jen x
Author - Julie Butterfield
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Julie Butterfield
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
*****
Chapter 1
Jen stood alone at the bus stop, awkward in the outfit that was perfect last night. In her bedroom mirror, the ironed navy polo and crisp white jeans projected a sense of wealth, something worn by someone whose family owns a boat. But this morning, in the sticky Atlanta humidity, her shirt buckled like an accordion under her backpack straps, and her jeans grazed sloppily under the heel of her topsiders, scuffing the pavement.
The thought of eighth grade was tiresome. There was no wonder, no eagerness to start fresh. She was bored with the limbo of another year in the same school. She had written her locker combination on her notebook, for no reason other than that she was over-prepared: she had had the same locker going on three years now.
A couple of kids trickled out of their houses toward the bus stop. First came Colin, from the next street over, an English boy with a pale complexion and dark curly hair who rarely spoke. He stood about 20 feet away from Jen and faced the opposite direction with his arms folded. The ever-bouncy Cindy walked up, the waft of her Abercrombie and Fitch perfume preceding her body like an aura. Cindy wore a white Belford Cheer t-shirt with snug, faded jeans, and her ponytail was a pendulum when she walked.
Jen used her tongue to maneuver the stuck raisin out of her upper front teeth and then raked her fingers through her bangs. She had thick, brown chin-length hair and had asked the stylist to cut her bangs two days ago. In the vinyl chair at the salon, as the prickly regret turned her face hot and red, her mom overcompensated with "It's so cute, honey! Adorable!" In the car, Jen pulled down the visor to assess the damage in the tiny square mirror. A whole year of growing those things out, wasted on a whim.
As Cindy approached the bus stop, Jen watched her scan her social options and settle for Jen. Cindy asked her, "Did you have a good summer?"
"It was okay. Didn't do much. What'd you do?" Jen asked dutifully. When she realized Cindy could probably hear music leaking from her headphones, Jen regretfully turned the volume down on her iPod.
In one millisecond, Cindy recited, "First we went to Hilton Head and then skiing in Colorado. In July! Can you believe that? We spent the rest of the summer at the beach. I got so fried!" She held out her arm to Jen's comparatively pale one. Jen refrained from saying something sarcastic like, "So I see that the sun's radiation is still effective at charring human flesh."
Jen's summer days stretched on like a 12-disc Civil War documentary. The sluggish months were punctuated by bits of pre-teen experiments like learning to insert a tampon or scrubbing her blackheads so vigorously with a Buf Puf that her skin turned raw. She babysat two toddlers, two days a week, earning money but having nowhere to spend it. Some days she did nothing but eat and watch TV. One afternoon she munched her way through a family-sized bag of Sour Cream & Onion Lay's. (She can not imagine ever being hungry for Sour Cream & Onion anything again.) Mostly, though, Jen was lonely. Her mom worked as a nurse and was gone a lot. Her dad was home, but working in the basement office. She was told not to interrupt him unless it’s a "dire emergency."
Jen was practically an only child these days because her brother, Philip, had gone to college, or somewhere - his absence was shrouded in mystery. Her grandparents lived two hours away, so even they weren’t around to take her for ice cream or to a movie, like other kids’ grandparents seemed to always be doing.
As for friends, Jen had lost them all the year before.
Something happened in sixth grade. One by one, her friends had abandoned her. It wasn't anything obvious, no punching fights or screaming matches. But the people who used to say Hi to her in the halls, now would pass without meeting her eye. The solid evidence that she had been blacklisted came at the end of the year.
Everyone was talking about a party Shawna McGill was having. Even Todd Hale, the kid people made fun of because his pants were always too tight, was invited. The purple invitation everyone seemed to have peeking from their folders or slipping out of their backpacks had appeal in its own right: its embossed graphic shapes, bright orange lettering, and a funky piece of hemp tied at the top promised the world's best party. Each time Jen passed Shawna in the hallway, she let herself get her hopes up that Shawna would stop her, like old times, and tell Jen about her mistake and that the invitation got lost somehow. Jen fantasized about the moment Shawna would say to her "Here it is! I’m so sorry I forgot to give it to you! Please say yes!"
Shawna and Jen used to be best friends. They trick-or-treated together, dumping out their candy in one mutual pile so they could eat from it all night. They'd wake up the next day with fuzzy teeth and start again, ripping open up little Snickers and tiny bags of Skittles. As they got older, they shopped together, tall and athletic Shawna giving Jen advice picking out jeans at PacSun. And Jen introduced Shawna to music, pointing out the riffs and harmonies in new songs.
When Shawna and Jen were developing their friendship, Shawna gave Jen a wooden nickel from an arcade in Las Vegas, a memento from a trip Shawna took with her family. Shawna gave it to Jen with a seriousness, telling her that she had two, one for herself and one for Jen, and they should each keep them forever. Jen put her wooden nickel safely in her nightstand later that evening, and if Jen pulls it, it’s for times when she needs a little comforting or reassurance – like on a night she might have trouble falling asleep. The first time she held it in her palm, she realized its power to calm her. Over the years, the nickel had become a regular source of comfort, Jen reaching for it when she’s worried or scared.
For no reason Jen could fathom, Shawna now acted as if Jen was a stranger to her. Back when things got weird between them, Shawna would say she was busy or didn’t feel good when Jen would call her to go to the mall or to a movie. Last fall, Jen gave up trying after she invited Shawna go to the Highland Place parade.
"Hi, Shawna!" Jen used instant message to ask, enabling her to disguise her sickening unease.
"Hey. What's up."
"Do you want to go to the parade together Saturday? The kid I babysit has a sister who’s juggling. We could get a ton of candy," solicited Jen.
