The Take-Over Friend, page 2
“Your brother’s home?” Sonja said.
“That’s my dad.”
Inside the front hallway, the chandelier and windows vibrated. Dad only played his music this loud when the house was empty. Otherwise Mom did her spiel on hearing loss. Upstairs, in his studio above the garage, he wore his headphones. His raspy voice filled the house as he jammed on his electric guitar.
“Your dad plays rock music?”
“He’s a songwriter. He used to run a music production company.”
I led the way to our kitchen, poured us each a glass of juice, grabbed some oatmeal cookies, and then nodded for her to follow me.
As we headed up the stairs, Sonja tugged my arm. “Maybe we shouldn’t disturb him.”
“Actually, he needs to be disturbed. I’m supposed to check in when I get home.” I pounded on the door at the end of the hallway. “Dad!”
As we entered, I saw that he was still in his plaid pajamas, the guitar strap wrapped around his shoulder. He turned off the amp, removed his earplugs, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Home already?”
“It’s four.”
“Really?” He squinted at the clock. His hair, which I’d inherited, rose in frizzy curls, still uncombed. He hadn’t shaved, so his cheeks and chin were scruffy. Even at fifty, he had more freckles than wrinkles.
I looked at Sonja. “No sense of time.”
Sonja extended her hand politely. “I hope we’re not disturbing you. I’m Sonja Marcus.”
Dad grinned at her formality and set down his guitar, shaking her hand. “William.” He glanced at me. “How was school?”
“I like Ms. Riva’s class. We both have her for homeroom.”
Dad smiled. “Lucky you. Goddess of the English language.”
Both my sister and brother had taken her class, and both claimed she was by far the best teacher at Southwest.
“Quite the studio,” Sonja said, staring at the walls. Every inch of wall space was covered—family photos, letters from fans, newspaper clippings, contracts, music awards. It was like a museum of Dad’s life. Five guitars were lined up in their cases under the windows. A large antique wooden table was covered with music and boxes of demos. Dad’s music journals lined his bookshelf. A huge armchair sat next to the window, and along the windowsill were stone sculptures, feather people, origami doves, clay bowls—gifts from us, his children.
Sonja’s eyes moved to the photographs on the far wall. “Who did these?”
“My mom did her MFA in photography.”
“Toilets?”
“Toilets from around the world,” Dad corrected her. “Toilet as metaphor.”
“Very interesting.” Sonja stood back, eyeing each one—an outhouse in Ocala, Florida, with a saddle as the toilet seat; a primitive Chinese outhouse with a poster of Richard Nixon above the wooden seat; a fancy Paris hotel bathroom with a heated toilet seat on a marble throne. Next was a Texas toilet seat in red, white, and blue porcelain. In Las Vegas, there was a toilet seat in the shape of a heart. Sonja stopped in front of the last one—a Malaysian house on stilts, and at the edge of the platform floor was a toilet-hole that emptied into the water. The way the photo was taken, you could see people fishing just below the hole.
“No more tuna sandwiches for me,” Sonja whispered.
Dad laughed out loud. I could see he liked her.
“Dad bought all Mom’s photos at her first exhibit,” I told her. “That’s when she fell in love with him.”
“So.” Sonja turned and faced Dad. “Should I know you? Were you at Woodstock? Are you famous?”
“Sorry. Woodstock was years before Closed Curtains had our hit.”
“‘Ambassador of Love.’ Top of the charts.” I pointed at the awards on the wall. “Mom calls it his footprint in the sand.”
“I think your mother would emphasize the word sand, not footprint.” Dad handed Sonja a demo. “Our label was Electric Loons.”
“Could I do an internship with you?” Just like that, Sonja asked Dad. “You wouldn’t have to pay me,” she said. “I’d just like to learn about the music industry. Might come in handy when I make my footprint.”
“I’ve retired from the business side. I write my own songs now.” Dad nodded at the stacks of journals on the bookshelves, then picked up his guitar, his way of excusing us. “But you and Fran can come chat anytime.”
