Harmonic Feedback (2 page)

“I bet you got the
good
shit in California.” She blew into the mouthpiece, but the only sound was her breath.

“Pretend you’re doing a raspberry.”

Her second attempt was even worse. “Oh, man, I think more spit than air came out that time.” She shoved the didgeridoo at me. “Show me how it’s done.”

“I think I’ll wait till it dries first.” I put it back on the mattress, taking note to clean it later. I was the messiest person on earth, but saliva, snot, and other bodily fluids made me want to bathe in sanitizer.

“Drea!” Mom called from upstairs. “Dinner’s ready.”

Naomi looked in the direction of Mom’s voice and smiled. “Your mom is really pretty. You look a lot like her.”

This was news to me. We were both about five-two, but that was where our physical likeness ended. My curly hair was the color of a penny—too orange in my opinion, and my freckles were a little too dark on my pale skin. Nothing like Mom’s golden complexion. With oversized green eyes, I got called names like frog girl and leprechaun. Nobody ever called Mom that.

“Well”—I looked away—“I guess I have to eat dinner now.” Grandma embarrassed me enough without an audience. I didn’t want the first potential friend I’d made in years to hear all about my “behavior problems” over whatever monstrosity Grandma had cooked up. And even if Grandma didn’t bring it up, Mom would. She loved to tell everyone about my
issues
.

Naomi raised her eyebrows at me, smirking. “It’s cool. You don’t have to invite me. Your grandma kinda scares me anyway.” She headed up the stairs. “You should come by my house one of these days. I can show you my drum kit.”

“Where can I get green paint?”

Naomi stopped on the second to top step and spun around. “What?”

“I want to paint the basement this weekend. Is there any place in town that—”

“Drea,” she interrupted, “we might be close, but we aren’t in the North Pole. There
are
stores here, like Home Depot. Come by tomorrow and I’ll take you.” She waved and left.

I stared at the empty doorway, wondering why this near stranger was being so helpful. Did she really want me to drop by tomorrow? Or was it like saying
call me
without meaning it? A therapist told me that people said these things to be polite but their invitation wasn’t always sincere, which made no sense. Why invite someone if you didn’t want that person to show up?

Like the first day of seventh grade. I’d never forget that. These two girls asked me to eat lunch with them, and I felt this surge of excitement run through my body. I couldn’t stop laughing or smiling, even after they kept asking what was funny. But I’d calmed down after a few minutes, and we had what I thought was a good conversation. I started telling them all about my favorite car, the McLaren F1—how it was the fastest in the world. And they seemed interested enough.

I sat with them every day that week, but they talked to me less and less. Finally, one girl rolled her eyes. “God, Drea, can’t you take a hint?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

She exchanged this glance with her friend, and they giggled. “Why do you keep sitting here?”

I remember my stomach tightening up in these knots. “You invited me.…”

“Yeah,
once
. We didn’t know you’d be such a clingy freak.”

My face felt hot, and my breath quickened. A response didn’t come to me, not words anyway. I just wanted to stop them—their shrill laughs and wide, amused eyes. I grabbed a handful of red Jell-O off my plate and hurled it at their laughing faces. This got me cleanup duty and a note sent home for Mom to sign.

Mom didn’t yell, though—her eyes looked sad. She hugged me and said it was never good to seem too anxious for friends. Neediness scared people. That an invitation wasn’t always an offer for friendship, and I’d
overstayed my welcome
.

I never wanted to feel that level of embarrassment again.

Grandma eyeballed the forkful of boiled cabbage and onions I pushed around on my plate. The smell alone was setting off my gag reflex.

“You need to put on some weight,” Grandma said.

As if I could help the fact that I was lucky to break a hundred pounds in winter clothing. I never got why so many people prayed for a fast metabolism. It was annoying when everyone accused me of being anorexic.

