Confusion Is Nothing New

by Paul Acampora

  The band launches into the chorus.

  “I found love. I found real love.

  I found love. I found real love …”

  A wave of sadness rolls over me because this part of the song is not my story. I know I’m surrounded by friends who love me. And my father loves me too. But I wanted more. I wanted to meet my mother. I guess I wanted to be loved by my mother. I’m never going to get that from Wilma “Korky” Korkenderfer.

  The rest of the evening flies by in a rush of dance and sweat and music. At one point, I realize that there must be several hundred people inside the gymnasium now. Somehow, the word spread that this is not just a rock and roll show. It’s a gospel revival built out of dumb joy. I didn’t know a band could do this. The crowd sings and sways and hollers together. Lines from a hundred songs, old and new, get all mashed up in my brain. Then suddenly, all the lights come up to reveal a gymnasium filled with sweaty, laughing friends. More than half the crowd is girls, and Betty Boop earns a roar of approval when she announces the last song of the night. “GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN!”

  The CYNDI LAUPER’S NOT DEAD! horn section launches into a fast-paced, reggae line that’s different from the more familiar opening. One of the backup singers moves to an electric keyboard and provides the opening synthesizer chords on top of the brass. Suddenly, Charlotte grabs Sinbad and me by the arms and drags us toward the stage. “What are we doing?” I shout.

  “We know this song from marching band!” she hollers.

  “So?” I say.

  “Follow me!” Charlotte says. “And if they try to stop you, don’t back down!”

  “Don’t back down!” says Sinbad. “Got it!”

  “Got it!” I say.

  Charlotte grins. “Good!”

  Before I know what’s happening, Charlotte pulls us onstage with the band. Seamus Brady’s eyes open wide when he sees me. “Are you okay?” he shouts.

  I point at the sax, the trumpet, and the trombone players blasting away. “I can’t hear you!” I lie.

  Beside me, Charlotte takes a small white electric guitar off the instrument rack near the base drum, then shoves me toward a microphone with a backup singer who looks shocked but doesn’t push me away.

  “Do you know how to play?” Seamus Brady hollers at Charlotte from behind his drum kit.

  Charlotte hands the guitar to Sinbad. “We’ve got this!” she promises.

  The backup singer takes a step toward me and then leans into my ear. “You must be Ellie!”

  “How do you know?”

  “You look just like your mom, which is a good thing because we don’t let just anybody up here. Can you sing?”

  “I’m better on keyboards,” I admit.

  She gestures at her partner to switch places. Now it’s me playing rhythm on the synthesizer. Sinbad has no problem keeping up on guitar, and Charlotte’s jumping up and down alongside the lead singer, who laughs and turns over the mic. On the next downbeat, Charlotte steps up, puts her hands on her hips like she owns the place, and delivers the song’s opening lines.

  “I come home in the morning light.

  My mother says, What you gonna do with your life?

  Oh mother dear we’re not the fortunate ones …”

  The crowd roars back. “Girls, they wanna have fun. Oh girls just want to have fun.”

  Charlotte steps back like she’s been hit by a tidal wave. The room erupts into spontaneous applause. For no apparent reason, I start laughing and crying at the same time. Betty Boop gives Charlotte a big hug, then takes center stage and continues the song. Charlotte leaps off the low platform and rejoins our friends dancing on the gym floor. Just in time, I remember that this song’s got a tricky keyboard bridge in the middle. Fortunately, it’s not too complicated. When I finish, Betty points at Sinbad, who hops forward and adds a funky guitar solo. I really didn’t know he was that good.

  As the song moves toward its finish, Betty takes the guitar from Sinbad and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. The crowd cheers, so Sinbad waves before following Charlotte off stage. The regular keyboardist gives me a nod and a smile, which I understand is my signal to say good-bye too. I take my hands away from the keys, and she slides over without missing a beat. I jog toward the front of the stage, but the lead singer stops me. She takes my arm and lifts it over my head like I’m the new heavyweight champion of the world. While my friends cheer and the music continues, she leans toward me and hollers into my ear. “Stick around after the show!”

