Before, After, and Somebody In Between Read online

  I kick one of my twelve pairs of Brinkman shoes under the bed. “I’m not going to any meetings.”

  “C’mon, it’ll be good for you. Kinda like a support group.”

  “Who says I need support?”

  Momma frowns, hands on her hips. “Quit arguing, will you? Because I say you’re going.” So I have nothing to do with this decision, either. Why didn’t she say that in the first place instead of dicking around?

  I smooth the satiny lining of my winter coat as I hang it up in the musty closet. I love this coat, I adore this coat. I sniff the sleeve, smelling the Shalimar Claudia lent me for my Valentine’s Day dinner with Danny, my insides snagged by a rush of homesickness.

  “Martha, Martha. Let’s not start off on the wrong foot. Now maybe I ain’t been the best mother, but I worked real hard to get to where I am now. I’ve been at my restaurant job for over a month, and I’m off the booze and off the pills. But I can’t do it by myself. I need you to help me—Martha? You listening?”

  I drop the coat sleeve, the fragrance still in my nostrils. “Uh-huh.”

  “So I want you to go to them meetings so you can understand some stuff. Just give your old Momma a chance now, okay?”

  Fine, whatever. I’ll go sit with a bunch of creeps and listen to them whine. What else is there for me to do around here anyway?

  Oh God, I want my cello…but no, that cello belonged to Gina, and now poor Martha is shit out of luck. How will I ever find out if I passed my audition? Not that it matters, now that I have nothing to play.

  “Martha?” Momma tucks a curl behind my ear. It takes all of my self-control not to flinch away from her touch. “Are you happy to be home?”

  “Yes, Momma. I’m happy,” I recite dutifully, a perfect Step-ford daughter.

  …

  This is finals week, and Zelda’s fixed it so I can take my exams down at the Board of Education instead of forcing me to go back to Waverly. Ha, like I’d set one foot back into that school after ditching the spring concert. I pass the tests, though not exactly with flying colors, but hey, who cares? I’ll be bagging groceries in no time, or flipping burgers like Momma.

  With no cello to play, I find myself plucking at rubber bands and composing tunes on any piece of paper at hand. And my journal? Forget it. I have no desire to pick apart these past few days of my life. Instead, I doodle on the cover till I notice what I’m writing—Gina Brinkman, Gina Brinkman—and gouge the name out so viciously, I snap the point off my pencil.

  Who’s Gina Brinkman? A finger puppet.

  Nobody.

  …

  The days limp by, each one forty hours long. I’m bored without a boom box, and no cable TV. I go out of my way to avoid the other kids in the neighborhood, whose main forms of entertainment seem to be smashing bottles in the street and dodging traffic on their skateboards.

  I do take long, lo-o-ong walks to get out of that crappy house every day, and today I end up down at the West Side Market. Old white ladies in babushkas, dragging their shopping carts. Old black ladies in stretch pants, dragging their screaming grandbabies. A few yuppies thrown in, dragging wheeled attaché cases. Wall-to-wall stands piled with mountains of fruit and vegetables. One whole pig corpse eyeballs my every move, and honest to God, I may never touch another pork chop. I buy a bag of grapes from a black-bearded, beer-bellied, non-English-speaking vendor in a turban, and gobble them on the way home through the noisy, sunny streets.

  The first thing I see when I hit my back door is that same old cello case waiting in the kitchen. Electricity prickles the hairs on my arms. If this is a joke, it’s not funny.

  “You had a visitor today.” Sourer than usual, Momma scowls at the cello like it’s her mortal enemy.

  I unfold the note taped to the case.

  My dear, dear Gina,

  I know you don’t want to talk to me, and I understand. I only want to say how sorry I am. Even though you may not believe this, I want you to know that we miss you very much. You were an important part of our lives for a long time, so please try to forgive us, and don’t hesitate to call me at any time, for any reason.

  Love, Richard Brinkman

  There’s a P.S. at the bottom: The cello is a gift. No one else plays it, and it’s completely insured. Take good care of it. I wish you all the best.

  The smell of the instrument is as familiar as Claudia’s perfume. I run my fingers along the strings in shocked disbelief. Why did he give it to me? Because he’s sorry he kicked me out? Because he’s sorry he broke his promise and told Nikki all my secrets?