“Well, boiled vegetables aren’t going to help. Got any ice cream that isn’t sugar free and coffee flavored?” When Grandma was diagnosed with diabetes, her taste in food got exponentially worse.

She nodded at Mom. “Juliana was picky too. I’d find pork chops and broccoli stuffed in the crevices under the table. Sometimes she’d try to leave the kitchen with lumpy socks.”

Mom scrunched up her nose. “I had to vomit on my plate before she believed the pork chops actually made me sick.”

Grandma shook her head and swallowed a bite of mushy carrots. “My father would’ve beat me black and blue if I did that. Nobody could afford to be picky during the Depression.” The only response heard was the scraping of our forks against the plates. Neither of us wanted to get Grandma started on her “When I was a little girl…” tangent.

Grandma twirled noodles around her fork, her eyes growing softer. “George loved pork chops.” An image of Grandpa’s white hair and big smile flickered through my mind. He suffered brain damage from a massive heart attack the year before I was born. Even so, he always beat me at Old Maid.

Mom patted her hand. “I know.”

Grandma took care of him for twelve years—changing diapers, spoon feeding, bathing, and everything else in between. He died of pneumonia five years ago, and she still hadn’t forgiven herself.

“Was that Naomi Quinn I saw here earlier?” Grandma asked, picking up a crumb that had fallen off her plate. I didn’t even know how she could find it on a table painted with gold glitter. Between the Tiffany lamps, TV with bunny ears, and earthy color scheme, this house was stuck in the dinosaur age.

“Yeah, she helped us move all our stuff. Sweet girl,” Mom said, poking at the cabbage with her fork.

My stomach growled for In-N-Out Burger. Their fries had the right amount of crispness on the outside.

Grandma shook her head, frowning. “Her father is never home. And every time I look out my window, she’s out there smoking. With
boys
.” Her hazel eyes widened at Mom.

Mom chuckled into her cup of water. “Oh, no. Boys.”

Grandma got up and rinsed her plate in the sink. “You should stay clear of her, Andrea. She’s trouble.”

Mom rolled her eyes. “Drea is about as interested in boys as you are. I don’t see her bringing one home anytime soon.” She winked at me. “But it would be nice.” If I’d learned anything from her, it was that boys were to be avoided. I certainly didn’t want the roof over my head to be dependent on one.

“Good, she should be spending time on her schoolwork.” Grandma wrung out a sponge. “Not running around with boys like you did.”

“That hasn’t changed,” I said.

Mom nudged my shoulder before joining Grandma at the sink. “I’ll take care of the dishes. Go relax.”

“Just give them to me.” Grandma yanked the plate from Mom’s grasp and returned to scrubbing a saucepan.

I got up to put my plate in the sink, but Grandma snatched it before I could. “It’s terrible the way you both waste food. Just terrible.”

“Then make better food,” I said.

She dropped the sponge and gaped at me openmouthed. I didn’t see what the big deal was; she said blunt crap all the time.

“Drea!” Mom’s dark eyes tore into mine before she turned to Grandma. “It’s been a really long day, and she didn’t take her medication.”

“I’m so sick of you saying that to everyone. Are little blue pills the only way I can be taken seriously?”

“Calm down, baby. I’m just saying—” Mom reached for me, but I pulled away.

“I’m not a migraine you can cure with one of your pain pills.” I left the kitchen before she could say anything else.

Between Mom’s kaleidoscope of boyfriends and the dozens of head doctors she forced me to see, I could write a book about psychological disorders. The doctors always threw around the term
social awareness
, basically saying I needed more of it. They pinned me with ADHD, a.k.a. Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, when I was in kindergarten, mostly because I preferred coloring and banging on a xylophone to story time and the stupid games the teacher made me play. As if anyone liked being forced to do something. How was that abnormal?

One time I told the doctors about Mom stomping around and cussing whenever she had a big bill to pay and asked them if she had ADHD too. Mom didn’t like that much. She made me promise not to say anything like that again. I asked her why for a month straight, but she never gave me a real answer.