As Sonja and I stretched out on my queen bed, she said, “Great dad. Easy to talk to. Needs to be disturbed.”
“Believe me,” I told her. “He can be very irritating, especially when he invents nicknames.”
“Like what?”
“He calls my sister Running-Mouth. He calls my brother Lie-On-the-Couch. He calls Mom, Many-Lists.”
“What’s he call you?”
“Easy-One.”
Her eyebrows rose.
I shrugged. I was not a person who spilled forth my thoughts easily, even though I thought about everything way too much. I was the listener, thinker, asker of questions. I was the bearer of my sister’s secrets, the brunt of my brother’s jokes, the goody-goody recipient of don’t-bother-me-nows. And somehow in the past few years, as he’d sunk into his depression, I’d become Dad’s ally.
“So, has your dad had any recent hits?”
I shook my head. “My sister calls him One Hit Song.”
Her smile deepened. “You have a very expressive face. You could easily be an actress, especially in France. They have a much more subtle sense of beauty.”
I wasn’t sure if this was an insult or a compliment.
“I find it hard to believe you don’t have a boyfriend,” she added.
I wasn’t ready to tell her about my huge, lifelong crush on Gravy, my brother’s best friend. Ever since sixth grade, I’d had this fantasy that when I started high school, he’d fall for me. Gravy lived three blocks away and went to Benilde, a Catholic high school, so I didn’t get to see him except on weekends when he and my brother hung out together.
An hour after she left, Sonja called me. “Hope I’m not interrupting your dinner,” she said. “I like to have things spelled out. Are we meeting tomorrow morning before class, and if so, what time and where?”
“Ten till eight, in front of homeroom?”
“C’est bien.” Her accent was perfect.
“You can tutor me in French,” I told her.
“D’accord. Nous commençons maintenant. Au revoir…bon nuit…a demain.” Before I could repeat it, she’d hung up.
I liked that she’d lived in cities I’d dreamed of visiting, and that she spoke French with a perfect accent, and that she laughed easily. Mostly, though, I felt chosen; she’d chosen me to be her friend.
When Mom knocked on my door that night, I was lying in the dark, staring at the plastic stars I’d stuck to my ceiling years ago. Most had fallen off, so the big dipper looked like a comb missing most of its teeth. Our two dogs, Ravyn, a thirteen-year-old rescue pit bull, and Vinnie, a six-year-old standard poodle, slept in my room. Ravyn was too old to jump on the bed, and she preferred the small dog bed beside my desk. Vinnie curled next to my legs. “Are you awake, Fran?” Mom opened my door. “What’s that on your head?”
“A swim cap.” I took it off and held it up. “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow.”
“You can’t sleep in a swim cap.”
“Yes, I can.”
Mom turned on the overhead light. “Oh, Fran. Don’t you realize how lucky you are to have all that curl?”
“It’s not curl. It’s frizz. It makes my head look fat. I’d like to be in control of it,” I said.
Mom smiled as she sat on the edge of my bed. “Your father said you brought home a very interesting friend.”
“She’s lived all over the world.”
Relief melted the worry lines across her forehead. “I’m so glad you’ve already made a new friend.”
“Your encouragement doth runneth over,” I said, quoting my father.
Mom stood up and moved toward the doorway. “Just remember, you don’t need to hurry home to walk the dogs and make your father tea. He can take care of himself.”
I chafed. Cultivate your own life; let your father fend for himself. She brought it up so much I felt a kind of shame, as if I were supposed to be someone else, someone I didn’t know how to be.
When I reached for my swim cap, I realized she’d taken it with her. “Mom, bring it back.”
“Next time you go swimming.”
3
Right away it was easy. One day we were strangers, the next day best friends.
Sonja stood waiting for me in the hallway. I glanced at her T-shirt, Stanford Genius Camp printed front and back. “Are you a genius?”
“Borderline.” She rolled her eyes, glancing down at the T-shirt. “This was an ideas camp for kids with ambitious parents.”
