The Song Reader

by Lisa Tucker

  As soon as we got inside, I took a good look at Holly and realized it was even worse than I’d thought. The last time I saw her she was thin, but now the bones in her face and arms were sticking out like twisted paper clips. And her beautiful red hair. It wasn’t just chopped off, it was uneven and ugly as if she’d taken a scissors to it herself.

  I pushed my way through the crowd into the kitchen, where I could hear my sister laughing. The birthday cake was about to be cut. It was seven layers tall, like a wedding cake. Mary Beth was laughing about the poster-size card Juanita had stuck next to it that read, “You’re not getting older, you’re getting better at lying about your age.”

  When I finally managed to get next to her, I said I needed to talk to her, but she leaned over and whispered, “I have to do this first, honey. Juanita went to a lot of trouble.”

  “But Holly Kramer just got here and—”

  “She did? Wow.” Mary Beth stood up on her tiptoes, peering into the living room. “Holly,” she yelled. “Come here and have some cake!”

  When Holly came into the kitchen, Mary Beth put her arm around her. Holly smiled. I watched them until one of the waitresses from the diner came up and started telling me a long, boring story about problems with her car; then I made an excuse to escape.

  The music in the living room had gotten louder and the smoke was even worse than before. Also, I was a little nervous, I was afraid I’d run into Mike. I went back to my lawn chair, thinking I could take the cold again. But as soon as I sat down, I heard him coughing. He was sitting in the grass under the big oak tree, not six feet away.

  After I said hi, he grunted what sounded like hi back, and then we both sat quietly for several minutes, staring up at the sky, pretending an intense fascination with the stars.

  When he finally spoke, his voice startled me. “You heard everything, didn’t you?”

  I turned and saw him looking through the big front window in Juanita’s living room. “No,” I said slowly. “I mean, I heard you and your mom talking, but—”

  “She’s just having some problems. She’ll be all right.”

  “I’m sure she will.”

  He paused for a moment. “My dad thinks your sister is the only person who can help my mom. That’s why he wanted me to bring her here tonight.” He crossed his arms and kicked the ground with the heel of his sneaker. “She’s been to a doctor already. He said she was depressed again.”

  I thought back to what Mary Beth had told me about Holly Kramer’s chart. What her father George, the hardware store guy, had done to her. But maybe it was unrelated to whatever was wrong with Holly now.

  “She probably can,” I said. “Mary Beth is really good at helping people.”

  He stood up and walked in a circle around the tree, tore off a loose branch and slapped it against the ground. “It’s something with music, right? What your sister does?”

  “She calls it song reading. She figures out how people feel from the songs they have in their minds.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.”

  I shrugged. “It’s really pretty cool.”

  He was standing above me now; I could see his face in the light from the front window. He was in my AP English class this year, but I’d never looked at him very closely before. I realized he looked like Holly. He had the same nice, full mouth, the same odd eyes—more round than oval, with a color almost too pale to call blue—the same little dent in his chin.

  “I think I’ll go back in now,” he said. “Get something to drink.” He was almost to the door when he called back. “You want me to bring you something?”

  I was so cold my fingers ached. I told him I’d come, too.

  The living room had been turned into a dance floor while we were outside. The coffee table was against the wall and the braided rug was rolled up in the corner. A few couples were dancing, but mostly women were dancing in little groups, giggling and talking. I squirmed my way through the crowd into the kitchen, where a handful of people were still eating cake, but Mary Beth and Holly had disappeared.

  Juanita was refilling the cooler with beer. I went over and asked her where my sister went.

  “She and Holly are back in my bedroom. Just for a while.”

  I nodded, and turned around to find Mike, in case he was looking for his mom, but he was right there, at my elbow.

  For what felt like forever, Mike and I stood in the kitchen, picking at stale crackers and warm cheese. At some point, Juanita offered me a beer and I took it, hoping it would help me get through this awkward situation. Mike seemed so nervous. Every few minutes he would glance down the hall and ask how much longer I thought it would be.

