Betsy Burke - Performance Anxiety

She started to sing. I joined in, harmonizing. We improvised, following each other, singing whatever came into our heads, and I have to say, it sounded pretty good. We threw our notes out to the walls, walking slowly through the main floor like figures in an eerie dream. We paced and twirled and let loose in the huge abandoned house to exorcise her father’s oversight.

Tina began to make changes that day. She stopped being so hard on herself, stopped calling herself trailer trash and started to become the singer she’d always imagined for herself.

On the ferry ride home, Tina was in a much better mood. “I got one more favor to ask you.”

“What’s that?”

“Theory homework.” She unfolded a scrunched-up scrap of paper and shoved it into my line of vision. German words were scrawled on it. “I wrote the poem but it’s gotta be a song, Lied in the style of Schubert. It’ll be easy.”

“Easy for old Franz but not for me,” I sighed.

“Ah, go on. You know you enjoy it. I’ll never get it done on time. C’mon. You know you can’t turn down the challenge.”

I was one year ahead of Tina in theory, and because she said herself that she was too lazy to figure it out, and I had done all the exercises the year before, I did her theory and composition homework for her. Pieces “in the style of” Bach fugues, Beethoven concerti, Byrd motets, Ravel arabesques. And it was true that I enjoyed the challenge.

It was unbalanced. In exchange for doing her music theory homework, I got to be her friend, witness her bad moods and endure her cruel and unusual punishments. But then, what else are friends for?

I poured out some iced orange vodka for Tina and Collin. The three of us made a quick toast to our health and knocked it back. I was a little disappointed with Tina. I was expecting her to liven things up but she sank into my couch with Collin and the two of them stayed there, exchanging gooey looks, wordlessly communicating their weird dark passion.

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