by Abby Sher
“Keep going!” Mrs. Toobey shouted over her shoulder. “Nice and loud—from the beginning!”
I did try. But it only got worse. My fingers floundering and stabbing at the keys. Skidding to a sour halt.
“Sorry,” I said when she came back into the room. It was true. Sorry was a total cop-out.
“Don’t apologize,” she answered brusquely. “I just wonder how we can get you back on track.”
“That’s why I wanted to try something new,” I told her. “Like a hip-hop ballad.” It was hard to convince even myself that this made sense. Mrs. Toobey snorted, making no effort to hide her disdain.
“Really?” she said. “You think a hip-hop ballad is the answer?”
I didn’t. But it was the loudest possibility in my head. Demanding me to try.
Once upon a time in a land that smells like rage
It sucks knowing you’re not superhuman.
I mean, I never wore a cape and tried to leap over buildings in a single bound. Maybe I should’ve, right?
But I truly believed that I was the only member of some superior species. That I could survive on the achy slosh of Diet Coke and fumes. The more gnawing and gurgly the stomachache, the taller I stood.
You remember that noodle shop on Center Street—Soba Soba?
Alli took us there after my first gymnastics competition and you and I went halvesies on a pot of wontons big enough to swim through.
Anyway, they opened one in the mall just a hop, skip, and squat thrust away from Primally Fit. I walked by there so many times, totally depleted and starvacious. I’d watch these people all slurping noodles and stuffing their pieholes and I would act all high and mighty, like, no matter how hungry I get I’ll never give in.
Never.
I felt so proud of my willpower and dedication. My purely driven stamina.
Alli asked me to go there with her—it was after our first Bernardo class and she was famished, I could tell. So I said sure.
She ordered a ton of food—wontons and noodles and those steamed dumplings with the sweet dipping sauce. It was disgusting how much food there was. And how much I wanted it all.
But I did not touch a single bite. Did not even lift my wooden chopsticks out of their little paper sleeping bag.
Alli was too busy scarfing it all down to notice at first, but when she did, she got really mad. Then, of course, she turned on the waterworks and said I had to eat. She was going to get fat as a house and I was going to kill myself and I just had to eat right now!
I told her to stop being so dramatic. I just wasn’t hungry.
But she couldn’t take it. She had the waiter come and take everything away.
All that wasted food.
And I watched her bawling into her paper napkin as I was thinking, Yes!
I won.
CHAPTER 9
presets
It was hard to hear anything over the whirr and grind of Alli’s blender. She was making her bionic evening smoothie of probiotics, prebiotics, nucleotides, and, apparently, gravel.
“Issues,” Zoe told me as I walked into her house. Then she led me past Alli’s back and downstairs to the basement, where the blender was only slightly less deafening.
“I swear, my mother is trying to kill me. Psychologically at least.”
Apparently, this afternoon had been a doozy of a time in the Hammer/Sinclair household. Alli had insisted that she do backup dancing for the Pussycat Warriors video and had choreographed her own part. Zoe had said no thanks. And maybe a few other things that she regretted, but they had to be said. Alli had responded by locking herself in her bedroom with Mr. Meowsers for an hour and threatening to take a double dose of Prozac. Which, according to Zoe, would probably be a good thing.
“I mean, I know she’s in a rough place right now, but she’s the one who kicked Travis out.”
“She did?” I asked. I had yet to hear any coherent details about Alli and Travis’s split. Nor had I dared to ask.
“I dunno,” Zoe said through clenched teeth. “I mean who really knows? First it was that Travis was sleeping with Roxanne. Then it was that Travis doesn’t know how to provide. Nothing’s clear anymore except for Alli’s devastating loneliness and despair. I told her that you and I were staying over at Travis’s place Saturday night and she literally clutched her heart.”
Zoe slapped her chest and staggered backward for effect. Whenever she impersonated her mom like this it was so spot-on that I shivered a little. Zoe had her dad’s eyes for sure, and the flirtatious gleam that had maybe gotten him into this current upheaval. But for the most part, Zoe looked like a miniature version of her mom. Sans the dye job and pixie cut.