  “Um, did you talk to him?” I glance around, hating that he might have seen where I live. How I live.

  Momma makes a noise with her sinuses. “He didn’t bring it. He sent some delivery guy.” She shakes her head at the cello. “Well, if you ask me, that sure is one sorry-looking old instrument. You’d think folks that rich could afford to buy you something new.”

  Duh, Momma. It’s very old, very special, and completely irreplaceable.

  “You gonna call him up and say thanks?”

  I should, I ought to, but what do I say? I said more than enough to him in Zelda’s car, all those terrible, hateful things. So what does he do? He turns around and gives me his cello.

  Does that mean he forgives me? Or am I supposed to forgive him?

  50

  My first Alateen meeting is worse than I expected. People are crammed like pigs’ feet into the basement of a church so incredibly medieval, it’s not even air-conditioned. Kids in one room, adults in another, and slogans, slogans, everywhere I look: Let Go and Let God. One Day at a Time. Live and Let Live.

  Bite me, I think.

  I pop my wrists glumly and slouch in my folding chair while everyone else recites the serenity prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Somebody blabs about the Twelve Steps, blabs another prayer, and then it’s time to introduce the newbies. No last names—we’re a-nony-mous, remember? Ha, I bet half these losers end up in my homeroom next year.

  I sit there, duncelike, till somebody pokes me. “Martha,” I mumble, and “Hi, Martha!” bounces back at me from all sides. Mortified, I unfocus my eyes and half-listen to all the same poor-little-me stories: drunk moms, drunk dads, brothers, sisters, grandmas, grandpas. One kid’s dad used to beat him with a dog chain, so his mom stuck him in a foster home—get this!—for his “own protection.” I bet some dim-bulb social worker had a hand in that one.

  Afterward, I duck out without socializing. The night is muggy and hot, and I smack at the mosquitoes trying to kamikaze my face as I wait on the church steps till Momma and Larry come out.

  “So what’d you think, Martha?” Larry asks in his annoyingly cheerful way.

  What does he care? I came, didn’t I? Entirely ticked off by the idiocy of this evening, I simply stalk off without a word.

  “Hold it!” Momma catches up, something she could never do in the old days. “Why you gotta be so rude? Larry’s gonna think you don’t like him or something.”

  “I like him fine, Momma. Honest.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad to hear it.” She nudges me, lowering her voice. “He’s a sweetheart, that’s for sure, and handsome, too. Don’t you think he’s handsome?”

  I blink to keep my eyeballs from swiveling. “Well, except for that one tooth he doesn’t have…”

  Momma gasps like I just socked her in the stomach. I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I am just so mad at her for making me come back, never mind that the Brinkmans would have thrown me out anyway.

  And this, right here, shows you how rotten I really am. It’s not Momma’s fault she’s sick, and if I were any kind of a decent daughter, I’d be trying a lot harder to make things better between us. I’d be nicer, too, so she wouldn’t get so mad all the time, or so sad all the time, or whatever it is that makes her want to drink all the time.

  A jagged streak of lightning carves
a slice through the sky as Momma marches back to Larry, and I slink off by myself. Well, at least when I get home, now my cello will be waiting. The one single thing that makes my life bearable.

  …

  The idea grows like the sponge in the bottom of the goldfish bowl Larry gave me, trying to buy my affection, no doubt. Now that I have a cello, why can’t I keep taking lessons? They’re already paid for—why give them up?

  But when I spring this on Momma, I get: “Forget it. You got Alateen those nights.”

  “Yeah, well. I’m done with all that.”

  “What do you mean, you’re done?”

  There is no getting through to that hillbilly mind. “I’m not going to any more of your dumb meetings, okay? You’re the one with the drinking problem, so you go and pray to, to Saint Jude or whoever that guy is—”

  “Saint Francis!” Momma snaps.

  “—and hold hands with a bunch of weirdos and listen to ‘em boo-hoo-hoo about all the shit in their lives. I’m done! The end.”

  Momma sends me a flaming look. Okay, that wasn’t the smartest thing for me to say. Maybe I need to try a different approach.

