Panic

by Sasha Dawn

  My heart lifts when I see a message pop up on my phone.

  Mom: I’ll be home soon.

  It’s the first I’ve heard from her since our argument this morning. Maybe she’s finally forgiven me for being such a horrible daughter.

  Me: <3 <3 <3

  I haven’t even put my phone down yet when it buzzes again with a text from my BFFBS.

  Hayley: Been thinking about this Dylan Thomas thing.

  Hayley: It’s strange that another origami moon showed up.

  Hayley: Is this guy stalking you?

  Me: I haven’t seen anyone but those guys that I sent pics of

  Hayley: And like, he’s in high school, right?

  Hayley: So how would he even be able to leave the moon at Saint Mary’s?

  Hayley: He should have still been in school.

  Me: Unless he’s on a different schedule.

  Hayley: He can’t get from Englewood to your school in ten minutes.

  Me: I don’t know.

  Me: I don’t even know if he’s in high school.

  Hayley: Lainey!

  Me: Not sure it came up in conversation.

  Me: We talked about music

  Me: About art

  Me: hopes, dreams, etc.

  Me: I haven’t even seen a pic of him.

  Hayley: What if he’s seen you?

  Hayley: Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.

  Hayley: Why else would you have sent me the pictures?

  Me: So I’m a little paranoid.

  Me: I don’t feel threatened by him.

  Me: On the contrary, I feel very much like myself with him.

  Me: Like I feel with you.

  Hayley: . . .

  Me: Not that anyone could ever replace you.

  Hayley: I was gonna say . . . LOL

  Me: It’s just that I like the anonymity of it.

  Hayley: But how does he even know where you go to school?

  This gives me pause, and my breath sort of catches in my throat for a second. How does he know? Did I tell him about Saint Mary’s? It seems like something I’d normally keep to myself online. Maybe that day when we messaged for hours . . . Could I have mentioned it?

  Hayley: Just be careful.

  Hayley: Don’t trust the way your mom would.

  I log in to Lyrically and click on my messenger. While it loads, I continue to text Hayley.

  Me: I’ll be careful.

  Hayley: Maybe you should stop talking to him.

  Me: But he writes the most beautiful words.

  Hayley: You don’t even know if he really wrote it.

  Hayley: You posted a pic

  Hayley: and he claimed it was his work.

  Hayley: How do you even know the truth?

  Hayley: How do you even know who he is?

  Hayley has a point. I don’t really know.

  I read through the conversation we shared the night after I found the first origami moon.

  School never came up.

  He did admit to Googling me, however.

  So I Google me.

  And I scan through the items that pop up. This production. That production. I give all my bios (I write new ones for every show) a quick once-over to see if I ever mention the name of my high school. I doubt it—it’s not exactly brag-worthy to announce to theater-goers that I attend a stuffy, normal Catholic high school where I’m remanded to the dean’s office for tinting my hair—but I check just in case.

  No mention of Saint Mary’s. So how did he know where to leave the second moon?

  I message him.

  Me: Got your second moon.

  I wait.

  I drum my fingers on the keyboard of my laptop.

  It’s clear he’s not going to respond.

  And I still have a gazillion messages on my page that I’ve yet to look at. I know they’re going to be responses to my revised song in E minor.

  I know most of them are going to be mean responses. It’s the internet. People are asshats on the internet.

  But I have to deal with it sooner or later. And like Dylan Thomas said when we chatted: my chosen profession is brutal, and people are going to be overly critical at times. If I can’t take it when it comes through a computer screen, how am I going to take it face-to-face?

  My finger hovers over the mousepad, about to click over to my homepage to deal with whatever awaits me over there.

  Just do it. I hear Mom’s voice in my head: Just you and the stage.

  With my eyes tightly closed, I click.

  I open one eye, then the next.

  My jaw drops. My song has been shared hundreds of times. It has twenty-five thousand views.

  With numb hands I pick up my phone.

  Me: 25K people have listened to my song.

