Sing You Home Read online

  "I'll tie her down to the chair next time," Vanessa promises. "And maybe we can make her listen to that lady sing Celine Dion."

  She points to the middle-aged woman whose karaoke career I intercepted. "You've been here that long?"

  "Yeah. Why didn't you tell me you could sing like that?"

  "You've heard me sing a hundred times--"

  "Somehow when you chime in with the Hot Pockets jingle, it doesn't really convey the full range of your voice."

  "I used to play here a couple times a week," I tell her. "I forgot how much I liked it."

  "Then you should do it again. I'll even come be your audience so you never have to play to an empty room."

  Hearing her talk about an empty room reminds me of the music therapy session my client abandoned. I wrap my arms around the neck of my guitar case, as if creating a shield for myself. "I really thought I could get Lucy to open up. I feel like such a loser."

  "I don't think you're a loser."

  "What do you think of me?" The words slip out, before I have even meant for them to fly away.

  "Well," Vanessa says slowly, "I think you're the most interesting person I've ever met. Every time I think I have you pegged, I learn something else about you that totally surprises me. Like last weekend when you said that you keep a list of all the places you wish you'd gone to when you were younger. Or that you used to watch Star Trek and memorized the dialogue from every episode. Or that, I now realize, you are the next Sheryl Crow."

  There is a buttery glow to the room now; my cheeks are flushed, and I'm dizzy even though I'm sitting down. I did not drink very much when I was married to Max--out of solidarity, and then intended pregnancy--and for this reason the alcohol I'm not accustomed to has even more sway over my system. I reach across Vanessa to the stack of napkins beside the olive tray, and the fine hairs on my wrist brush against the silk sleeve of her blouse. It makes me shiver.

  "Jack," I call out. "I need a pen."

  The bartender tosses me one, and I unfold the cocktail napkin and write the numbers one through eight in a list. "What songs," I ask, "would be on the mix tape that describes you?"

  I hold my breath, thinking that she's going to start laughing or just crumple the napkin, but instead Vanessa takes the pen out of my hand. When she bows her head toward the bar, her bangs cover one eye.

  Did you ever notice how other people's houses have a smell? I had asked, the first time I went over to Vanessa's.

  Please tell me mine isn't something awful like bratwurst.

  No, I said. It's clean. Like sunlight on sheets. Then I asked her what my apartment smelled like.

  Don't you know?

  No, I'd explained. I can't tell because I live there. I'm too close to it.

  It smells like you, Vanessa had said. Like a place nobody ever wants to leave.

  Vanessa bites her lip as she writes down her list. Sometimes, she squints, or looks over at the bartender, or asks me a rhetorical question about the name of a band before she finds the answer herself.

  A few weeks ago we were watching a documentary that said people lie on an average of four times a day. That's 1,460 times a year, Vanessa had pointed out.

  I did the math, too. Almost eighty-eight thousand times by the time you're sixty.

  I bet I know what the most common lie is, Vanessa had said: I'm fine.

  I had told myself the reason I'd left the school without waiting for Vanessa to return to her office was because she was busy. I was afraid she'd think I was an abysmal music therapist. But the other reason I'd run was because I wanted (wished for?) her to come after me.

  "Ta da," Vanessa says, and she pushes the cocktail napkin back toward me. It lifts, like a butterfly, and then settles on the bar.

  Aimee Mann. Ani DiFranco. Damien Rice. Howie Day.

  Tori Amos, Charlotte Martin, Garbage, Elvis Costello.

  Wilco. The Indigo Girls. Alison Krauss.

  Van Morrison, Anna Nalick, Etta James.

  I can't speak for a moment.

  "I know, it's weird, right? Pairing Wilco and Etta James on the same CD is like sitting Jesse Helms and Adam Lambert next to each other at a dinner party . . . but I felt guilty getting rid of one." Vanessa leans closer, pointing to the list again. "I couldn't pick individual songs, either. Isn't that like asking a mom which kid she loves the most?"

  Every single artist she has put on her list is one I would have put on my list. And yet I know I've never shared that information with her. I couldn't have, because I've never formally made my own CD playlist. I've tried but could never finish, not with all the possible songs in this world.

  In music, perfect pitch is the ability to reproduce a tone without any reference to an external standard. In other words--there's no need to label or name notes, you can just start singing a C-sharp, or you can listen to an A and know what it is. You can hear a car horn and know that it is an F.

  In life, perfect pitch is the ability to know someone from the inside out, even better maybe than she knows herself.

  When Max and I were married, we fought over the car radio all the time. He liked NPR; I liked music. I realize that, in all the months I've been friends with Vanessa, in all the car rides we've taken--from a quick run to the local bakery to a trip to Franconia Notch, New Hampshire--I have never changed the station. Not once. I've never even wanted to fast-forward through a CD she's picked.

  Whatever Vanessa plays, I just want to keep listening to.

  Maybe I gasp, and maybe I don't, but Vanessa turns, and for a moment we are frozen by our own proximity.

  "I have to go," I mutter, tearing myself away. I dig out all the money I have in my pocket and leave it crumpled on the bar, then grab my guitar case and hurry into the parking lot. Even as I unlock my car, with my hands still shaking, I can see Vanessa standing in the doorway. Even when the door is closed and I rev the engine, I know she's calling my name.

  On the night that Lila was shooting up heroin, there was a reason I'd been wandering through Ellie's house.

  I had awakened in the middle of the night to find Ellie staring at me. "What's the matter?" I asked, rubbing sleep from my eyes.

  "Can you hear that?" she whispered.

  "Hear what?"

  "Ssh," Ellie said, holding a finger up to her lips. Then she moved the same finger to my lips.

  But I didn't hear anything. "I think--"

  Before I could finish, Ellie put both of her hands on my cheeks and kissed me.

  At that moment, I heard everything. From the bass in my blood to the sound of the house settling, to luna moths beating their heavy wings against the glass of the windows, to a baby crying somewhere down the block.

  I leaped out of the bed and started running down the hallway. I knew Ellie wouldn't call after me, because she'd wake up the whole household. But Ellie's mother, as it turned out, wasn't home yet. And Lila, Ellie's sister, was OD'ing in her bedroom when I burst through the door.

  Back then I thought that I was running away from Ellie, but now I wonder if I was actually running away from myself.

  I wasn't upset because my best friend unexpectedly kissed me.

  I was upset because I started to kiss her back.

  For two hours I drive aimlessly, but I think I know where I'm headed even before I get there. There is a light on upstairs at Vanessa's house, so when she opens the door I don't feel guilty about waking her.

  "Where have you been?" she bursts out. "You're not answering your phone. Dara and I have both been trying to reach you. You never went home tonight--"

  "We have to talk," I interrupt.

  Vanessa steps back so that I can come into the entryway. She is still wearing the clothes she was wearing today at school, and she looks like hell--her hair's a mess; there are faint purple circles beneath her eyes. "I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't mean for you--for me to--" She breaks off, shaking her head. "The thing is, Zoe, nothing happened. And I can promise you nothing will happen, because it's way too important for me to have yo