The People We Keep
Allison Larkin
For me, because I needed to write this.
For you, if any part of this book helps you feel a little more understood.
For my family of friends, who have jump-started my heart and kept it running.
I love you.
But I know that someday,
someday, I’ll offer up
a song I was made to play…
—Chris Pureka, Compass Rose
— Part One —
— Chapter 1 —
November 1994
Little River, NY
I’m standing at the end of my driveway in the dark, watching Mrs. Varnick’s trailer, waiting for her lights to go out, getting really pissed off. I’ve been watching for at least a week and her lights went out at eight thirty every other night. She must have picked up a clear signal on reruns of Lawrence Welk or Hee Haw with her rabbit ears, because it’s a quarter to nine and she’s still plopped in her BarcaLounger in the living room with the TV flickering and every light in the house blazing like she owns the damn electric company.
I decide I’ll wait until nine and then go for it, because she’s deafer than Mozart or Beethoven or whoever the deaf one is, and she probably has the TV cranked up anyway. But it’s freezing, my legs are bare under my skirt, and doing my little so fucking cold jig isn’t getting my blood pumping anymore. So I tell myself Mrs. Varnick must have fallen asleep in her chair. The woman eats dinner at four in the afternoon. She’s got to be snoring away, dreaming about Lawrence and his powder blue tuxedo shirts by now.
Grabbing my guitar, I move in, walking soft, keeping low. The car isn’t locked, but she wasn’t kind enough to leave the keys.
I squeeze my Ren & Stimpy keychain flashlight between my teeth to keep it lit and aimed at the spot my instructions refer to as the “ignition tumbler.” I don’t know why they couldn’t just say “place where the key goes.” Thank goodness I read through the instructions in the library when I copied them. I had to look up most of the terms. So I take my dad’s screwdriver and shove it between the metal ignition tumbler and the plastic of whatever the place underneath it is called. I can’t get the tumbler part to come out and I have to keep prying at it around the edges the way you open up a paint can, all the while looking up to check on Mrs. Varnick every few seconds.
Finally, it pops. I shove the screwdriver into what I assume is the ignition switch, hold my breath, and turn. The car hiccups. I let it go. If I can’t make this work, I’m screwed. I promised myself I wouldn’t get into wire stripping and removing dashboard panels. It’s all too complicated and I have to be able to put the car back like nothing happened. I wiggle the screwdriver. Try again. This time the engine turns and the car starts. Headlights off, I back out of Mrs. Varnick’s driveway, watching her living room window carefully. She doesn’t move.
* * *
By the time I pull into the parking lot of the Blue Moon Cafe, it’s a quarter to ten, and everything started at nine. I run in, guitar case banging against my leg. The tarnished brass clips and peeling bumper stickers snag the top layer of my skirt. Some guy in a leather vest is on stage singing that song about cats in cradles. His voice is nasal. When he breathes, you can hear his saliva.
The place is packed. I stand in the back and look around, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do—do I get up on stage after that guy is done?—when this girl wearing a knit cap and fingerless gloves hands me a clipboard.
“Sign up here.” She gives me a pen. Her eyelashes are so pale they’re almost white. “We’re supposed to cut the list off at nine thirty, but you’re close enough,” she says, sighing like she’s bored with absolutely everything. “Bring it to me when you’re done.” She points to where she’ll be in the corner of the room.
There are twelve names on the list already, first five crossed out. I lean against the wall so I can balance the board on my knee. The pen barely writes, and it takes forever to fill out April, Little River in the name and hometown boxes, scribbling over each letter to carve an indent into the paper. I don’t put my last name, even though everyone before me has. Sawicki doesn’t have that show biz ring. All the other performers are from Buffalo or Hamburg or East Aurora. I should’ve at least said I was from Cattaraugus, someplace big enough to have its own post office. If the pen worked, I’d scribble over my line and start again.
I don’t have titles for my songs. I try to think of something to call them, but as I’m staring out at the room, running through the lyrics to the first one in my head, I notice that there are a lot of people. Maybe fifty. My legs are wobbly. I want to sit down. I write untitled in both of the song spaces and check a box that says original, leaving the box for cover empty.
When I walk over to give the board back, my stomach flops like a tadpole drowning in air, making me wish I hadn’t eaten so many Pop-Tarts for dinner. The eyelash girl is perched on a stool, hunched over a paperback she’s holding very close to her face. It’s so dark I don’t know how she can even see the words. She must be one of those people who can read no matter what’s going on, because I stand next to her and hold the sign-up sheet out for a whole minute before she realizes I’m there.