Just Listen

by Sarah Dessen

  The next shot was of the blonde skidding to a stop beside her. “What happened?” she asked.

  The younger girl shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said.

  The blonde pushed herself over, closer. “Here,” she said. “Get on.”

  In the next shot, the smaller girl was balanced on the handlebars, holding her arm, as the blonde pedaled up the street. Again the camera cut between them and images of the neighborhood, although both were different now: the dog lunging and barking as they passed, the man stumbling as he reached for his paper, the sky gray, the sprinkler hissing as water splatted a nearby car, then ran in streaks down the side. It was the same, and yet so different, and when the house rose up in the distance, it looked different, too. The blonde pedaled up the driveway, the camera pulling back as she did so, then stopped as the younger girl slid off the handlebars, holding her arm tight against her. They dropped the bike onto the grass and started toward the house. They climbed the steps. The door opened for them, but you couldn’t see who was on the other side. As they disappeared inside, the camera panned down until the grass filled the screen again, side to side, scarily green and bright and fake. And then it was over.

  I just sat there for a moment, staring at the screen. Then I hit PLAY and watched it again. And a third time. I still wasn’t sure what to make of it, even as I reached for the phone and dialed Kirsten’s number. But when she answered, and I told her I liked it but didn’t get it, she wasn’t upset. Instead, she said that was the whole point.

  “What, that I be confused?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, “that the meaning not be spelled out. It’s supposed to be left up to your interpretation.”

  “Yes, but you know what it means,” I said. “Right?”

  “Sure.”

  “And that is?”

  She sighed. “I know what it means to me,” she said. “For you, it’s going to be different. Look, film is personal. There’s no right or wrong message. It’s all what you take from it.”

  I looked at the screen again, which I’d paused on the last shot of that green grass. “Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

  It was just so bizarre. Here was my sister, queen of the overshare, holding out on me. Holding back. I was used to having to guess with some people, but never Kirsten, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. She, however, sounded happier than I’d heard her in months.

  “I’m just so glad you liked it. And had such a strong reaction!” She laughed. “Now all I need is for everyone there on Saturday to feel the same way, and everything will be great.”

  Great for you, I thought, when we hung up a few minutes later. As for me, I was still confused. And, I had to admit, intrigued. Enough to watch the film two more times, studying it frame by frame.

  Now, as my father came into the kitchen, running late, and my mom jumped up to bustle around him, I brought my plate to the sink, running some water over it. Through the window in front of me, I could see Whitney sitting on a chaise by the pool, a cup of coffee beside her. Normally she was sleeping at this hour, but lately she’d started getting up early. It was just one recent change among many.

  At first the shifts were small, but still noticeable. She’d recently become somewhat social—a couple of days earlier she’d gone out for coffee with people from Moira Bell’s group—and had also begun working a few mornings a week at my dad’s office answering phones, filling in for yet another pregnant secretary. When she was home, she’d started to spend at least some of her time outside her room. It happened in stages: First her door went from always being shut to slightly ajar, to finally being open occasionally. Then I noticed she was hanging out in the living room instead of shut away upstairs. And just the previous day I’d come home from school to find her sitting at the dining-room table, books stacked all around her, writing on a legal pad.

  I’d been ignored for so long that it was still my tendency to hesitate before addressing Whitney. This time, though, she spoke first.

  “Hey,” she said, not looking up. “Mom’s out running errands. She said not to forget about rehearsal at four thirty.”

  “Right,” I said. Her arm was crooked across the pad, her pen making a scratching noise as it moved across the paper. In the window, her herb pots were in full sunlight, although they hadn’t shown any sign of sprouting yet. “What are you doing?”

  “I have to write a history.”

  “A history?” I repeated. “Of what?”

  “Well, actually, it’s two histories.” She put down her pen, stretching her fingers. “One of my life. And one of my eating disorder.”

  It was weird to hear her say this, and after a moment, I realized why. Even though it had pretty much dominated our family dynamic for almost a year, I’d never heard Whitney acknowledge her problem out loud. Like so much else, it was known but not discussed, present but not officially accounted for. From the way she said it, though, so matter-of-factly, it sounded like she, at least, was used to it.

  “So they’re two separate things?” I asked.

  “Apparently. At least according to Moira.” She sighed, although this time, when her therapist’s name came up, she sounded more tired than annoyed. “The idea is that there is some separation, even if it doesn’t always seem like it. That we had a life before we had a disorder.”

  I moved closer to the table, glancing at the books stacked beside her. Starving for Attention: Eating Disorders and Adolescents was the title of one; there was a slimmer volume called Hunger Pains beneath it. “So you have to read all those books?”

  “I don’t have to.” She picked up her pen again. “They’re just to fill in the factual stuff, if I need it. But the personal history is all my memories. We’re supposed to do it one year at a time.” She nodded at the pad in front of her. On the top line, I could see she’d written ELEVEN (11). There was nothing else on the page.

  “Must be kind of weird,” I said. “Thinking back, year by year.”

  “It’s hard. Harder than I thought it would be.” She opened a book by her elbow, flipping through the pages, then shut it. “I don’t remember that much, for some reason.”