  Whatever was wrong was big, I knew that when Mary Beth and Holly finally emerged and Mary Beth went straight over to Juanita to tell her she and Holly were leaving. Then she whispered something to Juanita and I saw Juanita nod and mouth, “Go.”

  Holly was leaning against the wall. Mike went up to talk to her and I went to Mary Beth.

  “What’s the deal?” I whispered.

  “I can’t talk about it now, honey. I have to be with Holly. You can get a ride home with somebody. Just make sure you’re home by midnight, like we told Denise.”

  “Does that mean you won’t be?” I asked, but she’d already turned away.

  It was only ten o’clock, but Mike said he was taking off and asked if I wanted him to drop me home. I glanced at Juanita, who was whispering something to Peggy and Barb, then turned to him. “I guess there’s no point in hanging out here.”

  When we got in his truck, he asked if I wanted to go to the drive-through at Taco Bell first. I said okay, though I wasn’t particularly hungry. He didn’t say a word then and neither did I. I was afraid to bring up what had just happened with his mom, but I couldn’t think of any other topic since I barely knew him. By the time we pulled into Taco Bell, I was desperate to cut the tension.

  “Hey,” I said, and laughed a little. “I’ve always wanted to know something. Is it really true you’re a maniac?”

  He turned the steering wheel sharply and pulled in at the end of the line. “You believe everything you hear at River Valley?” He spun around in the seat so he was facing me. His voice was low. “All the rumors and gossip?”

  “No. I was only—”

  “Because it isn’t true. It’s just stupid kids talking who don’t know anything about me or my family.”

  “Okay. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s like everybody thinks if you’re different, you must be strange. Screwed up!”

  “But nobody thinks you’re messed up.” I was a little annoyed as I thought about the crowd of kids surrounding him at the basketball party, watching and laughing at his “kitchen chemistry,” whatever that meant. “They think it’s cool.”

  He laughed a bitter laugh. “Sure they do.”

  We were at the speaker. He ordered a six-pack of tacos; I told him I didn’t want anything but a Coke. After he got the bag of food, he turned left into a parking spot instead of back on the road. He’d already finished off the third taco when he finally spoke again. “You know how that maniac thing got started?”

  “No idea.” I was drinking my soda and staring out the window, watching kids walk out of Taco Bell, half hoping I’d see somebody who knew me. It wasn’t a date, true, but I was sitting with a real live guy.

  “You’re a sophomore, right?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “This was three years ago. You weren’t at River Valley.” He took a drink of his soda. “My mom was messed up then, too. Not as bad as now, but she acted weird a lot. Sometimes she’d cry in the middle of dinner or at the grocery store or wherever. We never knew why.

  “Okay, so one afternoon, Mom came to school to pick me up. She was supposed to drive me to the dentist. She gets out of the truck to look for me and then she just starts crying. Right in front of all the kids who were waiting for their buses. Talk about embarrassing. So I run over there and say calm down, Mom, please, but she couldn�
�t. I take her hand and get her back to the truck, and then I jump in the truck bed and tell her to drive. And I’m back there doing handstands. She says, ‘Mike, you’ll be killed,’ and I say, ‘No, Mom, I’m fine. Just go.’

  “As we pull out of the parking lot, all those kids are cheering ’cause I’m bouncing all over the place, almost slipping out of the truck, but grinning and laughing…And the next day, people were calling me Maniac Mike.” He glanced at me before he unwrapped his fourth taco. “And I laughed at that, too.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was impressed with his self-knowledge—most boys seemed to have no idea why they did things, certainly no idea why they showed off. I also felt sorry for him, and especially for his mom, but I was put off by the enormous chip on his shoulder. After all, it wasn’t as though he was the only kid in the world with problems. For months after Mom’s car accident, almost everybody avoided me; I told Mary Beth it was as if whenever they looked at me, all they saw was The One Whose Mother Died. And as far as reputation at school was concerned, obviously I had my problems there, too. Kyle was still spreading rumors about me, maybe because his parents had refused to get his car fixed, or maybe because he was back with Amanda, his cheerleader girlfriend, and she hated my guts for “coming between them” last year. A few weeks ago, I’d even discovered my name written in permanent red marker on the back of the bleachers in the gym, along with the brilliant conclusion: “whore.”

