Blowin' My Mind Like a Summer Breeze, page 10
I nod silently, on the verge of tears for about the twenty-seventh time that day, feeling enormous love and gratitude for this strange and wonderful and somewhat broken man who happens to be my father. Then I go back to my room and crawl onto my bed without even getting under the blankets, the pillows so soft, so cool so….
When I wake up, I’m shocked to find it’s almost eleven o’clock Thursday morning. There’s a note on the nightstand from Walden that reads: you were snoring so loud I almost murdered you in your sleep.
Karma’s a bitch, I think.
His black Fender Stratocaster lays on his bed like discarded silverware after a meal. Walden may be the family drummer, but his real dream is someday to play guitar as well as James Burton, or George Harrison—or even Luce Cobb.
I get up and pee, chug two glasses of water, choke down the three other aspirin Dad gave me, pee again, then ponder my nose ring in the mirror for a long time, bending my face this way, then that. The swelling has gone down, and my skin isn’t so red and irritated anymore. Stalagmite boogers beg to be explored but I force myself to resist. There are times when it’s okay to pick your nose, and times when it’s definitely not. This is a not time.
Wet tissue in hand, I clean away the thin trace of dried blood that’s crusted around the stud. After pulling my hair back, I gently wash my cheeks and forehead with soap and warm water, not having the energy for a full shower yet. Even the thought of the fast-moving water hitting my throbbing head makes me wince.
I slip on my comfy mesh shorts and a Cascade Family Resort T-shirt with a pair of bears paddling a canoe past a stand of majestic pines. I make myself a cup of coffee in the mini pot and add powdered cream and two sugar packets. Then I sit down in the desk chair, prop my feet up on the edge of Walden’s bed, and stare softly at nothing for a long time. Minutes meander by. I feel…how do I feel? Somehow both better and worse than I did last night. The urge to throw up has finally left town, but all the sickness that was in my stomach last night has moved north and found available real estate in my head, which pulses and throbs like a screw being twisted into tough wood. I know Juliet topped off our grape sodas with vodka more than once, but how much did we have? I must have lost track.
I click on the TV and flip channels for a while. A golf match. A cooking show. A karate movie. I don’t feel like watching TV, though. Click. So, I sit quietly and sip my coffee in the empty room. Eyes closed, breathing slowly, waiting for my headache to turn itself down, which it eventually begins to do, moment by moment, going from a crash to a throb to a dull ache.
I get up and chug some more water and pee yet again, my pee a little less neon yellow and smelly each time. Then, I’m walking out of the bathroom, cinching the drawstring on my shorts, pondering a second cup of coffee when—a song.
It’s the strangest thing. Not there one moment, there the next. A vivid painting in my mind, my mother’s mouth in motion, my mother’s words. Spun around, re-imagined, re-cast.
Drawstring still in hand, I hum a melody low under my breath, not even knowing where it comes from, only that it’s there, mumble-singing ever so softly, “I’m not an ordinary girl. You keep your ordinary world. Ordinary is for other people, but not for us.”
Not US. No. ME. But not for me.
Moving quickly, but not too quickly, as if I have a bubble balanced on the tip of my finger, I pick up Walden’s guitar and sit down on the edge of the bed. Using the white pick threaded through the top three strings, I strum until I find the chords that go with the melody I’ve been singing. The guitar is slightly out of tune, but who cares? A minor. D minor. G major. I’m not much of a guitar player so my chords are pretty chunky and a little sloppy. But I kind of like it that way.
Over and over, I play those chords, messing with the strum pattern, looking for a transition point, a way I can pivot out of this drone. I find it when my fingers stumble on a B diminished chord, then I go from E minor to F major, then to F minor, which opens a back door to cycle back to A minor and where I started.
Humming the melody on a loop so it won’t change shape, or simply drift away into the ether that produced it, stopping only long enough to get my journal out of my backpack, I furiously scribble down the words as they tumble out of my brain, too seized by the moment to even consider messing with the alien musical forces that have taken possession of my body.
I’m not an ordinary girl.
Don’t want your ordinary world.
Ordinary is for all the sheeple.
But not for me.
Sheeple? As in sheep people, I guess. I don’t quite know where that comes from, but it works.
That’s the chorus, then. Good. I scribble down a 1st verse that appears almost fully formed. Images of an endless highway and screaming behind soundproof glass. Of clusters of numb worker bee people scuttling off to offices, of a sliver of color in a black and white world. Then, part of a 2nd verse spills out. A girl on a mountain among the beckoning clouds, drifting above the masses who look up and stare and point as she shrinks and grows, shrinks and grows. What’s happening to me? I’ve tried to write songs before but failed every time. Until right now. I don’t know what’s different, but I don’t care.
Fifteen minutes later, my very first song is done. Well, mostly done. I need to finish the second verse and write a middle eight. But the bubble has popped, and somehow, I know better than to force it. I scrawl ORDINARY GIRL in big capital letters at the top of the page and underline the title twice for emphasis. Boom-boom.
I’m not quite sure what’s just happened, but whatever it was, it felt amazing. I wrote a song. Maybe a terrible song. Maybe not. But a song all the same.
