I'll Fight Your Fears For You (1,2,3)

Change is Dangerous

I didn’t understand why some people had a calendar on every door.  You would think they were life saving devices.  It’s as if people feared they might forget about an essential get together as they walked from the kitchen to the bathroom.  Maybe to them, that’s a life-or-death issue.  Perhaps I’d overlooked the importance of calendars completely.  Maybe they did actually save people heartache and grief.  For example, perhaps while someone was sitting on the toilet, they might see the calendar.  Instantly, they remembered an important meeting.  Thanks to the calendar then, they could cut short their potty time and not be so late. I was not exactly sure how that could save a life unless the person they were meeting with kills for tardiness.  But if that was the case, I didn’t think a person would have risked a bathroom break in the first place.  Or maybe, it just made people happy to see all the events people invited them to.  If they were feeling depressed and lonely, they could look at any door and remember the four parties they have that month.  Then, they felt important and depression disappeared to that despicable no-calendar-zone.  I suppose all these reasons are what made calendars such essential items for every household.  Except apparently mine. 

We had one calendar.  One pocket sized calendar pinned in the darkest of dark corners of our house. It turned August two days ago I think, but the calendar still showed July.  The poor little calendar was naked as a newborn.  Every tiny square seemed to beg for something to cover up its blinding whiteness.  The faded words, violin lesson 2:00, did nothing to make Tuesdays feel better about their exposure.  I suppose I could have written church 10:00 on the empty Sunday squares, but that would have been a pointless waste of pencil lead.  We hadn’t missed church since baby hornets infested our car five years ago. 

It seemed that since we never went anywhere besides church, mama hornet thought our engine would be a jolly place to raise a family.  Until of course the major earthquake of 2010 hit and The United States of Car-Engine wasn’t so peaceful anymore.  We turned our car on that Sunday and all hell broke loose.  The poor hornet family, woken up the largest earthquake known to hornet-kind, was hungry for revenge.  And did they ever get revenge. No poor bug drowned in gasoline was forgotten by the avenging hornets.  That day went down as the day we missed church because of a hornet apocalypse.  It was such a major event, I even wrote The Eleventh Plague on the calendar.  That way, I'd never forget the sight of that cloud of hornets chasing my whiny sister Talia.  All the while she screamed, “God’s sent a plague on us!” I still laugh to think of it.  She must not have learned the Bible as good as I had or she would have known in Exodus 15 God said the tenth plague was the last he would send for Egypt. But I guess since we lived in America, not Egypt, God could still send us plagues.  Sadly, I don’t know where that calendar went when 2010 was over.  It probably got thrown away in our 100% sanitary garbage can. 

Honestly, I don’t understand why anyone would believe an advertisement for 100% sanitary garbage can.  But Mama did, so I suppose it worked on some people.

But then again, Mama was not a normal person.  I should know.  I’d lived with her for all fourteen years of my life.

I could barely remember a time when she was normal.  A time before daddy left.  A time before she made it her goal to protect us from anything that might hurt us.  If I squeezed my eyes shut hard, I could vaguely make out the memory of the old kind of protection. The kind of protection that meant an extra coat on cold days.  The kind of protection that meant an extra dollar on field trips or an extra caution when heading to kindergarten.

Then daddy left, and protection turned into something different.  Protection was pulling me and my sisters out of public school.  Protection was not only homeschooling us, but never letting us out of her sight.  Not even to check the mailbox for letters from daddy. Protection was wiping every doorknob with sanitizer before touching it.  It was placing sheets over every public chair we sat in. Protection was mamma reading every book before I read it.  Protection was fourteen year old me watching G rated movies with my ten year old sisters.

I used to describe protection as keeping something safe. Now I knew protection was isolation.  Isolation was the best way to keep safe.  Like hand sanitizer for example.  Hand sanitizer kept all germs off your hands, so your hands were isolated from germs. This kept you from getting sick.  It was sort of like Mama was a gigantic bottle of hand sanitizer.  She made sure we were isolated from all dangerous things.  Things like germs, weapons, and animals that could hurt us on the outside and things like people that could hurt us on the inside.  For so long, isolation had kept us safe.  That was why we had no need for calendars.  And I knew calendars were not life saving devices because we were not dead. 

In fact, we were far from dead.  We were safe and we had no pain.  So I guess that made us happy.

I walked towards our calendar now, uneasiness swirling in my gut. The empty calendar looked comfortable.  Nothing had changed on it for years. As I lifted up the July page I wondered what I had done.  Slowly and carefully I folded July under August.  Then I saw it. 

Today was Wednesday and like all Wednesdays, it was empty. But tomorrow was Thursday and it was not empty.  Like a black cat hiding in a snowy field, the words Violin Audition 10:00 were visible on Saturday’s normally empty square. 