  “Oh, Momma. I’m kidding.” With a syrupy smile, I rub her stiff shoulders with my fingers and thumbs. “Anyway, those meetings don’t even get started till seven. If you let me take those lessons, I can make it back in plenty of time.” From Shaker Square? Yeah, if I fly.

  Momma, still fuming, scooches away. “No, you got your fiddle and you can fool around with that. You don’t need any more lessons.” A fiddle, she calls it.

  “That’s not fair!” I scream. “You’re just being a bitch about this!”

  “You watch your mouth!”

  Poor unsuspecting Larry tries to stick up for me. “Come on now, Lou Ann, why don’t you give the kid a break? You been listening to her play? Damn, she’s good.”

  He winks at me, but before I can send him a vibe of gratitude, Momma leaps between us, snarkier than ever. “If I want your opinion, mister, I’ll be sure to ask for it!”

  “Fine. Suit yourself.” Larry slams out in a huff.

  I give up, hide in my room, and comfort myself with my little goldfish from Larry: Wolfgang, Johann, and teeny-tiny Ludwig. Larry or no Larry, drinking or no drinking. Nothing has changed. Nothing’ll ever change.

  …

  Zelda pops in unexpectedly on Friday. I don’t go to her office because Momma doesn’t make me, and so far nobody else seems to care. Today she starts blathering about some program she wants Momma and me to join—family counseling, vocational job training for teens…

  Vocational training. Translation: for kids who can’t go to college.

  “Do I have to do it?” I ask. “Like, is it a law or something?”

  “No-o,” Zelda answers, and it kills her to admit it.

  “Then forget it.”

  “Martha,” Momma butts in, but I have so—totally—had it!

  “I want to be a cellist, not some factory freak!” My finger bobs under Momma’s nose. “And you won’t let me take lessons even though they’re perfectly free, and—”

  Momma whaps my hand away and launches into her usual tirade while Zelda grabs me and hustles me out of the room. “Get upstairs,” she hisses. “I will handle your mother.”

  Trembling, furious, I make it to the top of the steps, and then press myself into the wall, listening to bits and pieces of their conversation.

  “…already had the audition. She’s gifted, Lou Ann. And if the lessons are already paid for, what harm can it do?”

  “Who cares if they’re paid for? It ain’t my money. You think that hot-shot lawyer’s gonna be doing that the whole rest of her life?”

  Murmur, murmur …and then I hear the word “life” again from Zelda, something about me doing something with my life, and all Momma says to that is, “You can’t do nothin’ with shit but make another pile of shit.”

  “Martha’s life does not have to be a pile of shit. This isn’t difficult, Lou Ann.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s difficult—it’s people like you who keep tellin’ her she’s so special! This is her life, okay? Ain’t nothin’ gonna change it.”

  I decide, with a sinking chill, not to listen to any more. I slip into my room and watch my darting goldfish, remembering the day I figured out that Momma doesn’t “like” me very much. Is that really because of my dad? Or is it just because I’m me?

  Zelda appears about ten minutes later. “Well, I have a bit of good news. I think your mother may be ready to compromise.”

  “So what do I gotta do? Shave my head bald and wear a bone through my nose?”

  “No. If you go back to Alateen, you can continue your lessons.” When I don’t jump for joy, she prods me with, “That’s fair, don’t you think?”

  Sounds like blackmail to me.

  Then again, when you think about it, what Zelda just pulled off is nothing short of a miracle. So…okay, fine, I’ll do it. Anything at all to get my lessons back!

  Funny thing is, when I do go back to Professor Moscowitz, he never even mentions all the time I missed. He admits, grudgingly, that I sound “not too bad for a change,” which has got to be the biggest compliment that crazy dude ever gave anyone.

  51

  After that, I make an effort to be nice. I go to every meeting, sit in the back, and pretend to listen to all the miserable stories. Maybe years from now, when I’m famous, I’ll be laughing about this. Then again, maybe it still won’t be funny.

  Tonight, Emilio, the boy with the dog-chain-swinging dad, stops me by the punch bowl before I can make my usual getaway. He’s kind of cute, in spite of his fanatical grin, with shaggy hair, dark eyes, a hint of a mustache, and the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. And I love his Rolling Stones T-shirt with the glow-in-the-dark tongue.

