Archives

At first, when I heard the crackly voice over the PA calling my name, I thought I might be hallucinating.  Over the last thirty days, I’d flown to Boston, to Cincinnati, to New York; I’d explained to dubious airport officials that a French horn was a musical instrument and that no, my conical wooden mute was not for cheerleading.  I was starting to hear my audition pieces in car alarms and the inflections of people’s voices.

The day before the ten-minute audition that would determine the rest of my life, I wanted to go straight home from school, listen to a few Beethoven symphonies, and eat a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream.  Instead, I was called to the principal’s office.

The stares and giggles of my classmates alerted me that the scratchy PA voice was real. “Iris Clark,” it repeated, “please report to the principal’s office.  Iris Clark.  Please report now.”

I sighed and shuffled toward the office, jealous of everyone else bolting for sunny freedom beyond the school’s doors.  Even a few minutes’ delay felt like a terrible imposition after a full day of imprisonment.

Mrs. LaFolle was waiting for me.  She was wearing a navy blazer and a sheer ivory blouse with a tie at the neck. Her brittle smile looked like it might crack and drop off her face.

“Hello, Iris,” she said, folding her hands primly on her desk.

“What is it?”

I dreaded what she would say.  Although I’d done nothing wrong, she had hated me ever since I missed the National Honor Society induction for a Youth Philharmonic rehearsal.

“Well, Iris.”  She shuffled some papers and pretended to study them.  “It appears that you’ve missed nine days of school so far.  Tomorrow will be your tenth absence.”

“Yeah, I’m auditioning for music schools.  My mom called.  Didn’t you get her message?”

Mrs. LaFolle looked at me over her glasses.  “If any student has ten unexcused absences, that student automatically gets five points docked from their average in each class.”

I inched forward to the sharp edge of my chair, clenching my fists in my lap.  “But this is for college.  My mom called.  How is that unexcused?”

“If it’s an optional activity,” Mrs. LaFolle said, “it’s not excused.”

“Auditions are not optional.  Not for schools like Juilliard and Eastman.”

“It’s simply my duty to inform you of the consequences,” Mrs. LaFolle said serenely.  It was clear from her tone that she didn’t know what Juilliard was, nor did she care to learn.

I felt like an empty glass that had been filled with hot lava.  If I sat in that office for one more second, molten rage would come spilling out my eyeballs.

“If you dock my grades for this,” I said, standing up and heading for the door, “My parents are going to sue.”

I drove home faster than I should have, blasting the angry part of Beethoven’s Fifth as loud as my speakers would go.  My car hurtled down the curves of the narrow road, past the organic dairy farm and the golf course, past the driveways and mailboxes and chemically-enhanced lawns.  I hated this little town, hated it, hated it.  I wanted desperately to leave.  I couldn’t stand its provincial inhabitants, its five churches, its tiny library that never had the books I wanted.  Its bland adults were flattened mediocrities: helicopter moms, doughy dads, teachers who’d gone to Norton High and come right back to reign over students asleep at sticky desks.  I vowed never to succumb.  I would never be downtrodden and pale.  I would always be like Beethoven, steeped in art, shaking my fist at the thundering sky.

It was outrageous and unfair that Mrs. LaFolle should occupy any sliver of my mind.  But I thought of her disdainful face as I vomited my lunch in the music building bathroom, just one hour before my audition.  As I retched, I held back my own hair, trying not to splatter my audition blouse.  Once my stomach was empty, I stared at the toilet in dismay.  I felt sorry for the delicious lunch I’d eaten a little while ago.  Mom had taken me to a cafe with blue gingham tablecloths and the menu written on chalkboard.  The seared sirloin steak, mashed potatoes, and brownie should have been the perfect thing to eat before the taxing task of playing the horn.  Now their service had been rendered vain.

I stood up, feeling cold.  There was a damp patch on my back where I’d been sweating.  My throat ached and my teeth were coated in sour residue.  I felt weak and shaky.  I didn’t know how I’d lift my horn in this state, especially not to perform difficult music in front of strangers.

I checked my phone.  There were still thirty minutes before the audition—just enough time to wolf a granola bar and brush my teeth.  It would be rushed, but that was better than playing on an empty stomach.

I exited the bathroom stall and spotted Juliet Jaeger, my ex-best friend, standing at the sink.  I’d hoped to get through audition season without seeing her—a foolish hope, given that we both played horn.

Juliet’s back was to me.  I darted my eyes toward the door, wondering if I could escape without confrontation.  But it was too late.  By the way she adjusted the mess of curls hanging down her back, with a little too much of a theatrical touch, I could tell she’d heard me.

I moved to leave, but she spun around.  She was wearing tight black pants, heels, and a black long sleeve blouse with a strip of sheer fabric at the top.  Her hair was messy yet alluring, and she had put on dark, smudgy makeup around her eyes.  She gave me a sinister smile.

“You didn’t strike me as a purger.”

I stiffened at her insinuation.  “I ate something bad.”  Immediately I hated that I felt the need to explain to her.

She laughed.  “Right.”

I decided not to let her affect my behavior.  I marched up to the sink next to hers and washed my hands, resisting the urge to rinse my mouth.  As I turned to go, my eyes snagged on her growing smirk.  She was staring at my chest.

