Two lives, kept separate. That’s what Marisa had said she’d done, and I hated that I understood, finally, what she’d meant.
“You play piano,” I said, to shake Marisa from my thoughts. “That’s cool.”
“Except I couldn’t do the recitals,” Sicily said.
“Oh, right,” I said. “Your stage fright.”
She looked like she wanted to say something.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s more than stage fright,” she said. “I have… all-the-time fright. Like, anxiety?”
“Oh.”
“Like, I get sweaty and heart-racy and I can’t breathe,” she said. “And I feel like—like I’ll die.”
“Like, when you meet a guy you think is hot or what?”
“No, just… sometimes,” she said. The round toes of her silly boots nudged at each other. “Anytime. I don’t know. Like when I’m in a crowd or when I’m alone. Or when something important is happening that could, like, ruin the outcome of my entire life? Big tests at school and stuff. I’m having a little trouble with… everything. College, especially. My grades are not great? And now… Mom.” She put her chin on her knees, balling herself up.
Marisa was still missing, then, and here the kid was trying to take a break from thinking about it, being here.
“I kinda wish I could start over,” Sicily said. “Or just… stop for aminute, figure it all out.”
“I don’t have a lot of advice to give,” I said. “I haven’t figured out a thing.”
Her miserable little face looked back at me.
Where was Oona? She’d be all over this anxiety stuff, full of advice and links and best products to try. She could be very mother-ish.
“Okay, so… what’s keeping you from taking a break to figure things out?” I asked. “A gap year or whatever they call it.”
“If I took a semester off school,” Sicily said, “my parents would have synchronized strokes.”
“Marisa being such a type A personality, historically,” I said.
“It’s weird that you call her that,” Sicily said.
“For the record, I have called her much, much worse.” I stood up. “Come on. I guess.”
STILL MORE THAN THREE HOURSbefore opening, McPhee’s was dark and quiet. I got the lights on, pulled a soda for Sicily, and suggested the corner booth so she’d be out of my way. I needed to sweep the floors and think.
When I came back from the storeroom with the broom, she was still standing at the bar.
“This is your job?” she said. “No offense.”
“Just helping out, uh, the owner,” I said. “My job is…” I jutted my chin toward the stage.
Sicily walked over and stepped up onto the stage, then turned and looked out at all the empty tables. I could almost feel her skinny legs knocking together at the knees. “This is the only way I could do this,” she said, her voice high. “The room empty and no spotlight.You’dhave to leave.”
“It’s the only thing I can imagine doing,” I said sadly. It all seemed pretty impossible at the moment, figuring out a way to keep going.
She walked over to the piano, lifted the fallboard over the keys, and plunked a couple of notes. “Why aren’t any of your songs finished?”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
She spread her fingers on the keys and played a chord, then another. That little bitch was working on my song.