  When Mike finally finished eating, he asked what I was thinking about. I told him, “Nothing,” but when he said sarcastically, “Go ahead and tell me. I’m used to being misunderstood,” I couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “You’re not the center of the universe. Believe it or not, I wasn’t thinking about you at all.” I crossed one foot over the other knee, and began tearing at the rubber of my tennis shoes. “I have my own things to worry about. My own life.”

  “Sorry,” he said. I thought he meant it, until I realized he was trying not to laugh.

  I turned around. “What?”

  “I am sorry,” he repeated, grinning. “It’s just that it’s hard to buy you having any problems. Little miss popular who only dates big jocks like the star of the basketball team.” He laughed. “But I guess it’s rougher than I realized, huh? Going out with morons?”

  “Take me home,” I whispered. “Now.”

  He glanced at me. “Wait. I’m sorry. It’s just that your life seems so perfect and—”

  “Right. I have such a perfect life. My mom is dead, my dad is gone, and me and my sister live in a tiny apartment in somebody else’s house.” I smirked at him, all the while reminding myself this was common knowledge; it was no big deal I’d blurted it out. “But my life is so wonderful.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he put the truck in reverse. I let out a sigh of relief as we finally left the damn Taco Bell parking lot.

  On the way to my house, Mike mentioned that he didn’t know about my parents and mumbled a vague apology. I asked if we could just drop this topic and he did. It wasn’t until he pulled on to my street that he said he wanted me to know why he’d assumed my life was so great.

  “I don’t care,” I said. “Whatever you think about me is your business.”

  “I told you I’m sorry.” He parked against the curb. “It was really stupid. But I thought you had to be happy because in English class, I can’t stop staring at you.” He glanced at me, and then at his hands. “Because you’re so pretty.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please.”

  “No, I mean it.” He grew quiet. “I think you’re beautiful.”

  “You do?” I was unable to keep the surprise out of my voice; no one had ever said anything like this before. Kyle had praised some things about me: the individual pieces, you could call them, but it was clear he’d have been just as satisfied if I’d had a bag over my head. And in my family, it was Mary Beth who got all the attention for being attractive. My only claim to fame was “pretty eyes,” which was often thrown in as an afterthought by someone who’d just complimented my sister.

  He scooted over so we were sitting right next to each other in the truck. I could hear him breathing; I knew he was working up the guts to kiss me. And I was thinking I might let him, until he put his hand on my shoulder and whispered, “I think you’re the sexiest girl in school.”

  “You jerk!” I pushed his hand off and moved until I was up against the passenger door.

  “What?”

  “Here you are bitching at me about believing rumors!”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh right. You don’t know. You were at the stinking party!”

  “I really don’t remember—”

  “Okay, but are you telling me you don’t take gym? Or is it that you can’t read?”

  When he didn’t even attempt to deny it, my face got so hot I pressed my cheek against the cold passenger window for relief. And the worst part, I could feel tears standing in my eyes.

  “Leeann, listen.” Mike cleared his throat. “I told you, I don’t pay attention to gossip. I think it’s ugly and wrong.”

  “Good for you.” I reached for the door handle. I had to get out of this truck, now.

  “I mean it. Remember that poem we read last week in English? When the guy said you should look at everything for yourself and decide what you really think. I really believe that.”

  He was talking about Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself. It was one of my favorite things we’d read so far this year, although I didn’t bother to argue when the Ds claimed it was long, boring, and a waste of time.