I wrote them in months ago.  I remembered smiling when I did it.  But now, I wondered what could have possibly convinced me that change was a good idea. 

If isolation brought safety, then that meant change must bring the opposite: danger.       

 

Stupid Ideas Are Dangerous

I supposed it was my sisters' fault.  I didn’t normally blame stuff on them.  But then again, I never had anything to blame on anybody. That was before I got the idea of joining a public orchestra though.  Now, I would love to blame that idea on somebody.

So, like any fourteen year old who had a stupid idea, I’m going to blame it on my sisters if anything went wrong. 

I loved my sisters.  Both of them.  But then it’s really hard to love one and not the other since they were practically identical in every single miniscule way.  From the way they looked, to the way they ate, to the way followed me everywhere like creepy robots.  I liked to believe there were differences.  Mostly because I was not fond of the idea of clones living in my house.

For instance, their names were not the same.  That was an important difference.  One was Sophia, the other was Talia.

Their faces were not the same.  Sophia had a longer face and thicker eyebrows.  I was mad once, and I compared her to this picture of a troll in our storybook.  Mostly, her troll like appearance was because of her thick eyebrows, nearly joined in the middle. She looked most troll-like when she frowned, which she did often.  For example, when I compared her to a troll, she just frowned at me.  Talia looked more like the little chipmunks scattered throughout fairy tale forests. With her button nose and large brown eyes she was the one adults called adorable while pinching her cheeks.  It looked painful and I was certainly not jealous. 

They walked differently too.  Sophia had this stiff way of moving.  If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was wearing leg braces.  Talia was stiff on occasion, but mostly, she hopped about like a sparrow.  Not to mention she could imitate any bird call after hearing it once.  It was beautiful, but she's so shy, she never showed anyone except our family.

Both Sophia and Talia were tall for ten years of age and since I was short for fourteen, we all stood about the same height.  This was the first detail in my story of how I came to write Violin Audition 10:00 on otherwise empty Saturday.  There was much more to it though. 

Not only were my sisters and I the same height, but we had the same color skin, eyes, and hair.  Toffee colored skin, coffee colored hair and chocolate eyes and hair.  I think we sound rather delicious.  We got these foodie sounding colors from our Father.   

He had been Latino.  Actually, he was still Latino, unless he’d had plastic surgery since he left ten years ago.  Mama just always referred to him in past tense and so in my head, I did too.  Your father was tall, she said, or, Your father was funny.  There was an exception to this past tense rule.  Sometimes she said, Your father is immature.  Apparently, that’s one thing she knew didn’t change.

As if it wasn’t strange enough that we looked like mirror images of each other, we all dressed the same too.  I never argued with Mama because it made her upset.  When she was upset, she began acting strangely.  So when Mama went shopping and came back with three of everything, I put the clothes on without complaint.  Even if the pants were pink with ruffles and the shirt had a polka dotted bow on it.  We barely went anywhere, so I reasoned that it didn’t matter the clothes I wore came in toddler sizes as well.  Not to mention, Mama said dressing alike made me have a closer relationship with my sisters.  Bad sibling relationships were one thing on her list to keep us safe from.  For these reasons, our physical similarity never bothered me. 

That was, it didn’t bother me until I was mistaken for my sister’s triplet.  I didn’t mind dressing the same, or even looking the same, as long as people didn't mix me up with my sisters.  No one ever did, until a few months ago when our neighbor thought we were triplets.  The three of us had left the house each in brown leggings and puffy white vests, carrying our own violin cases.  I didn’t see our neighbor much, but that morning he was out in the yard smoking.  When he saw us, his cigarette fell to his dying grass. 

“I didn’t know ya had triplets,” he exclaimed and Mama frowned.  He looked away and ground his cigarette into the grass with the heel of his sock. No wonder the grass was dying.

“They aren’t triplets, and you’re killing yourself with those nasty things,” Mama had said.  I pulled her into the car by her wrist before she could explain just how he was killing himself and who else he was killing.   

I closed the door to our minivan and for once, I wasn’t even worried about second hand smoking.  I remember the exact thoughts running through my head then and they had nothing to do with lung cancer.

  I had glanced at each of my sisters, strapped in complex car seats behind me, and wondered if there was anything different—anything special about me.  Sure, the three of us had differences.  Even Talia and Sophia had differences.  But was there anything about me that people knew me for? Our neighbor’s comment had set off this stream of thoughts.  Even after my violin lesson, they stuck with me. 

There was still one more part to me wanting to join an orchestra and it also had to do with our neighbor. We were getting out of our car after violin lessons that same day, when something hit the windshield.  It wasn’t hard, but it made a nice solid thwack sound.  We all flinched instinctively and I think Mama even let out a gasp. It surprised me that she didn’t shriek, “The sky is falling!”  I had the urge to say it just for fun, but it was rare I actually said what was in my head. 