“Wait, back up a second.” I needed to process this slower. “We’re sleeping over at Trav—your dad’s?”
“If that’s okay with you,” Zoe said in a quieter tone. “I know I should’ve asked you before saying yes. It’s just, he’s been begging me to come over and I really don’t think I can handle it on my own.”
“No. I mean, yeah. Let’s do it.” As lame as it sounds, I felt honored that she was inviting me into this family melee.
“I swear, Hank. You’re the one and only person I can count on,” Zoe told me. “Do you know Alli literally told me that she and I needed to be BFFs now? To which I answered No way, Alli-ay. Because (1) that’s totally unhealthy for a mother and daughter; and (2) that BFF position is already filled by the one and only Hannah Louise Levinstein, DDS Esquire.”
“I’m a dentist and a lawyer?” I asked.
“Ha!” Zoe said, thrilled that I knew what these abbreviations meant. “Yeah, why the heck not? Hank, I swear you’re so brilliant, you’re gonna get a thousand cum laudes and anything else you want after your name. As opposed to Miss E-Z-O here, which is dyslexic for ‘Zoe’ by the way.”
Zoe came at me and clamped her arms around my waist, trying valiantly to lift me off the ground (like I usually did with her). It was always slightly humiliating when she did this because she struggled to get me up even off my tiptoes, but it sure did feel warm and hopeful to hear her reaffirm my best friend status.
“You are my soul-sister-from-another-mother,” Zoe declared. “My life. My anchor. My floaty-vest thingy. Whoa, what’s with all the sea references, huh? But seriously, I love you.”
“I love you too,” I told her. And I meant it. I could never keep up with all the crises that constantly swirled around her, but Zoe was definitely my lifeline too. She could say and do and dare so many terrifyingly vulnerable things. Like wrapping me in these raw moments of affection. Nobody in my life spoke like this besides her.
She pulled me in to her, fast and tight. The top of her head jammed against my chin so hard that I bit the edge of my tongue and whimpered. Or maybe it was Zoe making that noise. I realized she was shaking and letting out little chirpy sobs.
“Did I hurt you?” I asked.
“No! You’re the last person who could ever hurt me.” She sniffed. “I’m just thinking about how when you go off to college and everyone goes off to college and I’m just left here all alone because I still can’t remember the freaken FOIL method for binomials or even tell you what a binomial is…”
“But you don’t have to,” I told her.
“I know, I know. But it’s not just that. I just don’t want to be all alone. And I know that’s what’s gonna happen.”
“No, no,” I insisted. “I’ll stay home if you need me to. Or we could travel. Join the Peace Corps and find those sheep.”
We had once mapped out a life together in a yurt on a mountain where all we had to do was shear sheep. I’d actually looked into the price of yurts. It would take a ton of babysitting money, but it was entirely possible.
“Hanky-Panky puddin’ pie / You’re the sweetest thing in the sky,” Zoe said between snuffles. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Maybe this agent thing will lead to something. Oh wait! Did I tell you that he said maybe I could model too?”
And immediately Zoe turne
d the sun back on. She pulled away, wiped her face, and strutted in a narrow circle with her lips all puckery.
“Probably just my face cuz I’m short, but whatever.”
“Really?” I gulped. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know what I want,” she said. “But I’ll tell you this—it sure is nice to have someone compliment you and treat you like a person with artistic vision instead of being told you can’t read and you should go on more ADHD meds if you want to ever become someone besides a loser.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Especially when she pointed her finger at me and added, “I know that’s hard for you to imagine, Hank. But try.”
I guess even she heard how accusatory that sounded. She did a fast hop-skip-jumping-jack to recalibrate the mood, then smacked a smile back on and said, “Hey! Enough of this dillydally yada yada, huh? Let’s get to work!”
“Right,” I said.
“I can’t wait to hear what you came up with at Mrs. Toobey’s! Does she totally hate me for quitting? Is her husband still in a walking coma? Ooh, and did you find your matching pussycat costume?”