  I was still holding the door handle, but I took a breath and listened as he recited parts of the poem. He’d memorized some of the really good lines, or at least the ones I thought were really good. When I asked him if it took a lot of work to remember all this, he said no. “It’s a skill I have.” He sounded shy, but proud. “Words stick with me.” He paused for a moment. “You want another example?”

  “Sure,” I said, and sat back, waiting for more poetry. But instead he recited a little speech I’d given defending a short story we’d read in English class. The story was by Kafka, about a guy who purposely starves himself to death. Most of the class thought it was stupid, but I thought it was about the search for what really feeds you, what really sustains you in life.

  It was the first week of class when I’d blurted this out, but Mike still remembered every word. I was blinking with surprise when I turned to look at him.

  “I’ve had a crush on you for a while.”

  I felt myself blushing but I didn’t turn away. And I didn’t back away, a moment later, when he leaned over to kiss me.

  “I’m glad I took my mom to that party,” he said, when I finally said I had to go inside.

  “Me, too.”

  “So do you want to go out next weekend?” he said slowly. “Like a date?”

  “I’d like that,” I said, and smiled.

  “Cool.” He was smiling, too. “Everything is cool now,” he said, before kissing me goodbye.

  As I stood shivering in Agnes’s front yard, watching his truck disappear down the street, I found myself wondering what his mom and Mary Beth were doing. It was midnight. Where had they gone, anyway? But I wasn’t worried. Mary Beth could fix Holly’s problem, just like she had before. Everything was cool now, like Mike said. Everything was just fine.

  chapter

  eleven

  It wasn’t my sister’s gift that betrayed her. In the days and weeks that followed, I kept coming back to this one fact. Song reading did not cause what happened.

  She did Holly’s chart of course. It was the first thing she tried when they left Juanita’s party. She took Holly to the diner, begged her to eat and later, paid for the ham and eggs Holly barely touched, while she jotted down Holly’s songs on a napkin. None of the lines had a C by them because Holly didn’t cry at all.

  There were only three songs, and all three were by new wave groups: Culture Club,
The Clash, Duran Duran. Music young people liked, not women in their late thirties like Holly. Mary Beth thought Holly was probably hearing these songs because her kids had been listening to them. After thinking about it for almost an hour, she had to conclude they didn’t mean anything to Holly.

  But Holly needed help. She’d come to that party just to get Mary Beth’s help. So my sister decided to take Holly to a bar over by the river. Get her loosened up enough to talk freely. Find out what was on her mind.

  I thought she meant find out what her songs really were, but that wasn’t it. After they drank two beers, Mary Beth decided to ask Holly what had happened when she confronted her father, George, about what he’d done to her as a kid. My sister said as soon as she asked this question, it was like Holly’s feelings seeped out of her. She cried a noiseless, hopeless cry as she admitted she’d never confronted her father, never even told her husband Danny. “You’re the only person in the world who knows. It’s like my entire life is a lie.”

  Holly said she and Danny and her kids still went to her parents’ house every Sunday afternoon for dinner. And every time she sat at that table, every time she smiled at her father and ate his food, she felt like another piece of her was being smashed to bits.

  Before my sister told Holly what to do she thought hard about the problem for over an hour. Hard and long. And she remembered a radio show she’d heard on the topic of incest, and a magazine article she’d read. They both said the same thing: if you keep the secret, you’ll never be healed. So she told Holly she had to do it. Tell her husband. Confront her parents. And then Mary Beth spent the rest of the night sitting in her Ford on the banks of the river, talking to Holly, trying to give her courage. Convincing her she could do it, and moreover, she had to do it. She wouldn’t feel better unless she did.

  Mary Beth got home at seven-thirty Sunday morning, just in time for Tommy to get up. She’d made him breakfast and sat with him while he watched cartoons. When I woke up at ten, she was drinking coffee and talking on the phone with Holly. Telling her again she could do this. Telling her she had to do it.