"I'm already going with Emily and Kelsey." Shawna added, "Maybe we'll see you. Text me when you get there."
As the hot sting of humiliation crept up Jen's neck, she remained utterly confused. After Shawna’s snub, Jen ran upstairs to her bedroom and fell on her bed. She wept until her room darkened, at a loss as to what she had done to make everyone turn on her.
With hours of free time and no one to spend these hours with, Jen spent a lot of time outside, under the ancient weeping willow tree in her backyard. The tree’s limbs protected her from the sun’s glare, but the branches were thin enough to allow slats of light to warm her body. It was under that tree, hidden from the rest of the world where she’d suspend her reality. She’d listen and wait for the airplanes as they coursed through the blue sky, the light wind sifting through the weightless foliage, opening up varying views. One by one airplanes would pass overhead, the same amount of time and distance between them. She liked their steady current, and she imagined about the life that went on in the skies above her. Oh, how lucky those passengers are! Wherever they were going, she was envious. They were like babies in womb, being carried to a new experience, a new beginning. They were coming; they were going. The novelty of lifting off the ground and carried to something else gave her a breathlessness verging on tears. Watching the planes crawl across the sky, Jen would grow restless. There were days she’d give anything to be one of the people sitting at the windows, looking down at the earth as it passed below. She saw herself through their eyes, an unlucky person, condemned to idleness, pinned down by gravity.
Jen was brought back to reality by the accelerating groan of the bus as it approached, the sound assembling the prisoners in line. The door swung open, and Jen was the first to climb the steps, her legs heavy with the weight of dread.
For the most part, the first day of school passed uneventfully; even lunchtime was predictable and dull. Belford had a rule of eating at the same table with the kids in your homeroom, so Jen sat next to two girls that didn't seem to hate her. Jen had peeled her orange and plucked the sections out one by one. It was an old orange – unsatisfying. She mashed the pulp in her mouth and tried to look casual as she spit the waxy rind into her napkin. The girls chatted away, discussing their cats: cat toys, cat snacks, breeds. Jen could do nothing but nod, not having a cat herself. Her grandma had one, but she saw her grandma about twice a year. Not enough time to get to know how a cat behaves, certainly not enough exposure to a cat to contribute anything meaningful to the conversation. She reached over and plunked her napkin heavy with an orange’s worth of rind into the garbage can they sat next to and dug around for her peanut-butter sandwich.
Jen enjoyed her 5th period the most. It was Advanced French I, and the teacher was actually French: Madam Binoche, the students were supposed to call her. French came easily to Jen, like math did to some and P.E. to others. She imagined she’d like to teach it herself one day, or at least live in Paris. She imagined her life there. She’d wear her hair in a bob (without bangs) and have a closet full of short wool skirts and knee-hi boots. She’d have dinner parties all the time and there’d be heated discussions about subjects like the movies and art. She’d serve rich French dishes and would know her wines well enough to brag about where she got them, how good quality was, as she unscrewed the cork from the bottles.
The end of final period inevitably came, and the loudspeaker in the room went ding ding ding.
Principal Lancaster warned students about being on time for school, packing nutritious lunches, and other monotonous details. She ended, "And a reminder about Fab 40: there's still room to sign up!"
Reminder?
Lancaster informed that students could opt out of their regular chorus or band classes and sign up for Fab 40, a rock band class. Jen was at full alert.
Rock band?
Mrs. Lancaster reported that there "are only a few openings left, so if anyone is interested, they need to come to the office to sign up immediately."
For four years, since Jen was nine years old and her neighbor taught her how to play "Kum Ba Yah" and "Down in the Valley" Jen’s favorite hobby had been playing guitar. At 10 years old, she saved her newspaper route money to buy an acoustic Fender for $99, on sale at Guitar World. The salesman talked more to her mom than Jen about it being the perfect starter guitar, how the size would be comfortable for Jen’s small arms. Jen counted out the cost of the guitar including the sales tax at the counter, and handed it to the salesman. He tried to sell Jen’s mom a case to go with it. Jen’s mom shrugged and looked over at Jen to answer.
“No, thanks,” said Jen.
“You’re definitely going to want a case,” the salesman said to Jen’s mom.
Jen’s mom bought her a black and white vinyl case to carry her guitar home in. It was much cooler to walk out of the store with that, rather than the cardboard box the guitar came in.
Jen had figured out that she could find the chords to any song on the internet and learn how to play new songs almost as fast as they piled up on her iTunes. If she closed her eyes tight enough, she’d find herself on stage with 3Oh!3 or All Time Low, instead of sitting on her sky-blue bedspread, alone in her bedroom. Since her brother, Philip, is no longer around to pound on the wall and yell, "Shut up in there!" she started to save for an amp.
Dr. Lancaster finished, "Congratulations on a successful first day!" and the speaker went silent. Jen shoved her Geography book and folder in her backpack and lifted it onto her shoulders. Her leg shaking 100 mph, she sat on the corner of her chair, staring at the clock. She wondered if there was time to sign up before she got on her bus. When the bell rang, she shot up to her teacher's desk to ask her if she could stop at the office on her way out to sign up for Fab 40. With a level of concern matching that of a ruminating cow, Mrs. Miller said, "There'll be plenty of time for that in the morning."
Jen’s mom was at work, and she didn’t want to risk calling her dad for a ride. Then it hit her. I'll walk home! The two-mile walk was inconsequential to her compared to this opportunity. Resolute, Jen broke into a walk-sprint to the office.
When she arrived, her enthusiasm deflated like a stuck balloon. Boys - there had to be at least 20 - were bumping and shoving their way to the neon-orange poster: it read Wanted! FAB 40 Musicians. There was a picture of some rock icon, jet-black hair, nose like a witch, pointing his index finger like Uncle Sam. You were supposed to write down your name and your preference to play guitar, voice, bass, or drums. Below the witch, there were two columns for names. The first column was already completely filled in, and the second column was almost full.
