This Song Will Save Your Life

“I’m going to bed, Poet Girl,” I said. “Want me to tuck you in?”

Alex tapped the end of a marker to her teeth, considering. “Okay,” she said at last. She put down the marker and followed me upstairs.

“Alex?” I whispered in the darkness of her bedroom. “Can you not tell Mom and Steve that I went for a walk tonight?”

“Okay,” Alex said, snuggling into her covers. “Don’t tell them that I was working on my castle either.”

I wrapped my arms around her and she kissed my cheek. It wasn’t the person who I’d thought would be kissing me at the end of tonight. But it was better than ending the night alone.

14

By sundown the next day, I could barely keep my eyes open. I was curled up on the couch in Dad’s living room, holding a book but not really reading it. Mostly I was just staring at my cell phone, willing Char to call or text. I wanted to know what had happened between him and Pippa. I wanted to tell him that I was going to have my own Friday night party. I wanted to talk to him. But so far, nothing.

Of course, this was normal, I reassured myself. Char and I didn’t have a talking relationship. We had the other kind, the kind where you don’t talk. So his silence meant nothing.

My dad sat in his armchair, fiddling with his guitar. He strummed a few chords and mumbled to himself. It mostly sounded like, “Hmm, mmm, mmm. Yeah yeah yeah. Mmm la la. Yeah yeah.”

“New song?” I asked.

“Yeah. I was thinking the Dukes could play it at Solstice Fest, if I could figure out some lyrics. What do you think?”

What I thought, silently, was that no one at Solstice Fest, or anywhere for that matter, was interested in hearing a new Dukes song. They just wanted to hear “Take My Hand,” and they would put up with other songs if they had to.

I had traveled with my dad to a lot of his shows. The best destination concert was when I was twelve. I got to go on an oldies cruise to Jamaica with him. I got my hair done in dozens of tiny braids with beads on the ends, and I swam in the Caribbean.

But what I remembered most clearly about this trip was the Dukes’ set. They played a bunch of new songs and B-sides while the audience sat there politely. Then they played “Take My Hand,” and the audience went nuts for it, obviously.

Once the song was over, the lead singer said to the crowd, like it had just occurred to him, “Hey, do you want us to play it again? It’s only two minutes and twelve seconds long, after all.” The crowd roared its approval, and the Dukes started “Take My Hand” right back from the begi

Even as a twelve-year-old primarily focused on eating a pineapple popsicle, I felt that there was something heartbreaking about this. Because the Dukes knew the truth: that nobody at all gave a shit about what they’d been up to over the past thirty-five years.

The Dukes seemed just as happy to be playing their hit single the second time around, and the audience seemed just as happy to hear it. Somehow I was the only one who wasn’t happy.

After that, Dukes concerts just weren’t as fun for me. Mostly, I tried not to go at all anymore. It felt like watching a magic show after you’ve already learned how the magician does all his tricks.

“The song?” Dad prompted me now, as he strummed out the chorus again. “Do you like it?”

I checked my cell phone again. Still nothing. “It was nice,” I said.

“Oh.” Dad cleared his throat. “I’m still working on it.”

I had missed my cue somehow. I could tell. “I think it’s going to be really good, Dad. I think the hippies at Solstice Fest will eat it up.”

He half smiled and ran his thumb over one of the guitar strings. “Hey, do you want to go with me? To Solstice Fest.”

“Um, when is it?”

He gave me a weird look. “During the solstice.”

I guessed that made sense.

“We could drive up on Friday night and camp out. I think the Dukes’ slot is around noon on Saturday.”

“I can’t,” I said.

“Oh,” Dad said. “Of course, you probably already have plans. Are you and Sally and Chava going to that school dance?”

I had told my parents about Sally and Chava because I wanted them to know that I was a normal person with friends. I had never told my parents about the Freshman/Sophomore Summer Formal because I wasn’t insane. Apparently my father had been reading the PTA newsletter.

“The dance is that night,” I said noncommittally.

“Do you have a date?” Dad asked.

“God, Dad. No.” I thought about what that could possibly look like: Char showing up on my doorstep in a tuxedo, slipping a corsage around my wrist, posing for photographs in front of the fireplace? He wouldn’t even call me.

Dad nodded sagely. “We guys, Elise, are easily intimidated. When I was sixteen, I would not have had the guts to ask a girl like you to my school dance.”

This was a lie on multiple levels, since 1) the reason why boys weren’t asking me out was absolutely not because they were intimidated by me, and 2) by the time my dad was sixteen, he was already playing sold-out shows at his local concert hall, and any girl in Philadelphia would have given her left arm to go to a dance with a Duke.

“Dad,” I said, “would it be okay with you if I spend Friday night at Mom and Steve’s house?”

He paused in his strumming. “You mean the weekend that I’m at Solstice Fest? Of course that’s okay. I was going to suggest that myself.”

“No, I meant, like…” I hugged my knees into my chest. “Every weekend.”

He set his guitar down. “So I would only get you on Wednesdays? And you would stay with your mother six nights a week? Every week?”

“Well … We could rearrange things so I could spend some other weeknight with you … like Tuesdays?”

“Why?” Dad asked, his voice raw.

I couldn’t answer that. I opened and closed my mouth, but I had nothing to say.

“Okay,” Dad said, “forget ‘why.’ How’s this? No.”

“What?” I stared at him.

“I said, No. No, you can’t stay with your mother six out of every seven nights. No, I am not going to rearrange my work schedule just because you feel like it. I don’t care if you don’t want to be here, or if when you are here you don’t want to talk to me, or if your mother’s house has all sorts of marvelous puppies and children and swing sets and fresh-baked goods. I am your father, and that means I am every bit as much your parent as she is. No, you can’t spend Fridays there, too.”

I stood up. “Look, this has nothing to do with Mom or swing sets or anything like that. It’s just that her house is a lot more conveniently located to … well, to … stuff.”

Dad stood up, as well. “I don’t really care,” he said. “What I’m hearing you say is that you don’t want to spend time with me. And what I am saying to you is, you don’t have a choice.”

I felt panic bubbling up in my chest, and my breath started coming out in short gasps. What was I supposed to do, go to Start next Thursday, hope that Pete was there, and tell him, “Hey, look, my dad won’t let me go out on Friday nights. Good luck finding another DJ!” I might as well just wear a sandwich board proclaiming, I AM ONLY 16. I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to do that.

“You can’t stop me,” I said, my voice shaking. “Don’t you love me at all?”

“Don’t I love you?” Dad’s words got louder and louder. “Jesus Christ, Elise, are you kidding me?”

I felt my face puckering like a prune. “Mom wouldn’t keep me from doing something I care about.” And even as I said it, I knew it was a cheap shot. One of the unspoken rules that I did understand was that my parents were not supposed to criticize each other in front of me, and I was not supposed to play them off each other.

Plus, Mom would absolutely keep me from doing something I cared about, if it came down to that. The only reason why she hadn’t stopped me from going to Start was because she didn’t know that was happening. Not because she was the superior parent.