“Um … no, no, and … still looking,” I reported.
Zoe had taken piano lessons for exactly three weeks about five years ago, but she just couldn’t sit still long enough to learn anything. I doubted Mrs. Toobey remembered Zoe’s name, let alone had strong emotions about her.
In terms of my pussycat costume, that was a big ol’ lie. There was no way I would wear or even look for that. Most likely it was in one of the two dozen contractor bags stuffed into my attic. The attic was a fire hazard/warehouse full of outgrown clothes, book reports, knickknacks and paddywhacks. It would certainly not fit me, and I couldn’t even contemplate going through those dusty bags of memorabilia without sneezing.
“Do I really need to be in the costume too if I’m gonna be sitting behind the piano?” I asked.
“Mmmm, I guess not,” Zoe conceded. “But maybe you’ll let me pick out something sparkly for you? Ooh! I have a bunch of tops that totally don’t fit me anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Never mind! I’ll get them later. C’mon!”
She pulled me over to her keyboard and plugged it into an outlet. A thousand different lights flickered on—lime green, yellow, and red. It looked like a casino slot machine with a few piano keys stuck on the bottom. I tried to read through all the different tempos and fake-instrument sounds available—violin, clavichord, pipe organ, clarinet, and bagpipe, just for starters. I had no idea what I was going to play, especially on the bagpipe. The keys looked too big and slippery to make any kind of musical sense. I never had figured out what a hip-hop ballad entailed, nor did I do anything about it after my lesson yesterday at the Toobeys’.
“Did I show you?” Zoe jumped in. “It also has presets!” She scooted me over with a sharp hip bump so she could stand behind the keyboard too. “Check it out: samba, reggae, mellow jazz. Ooh, try hip-hop!”
She pressed a button and it felt like we were being dumped into a drum kit, the beats crashing unevenly around us. There was also a mess of chords, a piercing whistle, and what sounded like a roomful of girls giggling.
“Ummmm, can we turn that down?” I yelled over the din.
Zoe agreed it was a little overwhelming and lowered the volume.
“But maybe you can incorporate that kind of energy or movement?” she asked. “You know, just something to groove to…”
“Sure,” I said. “Yeah.” I could feel her eyes on me as I sat down and turned some more knobs. Samba. Boogie. Something called Ragtime Romp. As if I needed a precise balance of treble, bass, and rhythm to make this kind of music.
Zoe must have known I was faking it. I had never improvised before and all I had in my head was the opening progression of Debussy, though I knew that was the opposite of groovy. I set my hands on the first notes and tried playing it as fast as possible. I sounded a little like I was on fire. Zoe stayed right next to me. Probably too confused to say Mercy. After a torturous minute I had to stop myself.
“I’m sorry. This is definitely not what you were looking for, I’m sure—”
“No!” Zoe cut me off. “Don’t be sorry! Listen, you are just way too talented for this crap. And I’m making you do something totally stupid and boring and I really appreciate it because I would not be able to do this on my own. So let’s do this … What if I just show you what I was thinking about and then maybe it’ll give you some inspiration?”
“That sounds great.”
Zoe took out a piece of loose-leaf paper that had been folded and refolded until it was the size of a stamp. Lots of scribbles and cross-outs had bled through to the back too.
“No. See, I’m already so mortified because you’re playing real music and I’m just … ugh, I have no idea how to write song lyrics.” She crumpled the paper and started shredding it into tiny wisps.
“Wait! Don’t do that. I’m sure it’s great!” I tried to scoop up the bits of floating lyrics, but Zoe continued to tear the rest of the page while she spoke.
“It’s not, Hank. I mean, I want it to be edgy, but it also needs to have a catchy hook and convey a sense of righteous anger, you know?”
“Uh … okay. That’s a lot to fit in.”
“Plus, it has to use the word pussy.”
“It has to?” I handed her a palm-size pile of torn paper. She took it and dumped it on the windowsill without acknowledging it at all.