Jen held her own among the mob. One by one, a boy would peel off, seeming smug to Jen, while she panicked in silence about the empty lines filling up before it was her turn. There were three empty lines left, and Jen’s shoulders drooped with hopelessness. But then the boy in front her departed with five or six of his friends. Most of them were tagging along, it looked like, not interested in joining. After they left, it was as if the waters had parted and there was a wide-open avenue to the poster. Jen hopped forward and scribbled her name in the slot. Since she had written her name down so fast, Jen stepped back and took a moment to stare at it, to make sure it was legible, and to make sure it was really on there: "Jen Mayhew – guitar." Her tension drained now, replaced by a rising joy. She felt a tap on her shoulder.
"Excuse me. Are you finished?" Becky Custer asked. "My dad's waiting for me."
"Yeah, go ahead. Sorry." Jen snapped out of her daze and stumbled aside She watched Becky sign her name on the orange poster, sandwiching her own name on the list.
"What do you play?" Jen asked, already feeling confident and part of a band.
Becky, still writing, said, "Bass." She wore tattered jeans, tapered so tight at the ankles it was difficult to imagine how she got them over her feet. Becky's black t-shirt was faded and stretched out, as if she didn't seem to care how she looked on the first day of school. She had long, dark red kinky hair, split into two coarse ponytails, resting on her shoulders. The red freckles on the backs of her thick arms seemed three dimensional, angry. She wore the shoes skateboarders liked.
"Maybe we'll be in the same band," Jen said.
Becky grabbed the handle of the door, turned around, and with a cynical smile said, "Of course they’ll put us together. They didn’t even want girls to find out about this."
*****
Chapter 2
Becky’s house was everything that Jen’s wasn’t. There were dogs barking, screen doors slamming, younger brothers and playing Rock Band at full volume. Becky’s dad was an English teacher at the community college. Her mom made pottery and sold it from booths at art fairs like Atlanta’s Dogwood Festival and Decatur’s Spring Fling. Mr. and Mrs. Custer argued a lot – about elections, music, what a word meant – but it was friendly banter, with a tone of teasing.
Books were everywhere: lined in bookcases, piled in stacks in corners, in little pyramids on end tables. Posters in thin black frames dotted the walls in odd places. (On closer examination, a Van Gogh or Matisse strategically covered a foot hole or hid the evidence of an angry fist.) It didn’t seem like anyone cared about cleaning at the Custer house. Tufts of hair and lint accumulated in bathroom corners, and the toilet bowls had a chronic ring of dark. The shower in the main bathroom was littered with empty shampoo bottles, rusty bobby pins staining the porcelain. The kitchen was in a perpetual state of hangover from last night’s dinner with splotches of dried red sauce on the stove, plates with crusty food stacked up next to the sink, the dishwasher display window glaring Clean, a signal for family members to pull their dishes out as needed and close the door.
Becky’s parents were sitting on the couch in the living room. Something on GPB about the stars and cosmos was on tv. But it didn’t look like they were paying attention.
“Billions and billions and billions of stars,” Becky’s dad was saying. He was mocking the show’s host. The corners of his mouth drawn down when he said “billions.”
“Stop it! I want to watch this!” said Becky’s mom. She held her hands up to her ears.
Becky rolled her eyes and mouthed to Jen, “Let’s go.”
Jen giggled. They made their way downstairs.
Becky volunteered her basement for band practice – her brothers loved the idea of a real drum set-up in the basement for the entire year. The plan was that each Wednesday, the four – Michael, Stafford, Jen and Becky – would assemble to spend an hour together. At school, the hour they would have spent in band or chorus was now a study hall, supervised by a teacher who liked to stare at his computer – they could goof off as much as they wanted.
As Becky predicted, the two girls who signed up were in the same Fab 40 group. Becky had invited Jen to ride the bus home with her on their first practice together, and, as they rode behind two squirmy first graders, screaming at top pitch, Becky pointed out the injustice to Jen.
"Mr. Tolly only sent emails to the parents with kids in percussion," Becky said.
"That doesn’t make sense? I mean, I can’t really see that a tuba player would want to be in a rock band," Jen argued.
"Yeah, but all the percussion players are boys. Don’t you see? They didn’t want girls to join."
"I don’t know. Maybe." Then Jen asked, "How did you find out about it?"
"I heard Stafford talking in math. When I asked him about it, he made it sound like everyone already knew. So at lunch, I called my dad and asked him to pick me up after school so I could sign up."
Jen knew from having Becky in classes before that Becky seemed perpetually riled about something, and that Becky would get especially upset when she thought girls were treated unfairly. Last year, Becky had passed around a petition to fix the inequity of P.E. (The girls were learning aerobics while the boys were learning how to wrestle.) Becky’s argument was that there were more opportunities for sports scholarships and that aerobics purpose was to serve to make women thinner and look sexier for men. The top of the petition read: Equal Opportunities for All!
Becky and Jen had the same English class, and they were reading Of Mice and Men. Their teacher, Mr. Malley, had smooth cheeks, and he dressed more like a high school kid than a teacher, with his leather Clarks and long-john shirts. Becky raised her hand a lot and argued with him. Her latest Mice and Men argument concerned Curly’s wife.
"Mr. Malley, Curley’s wife doesn’t even have a name."
"Becky, it’s important to understand the general idea of the book, not get caught up in the tiny issues," Mr. Malley explained.
"I don’t see how not giving a woman a name is a tiny issue, Mr. Malley. If a black author only gave the black characters names, you’d find that offensive, right? Would you make your class read that book?"
