Chapter 5
You can hardly call this music, the garble of noise emerging fitfully from the preteens itching to break free from this: the last day before summer vacation.
On the horizon are elastic days, new flirtations, the promise of bikinis and parties and other people’s cars, of mixtapes and MSN messenger, a wild and terrifying world without structure.
But until then, it’s one last rehearsal, all together now, as we play the Star Wars theme.
Through the mess, Viola can hear herself clearly. Her fingers move across the strings in pure expression, feelings gaining pitch and clarity, reaching for wordless perfection. She glances up at Mrs. Crick as her right hand moves in time, as her left beckons for more sound.
Keep it up, honeybunch, her father says. That cello will pay for college. At the end of the day, she knows it’s only an instrument. A means to an end. It cannot be her life.
She pulls the curved body against her chiffon dress, aware of the thinness of the fabric.
She had wanted to look nice. You are supposed to leave everyone with a good memory of you before the summer starts.
Dress like someone might take your picture.
That was Molly McInerny’s advice, though Molly isn’t even here today—she had to leave early for some family reunion in Canada, which they both agreed was stupid.
The upshot was Viola had to decide without consultation what was photo-worthy and now she cannot help but feel like she’s overdone it.
Take the pearl bracelet, a birthday gift from her mother, received last week.
These tokens arrive annually: a stationery set, crisp black shoes.
Books: Dickens, Austen, Bronte. Opening them makes her sad.
How many years had she prepared for? It was awful, thinking of her picking them out, planning for time they never had, guessing at their interests.
She understands her mother worked hard to become sophisticated.
She didn’t grow up with much, her father always said.
If anything, the bracelet is too nice, as though her mother were compensating.
They’re obviously from Dad, Sebastian said, throwing his tennis racket under his bed.
Not obviously, she sighed. Still, it would be nice to have proof. A letter or something. It would be nice to read her mother’s words. Oh, what did it matter anyway, whether the presents are from her mother or her father? They wanted the same thing, her parents. They were soul mates.
Her brother has it out for her father these days.
They fight about everything: the failed tests, the late arrivals home, the mouthing off, the too-loud music—it’s all the same.
No, you can’t draw on your walls. Yes, you have to go to tutoring.
Constantly she is forced to play the peacekeeper.
To “help him” with his homework, to smooth out his edges. It’s exhausting.
As the song concludes, Mrs. Crick holds up her arms. “I release you.”
Into the hall. She hates this part, the dysfunction of limbs buffeting carelessly toward their next destination, the tongues pressing against other tongues against the bashed metal lockers that hang semi-open, or fully open, or closed but not locked, or locked with the padlock turned three times for safety, a spectrum of giving a fuck that places Viola at the squarest end.
She is conscious of her arms brushing against people, a new attention.
Her fluttering dress. Her brother’s voice: Is it summer yet?
All day, she’s heard him calling rambunctiously to Zach Papadopoulos. Is it summer yet? Let me check…
At thirteen, the twins share no classes.
The only place where their names are found together is the signature-covered banner at the end of the hall: ALDWYCH CLASS OF 2009.
Their handwriting is identical. But in the throng, twinness is protection.
When her brother throws his arm over her shoulder, she is home.
“Remember,” she says. “Other bus today.”
He groans. On Thursdays, they go to their grandmother’s house, which means getting the bus to the train station, riding it out to her cobbled seaside village at the end of the line.
It takes forever. Last time, they arrived to find her asleep on the couch, having forgotten the day of the week.
Her dad keeps trying to encourage her to talk to her grandmother about “girl stuff,” which never gets much further than “What are we going to do about your hair?” Mostly they sit around having borderline too-old iced tea and watching tennis.
Sebastian flops around like a bored fish.
“Yeah, about that,” Sebastian says. “Let’s not.”
“Dude.”
