Who Put This Song On? Read online

  “I know,” she relents, scripted. There’s more frustration than sympathy in her voice. I hate that I’m the kind of person people have to “try” to be around.

  It’s a whole thing; we both start tearing up for no good reason.

  She offers to flat-iron my hair for the party, a veiled bonding attempt and a backhanded remark about my “presentableness,” so I begin the grueling mental process of preparing to drag myself out of bed and into the world.

  “I’m just scared,” I say too loudly as she’s leaving the room. “It’s scary for me.”

  She nods gravely with her lips closed. We’re both very dramatic people.

  * * *

  —

  Sitting at my mom’s vanity, I stare brutally at my face in the mirror. I guess I’ll always have this face, which is super annoying. The prospect of carrying this body around day after day makes me want to crawl right back into my little womb of woe and just shut everything out.

  However, today I’m going to Meg’s tea party because my therapist and my mom are making me. When Meg Sloane called to invite me, I was actually shocked—I haven’t been to one of her birthdays since back when we had to include everyone from class.

  My head jerks with each stroke of the hot comb as my mom brushes and flat-irons my hair into submission. Apparently, I am tender-headed, which is a black thing. My hair is such a thing. To distract myself, I pull up some videos of the Get Up Kids on my laptop. In the mirror I see my mom wince and suck her teeth.

  “What are these white boys so upset about? This whining is…really extreme.”

  “It’s called emo.”

  “It’s sort of irritating, isn’t it?” She laughs, and it’s not a ha-ha laugh. It’s some kind of mom code I can’t understand.

  “It’s not just music, Mom. It’s a style. It’s a way of life.”

  I know it sounds dumb, but whatever, it’s true.

  “I guess I just don’t understand what’s so cool about being sad.”

  This is a very popular sentiment at home, at school, in my whole tiny world. Every bad mood is temporary, just waiting to be overcome. I’ve always been told that the solution to all problems is prayer and serving others. If you are holy, you are happy. I guess I’m just not good enough.

  (Now that I know what depression is, it’s glaringly obvious that I’ve been depressed for years, maybe since birth. I’ve always been wrong like this. For example, I’ve been banned from having a slumber party since I had my first and only birthday sleepover at age ten and was so aggravated that I screamed at everyone there and tried pulling my hair out. My parents always say I “threw a fit,” but it sounds like the way Susan describes anxiety.)

  (Later, when my friends made fun of me about it, I pretended to laugh it off with them. I did the same when it happened on a school trip to Six Flags. And there were all those times at the crowded mall in Riverside when I “had a fit” on the benches outside the Body Shop because I thought I couldn’t breathe—panic attacks.)

  Of course my mom doesn’t understand being emo. She still asks me every year if I’m going to try out for cheer, and she’s so unsubtly horrified by all my outfit choices. She can’t hide anything in her face, her over-the-top expressions. Dad, Malcolm, and I have started to retort, “You didn’t need to,” when she cries, “I didn’t say anything!” It’s sort of funny because it’s so blatant, but mostly it’s frustrating. I wish she would just say how she feels about stuff, what she really thinks—otherwise, why do I have to?

  In high school, she was a cheerleader when she met my dad, a football player at a rival school. In college she pledged a black sorority. She always had a boyfriend. She’s trendy, at least in her mom way, wearing low Converses and Banana Republic sweater dusters over my brother’s jersey for game days. She makes sure the house is always cute, spotless. The mainstream works for her. And then she gets a daughter like me.

  * * *

  —

  The best way for me to describe our little Southern California town is “nothing surrounded by something.” Mountains, Disneylands, Hollywoods, Laguna Beaches, casinos, Palm Springs hotels: we have it all. We have all of it only forty-five minutes away. Our town is known for its oranges; for 0.8 miles of Route 66; for its abundance of conservative churches and their simple, kind congregations. The houses line up in clean rows. Front yards are neat green squares, SUVs and raised trucks piously adorned with Jesus fish emblems and Republican party stickers. The sun is involved in every day, pressing on spotless sidewalks, the tops of shiny cars. Eyes glaze over with tracts of artificial grass. Shit is extremely pleasant.