Mr. Malley had a habit of rubbing his forehead when he was agitated. "Point taken," he said, looking to Jen like he had brain freeze. "Ok, let’s move on."
And while Becky’s cheeks were spotted with patches of red, and it seemed like the entire class was annoyed with her, Jen had a growing sense of awe. While most students seemed oblivious to things like Curly’s wife not having a name, Becky jumped on it, proving that the teacher isn’t always right. The teacher might need to learn some things, too. And instead of listening to her classmates take turns reading sections out loud out of the book, Jen’s mind wandered to all the books they were forced to read that were by male authors. How many female authors has she read in school? She had trouble thinking of any, until she remembered Lois Lowry and felt better.
Jen and Becky walked off the bus to Becky’s large split level house on a rural road, that was dotted with the occasional house, separated by large plots of unused land. It was 3:30, and Michael and Stafford would be at Becky’s house at 4:00. Jen had looked forward to this week’s practice like a kid standing at the side of the pool on the first day of summer, waiting for the lifeguard to blow the whistle. The screen door creaked like rusted machinery when Becky pulled the handle. She moved her arm in an exaggerated sweeping gesture for Jen to go ahead of her.
Becky pointed at the tiny kitchen table, signaling to Jen to sit down. Jen couldn’t decide which chair would be the least likely to stain her jeans. The chairs had various globs of substances on them, like grape jelly and something wet and blue (dish soap?). She picked the one that looked the least sticky. She stifled her urge to brush away the crumbs on the table.
Becky reached in her refrigerator and grabbed a cold piece of chicken, bit off a huge chunk and asked with chicken in her cheek, "What are you hungry for?"
"I don’t care. What do you have?"
"Hm. Hold on."
At once, Jen’s nostrils filled up with the scent of something oily and rotted. It reminded her of the swelteringly hot day she rode her bike past a dead opossum. It was the dead of summer, the kind of day when even the birds seem depressed, perched on their wires, wondering what the point is in flying around. The smell of the dead opossum had hit her like a wave – she imagined a zig-zag green line above the carcass, like what they do in comics when they want you to know something stinks. Becky’s refrigerator smelled like riding past that dead opossum.
"Do you have any potato chips?" asked Jen.
Mr. Tolly, their Fab 40 teacher, had instructed the groups to agree on a band name and learn "Louie Louie" for a school performance in December. Mr. Tolly warned them that coming up with a band name could be either a bonding experience or make them “fight like pitbulls.” In Becky’s dank basement, Jen and Michael sat on the sofa that had a mixed odor of damp dog and flea collar. Becky and another band member, Stafford, sat across from them, on two mismatched folding chairs. One was olive green, and the other was a steel gray. They reminded Jen of the kind of furniture you’d sit on at a banquet. The four were awkward in their new togetherness. There was a wood coffee table separating them that held a purple and blue pottery ashtray, a New Yorker dated 1999, and a pink plastic bowl of Bugles. The air was thick with the salty, corn smell. Everyone except for Becky picked at the Bugles, one at a time. But Becky had grabbed fistfuls, the pointy ends peeking out in between her fingers, and pushed them into her mouth. The debris from what missed her mouth accumulated on her clothes until she absentmindedly plucked her shirt in the middle to fling the crumbs off, and brushed off the front of her jeans. Through email, the group had narrowed their band-name list down to their individual top choices:
Black Bandera
Dead VPs
Checkerboard
Rock Envy
After swallowing what must have been a large, hard clump of Bugles, Becky argued for her favorite. "My mom still wears her old Black Flag t-shirt all the time. They were cool – punk. Bandera’s Spanish for flag."
A could-be poster boy for ADD, Stafford, with wide buggy eyes, boasted that he shopped at Journeys for his shoes, so Checkerboard, for checkerboard Vans, was his idea. "It’d be so cool!" His permanent grin became even wider. "Everyone would know we’re named after Vans!"
Becky stared straight ahead at Jen with her unblinking green eyes. Jen knew by now this straight-faced stare meant Becky was making fun of something. Jen fought to keep from laughing out loud.
Michael weakly defended his suggestion of Rock Envy. "My older brother goes to open mics and there’s a band he likes. They call themselves Blues Envy. We’re a rock band, so…." He shrugged his shoulders and looked down at the gold-specked linoleum.
Jen suggested, "Why don’t we write the names on a piece of paper and put them in a Stafford’s hat. We’ll make one of Becky’s little brothers pick one."
Becky and Stafford nodded. Michael, again with the shoulder shrugging. Jen couldn’t help but notice Michael wasn’t as nice to her as he was with Becky and Stafford. Little things like passing the bowl of Bugles around – he offered the bowl to Becky and Stafford before he put it back on the table but not to Jen. He never looked at her, as if she wasn’t there.
Stafford removed his Element baseball cap, his spiky brown hair somehow still standing tall, and handed it to Jen. Becky dragged her nine-year-old brother, Gavin, downstairs and gripped his arm so he’d stay still while Jen scribbled out the four names on a notebook. Jen folded the torn pieces, and put them into Stafford’s hat. Becky held it up over Gavin’s head and said, "Grab just one."
Gavin reached in and unfolded one. He squinted his eyes and mumbled through his wide grin, "Rock Enmee…." He dropped the piece of paper and flew back upstairs.
Stafford gave a clap and said, "There it is!" Michael acted like someone just told him the weather. If he was happy his choice was picked, he didn’t show it. Jen offered him a smile to acknowledge his win, but he wouldn’t look up at her.
Rock Envy. They had a name. And now they had five weeks to learn and perform "Louie Louie." No one had heard of it, except Michael. He said it was an old song from the 50s, by the Kingsmen. Jen suggested that everyone buy it from iTunes, and there was a mutual agreement with nodding.
