Breathing Underwater

  “You are not going to hit me anymore!”

  Silence.

  “You are not going to hit me anymore!

  “You are not going to hit me anymore, you bastard!”

  I don’t know how many times I scream it until, finally, I stop. His mask falls. He makes a small noise, maybe a chuckle, in the back of his throat. Our eyes meet. His are cold again. Mine burn. My face aches as if he hit me. I loosen my hold on him, and feel him pull free, arms, wrists, fingers slipping from my grasp. Not strong, not powerful, just a man. Why did I think he was so strong?

  He walks away.

  I sink into the Mountain Dew fallout and sit, quiet, until his shoes reach the landing. I lean back. Sun off the water streams through French doors. I hide my eyes.

  I remember, now, how to cry.

  SEPTEMBER 2

  (MY SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY)

  * * *

  7:25 A.M.—Key Biscayne High parking lot

  Junior year, my first-day déjà vu is dulled by the sense that everything’s different, starting with my car. It’s a silver BMW roadster, my father’s latest acquisition. A week after the Mountain Dew incident, I got back from the beach with Kelly and Tiny (can you believe it?) and found my father in my room, sober, calm, almost shy. He sat on the bed, hesitating a long moment.

  Finally, he said, “It is not, perhaps, the American way to be hard on one’s children. I have raised you with discipline. How your Papou raised me.”

  I blurted, “How old were you when you left home?”

  His eyes met mine and filled, for one instant, with crystal understanding. He walked out. I knew the answer, though. My father left home at sixteen. Never saw his family again. That day was the only time he’d mentioned my grandfather.

  He didn’t bring it up again, but a week later, he brought me the car keys at breakfast. For the first time in my life, he stammered. “I shouldn’t have sold… I should … for your birthday.” He never apologized, but the title was in my name this time. That’s the best he can do.

  Today, I pull beside a familiar car, Tom’s white Jeep. He’s alone, but I pretend not to see. Avoiding him is less gut-wrenching than being ignored. I slide my backpack off the seat and head for school.

  Tom’s behind me. “Nick!”

  Why is he bothering me? I keep walking. He runs behind, yelling my name.

  “Funny,” I say, finally. “Thought I heard a voice, but no one here’s speaking to me.”

  He catches up. “Nick…”

  I turn to face him. His hair is short as the day I first saw him in kindergarten. He’s clutching something, the spring Seagull literary journal. He stares at me a moment, not speaking. When I start to walk away, he says, “Caitlin thinks you wrote this.” He points to a page.

  “Wrote what?” But I know. It’s my poem, which Higgins agreed to publish anonymously. In the fall edition, there will be two more under my name.

  He points again. “This.”

  “So? You’re breaking your vow of silence to congratulate me on my writing?”

  “So, you wrote it?” When I don’t answer, he adds, “Caitlin doesn’t go to Key anymore. She’s living with her dad. She’s at some special performing arts school.”

  It takes me a second to hear that. Then, a minute longer, to understand I’ll probably never see her again. Finally, I say, “That’s great. She loved to sing.” I think I mean it. “That all?”

  “You’re not making this easy.”

  “Everything’s easy for you.”

  “Think so, huh?” He reaches for my arm. I pull away, walking faster. We’re at the chain-link fence that separates the student lot from Key Biscayne High Drive. He runs ahead and blocks the entrance. “Think it’s easy finding out my best friend never told me anything about himself?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This!” He jiggles the paper in his hand. “Caitlin says you wrote this about me, this crap about being alone and not wanting to tell your secrets. She said you apologized, she thought you meant it this time. She told me other stuff too, about you and your dad. How could you not have told me that shit?”

  “Um, I don’t know. Why don’t I look at you and your perfect life and just open a vein for your entertainment?”

  “My life’s not perfect. You know it isn’t. I told you.”

  “It looked pretty perfect from where I stood.”

  He thinks about that and, above the anger in his eyes, I see pity I never wanted from him. I turn away. The late bell rings and, except for a few stragglers, the parking lot is silent. “Look, I have to go.” I push past him and walk toward school.

