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  "The day she arrived, I thought I was alone while I was playing it and writing out the sheet music, actually. She took…a professional interest in the piece."

  I wrinkled my nose.

  "A professional interest? What does she do?"

  "She teaches piano—did I not tell you she was my first piano teacher?"

  I shook my head.

  "What, does she want to teach the piece to her other students?"

  This next hesitation was more awkward. It scared me.

  He admitted, "Not exactly."

  I sat up a little.

  "Jagger. You're being vague. And weird. What does she want with you and your song?"

  "It's your song, love. And she wants me to study under her again next year. At Juilliard."

  I sat straight up then, and spun to face him; he was practically scowling, but I was beaming.

  "Jagger, that's amazing! Why aren't you, like, bouncing off the walls?"

  He studied me for a moment, searched for something in my face.

  "New York's far away, Roxy."

  "Yeah, and you're dying to get out of this town. Why aren't you happy about this? We’ve been talking all summer about getting out of this place.”

  The expression on his face melted from uncomfortable to strange.

  “Getting out, yes…” He seemed cautious as he spoke—as if he were weighing every single word. “Getting out of here together, and going to UCLA”.

  I blinked, no fewer than five separate thoughts attacking me at once. The milder ones, I might as well have spoken aloud—thoughts like, “But Juilliard is perfect for what you want to do,” and, “There’s no comparison between Juilliard’s music program and the ones at UCLA,” and “What kind of idiot turns down an inside track into Juilliard?”

  But my other thoughts were not mild—they were ones that whispered at the back of my mind and arose sometimes, unbidden and unwelcome. Thoughts like, “The UCLA plan was always too good to be true.” Because we had talked about going to UCLA together, just like Declan and Annika had talked about applying to the same mixed bag of schools and Gunther and Zoë had both resolved to go to college together in the South. But it had felt too perfect—too neat and tidy—to actually happen.

  I didn’t dare speak any of these thoughts aloud. I was thankful that Jag chiming back in gave me a pass on speaking on it further. There was something to be said here, but not today.

  “It’s my parents’ dream, not mine,” he said more softly, kissing my hair again. “You saw what you saw today because I haven’t told them yet.”

  “Don’t you think you should?” I asked in a tone that wasn’t even a little bit elegant.

  “Soon, love,” he hedged, not looking nearly as confident as he sounded, then channeling someone twice his age. “These things have a way of working themselves out.”

  3 Ticket to Ride

  I think I'm gonna be sad

  I think it's today, yeah

  The girl that's driving me mad

  Is going away

  She's got a ticket to ride

  She's got a ticket to ride

  She's got a ticket to ride

  But she don't care

  -The Beatles, Ticket to Ride

  * * *

  Jagger (Late September)

  The tines of forks and blades of knives scraped against everyday china, filling the not-quite-silence as we ate. Not-quite, because our Beatles-only-during-dinner rule was still in effect, though the song was somber and the volume was low. It was peculiar, the way the shuffle function had managed to skip around to every depressing song. The Beatles hadn’t recorded that many.

  First had come the slow tempo of Julia; then the minor key of For No One; both songs were about things that dared you to crack a smile. I’d been optimistic when I’d heard the first two bars of Ticket to Ride, thinking only that I liked the song—then I remembered the lyrics.

  The music voided the chilly silence that had taken over Casa Monroe. We’d all been nippy lately. Roxy was fixated on the Juilliard thing, which meant the too-few times a week we were allowed to study together were spent talking about that. Since “studying together” usually meant “making out”, rehashing the Juilliard discussion instead of doing either had me losing out on three fronts.

  I’d left her house that afternoon having gotten absolutely no action, having talked no sense into Roxy, and with no homework done, and my friends weren’t exactly helping my case. Roxy had leaked the news to Zoe and Annika, which was every bit as good as telling Gunther and Declan directly. Even my boys didn’t have my back.

  The final straw was my usually-relaxed, even-keeled, California-chill parents turning into bizarro versions of themselves, though every kid in my class was complaining about parental strife. For the first time since the sixth grade, they’d started to nag me about homework and studying for tests, even though I hadn't brought home anything lower than a B+.

  The other thing they hadn’t nagged me about since I was a kid was practicing my piano. But I played every day without prompting—usually at least twice. They’d put the kibosh on going out on weeknights, which seriously messed with my ability to go to shows, which was my number-one favorite thing to do with Roxy.

  "How’d your calculus midterm go?” My mother tried to sound nonchalant, as if she hadn't been waiting until everyone had been served seconds to ask. The one positive byproduct of this insanity was that my mom—convinced that I needed to eat well to think clearly—had been serving up a steady stream of my dinner favorites.

  “I’m predicting an A-,” I remarked just as evenly as my mother, chasing my reply with a forkful of cilantro rice.

  "They say Mr. Leventhal's tests are pretty hard," my father chimed in. I didn't like the passive-aggressive non-question. What was he implying? That I couldn't deliver yet another A on another hard test?

  “I’ve done fine on his first two.” I couldn’t help from gritting my teeth a little. And where was my dad getting intel about the difficulty level of my math tests?

