Sing Me to Sleep

  “I’m really sorry.” I squeeze Mom’s shoulders. “Can I get you some herb tea? How about that violet kind you like?”

  “I’m fine. Can you sit a minute?”

  I perch on the edge of one of her wingback chairs. I feel stupid with the chicken leg in my hand.

  “They did some testing on the fetus.”

  I’m not so hungry anymore. The smell of the chicken is turning my stomach.

  “And ran some genetic tests on Linda.”

  “That’s all she needs. They should leave her alone.”

  “But now she knows what’s going on.”

  “They found something?”

  Mom nods. “It’s genetic.” She pauses, looks at me intently. “Linda is a carrier of what’s called a trisomy—a triple chromosome. Very rare.”

  “And it causes miscarriages?”

  “Babies that have it either die and miscarry”—Mom swallows hard—“or are born with severe mental and physical handicaps. Linda’s doctors told her not to try anymore.”

  “But Anna,” my cousin, “is fine.”

  “She could be a carrier.”

  A shudder goes through me. “I’m sorry, Mom. Poor Aunt Linda. That’s all she needs.”

  “Honey.” Mom looks down at her hands and then forces her eyes back to my face. “You need to be tested. You could be a carrier.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “From . . . him.” Dad? Even gone—ruining my life, finding a way.

  “That means . . . all my babies . . . ” Will die? Be severely handicapped? I’m not sure what they mean by that. There’s a kid in a wheelchair at school. He’s kind of twisted and talks weird, but he’s smart. I could deal with that. I could love a child like that. Even a baby who wasn’t smart. I think you’d end up loving them even more. They’d never grow up. Always be with you. I’d like that. I’d never be alone again.

  But all of Aunt Linda’s babies died. Except Anna. “Did you have miscarriages, Mom?”

  She shakes her head. “I just got pregnant the one time. With you.”

  I guess nature made me a beast for a reason. Too ugly to attract a mate and pass on the curse. Would an adopted baby love me or be frightened like those kids at the library last summer? Do they give children to single beasts?

  Mom gets up and hugs me. “You’ll be fine. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  I hug her back and try to believe, but the quiver that runs through her body makes it difficult.

  Over her head I catch a reflection of myself in the window behind her desk.

  Dyed, straight blonde hair.

  Perfect clear skin.

  No thick glasses.

  I’m beautiful.

  But inside, I can’t escape. I am what I am.

  My world was close to change.

  Breaking these shackles,

  My bid for freedom

  So near this time.

  But chains still bind me tight.

  All my cries

  For love, for hope

  Fade in the night.

  Just run away.

  That’s exactly what I’ll do. I’ll get on that plane, fly to Switzerland, sing to the world. Even this new curse, this awful new power my father may have over me, can’t stop me.

  chapter 10

  INFECTED

  “Oh, baby, look at that.” Meadow jabs my ribs with her elbow.

  Two way-hot guys wearing jeans and red and white hockey jerseys are talking to the guy who seated us. One of them is a tall guy I remember seeing on the Amabile guys’ Web site and the other one—

  Catches me staring—

  And grins at me.

  My eyes hit my plate, and I jam a forkful of pork schnitzel and buttery noodles into my mouth. I blush to the tips of my fingers. He’s got a magnetism that didn’t show up in his pictures online. Angel face, medium height, slim build, dark, soft hair. Pale, pale skin. I can’t believe I actually chatted with this guy. I can’t believe I was such a snot. He doesn’t know who I am—doesn’t have a clue that the awkward scarlet-faced girl staring at him with her mouth hanging open is the mysterious Bliss soloist. He’s awful, right? Horrid. As bad as Colby. For sure.

  “It’s him.” Meadow perks up. “Derek.”

  Poor Meadow. The trip up here this morning was brutal. Debilitating stage fright is merely one of her conditions. It’s all real, too—no act. She’s okay now. We’re sitting in a cozy restaurant, the Crystal something or other, all windows, snow-covered peaks smack up against them, that reflect so much sunshine it makes your eyes hurt. All this balanced on top of a peak in the middle of one of the most famous mountain ranges in the Swiss Alps. The Jungfraujoch. Don’t ask me how you say it. It’s part of this giant installation worthy of a James Bond-villain hideout. They call it the Top of Europe. When we first arrived and saw giant peaks right in our faces, we all stopped at the same time. Staring. Amazed. Alps on steroids.

