Starry-Eyed

by Ted Michael

  My life has no real music in it. No joy. I listen to music, sure, but it’s not the same as making it. I don’t know if I can take two more years of high school. And what after?

  I pass the auditorium. There’s a new sheet posted, and bitter, resigned curiosity pushes me forward to look. I’m sure Brianna made it. I’ve gone to all of the school’s choir performances, all of the musicals. The way the singers draw energy from each other, each performing better than they ever could alone, never stops amazing me. Brianna is one of the best. I wonder if it helps, having a talent that everyone knows, this wonderful thing about you they can use to identify you. She always seems happy.

  I wait until a couple of seniors move away and lean forward, glancing at the list. A couple of dramatic monologues, a drum solo, a magic act, and of course, Brianna with a solo and as part of a quartet. Good for her. The rest of the list are the usual suspects: Jake Temple, an amazing baritone in the senior class; Carly Hansen, a beautiful soprano who played Maria in West Side Story last year; and the other members of the show choir.

  Except one.

  My name is on the list, again, for a solo.

  For one split second, seeing my name on there with everyone else fills me with elation, belonging. Which is immediately washed away as angry, embarrassed tears burn in my eyes. One mess-up I can understand, but there is not another Loti König at this school. I’m sure Ms. Jolley didn’t do it on purpose, but it feels like I’m being mocked for my cowardice. There’s no way I was automatically put on after skipping my audition in the first place.

  My anger propels me to the music wing of the school, into the choir room with its built-in risers. I’ve never actually been in here before, though I walk as slowly as possible past the large windows looking in on it every day. Actually coming in, seeing a pile of music scattered on the piano bench, hurts.

  It hurts.

  There’s a glass-walled office and I shuffle my feet, staring at it, all my anger evaporated into humiliation.

  Ms. Jolley, her short gray hair curled around cat-eye glasses, walks out of the office, a stack of papers in her arms.

  She looks up and almost drops them. “Oh! Loti! I didn’t hear you come in.”

  I frown, surprised she knows my name, since I’ve never spoken with her.

  “Did you decide to stop depriving me of that gorgeous alto and transfer into choir?” Her face lights up. “I’ll sign the slip right now.”

  I shake my head, my voice coming out a mumble. “Umm, no, it’s about the talent show? The list?”

  “I posted it! Didn’t you see? Just promise me you’ll sing what you sang today at callbacks. We’ll need the name of the number for the program, if you can find it. You can’t tell this to anyone, but that’s the first time a student’s voice has brought me to tears. Where have you been hiding?” She beams at me, then someone calls her name and she looks out the door. “I’ll be right there!” As she’s leaving, she turns around and says in a playful tone, “And don’t think I’m dropping my campaign to get you in my choir. See you at rehearsal next week!”

  I watch her go with my mouth hanging open. It’s official: either I’ve gone mad, or the rest of the world has.

  . . . . .

  My parents don’t know I don’t talk at school. It’s amazing how easy it is to slide right under the radar—of parents, of teachers, of fellow students. I pull good grades; I keep my head down; I never raise my hand. Whenever I have to talk, I do so as quietly and succinctly as possible. I slip through.

  But Oma knows something is wrong the moment I walk in the door.

  “What happened?” she demands, arms open for a hug. I let her fold me in and rest my cheek against the polyester sleeve on her shoulder. She smells like dried flowers. I know this isn’t what Düsseldorf smelled like, but in my head the two are intertwined. I wonder who I would have been if we had stayed there, if I had grown up where opening my mouth didn’t get me made fun of.

  She pats me on the back. “Let me feed you, and you tell me what has you looking like a ghost of yourself.”

  I follow her into the kitchen and slump at the counter. She has one of her old albums on, Mozart’s The Magic Flute. My favorite opera, usually, because Mozart wrote it to so many different talent levels. Some of the parts are simple, heavily supported by the orchestra, but the Queen of the Night’s solos are insanely hard, showcasing her voice alone.

  Today it sounds lifeless.

  “You’ll think I’m crazy, Oma.”