  He speaks to my back. “I thought we were friends.”

  “Some friend.” I turn. “First sign of trouble, you took off.”

  His eyes avoid mine. “You hurt Caitlin. You hurt her bad. That’s all I saw. I didn’t know you were hurting too. I told you everything, and you kept this huge secret from me.”

  “If you’d known, you’d just have found a new best friend sooner—someone more your class.”

  Tom looks at me like I loogeyed in his face. “That’s what you think? I’m some snob?”

  “Pretty much.”

  He bites his lip. “Yeah, that’s what Liana’s family thought too. Called me the Golden Gringo, bugged her until she dumped me. But you, Nick?” He turns away, his voice a strangled whisper. “Screw you for thinking that.”

  He starts to cross the street, and suddenly I don’t want him to leave. I yell after him, “What do you want, Tom?”

  He stops, blocking traffic. “I want things like they used to be.”

  “They aren’t.”

  He finishes crossing and sinks onto the curb. I follow him. I can’t say why. “I want to forgive you,” he says, touching his hair. “I want you to forgive me.”

  I stand over him. “Why? What Caitlin told you—it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t excuse it. You think I’m some mental case who’s not responsible for my actions?”

  “No. I don’t know.” He tips back his head, closing his eyes against looking at me. “Maybe it doesn’t excuse it. Maybe it explains it. I don’t know, maybe I wasn’t a good enough friend, but I want to be.”

  I watch Tom, leaning back, staring at the sky now. I’ve always known Tom, but I never looked at him, never saw him before now. He was always Tom the athlete, Tom the most likely to … everything. How could I expect him to see me when I didn’t see him?

  “I should have told you,” I say finally. “I just… I didn’t want to lay that on you.”

  “You were my best friend,” he says.

  “I should have told you.” I gesture at his hair. “You did that for Liana?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” But he nods. “She said my dating her was a phase, like the long hair. I needed to rebel against my parents with an oye girlfriend.” He runs a hand across his shorn head. “Sure didn’t feel like a phase.”

  I sit beside him on the curb. “We’ll start a club, Brothers in Celibacy.” I hold out my hand.

  He accepts it, a germ of a smile forming. “To the brotherhood.”

  “To the brotherhood.”

  We shake. I move away, saying, “She spared your feelings. She really dumped you ’cause you’re ugly.”

  He laughs. “Hey, I just want to hang out with you to look taller by comparison.”

  “Asshole!”

  Tom takes off running, and I follow.

  Lots of girls I know call themselves divas. “I’m such a diva!” they say, as they’re rubbing your nose in some five-hundred-dollar shoes their daddy bought them. But being a diva’s a lot more than just being a rich grrrl. It’s about singing, about getting flowers thrown onstage—about being brilliant. I plan to be a diva someday. But first, I have to get through this audition.

  And—wouldn’t you know it—there’s a wad of phlegm stuck in my throat.

  The scene: I’m in an auditorium with, maybe, fifty other wannabes, trying out for the musical theate
r program at Miami High School of the Arts. Goths sit with goths, punk rockers with punk rockers. The girl next to me has an eyebrow-ring and hair Jell-O–dyed acid red. Everyone here has something freaky about them … except me. I’m the one and only person here in a dress (which maybe is freaky).

  And I bet I’m the only one here with gunk in my throat.

  Don’t think about it. But I can feel it lying behind my tongue like cafeteria spaghetti, at a life-changing audition. I clear my throat and Eyebrow-Ring Girl gives me a look and nods at the person onstage.

  ’Scuse me—I’ll choke more quietly in the future.

  I sneak another look at her. My cheerleader friends would say she probably isn’t getting enough attention at home. But I think anyone who’d wear that outfit has to be cool, and I wonder what it would be like to want to be noticed.