  Me: Do people like it?

  Me: I can’t look.

  Hayley: Hold on, I’ll check.

  Me: Thanks.

  Hayley: It’s in the job description for BFFBS.

  Me: I CAN’T stop talking to Dylan now.

  Me: He’s the reason my song is spreading online.

  Hayley: Not the only reason!

  Hayley: I shared it.

  Hayley: Ted shared it.

  Hayley: BurningUrine shared it.

  Hayley: And you’re the one who wrote it

  Hayley: and changed it and reposted it in E minor.

  Hayley: YOU did this.

  Hayley: Dylan Thomas may have encouraged you

  Hayley: But you’re the reason it’s awesome.

  Me: Let’s just hope other people like it.

  Hayley: People LOVE it.

  Hayley: OMG

  Hayley: People LOVE it!

  Finally, I brave the comments. The first few aren’t all that great. RadioHeadAddict was sure to remind me that I “blow,” for example, but loads of people have given it a thumbs-up. I skim over the obviously an amateur comments and focus on the good things people have to say. So many people have commented with specific things they like about the song, and some have even suggested ways to improve it. I don’t agree with most of the advice, but at least most of the commenters seem to have good intentions.

  Tears of joy fill my eyes. I burst into the kitchen and interrupt the choir singing backup for Madonna.

  “Nana, listen!” I cue up my song, then turn down her music.

  I grab her hands, which are slightly sticky with eggplant breading, but I don’t care. “I wrote this song, okay? And I thought I’d take a chance, so I posted it online. And—”

  “Take a deep breath.”

  “And people are liking it! You want to hear it? ’Cause I really want to play it for you. It’s like the best thing I’ve ever written, and it sort of has lyrics, but it sort of doesn’t. And I’m going to send it to the dean of admissions at the academy. I’ve been compiling a portfolio to see if I might qualify for any grants—”

  “Good idea.”

  “—because I want this so bad. It’s like you said. I can make my own way, and this song . . . it’s the first step.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Nana says.

  I push play, and my music filters through the speakers on my laptop.

  Suddenly, life feels like it used to, when I was little, living in Kenilworth and dancing around the kitchen.

  I’ve been hearing Dylan Thomas’s words in my head whenever I work on this song, so I start to sing them as the notes play.

  When the song is over, Nana hits repeat, and we listen to it again and again. By the fourth time, even Nana is singing a few of Dylan’s lyrics she’s caught onto, and she’s holding my hand, and spinning me like we’re ballroom dancing, and we’re laughing.

  God, what a great day!

  Halfway through a spin, I see Mom as she emerges from the hallway.

  She’s drenched from the rain, and she looks positively exhausted, but she smiles.

  I hit pause on the song. “Mom, it’s a song I wrote, and I put it on Lyrically, and this has never happened to me b
efore—”

  “I heard it,” she says. “I love it.”

  I jump into her arms, and she holds me so tight, as if our spat this morning didn’t even happen. And that’s the way it always is with Mom. She always wants me to feel loved. Always wants me to feel good enough.

  Nana resumes the song, and we start singing it again, but really, we’re more laughing than singing, and we manage only the last four words: “Abiding like the ti-i-ide!”

  When I turn off the music, Mom takes a seat and Nana slides the eggplant into the oven.

  “Oh, my Madelaine,” Mom says. “You sing beautifully.”

  I sit across from her and start to tell her all about the first origami moon I found—I don’t mention the one that showed up at school—and explain how I met Dylan Thomas online and hope to convince him to collab.

  “The words inside are serendipitously perfect for this song,” I explain. “I have to convince him. I just have to.”

  “Dylan Thomas, huh?” says Mom, raising her eyebrows. “Interesting.”

  I can tell she’s not totally sold on the idea of me chatting with a stranger, so I change the subject. We talk—or rather, I do—about my callback and about my plan to stay in constant contact with the performing arts dean of admissions.

  “That’s a great idea,” Mom says with another tired smile.

