A Crooked Kind of Perfect (2 page)

And then he will forget all about it.

Until the delivery truck comes to the house.

My dad was supposed to buy me a piano.

But instead of going online or calling Rewind Used Music, he went to the mall and it was crowded and noisy and he was walking by the big fountain with the stone hippo in the middle and he heard this sound.

This
boompa-chucka, boompa-chucka
sound.

And his toes started tapping and his hips started wiggling. The man at the store that sells Perfectone D-60s saw my dancing dad and waved him over.

Dad told me everything that happened after that. But he didn't need to. I could have figured it out for myself.

"You look like a man who knows fine music," Mr. Perfectone said to my dad.
Boompa-chucka, boompa-chucka.
"Do you play?"

My dad laughed. He was supposed to say, "My daughter is about to have a concert at Carnegie Hall. I just need to buy her a piano so she can start her lessons." But Dad was mesmerized by the
boompa-chucka-boomp.

"Go ahead," said Mr. Perfectone, slithering around
behind my
boompa-chucka
dad. "Press a key."
Chucka-boomp.

Dad pressed a key. A Cuban nightclub act sprang out. That's what my dad said. A single key and he could hear bongos and trumpets and guitars.

Mr. Perfectone flipped a switch. "Again," he whispered in my dad's ear. Dad was bold. He touched two keys. An entire orchestra tumbled out of the speakers. "Not bad, Mozart," Mr. Perfectone said, sliding a sales slip and a pen from his sleeve.

Two weeks later, instead of an elegant piano slick as black ice, two hairy guys dropped off a wood-grained behemoth.

Now, the Perfectone D-60 is mine.

The Perfectone D-60 comes with a helpful brochure. It says so right on the cover:
This helpful brochure explains the exciting features of YOUR Perfectone D-60!

On the inside of the brochure the Perfectone D-60 people list all the exciting features which, even though they use lots of exclamation points, really aren't all that exciting.

•
Two (2!) keyboards, ergonomically stacked to put high and low octaves in easy reach!

•
Twenty-four (24!) rhythm styles, from polka to samba to march, and eleven (11!) tempos. Or choose metronome!

•
Ultra-Gold speaker covers, now in fashion weaves!

•
Luxuriously realistic walnut veneer!

•
Thirty-six (36!) orchestralike sounds (flute, oboe, marimba, violin, tuba, bassoon, piano, and more!)

I turn on the Perfectone D-60 and flip the switch for piano. I press a key. I press two keys.

I am not excited.

I am the opposite of excited.

Never trust an exclamation point.

My piano teacher was supposed to be a sweet, rumpled old man. I would call him Maestro and he would call me his perfect, precious star. My parents would bring me to his elegant home and he would serve us tea and I would play for him.

"A prodigy," he would say. He would discourage me from practicing too much and spoiling the spontaneity of my play.

He would take us all to parties and introduce me as the next Horowitz. I would nod to my admirers, who would not shake my hand for fear of injuring my gifted fingers.

Soon, Maestro would come to think of me as the granddaughter he never had. He would get Mom to buy me a fancy gown to wear at my concerts and have somebody do my hair so it would look all shiny and thick instead of flat, boring mud-pie brown. And then one night, just as I am about to walk onstage, he would hand me a velvet box and in it would be a diamond tiara and I would put it on and he would weep for joy.

The Perfectone D-60 comes with six months of free lessons from Mabelline Person.

The first thing you learn about Mabelline Person is that you don't say "Mabelline Person," like it is spelled, you say "Mabelline Per-
saaahn."
And the second thing is that she likes ginger ale and she expects that you will have one—preferably Vernors, in a glass, with ice—waiting for her when she arrives at your house. And the third thing is that you are never, ever, ever, supposed to set that glass of ginger ale on the Perfectone D-60.

"A-iiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" screeches Mabelline Person, grabbing the ginger ale from my hands before I can set it on the Perfectone D-60's luxuriously realistic walnut veneer. "You must have more respect for your instrument. Or your instrument will have no respect for you," she says.

Then you have to drag a big heavy armchair from across the room so that she can sit in it and watch your fingering on the keys and keep track of the notes in your music book and sigh. Not a satisfied, what-a-prodigy sigh. A what-have-I-gotten-myself-into sigh.
I know this sigh. It is the one my mother makes every time Hugh the UPS man shows up at our door with a new Living Room University package for my dad.

