Don't Blame the Music (7 page)

Had that ever been in style—that vicious evil kind of music? Or had Ash succeeded by momentary shock value?

Well, she had shocked us. I hoped it made her happy.

Today the fan belt and the cassettes.

Tomorrow …

From the street came the sound of an unmuffled motor. A van that could only belong to Ashley's boyfriend was pulling up. Holding the curtains at an angle so I couldn't be seen I peered out. The boyfriend was very very fat. I could not imagine Ashley, who had said such dreadful things about my poor mother's thick waist, being around such obesity. He was fat to the point of revulsion.

My skin crawled. I ran downstairs. I did not want to be alone when Ashley and this person walked in.

My mother was still clinging to her teacup. “But why did she come home?” she cried.

“A place to stand for a while,” said my father. “To regroup. To get ready to try again, I suppose.”

My mother set her cup down. She straightened herself up, and like a little girl repeating a pledge or a memorized prayer, she said, “I will always give my daughter a place to stand.” It reminded me of a lot of prayers. A last-ditch attempt to postpone reality.

Very quietly my father said, “No, Janey. Not always. Sometime or other we will not give her another chance.”

I hung on to the table. I actually felt as if I would faint.

My father, who has coached adolescents all his life, helping them through drugs and failed grades, humiliation on the field and parents getting divorces—my father writing off Ashley like that.

His daughter.

My sister.

He's wrong, I thought. She cannot be that bad. I said, “The bedroom isn't so bad. I can get used to tape on the walls, I guess. Maybe Ash and I can talk tonight and sort it all out. Don't make a big issue out of it, okay?”

Ashley walked into the kitchen with the obese man. All thought of tangled tape left my mind. Chins rippled under Bob's mouth and stomachs jiggled under his T-shirt. She certainly liked her men in layers. If not extra heads, then extra chins.

I had no idea how old he was. I just knew if he sat on one of the kitchen chairs, the legs would snap.

“Hello, Ashley,” said my father quietly. “Hello, Bob.”

She smirked at us.

I gasped. “Ashley!” I cried out.
“What are you wearing?
What is—is that—oh, Ashley, that's my sweater! That's my designer sweater!”

Ashley laughed. She pirouetted before me, like a model on a runway. She had taken my best sweater, so expensive it took all my birthday money, and sliced off the sleeves. Violet and teal blue yarn dangled from the cut edges. She'd tugged the threads to roughen it. She was wearing my seashell earrings, but she had both pairs in one ear and none in the other. A thin length of leather was wrapped around her neck, rather like a noose.

Actually, she looked very striking, like a high-fashion model wearing things real people don't wear. Things that appear and exist exclusively for expensive glossy magazine pages.

My clothes, I thought. I found myself wanting the sweater more than I wanted Ashley. Was it wrong to care so deeply about a sweater?

It's just a sweater, I told myself. In the great parade of life, it's nothing at all. It doesn't matter.

It mattered.

Ashley smiled into my eyes and said, “I didn't like the sleeves that length.”

“Two-year-olds behave better than you did,” said my mother fiercely.

“Really?” Ash laughed. “I behave any way I want.”

There was a triumphant glitter in her eyes. She had proven several things to us. She had the power to destroy and frighten. She might not control twenty thousand fans in a coliseum, but she controlled Warren and Janey and Susan Hall. I licked my lips. Ashley saw and was pleased.

“No, I think not,” said my father. “I will have to ask you to leave, Bob. We are going to have a family conference.”

Bob made no move. His eyes glittered like Ashley's and a dreadful little puckered smile appeared in the fat jowly face. I was afraid.

My father stood up slowly. If Dad was slender or short, getting to his feet would be meaningless. But Dad is a big man in terrific shape. Bob decided to leave after all. His flesh shivered and his clothing shifted. We waited silently. When he walked out the floor trembled beneath the thuds. At last the roar of the muffler told us he was gone.

It was a nightmare. The grip was intolerable. “So what are we having for supper?” I said brightly.

My parents looked at me in disgust. “We'll order pizza or grinders or something,” said my father. “But first we're going to talk.”