After the first bell rang, we took our seats in class. Ms. Riva had been born in India, but she had grown up in London. She had walnut skin and huge black eyes that sparkled. Her braided hair hung to her waist. And she never, ever used slang, unless she was explaining the destruction of the English language. “No likes, you knows, whatevers or yeahs once you enter this room. If we use language well, our minds expand. Writing will teach us how to think.” Ms. Riva scanned our faces, letting her words sink in. “I’m talking about how to hear your own inner voice and convey that through words. Sometimes we have to disrupt our usual thought patterns, question our belief systems. Writing can take us places we haven’t yet understood. One way of getting started is to take two unrelated nouns, like fear and pocket, and add different prepositions in between, and then explore different directions of meaning.”
Sonja’s hand shot up, and when Ms. Riva nodded, she rattled off three phrases. “Pocket of fear. Fear inside pocket. Pocket below fear.”
“Good.” Ms. Riva smiled, scanning the class. “Anyone else? You can choose your own nouns.”
I raised my hand. “Stairs of hope.”
“Yes.” Ms. Riva nodded. “Great.”
Stevie raised her hand. “Teeth inside anger.”
“Lovely. Anyone else?”
Dawn’s hand eased its way into the air. “Clouds in fingertips.”
Ms. Riva looked impressed. “Brilliant.”
“Clouds in fingertips?” Henry asked, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses. “What does that even mean?”
“Not everything makes sense to our mind, but it can make sense to our hearts.” She scanned our faces. “Starting today, we’ll begin each class with ten minutes of free-writing. We’ll play with language. No one else will see these pages unless you choose to share them, so you should feel free to explore.”
Her words were met with groans and sighs, but also the sound of pens hitting paper. We had all chosen to be in Ms. Riva’s class despite her reputation as a demanding teacher.
After the bell rang, Sonja followed me into the hallway. “Where shall we meet for lunch?”
“Not in the cafeteria,” I said. “I hate the smell.”
“Smell is so crucial.” Sonja sniffed the air dramatically as we walked toward our second-period classes. “Especially when it comes to amour. We’ll definitely need to sniff guys first.”
I stopped outside my chemistry class. Two seniors turned into the classroom across the hallway, and Sonja sniffed loudly. “Bacon.” Then, grimacing, “I prefer my men to smell like dark chocolate, seventy percent cacao.”
“I prefer my men to smell like soap. Dial.”
As the bell rang, Sonja hurried down the hall. “And if they smell like raisins, forget it,” she called.
I laughed, calling out, “South stairwell, the bench by the window.”
As I took my seat in chemistry next to Josh, he stared at my hair. “What lightning bolt hit you?”
“High humidity. I can’t help it.” To make matters worse, temperatures were supposed to be in the eighties, seventy percent humidity, and my hair rose with the dew point. I could actually see it out the corner of my eye—my hair expanding. Imagine a giant sunflower doomed by the size of its own head. That was me. I had hair way out of proportion to the rest of my body. “It’s only hair,” I said. “Stop staring.”
“Actually, it looks like a spaceship has taken your face hostage.” He smiled, his long black eyelashes blinking. “Can I touch it?” He patted my frizz without even getting close to my scalp. “Defies the law of gravity.”
I’d known Josh since kindergarten when our mothers carpooled together. His parents were from India—his father an epidemiologist, his mother a dental assistant. He had fine features, dark eyes, and the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen. My mom adored Josh because he had the best manners of any boy she’d ever met. He was a G-boy—gawky, geeky, glad to help. But he had a tendency to drag out a joke way beyond its natural expiration date. He was still patting.
I grabbed his hand and released it. “Can we lower the enthusiasm? It draws attention.” I tried not to notice his hands, the bitten nails, ragged skin around the fingertips. I wondered why a boy with brilliant grades couldn’t control a habit like nail-biting. Nevertheless, I was glad we were sitting next to each other. Josh was my lab partner, and chemistry was the class I was most worried about.