Mabelline Person pulls a yellow sheet of paper from her purse. It has been folded a few times and curls up at the edges. She tries to smooth it out on her lap with one hand while digging through her purse with the other. Finally, she finds a fat purple pen.

Zoe Elias
, she writes.
Age 10.

"Eleven in May," I say.

"It's January," she says. "You've had lessons before?"

I start to tell her about More with Les and the More with Les philosophy, but she holds up a many-ringed hand. "That's a yes," she says. "And for how long?"

"The More with Les method requires three clusters of lessons—each spanning a six-week period. When properly practiced, the More with Les method can produce a proficient player in a matter of—

"For how long?" she asks again.

"Four weeks," I say. "My dad..." I want to explain that I am not a quitter. That it is not my fault that I did not get to the More part of More with Les. My dad couldn't take it. He quit me from class. On Mondays, he 'd start worrying about driving me to the Eastside
Senior Center on Thursday. He'd check every weather forecast, monitor the Eastside website for road construction information, peek in his wallet over and over to make sure his Auto Club card was in its spot. "What if there are no parking places?" he'd ask me. "What if we 're halfway there and a storm sets in? What if the building is closed for repairs?"

Mabelline Person does not care to hear about my dad. She does not seem to care if I am a quitter. "Play your last lesson, please," she says.

I have to go upstairs to my room to get the More with Les songbook. When I return, Mabelline Person is reading a romance novel with half the cover torn off.

I loosen up my fingers, giving each one a pull and a wiggle, and then unfold my keyboard while Miss Person tucks her novel into her purse. " 'Monkey Waltz' by Lester Rennet," I say. And then I begin. I give it my all, eager to impress upon Mabelline Person that I am a gifted musician. Even if I am only playing "Monkey Waltz," I know my innate talent will shine, showing her that I, unlike the other dull and uninspired children she is forced to teach, am a star, a chosen one, a perfect prodigy worthy of a shiny black baby grand piano.

"Great mother of Mozart," says Mabelline Person. "That was really something." She is wiping a tear from
her eye—apparently, "Monkey Waltz" has touched her deeply. "Perhaps you could try again—on an instrument that produces sound?"

I fold up my paper keyboard and turn on the Perfectone D-60, which heaves a sigh just like the one Mabelline Person makes. As my fingers trip and tangle through "Monkey Waltz" I see Mabelline Person scribbling away with her purple pen. She is not writing
Prodigy.

My dad is learning to be a boxing coach. He is taking another course from Living Room University, where you can learn any trade without leaving the comfort and privacy of your own home.

Already my dad has learned to Make Friends and Profit While Scrapbooking, Earn Bucks Driving Trucks, and Party Smarty: Turn Social Events into Cash Money. My dad has passed every class—even Scuba-Dooba-Do, which required him to stay underwater for a half an hour. He took the test in our bathtub breathing through a bendy straw. I timed him.

Right now, Dad is taking Golden Gloves: Make a Mint Coaching Boxing. He is on Lesson Five: Encouraging Words. He is practicing on me, even though I don't want to be a boxer. He says that the beauty of Golden Gloves is that most of the lessons are as applicable to the boardroom as they are to the boxing ring. Except for the ones about punching people.

I tell Dad I don't know what a boardroom is, but he says that doesn't matter, either. He says he can practice coaching me in anything. Which is why he is rubbing
my shoulders and saying "Float like a butterfly!" while I play "Monkey Waltz" on the Perfectone D-60.

At first, this is distracting. Then it is annoying. I tell my dad to cut it out and he says, "That's right. Get mad. Get tough. Fight through the pain."

The only pain in the room is my dad.

I try to focus on the music, which is supposed to sound like dancing monkeys gracefully gliding around a sparkling monkey ballroom. Really, though, it sounds more like regular old monkeys jumping up and down on the keys.

It wouldn't sound this way on a piano, I bet. On a piano, every note would be delicate and lovely.

But I don't play the piano.

"Sting like a bee!" yells Dad.

