Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy Read Free Book Online

and she added quietly, “But it would really mean a lot if you continued to help out at recitals.”
    I placed my hand on her knee. “Yeah, Mom. I can do that. No problem.”
    She was sad, I could tell.
    Piano had always tied me to her, almost in the same way ballet tied my mom to Alice. When Alice quit ballet the summer before freshman year, my mom was heartbroken. Dancers had this secret language that you couldn’t understand unless you were a dancer too. But playing the piano for my mom and Alice let me in on their secret, if only for a moment. The two of them were alike in so many ways. When I played piano for them it felt like I was in on it. Like, for a few minutes, I could be a part of this world that was outside of mine. In that world, though, where I was only a guest, I was their accompaniment. And I was tired of being everyone’s damn accessory.
    It tied me to my dad too. I couldn’t picture what he looked like, but I could picture his fingers—close-trimmed nails, with knobby knuckles, dry with use—and I thought if all I got out of piano was having it in common with my dad, then it was worth it. But he’d left us, so I shouldn’t have to stay for him.

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    Harvey.
    Then.
    I watched Alice from across the cafeteria as she walked to the trash line to dump her leftovers. It’d been a few days since telling my mom I wanted to quit piano. I wondered what Alice would have to say about that, if anything at all. It didn’t matter, though, because we never really talked much anymore, not since starting high school. I saw her every once in a while when my mom dragged me over to Bernie and Martin’s. The three of them would sit around the table drinking wine while Alice and I would sat on the couch watching TV in silence—and not the comfortable kind. There was none of the easy laughter we’d grown up on. Lately, though, I’d started making excuses. Homework, plans with Dennis, job interviews—all reasons why I couldn’t go.
    Noise bounced off the linoleum floors, traveling, as the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. I’d heard about her and Luke breaking up. It took a few days for the news to trickle down the social totem pole to Dennis and me. I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but I did know that Celeste now occupied Alice’s seat next to Luke with Mindi at her other side. Mindi had always taken dance classes at my mom’s studio, but she’d never been very serious about it. She was there for Celeste and because she needed a talent for all the pageants her mom entered her in.
    Since she didn’t sit with Luke anymore, Alice sat at a table by herself. But, every day, people sat with her. She hadn’t really talked to any of them, but they all sort of talked around her, waiting for Luke’s ex-girlfriend to make her next big social move.
    The last time I really talked to Alice was the week before high school. Bernie had made partner at her law office, so Martin threw a party for her. The attendees were basically old fat men wearing khaki pants and dress shoes without socks and accompanied by their wives. The backyard smelled like barbecue, cigars, and beer.
    Alice had reached this point in the night where she’d stopped verbally responding to all the old people trying to ask her questions about school and ballet—especially since she’d just quit.
    The old guys who’d managed to leave their wives at home flocked to my mom in her usual all-black attire with her hair done up in a bun.
    Alice’s eye caught mine from where she stood next to the dessert table. She mouthed to me, Driveway . Question game.
    I nodded, unable to stop myself from smiling.
    I may have been a mediocre piano player, a horrible dancer, and a little too easygoing, but I had always been a supreme lip reader.
    I sat in the grass waiting for Alice since the driveway was full