  “Isn’t it?” Nana looks at me and gives me a nod.

  I lean toward my mother, and she gingerly brushes my hair from my forehead, like she used to when I was a little girl. “It’s like I’ve always told you,” Mom says. “Talent finds a way to the spotlight. If only you believe . . .”

  She sounds like such a dreamer sometimes.

  It’s no wonder, now that I think about it, that I ended up with such aspirations, given she’s been whispering things like this in my ears since before I was born.

  “Now.” Mom laughs a little. “What happened to your khakis?”

  I take a deep breath. “Vinny happened.”

  “As in Ted’s dog?”

  “Yeah. I sort of . . . I met up with him today in Wicker Park. He bought me a hot dog.”

  “How did that happen?” There’s an edge to Mom’s voice. Or maybe she really is just tired.

  Nana shakes her head and tsks.

  “It was fine,” I say. “Actually, it seems like I’m not the only one who’s seen Ted recently.”

  Mom nods.

  “Are you getting back together?”

  “As much as I think you’d like that, Madelaine—”

  “I just want you to be happy.”

  “—I don’t think so.”

  “So why did the two of you go to Minnesota together?’

  My mother and grandmother share a glance.

  I straighten. “What?”

  “Maybe it’s time to tell her,” Nana says.

  “Tell me what?”

  My mother shakes her head.

  “Ella, for God’s sake,” Nana says.

  “It’s nothing,” Mom says. “I’ve been putting together a proposal for choreography, and Ted took me to present it last Saturday. It was just a favor. He agreed to take me, and that’s the end of it.”

  “Choreography?” I’m brimming with excitement now. It’s a job in the theater. So much more fitting for my mother than secretarial work, and I can imagine it would be that much more satisfying. “How’d it go?”

  “I’m not sure,” Mom says. “But here’s to hoping.”

  Nana shakes her head again.

  “I sort of let Ted have it,” I say.

  “You don’t have to do that, baby girl,” Mom says. “I know you liked him.”

  “He said I could visit my dog whenever I wanted.”

  “Okay.”

  “Would that bother you?”

  “We’ll talk about the possibility. Just not tonight, okay? I’m so tired.”

  “But it bothers you that I’m going to New York with Dad this weekend.”

  Nana drops a spatula—it clangs against the floor—and swears in Italian.

  “It seems it doesn’t matter whether it bothers me or not. Your father is going to do what your father wants to do.” My mother pushes back from the table and covers a yawn. “I’d better try to lift the mud out of those khakis.”

  I’m about to thank her when Nana gives me a stern look. “You can take care of your own pants, can’t you?”

  I get up. “Mom, wait.”

  I follow her down the hallway.

  It’s not until I see the tears in her eyes that I know: She lied to me about Ted. Maybe she really did propose a choreography package, but there’s more to it. And she isn’t telling me what it is.

  “You know, Mom . . .”

  She looks at me over her shoulder and wipes the tears from her eyes. She looks so sad that I almost don’t want to call her on it. But . . .

  “I don’t like being lied to.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone does.”

  “I feel like Dad has a life that doesn’t include me. I don’t want you to have a life that doesn’t include me, too.”

  She sighs. “Everything I do,” she says for the millionth time, “I do for you.”

  “Then let me in on it. I don’t deserve this sneaking around. I’m honest with you. Transparent, you know. And you’re keeping something gargantuan from me.”

  “You know, I just . . . for once, I’d like to know: do you talk to your father this way?” Mom asks. “You say he has a life that doesn’t include you. Does he know how you feel?”

  “I don’t have to tell him these things! Nothing I say will change what he does!”

  “Then why do you demand it of me? Why does your father get a free pass every fucking time—”

  I flinch when she swears in English, which almost never happens.

  “—but I have to always do the right thing. Always say the right thing. You don’t allow me the courtesy of being human, and I’ve had it!”