At their second week of practice, Becky and Jen waited in the kitchen for Michael and Stafford to show. Becky pushed handfuls of salt and vinegar chips, straight from the bag, into her mouth. Crumbs stuck to her brick red t-shirt.
The two of them passed the time talking about music. Jen learned that Becky had a lot of the same favorites. They both agreed that All Time Low was becoming too mainstream (hence, uncool), that they’d definitely go to the Vans Warped Tour next summer. Jen was too timid to suggest going together, yet. Jen wished she would have known Becky before this year. Had she realized there was this nugget of pure happiness right here, in this girl, the last couple of years would have been a lot more tolerable.
When Michael and Stafford showed up, the four traveled downstairs. Becky and Jen pulled their instruments out of their cases, and dug their music out of their Fab 40 folders and put it on the music stand Becky’s dad had found in their attic. Michael examined his drum set. (His dad had helped him set it up the prior weekend.) Stafford talked non-stop, about making posters of Rock Envy on Photoshop, having a photo session, about needing a microphone when they were plugged into their amps at school.
Becky struggled with how to hold her bass (it was her dad’s from his college days, and it was much too large) and how to plug it into the amp. She looked ashamed when she announced, "I really have no idea how to play this thing." Michael had been behind his drum set, looking bored, but he rose to guide Becky through her bass part.
“My brother taught me how to play just about everything,” Michael said. “He’s a music major.”
Despite the weathered pages of the music, it was as if this was Becky’s first time looking at it.
Michael was patient. "You only need to use your first and third fingers on the A and E strings. It’s 3/4 time so three hits with your thumb at a time, harder on the first, like One-two-three. One- two-three. Think of the bass part as like a pulse." He walked back behind his drums, and with his foot he lightly hit the bass drum pedal to illustrate the sound.
Becky chanted with him "One-two-three." Jen and Stafford stood idly, Jen smiling a little to comfort Becky in her spotlight moment.
Becky had a semi-ok rhythm going. She repeated the pattern a few times, messing up quite a bit, but managing to get enough notes right to give off a semblance of one day getting it right. Stafford interrupted, "Ok. Let’s see how Jen does."
Jen’s expression turned serious. She slid her woven purple guitar strap more securely onto her shoulder, took her thin guitar pick out from between her teeth, and, hands trembling, downswept her A chord to make sure she was in tune. She moved to D and then gathered a full rhythm. Down-down-up-up-down cycling the chords of the song: A/D/Em/D. Jen knew the sound was forced, too mechanical. So she inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled out her mouth because she read that this helped with stage fright. She kept playing, looking down at her guitar for no reason other than nerves. Out of the blue, Stafford began to sing: “Louie Louie, OH NO! Me gotta go….” He was confident – he had lost that constant smirk of his! – and he had a nice gravelly sound when he sang. No one would ever guess that this lanky, goofy kid would sing like that. Jen grew optimistic that the four of them could really impress an audience.
She forgot that she was playing now, her left hand fingering the chords on autopilot, her right arm strumming to the beat, watching Stafford sing. Stafford looked back at Michael on drums, and, as if that was his cue, Michael came in softly on snare drum, one-handed. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Becky, face flushed and eyes wide, hit a note here and there. Jen fell headlong into the sweet moment. All that existed were this basement, these four people, and this song.
Time had passed unnaturally fast, when Michael stopped playing and said, "Ok, you guys. We gotta wrap it up." He pulled his cell phone from his front pocket and began texting. Jen and Becky wordlessly put their instruments in their cases. Stafford resumed his smirky grin, starting bopping his head a little.
“That was cool! I already know the lyrics by heart.” Stafford boasted. Jen nodded, as if the song came easily to her, too. Although she had been studying it compulsively since the day Mr. Tolly told them what it was.
“Yeah, maybe if we had a different singer, we’d be awesome,” teased Becky.
Stafford grabbed Michael’s drumstick off the drum and poked the air near Becky. “You better knock it off!” shrieked Becky. He whacked her leg. She giggled and then whined "Owww," rubbing it, exaggerating how much it hurt. He poked the stick near her leg, threatening her some more. She turned her back and hugged herself, out of mock fear. Stafford accidentally poked her butt cheek.
"That was total accident! I did not mean to hit you there." Stafford looked away and scrunched his eyes shut, as he pointed to Becky’s butt with the drumstick.
Jen burst out laughing, bending over, holding her stomach. Becky started to laugh, too. The two of them egged each other on – looking at each other and giggling again.
The dogs, big blonde labs – Webster and Roger – had come down to see what was so funny. Roger held a tennis ball in his mouth. Jen twisted the ball out of his mouth and threw it gently to the other side of the room. Roger took off after it, tail wagging. Webster, not interested in the ball, curled up on the floor, lifted his leg, and began to lick his crotch. This started a new wave of laughing between the four of them – even Michael’s shoulders were shaking. Stafford made a face like he was disgusted and made comments like, “Sick!” and “Man, he’s flexible!”
Becky stopped laughing. She yelled at Webster to go upstairs. She yelled at Webster to go upstairs, but he remained, his rhythmic slurping noises the only sound in the room. Stafford looked at Becky and shrugged his shoulders, as if to mock her efforts. So Becky, a little louder, screamed, “Cut it out, Webster!”
Stafford said, “Aw, c’mon. He’s just cleaning himself. Leave ‘em alone,” he said, laughing. He held up the drumstick and pretended to lick it.
“Eww! Stafford, you are sick!” Becky was laughing when she needled back. “You are such a perv!”
Michael and Stafford froze. It was as if Becky had shouted an obscenity in a church. The boys were motionless, expressionless, except Stafford’s jaw had dropped a little. Bewildered, Jen asked, “What?!”
