Freshman Year (6 page)

“Terrific. What about Kate? Did she have a good day?”

The only thing I know about Kate's day is that she had Chemistry with some idiot jock named Daniel or Darren or Dumbass, or something with a D, and she's now apparently in love with him, which is all I heard about at lunch after I ran the mile I missed in PE. “Yeah, I guess she did,” I say.

“What else? Come on, spill it! You used to talk forever without breathing after your first day.”

You mean you want to hear about how Jake Simpson knew my name, or how I nearly got an F in PE, or how I passed notes in Spanish with a genuine lesbian, or how I told that lesbian a whopper of a lie about why I can't try out for basketball? Sorry, Mom. Instead, I say, “Nothing else to say, I guess. It was just an ordinary day of school.”

“Hmm. Okay,” she says. “Well, I do have something for you, but now I think I'll hold off giving it to you until your birthday.”

“What! But that's not until November.”

“Don't worry, sweetie. I've got something even better for you. Come on.” She takes my hand and leads me to the garage.

She starts handing me random items from a pile in the corner, and since I don't know what to do with them, I make another pile behind me.

She holds up my rusty red tricycle. “I can't believe you used to be this tiny.”

I take it from her and chuck it on the other pile. The hellish temperature of the garage is slowly suffocating me and I've already worked up a sweat. “How much longer?”

“Hang on. I'm almost there,” she says, as she moves aside some Christmas decoration boxes to make a path to the shelves that hold our more valuable possessions.

My first-day-of-school present hasn't ever come from a box in the garage, so I'm kind of disappointed. Plus, I thought for sure she'd bought me a cell phone, since I've been begging for one all summer. But she's old, old school. We just barely got cable and voice mail.

“Seriously Mom, I'm about to pass out.”

“Got it,” she says and emerges from behind a tower of boxes, bikes, and wrapped up paintings. She's got a guitar case in her hands. “This is the one.”

Back inside we sit down on the couch. My mom puts the closed guitar case on the coffee table in front of us. Before opening it, she says, “I gave this to your dad on our third wedding anniversary, when I was pregnant with you. We didn't have a dime to our name with me sitting at home about to burst and your dad finishing up graduate school, but I wanted to get him something special. He'd been talking about this guitar for months, so I marched down to the store, and you know what I did?”

“No, I don't, but I hope I wasn't a prenatal accomplice to armed robbery.”

I make her laugh, which is always my goal when I'm around her. “Better. I told the owner of the shop that his small store was hard to see from the road. He agreed but said he couldn't afford to do much about it. So that's when I offered my services. I told him I'd paint a bright, eye-catching mural on his storefront for trade. For this guitar,” she says and points to the guitar case in front of us.

I had no idea that my mom was such a wheeler and dealer. “And he gave you the guitar?”

“Well, not exactly. He thought my artwork was worth even more than this guitar, so he threw in the case, a bunch of spare strings, and a hundred dollars. The store and my mural are gone now, but your dad used to love to drive friends by my mural and say, ‘Now that's a masterpiece.'” Then she finally opens the case.

We both silently stare at it nestled in the red velvet and remember the music Dad used to make. He was such a serious science guy most of the time, but when it came to playing his guitar, he'd let it all out. Maybe playing guitar will have the same effect on me, too.

*

Neither my mom nor I know anything about tuning or restringing or caring for a guitar, so we decide to take it to a music shop to have someone look at it. Since the store is near our favorite pizza joint, I suggest to my mom that we drop it off and eat some pizza while we wait. Much to my amazement, she agrees.

I'd been to All Strings Attached a few times with my dad, so when I walk through the doors I have another one of my missing-dad moments. The noise level doesn't really match my mood, though. It sounds like there are five horrible rock concerts going on at once. My mom and I weave through the tight pathways between the instruments and other customers and wait for help at the register.