I flip the power switch off and the Perfectone D-60 lets out an enormous sigh. "I'm taking a break."

"S'okay, champ," says Dad, rubbing my shoulders again. "You'll get 'em in round two."

My best friend at school is Emma Dent. I say she's my best friend at school because we don't see each other outside of school. Emma Dent lives in East Eastside. She says that all the houses there are ginormous and have great rooms and cathedral ceilings and either beige carpet or floors that look like marble. Emma Dent has three sisters and they each have their own bedroom, plus her parents have a master suite with a bathtub so big that all four Dent sisters could take a bath in it at the same time, which they would never do because that would be unsanitary.

I live in plain old Eastside, in a two-bedroom ranch house with regular ceilings. I take showers mostly.

Emma Dent says I can't come over to her house after school because her parents aren't home. Just Rosa is there, and she has enough to do watching all four Dent sisters and making sure that nobody stains up the beige carpeting and the marble-looking tile.

I tell Emma Dent that it is okay with me. And it is okay. Because even if I got invited over to Emma Dent 's house in East Eastside, I probably wouldn't be able to go, because my dad would have to take me and
he always gets lost and sometimes we just keep driving around and around, looking for landmarks, which there aren't any of in East Eastside, because the houses all look the same, and so sometimes we have to pull over so Dad can breathe for a while. And sometimes he has to get out his phone and call the Auto Club. Then the Auto Club calls Marty's Eastside Wreck and Tow and Marty calls Dad and tells him how to get home. Marty's a whiz at getting us back home. He says it's fun, like doing a crossword puzzle.

Anyway, all school year I've been telling Emma Dent that my parents are going to buy me a piano. I've been telling her how I am going to get private lessons and how I am going to be a prodigy and that I am going to play Carnegie Hall.

"Who is Carnegie Hall?" Emma asked.

"Carnegie Hall is not a person. It is a place," I told her. "In New York City. It's the most glamorous, most important, most famous concert hall in the world."

"My mom met Monty Hall once. In Lansing." I don't know who Monty Hall is, but Emma said his name like I was supposed to. Kind of like she said Lansing, like it was as glamorous and important and famous as New York City. Which it is not.

Today, our first day back from Christmas break, I was going to tell Emma about the Perfectone D-60. How my dad had cast my dreams upon a rocky shore. How my genius might never blossom. How my life as a prodigy was over.

I was going to tell her about ball gowns that would never be worn, ovations that would never be heard, fan mail that would never be read.

I was going to bare my soul to my dear best friend Emma Dent and, through tragedy, we would forge an unbreakable sisterly bond.

But Emma is not sitting at our regular lunch table. She is two tables away, sharing a bag of SnackyDoodles with Joella Tinstella.

"Me and Joella are best friends now," Emma says. "We hung out all Christmas vacation. She lives right in East Eastside, just a block away. You can sit with us until you find a new best friend if you want."

If I had my paper keyboard, I could unfold it now and start practicing. It really wouldn't make any difference.

I have gone over to the dork side.

Most of the time after school, I do Dad's Living Room University lessons with him. Last week we finished Golden Gloves. Now we're doing Roger, Wilco, Over, and Cash! Learn to Fly Like the Pros. We're up to Lesson Four: Take Off!

"Okay, Dad." I read from the instruction manual. "Press the ignition button."

Dad stares at the table. He is holding a frying pan lid in his left hand and waving his right hand over the household items we have set up according to the Roger, Wilco mock cockpit instructions. "The saltshaker, Dad. Press the saltshaker."

I reach over to point it out, knocking over the Cheez Whiz and a couple of containers of dried herbs.

"Maybe I need to fly solo for a while, honey." Dad puts the oregano back on the altimeter spot. "Why don't you practice your organ lesson?"

The Perfectone D-60 looks a little bit like the real cockpit photo in the Roger, Wilco manual. There are lots of buttons and switches and flashing lights that go on and off depending on which of the twenty-four rhythm styles you choose. Miss Person says I'm not
supposed to be playing with the rhythm styles yet. She says that for three whole months I'm not to use anything but metronome, which just goes
tock tock tock
and is boring, and so even though I've only been playing for one month and one week, I keep testing out my lessons with different rhythm styles so I don't fall asleep at the keyboard.