Jodi Picoult - Sing You Home

I don’t quite know why my failure with Lucy DuBois is so crushing. I’ve had plenty of other clients whose initial meetings were not dynamic successes. The autistic boy I worked with at the same high school a year ago, for example, did nothing but rock in a corner for the first four visits. I know that, in spite of what happened today, Vanessa will trust my judgment if I say that next time will be better. She’ll forgive me for letting Lucy slip away; she’ll probably even blame the girl instead of me.

I’m not afraid of her being disappointed.

It’s just that I don’t want to be the one to disappoint her.

“Excuse me,” an employee says. I look up to see his big Walmart badge, his thinning hair. He speaks slowly, as if I am a toddler unable to understand him. “The chairs are not for sitting.”

Then what are they for? I wonder. But I just smile politely, get up, refold the chair, and stick it back on the shelf.

I drive mindlessly for a half hour before finding myself in the parking lot of a bar that’s only a mile from my house. I used to work there-first as a waitress, then as a singer-before Max and I started in vitro. Then, I was tired all the time, or stressed, or both. Playing acoustic guitar at 10:00 P.M. twice a week lost its appeal.

It’s nearly empty, because it’s a Wednesday, and it’s only just past dinnertime.

Also because there is a big sign out front that says, WEDNESDAY IS KARAOKE NIGHT.

Karaoke, in my opinion, is right up there on the list of the greatest mistakes ever invented, along with Windows Vista and spray-on hair for balding men. It allows people who would normally only have the courage to sing in the confines of their own showers with the water running loudly to instead get on a stage and have fifteen minutes of dubious fame. For every truly remarkable karaoke performance you’ve ever heard, you’ve probably heard twenty horrendous ones.

Then again, by the time I’ve had my fourth drink in two hours, I am nearly ripping the microphone out of the hands of a middle-aged lady with a bad perm. I tell myself that this is because if she sings one more Celine Dion song I will have to strangle her with the hose that’s hooked up to the soda keg underneath the bar. But it is equally likely that the reason I need to sing is because I know it’s the one thing that will make me feel better.

The difference between people who become musicians and people who become music therapists is simple: a change in focus from what you personally can get out of music and what you can encourage someone else to get out of it. Music therapy is music without the ego-although most of us still hone our skills by playing in community bands and performing in choirs.

Or, in my case right now, karaoke.

I know I have a good voice. And on a day when my other abilities are being called into question, it’s downright restorative to have the patrons of the bar clapping and asking for an encore, to have the bartender handing me a glass to use as a tip jar.

I sing a little Ronstadt. A bit of Aretha. Some Eva Cassidy. At some point, I go out to my car to grab a guitar. I sing a few songs I’ve written, and sprinkle them with a little Melissa Etheridge and an acoustic version of Springsteen’s “Glory Days.” By the time I sing “American Pie,” I’ve got the whole bar doing the chorus with me, and I am not thinking about Lucy DuBois at all.

I’m not thinking, period. I’m just letting the music carry me, be me. I’m a thread of sound that slips like a stitch through every single person in this room, binding us tightly together.

When I finish, everyone applauds. The bartender pushes another gin and tonic down the bar toward me. “Zoe,” he says, “it’s about time you came back.”

Maybe I should do more of this. “I don’t know, Jack. I’ll think about it.”

“Do you take requests?”

I turn around to find Vanessa standing beside the barstool.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Which version? Brenda Lee or Buckcherry?” I wait until she’s climbed onto the stool beside mine and ordered a drink. “I’m not going to ask how you found me.”

“You have the only bright yellow Jeep in this entire town. Even the traffic helicopters can find you.” Vanessa shakes her head. “You’re not the first one Lucy’s run away from, you know. She did the same thing to the school shrink, the first time they met.”

“You could have told me…”

“I was hoping it would be different this time,” Vanessa says. “Are you going to come back?”

“Do you want me to come back?” I ask. “I mean, if you just want a warm body for Lucy to ditch, you could hire some teenager at minimum wage.”

“I’ll tie her down to the chair next time,” Vanessa promises. “And maybe we can make her listen to that lady sing Celine Dion.”

She points to the middle-aged woman whose karaoke career I intercepted. “You’ve been here that long?”

“Yeah. Why didn’t you tell me you could sing like that?”

“You’ve heard me sing a hundred times-”

“Somehow when you chime in with the Hot Pockets jingle, it doesn’t really convey the full range of your voice.”

“I used to play here a couple times a week,” I tell her. “I forgot how much I liked it.”

“Then you should do it again. I’ll even come be your audience so you never have to play to an empty room.”

Hearing her talk about an empty room reminds me of the music therapy session my client abandoned. I wrap my arms around the neck of my guitar case, as if creating a shield for myself. “I really thought I could get Lucy to open up. I feel like such a loser.”

“I don’t think you’re a loser.”

“What do you think of me?” The words slip out, before I have even meant for them to fly away.

“Well,” Vanessa says slowly, “I think you’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met. Every time I think I have you pegged, I learn something else about you that totally surprises me. Like last weekend when you said that you keep a list of all the places you wish you’d gone to when you were younger. Or that you used to watch Star Trek and memorized the dialogue from every episode. Or that, I now realize, you are the next Sheryl Crow.”

There is a buttery glow to the room now; my cheeks are flushed, and I’m dizzy even though I’m sitting down. I did not drink very much when I was married to Max-out of solidarity, and then intended pregnancy-and for this reason the alcohol I’m not accustomed to has even more sway over my system. I reach across Vanessa to the stack of napkins beside the olive tray, and the fine hairs on my wrist brush against the silk sleeve of her blouse. It makes me shiver.

“Jack,” I call out. “I need a pen.”

The bartender tosses me one, and I unfold the cocktail napkin and write the numbers one through eight in a list. “What songs,” I ask, “would be on the mix tape that describes you?”

I hold my breath, thinking that she’s going to start laughing or just crumple the napkin, but instead Vanessa takes the pen out of my hand. When she bows her head toward the bar, her bangs cover one eye.

Did you ever notice how other people’s houses have a smell? I had asked, the first time I went over to Vanessa’s.

Please tell me mine isn’t something awful like bratwurst.

No, I said. It’s clean. Like sunlight on sheets. Then I asked her what my apartment smelled like.

Don’t you know?

No, I’d explained. I can’t tell because I live there. I’m too close to it.

It smells like you, Vanessa had said. Like a place nobody ever wants to leave.