  I turn and glance at the drummer, who stares back but doesn’t acknowledge me.

  “Really?” I say.

  “Please,” Betty Boop tells me. “Say you will.”

  “Okay,” I promise.

  Betty pats me on the bottom, grabs the microphone, and moves the song toward its final verses. “When the working day is done, oh when the working day is done …”

  The crowd responds. “Girls just want to have fun!”

  A few moments later, the show is over. The cheering fades, and the crowd begins to move toward the doors. Daniel, Charlotte, Sinbad, Josh, Anya, and I wander toward the empty bleachers while classmates and college kids move past. A few offer high fives and excited compliments.

  “You guys were awesome!”

  “That was epic!”

  “You rock!”

  “We should start our own band!” Charlotte gushes.

  “You’re already in a band,” Anya reminds her.

  Charlotte rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

  My friends start arguing about good names for the band. They’ve eliminated Corentin and the Quimpers, Shako All Over, The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, and Hit Me With Your Best Glock by the time the guys from the CYNDI LAUPER’S NOT DEAD! horn section spot us and head our way. The trumpet player, a tall African American man still wearing his porkpie hat, sees us and laughs. “Too bad none of you played the horn!”

  “The big one plays trombone,” a familiar voice offers. “He’s pretty good too.”

  “Ranking Richard!” says the trumpeter.

  I turn and see why the voice sounds so familiar. It’s because Ranking Richard is Mr. DeGroot.

  Daniel hops to his feet. “You!”

  Mr. DeGroot holds his hands out. “You’re not going to chase me with a zucchini, are you?”

  “Why would he chase you with a zucchini?” asks Charlotte.

  Mr. DeGroot turns to me. “Or maybe a glockenspiel?”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask our old music teacher warily.

  “I came to see the show,” he says. “And I was hoping to see you too.”

  Daniel takes out his phone and turns to me. “I’m calling Sister Stephanie.”

  Honestly, I thought Daniel was going to suggest the police, but Sister Stephanie is probably better.

  “Wait,” I say. I stand and face Mr. DeGroot. “How did you know I’d be here?”

  He shrugs. “I thought you might like to see your mother’s band.”

  “How do you know—”

  “Richard,” says the trumpet player, who’s been joined by the rest of CYNDI LAUPER’S NOT DEAD! “You shouldn’t have come.”

  Mr. DeGroot points at me. “You know this is Korky’s daughter.”

  The lead singer, still wearing her Betty Boop T-shirt, steps forward. “We know.” She gives me a friendly smile. “You’re Ellie, right?”

  I nod.

  The backup singer who looked so shocked to see me onstage laughs out loud. “Honey,” she says, “when you stepped up to that microphone, I thought I was seeing a ghost.” Suddenly, she wraps me in a gigantic hug. “You really do look just like your mother!”

  “You all know about me?” I ask after the woman lets me go.

  “We know,” Betty says again.

  I turn to Mr. DeGroot. “Is that why you’ve been following me around?”

  He sticks his hands into his pockets, then takes them out again. “Sort of,” he admits.

  “Not for revenge?”
asks Daniel.

  “Revenge?” says Mr. DeGroot. “Revenge for what?”

  “For getting you fired?”

  Mr. DeGroot shakes his head. “I should send you a thank-you note. I couldn’t have lasted in that job another year.”

  “You were only there for one year,” Charlotte reminds him.

  “It was the longest year of my life,” says Mr. DeGroot. “I hated everything about it. I am not cut out to be a high school teacher.”

  “I thought you just hated me,” says Daniel.

  “It was more like strong dislike,” Mr. DeGroot tells him.

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Daniel asks.

  I glance back and forth between Daniel and Mr. DeGroot. “I still don’t understand why you’re here,” I tell our old teacher.

  “There’s something I want to give you.” Mr. DeGroot digs into his coat pocket again. This time he pulls out a couple of old cassette tapes. “These are recordings of your mother singing.”

  For the first time, Seamus Brady speaks. “Where did you get those?”