The personality had been vacuumed out of the air. Both the boys busied themselves, gathering up their things. Then Stafford ran up the steps, yelling over his shoulder, “My mom’s here."
Michael rose from behind the drum set and said, "Yeah, mine, too,” and was gone.
Becky and Jen sat in stunned silence as the porch door slammed twice in fast succession. The dogs followed the boys out, barking their dismay at their guests’ departure.
“What the hell?” said Becky. But the look on her face was of certainty. A look Jen recognized from her teachers, when someone guessed wrong after raising his hand. A patience, waiting for the other person to figure it out.
Jen shrugged. “I have no idea. That was truly weird. My dad’s probably waiting, anyway, so I guess I’ll see you later.” Jen didn’t move.
“You know…” And Becky hesitated a little before she said, “they probably freaked out because of your brother.”
“Philip?”
“Uh huh. When I said that Stafford was a perv.’”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What does my brother have to do with anything?”
“You’re kidding, right?"
*****
Chapter 3
Jen remembers the police coming to her house in the middle of the night. She had been dreaming about a piece of chocolate cake with layers and layers of white cream, when the doorbell rang. She could hear the voice of two men talking with her parents. She peeled off her flannel comforter and stepped out of bed, the rush of frigid winter air sweeping up under her gown. She walked down the steps and peered around the corner to see what was happening. She saw men in police uniforms hulking over her parents in the foyer. All of their tones were somber and a little urgent. Her parents were answering questions – they were being asked about Philip. Did they know where he was? (“Yes, in bed!” said Jen’s mom.) Were they aware that Philip had the propensity for this kind of behavior? Jen remembers not knowing what that word meant. The men asked her parents if they could please go get Philip.
Jen tiptoed back to her room and sat on the edge of her bed, eyes wide, mouth open as if to ask a question. She heard silence except for her mom’s slippers on the hardwood, headed to Philip’s room. Then she heard her mom cry in the next bedroom, “Philip! You’re in your coat!”
Jen stayed hidden and heard the scuffling of Philip and her mom headed back to the entryway.
Jen had plucked the wooden nickel from her nightstand drawer and held it in her palm while she listened down the hallway. There were more questions, this time directed at Philip. Her mom told Philip to raise his voice, that he was mumbling. Jen could picture Philip, hunched over with his hands in his pockets, refusing to cooperate. He had been acting so stubborn lately, not talking at the dinner table, slamming doors, turning his music up too loud in his bedroom. Instead of Philip playing games with her – she loved beating him at Sorry – or tickling and wrestling with her, all she got was the maddening thump of the bass on his stereo on her bedroom wall.
“Which one of you will come with us to the station?” one of the policemen asked. Jen’s mom must have offered with a show of a hand or a nod because there was no audible response.
“Ok, Mrs. Miller, go ahead and get dressed. We’ll wait.”
“Son, go grab your camera. We’re going to need to see what you have on there.”
“Huh? There’s nothing on there.” Philip said.
“Son,” said one of them, “you know what we’re talking about, right? Don’t make this any harder.”
“Well, I’ll go see if I can find my camera, but I swear there’s nothing on it.”
Jen heard a little movement – the arm of Philip’s coat being grabbed? – and then “No, son. Let your mom get it. Tell her where it is.”
“Why? I don’t even know where it is to tell her where it is!” Jen recognized his phony voice, the one he used when he was lying. She knew it well.
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
Her brother’s voice was so low Jen couldn’t make it out, but the next thing that happened was her mother walking down the hallway, past Jen’s doorway. Jen rubbed the nickel with the pad of her thumb and then heard the airy metal sound of desk drawers being opened and shut. Jen’s mom emerged back in the hallway, carrying Philip’s camera.
Jen heard one of the policemen say, “Based on your neighbors’ complaints, we believe he’s been doing this for several months,” and “We were able to track his footprints because of the fresh snow.” It rarely snowed in Georgia – Jen didn’t even know it had.
At the time, Jen thought it odd that the mention of snowfall didn’t excite her. Normally, she’d snap to fantasies about school being cancelled, wondering how far buried under basement miscellany her sled was (if you could call it a sled – it was a piece of square plastic her mom had picked up at an Big Lots when Jen was a baby). Instead, now, at this mention of snow, she saw it as the bad guy, the reason her brother got “caught.” Caught doing what, she didn’t know.
The following morning, after the police had come to her house and taken her brother, Jen had lain awake in her bed for a while before getting up. Her dad had come in her room the night before after everyone had gone. She could see his silhouette on the wall from the doorway. But she pretended to sleep, and he left after a few seconds, anyway. She wasn’t ready to face whatever trouble Philip was in. Besides, it could wait until morning.
She lay there, working to convince herself that what happened the night before was real, not a dream. She was nervous to face whatever the morning held, daylight forcing it on her. But she was sick of lying there, when her mind was swirling with energy.
The first thing she noticed was how quiet the house was. There was no banging around, no stereo bass – the hallway bathroom that she and her brother shared didn’t have Philip’s Axe deodorant smell and the mirror wasn’t fogged up with shower steam. Philip was always the first one up, hogging up the bathroom before she got out of bed.
She found her mom in her gray sweatpants, not her nurse’s uniform, sitting at her computer in the living room. Jen said, “Hi, Mom,” but her mom didn’t budge. So Jen approached her and tapped her on the shoulder. Jen’s mom startled. She let out a small “Oh!” and then turned around and hugged Jen with such ferocity, Jen got scared. The weird aura of the morning intensified because, as Jen got ready for school, Jen’s mother didn’t mention that Philip was missing. Jen had peeked in Philip’s blackened room, just to be sure, and saw no one, just a bed with rumpled covers.