“Well, Dash is really keen on it being about the word pussy and us reclaiming the female body and how we’ve been disenfranchised but we’re stronger than ever…?”
“Dash?” I asked.
“That’s my agent. Or—our agent?”
She didn’t seem sure of anything she was saying, but I nodded as if it were a monumental revelation. “I had a tune to go with it too, but now I can’t remember anything. Ugh. Maybe I’m dyslexic in music too.”
“No, just keep going,” I reassured her. “Show me what you have so far.”
“Fine. I’ll show you whatever I remember. But I have to face the other way.”
Zoe turned away from me and started mumbling in a voice just surfacing above a whisper:
I was lost
But now I’m found
Because you’re here and there’s no fear
When you’re around
Cuz you’re my pussy!
I stood there, mummified. Not breathing or moving or acting in any way remotely human. I was really hoping that was a joke. Only, the longer Zoe waited for me to react, the more I knew she was serious. She spun back around and said, “So stupid, right?”
To which the only answer could be, “No. I think it’s really … powerful.”
“For real?”
“I mean, yeah.”
She bit her lip and searched my face. Like she wanted to believe me but she knew I had to be lying and she was not going to be the one to call me on it. I wanted to breathe this stilted moment onto some raft of spaciousness and have Diana Gaia take it all away.
“Yeah,” I repeated. “Let’s find a melody for this.”
I went back to the piano to study all those prerecorded rhythms in the key of crazy. Pressing random buttons and humming. Blessedly, Alli chose that instant to interrupt.
“Knock knock!” she called, opening the basement door. “I’m not staying, I swear. Just wanted to let you both know it’s almost seven o’clock and I’m heading out for a spin class. I left some of my smoothie for you because it’s delicious but I’m just waaaay too full.”
For as long as I’d known Alli, she’d been on some unsustainable diet of no sugar, no carbs, no taste. Which she always transgressed and then regretted bitterly—telling me, Zoe, and whoever else was close at hand that she was a despicable fatty. All the while being at least two sizes smaller than me. I hated this routine. No wonder Zoe was struggling with her own reflection. But when I looked to Zoe for the expected eye roll, she was at the bottom of the stairs,
calling back, “Alli. Wait.”
Alli spun around. I hadn’t noticed until that moment how red her tiny nose was. There were little pink shadows under her eyes too.
“Listen, I’m sorry about before. I didn’t mean to be so harsh,” Zoe muttered.
“It’s fine,” Alli said with a quick shake of her head.
“No, it’s not fine,” Zoe replied. “I was being a real bitch and I’m sorry.”
The floodgates opened then. Alli rushed down the stairs, unleashing huge gasping sobs. Falling into her daughter’s fragile arms.
“You shouldn’t be the one apologizing, Zoozoo,” she lamented. “I am. I never meant for this whole situation to be so hard on you. I know you love your dad and he loves you and I can only hope that one day you can forgive me for all of this, but I know that’s a lot to ask.”
“Alli, please. We’re in this together.” Zoe’s voice sounded crackly now too. I tried to busy myself on equalizing the equalizer some more, but Zoe turned around and said, “Right?”
“Poor Hank,” Alli answered before I could say anything. “We invite you over to rehearse and then it turns into another sobfest. Ugh, I’m such a mess!”
They both looked at me again, I guess for some answer.
“No, you’re … fine. You’re going through a really hard time,” I said.
“That’s an understatement,” wailed Alli. They drew me into their anguished huddle and I bore my eyes into the floor while they both cried. I tried to make some weepy noises of my own, hoping to blend into their chorus. Until Alli decided enough was enough and she needed to get going.
“Hey!” she said with a sharp sniff. “You have to rehearse. And I have … something to do I’m sure.”
“Wait a second. Are you really going for another class? Do you want to rehearse with us instead and then we’ll go together?” I couldn’t tell whether Zoe actually wanted her mom to stay or not. It sounded more like Zoe was frantic at the idea of Alli exercising without her.