  “They’re mine.” Mr. DeGroot shoves the tapes into my hands. “They’re from when we were kids.”

  “Hey!” Sinbad says out of the blue. “He’s the Ranking Richard that’s on Billy Leary’s old album.”

  “My mom was supposed to sing with you,” I say.

  Mr. DeGroot nods. “You’ve been doing your homework. Korky and I were friends for a long time. Of course, that didn’t stop her from kicking me out of CYNDI LAUPER’S NOT DEAD!”

  “You were with the band?” I ask.

  “Korky and I named the band,” Mr. DeGroot says proudly.

  “Then why did she kick you out?”

  Seamus Brady steps forward to answer my question. “We play hundreds of shows every year. We’re on the road all the time. It is a good life if you like it, but you have to be like a family. Richard forgot the part about family.”

  “You don’t fire your family,” says Mr. DeGroot.

  “A family keeps its promises,” says Seamus.

  Mr. DeGroot’s face turns a familiar, angry red. “It was a stupid promise.”

  “Nobody asked you whether or not it was stupid,” Seamus says. “Korky simply asked—”

  “Korky asked us to keep a secret that wasn’t good for anybody.” Mr. DeGroot’s voice rises. “How did that make any sense?”

  “She wanted to handle things her own way,” offers the Betty Boop singer in a calmer voice.

  “Her way of handling things was to pretend she was never going to die,” Mr. DeGroot shouts. “How did that work out?”

  “Richard,” says the tall horn player. “Nobody is happy about the way things worked out.”

  “Mr. DeGroot,” Daniel says calmly. “Does this secret you’re talking about have something to do with Ellie?”

  I was wondering the same thing, but I didn’t want to ask. As Dad likes to say, not everything is about you. But sometimes it is.

  I tuck the two cassette tapes into my pockets. “Does it?” I ask.

  “Seamus,” says Mr. DeGroot, “she’s already figured most of it out. Would you please tell her the rest?”

  Seamus Brady shakes his head. “I keep my promises.”

  This man sounds a lot like my dad.

  Betty Boop puts an arm around my shoulder. “Ellie,” she says, “Korky really wanted to meet you one day. But as time went on, she got more and more afraid that she’d waited too long. And then she got sick. And then Richard sent you the box.”

  “Richard?” I say. “You mean Mr. DeGroot?” I turn and face our old teacher. “You sent me the shoe box?”

  Mr. DeGroot nods.

  I glance around at the members of the band. Under the harsh, yellow gymnasium lights, they look more like tired Walmart employees than rock and roll stars. “I don’t understand,” I say. “My mother didn’t send me anything?”

  Mr. DeGroot glances at Seamus, who says nothing. “Fine,” says Mr. DeGroot. “This is what happened. Korky talked about getting in touch with you for years, but she kept putting it off. When she got sick, she made us promise that we wouldn’t tell you or your dad.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “There is no right answer to that question.” Mr. DeGroot says the words to me, but it’s clear that he means them for his former bandmates. “She should have called you a long time ago, but she didn’t. And then we learned that she might only have a few months to live. I thought if I sent you a few things first, then Korky would—”

  “You tried to trick her into calling me?” I say.

  “It’s more like I was trying to force her hand.”

  “Is that your handwriting inside the box lid?” I ask.

  Mr. DeGroot hesitates for a moment. “When I told Korky how I added those ‘Time after Time’ lyrics—” He shakes his head. “That’s what really got me fired.”

  “She was very angry,” Betty Boop offers quietly.

  Mr. DeGroot sighs. “It was not a good day.”

  I am surprised by Anya, who steps forward and takes my hand. “It was not your job to choose the first words that Ellie would hear from her mother,” she informs Mr. DeGroot.

  “Korky should have picked those words herself,” says Seamus Brady.

  “I agree,” says Mr. DeGroot, “but—”

  I finish the sentence. “But she never did.”

  For a long moment, nobody speaks. Finally, Betty whispers, “She just ran out of time.”

  Seamus Brady lowers himself onto a wooden bleacher and places his head in his hands. “At the end, there was no time for anything. Some days she felt good. Some days were terrible. There were so many bills and appointments. Plus, she insisted that we keep the band going.”

