When It All Goes Wrong Again

The summer I was nine, I spent two months in New York City visiting my Uncle Tubby. Tubby was my mom’s older brother, and that year, he insisted that I come to see him, saying that he never got to spend enough time with his niece. In reality, he was getting me out of my parents’ hair.

My sister had been born the winter before and she was a consistently sick baby. I don’t remember a lot of it, but we were constantly traveling between doctors and hospitals. So, when Tubby offered the summer of my lifetime, my mother jumped on it.

I couldn’t have been more thrilled. All of my friends were jealous – they never got to go anywhere. None of their families lived in a glamorous place like New York.

My parents sent me on the plane alone, and I arrived feeling very grown-up and very intimidated. Tubby greeted me – along with his nineteen-year-old daughter, Veronica – and took me home. The whole cab ride there, he chatted about all the museums he would take me to on the weekends and how his satellite dish picked up seven hundred stations so I wouldn’t be bored while he was at work. Veronica just rolled her eyes and watched the rain soaked streets race past.

She had other plans for me.

Roni went to NYU and was majoring in Art History, but her true passion was music. Tubby called it her “stinky little hobby” – and she did smell when she’d come home at three in the morning, a cloud of smoke and stale sweat following her – and hoped she would out grow it. He would worry to my mother sometimes about her getting into drugs or drinking, but Roni always firmly attested it was only about the music. Any music, all music – she really didn’t care. It was all stories to be told.

When she wasn’t working, she would take me to lunch at this strange Russian bistro. It was funky and eclectic, dim lights showcasing unusual artwork. The air was filled with a smoky haze and everyone wore black and talked politics. She would call it a “throwback to the beatnik era – with a twist”. We’d sit close together and she’d talk about instruments or melodies or prose and link her favorite songs to 17th century literature. Most of it went over my head, but I was fascinated nonetheless.

On Wednesday’s and Friday’s, a middle-aged mandolin player would climb onto the stage and pluck clumsily at the strings for twenty minutes. Roni would watch silently, her faced pinched in concentration, and applaud loudly when he finished. No one else did. When I asked why, she looked at me sadly and went into a lecture about how music didn’t have to be good to be beautiful.

The whole summer went like that. She gladly took me with her everywhere, never seeming to mind the naïve kid from the middle of nowhere tagging along. She took me to all kinds of places that never made the tour guides, all the while breaking down my musical barriers.

We even hung out with her friends, and there my education took another turn. I remember sitting in the park, listening raptly while they debated. They’d talk about genre, location, whether pop was ruining this generation or not, if cassettes would become a dying sub-culture… They’d go into specifics of bands they liked, bands that changed the world, bands that were playing that weekend – all bands I had never heard of.

One night, they snuck me into a bar to see a show. It was a tiny, backroom place, and I was half-terrified, half-exhilarated. Roni held my hand as she pulled me towards the stage and I kept my cool, relieved to have her there. When the band came out (for the life of me I can’t remember what their name was), I was surprised by their loudness, the sheer intensity with which they played, the closeness of the moving bodies around me.

But more than anything, I remember Roni. I remember looking up at her, seeing the expression on her face. I watched as she sang along – sometimes with her eyes closed – and swayed with the crowd. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her the rest of the night. The ever changing emotion was fascinating. She would smile or jump or scream – once, I even saw a tear run down her cheek.

On the way home, her friends laughed and joked with each other, singing old songs and reciting off-color poems, but Roni – her hand clasped loosely with mine – walked in silence, a dreamy smile on her face. We climbed the stairs to her third floor apartment and it felt like the air was laced in a heady contentment – something even I felt, though I didn’t really understand it. Even as Uncle Tubby was yelling at her about the irresponsibility of taking her nine year old cousin out in the middle of the night, that look didn’t leave her face.

And my world as I knew it was never quite the same.

I went home, different in ways I couldn’t explain. A whole new world was opened to me and I was excited to share it with others. A lot of my friends thought I was crazy, preferring to stick with their radio friendly pop, but I succeeded in a few cases. And the feeling of that summer continued on inside of me.

I did my best to pass this knowledge on to my budding, impressionable sister. As she grew older, I played her all kinds of stuff, preaching variety and opened-mindedness. My parents let me take her to her first concert when she was seven, and after that, we went to as many others as I could get away with. Several times, I got in trouble for sneaking her out, but like Roni, I didn’t care.

And now, as I watched Bridgett argue with Pete, I knew it was worth it.