  I glanced over at her pots again, the sun spilling across them. On the other side of the window and across the street, the golf course was green and bright.

  “You broke your arm,” I said.

  “What?”

  “When you were eleven,” I said. “You broke your arm. You fell off your bike. Remember?”

  For a moment she just sat there. “That’s right,” she said finally, nodding. “God. Wasn’t that, like, right after your birthday?”

  “On my birthday,” I told her. “You got back in your cast just in time for cake.”

  “I can’t believe I forgot that,” she said. She shook her head again, looking down at the paper before picking up her pen and clicking it open. Then she began to write, her script filling the top line. I started to mention Kirsten’s movie, and how it had reminded me of this, but then I stopped myself. She’d already filled three lines and was still going; I didn’t want to interrupt. So I backed out of the room and left her to it. When I passed by again an hour later, she was still going, and this time she didn’t look up. She just kept writing.

  Now as I turned away from the sink, I looked over at my mother, wondering if I asked her about what had happened on that day, my ninth birthday, just a month or two before her own mother died, what she would remember. The green, green grass, like Kirsten. That it happened just before my party, like me. Or, like Whitney, nothing at all, at least at first. So many versions of just one memory, and yet none of them were right or wrong. Instead, they were all pieces. Only when fitted together, edge to edge, could they even begin to tell the whole story.

  “Get in.”

  I looked at Owen, raising one eyebrow. A minute earlier, I’d been walking across the Kopf’s parking lot to my car, leaving yet another fashion-show rehearsal, when someone screeched into the space beside me. I’d looked over, startled, expecting to see a
white kidnapper van. Instead, it was Owen in the Land Cruiser, already reaching over to push the passenger door open.

  “Is this an abduction?” I asked.

  He shook his head, gesturing impatiently with one hand for me to get in the car, while adjusting the stereo with the other. “Seriously,” he said, as I slowly climbed into the seat. “You have got to hear this.”

  “Owen,” I said, watching him continue to push buttons on the console, “how did you know I was here?”

  “I didn’t,” he replied. “I was just up at that light, heading home, when I looked over and saw you. Check this out.”

  He reached for the volume knob, turning it up. A second later, a whooshing sound filled my ears, followed by what sounded like a violin, but at rapid speed, and electrified. The result was a noise that would have been unsettling at a normal volume. Cranked as it was, though, I felt the hairs on my neck stand on end.

  “Great, right?” Owen said, grinning widely. He was bobbing his head as the chords bounced over us. In my mind, I pictured one of those cardiac monitor machines, each sound causing my own heart to spike, the needle jumping off the screen.

  I could feel myself wincing even as I said—or yelled—-“What is this?”

  “They’re called Melisma,” he yelled back as there was a boom of bass, loud enough to shake my seat. Over at the next car, a woman loading her squirming toddler into a car seat glanced over at us. “It’s a music project. These awesome string players, synthesized and blended with various world beats, influenced by—”

  Then he said something else, which was drowned out by a sudden burst of rapid drumbeats. I watched his lips move until it subsided, picking back up as he said, “—really a collaborative thing, this whole new music initiative. Incredible, right?”

  Before I could answer, there was a bang of cymbals, followed by a fizzing noise. Call it reflex, or self-preservation, or just common sense, but I just couldn’t help myself: I pressed my palms over my ears.

  Owen’s eyes widened, and I realized what I’d done. As I dropped my hands, though, the song suddenly ended, so the sound of them hitting the seat on either side of me was incredibly loud. Especially compared to the awkward silence that followed.

  “You did not,” Owen said finally, his voice low, “just cover your ears. Did you?”

  “It was an accident,” I said. “I just—”

  “That’s serious.” He reached forward, shaking his head, and turned down the CD. “I mean, it’s one thing to listen and respectfully disagree. But to shut it out entirely, and not even give it a chance—”

  “I gave it a chance!” I said.

  “You call that a chance?” he asked. “That was five seconds.”

  “It was long enough to form an opinion,” I said.

  “Which was?”

  “I covered my ears,” I told him. “What do you think?”

  He started to say something, then stopped, shaking his head. Beside us, the woman in the minivan was now backing out. I watched her slide past his window. “Melisma,” Owen said after a moment, “is innovative and textured.”

  “If by textured you mean unlistenable,” I said quietly, “then I agree.”

  “I-Lang!” he said, pointing at me. I shrugged. “I can’t believe you’re saying that! This is the perfect marriage of instrument and technology! It’s unlike anything anyone’s ever done before! It sounds incredible!”

  “Maybe in the car wash,” I muttered.

  He’d drawn in another breath, to continue this rant, but now he let it out, one big whoosh, then turned his head to look at me. “What did you just say?”

  Like covering my ears, this had happened without my really realizing it. There had been a time when I was painfully aware of everything I said or did around Owen. The fact that this was no longer the case was either good or very bad. Judging by the look on his face—a mix of horrified and offended—I had a feeling it was probably the latter. At least right at this moment.

  “I said…” I cleared my throat. “I said, maybe it sounds incredible in the car wash.”

  I could feel him staring at me, so I busied myself picking at the edge of my seat. Then he said, “Which means what?”