  “Just remember…there’s a lot at stake. You’ve worked hard all your life. It would be a tragedy to get distracted now.”

  Only there wasn’t a lot at stake. Because I got good grades, had done better-than-great on the SATs, and had the kind of musical talent that would get me into any respectable school. And unlike the kids whose parents were shitting bricks about how to pay for any of this, I could afford it—literally. I’d come into the first installment of my trust fund when I turned eighteen.

  "Guys. I’ve got it under control. My midterms are going well. I’ve got finished drafts of all my essays and my first deadline is more than a month away. Can you stop treating me like I've already failed?”

  My mother had the decency to look a little ashamed. But my father's expression changed in an entirely different way. The look he gave me was sharp. “The Juilliard application is due in two weeks.”

  Shit.

  I hadn't wanted to have this conversation now. I hadn’t wanted to have it at all. But I’d changed my mind and everyone needed to know. At some point, I realized my plan to apply to Juilliard and simply decline if I got in did nobody any favors. It would only prolong the false illusion that I might actually go.

  "I decided not to apply."

  I couldn’t deny that it pained me to say the words. Juilliard was something I’d dreamt of, once. I didn’t care about the cachet of the big name, but I liked the idea that it was world-class. I might’ve gone to the website once or thrice. Reading their faculty roster and alumni lists was tantamount to scrolling through a list of musical celebrities.

  I regretted the instantaneous horror that slapped my parents faces, but there could be no more beating around the bush. No more keeping the cat in the bag. Better to rip the Band-Aid off and perform any other the-sooner-the-better cliché that would tell them the score.

  "You what?" My father hissed at the same time my mother dropped her fork. Her speechlessness was compensated for by my father's
only-too-willingness to speak his mind.

  "Like hell you're not."

  My every teenage instinct commanded me to rage, but my father had taught me well. Remaining calm during an argument was a powerful tool. I’d rehearsed my rationale, tucking it in my back pocket in preparation for this inevitable moment.

  "It wouldn't be fair," I said evenly.

  "It wouldn't be fair to who?" My mother finally found her voice. I didn't want to take this away from them. I put down my fork, took a long sip of water, and looked directly at my mother.

  "To the person who would be more than just honored to be offered a spot. Someone who would actually take it."

  “Sweetie, why wouldn’t you at least consider it?" But the question irritated me. She’d been using that word a lot: “consider”. But that was coded language. It was clear that my parents only tolerated talk about UCLA because they thought to eventually bring me around to their way of thinking. As long as I was “considering” a number of schools, they figured they had a shot. They'd even been working on Roxy, telling her to “consider” NYU’s school of journalism.

  “Because I want to compose for film scores. And the movie industry is in L.A.” It was a perfectly rational argument.

  “This is college. Your job isn’t to breathe the same air or live on the same street as the people who you want to one day work with—it’s to go to the best place to learn.”

  “If I stay in California, I can do both. Do you know how many composers who are UCLA alumni have won a Grammy or an Academy Award?”

  My mother looked at my father then, and my father at my mother. I usually found their silent conversations to be sweet. Not at this exact moment, but in general. Couldn’t they see that I just wanted this? To hold onto the one person in the universe who I had my own silent conversations with?

  "Enough is enough.” My father’s voice was grim. His gaze slammed into mine only on the last "enough".

  "Jack –" my mother started, but my father cut her off.

  “—We’re all done pretending this is an about Roxy.”

  Deadly silence filled the room. Even the music had mysteriously stopped. No hum of the dishwasher or howl of the wind.

  "Fine." There was no point in denying it. "I want to go to college with my girlfriend. We both like UCLA. And that's where were going to go."

  My dad looked like he might blow a gasket. It was finally time to throw my trump card.

  "You guys went to Berkeley and you turned out okay.”

  My father looked at me sternly. "I went to Berkeley to rebel against my parents. Do you really want to make that comparison?”

  My mother leveled a brief glare at my father before turning to me and saying in a much kinder voice, “What your father is saying is that, at your age, he was still finding himself. But you’re different—you already know what you want to do.”

  “And your mother and I met at Berkeley, son,” my father cut back in. “There’s a difference.”

  He and I stared one another down for a long moment and I queued up my final argument. It was time to take a different tack.

  “Alexis is a family friend,” I finally pointed out. “We shouldn’t have her pulling strings if it’s an offer I’m not going to take.”

  My parents looked at one another again.

  "It's not the idea of UCLA that bothers us.” My father kept his gaze on my mother for a beat too long before shifting it to me. “It's the fact that you never talked about UCLA before. We're not telling you what we want you to do. We’re asking you to take more time to decide, and that means not shutting any doors.”

  This time, as my father and I stared at one another, something vulnerable replaced the anger in his eyes. Something about my plan had my parents deeply worried.

  “A year is a long time," my dad continued with caution. "A lot of things can change. A year ago, you weren't even dating Roxy.”

  His implication stole my breath and punched me in the gut.

  “In a year, you may feel differently about Juilliard,” my mom took up. They were a united front. “We just don't want you to close that door."

  I fucking hate this.

  “What about Alexis?” I gritted out finally.

