Look Both Ways(38)

My mom works her way through every muscle in the body—“Relax your abdominals. Let them sink right into the floor….Relax your psoas….Relax your vaginal muscles, if you have them….Relax your sphincter….”—and I try my best to get caught up in her spell and let go. But my mind is already skipping ahead to the exercises we’re going to do next. She’ll probably ask me to demonstrate something for the class. I let my leg muscles melt into the floor and prepare to embrace that opportunity, even though my stomach is tying itself into knots the way it always does when I have to sing at Family Night.

Then again, no matter what happens, this master class can’t possibly be as bad as the last one.

When we’re totally relaxed, we form a semicircle around the piano, and I position myself next to Zoe. Mom makes us yawn, paying attention to the way our airways open up. She makes us tense our shoulders like we’re carrying heavy suitcases and then drop them. We shake our heads like horses as we do lip rolls to keep our neck muscles from tensing. I can tell some people are getting antsy to show off how well they can sing, but I like going back to the basics and reminding myself where my voice is supposed to come from.

When we finally do start to sing, we begin with simple arpeggios. “Feel the connections between the notes,” my mom calls as she circles the room. “Pretend you’re pulling a long, warm strand of taffy straight up from your diaphragm and out of your mouth.” She pauses next to Pandora and lays a hand on her shoulder. “Not so much vibrato, sweetheart. These exercises are for you. There’s no need to impress anyone.” Pandora looks like she’s swallowed a mouthful of lemon juice, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. Mom pauses next to Zoe for longer than usual, and when we’re done, she says, “Lovely, dear.” My friend shoots me an ecstatic smile, and it hurts to know I’ve never made her that happy.



The exercises get more and more complex over the next twenty minutes, and then Mom announces that we’re going to take a short break. I’m not ready for my friends to confront me yet, so I link my arm with Zoe’s and steer her toward the front of the room instead of heading out into the hall. “Mom, this is my roommate, Zoe,” I announce.

“Of course! I should’ve known you’d be the one with the best tone in the room.” My friend holds out her hand, but Mom ignores it and pulls her into a hug. When she lets go, Zoe looks so overwhelmed, I’m afraid she might faint. “I’m so thrilled to meet you,” my mom says. “Thank you for being such a good friend to my Brookie.”

“Yes. I mean, thank you! I mean, you’re welcome!” I’ve never seen Zoe starstruck before, and it’s completely adorable. Her words tumble out and trip over each other as she says, “This is seriously the best voice class I’ve ever had. I mean, I’m not saying my voice coach at home is bad. She’s actually really good, but this is better? So thanks.” She laughs. “Sorry.”

My mom smiles. “Your coach taught you very well. You’re extremely talented.”



“Thank you!” Zoe looks at me like, Can you believe this?

“I hear you’re going to Juilliard in the fall?” Mom says.

“Mm-hmm. I’m so excited.”

“You’re going to be a star,” Mom tells her. “Juilliard is exactly where that voice belongs.”

“I…Wow.”

My mom squeezes my friend’s shoulder. “I’ve got to run to the ladies’ room, but we’ll have plenty of time to talk at dinner.”

“I’m going to come with you, actually,” Zoe says, and she follows my mom out of the room. I don’t really want to listen to them flatter each other anymore, but I trail behind them anyway. As long as my mom is within earshot, nobody’s going to confront me about her.

When class resumes, Mom hands out copies of “Anything Goes” by Cole Porter. We sing through the song a few times together, and when we all sound confident, my mom says, “As you see, anyone can learn a song. The notes, the words—those aren’t difficult. The real meat of being a singer lies in being able to bring your own intentions and emotions to the text. Sometimes you discover things about a character that aren’t apparent in the lyrics, and it’s important to be able to express those things as clearly as what’s on the page. What I’d like you to do is take ‘Anything Goes’ and create a narrative behind it, something that gives it intention. Are you singing it to your uptight mom so you can convince her to let you wear something revealing out of the house? Are you singing it to your girlfriend, who’s about to dump you for another man? Think about which words to stress. Think about active verbs. ‘Seduce.’ ‘Placate.’ ‘Dominate.’ Let’s take ten minutes to work, and then we’ll perform for each other.” She makes it sound like an adventure.



I’ve done this exercise a couple of times before, and I usually pick a jokey active verb that doesn’t reveal anything about me. But today I want to do something that proves I belong here. I decide to sing about exactly that: proving myself, proving it wasn’t all a lie when I screamed I deserve to be here into the mirror. I may not have been a superstar right out of the gate, I’ll tell the apprentice company through Cole Porter’s words, but I have something to offer. I am worthwhile.