  Me, I’m all about not being noticed. I’m sixteen, and for the first fifteen, I was a fatgirl, invisible as they come. I was okay with that. Well, maybe not okay, but … used to it. But last summer, I went to fat camp and lost thirty-five pounds, and became (at least temporarily) a thin girl, a blond prettygirl. I actually made the homecoming court and dumped the hottest guy in school … and still became one with the walls most days.

  If any of my friends knew I was here, auditioning for a performing arts school, that they’d notice. In a bad way. But I didn’t tell them. I didn’t even tell my mother. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever done anything all by myself.

  There’s a bunch of reasons for that.

  First, my friends all want me to be like them—cheerleaders, homecoming queens. I thought by losing weight I could be like that. But now, even though I’m thin enough, I’m still not cheerleader material. Funny, changing how I looked didn’t change who I am. I picture myself doing a pyramid or making up a cheer and … oh, puke.

  “See anything interesting?”

  Too late, I realize I’m still staring at the girl with the eyebrow ring. I am a dorkus maximus.

  “Um… I love your hair.”

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  I stare at her. Is it that obvious I don’t belong here? Is it the dress?

  “For the audition? Habla ingles? What are you performing?”

  “Oh… I sing … opera.” I wait for her to laugh or make a snarky comment.

  “Cool.” She raises her pierced eyebrow. “You have one of those horn helmets?”

  I make the face Mom calls my diva face—eyeballs up; trying not to snort. “Um, not yet.”

  “Sorry. It’s just, you don’t look like an opera singer. You’re not…”

  “Fat?” No. Not anymore.

  The girl laughs. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

  But I know it was. It always is.

  The woman up front calls a name (not mine). Eyebrow-Ring Girl turns to look.

  Opera is the second reason I’m here. I love it. Most people think opera is a weird thing. Probably so. But it’s my weird thing—the one thing I’m really good at. Maybe good enough to get a dessert named after me someday (Peaches Melba was named after a diva) or maybe a town. Maybe even good enough to get into this school.

  The biggest, hugest reason I’m here (and the reason I’d never tell anyone) is my ex-boyfriend. I need to go somewhere where everyone hasn’t already heard the sad, sad saga of me and Nick. And also, where I don’t have to see him every day.

  I pop a cough drop into my mouth and make myself sit still for two whole minutes, until the girl who’s auditioning finishes singing.

  Omigod! What if I’m next?

  “Sean Griffin,” the woman up front calls.

  I actually really, really wanted to be next.

  I read a book about auditioning. It said the worst thing that could happen in an audition is that you don’t get the part, so you have no money, so you can’t buy food, so you die. Like … if you thought that the absolute worst thing that could happen at an audition was death, then you’d be less nervous about screwing up.

  That so did not make me feel better.

  “Here I am!” a voice sings.

  The guy, Sean Griffin, is skinny and wears a purple unitard, which seriously clashes with his blond hair, and eyes so blue I can see them even from a distance. He looks older, and he’s been standing with the teachers, so I thought he was an assistant or something. Guess he’s just a suck-up. He walks onstage, plunks a Burger King crown on his head (Really!), and starts to sing.

  Everything has its season. Everything has its time.

  Show me the reason and I’ll soon show you a rhyme!

  As soon as he starts singing, I’m nervous. I mean, more nervous. Lots of people at the audition were good. But Sean Griffin is the first person who’s like a professional, even in that geeky outfit. I now know why he was standing up there with the teachers, like he belonged there. He knows he’s going to get in.

  I wish I was confident like that. I know I’m good, but sometimes, when everyone’s staring, I wonder if it’s just some dumb idea, thinking I’m good enough.

  He finishes singing, and the applause is wild. He smiles like he’s used to it.

  “Caitlin McCourt!”

  Now, it’s my turn. My throat feels worse. I wonder if it could be all in my head. Is there such a thing as psychosomatic mucus?

  “Caitlin McCourt?”

  “Here.” I start toward the front of the auditorium.

  Onstage, the accompanist says, “Hey, how about a bathroom break?”

  “Oh.” The teacher looks at her watch. “Okay. Caitlin, do you need an accompanist, or do you have a tape?”