“You may talk,” said Ashley. “I choose to remain silent.”

“Then you choose not to live here. Ashley, we have done all we can for you. Always. We have forgiven, we have struggled, we have paid, we have …” My father's voice trailed off.

“You have not!”
She was on her feet, a tiny thing, like an animal. She looked appallingly like the tortured girl on her album cover. “You
never
helped me. You gave me what
you
wanted. Piano lessons, because little girls ought to play Mozart. Ballroom dancing, because little girls ought to be graceful. I begged you and begged you for the guitar, the clothes, the jazz lessons, but it had to be your way or nothing!”

My mother shrank before Ashley's fury. Rage poured out of my sister like something volcanic. Like lava, it burned my parents.

“No!” screamed Ashley. “You had this simpering little suburbanite in mind. You couldn't tolerate anything else. Help me? What a laugh. You never did anything but obstruct and blockade.”

The room was filled with her hate. Hate I had never dreamed of. I loved my parents. I had not ever thought of them as anything but loving and generous. She's right, I thought. How can
she
be right? But she never got what she asked for. She got only what they asked for.

Were my parents cruel? Or had they just made choices that turned out to be wrong? Or were the choices right, and was it Ash who turned out wrong?

“I hate you,” said Ashley. She had stopped screaming. She spoke softly, intensely, like a hissing snake, and the venom sank into my mother and father. “I will always hate you. I would have been a success if it wasn't for you.”

My mother began to cry.

It meant hours of crying, because she cannot stop herself once she's started. I usually pick it up, like catching a yawn. But not this time. “Ash,” I said very slowly. “There's one flaw in this.”

She looked at me with loathing.

“You did have success,” I said. “Remember? Your hit? You achieved it. Nobody helped you. Not Mom, not Dad, not expensive electric guitars, and not ballroom dancing lessons. You did it yourself.”

“But it didn't last,” said Ashley. The rage seeped out of her. She sagged in her chair.

“Why is that Mom and Dad's fault?” I said. “How can you go on blaming them for what happened years after you left them?”

Ashley withered. Putting her head down on her arms, she melted like a snowman onto the pine table.

I didn't look at anybody. I felt if I met someone's eyes, I would have to be on that person's side. I didn't see how I could be on Ashley's side, and yet I wasn't sure I wanted to be on my parents' side. Maybe there are no sides, I thought. Maybe all three of them did everything wrong.

I was glad I'd been a little girl. I didn't have to shoulder any of the blame. Or did I?

Had I become Miss Sweet Suburbia so they would love me more? So I could fill the gap Ashley left, and take all the love that would have been hers as well?

My father, who has to do something physical when he's upset, began lighting a fire in the kitchen fireplace. It's the warmest friendliest place in my world.

Crumpling newspaper, Dad arranged kindling and added a trio of short split logs. He struck a match. The brief rasp of the match was the only sound in the room except my mother's weeping.

The fire caught and crackled. Flickering beauty filled the room. I felt safer. My mother's tears dried and she held her hands, and maybe her soul, to the fire.

“How about if I phone Village Pizza and get four grinders delivered?” I said. I have always felt that food solves the problems of the world. If I could order grinders for the starving children in Ethiopia I would. As it is, I could make a peace offering to my sister and my parents.

“I'll have meatball,” said Ashley.

“Make mine sausage with extra peppers and onions,” said my father.

I placed the order, spelled our last name twice, although Hall does not strike me as a particularly difficult name, and agreed that fifteen minutes would be wonderful. I set napkins around, with extras, because grinders are so messy, and Ashley actually got up, took the pitcher from the refrigerator, and poured iced tea for us all.

We worked quietly. After a bit my father picked up the evening paper and read the sports section. Normalcy had returned so easily and so completely that it didn't seem normal.

It's going to work out, I said to myself. We have to expect these little flareups. Ash just has to get all this anger out of her system.

Ashley added another log to the fire.

I glanced at the reassuring leaping flames, and the log seemed very oddly shaped, and very shiny, and I squinted, trying to identify it.