  Down in Lausanne, where we started today’s journey, the Alps across the lake are a striking blue granite with hints of snow at the top. The quaint old city is rich with green grass and trees, the blue lake and bluer skies, red geraniums pouring off every windowsill—perfect summer, cool and sweet down by the water. Such a relief after the heat in Rome. The place is like a fairy tale come to life compared with the humid, overcast Great Lakes summer we left behind.

  Up here on the edge of the skies where clouds and birds and the very tip-tops of mountains live, it’s freezing white perfection. The glaciers on the peaks are pure and lovely, like an everlasting first snowfall.

  To get up here, we took train after train, and the last one went straight up through the middle of the solid granite mountain. All we could see was the rough stone walls cut a hundred years ago for tourists like us. Tunnels and Meadow don’t mix.

  She was breathing fast and shallow, head down, a sheen of sweat seeping through the makeup coating her face.

  I remembered that awful panic feeling when I was getting my face lasered. Meadow’s mom was in a different car. She always fades away when Meadow is in meltdown. Guess she doesn’t like to watch her own handiwork gone wrong.

  Meadow sympathized with me when I was flipping out during the lasers. On the train ride earlier today, I glanced down at myself in the picture displayed on the back of my new camera. I looked nice. She did this to me. I hated it—every second. But now? I should be grateful. At least grateful enough to help her out.

  “Hey!” I shook her arm, and her terrified eyes glued to my face. “Look at these pictures from Geneva yesterday.” I stuck the slim digital camera Mom and I bought after my appointment with the DNA guys under Meadow’s nose. Mom got me in for testing two days before we left. Cancellation. So lucky. We both needed cheering up after that.

  She focused on the screen. “Are you sure that’s Geneva?”

  “Yeah. There’s one of you at the UN.” We sang in the entrance in front of all the flags. “Let me find it.” I skipped ahead to a pretty one of her.

  “I can’t believe we missed the Amabile guys by ten minutes.” She has their schedule memorized. Guy talk works best to snap her out of it, so I kept her on the subject.

  “Wasn’t that them yesterday afternoon?” We had paraded en masse with all the competing choirs through the center of Lausanne, singing and waving flags. Hundreds of choirs. Thousands of singers. And a mass of guys in Canadian red and white that had to be the Amabile boys.

  “Seeing them from the back, miles away, isn’t what I came for.”

  I slowly scrolled through the shots. “You’ll see them tomorrow.”

  “No way. We’re competing. Terri will keep us tethered all day. But Amabile sings tonight. We got to get out and go.”

  Terri won’t let us go to the opening gala. After today’s long trip up the mountain, she wants us in early and asleep. Now that Meadow’s had her sighting, maybe I can talk her out of sneaking out. I’m here to sing not stalk. And tomorrow it finally happens.

  Not that we haven’t been s
inging. We already spent a week in France, Italy, and now Switzerland. We sang at the base of the Eiffel Tower, flew to Rome and performed in the middle of that huge square in front of St. Peter’s in the Vatican. Then to Geneva. Now we’re settled in our quaint little hotel in Lausanne. The room is way tiny, but the whole place is utterly clean. Even my neat-freak mom would approve. Our hotel in Italy was a total dump. Paris was worse. My only complaint about this one is the sign outside. A giant blue mermaid who forgot her seashells. At least she makes it easy to find. And she’s nothing like the saggy middle-aged women sunning themselves down by the lake that we ran into. I can’t imagine being seen like that. Meadow’s mom said sunning keeps them firm. Yuck. Didn’t seem to help for those ladies.

  When the train rolled to a stop about an hour ago, Terri came into our car. “Bundle up ladies.” We tumbled out, and I pulled my coat tight. We’re all wearing the same tan pants and cream raincoats with our Bliss logo embroidered on the collar, fleeces underneath for warmth up here in the mountains.

  Meadow clutched my arm. “I thought it was going to get better.”

  We were still in the guts of the mountain. Dark, brooding stone. So cold.

  “Scarves.” Terri wrapped hers around her face. “Quickly now.”