  “You know what it means,” I said.

  “I truly do not. Enlighten me.”

  Of course he’d make me explain it. “Well,” I said slowly, “you know, everything sounds better when you’re driving through the car wash. It’s just, like, a fact. Right?”

  He didn’t say anything, just stared at me.

  “My point is,” I said, clarifying, “it’s not my thing. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have covered my ears; that was rude. But I just—”

  “Which car wash?”

  “What?”

  “Which is this magical listening station, whereupon all musical worth is decided?”

  I just looked at him. “Owen.”

  “Seriously, I want to know.”

  “It’s not any one car wash,” I said. “It’s the car-wash phenomenon. You really don’t know about it?”

  “I don’t,” he repeated. Then he reached down, shifting into reverse. “But I will. Starting now.”

  Five minutes later, we were pulling up to 123SUDS, the automated drive-through car wash that had been down the street from my neighborhood for as long as I could remember. I’d grown up going there fairly often, mostly because my mom loved it. My dad would always tell her that the only way to get a car truly clean was to do it by hand—as he often did, on warm sunny days, in the driveway—and that 123SUDS was a waste of time and money. But my mom didn’t care. “It’s not about the wash, anyway,” she’d tell him. “It’s the experience.”

  Going there was never really planned. Instead, we’d just be passing by and she’d suddenly turn in, sending my sisters and me scrambling to collect change from the floorboards and center console to feed into the machine. We always chose the basic wash, skipping the hot wax, sometimes adding on the optional Armor All on the tires. Then we’d roll up all the windows, sit back in our seats, and go in.

  There was just something about it. Driving into that dark bay, the water suddenly whooshing down like the biggest and most sudden thunderstorm ever. It would beat across the hood and trunk, pouring down the other side of your window, washing all the pollen and dust away, and if you closed your eyes you could almost imagine you were floating along with it. It was eerie and incredible, and when you spoke you always whispered, even if you didn’t know why. More than anything, though, I remembered the music.

  My mother loved classical stuff—it was all she played in her car, which drove my sisters and me nuts. We’d beg for regular radio, anything from this century, but she was stubborn. “When you drive, you can listen to whatever you like,” she’d say, then crank up Brahms or Beethoven to drown out our irritated sighs.

  But in the car wash, my mother’s music sounded different. Beautiful. It was only then that I could close my eyes and enjoy it, understanding what it was that she heard every time.

  When I finally got my own license, I could play whatever I wanted, which was great. But still, the first time I went through 123SUDS alone, I flipped around my radio dial to find something classical, for old times’ sake. Just as I was rolling in, though, the station faded and my tuner jumped to the next one, which was playing a loud, twangy country song, also not something I would have chosen on my own. But it was strange. Sitting there, the brushes moving overhead, water spilling down my window, even the song that was playing—something about driving an old Ford under a full moon—sounded perfect. As if it didn’t matter what was on, but instead how hard I was listening, there in the dark.

  I told Owen all this on the ride over, explaining how since then, I’d been convinced that anything sounded good at the car wash. He looked dubious, however, as he pushed quarters into the cashier station, and I had to wonder if my theory was about to debunked.

  “So what now?” he asked as the machine spit out his receipt and the red light beside the
bay dropped to green. “We just drive in?”

  “You’ve never done this?” I asked him.

  “I’m not much for car upkeep simply for aesthetics’ sake,” he said. “Plus, I think there’s a hole in my roof.”

  I motioned for him to drive forward and he did, over the slight bump and up to the yellow line, faded over time, that said STOP HERE. Then he cut the engine. “Okay,” he said. “I’m ready to be impressed.”

  I shot him a look. “You know,” I said, “this is your first time, so for full effect, you really need to recline.”

  “Recline.”

  “It adds to the experience,” I told him. “Trust me.”

  We both eased back our seats, settling in. His arm was resting against mine, and I thought of being at his house the other night, and how I’d come so close to kissing him, twice. As the machine began to whir behind us, I reached forward and turned on the CD again. “All right,” I said as the jets came on overhead. “Here we go.”

  The water was pattering at first, then began to move down the glass in front of us in a wave. Owen shifted in his seat as a drop fell from over his head, landing on his shirt. “Oh, great,” he said. “There is a hole in the roof.”

  He grew quiet, though, as the next cut on the CD began with a soft murmuring, followed by some plucking of strings. There was also a bit of buzzing, but with the water moving over us, the inside of the car seeming smaller, then smaller still, it seemed to dissipate, fading out behind us. I could hear the hum of the brushes as they moved in closer to the car, intermixed with the sad, sloping chords of a violin. Already I could feel it happening, that slowing of time, everything stopping for this one moment, here, now.

  I turned my head to look over at Owen. He was lying there, watching as the brushes drew big, soapy circles across the windshield in front of us, his gaze intent. Listening. I closed my eyes, focusing on doing the same. But all I could think was that it felt like my whole life had changed—again—in just the few weeks I’d known Owen; and not for the first time, I wanted to tell him so. Find the right words, string them together in the ideal way, knowing that here they would have the best chance of sounding perfect.