My mother and my father and I stared.

Ashley chuckled softly.

It was the plaque last year's victorious football team gave Dad in appreciation of all he'd done for them. The finish had caught instantly. It was burning like a torch within a fire.

“Doesn't it smell evil?” said Ash dreamily, her waiflike eyes fixed on the fire. “I remember it smelled like that when I burned all my records. Maybe that was the shrink-wrap.”

And I had a terrible sense that Ashley had power of which we knew nothing. Power to remove our comfort and strip us of happiness.

Power to bring us into hell.

I
T WAS A FAIRLY
warm day, but I put on a jacket anyhow. The more clothing I had, the more protected I felt.

Crude Oil's members looked as if they just came off an oil derrick after six weeks of beer, no showers, and lousy weather. They were hardly going to notice how I looked. Nevertheless, I brushed my hair carefully, put on new lipstick and straightened the collar on my jacket. I looked rather sweet and innocent. Preppy. I had of course dressed for my crush on Anthony. Now I wished for faded jeans and an old sweatshirt. I'd be less visible. Safer.

Anthony hadn't said much to me today. Shepherd was standing a little too close for him to do anything but sneak a breath now and then.

My crush remained intact, smothering me without any encouragement from Anthony.

I headed for the music room, where Crude Oil practices most afternoons. The band director is very loose about letting kids hang around. Some years the music room attracts classical types and the room is full of cellos and rings with Beethoven and Bach. This is not that kind of year. The cellists are all afraid of Crude Oil and they practice at home.

The long halls were hung with artwork. Watercolors had obviously been assigned, and seascapes and flower bouquets were everywhere. Oh, to be art editor of the yearbook instead, and have the simple task of reproducing artwork.

Reproducing.

The thought tickled my mind.

Reproducing.

In the band room, Crude Oil was exchanging some very crude jokes. They did not break off when I entered. They just grinned, delivering the truly disgusting punch line just as I came up to them. If it was staged to make me uncomfortable, it worked real well.

Whit Moroso never speaks quickly. He stares without blinking. You can never tell if he sees into your soul … or has had too many drugs to focus his eyes. Sort of like Ashley.

“Hi, Beethoven,” he said at last. “Slumming?”

Crude Oil laughed.

I blushed.

“She's auditioning for us,” said Carmine.

“Lookit her notebook,” said Tommy. “She's doing research.” Tommy is a hulking blonde, very noisy, very pushy. I hardly know Tommy. I don't want to know Tommy either.

Whit continued staring at me.

He had a hardened look to him, as of someone who works outdoors ten hours a day. His hands were calloused. He wore a logger's clothing: old wool shirts, their mismatched collars sticking up around his neck. Dark thick springy hair fell over all the collars. “So what do you want?” said Whit. Hard to remember he had twice in one week stood up for me.

I swallowed. “Well. See, Shepherd Grenville—”

I got no further. Utter disgust crossed Whit's face. He turned away and continued playing his guitar. It sounded as if it was hooked up to every amplifier in the state. It was nice, however, to find someone who didn't regard Shepherd Grenville with awe.

Over the din I shouted, “Actually, Susan Hall. Me.”

Whit paused. Silence rocked the room instead. “Yeah?”

“I'll be doing a feature on the school rock groups for the yearbook and I wanted to talk to you about Crude Oil.”

Luce, the fourth member of Crude Oil, laughed. “Yearbooks are for preppy types like you, Beethoven. Artsy-craftsy girls who write poetry. Boys who take the soccer team to victory.”

“This yearbook will have sections on every kid who's involved in any kind of music at all,” I said.

Whit found that hard to believe.
I
found that hard to believe.

“Like what, exactly?” he said.

I looked around for inspiration. The wall was covered with posters of Michael Jackson, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Dolly Parton. What a combination. “I don't know,” I admitted. “Shepherd told me I had to be innovative and unusual. I haven't thought of anything yet, though.”

Whit smiled at me quite nicely. “You will. And when you do, be careful. Sheppie will try to take all the credit.”