  Meadow planted herself. “Where are we going?”

  Leah got on Meadow’s other side, supporting her. “We’re obviously not singing in the train station.”

  We hustled down a stone corridor, breathing through our scarf-covered noses to protect our throats. We broke through big double doors into an open, airy space, warm and glassy. Up close and personal with mountain peaks every way you look. But that didn’t cheer Meadow up.

  But now, she looks like she’s just had a miracle transfusion. An undocumented Amabile sighting right here in our restaurant. They aren’t supposed to be up here. They must have changed up their schedule to outrun the groupies.

  “Hurry up. He’s getting away.” Those poor guys. They will not outrun Meadow. Gorgeous guys are her element. She’s excited, for sure, but possessed, ready to spring. Now I’m the one hyperventilating.

  She can’t expect me to go along. “No way.” I know Meadow. She’ll actually talk to them.

  “Oh, yeah. Miss Star, you get that tall guy with him, Blake. I looked him up specially for you.”

  “Please,” Sarah tears her eyes away from the door the guys disappeared through. “You’re not giving that to Beth. She wouldn’t know what to do with him.”

  Thanks, Sarah. I think.

  “Come on, Beth.” Meadow’s on her feet, jumping around.

  “I’m not going to make a good impression if I faint when we sing.” I keep eating, slowly, pretending I’m calm, not embarrassed, not nervous. Totally indifferent. I tell myself I’m not interested in guys like that. Guys like Derek loathe me. He’s the enemy. I glance out the window behind me to make sure the bright-white mountains aren’t melting in the glow of Derek’s smile like I am. I should be creeped out that he made me feel like this, swirled into a panic.

  Meadow watches me take every bite. As soon as I get the last noodle in my mouth, she grabs my arm, jerks her head at Leah and Sarah, and the chase is on.

  Just outside the restaurant, there’s a stairway that leads us to a busy area directly off the entrance. There are counters where you can buy touristy stuff and racks of postcards over to one side. The rest is glass and blazing, white rugged mountain peaks.

  Meadow spies the two guys looking at the postcards. “Come on.” She goes right up to them, zeroes in on Derek. “Hey, are you guys Amabile?” I would be embarrassed to say something that stupid, but from Meadow it sounds like poetry.

  The tall guy looks at the back of his jersey that’s plastered with their logo. “What tipped you off?”

  “We’re your neighbors.”

  The tall guy gives her a blank look—guess they get this a lot.

  She doesn’t balk for a second, turns to her boy. “From Ann Arbor. Michigan? You know that place just across the border? Bliss Youth Singers.”

  Derek grabs the hand she’s sticking in his face. “You really are Bliss?”

  Meadow lights up. “Yeah. That’s us.”

  He lets go of her hand and looks at the three of us standing behind her. “Do you know Beth? The one who sings the ‘Take Me Home’ solo on your Web site?”

  Sarah and Leah drag me forward. Meadow isn’t pleased. Neither am I.

  “Hey.” He shakes my hand now. “That’s Blake. I’m Derek. Nice to finally meet you.”

  I’m surprised I don’t faint, but I almost throw up all those buttery noodles churning in my mortified stomach. My reply isn’t an intelligible word. I can’t speak or even breathe, can’t look at him. I just stare at his soft, pale hand touching my rough, bronzed one.

  “Sorry I was such a turd that night online.” He’s not smirking at me. That smile is genuine, so heartstoppingly genuine.

  I manage, “Me . . . um, me, too.”

  “Truce?”

  “Sure.” He draws his hand away from mine.

  Blake turns so poor Meadow gets shouldered out. “Derek’s over the top with his counterintelligence duties.”

  Sarah laughs up at him and oozes closer. She’s well-endowed with natural assets and isn’t afraid to invest them. I don’t know how she communicates all that to Blake with a single giggle, but he obviously gets the message.

  Derek flashes me another grin. “I have a confession to make.”

  More heat pours into my face. Maybe it doesn’t show through my foundation.

  “I downloaded ‘Take Me Home’ from your Web site, which,” Derek’s smile opens up to include the rest of the girls, “really needs pictures.”

  Leah’s eyebrows draw together. “I didn’t think you could do that.”

  “Pictures? Easy.”