We all stepped cautiously out of the van and I spotted what had hit us.  Lying on our driveway was a newspaper.  A small article on the back page was circled with red pen.  It read, “Smoking boosts memory and concentration.” 

I had barely glanced at the title when Mama snatched it up murmuring, “Lies, lies, lies.”

A little page had slipped out of the stack of newspaper. 

Trying to be helpful and prevent litter, I picked it up.  Before I could ball it up though and deposit it in our 100% sanitary garbage can though, the title caught my eye. 

“Philharmonic Youth Orchestra Celebrating Its 25th Year,” it read. Below was a picture of a large group of kids my age holding various instruments.  They looked professional.  I read the entire article and that was how I learned the local group’s yearly audition was being held in August.  Anyone under eighteen could come and play in front of five famous judges.  They’d rank you and if you did well enough, you would be given a spot in the orchestra. If you earned a spot, you would practice every week with 100 other teens playing all sorts of instruments until the orchestra was ready to perform a real concert. There were forty openings for violins.  I pictured myself surrounded by thirty nine other violists practicing beautiful songs every Thursday.  I imagined us on concert day dressed in black and white, the audience standing up and clapping for us.  Even a few roses were thrown in my imagination.  I imagined someone, maybe even a stranger, standing up and saying, “You were amazing,” right to my face.  Not, “You and your sisters were amazing,” but, “You were amazing.”

This was what gave me the courage to show mama the article.  I made sure she was in a good mood when I did it.  Not one of those moods where she put pastel colored ribbons in her hair and watched old timey cartoons.  I knew it was the perfect time to ask when she got out her mop and vacuum.  Whenever she cleaned, it made her feel good.  It put her in a good mood to know she would soon re-home all those naughty, naughty germs into the garbage can where they would be much happier.  Or at least, we would be much happier.  They'd probably die if our garbage can was indeed, 100% sanitary. 

I approached her cautiously and didn't argue or try to persuade her.  I just read her the article and waited to see what she would say.  I waited for her to tell me about the hundred of bad things that could happen to me if I joined such a large group of teenagers.  I waited for her to tell me that there was no reason for me to go.  I waited for her to give me that distant look that meant she had disappeared into her childhood.  Instead she hesitantly took the paper and said, “If you think you’re ready for this, Mouse.  It is a good opportunity for your music studies.”

Of course, this was followed by a steady stream of questions and warnings.  There were lots of ifs, but I barely listened.  At that moment, I remember having the feeling that everything would work out perfectly.  I remember having this sudden rush of excitement about the fact that I was about to do something neither of my sisters had done.  I was about to have my own adventure.

Now, months later, I certainly had a rush of something as I counted down the hours before my audition, but it no longer felt like excitement. It felt much more like barf rising in my throat. 

Before, I had been isolated, and I had always been safe.  I barely ever got sick or physically hurt.  I didn’t ever cry the way I saw some people do at church.  It looked unpleasant.  I wasn’t exactly sure how an orchestra could bring this unpleasant stuff upon me, but the closer the audition got, the worse my stomach felt.  Everyone knew that jumping stomachs were not a good sign.  Stomachs were not supposed to jump.  They were supposed to sit still and digest your food like a good little internal organ. 

But at the moment, my stomach deserved a lengthy visit to the time out corner for misbehaving.  Or maybe I was the one who deserved a lengthy visit to the time out corner.  This whole thing had been my idea.  Inside, I knew that if anything went wrong, it would be all my fault, and not my sisters.  I was the one who was unhappy with just being one in a triplet. 

I was beginning to feel more and more like there was a nest of hornets waiting to erupt and that they’d all go after me.  Then I’d be the one crying and hollering, “God’s sent a plague!”

 

Scary Oriental Ladies Are Dangerous

I was standing in front of the sign in table with Mama and my sisters.  There was a long list of names written down on a sheet of paper of everyone who had an audition that day.  An older lady who looked either Chinese, Asian, or Korean was scanning the list for my name. I decided just to categorize her as Oriental. She certainly wasn't the only one who fit under my category of Oriental though in this audition wait area.  It was a high school we were in, but it was Saturday, so all the normal occupants were gone, replaced by a sea of young musicians. 

As I looked around, I noticed that almost everyone in the building looked like they belonged in the local Foreign Food Market.  On the up side, for once it wasn’t my clothes making me stand out.  But with so many people in the building, I didn’t think anything could have made me stand out, not even a third eyeball.  Not even a pink and sparkly third eyeball with hair growing in it.  That's how many people there were.