  I hate it here.

  After only one and a half dreamy, grungy songs from Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted, I arrive at Meg’s mom’s address. As I park I have a faint sense of having been to the house before, but I could be wrong. (In our landscape, things are like sitcom reruns, people and events repeating, all more of the same.)

  My outfit is: a striped polo shirt from the boys’ section of Goodwill, cutoff jean shorts, and (just because) a pair of red kitten heels left over from my fifties housewife phase. (No “Is that what you’re wearing?” from Mom—a distinct Bummer Summer perk.) Making my way up the driveway, I wipe nervous sweat from my neck and tug at my cutoffs.

  A little blond girl with a large forehead, maybe seven, greets me at the door before I even knock. She wears only a one-piece swimsuit, her stringy hair dripping wet all over the entryway tile. I panic—I didn’t know this was a pool thing.

  “Who are you?” Her neck snaps back as if on a pulley.

  “I’m here for the— I’m here for Meg.” She stares blankly. “Morgan,” I point to my chest like a caveperson.

  If I have been here, it was years ago, before Meg’s parents split up—this is my first encounter with the result of Liz Sloane’s remarriage to a much younger, Scandinavian-looking guy.

  “Okay,” she says, smiling creepily with gummy cheeks. Disclaimer: I really do not like children. I’m a little bit afraid of them. Malcolm’s only two years younger than me (sometimes we even say we’re twins), so I can’t imagine living with such a small, foreign thing. I don’t even babysit—I wouldn’t know what the hell to do.

  The girl makes no attempt to hide her gaze, which starts at the top of my head and slowly moves down to my feet. Her verdict: “You’re brown. I like your shoes.”

  I laugh, my first instinct. But I feel hella awkward. I mean, the kid is just stating the obvious. That I am brown and have awesome shoes on are two true things about me.

  (So what’s this feeling, like dark, inky water suddenly rising around me?)

  My mouth hangs open and I finally blink, noticing that Meg has appeared in the doorway.

  “Geez, let her get through the door first, girl,” Meg says. She lifts up the little freak with one arm like a grocery bag and drags me by the other hand into the foyer. Muscles bulge like clementines under the pale skin of her sticklike arms.

  “This is Jessie,” she says offhandedly as the girl wriggles from her clutch and bounces away. Meg flings up her free hands flippantly. “So, welcome to the party and all that good stuff.”

  Every wall is adorned with yearly coordinated-outfit mall portraits of their entire blended family and school pictures of Meg, Jessie, and Meg’s older brother, Ryan. A ceiling fan hums in the sunken family room. It smells like any other white person’s house: a little musty maybe, like the past, and also like Sea Breeze Yankee Candles.

  “Sorry I, uh, didn’t know it was a pool thing.”

  “It isn’t,” Meg laughs. She’s wearing baseball sleeves under faded overall shorts, and a White Stripes pin. It is a very good outfit. “Wanna come sit outside?”

  “Sure.” I present her gift. My mom bought it, as if I’m in first grade or something. It’s some lotions from Bath & Body Works that Meg will almost certainly never use
.

  “Thanks,” she says a little uneasily. “Listen, I’m sorry about what my sister said back there—”

  “Oh! Don’t worry about it!” Her “sorry” is my cue to immediately shake my head and wave it off. Knee-jerk polite black friend.

  “She didn’t mean anything by it. I just don’t want you to be offended.”

  “Oh yeah, totally. No way.”

  “Cool.” Meg nods, genuinely smiling. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here. James and I are trying to settle an argument.”

  Out on the patio, James is sitting with Kelly Kline, freshly initiated to varsity cheer, and eternal student council president since eighth grade. (Who could deny her the title? She seriously takes pleasure in planning stuff, in like a scary way. I did a group project with her on The Outsiders for eighth-grade English, and she made like a million useless spreadsheets for the whole team.) Kelly is everyone’s friend. There’s nothing to really hate on her about. She’s careful like that.

  James and Kelly are sipping from teacups, pinkies out. On the table is a full tea set, doilies and tiny sandwiches and a cupcake stand. Meg’s chair is decorated with feather boas, like she’s a bride-to-be. Someone’s iPod Shuffle deejays; it sounds like the Mountain Goats are playing.