I looked down and saw that, despite my efforts, some vomit had spattered on the front of my audition blouse.  Not bothering to dry my hands, I strode out of the bathroom, pretending that I still had some claim to dignity.

The horn auditions were held in a small classroom.  The student desks had been pushed to one side.  The blackboards had musical staves printed on their surface, ghosts of semi-erased notes floating amidst the lines.  A few bookshelves held tattered theory texts and busts of famous composers.

The horn teacher sat in a chair on one side of the room, one lanky leg crossed over the other.  He smiled at me as I moved toward the chair in the center of the room.  It was a plastic scooped chair with a dip in the center, the kind I hated.  It would be impossible to sit flat in it like I needed to.

“Hello, Iris,” the teacher said.  “Play some notes, empty your slides.  Get comfortable.”

I lowered myself into the chair, perching uncomfortably on the edge.  I worked my valves a few times, all four of them in quick succession.  Although it had never happened, I was terrified that one of my valves might stick during an audition.  I lifted my horn and played a few notes.  There was a slight, disconcerting echo in the room.

“Okay, why don’t you play a couple of scales?”

“Which ones?”

“Choose your favorites.  Major and minor.”

I hesitated, wondering if this was a trick question.  Most teachers specified the scales you should play.  I could pick easy scales in a comfortable range, but that might make me seem like a slacker.  On the other hand, it was probably best not to reveal my weakness by venturing into the upper register.

I chose to start with D-flat major.  The two-octave range of this scale lay in the safe low to middle register, but he’d be impressed with a scale that had five flats.  I also preferred this scale for reasons intuitive and mysterious.  I couldn’t quite explain it, but D-flat major had always appealed to me.

I took a breath and dropped my jaw, letting a mellow D-flat emerge, round and low.  I slid up and down the scale with ease.

“Great,” the teacher said.  “How about minor?”

I chose to play C-sharp minor, knowing the four sharps would impress him.

He smiled at my selection.  “It’s unusual to hear the parallel minor.  Most people go with relative.”

I hoped that would make him remember me.

“What did you bring for your solo?”

“Haydn’s Second Concerto. First and second movements”

“Interesting.  Let’s hear it.”  He adjusted his chair and sat back, as though settling in at the movie theater.

I flipped to my photocopied music. The Haydn concerto was a show piece for low horn, featuring a section with fast, tricky jumps between the upper-middle and pedal registers. Keeping my horn in my lap for a few seconds, I mentally rehearsed the first few measures, planning the tempo and mood.  Prepared, I lifted my horn and felt a surge of dizziness.  Hunger and weakness returned in a wave, washing away the small confident foothold I’d gained with my scales.  I rested my horn on my leg, looked down, and shook my head.

“Are you all right?” the teacher asked.

“Um,” I said, trying to resist the nausea rising in my throat.  “I’ve been sort of sick lately.”

“Sorry to hear that.”  He looked like he was trying to keep a neutral expression.  I hoped he hadn’t decided that I couldn’t manage the pressure of being a performing musician.

Determined to prove that I could handle it, I launched into the Haydn.  Usually I navigated the short, skipping notes with aplomb, but my nervousness made me rush. I started too fast and missed nearly half the notes.  I blinked at my music, surprised that it had betrayed me so unexpectedly.

“Why don’t you try that again?” the teacher said, not unkindly.  “Take your time with the tempo.”

I started over, trying to follow his direction, remembering that Suzanne said some teachers liked to test you for instructability.  But I over-compensated, taking it too slow and running out of breath too soon.  I had to breathe at a spot I wasn’t used to and missed several notes as a result.

“Don’t rush into playing after a breath,” he said.  “You’re the soloist.”

I kept failing, and he kept stopping me.  The audition extended like a horrible dream.  When it finally ended, I felt a rush of vertigo as I left the room.  I reached for the door frame to steady myself. I thought of Bruce, who’d call me a wuss for how easily I’d been thrown by a little physical discomfort.  I thought of Kintaro, who’d find not an ounce of music in my performance.  I thought of Mom, who’d paid for years of music lessons.  It was $65 a week for an hour-long lesson with Suzanne.  It was $2,450 for Youth Philharmonic, plus $ 1500 for camp and $3,775 for this summer’s tour to Germany.  That didn’t include the $75 to apply to each music school, the travel, the hotels, the various sundry costs—tuner, metronome, mutes, mouthpieces, valve oil, slide grease, snake.  She had paid all this money, driven all these miles only for me to prove my mediocrity.  My throat tightened and my eyes felt hot.  I cried rarely, but I recognized this as the perilous prelude to tears.  I moved quickly down the hall, determined that no one should witness my humiliation.