  My heartbeat picks up. I didn’t mean to start another fight. “I apologized for earlier,” I remind her. “But if we’re being honest, I do think you screwed up. I do think things are hard now because you’re an absolute idiot when it comes to relationships!”

  “Madelaine Emmah!” Nana says.

  “Your father controls you. He manipulates you.”

  “Ella,” Nana interjects. “Think about—”

  I cut Nana off. I’m not letting her intrude on this argument. “That’s what you think of me? You think I’m easily manipulated?”

  “This isn’t exclusive to you. He manipulates everyone,” Mom says. “He sure manipulated the hell out of me, didn’t he? He gets what he wants because he has money. You go to New York because he has money. You do what he wants, when he wants, because he’s holding the purse strings, and you think if you’re the perfect daughter, if you don’t disagree with anything he says, you’ll get what you want.”

  This is so unfair of her. She wasn’t at Morton’s the other night, when I defended her and pushed back at Dad. She has no right to accuse me of letting my father walk all over me.

  “You think that ultimately, he’ll pay for your last year of high school at that performing arts academy, when he could have opened his checkbook years ago and paid for all of it with a single stroke of a pen. You should’ve been there since day one. And he has you thinking I’m the reason you’re not going.” Her tears intensify, and she leaves a black streak of mascara over her cheek when she wipes them away.

  “Ella, enough,” Nana says.

  Mom slams a palm into the wall and leans her head there. “I’m asking you. Just this once, baby girl. Stand up to him and demand what you deserve, and I’m not talking about a trip to New York. I’m talking about your future. Don’t let him control you with the almighty dollar sign. Don’t let him steal your opportunities from you the way he stole mine from me.”

  “Mom.” I’m crying now, too, and I go over to hug her. “I’m sorry. I won’t go on the trip. Is that what you want?”
/>
  “I want you to go.” Her tear-moistened fingers meet my cheek. “Of course, I want you to experience all these wonderful things. But I wish he’d see that he’s not hurting me when he demands fifty percent of your tuition. He’s hurting you. Because I don’t have it, and no matter how hard I work, even if I work these two jobs until the day I die, I won’t have it.”

  “Ella,” Nana tries again.

  “I’m done fighting,” Mom says. “I’m tired, and I’m done fighting.”

  Nana Adie is suddenly behind me, her hand under my elbow, helping me up. “Madelaine. Go wash your pants.”

  Chapter 14

  Tuesday, May 2

  It’s after midnight, but I can’t sleep, even though we all hugged and cuddled on the couch for a while and calmed down.

  Nana’s watching reruns of Gilmore Girls, so I hear her laugh every now and then. And I hear my mother’s soft sobs drifting down the hallway.

  No one wants to tell me what happened, but if Ted brought my mom to Minnesota last weekend, he probably accompanied her last month, too. Which means that whatever happened between them has been happening for a month.

  And judging by her tears tonight, it’s not going well.

  I play around on the internet, try to crack the Vagabonds code. But I’m so tired, and it’s like a mathematical mindfuck, so I give up and tweet: Vagabonds, life without you is outer space with hints of slate. Come back into the unmellow yellow.

  I message Ted.

  Me: Talked to Mom. Want to tell me what’s REALLY happening between you two?

  But he doesn’t reply.

  He’s probably out with some other woman right now, promising her that even though he’s never had kids, he’d love to be a dad. Maybe he’ll actually mean it this time.

  If so, he should know how she’s feeling right now. I drive it home.

  Me: She’s been crying all night.

  I plug in my guitar, and my headphones, so I don’t wake the baby downstairs—no one’s sleeping in our place, obviously, so I wouldn’t wake anyone here—and I play. But even the notes can’t take my mind from the words my mother spoke tonight.

  The whole thing makes me so sad. She’s the one who’s been there for me. Come hell or high water, she’s there.

  She came to my shows in the midst of chemo, even when I was on stage for mere minutes. She’s never missed a recital. She was there when nightmares woke me in the middle of the night. She was there when I was sick with the flu.