  She clucks reproachfully, scooping a steaming spoonful of apple pudding cake onto a plate and sprinkling cinnamon on top. Then she climbs heavily onto the stool next to me. “Go on. Tell me.”

  I push the cake around my plate with my fork. What have I got to lose? Besides my mind, which maybe has already happened. Keeping my eyes on my food, I tell her almost everything: signing up to audition, chickening out, hitting my head, waking up to find my name on the callbacks, passing out in the bathroom again, waking up to find my name on the final list.

  “But it’s not a mistake, because Ms. Jolley knew who I was—she told me herself my singing had made her cry! But I never sang, Oma, and I don’t know how this is happening or what’s going on.”

  When I finally look up at her, it’s not confusion or pity on her face. It’s terror.

  “Tell me about the mirror,” she says, her normally strong voice trembling.

  “The mirror? It’s broken. I broke it.”

  “Did you see anything in it before you broke it? Did it look wrong?”

  My eyes widen. I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself, had left it out of the story entirely. Finally, I nod. “I didn’t match my reflection.”

  “Did you give it something of yours? Hair? Jewelry?”

  I shake my head. “No, nothing, I—” I stop, rub my thumb over the raised spot on my finger where I cut it. Then I bring my hand to the small cut along my hairline. “Blood. My blood got on the mirror both times.”

  Her hand catches mine, squeezing it in a trembling grip. “Double walker,” she whispers, and it takes me a few moments to realize I’d heard the German term before: doppelgänger.

  She feels my forehead, looks in my eyes, and tugs my chin until I open my mouth to let her look at my tongue. Oma questions me ruthlessly about details from our life together, things only she and I would know. I get more and more scared until finally I scream, “Stop it! Tell me what’s going on!”

  Her shoulders are stooped, and she looks much older than she did when I got home. “It’s bad, Liebchen. Double walkers steal your soul. They steal your life. Whatever you do, stay away from that mirror. Cross yourself when you pass by that bathroom.”

  She straightens, walks out of the room as though possessed with a new purpose. I want to run after her, ask what she was talking about, but I can’t. A doppelgänger? A double of me, trying to steal my life?

  Who on earth would want my life?

  When I finally walk out of the kitchen, I stop short. Oma has covered the large mirror hanging over the mantel. I drift through the hall to the bathroom we share. The mirror there, too, is completely blocked by towels. I make it to my room in time to see her dragging out the long mirror that hung on the back of my closet door.

  “No one is stealing you,” she says, steel back in place in her German consonants.

  I lean against the doorframe, looking at the empty space where the mirror was. I don’t say anything, but I can’t help but wonder: If this spirit is evil, why did it get me a spot in the talent show?

  . . . . .

  Oma has watched me like a hawk all week. But she’s not at school, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this, to stop wondering.

  The first rehearsal is this afternoon. I can’t go. I can’t. But Brianna Johnson has smiled and waved at me every day this week. And a few other kids—Carly, Jake, a few juniors not in show choir yet—have all started saying hi to me, too.

  It’s amazing how normal, how accepted, something as simple
as a smile and a wave can make me feel. I’m on the edge of being part of a group, and it makes the last few years feel even emptier than they did before.

  I researched doppelgängers. They’re supposed to make your life worse. This doesn’t feel worse to me.

  That is, other than the massive, sick pit in my stomach in the afternoon as I hover, hiding in a recessed doorway one hall over from the auditorium. They all know me now. They’re expecting me. They’re counting on me. I have a slot in the talent show, which means someone who wanted one doesn’t. I’ve thought of everything: faking sick, telling them I’ve lost my voice. At one feverish point last night, I even considered running away.

  I have to be at the rehearsal in two minutes. It’s the only one before the show next week, so everyone can see the order and fix blocking for the group numbers. But I cannot—cannot—sing in front of people.

  I’ve never done it before, and I have no idea if I’m good. What if what comes out of my mouth is so horrible no one says anything? Worse: What if they laugh? I can’t handle being laughed at, or pitied. I just can’t. I can’t risk it.