  “Help yourself,” Meg says, pointing to a pair of empty plastic chairs. I weirdly panic, then sit next to Kelly, start to panic about—chill.

  I ask about their summers, and they all say “boring” at the same time.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Okay, so, Morgan”—James turns to me and returns his cup to its saucer—“yours will be the tie-breaking opinion.”

  Kelly throws back her dirty-blond curls. “Are we still talking about this? Morgan, ignore them. Did you hear the new Weezer?”

  “Kelly, we heard the Weezer, we talked about the Weezer, the Weezer is bad. I’m sorry, but it is just no Green Album and doesn’t even begin to touch the Blue Album. Anyway, the question of the day”—he narrows his eyes at Kelly—“which you very rudely did not answer, is: would you rather be raptured before losing your V-card, or do it with any musician living or dead BUT get left behind AND become Kirk Cameron from the Left Behind movie.”

  “Wait, why do I have to be Kirk Cameron? That’s so random.” I smirk at the absurdity.

  “It is! It is ridiculously random, and that is why it is not a legitimate would-you-rather.” Meg presses her palms to the table to restore order.

  James slurps his tea and shrugs, self-satisfied. “Just to spice things up.”

  “You guys remind me of Seinfeld,” Kelly blurts, a pitch too high.

  “Which episode?” (I have legitimately seen all of them, so I could coast on this chatter for the entire afternoon if necessary.)

  “Um, all of them, kind of.”

  I snicker because I cannot help myself, and Meg snorts too.

  James stands up for no reason. “Guys, let’s do something tonight.”

  “Only in Dreams” winds to its crescendo, the last song on Weezer’s Blue Album. The best Weezer, obviously.

  “I can’t.” Kelly is taking stock of some butterfly clips in her tote bag. “I’m going to youth group. You guys should come!”

  “Why would we want to go to school when there’s still a solid two weeks of summer left?” groans James. “Let’s go to the movies.”

  “Yes!” Meg chirps. “And cheese fries at Denny’s!”

  I’m mostly quiet, studying them, letting the conversation swirl around me. I’m totally overcome with how difficult it is to just, like, be. In my first therapy session, Susan asked me, “What brings you pleasure?” and I was horrified that I couldn’t answer. Writing in my journal? Screaming Bright Eyes lyrics in my bedroom? Bette Davis marathons on Turner Classic Movies? I don’t think these are right, healthy answers. I’m too busy trying to level up to survival to even consider pleasure.

  Anyway, they can’t possibly want me to tag along on their weekend plans.

  “Consider it while I visit the loo,” James says with a bow, pushing in his chair.

  “What are you doing tonight, Morgan?” Kelly scoots in. “Wanna come to youth group?”

  “Oh, I’m not sure, I might have to go—”

  “Oh my gosh, Morgan, I can’t believe I’ve never asked this! Do you and your family have a home church?”

  This has to be one of my favorite questions from youth pastor types and other people’s moms. The simple script of my Personal Faith Narrative has been delicately crafted over the years to halt a lot of annoying conversations. I was baptized Catholic as a baby. I accepted Jesus into my heart at the age of five. And the magic line: I go to a black church. That one always shuts them up.

  “Oh, awesome. That’s great.” Kelly doesn’t ask for the name. No one ever asks for the name. It’s not like they would know it, anyway.

  (For as much as I’m made to feel like an outsider because of my race, sometimes I think this is my superpower: watching white people’s comfort and cool slide off their faces when I mention anything black. How fast they go from peppy and smug to terrified. I don’t know what they’re so afraid of.)

  I look over at Meg and smile, pressing End on this missionary interrogation. “What movie are you guys gonna see?”

  “No clue. James just wants to flirt with this cute guy who works there.”

  “So,” Kelly inches closer to Meg and lowers her voice, as if James will hear from the bathroom inside. “Is James, um, seriously gay, or does he just kind of act like it and go along with it?”

  “He hasn’t admitted to anything, so who knows. He’s just an attention whore.” She rolls her eyes lovingly.

  Kelly laughs, so I chuckle too.