He leaned over the table, the breakfast he had so graciously taken us out for forgotten, and jabbed at the air in disbelief. Bridgett shrugged her shoulders and leaned back in her seat, a relaxed air of total confidence exuding from her. I nibbled on a piece of toast as I listened in on them.

“You’re crazy!” Pete sputtered, turning his hand in a circular motion around his ear.

“I’m right,” she replied simply (and, I might add, a little smugly).

Pete picked up his fork and stabbed it into his pancakes, bouncing up and down in his seat a few times before leaning forward again. His face scrunched up in thought, his amazement was still clear to be seen. Not many would dare defy him on the topic of the Chicago underground punk scene – of the seventies for that matter – but this seventeen-year old girl was doing just that. And giving him a run for his money.

“But—But—But—“ he stuttered, leaning forward with a perplexed expression, “how do you know this?! This was like, twenty years before you were born!”

Bridgett crossed her arms, looking quite satisfied, and nodded at me.

“You know punk?” Pete asked me in disbelief.

Poor Pete. He looked so bewildered and stunned. He always claims that in this crazy world, he’s seen everything. Nothing could shock him. It’s all been done. It’s nice to know that even someone as jaded as Pete could be surprised.

“Not so much,” I nonchalantly said with a shrug. “Definitely more of a metal girl, myself.” I popped the last bite of toast in my mouth and tried to ignore his bowled over expression. Funny, for someone who hangs out predominantly with musicians, we rarely talk about music.

“But you’re— How did—“ He shook his head and tried again. “Aren’t you from— And the seventies?” He cleared his throat to start over, but before he could, his phone began to ring.

“Hello?” he answered distractedly. He shot Bridgett one more amazed look before the person on the other line caught his attention.

Bridgett held out a hand to me under the table, her face glowing, and I smacked it quickly. It had been a long time since we’d messed with someone like this (honestly, no one believes that the innocent looking may not actually be innocent) and I must admit, it felt good. Sometimes you just have to prove that appearances can be deceiving.

“You got it all set up? Okay, I’ll ask.” Pete looked at Bridgett and asked, “You wanna go to Disneyland?”

Her amused expression froze in place for a second while the question sank in. “You’re kidding, right? Of course I wanna go to Disneyland!”

“Yeah, she wants to go,” Pete said with a chuckle into his phone. “A.J.? Yeah, hold on.” This time, he turned to me. “So, what do you think? Bren thinks we’ll have a great time, and you’ve never been before.”

“I guess…”

“Great!” He spoke into the phone, looking as excited as a kid in a candy store. “Alright Brendon – see you in a couple hours!”

“I can’t believe I’m going to freaking Disneyland!” Bridgett cried. “Is it alright if I go outside to call Sara?”

“Yeah, sure,” I absently replied. Bridgett was already maneuvering around tables as I answered. “But stay close to Pete’s car!” I called, over protective sister trait kicking in at the last minute. “Don’t wander off!”

And then there was just Pete and me and a table full of empty glasses and bits of half-eaten food.

Pete finished typing on his phone and shoved it in his pocket, his other hand trying to get the waitress’s attention. “Pete,” I started slowly, trying to figure out a way to not burst his bubble about the plans. “Um, Pete?”

“Yeah?” He let his hand drop when the waitress smiled at him and headed our way.

“Well, do you realize that by the time we get out there, we might possibly get to go on one ride before the park closes? And I guarantee it won’t be one of the super cool ones.”

Pete scanned the bill the waitress had just handed him while she efficiently gathered up the remains of our meal. He nodded his agreement with it and handed his credit card to her. She thanked him and walked away, leaning slightly to the right to balance out her awkward load.

“Oh, I know that,” Pete said, pushing the unused napkins closer to the edge of the table. He leaned close to me and whispered, “Don’t let B know – that’s part of the surprise.”

“Surprise?”

“Yeah, we’re doing the park tomorrow. Tonight we’re staying at the Disneyland Hotel. Make sure to pack your swimsuits – we are so hitting the Never Land Pool!”

The waitress came back and handed Pete his receipt, smiled and told us to have a nice day. I stared dumbly at him while he added up the tip. “Why didn’t you run this by me first?”

“Well, then it wouldn’t be a surprise, now, would it?” He signed his name with a flourish and stuffed the thin paper into the small leather folder. “Besides, the fact that you’ve been out here for two years and haven’t been is almost sacrilege.”