  As long as my voice is mine and mine alone, I don’t have to know whether or not I’m good. I can keep treasuring music as my own secret, special thing. If I put it out there for the rest of the world, I have to be judged.

  I can’t go to the rehearsal.

  But . . . maybe I don’t have to.

  Before I talk myself out of it I slam through the door and burst into the bathroom. The mirror still isn’t fixed, and before I’m even all the way in front of it, my reflection is smirking at me.

  “I know what you are,” I say, avoiding looking into my own pale blue eyes when they aren’t really mine. I don’t know if I expected her to answer, but finally I look her full in the face. She has one blonde eyebrow raised in derision, my full lips pushed into a smirk. “Why are you doing this?”

  She rolls her—my—eyes, and points to her throat.

  “Oh. You can’t talk?”

  She claps slowly, all of her actions dipped in sarcasm.

  “Listen. I—I don’t want you to take over my life or anything, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I always come back to myself after, right? So maybe you just borrow my life for a few minutes, and what’s the harm in that?” My voice is getting faster and higher, I’m so nervous I can barely breathe. “The rehearsal is right now. I can’t go. But . . . you can?”

  A tiny smile pulls at one corner of her mouth and she nods.

  “Okay.” I take a deep breath. “Go ahead.”

  She holds out her hand expectantly.

  “Oh. Right. Blood.” I bite my lip, nervous, and before I can think better of it, I push my finger against the center of the cracks in the mirror.

  This time before things go totally black, I hear laughter.

  It’s not coming out of my mouth.

  . . . . .

  I wake up to the now familiar sensation of cold, grimy tile against my cheek. Every muscle is sore. And the bathroom is way too dim. Are my eyes damaged?

  I probe for tender spots as I stand, my knees shaking. My head feels intact. But why—

  It’s actually dim. Not just my eyes. The narrow windows along the wall next to the ceiling don’t let in the brilliant afternoon light they should. It’s evening out there. Only a single emergency light is on in the bathroom.

  I can’t see my reflection, and I’m glad. I stumble out of the bathroom and through the halls, passing a janitor who has his back turned to me, floor waxer loud enough to cover my flight. My phone informs me it’s 8:00 p.m. That means I’ve been unconscious for seven—SEVEN—hours. My phone also informs me I missed a call from my parents.

  I’m in so much trouble.

  Fortunately the doors leading to the parking lot don’t lock on the inside, and I push through into the spring-chilled evening. My car is where I left it, along with a note from the campus security guard that cars parked overnight will be towed.

  Trembling so hard I can barely steer, I drive the familiar streets back home. I can barely look in the rearview mirror. I don’t know what I’ll see. Or what I want to see. What happened this afternoon? Did I—I mean, my double—make it to practice? Did she do a good job? Why was I out for so long?

  The first time it was just a few minutes. But now that I think about it, the second was all of lunch period. If it’s getting progressively longer each time . . .

  I can’t think about it right now. I stop at my spot on the curb in front of my house and take a deep breath. If I tell my parents I was unconscious for seven hours, they’ll make me go to the doctor. Probably the hospital.

  Maybe I should.

  But I don’t want to. I know what happened. Sort of, anyway. And it’s not an explanation that will show up in an MRI or through blood tests. Locking the car, I go up the walkway and open the door as quietly as I can, like if I’m silent they won’t have noticed how late I am.

  I nearly scream when I see my parents, snuggled up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn between them.

  “Hey, Loti-bug,” Dad says. “I thought you were spending the night?”

  “I was? I mean. I was. I told you that, right? I, uh, decided to come home.”

  “You sounded like you were having fun when you called from your friend’s phone. You ate, right?”

  I nod, trying to force a smile. “Yeah. I got tired, is all. Wanted to go to bed early.”

  My mom holds out her arms and I lean forward, letting her kiss me on the forehead. “I’m so glad you’ve made good friends, Loti. I worry about you. And we can’t wait for the talent show next week.”

  I grimace a smile and, sneaking my dad’s phone off of the side table, lock myself in the bathroom. I scroll through the incoming call history to find out who called to tell him I was out with friends.

