For Paula Flautt, the best theater teacher a girl could ask for
1 Bagels and Joe
Bagels and Joe can’t be more than the size of your average motel room, but it is wall-to-wall jars of roasted coffee beans. It smells nutty and warm on this cold September morning. No one looks for a truant in a place like this. Ordinarily I love it here, curled up with a book and headphones in a corner where I can be any age at all in the low light. But today I can’t hide. Because today I am the entertainment.
It’s been a month since our last show and my most recent episode. I can still feel the terrible panic, hear the confused voices of the crowd, and see Mom trying to gather our money and run. I suppose I should be grateful for the four-week break with no shows along the lake. She has a job now too, at the diner down the road, so we’ve usually got enough leftover hash browns and day-old donuts to keep us fed. But that doesn’t mean she still hasn’t been trying, like always, to land me the “next big gig.” And today we’ve got a show.
I can’t tell if the time off has made the fear better or worse. Do I want to throw up more or less than I normally do before a performance? It’s too close to call.
It doesn’t help that Bagels and Joe is also “the place” to come in Lake Tahoe to find undiscovered talent. I can’t believe Mom finally talked Joe, the owner, into it. Maybe he heard about what had happened in front of the restaurant. Everybody always feels sorry for me after they see me melt down.
That can’t happen today. Mom’s already given me the “stand tall, be brave, keep it together” speech. She also tacked on the “you have a gift to share with the world” speech for good measure. But there are so many people clinking cups and scraping forks on plates. They’ve crammed themselves around wobbly tables that Joe himself moved out through the open doors and onto the deck. I am standing with my back to it all, tuning Mom’s guitar and swallowing buckets of air. No matter how many breaths I take, it’s not enough. I feel light-headed and fluttery, like a paper caught on a fence.
The tuning is good. It gives my hands something to do. I won’t be playing the guitar, though. That’s Mom’s job. Whenever it comes time to sing in front of people, I can’t do anything but squeeze my hands tight behind my back. I used to close my eyes, too, but once I turned eleven, Mom said I had to keep them open or I’d creep out the customers. Good. Let them be as creeped out by me as I am by them. It’s like the moment right before you’re supposed to blow out the candles on your birthday cake, when all the pressure’s on you. Except none of them can step in and help if I can’t do it.
I look out over the railing. The lake and the sky are the same blue—so light they’re almost white, and it makes me think of heaven. And rest and quiet. I tug at Mom’s sleeve so she’ll pull back from the audience she’s currently “meeting and greeting.”
“I want to start with the Patty Griffin song,” I whisper. She nods without looking away from the couple in spandex active wear at the front table.
She jerks a glittery pink thumbnail toward them so only I can see. “Ray Bans and Rolexes,” she says. “Today’s the day, baby. I can feel it. Somebody in this pack is a scout from LA.”
She stares at the couple, lazily stirring their coffees with tanned hands, like she’s hungry for something that has nothing to do with food. My insides turn to soup, and I feel sloshy and heavy all at once. My suede jacket feels too tight. Like saran wrap that’s shrinking. Joe gives me a thumbs-up over by the open doors. He’s been nice, nice enough to let me sing on his property and to allow Mom in all her glory to put up flyers everywhere and basically boss his servers around all morning long. There’s always some promising musician up here trying to get a Saturday spot on the deck. He must do pretty well. I bet he doesn’t have to sleep in a truck like Mom and me. I shoot him a tiny smile.
Maybe this time will be different. At least out here on the deck, the customers are a good four feet away. No unexpected touches. I take a breath like I’m about to dive underwater as Mom starts to speak in the voice she saves especially for shows. She sounds like the ringmaster in a circus. Or a car salesman.
“Now this show is about to get under way, and we so appreciate your attendance. If you would, please hold your applause until the end. And boy will you want to applaud.” She pauses and chuckles like she always does. “And now, the lovely Louise Montgomery!”
My insides have liquefied. But I hand Mom the guitar and watch her count off: “A one, a two, a one two three four—” and then I find it. One red spot on a pine branch five feet away, just above the heads of the spandex couple. It’s a cardinal. And today he’s going to be who I sing to so I don’t have to look at the crowd. I fix my eyes on him, and as I do, he turns his tufted head toward me and our eyes meet and it is luck and it is just enough to get me going.
I let the beat of Mom’s guitar strum through me and start low, lower than a twelve-year-old girl should be able to go, or so Mom says. I sing of heaven and clouds and troubles blowing away in the wind.
I go high on the “trouble,” and my cardinal friend cocks his head, like he knows I’m lying, because nothing chases away trouble. Except maybe the sound of my own voice in my head.
I close my eyes and let the music take me. I sing of sorrow and time I can’t borrow, and too soon I feel a tightening in my gut over what I have to do when the song’s over. I never want it to end. If I could sing forever, I would. Then I’d never have to speak to a living soul other than my mom.
I go so low on the last line that it feels like a secret to myself. I say it over and over. Finally, my voice quivers to a stop like a penny settling on a counter. When the applause hits, it’s loud and sharp and knocks me back like a crack of thunder. The cardinal springs from his tree, and I drop to my knees. I will not rock back and forth. I will not whimper and whine. We can’t have a repeat of what happened at Christy’s. We can’t. I bite my tongue until I taste blood.
I feel Mom come up behind me. She shoves the guitar at me and mutters, “Pretend like you’re tuning.” She’s covering. Like she always does. She tosses her dyed blond hair over her shoulder and begins a speech mostly knit together with thank-yous. She takes her time asking for requests from the group, beaming most of her megawatt smile at the couple at the front table. I get myself under control.
By the time we begin the rest of our set, I am back to normal enough to finish three more songs. When the applause comes again, I stick my fingers in my ears while pretending to hold my hair back for a curtsy. I’m so relieved it’s over I feel woozy.
Joe approaches with a cup of coffee. I take it and breathe it in. The foam and sugary sweetness hit me like smelling salts and bring me back to myself. I study Joe over my cup while he keeps an eye on the crowd. He’s a muscly guy with tan lines from his sunglasses that make him look like a very nice raccoon. Right now, his arms are crossed like he’s my own personal bodyguard. People give us space.
“Not bad, Louise. Not bad at all,” he says once the crowd begins to move back inside. “Your mom was right when she said you had the pipes.”
I smile into my cup.
“Don’t tell her I caffeinated a minor, okay?”