As I exited the music building with Mom, I saw that it was snowing hard and fast.  Already there was a thick white inch on the ground, with more snow whirling down like some cosmic down blanket had ripped open.  When we got in the car, flakes coated the windshield so quickly the wipers could barely clear a path for Mom to see.  We came to a turn and Mom edged forward cautiously, but without effect.  Our car slipped toward the intersection with steady, silent intent.  Mom didn’t speak, only gripped the wheel so hard her knuckle bones stood out white against her skin.  Another car waited on the other side.  I had time to look at the driver’s face: a man in his sixties, with dignified white hair and thick eyebrows.  He watched us with a touching look of concern, and for a moment my heart felt quiet as we slid with slick grace toward his vehicle.  What did it matter, really, who got into Eastman and who didn’t, when it all came down to this: ice, two cars, a deadly slip on the road?  A thought whispered in the corner of my mind: maybe it was better for things to go like this, while I still had indeterminate promise.  Better than to keep going and prove myself wrong.  Then friction snared our tires, and we moved in the right direction once more.

Emily Eckart is the author of Pale Hearts, a story collection. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Nature, Potomac Review, and elsewhere. She studied music at Harvard University. Read more of her work at www.emilyeckart.com.

Mariel was late getting to the cafeteria after her talk with Dill. She felt his eyes on her as she stepped into the room. Which made matters worse. Not only was there no place to sit, but Dill was watching her from the doorway to see whether she had anyone to sit with. He was forming his opinion, which he would then bake into a hard thing to share with the other teachers.

She felt like a character in a book, the point-of-view character. As every fifth grader knew, the point-of-view character was the one you were supposed to like, and be like.

So then why was it Mariel was the only one with no place to sit, again?

Carissa, Melissa, Sonja, and Karlyn were at the far end of a bench of sixth graders. If she went over there and tried to squeeze between Carissa and Karlyn, she would be stuck across the table from Tierney, the sixth-grade girl who liked to grab your hand and write something embarrassing on it with sharpie markers. Mariel 🖤 Tory. The last time Tierney did that to Mariel, she’d spent twenty minutes in the bathroom trying to scrub the words off because she had a violin lesson right after school, and what would Mr. D’Alessandro say, if she had sharpie scribble all over her bow hand?

Carissa looked right at Mariel as she stood there with her lunch bag, scanning, but she didn’t wave and point to the tiny scrap of bench between herself and Karlyn. Instead, still watching Mariel, she leaned across to Melissa and said something that made Melissa scream with laughter.

The only other spot left, and time was running short with Dill still standing there in the doorway smiling at her, was at the round table with Heather and Katherine.

Heather and Katherine it would have to be. Mariel made her way to the round table past the awful boys. She put her lunch bag down firmly beside Katherine, as if it were her first choice to sit here anyway. Katherine ignored her, which was fine with Mariel. The two were deep in a discussion about cheat codes in their latest video game. Video games were not allowed at school, but that didn’t faze Katherine and Heather, who were drawing diagrams on a napkin, passing it back and forth, arguing furiously.

The other kid at the table was Donovan, who was only eight, but in sixth grade already. He had a special math tutor because he was learning high school calculus. Like Heather and Katherine, he was obsessed with video games. Unlike them, he was small and cute, and smelled like Suave Green Apple shampoo, another one of his obsessions. As he leaned across the table to correct Katherine’s diagram, Mariel got a whiff of his delicious hair above the general cafeteria odor of peanut butter and Lunchables. Heather studied what he had written through her smudgy glasses, and Katherine used the opportunity to steal one of Heather’s Del Monte Pokémon Fruit Snax. Only Heather and Katherine would eat such nasty things. Not Donovan, He ate very little, and only food that was white.

Mariel looked up and saw that Dill had finally gone off to eat his own lunch in the faculty lounge. He would now report back to the other teachers that she had successfully found a place to sit for lunch. But was he smart enough to know that she was sitting at the losers’ table? And that even the losers were ignoring her?

“How is your violin-playing these days, Mariel?” Donovan had a high voice, like a soprano robot. He had a special therapist who gave him lessons on how to interact with other kids, but Mariel sometimes wondered why the therapist didn’t teach him how kids really talk. Today, though, she was grateful for Donovan’s stiff conversation. It was nice to know what the rules were, and with Donovan you always knew.

“Fine, thank you, Donovan,” she said.

“I would like to play chamber music with you again sometime,” he said.

“That would be nice, Donovan.”

Donovan had the smallest cello Mariel had ever seen. It had an unpleasantly nasal sound, probably because of its size, but he was a competent player, as good as some of the teenage cellists in her youth orchestra. Problem was, his vibrato was too tight. His Bach suites were note-perfect but as boring as the ring tones on a cell phone, and he played everything too fast. Last fall, Mary Ellen, the school music director got the idea that Mariel, Donovan, and Eugene Huang should perform a piano trio because they were the only advanced musicians in the middle school.

The trio was a disaster, of course. They were under-rehearsed because they could only practice during Group, and half the time the piano, or Mary Ellen, or one of the trio members wasn’t free. Eugene didn’t bother to learn his music well enough—he said he had plenty already to practice for his private teacher and his real piano trio, who rehearsed on Saturdays downtown at Rittenhouse Music Prep. And Donovan was incapable of listening to or taking cues from other musicians, or even stopping to rehearse a passage in the middle. He was like a wind-up toy: once he started playing, he went straight through the movement until the bitter end. Worse, Mary Ellen did not seem to recognize that these were problems, and kept a jolly attitude about the hash they were making of the Mozart. Rehearsals, when they happened, were frustrating and exhausting for Mariel, if no one else. It was impossible to reconcile this experience with the rest of her life: the daily hours of scales and etudes prescribed by Mr. D’Alessandro; the feeling that she would never, ever be able to practice enough to catch up with her youth orchestra archrival Halerie, who was eleven like Mariel, but proudly seated in the first violin section next to a high school girl. Or with snooty Annabelle Li, who was homeschooled, and said to be a prodigy, and rumored to practice ten hours a day, and already learning Sibelius Concerto.