  “Download the song.”

  “You can’t but—”

  Sarah giggles again. “You stole our song?”

  “Borrowed?” He gives me this sweet forgive-me look.

  Blake tears his eyes away from Sarah to add, “So he can spy on you.”

  “Shut up.” Derek elbows Blake in the ribs. “I’ve always loved that piece. We did it in chamber. And the way you do it—so much feeling. That needs to go on Bliss’s next CD.”

  “CD?” I am so lost. Meadow and her mom forgot one thing when they remade me. I’d give anything for a personality transplant right now. I am so out of my depth.

  Derek tips his head, talks low, like it’s just the two of us. “Our conductor makes us listen to our numbers at night when we go to bed. Some flighty hypnosis trash. Sometimes I cheat—slip in something soothing.” His deep brown eyes capture mine. “You sing me to sleep.”

  Blushing, sweating—what a mess. At least I keep my lunch down. Who could possibly answer that? He must be doing this on purpose, take perverse delight in reducing tall, awkward girls to puddles.

  Meadow comes to my rescue. “Now you’ve met Beth.” She maneuvers me to the side. “Here’s Sarah, Leah, and I’m—” She pauses and smiles at him like he’s won the lottery. “Meadow.”

  Blake and Derek mumble polite stuff.

  Meadow keeps after Derek. “I’ve got your CD.”

  Blake says, “The new one or the old one?”

  Sarah laughs at his elbow, catches his eye again. “All three. I even got the new Primus recording.” Primus is the name of their special group for the older guys.

  Meadow picks up a postcard. “We all do.”

  Derek turns to where I’m pretending to look at fuzzy gloves with “Top of Europe” and mountain peaks embroidered on them. “How about you, Beth. Do you listen to us?”

  I nod. “I have all the AYS CDs, too.” My tongue seems to function better if I don’t look at him. “They, um, set the standard.”

  He shrugs. “None of them has your voice.”

  Meadow maneuvers to a spot on Derek’s other side. “Are you guys singing up here?”

  Blake put
s a postcard with a guy blowing an alphorn back in the rack. “Uh-huh. We just checked the schedule.” He pronounces “schedule” as “shedule.” Sarah smiles at that. Blake raises his eyebrows at her. “Thirty minutes.”

  Sarah picks out a card I can’t see and shows it to him. “You must be right after us.”

  “Cool.” Blake looks around the rack at all of us. “We should do a piece together—in the name of international harmony.”

  Derek turns back to me, picks up a black velour beanie. “Are you singing your solo? I’d love to hear it live.”

  “No.” I croak, swallow, manage to find a voice that doesn’t wobble too much. “That’s our competition piece. We’re saving it.”

  “Secret weapon?” That grin again.

  Dang. I’m going to die right here and now. And then they’ll win for sure. A guy with his cuteness factor blended with little-boy sweet shouldn’t be allowed to roam free and unprotected. He’s infectious. Crap. He’s an epidemic.

  I can’t help smiling back at him. “Maybe not as secret as we thought.”

  “Do you girls want to get a drink with us?” He says “girls” but he looks at me. “They’ve got this hot apple stuff that really clears out your throat. Great for the pipes.”

  Leah looks at her watch. “I don’t think we have time. We’re supposed to warm up in five minutes.”

  Blake leans over Sarah and whispers, “Your loss,” in her ear—loud enough so we all hear. She keeps her cool, does this almost imperceptible cat-wriggle response.

  Meadow tugs at the beanie in Derek’s hand. “How about after.”

  Derek drops the beanie and turns back to me. “Only if you promise to sing the test piece with us.”

  Sing with them? Oh . . . my . . . gosh. “But we sing the treble arrangement.” I’m gross sweaty again. I can even feel perspiration breaking out in the small of my back.

  Derek doesn’t seem to notice. “The bass piece is in the same key. It works. We sing it in our chamber choir with the AYS all the time.”

  Meadow shakes her sexy straight hair back out of her face. That gets Derek’s attention. Blake’s, too. She purses her glossy red lips. “Won’t the AYS get upset if you guys sing with us?” I need to memorize what she does with her body. Head tilt, hip out, weight shift, chest movement. It all looks perfectly natural. I feel like a board standing next to her.