that says “No problems please,
I’ve had enough for one day.”
Trent comes barreling down the stairs
to reach for a hug
and announces that Donkey Kong
just had a major victory.
Davy follows, slower,
groping for the stair rail,
smiling.
“Hi, Mom.”
She gives them both hugs.
I remember that the salad isn’t made
and dart into the kitchen
before it becomes an issue.
Dad slams the door.
Mom, distracted by the boys,
forgets to call him on it.
“My cooking smells pretty good,
don’t you think,” he says with a wink
to the general population.
I smile,
the only one of the general population
who has heard his voice
in the mayhem
and observed his self-satisfied wink.
Mom comes into the kitchen,
a boy on each hip,
both vying for her attention.
She does a bang-up job
giving it to both
simultaneously.
After grace, Dad leans over
to help Davy find his fork
and get him oriented to the food
on his plate.
Trent jabbers away
about the tag football sign-ups,
and then Mom asks Davy
how his day went.
He smiles through a review
of the day at Gateway School
where the biggest news
revolves around Nick’s
getting detention for wandering
off the playground to retrieve
a ball during recess.
“How did your spelling test go?”
Davy tries to spear some casserole
with his fork
and misses.
“Miss Daniels said she bets I’ll get more
right next time.”
“I know you will,” Dad says,
exchanging a worried glance with Mom.
Davy pushes noodles onto his fork with his fingers.
Dinner is soon over.
Mom supervises homework;
Dad’s in charge of baths.
I’m the cleanup crew,
and since no one has asked,
I talk to my hands about our composition
and the upcoming competition.
THE SCORE
The heavy practice-room door
shudders behind me.
I set a pile of blank sheet music
and my favorite #2 pencil
on the small table next to the piano.
I set my cell on vibrate,
breathe in,
breathe out,
straighten tall.
I close my eyes.
I can see
the late summer sun
blazing in that clear azure sky
and feel my toes dig into the sand.
“The Kite” takes off
in the dead silent stillness
of this tiny room
as if the breeze were driving
through these walls,
and I chase it with the melody
that has gelled in my brain
these weeks of practice,
experimentation,
frustration,
doubts,
and now
certainty
and
exhilaration.
I slide on the bench
to the little table,
and begin the task
of setting down the notes
that are strung across my brain,
ready to pluck down
like washing on a clothesline.
Tap-tap-tap.
Startled.
I stop to listen,
not sure at first
if the sound is real
or in my head,
and just as I look toward the door
I see Tara lean in,
flashing her slightly overheated smile
as her long, golden hair falls
toward her perfectly made-up face.
She keeps one hand on the knob
and reaches around her head with the other
to hold her hair back.
“Oh, Claire, I’m so sorry to interrupt.”
Then why did you?
“I thought when I couldn’t find him,
he’d be here, but I see that he’s not.”
“You thought he would be here
in the same practice room with me
because…?”
“No, I mean I thought,
you know,
he’d be around here practicing
like you are,
you know,
polishing his composition
like crazy
and I see that’s exactly what you’re doing
so I’ll let you go.
Ohmygosh.
I see I’ve already been gone too long
from cheerleading practice anyway.
We all think it’s so cute
how you two geniuses are going
after this big prize
against each other,
you know,
after all these years
of being so,
um,
close musically,
you know.
Ta Tah!”
It takes a few minutes
for the air to clear
after she closes the door,
sort of like when a car
with emission problems passes
you on the road.
You want to open the windows
and let the nasty fumes escape.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Get back to work
and forget…
“Oh,”
she bursts back in,
causing my heart to lurch.
“If he shows up, tell him
the late carpool pick-up
will meet on the upper field
at 6:00.”
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
THE LOCKER
My locker is in the music wing
even though my instrument,
piano,
doesn’t get packed around
like Juan’s flute.
I see him throughout the day
and that drives Tara crazy.
Funniest thing of all…
Juan is oblivious,
true nerd,
to her idol worship.
The pleasure is all mine
evil,
ugly
me.
RULES OF THE GAME
“Are you ready to roll, Claire?” Juan asks,
changing out math book for history.
“You mean the piece?”
He stands up tall, runs his hand through
thick, curly hair, and smiles big.
What I love about Juan is
he does not have
an insincere bone
in his lanky Cuban body.
He really cares,
really wants to know
how it’s going
with me,
and part of me still wishes
I was competing against
anyone but him,
who has been like a brother to me
all these years.
“Yeah, I’m ready to record.
Feelin’ pretty good.
How about you?”
He says the same.
We decided early on
not to exchange details
like titles,
melodic themes,
rhythms,
genres.
We are bound
by the contest rules:
no longer than five min
utes,
score must be handwritten
along with a recorded version.
We agree to a private
popcorn and world-premier session
after we both
meet the deadline.
SOMETHING MORE
I’ve set aside a week from Friday to record.
That means I have over a week
to practice,
practice,
practice.
I’ll stay after school
when it wouldn’t be cool for anyone
to be hanging out in the halls,
especially Tara,
and I’ll use the practice room.
I slide through the piece at home
on cruise control.
No fine tuning.
My mind drifts,
my hands do the driving,
wondering if Juan has already submitted
but not really wanting to know,
wondering what Tara sees in Juan
when she has the pick of the jocks,
wondering what she’d say
if I called her on it one day,
wondering…
Slam!