“I'll be right with you,” a girl shouts, as she walks behind the counter. She's hidden behind a tall stack of folded T-shirts balanced in her arms. She carefully places the stack on another counter, and suddenly all my favorite parts of the Hot Dog on a Stick Chick are revealed: her smile, her eyes, her…other parts. Seeing her makes me gasp, which causes my mom to look over at me, which causes me to scowl back at her hoping to confuse her. I pray it works.

The Hot Dog on a Stick Chick tosses her heavy black braid over her shoulder and dusts off her hands to indicate she's done with that task. “
Hola
, how can I help you?”

I'm thinking,
Oh, Hot Dog on a Stick Chick, you had me at ‘Hola,'
so thank God my mom's there to intervene.

Mom puts the case on the counter and opens it up. “We don't know exactly what it needs.”

The Hot Dog on a Stick Chick raises her eyebrows like she's shocked. It must be because the guitar is so old or dirty or cheap or needs lots of work. After all, it has been hiding in the overheated garage for a long time.

“Is it still playable?” my mom shouts over the banging of drums and screeching of electric guitars. “Can you fix it tonight?”

The Hot Dog on a Stick Chick glances over at me, and I give a little wave to her then roll my eyes to convey that I don't normally do geeky things like go to music shops with my mom. I also congratulate myself for knowing her fingertip calluses are from playing guitar. Then I wonder how she manages to work two jobs and go to school.

“Well, it usually can't be done that quickly, but I'll give you the Gila High special and get her cleaned up for you tonight,” she says to me then closes the case and gently leans it against the wall behind the counter like she knows how much the guitar means to us. “I'll have her ready for you by nine o'clock. That cool?”

She's talking to me again, but I've stopped breathing, so I nod my head instead of speaking.

My mom is satisfied with the transaction and is already halfway to the door. I'm about to follow her, but then the Hot Dog on a Stick Chick says, “
Adiós, Amara
,” and winks at me…again. And because there aren't any lemons around, I am thoroughly convinced that this time she did it on purpose.

Dinner with my mom is a blur. I think there are black olives and mushrooms on the pizza, but it might as well be anchovies and onions because I am way too distracted to notice. I manage to appear like I'm listening to my mom's stories about her high school days, way back when Madonna was much closer to being like a virgin than now, but the only reason I know when to nod and laugh is because I've heard them all a million times before.

After dinner I tell my mom to go to the car, and I'll just run in to get the guitar. She gives me a wad of cash and I bolt across the street while she climbs in our junky blue Volvo station wagon.

The store is much quieter and looks bigger without all the customers crowded in trying out the goods. I arrive at the counter, but no one's around, not even the Hot Dog on a Stick Chick. I wait patiently and try to appear cool by tapping my fingers to the music playing in the background. It's a guitar instrumental of “Something” by the Beatles, which is the song my mom always asked my dad to play. Then a woman's voice starts singing along, and that's when I realize the guitar isn't coming from the speakers mounted around the store, and neither is the voice.

The live music is coming from behind a wall of Jimi Hendrix posters, so I peek around the corner and can't believe what I see: the Hot Dog on a Stick Chick playing my dad's guitar. Her eyes are closed, and as she releases the sweet lyrics they feel like soft whispers floating by my ear, sending goose bumps down my arms.

Realizing that she might think I'm weird for spying on her, I turn around quietly to pretend I was never there. She must have sensed me watching her because she opens her eyes and stops singing, but keeps on playing my guitar.

“Do you always go around sneaking up on people, Amara?” she asks with a huge smile on her face, which tells me that she must not think I'm too weird.

I cross my arms over my chest, smile back, and then shrug because, once again, I can't breathe or speak. It's the way she says
Amara
, like she knows how it makes me feel. I had decided during dinner that I would go ahead and tell her my real name, but after hearing my pretend name again, I change my mind. Amara is close enough.

“I hope you don't mind. I was just trying her out,” she says. “Man, she's a beauty. It's a Martin D-35, right?”

I have no idea who Martin is or what she's talking about, so I shrug and smile again.

She picks up on my confusion and tries to help me. “What I mean is, it's a really, really rare guitar. Where'd you guys get it?”