During the trio performance at the Thanksgiving assembly, Eugene kept hitting wrong chords and losing his place, forcing Mariel to decide which of the two of them to follow (she chose Donovan; at least he was predictable.) But the A-440 in Donovan’s head did not match the A of the piano, which was a quarter-tone flat, and Mariel had tuned her violin to the piano. She considered matching Donovan’s intonation, but as he played so softly on his tiny instrument and Eugene banged so loudly on the school’s wretched upright Yamaha, that she ended up staying in tune with the piano, more or less, and in time with the cello. It was probably the most horrible performance of the Mozart B flat Major piano trio in the history of humankind. At least they stopped after the Allegro (which, thanks to Donovan, was more of a Presto.)

The audience of parents, kids, and teachers had exploded into applause. Donovan’s mom and dad were in the front row with his sister, cheering. Mariel could see her own mother in the second row, one of the last to stand up, smiling, though not very broadly. She was next to Chi-wei Huang, who looked plainly mortified by her son’s playing. And for good reason, Mariel had thought hotly. At that moment she had never wanted to kill anyone as much as she wanted to kill Eugene Huang—who appeared to be perfectly content with how the performance had gone.

“We stank,” she whispered to him as they walked offstage for their curtain call.

“So what? They don’t know the difference,” said Eugene. “Anyway, they’re not clapping for us, dummy. They’re clapping for Donovan.”

Mariel looked at Donovan, who had followed them offstage with his strange tip-toe walk, carrying his little cello. His face, in the shadows, seemed to project its own ecstatic light. Mariel’s grip tightened on her violin. Eugene was right. She saw it now. The performance was not about the music; it was not about Mozart; it was not about playing well, or even adequately. It was about Donovan playing with other kids.

Somehow Eugene had understood all this, but she had not. She and Chi-wei Huang were the only people in the room upset that the trio had gone badly. It was one of those moments when the world seemed to drop out from under your feet. And just as well, for this was a world that Mariel was not sure she wanted to belong to. She was wretched. The botching of the Mozart disgusted her. At the same time, she was ashamed of herself for being more concerned about the music than about Donovan. This had been Donovan’s moment, so why did she feel so used? Why was she so selfish?

In any case, regardless of her feelings, the results were the same as they would have been if she taken Eugene’s careless attitude and played like a slob. Donovan was happy; his parents were happy about all the progress he was making, socially. Mary Ellen was getting congratulated on her great idea by the head of school. The faculty and parents congratulated themselves on having a school so supportive and inclusive of kids like Donovan. Eugene was happy because playing with Mariel and Donovan had been a pain, and he was glad it was over. Only Mariel was miserable.

“You make yourself miserable,” her mother had once told her, out of supreme vexation. It was during one of their fights about Mariel’s perfectionism, her inability to stop working at something until it was perfect. According to Mariel’s mother, perfectionism was okay it started to get in your own way or drive other people (specifically your mother) crazy.

Perfectionism made her late for school every morning because she could not stop practicing, and when she did, she could not leave until her violin was packed in its case just so. And when it was, she could not leave until her shoes were tied, just so. And her hair, and teeth brushed, just so. The list went on. Why couldn’t she be more like Eugene, who could turn his perfectionism on and off at will? Or like Donovan, whose standards were his own, invented by himself, and who had no one to please but himself?

Look at Katherine and Heather,. They were perfectly happy in their ugly, bad-breath world of Pokémon and Nintendo. Look at Carissa, Melissa, Sonja, and Karlyn. They spent their free time watching MTV and painting their nails. Karlyn practiced her clarinet half an hour a day, and if she squawked through Clair de Lune at her teacher’s house recital, her parents brought her flowers and took her out to dinner.

But Mariel did not really want to be like any of them. She pitied them, their sloppy, undisciplined lives. How much they were missing. What joy they were missing. It was a hard thing to realize that she had more in common with Halerie, and Annabelle Li, and Mr. D’Alessandro than she did with her friends, or even her own mother.

Katherine and Heather had finished eating but had not bothered to clean up their mess, and now were leaning across their own crumbs, still arguing about the cheat codes. Katherine had bits of crushed Frito clinging all over the front of her dark blue sweater. Shuddering, Mariel headed for the trash can. There was Melissa, heading towards her from the other direction. With her blue-beaded headband and her ballerina posture, Melissa moved like the queen of the lunchroom that she was destined to become when they got to eighth grade.

“Why didn’t you sit with us?” said Melissa.

“You didn’t ask me,” said Mariel. “There wasn’t room.”

“You don’t need an engraved invitation,” said Melissa. She dumped her trash and rubbed her hands together. As if that would make them clean. “What did Dill want to talk to you about, anyway?”