Jen’s instinct warned her that it would not be a good idea to ask her mom about the police visit and where Philip was. She left the responsibility up to her parents, who were probably just waiting for a good time to tell her. But everyone was ignoring that her brother was gone, that there were policemen here the night before. It made everything ever weirder that her parents were pretending that it was a regular morning.
Her curiosity won out when she was finished getting dressed. As she passed her dad in the hallway, she asked, “Where’s Philip?”
“Oh, he, uh…”
“Because he’s not in his room,” Jen said, to let her dad know that she recognized things were not normal.
“He had to go in early,” he said.
“He did?” Knowing her dad was lying, Jen pressed a little. “Because I thought I heard some noises last night. And it doesn’t even look like Philip slept here last night. The bathroom isn’t messy, either, and it’s always really messy when he gets out.”
“He spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa’s,” Jen’s mom said from the living room. Jen looked at her dad who was staring into his coffee cup. He headed to the living room, and Jen followed.
“Grandma and Grandpa’s? But they’re, like, two hours away. Will he go to school?” Jen asked.
Jen’s mom swiveled her desk chair around to face Jen, but she ignored the question.
“Yes, he’s at Grandma and Grandpa’s for a few days. He wanted to visit them, and we said it was alright.”
Had they not seen her peeking around last night? Did they really think she stayed in bed through all that? Why was everyone being so secretive? But Jen played along. If they felt like talking to her about it, they would have. She followed their lead and played dumb.
“I’m surprised we have school today. Didn’t it snow last night?” Jen asked.
“It’s already melted,” was all Jen’s dad said, staring out the window, as if there was something to see out there, something more important than what was going on inside the house.
Jen grabbed a chocolate chip Clif bar out of the snack bowl, hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders, and kissed her mom and dad goodbye. She stepped out into the brisk air, the little bit of snow left on the lawn sparkled under the light of the street lamps, mocking her panic.
When she got home that afternoon, her parents pretended like nothing had changed, that Philip’s absence was the most normal thing in the world. When Jen dared to ask about Philip again, they changed the subject.
Jen saw her brother shortly afterwards but for one day, which he spent doing laundry, digging a suitcase out from the basement, gathering up books, his bathroom supplies, and whatever else he thought was important enough to carry out of the house for a long time. Why else would he need his winter coat and his raincoat? He seemed too busy to talk to Jen. She knocked on his door a couple of times, but he didn’t answer.
Her parents kept the story simple and short, telling her that he had been accepted to a pre-college program in Cincinnati. She could write to him if she wanted to. Jen was too befuddled to ask any questions beyond that. The situation seemed final, unchangeable, and her parents and Philip seemed set on a path that didn’t involve her. She accepted what her parents said and realized that she would be the only child in the house for a long time.
When Becky told Jen why Michael and Stafford freaked out, the snowy evening of Philip’s arrest rushed back to her memory. Obviously, Philip did something awful that night. Becky told her she didn’t want to be the one to tell her about what she knew – “Who knew how much was rumor and what was true,” she said – so Becky insisted that Jen talk with her parents.
The ride home from band practice was silent. Jen was unsure how to approach her dad with her questions. She blasted her iPod, barely noticing the music, trying to formulate her questions. When they got home, her dad said, “Dinner will be ready in a little while,” and he headed downstairs. She knew she was going to discuss this with him tonight. Over dinner? She played Café Blitz on the computer, listening for signs of her dad coming back up. She heard him laughing on the phone. She pictured his face with that plastered salesman simper, ready to guffaw in that ridiculous way that he did when he was trying to get someone to trust him. The savory warm smell of dinner poured out of the kitchen; her dad would be pulling a pot roast out of the oven any minute.
An idea struck Jen that was so obvious, so perfect, that she couldn’t believe she didn’t think of it earlier. She toggled over to her mom’s account and typed in her password (her mom had given it to her once, so Jen could use her Amazon account). Jen opened her mom’s email and scrolled around the sent box for any clues. She had gone all the way back to January of 2006, the month the police were at her house. She searched the subject lines for her brother’s name, and she searched the addresses for people who her mom would tell a secret to. A surge of adrenaline shot up her spine when she found an email to her mom’s best friend, Janet. The subject line was “Philip’s Latest.” Jen didn’t hesitate to open it.
Janet,
Thanks for calling the other day. Richard is more distant than ever, and I’m not really talking to anyone else about this right now.
I got a copy of the police report today. Some other families have added their complaints – how could he have gotten away with this for so long? I’ve written to a few of the families with an apology – there are really no appropriate words.
For now, Philip’s at Metro Regional, and will probably get his GED there.
I’ll let you know what happens as it happens. Talk with you soon.
Madison
Jen was suspended in her discovery. She forgot she was in her mom’s email, forgot to listen for her dad coming upstairs, and re-read her mom’s email over and over and would have read it over and over if not for her Dad pulling her into the moment.
“Jen, it’s dinnertime.” She could hear the creaking of the basement stairs. “Your mother wanted me to make sure you ate a good dinner tonight.”
“Uh. Ok, Dad,” Jen said. And with a courage she normally didn’t possess, she hit the print button. As the printer whirred, Jen closed out of that folder and switched back to her account. She grabbed the email off the printer and ran up to her bedroom and shoved it under her pillow. “I’ll be there in two seconds, Dad.”
At their tiny dining table, Jen’s mind raced to the beat of her dad clinking his fork, sawing his knife. Jen stared at an ant making its way up the leg of the table. This must be why everyone hates me. This is why no one will come over anymore. At the table, her dad asked questions, like, “What will you go as for Halloween this year?” and “What new French words have you learned?” He was attempting to be fatherly, but the all-is-well atmosphere irritated her, fueling her frustration. Jen couldn’t stand the phoniness of it. She took her eyes off the ant and zeroed in on her dad. She resolved that – tonight – she was going to get the full story.