  I glance at the sheet music in my hands for Phantom of the Opera. But I’ve done the hardest part, I want to tell them, the standing up and walking down and having everyone stare at me in my too-cute dress part. I turn back around.

  “I can play for her.” The guy, Sean, is reaching for my sheet music.

  “Oh, that’s okay. I can wait. I wouldn’t want…”

  “No worries. I can play anything. I’m a great sight reader.” He takes my book and flips it open to the page where I’ve had my thumb jammed for the past hour. “This?”

  When I nod, he glances at the book. “Hard stuff.”

  “I can wait if you can’t play it.” Except if I sit now, I might never get back up.

  “I meant hard for you. This goes up to a C above high C, doesn’t it? That’s way high. Are you that good?”

  Wow, thanks. That really helps me feel less nervous.

  Actually, I’ve had that C for over a year. I write down the dates when I add new notes to my range. High C was last March 13. Now I’m working on E-flat.

  “Come on, Caitlin. It’s Caitlin, right?” Sean puts his hand on my shoulder and guides me toward the stage. My legs are all shaking.

  My legs always used to shake when I sang. It hasn’t happened in a while…

  Flashback: Me. Sixth grade. Looking like I might explode out of my jeans any second at middle-school orientation. I was with Mom (big mistake). I was signing up for chorus. The music teacher, Mrs. Hauser, said I could either go for Girls’ Chorus—no audition required—or try for Concert Choir, which was mostly eighth-graders.

  “Girls’ chorus sounds fun. Right, Caitlin?” Mom stopped fiddling with the purple alligator clip in her hair and started toward the sign-up sheet on the piano. She was wearing hot pink size-one capris and a tube top. Doesn’t everyone’s mother?

  “Wait. I don’t want to be in Girls’ Chorus. I mean, I do want to be, if that’s all I can be in, but I want to be in Concert Choir. I mean, I want to try.”

  Mom had moved away from the sign-up sheet and was nudging me, all, “Caitlin, sweetie, there’s an audition. That means you’d have to sing in front of everybody. By yourself.”

  “I know. I heard her. I get it.”

  “But honey pie, you can’t sing by yourself in front of everyone. You’re…”

  Fat. I heard it even though she didn’t say it. I heard her thinkin
g it.

  “You’re shy … you’ve never sung in front of anyone in your life, dear.”

  “Can I try?” I asked Mrs. Hauser, not Mom.

  “Of course you can.”

  “Are you sure, honey?” Mom said. “I have appointments. You heard what she said. It’s all eighth-graders.”

  Mrs. Hauser stood there with an oh-god-don’t-make-me-get-involved-in-this look. I faced Mom down for the first time ever.

  “I’m staying.” I took the pen from Mrs. Hauser and wrote my name on the audition sheet. I joined the kids in the corner, and Mom sat down.

  When Mrs. H. called my name, I wanted to run. Mom was right. It was one thing to sing in my room. It was a completely ’nother thing to sing in front of fifty people—and not one of them looked like a sixth-grader. But I walked up, feeling like Snow White in the movie—pre-dwarves—when she’s dumped in the forest and all those eyes are looking at her from the darkness. My legs were shaking so hard I thought I’d fall over.

  I closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and started to sing.

  The world didn’t end. Halfway through, my legs stopped shaking.

  I opened my eyes.

  In Snow White, when the A.M. hours come, Snow realizes that the scary eyes in the night are really gentle woodland creatures. That’s how I felt that day. The people in that room were looking at me, but not in a bad way. I’d never met them, but they were like friends. They wanted to know me because I was good. I was really good. At that moment, maybe I was even a little visible.

  I made Concert Choir that day—the only sixth-grade girl who did, thank you very much—and since then I’ve made most things I’ve tried out for.

  Here and now: My legs are shaking so hard I can barely stand, so I lean against the piano like those opera singers on PBS. I’m calm. Really. I breathe. You’re good at breathing, Caitlin. Very good. You practice breathing for opera.

  “Are you ready… Caitlin?” Sean says my name real soft.