***
Two hours later, Sonja carefully unwrapped a French baguette stuffed with cheese and greens. “St. Andre and arugula, I call it Better Than a French Kiss Sandwich.”
“You name your sandwiches?”
“I’m going to write a sandwich cookbook,” she said. “Think about it. Sandwiches are convenient, healthy, and there are hundreds of variations from around the world. My mother and I basically live on sandwiches, so I figure why not write a book?” She held it toward me. “Want to try it?”
I took a bite of the soft cheese and bitter, crunchy leaves. “Really good.” I stared at my peanut butter and orange marmalade on whole wheat. “Want a bite of mine?”
“No thanks.” Sonja tore off part of her sandwich and handed it to me. “Would your sister like this St. Andre and arugula sandwich?”
“Ali would love this sandwich.”
“Your brother?”
“Nope. He’s a peanut butter freak.”
Sonja flicked crumbs from her sweater. “How come you’re not on Facebook?”
“You Facebooked me?”
“I Facebooked your whole family,” she said.
“We’re not allowed.”
“Are your parents Amish or something?”
“No.” I wiped my mouth with a napkin. “My mom’s Unitarian, and my dad’s Jewish.”
“I’m Jewish on my mother’s side,” she told me. “It’s carried through the mother’s line, so sorry, you’re not officially Jewish.” She grinned. “You’re probably Scottish. Sixteen percent of Scots have red hair. The red hair gene comes from the Middle East Steppe tribes around the Black Sea. It originated 4000 years ago. Also, there was a group of Native Americans who had red hair and cannibalistic tendencies, but another tribe, the Peyotes, burned them alive inside a cave. The whole tribe died. So your hair gene did not come through them.” She paused, sensing my skepticism. “I’m not making it up. I did my eighth-grade science project on genetic hair color. They only discovered the redhead gene in 2000. You have a better sense of smell, but you’re also prone to anxiety. It’s because your cells are wired to survive. Historically redheads were burned as witches and demons.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “You shouldn’t be in the sun, higher risk of melanoma. On the other hand, you attract males and bugs because you give off a unique smell. Your skin has more acid, not detectable to my nose.” She sniffed loudly, grinned, and tapped open Facebook on her phone. “Your dad has a Facebook fan club.”
She showed me the cover page with a picture of the yellow bus he’d toured in, the same bus still sitting in our driveway next to the alley. “Some woman named Karen keeps posting on it. She keeps asking if anyone knows what happened to your father.” Sonja swallowed a bite of her sandwich, her eyes watching me. “Did something happen?”
I could have told her the truth.
I could have told her his mood was like an elevator going up, and sooner or later, he’d rise past the ceiling and reach the sky, doors opening to every passing wind current. He wouldn’t sleep. And then he’d fall and descend below ground, his mood blue, barely speaking, sleeping for whole days and nights at a time.
I could have told her how two nights ago, he couldn’t sleep and woke me at three a.m., shaking me awake, whispering, “Let’s canoe under the supermoon. Before you grow up and hate me.”
Mom had arrived in her bathrobe. “She’s starting high school tomorrow.”
“It’s still August,” Dad had said. “Still summer.”
Mom told him, “Be a father.”
“You’re no fun,” he’d replied.
Will had opened his door and said, “What’s going on?”
Dad had asked, “Do you want to canoe under the supermoon?”
“Christ.” Will had turned back into his room, slamming his door.
“Go back to bed, Fran.” Mom had closed my door.
Outside my room, she’d spoken in a loud whisper to Dad, “You need to see the neurologist again, get your meds checked.” Loud enough for me to hear, loud enough so I would have to hear. Then she’d shut their bedroom door and locked it.
Dad had rattled the nob to their bedroom. “You can’t stand it when I’m happy.”
“You don’t know the difference between happy and manic,” Mom had replied.
He’d descended the stairs, and, a minute later, the garage door had opened. I’d looked out the window to see him pulling the canoe on two wheels toward the lake. All summer we’d canoed the lakes together. I’d felt guilty for not going with him.