“Dad, Becky told me something today.” Jen smashed her and carrots flat with the back end of her fork, until they looked like bumpy orange pancakes.
“Hm? What’d Becky have to say? Her parents have been very nice about using her basement,” he said.
Jen’s voice quivered when she said “that Philip might have something to do with being a pervert or something. She didn’t want to tell me anything else, though.” She looked up at her father, to get his reaction. Then back at the ant, which had found its way to the tabletop. Jen used the side of her palm to whisk it off the table, its body disintegrating, instead. She looked back at her dad.
He had stopped chewing, his face was as still as if he was posing for a portrait, staring at their wallpaper. He bowed his head to his plate and speared a potato chunk with his fork. For a terrifying few moments, he stayed like that, while Jen stared, determined. She knew he deserved the respect of constructing his response, but it was agony waiting for him to deliver it. He then laid his knife and fork down on his plate, and looked up at her with tired eyes. His perfectly parted brown hair, contrasting his saggy jowls and unshaven cheeks.
“Jen, it’d be better if you talked about this with your mom. She’ll be home in a little while.”
“Dad, why can’t you tell me?”
“It’s just that, um, well, your brother got into some trouble a while ago, and we didn’t want to….”
“Didn’t want to what, Dad? Didn’t want to tell me what everyone else in my school seems to know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Who could know about that?” Jen’s dad seemed genuinely confused. As if he thought this whole mess with Philip was a tightly vaulted secret.
“What he do?” Jen pressed. She considered grabbing the printed email, but wanted to see what he’d say.
“Why don’t we wait until your mom’s here, and we can all discuss it together.” By now, he had put his napkin on his plate, his hands perched on the table, threatening to push his chair away and duck out of this discussion.
Jen said, “If Philip’s some kinda perv or something…”
“Jen, you don’t go to jail for being a pervert…” Jen’s dad inhaled deeply, as if to collect his composure, “so I just think it’d be better if we waited to talk about this until your mother comes home.”
“Well, what did he do?” she snapped. She didn’t realize she was angry, until her voice got louder. All the problems she had with her friends like Shawna, the way Michael couldn’t look at her, the utter loneliness she had experienced for so long, was bottlenecking, threatening to pop. Her dad was making it worse, trying to bury the issue.
He leaned back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling, his arms folded. He sighed slowly and Jen could hear a tremble in it.
It occurred to her that his speechlessness was fear.
He’s scared to talk with me about this.
“Dad?”
Silence.
She got up from the table, stacked his plate on top of hers, and walked into the kitchen. She loaded the plates into the dishwasher in silence. She thought about her dad’s resistance to discuss this with her and saw him in a new light. His inability to face this head-on with her, to not tell her about Philip two years ago when it happened, and to not tell her even now when she confronted him, put her dad in a new light. She couldn’t figure out why she felt sorry for him, why all the sudden he seemed smaller and frail, but this side of him, this pitiful and weak side to him, unnerved her.
Her dad had the audacity to speak up when it came to the dishes.
“Leave the pot roast and vegetables in the pan for mom. She’ll be home in an hour.”
Like dinner matters, Dad.
With her music on low and her French book open to a random page, Jen sat on her bed, struggling to wrap her mind around what was going on. As a habit, Jen pulled the knob on her nightstand drawer to peek at the wooden nickel. She lifted it into her palm. She waited for her tension to subside, for the familiar reassurance. But none of it came. Its weight in her hand was too light. The markings embedded in the coin were faded. There was even a crack starting. She began to doubt its powers: Why am I still holding onto this stupid thing? She tossed it back in her drawer.
A myriad of possibilities about Philip developed in her mind. She was gnawing on her pencil, soothed a little by the familiarity of the mild wood chip smell. She was making herself crazy with the possibilities of what her brother had done.
It was nearly eleven o’clock – Jen was usually sound asleep by then – when she heard the garage door roll open – her mom was home, later than usual. Her mom would come in to her bedroom; it was a ritual. She stacked her pillows and backed into them. With her arms folded, she waited.
Usually, her mother took the time to change out of her nurses outfit, talk with her dad a little, but Jen heard a soft knock on her door almost immediately after the garage door closed.
“Hi, Mom.”
Jen’s mom entered the bedroom. Her face was ashen, her brown eyes glassy and tired. She sat down and yanked at the plastic headband she used to keep her frizzy hair of her face and played with it in her hands.
“Jen, your Dad called me on my way home. He told me you two talked about Philip.” Jen’s mom leaned in to hug Jen. Jen didn’t feel like hugging, but she hugged back, anyway, feeling impatient. Finally, Jen’s mom let go.
“Yeah, he didn’t tell me much, though,” said Jen. She tried her best to hide the disdain from her voice. When Jen got snarly, her mom’s response was to get snarly back. Jen didn’t want to endanger what information her mom was willing to share with her.
“Philip’s been in Canton at a, um, a sort of jail for kids. He got into trouble – you don’t need to know all the details, but….”
“Mom, people at school know all the details. How could you not tell me….”
“Those people like to gossip, Jen.”
“So that crap about him being at a school up North, that was all a lie?”
“We thought it’d be better to protect you from….”
“Can you please just tell me what he did?”
Jen’s mom slumped, her back rounded, like an old lady’s. She was silent, too, like her dad at the table. The seconds slowed down to that weird space in time when you realize you’re in a moment that you’ll never forget.
“Mom?”
“Jen, Philip was sneaking out at night. He’d go around the neighborhood and, um, he’d watch people from outside their windows. He was, uh, interested in, um, what people were doing in their houses.”
“A peeping Tom?”
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