Mariel shrugged.

“You sat with the freaks instead,” accused Melissa.

“I was talking to Donovan.”

“Oh, well, he’s a cutie. Speaking of which,” Melissa bent towards Mariel and lowered her voice, “what would you say if somebody asked you if you like Zach D.?”

“Zach D.?” Mariel stared at her, mortified. Zach D. was in seventh grade. He was already growing a mustache. Every sixth-grade girl had a crush on him. Fifth-graders followed his love life closely, but none of them dared declare her affection for someone so old and popular.

Melissa’s eyes were merry with excitement.

“No way,” said Mariel. “He’s like eight feet tall.”

“Well, Tierney told me he likes you.”

Mariel began to walk towards the door, and Melissa followed. It was a trap.

“She’s just making fun of me,” said Mariel. “Everyone knows Tierney likes Zach.”

“No, no,” said Melissa urgently. “That was last month. Didn’t you hear that she and Jason are going out now?”

“No way.”

“Way. He asked her at the skating party. You weren’t there. You had a concert or something.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. You can tell her I don’t like Zach. He’s too old for me.”

“Are you crazy?” said Melissa. “He looks exactly like Justin Bieber.” Melissa always said that. Mariel didn’t know if she were right or not, because she was unsure exactly which one of the pop stars taped up inside Melissa’s locker was Justin Bieber.

“I’ll tell them you need some time to think about it,” said Melissa wisely.

Mariel opened her mouth to protest, but then the end-of-lunch chimes started, calling them back from the cafeteria to the safety of their classrooms, to social studies and language arts. When the chimes stopped, Melissa was talking again, something about a sleepover party on Friday, renting Saw III, staying up all night. That would never happen, Mariel wanted to tell her. She needed to practice her scales. She had to practice her concerto, and her orchestra part. Music Prep began at 8:30 Saturday morning.

But Melissa was already pulling her along with the crush of kids heading for the doors. Everyone was watching her, Mariel, the point-of-view character. Something was happening that was simultaneously obvious and impossible to comprehend. Everyone wanted to be like her (inexplicably taken under Melissa’s wing!) but that didn’t mean they liked her. She caught Dill’s eye watching her on the other side of the plate glass, and when he saw her looking back at him, he gave her a thumbs-up.

“Creep,” murmured Mariel. But Melissa didn’t hear. She was shrieking with laughter and running after Tierney. Mariel hurried behind them, feeling her own self evaporate, like steam, like nothing at all, into the crowd.

Karen Rile is the author of the novel, Winter Music (Little, Brown) and numerous works of short fiction and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in journals such as The Southern Review, American Writing, Painted Bride Quarterly, Creative Nonfiction, and others. She teaches creative writing (fiction and nonfiction) at the University of Pennsylvania, and is the founding and chief editor of Cleaver Magazine. She has an MFA from Bennington College.

“We’ll arrive on the beach by 10 a.m., so make sure Jeffrey and Sissy are ready no later than 9:30. I’ll give you $25, then you can take Jeffrey and Sissy to Funland when it opens. Use $5 for ride tickets, which will leave you plenty for lunch and snacks. I’ll collect what’s left when you meet me under the umbrella at 6 p.m. Okay, Regina? Regina, did you hear me?”

Regina’s eyes had been following the tall, tan Avenue Hotel’s restaurant busboy at the next table while Mrs. Rosenthal prattled. She had been given the same directions every Tuesday night since they arrived in Rehoboth at the beginning of a hot 1973 June. “Yes, Mrs. Rosenthal. Funland. $5.”

“I’m hungry! Reggie, make them hurry up!” Jeffrey Michael, Mrs. Rosenthal’s youngest child, kicked his legs under the table next to Regina.

“It’ll be out soon.” Regina smoothed her hand through his soft brown hair.

“Paint my nails when we get back,” Jacqueline said. As the oldest child, Jacqueline had already stared to copy the authoritative tone of her parents. Bored, she stared at the pale pink polish chips left on what had been her newly-painted nails.

“We’ll do that after your bath.”

Regina sighed. Back in May, the prospect of living at the beach as Mrs. Rosenthal’s “Mother’s helper” seemed like a win-win situation. The fact that she would make $10 a week, a total sum that would cover her upcoming driving lessons, while watching kids who were not her younger siblings made the deal even better. The part she hadn’t considered, though, was what this “win-win situation” really meant: indentured servitude to the most affluent family in her neighborhood.

The waitress, hardly older than Regina, arrived with a loaded tray, placing shrimp cocktail in front of Mr. and Mrs. Rosenthal, then giving Regina and the children their burgers.

“Yuck, too much ketchup.” Jacqueline pushed the plate forward and crossed her arms. “I want a new one.”

“Sissy, we don’t have time for that,” Mr. Rosenthal said. He didn’t look up while he spoke; instead, he concentrated on dipping his shrimp into cocktail sauce.

“Do you want me to scrape some of it off?” Regina asked.

“No, I’m not eating this. I want a new one.”

“Regina, do what you need to so Sissy will eat her dinner.” Mrs. Rosenthal’s stern look told Regina to shut Jacqueline up as quickly as possible.