“Some guitar shop guy gave it to my mom in exchange for painting his wall,” I say, and now the Hot Dog on a Stick Chick is confused.

Thankfully, she changes the topic to something we can both understand. “So did you enjoy the free concert, you little spy?”

“Oh. Yeah, it was…” I struggle to find the perfect adjective to describe the music she made but only come up with “nice.” Then I watch her wind up some cords. She has nice tennis-player arms; they are strong, but not too muscular. Then out of nowhere, I say, “How do you do that?”

“Wind up cords?” she asks and laughs in her smooth sort of way.

What I am thinking is,
How do you make the music float across the room and land in my ear like a kiss?
But what I say is, “No, how do you move your fingers that quickly when you play? I'm never going to be able to do that.”

“Just takes a little practice,” she says, looking too closely at me, like Garrett and Stef did in the hall at Gila. “You don't play, huh?”

That was a question and I know I need to say something, but all I can think about is the dream I had about her last night. She was behind the counter at Hot Dog and was teasing me with a french fry, pulling it away from my mouth when it was so close I could feel the steam warm my lips. “It's not mine. It's my dad's,” I finally say.

She snaps the case shut. “He must really love her. She's in great shape.”

“It is? He's dead,” I say without meaning to.

“Oh, I'm sorry.” Then she changes the subject. “So, what are you two going to do with her? You know she deserves better than the highest bidder on eBay, right?”

“Actually, I'm taking a guitar class at Gila. It's for beginners.” I grab a lock of hair to twirl but force myself to let it go.

“Really,” she says, as if she's doubtful for some reason, so I explain.

“Yeah, I don't know why I chose guitar. I mean, I'll probably suck at it. I'll never be as good as you. It was a stupid choice. I should have taken typing or something.” I pinch my freckled arm with one hand and begin to twirl my hair with the other.

She smiles and walks to the front of the store with my guitar. I follow her.

“Actually,” she says, “Mr. Chase is a pretty good teacher, Amara. You'll be fine. Besides, you can do anything you put your mind to.” She opens the front door for me. “It just takes a little time. Everything will fall into place when it needs to. Trust me.”

I do. I trust her completely.

As she hands me the guitar, our hands touch. I feel my body flush and my head spin but still manage to remember I haven't paid her. “Wait, how much do I owe you?”

“It's on the house. Besides, I should be paying you for letting me hold something that rare in my arms.” She embraces me in her gaze.

I respond with my cheesiest smile and wish I could stay in the store forever, but with my mom waiting across the street, maybe even watching us, I have to stay focused. I start to get the cash from my back pocket, but she grabs my hand to stop me. I try not to faint from the serious lack of oxygen to my brain.

“Keep your money, Amara. Don't you remember what I told you last time?”

I haven't forgotten any part of our previous meeting but want her to say it again.

“When someone gives you more than you expect, just say thank you and walk away.” Then she puts the pick she's been using in my palm. It's warm from being in her pocket. “You'll need this for class tomorrow,” she whispers.

I swallow loudly and whisper back, “Thanks.” I don't know why we're whispering, but it feels like the right thing to do.

“Now you're learning,” she says and looks into me again. I wonder what she sees that's worth looking at.
“Buenas noches, Amara
.
”

“Okay, yeah. I mean, you, too. And thanks.” I turn to leave the store, forcing myself to keep walking across the street instead of turning around to look at her. Though I'm pretty sure I look totally drunk as I cross the road, I manage to make it to our car on my wobbly legs. I get in, shut the door, and buckle my seat belt.

“Any change?” Mom asks and slowly accelerates down the street.

“Nope,” I say, “no change.”

“What's with that thing?” Kate asks, as she sprays another layer of perfume across her pushed-up boobs.

I'm on her basement couch waiting (again) for her to finish getting ready for school. “It's called a guitar.”

“Are you trying to become a band geek or something?”

“They don't play acoustic guitar in band. Duh.”

She laughs. “Okay, well, you're an even bigger geek for knowing that.”