Jodi Picoult - Sing You Home

“You mean big and brawny and sexy?”

“You think?” I ask, surprised.

“Just because I don’t hang modern art in my house doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it,” Vanessa says.

“Max was always trying to teach me about football, and I hated football. All those guys piling on top of each other on Astroturf. And basketball is pointless. You don’t even have to watch a whole game-it always comes down to the last two minutes. And he was messy. He’d leave a melon on the counter after he cut himself a slice, and by nighttime, the kitchen would be crawling with ants. And he could hold a grudge like nobody’s business. I wouldn’t even know he was upset until six months went by and he brought it up during an argument about something totally different.”

“But you married him,” Vanessa points out.

“Well,” I answer. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

I don’t even know how to answer that. “Because,” I say finally, “when you love someone, you don’t see the parts of him you don’t like.”

“Seems to me you need to do a better job next time of getting what you really want.”

“Next time!” I repeat. “I don’t think so. I’m through with relationships.”

“Oh really. You’re putting yourself on the shelf at forty?”

“Shut up,” I say. “Get back to me after you’re divorced.”

“Zo, I’d take you up on that, if only because it means I’d have the right to be married. Seriously, look around. There’s got to be someone attractive in here for you…”

“I am not letting you set me up, Vanessa.”

“Then just tell me. As an academic exercise, of course…”

“Tell you what?”

“What you’re looking for.”

“For God’s sake, Vanessa, I have no idea. I’m not thinking about any of that yet.”

I glance at the mermaid. She is on break, emerging from the tank by hopping up a ladder. When she gets to the top, where there is a ledge she can sit on, she reaches for a towel and dries herself off before checking her BlackBerry.

“Someone real,” I hear myself saying. “Someone who never has to pretend, and who I never have to pretend around. Someone who’s smart, but knows how to laugh at himself. Someone who would listen to a symphony and start to cry, because he understands that music can be too big for words. Someone who knows me better than I know myself. Someone I want to talk to first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Someone I feel like I’ve known my whole life, even if I haven’t.”

When I’m done, I look up to find Vanessa smirking at me. “Gee,” she says. “I’m certainly glad you aren’t thinking about this yet.”

I finish my wine. “Well, you asked.”

“I did. So that when I bump into your future spouse on the street, I can give out your number.”

“What’s your perfect date?” I ask.

Vanessa tosses a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “Oh, I’m not nearly as discriminating. Female, desperate, willing.” She glances up at the mermaid, now drinking sullenly from a whiskey glass. “Human.”

“You’re so picky,” I say, laughing. “How are you ever going to find someone?”

“Story of my life,” she replies. “Story of my life.”

It is not until I am home and lying in bed that I realize Vanessa never seriously answered my question, at least not nearly as seriously as I’d answered hers.

And that-with the exception of the pronoun I’d used-the verbal sketch I gave of my perfect match had actually described Vanessa.

What songs would be on a mix tape that describes you?

It’s a question I’ve used my whole life, as a foolproof test of character. It grew out of the old “Witch Doctor” record that reminded my mother so much of my missing dad. There’s no question that, for her, this would be one of the tracks. And “Always and Forever”-the song she and my dad danced to at their wedding-which, when heard in its elevator Muzak incarnation, always made them circle around in each other’s arms no matter where they were or how large the crowd, which to me was magical and mortifying all at once. And a Beatles song-she tells a story about sleeping outside a hotel where the Fab Four were camped for a press junket, just so that she could get a glimpse of them as they left for the airport. And Enya and Yanni, which she uses now for mindful breathing. Seriously, if you looked through the Favorites list on my mother’s iPod, you could probably sketch her out as thoroughly as if you’d met her in person.

This is true of anyone: the music we choose is a clear reflection of who we really are. There is a lot you can tell about a person who lists Bon Jovi among his favorites. Or, for that matter, Weezer. Or the original cast recording of Bye Bye Birdie.

I first used the mix tape test to check romantic compatibility in high school, when my boyfriend insisted on playing one Journey track over and over again on his car stereo whenever we were steaming up the windows. He’d stop in the middle of whatever we were doing to belt out the chorus. I should have known better than to trust a man who loved power ballads.

After that, I asked all my potential love interests about the fictional mix tape. I told them there was no right answer, which is true. There are, however, some blatantly wrong answers:

“Crazy.”

“I’m Too Sexy.”

“Mmmbop.”

“The Streak.”

“All My Ex’s Live in Texas.”

Max’s list was a collection of country music, a genre of which I’ve never been a fan. Somehow the songs always seem to talk about drinking and having your wife leave you, or else they compare women to large pieces of farm equipment, like tractors and trucks. You know that old joke about the cowboy and the biker who are on death row, set to be executed on the same day? The prison guard asks the cowboy for his last request, and he begs to hear the song “Achy Breaky Heart” before he dies. The guard then asks the biker for his last request. “To be killed before you play that song,” he says.

The most interesting people I’ve ever met are the ones who answer the question with music I have never experienced before: South African a cappella groups, Peruvian drummers, up-and-coming alt rockers from Seattle, Jane Birkin, the Postelles. When I was at Berklee I dated a boy whose list was all rap. I had grown up in the suburbs listening to Casey Kasem and didn’t know much about hip-hop music. But he explained how its roots grew from the griots of West Africa-traveling singers and poets who were keeping a centuries-old oral storytelling tradition. He played me rap songs that were social commentary. He taught me how to write my own flow, how to feel poetry in syllables and rhythm in the spaces between the words. He taught me that what wasn’t said was just as important as what was.

I fell pretty hard for him, actually.

I stopped using the question to learn more about potential dates once I met Max, of course, but I didn’t retire the inquiry. Now, I ask my clients. I’ve met people whose lists are all classical; I’ve met people who choose only heavy metal. I’ve met burly, tattooed motorcyclists who love opera and grandmothers who know Eminem’s lyrics by heart.

The music we listen to may not define who we are.

But it’s a damn good start.

In February, Vanessa and I sign up for a Bikram yoga class, the kind that’s done in an abnormally hot room. We go to one session and leave at the halfway point five-minute break, certain we are both about to have strokes.

So the next week I call her up and tell her that maybe belly dancing is more our thing. We are pretty good at it, actually, but our classmates are not. We get booted by the instructor because we can’t stop laughing when we are supposed to be focusing.