I stop abruptly at the sound of the front door
shutting hard when no one is expected home
this early
ever.
“Davy?”
I freeze on the piano bench
and hold my breath,
waiting for his voice.
His carpool usually drops him off first
but not
this early.
“Hi, Claire.”
I turn around in time to see
Davy slip upstairs.
Tired-looking Mom
motions for me to follow her
to the kitchen.
“What is it, Mom?
Is something the matter?”
She pulls off her shoes,
sets the kettle on for tea,
hops up on a bar stool,
and sighs heavily.
“We’ve had a day, Davy and I.
I haven’t wanted to worry you, Claire.
Several weeks ago the school called
with more concerns, again.
Davy’s been stumbling too much.
Davy’s falling further behind in everything,
especially math.
When was the last time you had his eyes checked?
So we did it all again today
with another specialist,
a pediatric neurologist.
My mom,
stronger than steel,
fights to hold back tears.
She doesn’t have the answers
to any of my questions.
What are they looking for?
How much worse is he?
So we drink tea
in silence.
WAITING
You could slice it with a knife,
the tension in our house.
No, not in our house,
between Mom and Dad.
Sudden,
the tension seems so sudden,
but if I climb out of my musical delirium
long enough to look back,
it’s been building for a while,
maybe months.
Mom
has always earned a D- for patience.
She’ll be the first to agree
and on good days,
laughingly wonders how she ever ended up
teaching.
Funny
thing is, classroom tension bears no resemblance
to waiting for a call
from the doctor.
Dad,
on the other hand,
turns humor on so thick:
jokes,
puns,
riddles,
antics—
you almost wish for any kind of news
to break the phony fun.
They
aren’t discussing
with me what kind of news
we are waiting for.
Words
wouldn’t tell me
nearly as much
as the silent worry
I see in their eyes.
PAINFUL
Mia texts:
How’s the winning piece coming?
I consider not answering
like I often do
when words don’t seem
up to doing the job
of communicating
pain,
or embarrassment,
or hurt,
or anger,
or anything emotionally big
nearly as well as music.
But my one good girlfriend, Mia
doesn’t know how to speak that language
and all I can think to text is
Idk. Painful.
WAVERING IN THE WIND
“The Kite”
doesn’t have enough wind
to keep it afloat today.
Dad finally asked how it was going
this morning at breakfast,
but I felt his thoughts fly off
before I could finish telling him
what I thought
was the truth
last week:
I’m on top of it.
Lately
I’ve been thinking how things evolved
so fast
since that Labor Day weekend
when the contest leaped off the page
of Dad’s music journal,
the article about the winner
of last year’s NC Music Teachers’ Association
composition contest.
I stopped to read it
in the middle of packing
for a family outing,
fingers tingling
as if pulsing electrical charges
were sending a cryptic message
through the paper
directly to me.
This contest is for you!
I saw myself performing the winning piece,
then spending the summer
with the musical geniuses
at Duke, exploring digital production,
not to mention racking up the
$1,000 scholarship towards college.
The look on Dad’s face
when I shared my exuberant decision
sent a different kind of tingling in my body,
this one down my spine.
I couldn’t get a reading
on what blipped so quickly
across the brain-space
of the head of the music department
at Coltrane Community College,
usually my biggest fan.
Next thing I know Dad tells Juan
about the contest, something that hurt
at first.
Doesn’t he want his own daughter
to have the best chance of winning?
Doesn’t he know Juan and I
are too close
to be competing like this?
Doesn’t he know
I’ll probably lose?
But that’s my dad.
Always wanting to give everyone
a fair shake.
I’m pounding out the Toccata
because I can’t seem to concentrate
on “The Kite”
when Davy comes up behind me
and taps me on the back.
You wouldn’t turn him down today,
would you, Claire?
“Hop up, Bud. Let’s have that lesson.”
His half smile takes on the intensity
of a sunrise, and I slide over on the bench.
I place Davy’s fingers on the starting keys.
He starts humming the opening tune
that has been like a fixture in our house
during most of his lifetime.
I’m relieved my tears
fall into my lap,
unnoticed
> by the maestro.
RESOLVE
I wake up with a jolt,
beating the alarm by five minutes
to my 5:00 a.m. date with the day.
I will get to the practice lab
thanks to the coveted off-hours key
Mr. Jenkins entrusts to a select few,
and Carlos’s willingness to drive
his brother and me to school
on his way to pre-dawn athletic torture.
I will shake off the doom and gloom
of worried-sick parents.
I will get my head straight.
I will get “The Kite” ready to fly
before the deadline.
I will not let…what?
Something that probably has a simple answer,
that can be controlled by meds,
that might even be out-grow-able,
that surely can’t be life threatening…
I will not let this ruin a chance of a lifetime.
Will I?
TRASHED IDEA
Clock runs a race.
Rampant thoughts
cloud my brain.
Fingers get the message
due to conditions beyond our control
not before they push on to the end.
Rote,
passionless,
driving blind into the fog.
First bell sounds a warning.
I slam the keys hard
finally mustering passion.
Discordant finale
to a trashed practice session.
Maybe a trashed idea?
Behind These Hands Page 2