It wasn’t until junior high, the third day of seventh grade to be exact, that one doctor suspected Asperger’s syndrome. Mom wasn’t convinced, so she got a second opinion—that doctor didn’t agree. He said I had bipolar disorder. Mom didn’t agree with that either. She made me take ridiculous tests and got seven more opinions, the last one from a doctor in San Francisco a teacher recommended. In the fall of my freshman year, that doctor also labeled me with Asperger’s syndrome, but he said I displayed only mild symptoms and I’d “learned to cope well,” whatever that meant.

Asperger’s is an autism spectrum disorder, which makes most people think of the guy in that
Rain Man
movie. But I’m nothing like him. I don’t go ballistic in airports, and I know better than to tell anyone I’m an excellent driver. After all, I’ve failed six driving tests.

All I know is I make sense to me—it’s other people who seem complicated.

I
WOKE UP
the next morning to the sound of raised voices upstairs. It was like Mom and Grandma never left the kitchen. The sun streamed through the narrow window above my bed, telling me it was still rising and therefore too early. My body felt heavy and achy—the way it always did when I skipped a day of meds. It would be nice to go a day without needing to give in. But the withdrawal effects were unbearable, especially the little electrical zaps in my head.

I stretched and climbed the stairs, tuning in to their conversation.

“Give them to me!” Grandma hollered.

“Why are you putting them in a margarine bottle?”

“So they’re all in one place and they can’t get any air.”

“Oh. Okay,” Mom said. There was a rustle of bags.

“Not in the garbage!”

“Why are you
saving
them, Mom? It’s not healthy.”

“I don’t want them to escape,” Grandma said as I rounded the corner.

Mom stood in the kitchen with a grin and a yellow bottle in her hand. “They’re not going to escape if you flush them down the toilet. They can’t.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, wiping the crusties from my eyes.

Mom shook her head and tossed the bottle in the garbage. “Grandma kills ants in very creative ways.”

“All this yelling for ants?” I rolled my eyes. “And
I’m
the one who needs medication.”

I tried to spend the day unpacking and getting started on the wah pedal I was building for my guitar. If it was good enough, I could start selling them on eBay and hopefully avoid working in retail. I got fired from the one and only job I’d ever had—one of those budget movie theaters with stale hot dogs, relish that smells like formaldehyde, and flat soda. This guy insisted I put more butter on his popcorn after ten squirts in the middle and eight on top. He threw a fit when I asked him if he’d like me to dump the entire metal container on it.

I did okay buying cheap clothes at thrift stores, dolling them up, and selling them on eBay. It was amazing what people would pay for a
unique
skirt. But it wouldn’t be enough to get us out of Grandma’s, and I didn’t want Mom to depend on yet another guy. Some of her boyfriends were nice—one even bought me a guitar, but others thought money gave them the right to control our lives. One jerk offered to send me across the country to a “special school.”

Unfortunately, Grandma made concentrating on anything difficult. Her heels clanged down the stairs just as I was in the delicate process of soldering.

“What on earth are you doing? It looks like you’re running a repair shop down here,” she said.

“Not exactly.” I tightened my grip on the iron.

Grandma cocked her head, her thin lips stretching to form the words of whatever she was thinking. Her eyes traveled from the iron in my hand to the shells of old pedals on my desk and back to my face. “George used to fix TVs down here. I never thought I’d miss the smell.” Her face softened as she scanned the walls. “Well—don’t electrocute yourself.”

She straightened her back and headed up the stairs, nearly running into Naomi at the top. Naomi gave her an apology, but Grandma shook her head and kept walking.

Naomi jogged down the stairs, her purple pigtails bouncing. She wore a fitted tee that read trix are for kids. “Hey, your mom let me in. I thought you were going to come over.”

“I wasn’t sure if you actually wanted me to.”

She walked in front of me, her brow crinkling. “I invited you, didn’t I?”