dad. If you saw him in a bar, you might think he’s a Hells Angel or something, but once you get him talking, he’s totally harmless. He remembers everyone’s name, their birthstone too. He and my mom were drifters—you know, a bit harder than hippies; they met at a forty-eight-hour Beltane party, both tripping. According to Dad, he was starstruck. Mom was wearing rubber pants so tight she couldn’t sit down; he says that’s why they danced all night. I saw him probably three times a month, and those were always good times. It’s not like he was trying to get away from my mom and me; it was just part of his job. We had Marilyn Manson over for dinner a few times. He told my parents I was the most self-possessed ten-year-old he’d ever encountered. I always remembered that.
“I grew up in a dinky town north of L.A., just around the corner from Neverland Ranch. You know, Michael Jackson’s place. That was our town’s one and only claim to fame; everyone’s parents either didn’t work or worked far away. My mom drove across the border into Nevada every single day for work. Sometimes she slept over at the casino, which was also a hotel. She would come home smelling like a totally different person: twenty different types of perfume. I think she and I would have been close, if she’d had the time. Sometimes we hung out on weekends, and we’d fill out our birth charts; most of the time, though, if she was home, she made a beeline for the shower, asked me how school was, asked Grandma how I was, didn’t listen to her answer, and then went to bed. She slept all day Sunday, her one day off. At a certain point I think we both realized we had nothing to talk about, so she clung to the idea of me as a good student. You should be a lawyer, O, she always told me; I don’t know why. Go to college. Don’t stay here. As if I could anyway. But so long as I kept my grades up, I could get away with murder.
“When I was nine, my grandma moved in with us, allegedly to keep an eye on me when Mom and Dad were working. But all she ever did was watch TV and yell at me. She’s the only person I’ve ever hated. She told my mom I was bad news, mostly because I stole her cigarettes. She was too senile to prove it was me. I always thought grandparents were supposed to know how to cook, but the only thing she ever made was hard-boiled eggs. She put them on a paper plate with baby carrots, because she was too lazy to do dishes. When I went vegan, she freaked. Is it because of a boy? Do you have anorexia? She couldn’t understand it. Who the fuck cares about motherfucking chickens?
“When I was thirteen, she sent my pictures to some modeling agency in L.A. This was her fixation: that I should be a model. She talked endlessly about how she’d once been a model, back in the day, but I could never find any evidence. When I asked to see pictures, she said her portfolio had burned in a fire. When I asked why she didn’t come up on the Internet, she said she used a different name. She was certainly tall enough, taller than me, and skinny because she didn’t even eat the eggs she cooked, just the carrots, dipped in mustard. When the agency called back and wanted to meet me, she was ecstatic. It was one of the only times she’d ever been happy to see me. The other time was whenever we watched American Idol. I had to burst her bubble with the modeling thing. How the fuck am I supposed to get there? Neither of us could drive. You think there are modeling jobs out here? Like, maybe for a D.A.R.E. campaign. She blew up. You’re so selfish, she said. Don’t you want to support us? She threw everything in the fridge at me, including a carton of eggs. I had to go sleep at a friend’s.
“I got into piano just to get out of the house. We had a neighbor with a Steinway who would let me practice in his living room. Sometimes he stood in the doorway to listen, which gave me the creeps, but nothing bad ever happened. He was the loneliest dude I think I’ve ever met. His name was Carlton. As far as I knew, he never worked. He just puttered around in his living room, watering his plants, smoking crack in the bathroom, as if I didn’t notice. His age was a mystery. He put on his robe when I came around, but I suspected he didn’t leave the house very often. I assumed he was living on some sort of inheritance. I asked if he could play. I don’t play anymore, he said. But I used to be good. He was the one who set me up with a teacher. Her name was Miss Spoons. She lived somewhere else, but she’d drive to Carlton’s every week, and they both praised the fuck out of me. Such rare talent; totally untrained; best I’ve heard in years, blah blah blah. I didn’t stop to think about what it actually meant to be the best in a fuck-off town like mine. Like, of course I was the best. Who was my fucking competition? The crackhead next door? Oh well. They made me feel good.
“They helped me apply to a performing-arts high school in L.A. Every morning at 6:00 a.m. I’d wait outside the town library, which was really just a trailer full of romance novels, and a special bus came just for me. I was pretty popular at my new school; I think people found me exotic. One girl said that I was cute. You always wear clothes that don’t fit! It’s so cute. I befriended some models, girls even taller and skinnier than me. If I hung out with my new friends, I stayed at their houses in the Valley or the Palisades. We did normal things like watch movies and get pizza and text boys to come over, then cancel last minute, and I’d be so happy I could cry. I never brought people back home. For one thing, our house smelled. For as long as I lived there, it smelled—not bad, just strong. Like hamsters and milk. Maybe that’s why I went vegan. I was always so afraid that the smell would follow me, get trapped in my clothes. I smoked menthols to try to cover it up. For another thing, I didn’t think my old friends would get along with these girls. As it was, they thought I was snobby, which I probably was, and eventually stopped hanging with me. Oh well. More time to practice. I was alone all the time. No wonder I eventually became a bit of a slut. On the weekends I would practice for twelve hours a day, make dinner for Carlton, and still have time on my hands. The summer after my freshman year, that’s when I went a bit crazy. I had no choice, really: suck dick or die of boredom. It got so that I couldn’t bear to spend the night alone, with my grandma watching TV until five in the morning, when my mom got up to go to work and made her turn it off. I had a series of boys I would text from all over. Some were losers; some were rich. I gave head to a kid with a Rothko on his wall. Isn’t it boring? he said. The ones that lived in my town also found me exotic, I think, because I didn’t smoke crack or go to raves or have kids. Have you ever seen a celebrity? they asked, and I’d lie to make myself look glamorous, when the only celebrity I ever saw was Danny DeVito, in line at the drugstore.
“Since I couldn’t drive I basically biked everywhere, from one boy’s house to another. I got into some sketchy shit that summer, but it never caught up to me. I’m the queen of sticky situations. You probably already know that. I could be high off someone’s parents’ painkillers, then go get stoned with another group of boys and have to snort half an Adderall just to bike home, and I’d still practice for five hours at Carlton’s, reeking. He didn’t mind. You’re a wild child, he always said. He meant it nicely. One time a cop pulled me over when I was high out of my mind. Do I know you? he asked me. He smelled exactly like my grandmother, and the more I stared at him, the more he looked like her. I’m a model, I whispered, and he got this weird smile. I knew it. Must have seen you in a magazine. He told me to wear a helmet and drove off. Protect that pretty head of yours! I’ve been lucky, that’s for sure.
“I thought for a long time that I got a full ride to my high school, but I later found out that Carlton sponsored me. How he got the money, I’ll never know. I also found out that he’d been convicted of statutory rape when he was eighteen and that was why he couldn’t get a job. My mom showed me his house, marked with a pink dot, on that website where you look up sexual predators. I asked her if she was worried about how much time I’d spent with him. She shrugged. Depends on how old the girl was. Poor Carlton. This was after he’d moved on to meth and stopped answering the door. I was a senior in high school. I just practiced there. I would have liked to tell him about my acceptance to Curtis. He was one of the only people at home who would’ve known how to react. My parents were pleased, but anything pleased them. Oola’s so responsible, my dad would tell people. Always on her own, a little lady. I played for him sometimes and he’d always tear up. That’s a skill you’ll have for life. Can you play “Danny Boy” for your pop?
“When I hugged Miss Spoons at graduation, she told me Carlton had OD’d in the bathtub a few weeks before and left the Steinway to her. At the time, I was hurt. But what would I have done with it?