“Come on, Lola. Let’s go to the beach.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like the beach.” She shouldn’t have to explain. It’s the people who will be there and the half-naked charade of conversation about anything other than who has tits or a boyfriend or whose mother is dead in the sea.
“How about the movies?” he suggests.
“Don’t tempt me.” Viola loves it, the quiet space with nothing ahead of her but the story, the arc of it, the inevitable resolution of lovers or heroes or justice restored.
Her fantasies outstrip the offerings of their small-town world.
And at four o’clock, Orson Grey will be starring in a delectable French romance.
Gradually, he has transformed from acquaintance to fantasy, become the sole interest of her heart.
But no: it is her responsibility to be the good one.
“No. Dad will be pissed.”
“Do I look like I care?”
“You’re so annoying.”
“You’re so boring,” he tells her.
“OooOOooh,” Zach Papadopoulos says, colliding, pushing them both away from the river of bodies. “Someone’s fancy today.”
“Go away, Zach.”
“Make me.”
His hand, warm on her arm. His sweatshirt reeks of everything he has smoked in the last few months. The dog, the twins call him. An untrained Newfoundland. Always hanging around.
“Sit,” Sebastian says. “Lie down.”
“Roll over,” Viola grins, raising an eyebrow as Zach spins in a circle. “Good boy.”
Sebastian chuckles. Zach starts barking and lunges tongue-first for her ear. She screams and throws herself back against the lockers.
“Cut it out, dude.” Sebastian kicks his friend hard in the shin.
“Aah!” Zach reaches to his leg, a lick of slobber now coating his chin. “Asshole.”
“I’ll see you at the bus,” she is calling, and the hallway opens up, vaulting into the gymnasium.
A short set of stairs, a familiar rhythm.
After school, this is where she comes to leave herself behind.
In the last year, she has begun to run harder and faster, to approach her body like a hard, perfectible thing.
But not now, not in gym class. Now is only a sham of an hour.
In the changing room, the other girls are already in various states of undress, tying up oversized shirts with hair elastics to grant a peek of their belly buttons, rolling up their Soffe shorts one, two, three times.
Viola understands they are playing a game: to be noticed and worthy and attractive without ever standing out.
It is a herd game, the game of prey. She could have tried harder, earlier, to blend in. But she has never quite been sure how.
As she steps out of her flats, Lisa DePaulo turns. “You’re smuggling peas,” she says, under the pretense of kind advice.
A hush befalls the tittering gaggle. Viola looks down at herself, the assertive nipples of her otherwise flat chest puffing through the delicate fabric of her dress. She doesn’t own a bra.
Her neck grows hot, she runs to the toilet stall. Her eyes are stinging, and when she can hear the girls evacuating, she allows herself a single, stupid sob.
Why did no one tell her it was time to buy a bra?
She sits on the lid of the toilet, indulgently imagining her death: spontaneous combustion in a bathroom cubicle.
First Cello in the Youth Symphony Orchestra, her obituary would read.
First place in the under-fourteen’s cross-country regionals.
Honor roll. Beloved sister. Never left America. Never fell in love.
And then she pulls herself together. For the final hour of eighth grade, she tosses half-hearted dodgeballs and checks the minute hand of the clock every thirty seconds until Finally!
The blessed bell. The flood of sneakers, squeaking, backpacks swinging over shoulders, papers shoveled into the recycling bin.
Goodbye Lisa DePaulo! Goodbye gym class!
Backpack covering her chest, Viola makes her way to the bus, still wearing her gym clothes.
In the parking lot, slouching sweetly, is her brother.
“Screw it,” she says, breathless. “Let’s go to the movies.”
He pumps his fist in the air, wiggles a little dance. “What about Grandma?” he asks.
Together, they imagine her asleep in front of the French Open. They imagine her forgetting them entirely.
“She’s getting old.” Viola sighs.
“She’s always been old,” Sebastian says.
In her mind’s eye is her father, his concerns and mislaid expectations. She does not want to betray his trust. But life is calling.