I picked up a forgotten fork and twirled it in my fingers. “Yeah, well, it’s kinda a lot of money…”

“Oh, don’t worry – this is Brendon’s treat.”

I looked up sharply. “Brendon’s paying for everything?” I asked suspiciously.

“Yeah—wait, not for everyone!” He looked at me like I was crazy. “Just you two. And himself, I guess.”

The fork dropped to the table with a clatter. “Why just us? Do you guys think I can’t afford it?” I asked indignantly.

“No, it’s not that,” Pete defended quickly. “Bren’s just been planning this for a couple of days now and I think he kinda wants credit for it. He said that he wants to be the one, and I quote, to ‘put the magic of Disney in a little girl’s eyes’. You know how he is.”

I ignored the lightness of his tone and crossed my arms protectively, automatically conjuring up of every moment of my free time over the last two months. “Now that I think about it, you guys always pay for everything. I realize that I’m hardly a millionaire or anything—“

“We’re nowhere near millionaires, A.J.,” Pete snorted.

“—but,” I continued as if he said nothing, “I’m not exactly hard up. I have a good job, I live comfortably, but you guys never let me treat.”

“I guess we just weren’t brought up that way,” Pete said, squirming a little. He picked up his glass of orange juice and swirled it around. The residue stuck to the sides of the glass, bits of pulp slowly sliding down. “It’s not a big deal, anyway. Who cares who pays for the movie or dinner?”

“I do!” I cried vehemently. “The last thing I want is for anyone to think I’m mooching off of them!”

“We don’t think that – not even a little. Maybe we just want to do nice things for you, you ever think of that?” His voice was getting a bit of an edge to it. “And if it bothered you so much, why haven’t you said anything about it before?”

I paused for a second, completely forgetting what I was going to say next. Feeling a little thrown off guard, I answered uncertainly, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

Pete drained the last of his juice and pushed the glass away. It slid across the table, stopping when it caught the edge of the fork I had dropped, and wobbled around until it finally righted itself. “You know what? You still do. Maybe you don’t say anything, but we still see it in your eyes. Every time anyone does anything for you, you always look so damn guilty!” He traced the ring the glass had made and turned his head away.

“That’s bullshit,” I said evenly, trying to reign in my temper. “Don’t push off your insecurities on the guys.”

Pete gave me a wounded look as he stood. His chair hit the one behind it with such force that the people at the surrounding tables stopped mid-conversations to stare. He stalked away without another word, and I followed, dodging the curious glances.

He threw the door open, bell jingling merrily, and went out into the humid August morning. Bridgett was exactly where I told her to be – leaning against Pete’s car, a finger stuck in one ear to block out the sound of the busy street and her phone pressed to the other. Instead of making his way towards her, Pete stopped at the potted, ornamental bush just outside of the restaurant.

It was there that he finally faced me. His face was hard, like he was trying to control his anger, but his words came out calm and even. “It’s not bullshit,” he said, continuing our conversation. “And trust me, my insecurities are the last fucking thing you should be worrying about. Do you remember last month when Patrick rented Gattaca just because he knew you liked it? And a couple of weeks ago when Bren made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies because you have a thing about raisins? What about when Joe dug out his old SNES after you mentioned how, as a kid, you and your friends would spend all summer playing it?”

I didn’t even realize that I had been holding my breath until he looked away. As he watched cars go by, I struggled to fill my lungs with air, desperate to keep the telltale wheeze from being heard.

“You’re always gracious, thankful, but…I can’t really explain it. No matter what you say or how you act, I don’t think you want us to do any of it. And it shows – no matter how good you are at hiding it.”

When he turned back to me, his face had lost its rigidity. The soft, caring, worried expression was enough to make my insides swell, to make those emotions I was so good at containing bubble up and threaten to overflow. This time, the breath I held onto was a conscious one.

“Why?” Pete asked softly. “Why do you always fight it when someone’s nice to you?”

“Well, maybe I feel like I don’t deserve it,” I finally choked out.

Pete looked into my eyes until I felt like I was going to explode. It was like he had figured out how to see through them and into my thoughts, and all I wanted was to close my eyes – but I couldn’t. Night terrors, I thought. This is what night terrors would be like.

“You do.”

His words broke the spell. Or maybe it was the fact that as soon as he said them, he walked away. When he got close enough to the car, he unlocked it (the beeping sound making my sister squeal in surprise) and started talking with Bridgett. Their excited voices drifted to me as they got in the car, but I could only stand there, feeling as if all my careful reasoning had been ripped to shreds.