  "If we burn a bridge with Alexis, it's on me,” My father piped back in. “I’ll let her know you’re undecided. But the Juilliard deadline is in two weeks. So please…please, just apply."

  4 The Middle

  Hey, don’t write yourself off yet.

  It's only in your head, you feel left out

  or looked down on.

  Just try your best, try everything you can.

  Don’t you worry what they tell themselves

  when you're away.

  -Jimmy Eat World, The Middle

  * * *

  Roxy (Early October)

  "Rox?”

  My dad’s voice broke me out of my Jag-filled thoughts as it sliced across the voice of actual Jag. I was supposed to be mapping out the construction of my balsa wood bridge for physics—not using homework time to flirt with my boyfriend on the phone.

  “In here, Dad,” I called. Not that he didn’t know that if I wasn’t in the kitchen or the laundry room or watching TV downstairs, that I would be in my room, and that if my backpack was in its usual spot downstairs, I was definitely home.

  "Shit, Jag. It's my dad. He’s home early. I gotta go."

  I hung up abruptly, knowing Jag wouldn't take it as a snub. Both of us were already on watch from our respective parents, who’d told us to scale down the nightly calls for the sake of getting our homework done. Such rules had been implemented so close together and with such striking similarity as to rouse suspicion. I’d wondered whether my own dad and Jag Monroe’s parents had been in cahoots.

  Jag and I had been busy debating whether the best Metallica ballad was either of the obvious choices—Nothing Else Matters or The Unforgiven—versus the far-more obscure but more lyrically-cryptic Low Man’s Lyric. Jag, as usual, was arguing the unsung heroism of the more obscure song, which was, in my opinion, a bit too much of a dirge. But we’d have to settle the matter later and I’d have to put my phone away quickly. It was time for me to deal with my dad.

  Everyone in our crowd agreed that our parents were going a little crazy. Even Zoe’s absentee parents seemed to have reengaged. By the first day of school, they’d returned from one of their many trips abroad, given her housekeeper-slash-nanny, Neide, the month off, and announced plans to stay a while.

  I opened my book quickly, picked up my pencil, and placed my finger on the paragraph where I’d left off, appearing to trace words for good measure. I wasn’t really blowing off my homework, and had to make sure it didn’t look that way. I would've gotten it done after I got off the phone with Jagger.

  My father’s footsteps neared, plodding up newly-installed bamboo steps at a fast clip and with a distinct thud that told me he still had on his shop boots. Just when I thought I was in the clear—fully ready for him to burst in, the screen of my cell phone lit up again with a message from Jag.

  Text me later. With an “s”.

  I tipped my face downward and smiled into my book. My dad wasn't stupid. And my blushing would probably be a dead giveaway that I’d just been talking to Jag. But when he walked into the room, he didn't do his standard look-around that always felt like a spot inspection.

  "You want to tell me what this is?"

  My dad was looking at me pointedly, and holding something in his hand. I could only hope that it wasn't anything incriminating, like ticket stubs from that concert Jag had taken me to last week in Sonoma when I’d told my dad I was at Zoe’s. Or, worse, the dreaded doomsday scenario: finding my birth control pills—anything that could lead to long-term grounding.

  "What is what?” I asked as innocently as possible, trying to look as if I had been captivated by studying the weight-bearing capacities of various woods.

  He finally brought his hand forward—too quickly for me to see what he held—and punct
uated his next words by slapping the object down on top of my book. It was a college brochure from Brown.

  "This."

  The single word held accusation, as if possessing a college brochure were a crime. Possessing one from Brown might as well have been. In my defense, I hadn’t ordered it. But I knew it was out of my league. Even if the long shot scenario happened and I got in, Brown cost a shit-ton of money. And we didn't have anything close to a shit-ton.

  It was one thing if I’d wanted to become an investment banker or a brain surgeon or something that gave me a snowball’s chance in hell of paying off sizable student loans. But there was a chance I’d have to live on a writer’s salary.

  "Oh, that?" I relaxed when I realized it wasn't contraband. "Yeah, they just sent it to me out of the blue. That's why I threw it away."

  "Why would you do that, Rox?” he demanded.

  I just blinked up at him, because he should already know why.

  "They didn't just send it to you,” he said with emphasis. “I ordered an information packet."

  "You—“ I sputtered, not even able to finish. Why would my dad do that?

  "They have the best writing program in the country, Rox. And you haven’t stopped talking about writing since you got that summer job. Why wouldn't you try to get in?"

  His eyebrows knitted together. What had initially looked to me like his semi-angry "you're in trouble, kid" look, I had mistaken for his incredulous one. A sinking feeling came over me as I realize what I was dealing with here, something I should have anticipated might manifest in this way: extreme parental pride.

  My dad believed in me. So much so, that he thought I could get in to Brown. So much so, that he thought they’d give me money to attend. I loved that my dad was so proud of me. But he’d never gone to college, and I didn’t think he understood just how complicated all of it was.

  "Dad, I can't get in to Brown…"

  His hand went to his hip and his disbelieving look turned into his indignant one. “Uh-uh. Don’t sell yourself short.”