The People We Keep(4)

He nods.

I weave through the seats and tables, trying not to look at the people. I don’t want to think about all those eyes watching me, or worse, not watching me. All those eyes looking at their neighbor, widening to say, Who does this chick think she is?

In the bathroom mirror, I stare at my own eyes. I look at them until they sting because I don’t let myself blink and it smells like someone smoked a clove in here not too long ago. When I finally do blink, my eyelashes get wet. I rip a piece of paper towel from the roll on the sink, fold the corner and brush it under my lower lashes to dry them before my mascara runs. I sort through my bag, find my eyeliner and focus everything on lining my eyes with a thin black line. I pretend I’m an ant, following the curve of my lashes, the way we learned to do line drawings in art class. Slow. Millimeters at a time, until I don’t hear the crowd and I don’t hear the music. I just hear my breath. In and out. So warm it fogs the mirror. I smudge the lines with a twisted piece of paper towel. By the time I’m done my body is loose and warm, my head floating on my neck.

I go out and take my seat, trying hard to cling to the calm. My index finger has a smudge of eyeliner on the nail. I fixate on the smudge until the next singer is done, and the next one too, and Scarecrow Man is on stage again.

“Now we have two untitled originals from April.”

My heart squeezes tight like a fist. I flip my guitar case on its back and undo the latches.

The scarecrow shuffles papers on the clipboard. “Just April? Looks like we have a Madonna on our hands.”

Everyone laughs, but I pretend they aren’t real. They are eyeless. They are bowling pins. Giant black bowling pins in chairs, wearing hats and beaded necklaces, hand-woven shawls. They can’t see me, and I can’t hear them.

I climb on stage and sit on the stool. I don’t know what to do with the microphone. Scarecrow must sense that, because he’s almost back to his seat, but he returns to pull the mic closer and angle it at my mouth. “Thanks,” I say, and it echoes through the room, bouncing off the bowling pins.

My first strum sounds wrong and I realize my fingers are not where they should be. I strum again, pretend to fiddle with the tuning. “Okay,” I say into the mic once my fingers are firmly in their starting position.

I strum three times, close my eyes and start to sing:

Your eyes tell me what we’re gonna do,

And it’s not like I haven’t thought it too,

And it’s not like it’s wrong.

No, it’s not like that.

So I close my eyes, and you take my hand.

We’re both in the right place,

And it seems like the right time…

The right time.



I keep my eyelids shut tight and hear my voice coming back to me from the corners of the room. Bowling pins wearing wire-rimmed glasses, the black lines around my eyes, the change from Mrs. Varnick’s car, hot water in a cup. I think of all these things and I see myself on stage, like I’m up in the rafters watching.

When I’m done, there’s applause and it’s loud, and the audience is full of people again. People who like me. It’s not polite. It’s real and it just keeps going. I wait and wait. I adjust my guitar on my lap and the applause dies to a few random claps.

For the next song, I am brave. I sing about my father. I sing, “Don’t forget you made me. Don’t forget you made me the way I am.” And I look right at people in the audience. Right in their eyes, like I wrote the song about them. A guy with dreadlocks, King Neptune, the scarecrow. I sing to Marion Strong and the girl with the white eyelashes. I finish the song looking right into Jim’s eyes. When it’s over, he stands to clap. A few other people stand too, and the applause is the loudest sound I’ve ever heard.

They’re still clapping when I get back to my seat. Someone in the far corner whistles. I sit, but I’m also hovering above myself, and smiling so big that my whole body is a grin and my head is warm and fuzzy like the first time Matty kissed me.

Scarecrow gets up on stage and says “Th-th-that’s all folks,” like he’s Porky Pig.

I rest my guitar in its case, latch each of the clips slowly. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want it to be over. I want to climb on stage again to play more songs and keep them clapping. I don’t want to go back to an empty motorhome and my stupid math book.

Everyone collects themselves, pulling on hats and scarves, big sweaters and secondhand coats. People walk past me on their way to the door. A few smile or say, “Good job.” A guy in a tunic gives me a thumbs up.

I dig my mittens and scarf from my bag.

“I’ll walk you out,” Jim says, like that’s what I was waiting for.

“Thanks.”

“Pretty girl. Dark parking lot. You got to.” He shakes his head. It’s fatherly. But that’s how everyone else is too. Fatherly. Brotherly. I can’t picture King Neptune jumping from behind a truck to rape and pillage.

Jim pulls my chair out of the way as I stand. I walk in front of him until we get outside. The James Taylor guy shouts, “Night, Jimmy!”

“Night!” Jim shouts back, then, “Hack,” under his breath like a cough.

“I thought he was good,” I say, letting my feet drag on the parking lot gravel.

“They’re all hacks. You and that Marion girl. You’re the only ones who have any chance of making it. And maybe not even Marion.” He says it like it’s fact, not opinion.