric bass would be no problem, though.”

  “I’ve only got an acoustic guitar,” Kate told her. “But my friend has an electric one I could probably use.”

  “You can rock out on acoustic,” Torie said. “You just have to use a pickup. We’ll figure it out. I’ve been reading my dad’s old Musician magazines and learning tons of stuff. My mom’s always bugging him to throw ’em out, but he won’t. He calls them ‘the expressway to his youth,’ whatever that means.”

  So Saturday morning Kate got up and went to Guys and Dolls rehearsal, and then after lunch she got her dad to drive her over to Torie’s house. Carter Ricks was already there, sitting on an overturned milk crate and plucking out notes on a red bass guitar. “It’s weird to be sitting down while I play,” she said when Kate walked in, not bothering to introduce herself first. “There’s a reason they call a stand-up bass a stand-up bass.”

  “I thought there might be,” Kate replied, setting down her guitar case. “But it’s nice to know for sure.”

  Just then Torie came out of the house, a pair of drumsticks in one hand, a MacBook in the other. “You know we’re going to sound awful today, right?”

  Carter shrugged. “Maybe. But sometimes even awful sounds good.”

  And they did sound pretty awful at first. They decided to learn how to play the Rolling Stones song “Satisfaction,” since it was a song they all knew. They listened to it on iTunes a couple of times, and took a look at some chord charts they pulled up on the Internet. “Let’s give it a go,” Torie finally declared. “No time like the present, etc., etc.”

  “You know, I don’t think ‘Satisfaction’ is the right choice for this outfit,” Carter said after the fifth time they’d tried and totally failed to play something resembling the song they’d been listening to. “Do you guys know this band called Midtown Dic
kens? They get played a lot on K-DUCK. They have this really cool, pared-down thing going on that might really work for us.”

  That’s when Kate knew she and Carter were definitely going to be friends. By the end of the afternoon, they’d gotten the song “Only Brother” pretty much down and were in agreement that they could use a banjo player. Kate liked how her and Carter’s voices fit together, weaving over and under each other. It was fun singing with someone else, she realized. Fun to make music in somebody’s garage, the sound of kids playing baseball down the street, bats cracking, voices crying out “I got it!” floating through the songs. It was like being on a team, Kate thought during a break as she sipped on the Coke that Torie had grabbed out of the garage fridge. The coolest team in the world.

  Now she stretches out her arms to the darkening sky and sings, “I am my only brother, but this cavern is not my home. . . .”

  She lets herself think about band practice a little more, holding off for a minute the next thing she wants to think about, something she doesn’t want to ruin by overthinking it. Finally, though, she gives in and thinks about Matthew Holler.

  After band practice, her dad stopped at the Quick-E Mart to pick up a quart of milk, and Kate went in with him, just to look around. You never knew what you might find at the Quick-E Mart. Once Kate had bought a pack of six glow-in-the-dark mechanical pencils for ninety-nine cents, and another time she’d gotten a copy of Wonder Woman in Chinese. She’d taken it in for show-and-tell, and this kid named Sonio Lee, who came from Hong Kong, translated it for the class.

  While her dad was waiting in line, Kate had scurried to the magazine rack. Maybe she’d find the latest issue of Rolling Stone or Guitar Player. Instead what she found was Matthew Holler.

  “Whoa,” he’d said when he saw her. “I was just thinking about you.” He held out a copy of Guitar World. “There’s an article on electric guitar gods who started out as acoustic guitarists, and I was thinking they should do one on acoustic players who started out on electric.”