Regina stared at the back of the waitress who had just turned away. She was tempted to ask for another burger, but she knew Jacqueline would find another reason to refuse the second one. Must be nice to have the freedom to walk away, Regina thought as the white uniform and gold apron disappeared into the kitchen.

“How about this?” Regina asked Jacqueline. She leaned close and spoke softly, as if sharing a secret. “I’ll use my nail polish on you, just this once, if you’ll eat your dinner.”

Jacqueline didn’t answer right away, but Regina knew she hit the mark when she saw the girl suppress a smile. “Okay,” Jacqueline finally said, and pulled back the plate.

Just two more weeks. Just two more weeks. Regina’s silent incantation could get her through the rest of the summer. It had to—the Rosenthals were her ride back to New Castle County.

Fifteen minutes before Funland opened the next day, Regina found herself sitting on a white bench between Jeffrey Michael, who alternately sang and ate Gus & Gus fries, and Jacqueline, who ate only the peanuts from her bucket of Dolle’s popcorn. While other children waiting for Funland to open ran back and forth between Delaware and Brooklyn Avenues, Regina wondered if she could pocket an extra dollar out of her ticket and food allowance from Mrs. Rosenthal like she usually did. It was going to be a challenge if she made good on her promise to take Jeffrey Michael on all the rides this time.

“Ride the Surf to Grenoble, Virginia waits for you! Olive waves while you walk, Maryland has the zoo! Baltimore is close yet far, Rehoboth is what we see! Wilmington is way up north, Delaware works for me! Brooklyn’s the last stop for us, but no reason to whine! We can’t play at Funland if we see the Laurel sign!”

Jacqueline threw a handful of popcorn at Jeffrey Michael. “If you sing that song one more time, I’m putting this bucket over your head!”

Jeffrey Michael jumped down from the bench and kicked at a seagull snatching popcorn kernels. “You’re not the boss, Sissy!”

Regina turned to Jacqueline. “Let him sing. He needs to know the song in case we get separated so he can walk back and find your mom’s umbrella.”

Jacqueline rolled her eyes and searched for more peanuts in her bucket.

Just two more weeks.

“I don’t want to ride the carousel. We do that every week. I want to go on the bumper cars again!” Jacqueline put her hand on her hip. “We always do what Jeffrey wants. It’s my turn now!”

“We have to wait while you ride in the Haunted Mansion car. And the Helicopter. And the Wagon Wheel. If you don’t want to ride the carousel, wait for us by the Frog Bog.”

Regina took Jeffrey Michael’s hand and walked with him through the line. “Horse or chariot today? It’s up to you.”

Jeffrey Michael stood as tall as he could. “I want to ride the ponies!”

“Go ahead and pick one.”

Jeffrey Michael chose a black horse that was low to the ground. Regina lifted him onto its saddle and said, “You okay?”

Jeffrey Michael put on a brave face and nodded. Before he was ready, the music began and the carousel kicked into motion. He yelped and clung to the horse’s neck even though Regina stood next to him and had her hand on his back.

“Why don’t we sing a fun song?” she asked. “Riding along on a carousel, trying to catch up to you. Riding along on a carousel, will I catch up to you?”

Regina sang the verses while Jeffrey Michael sang the chorus, his favorite part of “On a Carousel.” Although the song eased his fears, he squealed each time his horse dropped and laughed each time it rose. Eventually, he let go of the horse and raised his hands, enjoying the motion of the carousel until it slowed to a stop.

In triumph and still singing, Jeffrey Michael hopped off his horse. Regina took his hand, and they walked towards the Frog Bog. Jacqueline wasn’t there. They walked outside to the rides behind the enclosed building, but no Jacqueline. They walked back inside by the Skeeball machine. No Jacqueline. Jeffrey Michael continued to sing while Regina dragged him around Funland. She went back to the Frog Bog in case Jacqueline had been in the bathroom earlier.

“Excuse me,” she said to the man holding several plastic frogs. “Have you seen a girl, a little older than this boy? Wearing a tennis dress over her bathing suit. Brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.”

“I did. Walked right by me about twenty minutes ago. Headed for the boardwalk. Haven’t seen her since.”

“Thank you.” Regina picked up Jeffrey Michael, who had finally stopped singing and realized his sister was missing. They sped towards the boardwalk.

“Sissy! Sissy! Jacqueline Marie!” Regina wasn’t worried about surviving her last two weeks anymore. Instead, she was considering what would happen if she couldn’t find Jacqueline. Mrs. Rosenthal would probably call her parents and make them drive the two hours it took to get to Rehoboth to pick her up. Regina would probably have to give them most of the money she earned this summer as punishment. May as well kiss driving lessons goodbye.

Regina turned left towards Delaware Avenue. She dodged packs of vacationers and popped her head into every store Jacqueline might have visited: Gems & Junk, Candy Kitchen, Dolle’s, Rehoboth 5 & 10, all the way to the Atlantic Sands. Then she moved her search to the beach, guessing that Mrs. Rosenthal, with her thermos of gin and tonic water, wouldn’t notice them. Regina kept glancing towards the ocean, hoping that Jacqueline hadn’t had any ideas about going swimming alone.