  It was Brianna Johnson. Or her phone, at least. And my dad knows my voice—he wouldn’t believe anyone else calling and imitating me. Which means not only did my double walker go to rehearsal . . . it means she had so much fun the other kids invited her to hang out with them afterward. I wonder what happened, if she could feel me waking up and made an excuse, or if she just disappeared?

  All I know is she was having a blast while I was passed out on the floor in the bathroom.

  Turns out my double is better at my own life than I am.

  . . . . .

  I have the dream every night in the week leading up to the talent show.

  The microphone, the dress, the dark auditorium, waking up just before I get the audience’s reaction—it’s all the same, except one detail has changed. Now I can remember the song.

  It’s a lullaby, an old German tune Oma used to sing me. The tune is simple, haunting, the sounds and syllables of my childhood. And it feels true as I sing it, it feels like I am singing my soul, and I know it could be German or English, it doesn’t matter. What matters is my voice with the song.

  It’s the song Oma is humming softly next to me as we ride in the back of the car to the school for the concert.

  I could kill my double for that phone call where she mentioned the talent show to my dad. I tried to get out of it—telling my parents it was no big deal, telling them I’d changed my mind and didn’t want to do it. But they were so excited, so happy and relieved. It was the relief that killed me.

  I thought I was fooling them all these years, but I can see in their happiness just how worried they’ve been. I can’t let them down. Even if it’s not me who is finally becoming what they’ve hoped I could be.

  My parents are both dressed up like they’re going to the symphony. Oma gave me her strand of pearls, the only jewelry she has left from Opa, and my mother took me out for a new dress.

  It’s not quite the satin screen siren of my dreams, but it’s a creamy off-white, the cut making me look older, braver, and prettier. In this dress I look like someone who can stand in front of an audience and sing.

  Or at least that’s what the me in the mirror looks like. Oma
still has all the mirrors at home covered, much to my parents’ consternation, but there was one in the dressing room at the store. I know the dress was on my body, but I swear my reflection wore it better.

  When we get to the school, I wave my parents ahead, claiming I need to be backstage. I have no idea where I need to be—I wasn’t at rehearsal. Oma watches me, her eyes wary. Before she goes into the auditorium, she pulls me into a hug.

  “I love you, Loti,” she says, her lips almost against my ear. “Don’t ever hold yourself back from what you can be. No one else can be it for you.”

  Guilt joins the terror in my stomach. She knows. She knows what I did, what I’m planning to do. But I can’t go up there. I can’t. And I can’t back down, not now that my parents are here waiting, not now that Brianna has asked me to eat lunch with her and the other choir kids every day. Not now that I’m accepted. Part of a group.

  I can’t lose this new life, even if it’s not mine.

  Oma pats my back and leaves me. My feet feel like lead as I escape the buzzing area around the auditorium and head for the bathroom.

  My bathroom.

  She’s waiting for me when I go in, and I was right—the dress does look better on her. I wear it, but she owns it, shoulders thrown back confidently.

  I analyze her through the cracked glass. “How long will it last this time?” I ask. I don’t want to be lying here for hours before I wake up or someone finds me. And I wonder, too, if maybe, eventually. . . maybe she’ll be me and I’ll be the reflection.

  She shrugs, smiling. I think I look kinder than that when I smile.

  “Are you me?” I ask.

  She raises a hand and twists it at the wrist, in a so-so sort of gesture. Then, my red lipstick forming the words, she mouths: I’m better.

  I slump against the wall. It’s true. She’s better at being me. She’s braver and stronger and a better singer, and . . .

  The door opens and I jump. Brianna grins, breathless, her dress a short, flirty green number. “Loti! I’m so excited! I get so nervous before performances. That’s probably why you came here, to be alone. Great hiding place—this bathroom is the worst. But now I’m totally ruining your solitude. I just wanted to say how happy I am that we’ve finally gotten to know each other!” She pulls me into a hug and squeezes me tight, her perfume tickling my sinuses. “And I’m going to say it right now so it’s not awkward: If you beat me out for lead on the next musical there are no hard feelings, okay? About time this school had another alto who could carry her weight!”