And the crowds weren't just standing still like deer in headlights either.  There were a few who I could see just sitting in the cafeteria practicing their songs as if they weren't nervous a bit.  I had a hard time believing their mask of calm though because a majority of the kids looked like they had ants in their pants.  Amazonian ants hungry for blood.  Some paced the hallway.  There was one tall boy who walked all the way from the end of the hallway I was standing in, to me.  He stepped as close as possible to me and then motioned me out of the way. I squeezed closer to the table until I was awkwardly close to the oriental lady sitting there. Mama pulled me back, probably worried about germs.  The boy kept walking towards the other end then made a u-turn and headed back.  He reached me again.  This time, he said excuse me and I moved again towards the table until mama pulled me back.  This continued until it felt like an interesting sort of dance routine. As this went on, I puzzled over what was wrong with him.  Maybe he was blind or lost.  Maybe he was blind and lost.  Then it occurred to me that he might be having a nervous breakdown, so I made sure not to get in his way at all.  This forced me to snuggle with the cold white wall beside us.  The wall wasn't a comfortable snuggle partner, but I shared less germs with it than I would have with the people behind us. 

As the lady continued searching for my name, I kept a wary eye on pacing boy.  It was taking so long for her to find me on that sheet, I wondered if she knew her alphabet. 

The boy passed me again from a different side and I had  to squish close to the table again.  I could feel the lady breathing.  Slowly, she looked up and frowned. 

“Take step back,” she commanded and blushing, I did. Her face looked squished and mad.  She looked like that before though so I didn’t think she was too mad at me.  The one bad part was that she lost her place on the list and had to backtrack.  Mama looked like she wanted to pull me right out of the building.  She looked like she was contemplating if illiteracy and insanity spread.  She stayed where she was though, and just gripped my shoulder.  I almost wished she would take me away from here.  The pacing boy was really starting to freak me out.  My feet were having strange twitches as if I should be pacing along side with him.  Mama always warned me not to walk away with strangers though so I tried to keep my feet rooted.

Before I could join my mom in wondering if insanity spread, I diverted my attention to the opposite hallway. Unfortunately, this didn't reassure me at all.  At this end of the hallway, a stiff man was leading a noticeably pale girl towards a door left partially open.  On the door a sign hung crookedly reading, "Don’t disturb when door is closed." I bet the judges were in there.  You would think from the girl’s expression though, that the room contained the Wizard of Oz himself. Her lips were moving frantically, as if she was chanting, “Lions and tigers and bears oh my!”  The expression on her face made it seem like she about to encounter something much worse than those animals though.  More likely, she was chanting, “Fainting and failing and dying oh my!” 

Even if that wasn’t actually what she was saying, those options were certainly running through my head.  I realized I was subconsciously listing the worst possible things that could happen to me from now until I made it home.  These not so flowery daydreams were interrupted when the lady made a mark with her pen on the sign-in paper.  After years of searching she had discovered it:  the T section!

“You Miranda Triplet?” she asked uncertainly, putting my last name first. Something seemed to register in her eyes then and she let out a high pitched laugh. “Your last name is Triplet and you triplets,” she exclaimed.  She made a sort of karate looking chop towards my sisters and I flinched.  This was one dangerous little lady.  With one karate move, she had made all my regret vanish. A little bit of anger must have replaced this regret though, because an image of her rolled up in a sushi wrap filled my head. I felt incredibly violent.   

As always, mama came to the rescue by saying, “They are not triplets.”

The features on oriental lady’s face squished closer.  Either she was mad again, had to use the restroom, or confused.  I couldn’t tell until she spoke.  “I mess up my English? I mean triplet, as in three girls just alike?”

My face was beginning to heat up now and I wished she would just give me the dumb sticker with my number and let me go.  The people behind us thought so too. They were snorting like impatient bulls.  It suddenly occurred to me that they might be hyperventilating and needed a paper bag.  I peeked over my shoulder to make sure they were okay.  Besides the fact their faces were the color of active volcanoes, the women and boy behind me didn’t seem to be dying.  I pulled my eyes quickly away. 

She handed me a sticker and Mama herded us over to an empty corner so I could warm up on my songs before someone led me to the judges.  My hand shook as I tuned my strings, but I only had to remember one thing for my hand to still.  I pictured little oriental lady karate chopping the air saying, “Triplet, as in three girls just alike.” 

As I tightened the strings on the violin so it was in pitch, I tightened my resolution to get a spot in the orchestra.  I would have my own adventure.  As soon as I thought this, the tremor escaped from my hand and my notes came out clear and calm. 

I suppose this was all thanks to little oriental lady, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t scared of her.  She may have stopped me from giving up on this risky plan, but that didn’t mean the plan wasn’t risky.  Something told me that little oriental lady was very dangerous.