Regina walked the beach all the way to Brooklyn Avenue, then stopped. She heard someone playing a guitar and singing under the boardwalk: “Spent a little time on the mountain, spent a little time on the hill. Heard some say better run away, others say you better stand still.”

The song was one Regina had never heard before, not at home with her mom controlling the radio, and not at the beach where music was limited to what could be heard coming from the boardwalk shops. In fact, she doubted she’d hear such music on any radio station she knew of. The bluesy tone was a refreshing break from the pop songs she was used to hearing. Still holding Jeffrey Michael, she stepped under the boardwalk to take a closer look.

Regina stared at the man with the guitar. He wore a white t-shirt and a large straw hat even though he was shaded by the boardwalk above his head. His jeans were jagged above his brown sandals. Written in green letters on the side of a faded black guitar case were the words “Big Lar.” Coins were gathered at the wide end inside it. Half a dozen people sat in a semicircle around the singer. The person sitting closest to him was the smallest—and wearing a tennis dress.

“Sissy!” Regina hissed, not wanting to interrupt the singer.

Jacqueline pretended not to hear.

“Jacqueline Marie!”

The sound of her full name made the girl turn. She smiled and waved to Regina, then turned her head back towards the musician.

Regina fumed but didn’t want to cause a scene, so she stood just outside of the semicircle of listeners, still holding Jeffrey Michael in her arms. Unconsciously, she swayed as the man sang, taking in the lyrics now that she gave him her full attention. Soon the song ended and the singer received polite applause. Several people threw more change into the guitar case’s belly and walked out from beneath the boardwalk. Regina used that moment of transition to collect her lost lamb.

“Sissy, why did you wander off?”

“I heard the music and wanted to find it. Isn’t he great?” Jacqueline beamed at the musician.

“Thank you, little missy.” The singer smiled at Jacqueline, then looked up at Regina. “I take it she’s in your care?”

“She is.” Regina smiled at the man, then shot a look at Jacqueline who continued to ignore her. Regina turned her gaze back to the singer. “What’s your name? What were you singing?”

“Name’s Larry, but I go by Big Lar.” Larry pointed to the guitar case. “Know the Grateful Dead? One of their songs. ‘New Speedway Boogie.’ Heard it at a Dead show at Temple a few years ago and decided to learn to play it.”

“I like it. I wish I could hear more.” Regina smiled again at Larry, then spoke directly to Jacqueline who could no longer feign ignorance. “Sissy, it’s time to go.”

Jacqueline slowly got up and walked towards Regina.

“Will you be back on the beach later?” Larry asked.

Regina knew the question was for her. She felt her face burn, and not because of the heat or the sun. She hesitated before answering, “I usually go to a movie on Wednesday nights. It’s my one night off.”

“If you change your mind, I’ll still be under the boardwalk. Unless I get arrested. Like the morning sun, you come, and like the wind you go. Ain’t no time to hate, barely time to wait. Oh oh, all I want to know is where does the time go.”

Regina mulled over her choices while she sat with the children in the large house’s enclosed porch. It wouldn’t hurt her feelings to skip American Graffiti because she could watch it next week. But clearly Larry, whom she had never seen on the beach before, was much older than she was. She couldn’t imagine what had brought him and his guitar here at the end of the summer. Judging by his clothes and the money he collected, her guess was that he didn’t have a regular job or a home. But she couldn’t shake his face or his voice from her mind. He lived, in a way she had only dreamed of: freely, on his own terms.

As much as Regina wanted to drop everything she had worked for—money for driving lessons, Jeffrey Michael and Sissy, time away from her parents and siblings—and run away from her predictable life, the risk of totally abandoning it wasn’t something she was ready for. More practically, if she did meet up with Larry tonight there had to be a way for Regina to get back into the Rosenthal’s house if she was out later than normal. This was a problem she had yet to solve.

“Reggie, let’s sing the song again!” Jeffrey Michael wanted to sing “On a Carousel” for the fiftieth time since conquering the painted metal beast.

Jacqueline rolled her eyes and went back to picking off her nail polish.

Jeffrey Michael sang while Regina continued the debate in her head.

How cool would it be to run off with a random guy from the beach?

How much trouble will I be in when I come back?

Maybe I don’t care. Maybe I want to walk on the wild side for once.

But what would I do? Learn to play the guitar and sing songs for a living?

Isn’t that better than what I do now?

Regina had no response to her last question.

Regina turned right from Rolling Road and the Rosenthal house and followed her normal route towards the Beachwood Theater on Rehoboth Avenue. She quietly sang the street name song she’d made up for Jeffrey Michael: “Ride the Surf to Grenoble, Virginia waits for you! Olive waves while you walk, Maryland has the zoo…”

Once she hit the intersection where Surf Avenue meets Lake Avenue, Regina took to the sand. She stopped singing and quickened her pace to match her heartbeat. Soon Regina could hear Larry’s voice even though she was a street away from him.

Larry smiled when Regina sat in front of him. “Didn’t think you’d be back.”

“Sure you did. That’s why you’re still here.”

“Maybe I hoped you would. I take it those aren’t your kids you were carrying around, Miss…?”