Things I Did for the First Time When I was Fifteen.
Kissed someone.
Pierced my nose.
Wrote my first song.
This is getting good.
Songs are mysterious creatures, and I’ve always wondered where they come from. My mom always says that songs come from hard work. That if you’re willing to sit down and do the work, the songs will come. She sees songwriting like building a house. Materials + work + time = song. My dad sees it differently. More philosophically. His feeling is that all songs already exist out there somewhere, butterflies floating around, and that when one floats by, you have to grab onto it, but gently, so that you don’t crush it. Butterflies, like songs, he believes, are delicate.
I knock repeatedly on the door of the Overland Suite, excited to share “Ordinary Girl” with Juliet, who absolutely has to be the first one to hear it, before remembering that Juliet told me she has an appointment with her therapist until three every Thursday. I go over to the cafeteria in Hobner Lodge and get a cheeseburger, curly fries, and a Coke, which is about the best thing I’ve ever tasted. They gave us a stack of free meal tickets when we got here, and I love passing one over and getting whatever I want in exchange. I dip my fries in ketchup and refill my Coke twice while I scarf down my greasy burger. “Ordinary Girl” keeps playing inside my mind, a tiny jukebox with only one song on it. The rest of the arrangement peeks out from the shadows. Drums. Bass. A second guitar. Harmonies. With two peanut butter cookies wrapped in a brown paper napkin, I take my song and my cookies down to the beach.
Past all the sunbathers and volleyball players. Past the squealing toddlers scampering through shallow water in sodden, droopy diapers. Past all the lifeguard towers and snuggling couples and coolers of soda until I find a quiet spot at the far end of the beach. The only other people nearby are a group of teenagers playing the radio on a boom box. I feel blissfully sun-kissed and anonymous.
We live near Lake Champlain in Vermont, and yet, we don’t spend much time there. My parents turn into hermits when we’re not on the road, recording new music in the studio they built in the back yard, speaking in barely audible grunts for days on end. When we get home from tour, I decide, I’m definitely spending more time at the lake.
Light dances across the surface of Lake Michigan, big as an ocean, stretching out endlessly everywhere it can reach. Now I know why they call them The Great Lakes. Laughter chirps around me. Pleasant but indistinct. Everyone is so happy here. I’ve never seen so many happy people in one place in my life. Ordinarily, happy people are nauseating, but this week, I’m starting to see happiness in a new light. Being happy is good, I’ve decided. Not something to roll my eyes at, something to, dare I say, aspire to?
From somewhere, my name is being called. I turn to see Walden plodding through the sand, coming my way. He drops right down and lands beside me like a bag of potatoes.
“I can’t wait to get the hell out of this place,” he says, hanging his head.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. No.”
Remembering the two cookies I brought, I offer one to Walden. We nibble in sugary silence. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen my brother so down. Even his chewing seems labored. Of the four members of The Cobb Family Band, Walden is no doubt the steadiest. Maybe that’s why he’s the drummer. So, when Walden’s down, you know we’re in trouble.
Though Walden dances around the subject for a few minutes, pretending he’s just tired and tour weary, he eventually explains how he saw Cordelia kissing one of the lifeguards earlier.
“Some huge guy with big muscles.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Why, so she could tell me what a loser I am?”
“You’re not a loser.”
“You know what I mean. What is it with girls? One moment they’re all into you, and then the next minute, you don’t even exist.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I don’t think all girls are like that.”
“You’re just saying that because you are a girl. What are you doing down here anyway?”
“Hanging out.”
“How’s your stomach?”
“What?”
“Dad said you had food poisoning or something.”
“Oh. Yeah. Better. Thanks. What are you doing down here?”
“Looking for you. Dad asked me where you were and none of us knew. We have rehearsal in an hour. Don’t be late, okay. Mom keeps asking me about why you’re late to everything all of the sudden. She’s getting suspicious. It’s special teams today.”
“Special teams? Really?”
Special teams is a stripped-down style of rehearsal that my mom invented where we focus on vocal harmonies, arrangements, sore thumbs, and new songs. One time she tried to explain why she called it special teams, something about football, but I didn’t get it.
“Mom says we need it. She says the harmonies are scrappy. And she wants new songs today, too.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s Mom and she has to do everything the hard way. You know a million songs, just pick one. By the way, did you play my guitar?”
“A little,” I say, panicking, paranoid that I left my journal out. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “As long as you’re careful.” He picks up a handful of sand and hurls it angrily. There’s something else wrong.
“Do you think Mom and Dad are going to get a divorce?” he asks.
“What? No.”
“I heard them arguing again.”
“So? They argue all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I think it might this time.”
“They’re fine,” I say, not really sure if I mean it.
“I don’t know, they seem really tired of each other. Don’t you think?”
I shrug. Isn’t that kind of how married people get eventually?
“Sometimes I want them to split up. But I don’t really. Does that make any sense? I’m just so tired of Dad’s bullshit.”
“Don’t call it that. He’s going to figure it out and get better.”
“You really believe that?”
“Wait, what time is it?” I ask, realizing I’ve forgotten my watch. Again.