  “Because we are a family,” says one of the horn players.

  Seamus looks up at the man. “I didn’t always know the right thing to do.”

  “Not like now,” offers the singer who welcomed me onstage. “Now everything is crystal clear. Right, honey?”

  Even Seamus laughs a little at that. Confusion might be nothing new, but apparently nobody’s getting any better at dealing with it.

  “She didn’t plan to die,” I say out loud.

  “She sort of planned to live forever,” Betty Boop tells me.

  “In the long run,” says Mr. DeGroot, “that wasn’t a good plan.”

  Nobody replies until Charlotte suddenly speaks up. “Seriously? Didn’t you all go to Catholic school? Did you listen to anything good old St. Francis had to say? Be an instrument of peace? Treat animals kindly and people at least as well? For it is in giving that you receive? If you ask me, Ellie’s mom should have paid closer attention to that last bit.” She turns to Seamus. “Did Korky skip that class in high school?”

  It’s clear that Seamus doesn’t really know how to respond. “Back in high school—”

  An unexpected thought enters my head along with a sudden stab of fear. “You’re not my real dad, are you?”

  Seamus Brady looks up. “Of course not. Bruce Magari is your dad. He is a good man.”

  I stare at Seamus Brady without speaking. It strikes me that I’ve spent the last two weeks rummaging through shoe boxes and music and history and confusion. I’ve dragged everybody along in this quest for some true thing that I can know about my family. Something that will always be mine. Something that will never change. And there it is.

  “You’re right,” I say. “He really is.”

  I find my father in the kitchen. He’s turning a batch of flour and water into dough on the counter, which is not unusual except for the fact that it’s after midnight. “I’m sorry I’m late,” I say.

  “I figured I’d do something while I waited up.” Dad continues working the dough without turning to face me. “What’s your excuse?”

  “We stayed and talked to the people in the band.”

  “That’s what I expected.” At the counter, Dad presses his fingers into the wet mixture, which begins to change int
o something new in his hands.

  “You’re not mad?”

  “I’m glad you got a chance to meet them.”

  I take a seat at the kitchen table and realize that Daniel and I forgot our backpacks in Dad’s office. “By the way,” I say, “I told Daniel that the pizza bus is coming soon. He wants to be your sous chef.”

  “Daniel watches too many cooking shows.” Dad continues kneading dough.

  “Did you know the shoe box didn’t really come from Korky Korkenderfer?” I ask after a long moment.

  “I had a feeling.” Dad rolls his dough into a large ball, places his palms on top of it, and then presses down with all his weight. Once it spreads out, he folds the dough, turns it over, and repeats the process. “It wasn’t her style.”

  “What was her style?” I ask.

  “She wasn’t subtle. She didn’t leave mysterious clues. She was all in or all gone. She would have appreciated the glockenspiel throw.”

  “Everybody says I look like her.”

  “You do.” Dad pulls a tiny pinch of dough off the ball and pops it into his mouth. After a brief pause, he continues kneading. “Was Mr. DeGroot at the concert tonight?”

  “He was there.”

  “That must have been interesting.” Dad tastes another bit of dough and decides the kneading is done. “Good old Ranking Richard should have respected your mother’s wishes.”

  “So you know everything?”

  “Only because I gave Seamus Brady a call earlier today. I asked him to keep an eye out for you tonight. He filled me in on the other stuff.” Dad grabs a bench knife, which is basically a big stainless-steel rectangle attached to a wooden handle. He uses the tool to scrape the dough off the counter and transfer it to a deep ceramic bowl.

  “Is that for pizza?” I ask.

  “It’s bread dough.” Dad covers the bowl with a dish towel, then moves it to the refrigerator. “I’ll bake fresh loaves in the morning. You can bring one to Anya’s family.”

  “She didn’t ask me to sleep over,” I say. “I lied. I’m sorry.”

  “Let me guess,” Dad says while he washes his hands. “You lied because you thought I wouldn’t let you go to the concert.”