“Regina. No, just watching them this summer. I take it you don’t have kids since you catch change in a guitar case for a living.”

Larry laughed. “You got me! I wander around, playing music I like, just getting by. Don’t need more than that.”

Regina listened awhile as Larry strummed his guitar. Then she asked, “How long have you been ‘wandering’?”

“I dunno, maybe three or four years. I stopped counting when I stopped caring.” Larry played a few more chords, then stopped. “The sun’s down, the wind’s cool. We should drive around a bit.”

“Sure, Larry.” Regina was thrilled at her newfound boldness, and she hoped the pause that came before her answer didn’t betray her nerves.

Larry packed his guitar in its case. He stood up, grabbed the case in one hand, took Regina’s hand in his other, and sang while they walked to his station wagon. “‘Till the morning comes, it’ll do you fine. ‘Till the morning comes, like a highway sign, showing you the way, leaving no doubt, of the way in or the way back out.”

The faded blue Dodge wagon was parked on Kent Street. Larry opened the lift gate and put the case and his hat next to his surfboard, then he opened the passenger’s side door for Regina. Once she sat down, he shut her door, jogged over to the driver’s side, and jumped in. Regina stared out the window as he started the wagon. He made a left onto 5^th Street, a right onto Rehoboth Avenue, and turned onto the highway, heading south.

Larry hummed for a little while, then asked, “What do you do when you’re not babysitting?”
Regina continued to look out the window. She blurted out the first lie that came into her head. “I’m starting classes at the University of Delaware in a couple weeks.”

“Really?” Larry didn’t sound convinced.

“Yup. Excited to start!”

Larry didn’t reply. He was so quiet that Regina was afraid he’d turn around and take her back to the boardwalk.

“Is everything okay, Larry?”

“I don’t think much of college. Didn’t keep me from getting drafted. Didn’t help me when I got back. Might be fine for a girl like you, but I’ve had to make my way without it.”

Regina had nothing to say to this. The men in her family had avoided Vietnam by being either too old or too young. What she knew about the war came from reports on the news or an announcement one time in her high school about a senior who had died in combat. Not knowing what else to do, Regina took Larry’s free hand in her own.

Larry turned towards Regina and smiled, then started to sing again. “I set out running but I take my time. A friend of the Devil is a friend of mine. If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight.”

Regina would have driven around with Larry all night, but she knew she had to sneak back into the large beach house. Just before midnight, Larry let Regina hop out on Surf Avenue so she could walk to the Rosenthal residence from the direction of the movie theater.

“Regina, before you go.” Larry dug into his dashboard and pulled out a cassette tape. He leaned over the seat and handed it to her. “Something to take when you go home.”

Regina saw “Grateful Dead 5-16-70” scrawled in pen on the label. “Thank you, Larry. I’ll never forget tonight.” She smiled, closed the wagon door, and waved as he drove off.

Regina hid the tape in her crocheted shoulder bag and hurried towards Rolling Road. As she approached, she saw that the house lights were out. She crept quietly to the back door and tried the knob. It didn’t turn.

Regina held her breath. She counted three windows to the right, walked to the appropriate sill, and tapped the slightly ajar pane.

“Sissy. Sissy. Can you hear me? It’s Reggie.”

Seconds as long as hours ticked by. Then the window cracked opened wider.

“I know where you went,” Jacqueline said. “I should get Mom. Or Dad.”

“And I should tell them you wandered off when you were told to stay put.”

“You wouldn’t! You’d get in trouble, too!”
“Not as much as you would.”

It was quiet. Then Jacqueline said, “Okay, I won’t tell.”

“Just move over and I’ll squeeze through.”

Jacqueline stepped back. Regina hoisted herself up and scrambled inside.

“Thanks, Sissy.”

Regina dusted the sill’s sand and dirt off her clothes and walked in the dark towards the bedroom door. Before she reached it, Jacqueline asked, “Did he sing to you?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Did you know any of the songs?”
“Not even one.”

“Reggie, will he be under the boardwalk again tomorrow?”
Regina paused. “I don’t think so. Go back to bed, honey.”
She waited until Jacqueline tucked herself in, then Regina walked out of the bedroom and shut the door. She tiptoed across the hall and closeted herself in her bedroom, pulling the tape out of her bag to prove that she hadn’t been dreaming.

Whether because Larry’s voice was in her head or because she imagined she could still feel the breeze that came through the wagon’s window as they drove around just south of Rehoboth, Regina was more excited than she’d been for most of the summer. She forgot all about the Rosenthals and the last two weeks she’d spend at the beach house. Instead, she focused on how she would take driving lessons and soon be free—free to go wherever she wanted. Once she got her license, she would have to read maps and memorize roads that led outside of Wilmington, perhaps outside of Delaware. She’d have to find out where the Grateful Dead would be playing, maybe drive herself to a concert on her next big adventure.

Paula Persoleo is a 2011 graduate of Stony Brook’s MFA program in Southampton, NY. She was born in Wilmington and raised in Hockessin. Currently, she is an adjunct at the University of Delaware and lives in Delaware with her husband. Her most recent work can be found in Gordon Square Review.