Walden checks his. “3:05. Why?”
“Oh my God, I have to go.”
“What? Where?”
“Nowhere!” I say and hurry away, then stop and turn back to my brother. “And forget about Cordelia, okay? You’re too good for her anyway.”
“Thanks, Rainey,” he says, and I take off.
“Rehearsal at four!” he calls after me.
“I know!”
“Do not be late.”
“I won’t.”
Track Seventeen
Nowhere, That’s Where
The first time I stepped into The Overlander Suite, I noticed an acoustic guitar nestled into one of the corners, nearly obscured because it had become a hanging rack for sweatshirts and ballcaps. But after I tune, then use, that guitar to play “Ordinary Girl” for Juliet, I ask her if she’ll play me something in return, remembering how she told me she learned a few songs.
I do this partly out of curiosity, and partly to deflect attention from Juliet’s gobsmacked reaction to the fact that I only wrote “Ordinary Girl” earlier that day.
“Yeah right,” she says. “That would be like Trent Reznor walking up to some idiot in the street, and saying, hey, here’s my amazing new song, now you play me something!”
I don’t admit that I don’t know who Trent Reznor is, but I do insist that she play for me, and eventually, after making me promise five times I won’t make fun of her, she gives in. With almost trembling fingers, her black hair curtaining her eyes, she sings a little bit of “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley in a voice so quiet it’s almost a whisper, strumming her guitar with her thumb. Juliet’s confidence, which is normally so present when we’re together you can almost reach out and grab a handful, disappears when she sings. She’s utterly disarmed, vulnerable in a whole new way that makes me like her even more.
“Okay,” she says, setting down her guitar, “now that that freak show is over, we have to celebrate. Your first song deserves a first.”
“A first what?”
The answer to which is the bottom of Juliet’s tattooed foot.
“Oh no,” I say, but she’s already digging through drawers. An inkwell appears. Then her lighter. Then a pen. “I can’t. My mom will murder me. She almost freaked when she saw my nose ring. A tattoo will put her right over the edge.”
“That’s why you put it in a place where she’ll never see it.”
“Plus, I have to be at rehearsal in a half hour,” I say. “I can’t be late again.”
Juliet waves at the air. “Plenty of time,” she says. She finds a sewing kit and extracts a thick silver needle that she holds up for me to see.
I swallow hard.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yeah, but in a good way.”
Juliet sends me down the hall for ice to numb my foot, and when I come back, in a mirror image of yesterday, she’s waving her lighter flame across the needle’s tip to sterilize it.
As Juliet draws a tiny, perfect star on the heel of my right foot, and then I press the ice hard against my thick flesh, feeling lucky I’m not that ticklish, I wonder: can something hurt in a good way?
I guess I’m about to find out.
• • •
I walk into Evergreen Ballroom at 4:27 trying to hide my slight limp, afraid that with every step I take I’m going to smear the star tattoo that now lives on the heel of my right foot. But, of course, tattoos don’t smear. They last forever. I’m not even sure how many times Juliet dipped the needle in ink and jabbed it into my numb heel, telling me to hold still while I tried to relax, balling up her quilt in my fist and grinding my teeth so hard my jaw screamed. I lost count.
My mom, ever observant, can always be counted on.
“You’re limping,” she says.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. What happened?”
“I twisted my ankle.”
“When?”
“I can’t really remember. I stepped funny or something. Sorry I’m late.”
“So are we. But we’re getting used to it by now.”
“We’ve been working on harmonies in ‘Seven Bridges Road’,” Dad says. “Are you warmed up or do you need a minute?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m ready.”
“Why are you so late?” my mom asks.
“I’m not that late.”
“Late is still late, Rainey Cobb.”
Thank God I don’t have a middle name or I’m sure it would be making an appearance.
“And thirty minutes, by the way, is very late. What were you doing?”
“Does it matter?” Dad says. “She’s here now.”
“Yes, it matters,” Mom says. “I don’t understand this sudden lack of professionalism and I’d like an explanation. It’s disrespectful to everyone here.”
“I’m really, really sorry,” I say, then climb up on stage and plop myself in the one empty seat in the circle next to Walden, who’s straddling a box drum called a Cajon. Practicing harmonies, I’ve learned over the years, is all about physical proximity. That’s the way the Everly Brothers did it. And it’s the way we always do special teams, no matter how we’re feeling about each other. Music comes first in the Cobb family, and you have to be able to watch the mouths of the other singers, hear the intake of their breath, anticipate every note.
Normally my perfectionist’s brain loves the detailed closeness of this process, but the problem is, I don’t want to be here. I’d rather be anywhere else doing anything else.
We’re leaving in two days, and I feel miserable about it. To keep me calm while she tattooed me, Juliet joked that I could stay and live with her family. “Ardelia’s room sits there empty most of the time,” she said. “With so many people coming and going all the time, I doubt my parents would even notice.” Only this doesn’t sound like a joke to me, and I’ve already started concocting an elaborate scheme in my mind that involves me working at the resort, doing odd jobs to earn my keep. Then starting at Juliet’s school in the fall.