  He blabs nonstop for a bit, then asks, “So who’re you with?”

  “My mom,” I grumble.

  “Which one’s your mom?” Emilio nods when I point her out. “Oh, I know her. She’s nice.”

  “Nice? Ha-ha. She’s not nice to me.”

  “Is that your dad with her?”

  “No, they’re just living in sin.”

  Emilio snorts into his Hawaiian Punch. Then, “So, you got a boyfriend?”

  I stab him with my eyes. “Whaddaya think? I come here to pick up guys?”

  “No, I mean sorry, I mean, I’m not coming onto you, okay?” Poor Emilio turns redder than the punch, and I wonder why I’m being so mean to him.

  I sigh. “Forget it. I did have a boyfriend, but we, um, broke up.”

  Too scared of me now to ask for any details, Emilio starts yakking about the meetings and how much they’ve helped him, and if I ever want to get together to discuss the program… y-a-w-n! Fossilized with boredom, I shift from one foot to the other till Momma’s piercing “Yoo-hoo!” thankfully frees me from his clutches.

  …

  Larry, believe it or not, is a good influence on Momma. Not only has she stopped bitching about having to hear me practice, she actually listens sometimes, but never really comments. Larry, though, always cheers me on.

  “Couple more years, darlin’, and you’ll be charging admission,” he teases.

  “I hope so,” I say honestly.

  Momma squints dubiously. “You think she’s that good? Still sounds like a bunch of screeching to me.”

  “Hell, yeah, she’s good. She’s even got a concert coming up.”

  I shift uncomfortably. It’s not a real concert, just one of Professor Moscowitz’s studio recitals. Larry only knows about it because he’s been driving me to my lessons. I didn’t tell Momma, and if Larry hadn’t opened his trap, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. What if she refuses to come? Worse, what if she shows up and acts like an idiot?

  I’m almost sorry I agreed to this thing. Plus, Professor Moscowitz’s studio is so close to the Brinkmans, and to Waverly, what if I run into someone I know? I have no clue who’s playing besides me, or who’ll be
in the audience.

  “A concert?” Momma repeats, brows mashing together.

  “It’s a recital,” I say reluctantly. “We take turns, and well, it’s really no big deal …”

  “What’re you playing?”

  Um, the same two things you’ve been listening to for the past month and a half? A section of “Winter” from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons—yes, the same Vivaldi who got me hooked in the first place—and the “Simple Gifts” part from Appalachian Spring. “Why? Are you coming?”

  “Depends. When is it?”

  “Next Wednesday,” I mumble, half hoping she won’t hear me.

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Larry says heartily. “Right, Lou Ann?”

  Momma stalls. “What about our meeting that night?”

  “Hell, we can miss one meeting. Don’t you know this girl of yours is gonna be a star?”

  Momma’s startled eyes collide with mine. I think it just dawned on her at last that my cello is not a game, that I’m dead serious about a career, and that I’ll be playing my cello forever whether she likes it or not. “Do you want us to come, sugar?”

  “Sure,” I say airily, never mind that the worst vision imaginable just slammed into my brain: a drunken Momma staggering onstage, belting out some hillbilly ballad, then flashing a tit at Professor Moscowitz before falling headfirst into a tuba … omigod, omigod, omigod!

  Momma breaks into a brilliant smile. “Well! Then we’re coming. You know, I might even have to break down and buy me a new dress for the occasion.”

  Wow, this is serious.

  I try not to be nervous, but sorry, I can’t trust her. I even go so far as to warn Professor Moscowitz, in a roundabout way, of course. “So what would you do if like this totally drunk, obnoxious person showed up and messed up your whole recital?”

  He studies me from beneath his furry unibrow. “A relative of yours, perhaps?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then rest assured, I vill shoot them on sight.”

  Why do I get the feeling he’s not taking me seriously?

  “Oh, and could you not call me Gina that night?” Yes, that’s what he still calls me, and yes, I love hearing it. I love that “Gina” can be resurrected for a couple hours each week. “My family calls me Martha, and you’ll just confuse them.”