  “He’s funny,” I say, and they nod. It’s all very polite.

  “I just thought I’d ask because…well, you know the Bible is very clear-cut on this issue. And even the law in some states.”

  As lifelong Christian-school kids, I know this is our party line, the approved and agreed-upon message. But it’s Saturday, and I wish Kelly would just turn it off. I didn’t grow up believing that gay people are sinners—we even have some in our family. (Of course, as is our way, we never talk about it. My cousin Richard’s boyfriend is still referred to as his “friend,” and he’s been coming to Christmases for seven years.)

  I genuinely like Kelly, but this sucks. Like, who put this song on?

  “But isn’t the Bible all about love?” I interject, startling myself. “You know, basically?”

  We’ve all read the Bible several times during our years at school, memorized huge chunks of it, acted it out, analyzed it. And this is what I really believe about the best parts of that book: that it’s a book about love.

  (I’m such a nerd that once, sitting with my dad at a black barbershop filled with old black men, I corrected a “biblical scholar,” who was getting a haircut, on a Scripture citation. I was like thirteen.)

  “Yeah. She’s right,” Meg says evenly. “I mean, Jesus was friends with prostitutes.” She smiles my way, and I get a jolt of confidence.

  “Nowadays he would have been pretty radical, actually, if you think about it,” I blurt, sitting up. “He probably would have voted Democrat!”

  “Um, I don’t think so,” Kelly shoots flatly, and purses her lips. Last year in history, I was outed as our class’s only Democrat, because “most black people are,” according to Mr. K. (Is that true? I have no freaking idea, but it sounds right.) Still, why the hell did I even go there?

  James steps back onto the patio, humming “Eleanor Rigby.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  Meg smirks. “Well, Morgan here was just providing the blasphemous but highly probable theory that—” (My heart stumbles around on its knees.)

  “We were just changing the subject,” Kelly says quickly. She turns to m
e, and her face softens. It looks like pity. Like Sarah McLachlan in those commercials about orphaned puppies.

  “No offense, Morgan. I totally respect that your walk with the Lord is different from mine. Plus, I know you’re just kidding.”

  “Totally.”

  Disappear, I think. Blend in, disappear, disappear, disappear.

  Kelly goes on about youth group. Meg sings that Kelly only wants to go to see her booooyfriend, Adam. Kelly blushes and is like, “Nuh-uh!”

  I check the time on my phone (as I have been doing every four minutes or so since I got here, waiting for a moment to easily exit), and I’m so relieved it’s been over an hour.

  I “suddenly remember dinner at my aunt’s house” and say a lightning round of goodbyes. It isn’t smooth: I do that thing where you feel super awkward so you try to flee from the situation but that makes it more awkward. All I can do is fumble my way out of the house and across the lawn, speed-walk down the street to my car.

  Driving home, listening to Ella Fitzgerald & Billie Holiday at Newport, I’m so enraged with myself that I’m beyond tears. Who can’t even handle a simple tea party? What is my problem? (Why can’t I blend in with the manicured bushes that line every sidewalk, the Susans grinning as they jog? Will it always feel like this—carrying a secret shame, leaving parties early to cry?)

  Cell phone towers blur past my side-view mirrors, dressed up as pine trees among the palms. I grit my teeth listening to Billie’s “Lady Sings the Blues.” I think I feel my car’s engine stall as I take the first left into our gated community.

  Maybe I was always supposed to suffer my episodes and “fits.” Maybe the heaviness is a test I’m meant to endure, like Job, the actual saddest character in the entire Bible. God just kept making things shitty for poor Job and telling him that it was worth it, that his suffering was good and holy, that it would bring him happiness in the end. As if a vague promise of future relief is any consolation for complete torment.

  Then something mysterious happens.

  After I pull into the driveway, I see what I’ve done. Feathers are backlit in the evening dark by headlights, casting shadows of fluttering brownish wisps. I shriek, leap out of the driver’s seat, and peer around to the bumper. A carcass. Bloodied, smashed into the grille. Even in its disfigurement, how it’s pasted to the front of the car like gum on the bottom of a shoe, I recognize what kind of bird it is.