The Accidentals(65)

Ernie arrives with a spray of powder. “That was pretty good. You turned three times before you fell.”

“Score.” I sigh.

“Let’s do a couple more runs,” he says. “Then we’ll go into the lodge and order one of everything.”

“It’s a deal,” I agree. “But Frederick is buying.”

Ernie tips his chin toward the impossibly blue sky and laughs.

“I’m sorry,” I tell Ernie thirty minutes later as we dip our fries in barbecue sauce.

“For what?”

I give him a miserable look. “For losing my shit in the car. The song-writing stuff is none of my business.”

He dips another fry. “You know, not everybody wants to be the frontman.”

“I guess.”

“I mean it. Have you ever wondered why he’s so lonely?”

“What?” My eyes cut to his big brown ones.

“He hasn’t made a good friend in a decade,” Ernie says, sipping his Coke. “If you’re Frederick, you have to always wonder what people want from you. Women want their picture in US Weekly, or they want his money. Fans want a picture, so they can post the best Facebook status ever. There’s almost nobody he can trust.”

I play with the straw in my drink. “Then how come he isn’t here with us right now? You and I are very trustworthy.”

“Rachel,” Ernie says with a chuckle, rubbing his bald head. “Are you considering law school? I think you have a future in the courtroom.”





A few days later, Alice returns to her job at the university library. That leaves me with the quiet companionship of Grandpa Frank. He teaches at the med school, so he’s still on break.

“I’ve been given a list of things to buy at the grocery store,” he says the first morning we’re alone.

“I’ll help,” I offer.

“We might need to wander around the bookstore first.” He nods. “They make a nice hot chocolate there too.”

I already love this man. “I’ll get my coat.”

At the store, I buy a book that’s on the syllabus for the music theory course I’m taking next semester, and we install ourselves at a cafe table. Across from me, my grandfather turns pages in The Economist, and breaks off pieces from a cookie he bought to share. It’s the size of a dinner plate.

Sipping my latte, I open my book to the introduction. A fresh page, a fresh beginning, a new class. A cup of coffee and my grandfather’s silence. These things make it possible to set aside the heartaches of the past week. For a while, I lose myself in an explanation of how the human ear converts sound waves into music.

Then I read about an experiment so wonderfully nerdy in its execution that I need to remember to tell Jake about it later. A 1950s composer made several recordings of a song, each on a different musical instrument. Then, splicing like crazy, he shaved off the beginning of each note—the attack of the hammer hitting the piano string, the first breath of a flute’s sound, the buzzing start of a guitar’s pluck—and something odd happened. Listeners, robbed of the violent front portion of each note, could no longer distinguish which instrument was playing. Even professional musicians who listened to his tapes could not guess correctly.

I put down the book, straining to believe that the familiar twang of a guitar note, with its beginning nipped off, could be rendered unrecognizable. I’m willing to bet cash money that my years of listening to Frederick’s guitar meant that I could identify his sound no matter what.

Frederick calls me every morning now, but I don’t answer. I don’t feel like fighting with him, but I’m not ready to forgive and forget.

Still, each morning he leaves me a voice mail. His messages don’t mention Christmas or Alice’s wrath. Instead, he tells me little pieces of news—that he’d tried my favorite pizza topping combination—onions and olives, and that Henry has a new girlfriend.

He talks to me more in these messages than he usually does. I listen carefully to each one. But my bitter heart doesn’t let me call back.

“And make sure Grandpa Frank takes you to Woodyard Bar-B-Que for the burnt ends,” he’d said at the end of his latest message, making no mention of why he wouldn’t be taking me there himself. “See you in a couple weeks,” he always says before hanging up.

Our relationship is like an experiment gone awry. Maybe my father and I will never be able to hear each other properly, because so much of our beginning was spliced off and thrown away.





CONTRARY MOTION





CONTRARY MOTION: Melody and harmony lines moving in opposite directions—one climbing the pitch scale, one descending.





Chapter Twenty-One





Just before New Year’s, I finish filling out five college applications. I charge the application fees to Frederick’s credit card. Since we’re still not speaking, it’s his only way of learning which colleges I’m applying to.

Claiborne College is my “reach” school. And—grudgingly—I check the box indicating I had a Claiborne College parent, and I fill in his name.

Frank and Alice drive me to the airport in Kansas City. After quite a few hugs, they send me off to Boston.

And Jake. I’m so excited to see Jake. The kiss I get from him when I finally reach Habernacker lets me know that he feels the same.