Chapter 41

Kara's turn:

I feel like Balboa. You remember him, don't you? And no, NOT Rocky. He's the guy who 'discovered' the Pacific Ocean, at least from the Eurocentric point of view. That's how I feel after meeting Jo and Stoney and subsequently the girls in that community in Alabama: like I walked out of the jungle and there's a whole ocean just waiting for me.

I'm seventeen. It's time that I start taking some actions to control my own life. It hasn't been easy. I'm not a poor kid, at least as far as money is concerned. Dad's got plenty. He's a very successful man, both as an attorney and as a keeper of arm candy. He's just not doing a very good job of being a dad. There's more to parenting than providing a house and meals.

And a car. And any kind of music tutor I thought I needed. When Mom died, I was a budding violinist. The night they buried her, I locked the door to my room and I played my violin, every sad song I could work up, and that night I determined that I was not doing credit to her memory with that level of skill. Love, yes. But something clicked and I decided that those evenings that Mom sat there as my beginner's screeches slowly turned into identifiable music, those evenings that she sat through my recitals, I didn't have much to give back to Mom, but music was in my power.

Another power I had was not to fall into the trap she fell into, the trap that produced me. I don't know how it all works, but I know that I'm not going to go off the deep end over some young lawyer with a fancy little car.

I was different in school for a lot of reasons. First reason is that I turned out to be intelligent. Must've been a mutation. Mom was the proud possessor of a two-year degree from community college. Dad's a lawyer. I never saw him as particularly smart, but I guess I looked at it wrong. He's a trial lawyer, and a successful one. Somewhere between the two of them, I was born with a brain.

Early on, my teachers learned that they didn't need to spend time explaining and coaching me to get me up to grade level. Those that did have enough time to coach me just sort of encouraged me to expand outside the limits of the curriculum.

Second red flag was that I was not very friendly. I'm described as an introvert. It got worse when Mom died.

When Mom died. How is a kid supposed to handle that? Mom went off the deep end. I think she was a trusting soul when she started with Dad, and when she got pregnant with me, they married. And when he moved to a new law firm, they divorced. I don't think that Mom and daughter were what he had in mind for his life.

It mattered little to him. It killed Mom. Underneath the shiny (Mom's pictures from her young days are beautiful) exterior, Mom had an old-fashioned heart. I think she was under the impression that words mean things, especially words like 'until death do you part'. Wrecked Mom.

It wasn't overnight. Took years. She kept getting worse and worse, tried catching a replacement for the man missing in her life. Even a single mom with a little kid (to start) can have a parade of guys through her life. I watched her really get serious more than once, and when things turned out wrong, she ended up a basket case.

Mom would end up in a hospital. I'd end up at the grandparents until Grandma died. Grandpa wasn't equipped to handle a little girlchild. I started ending up at Dad's.

First few times, I think he really tried incorporating me into his life alongside whichever wife or girlfriend he was with, but it became readily apparent that the women in Dad's life weren't the types to want to be raising somebody else's daughter. I found that if school was out, it was easy for Dad to write a check and send me off to one camp or another.

Somewhere in one of the cycles where I was with Mom, I started playing violin in the school orchestra. Mom endured some sounds from my early days that sounded like I was torturing cats, but I quickly found that first, I had some natural gift and second, I LIKED music.

Music is a refuge. Music is leveling. You can't fake it. You can't cheat and copy somebody's work. You're standing or sitting there, you, your instrument, a sheet of music, and you perform. Everybody knows whether you're good or less than good. For somebody with a bit of talent and a bit of desire to do well, it is a refuge. My refuge.

When I felt like I was an outsider or I was uncomfortable at school, entering the music room was instant relief. Part of it was that I wasn't the only one who saw orchestra as a safe haven.

Other part – academics. I am a 'smart kid'. I don't brag about it, but you should know. Last thing Mom needed to worry about was a pouty, stupid kid who stayed in trouble at school. That's a good reason to get good grades and stay out of trouble. Altruistic. The selfish one was that I understood early in life that learning was beneficial to me. And fun. Given the choice to goof off for some short-term fun versus somewhat less pleasant duty to dive into the classwork, I chose the latter.

I can't remember ever getting anything less than almost perfect grades when I attended regular school. It is only since Daddy Dearest put me in private school that I found myself actually having to study a bit to get that hundred percent instead of a mere ninety-five.

As I matured, for a while it seemed like Mom was leveling out. And then, one more guy. She went off the deep end again and back to one of those hospitals. I went to Dad's. Spent a lot of time crying. More time playing. Did a recital. Dad actually showed up. Latest 'stepmom' looked like second runner-up in a Barbie lookalike contest. I guess she tried talking to me, but she was only ten years older than me, had zero skills not tied to her bra size. I can be standoffish.

I had one friend in that house, Dad's Guatemalan housekeeper, Ysabela. Ysabela, of Indian ancestry, dark-eyed, plump, raven-haired, and speaker of excellent English. I hounded her for Spanish. I was taking it in school, and having her to converse with, I learned a lot that the class and the books didn't teach.

Ysabela was far from uneducated. She was just the oldest of her sisters, and being in the States she could make enough money to live here as well as send money home and put back a bit of savings. Dad paid her well for her position. She didn't mind me sitting in the kitchen talking with her, even at first. After a while she treated me like her little sister. She had a sister my age back home, so I was a convenient substitute in a lot of ways.

None of this would have happened but for her abilities in English. And she was a caring person. Surrogate mom/sister. In loco parentis. REAL parental type.

Ysabela's place in my life solidified when Mom died. Dad said something he thought was fatherly about life choices. Hugged me, until my tears started to stain his shirt. Brought me home, sitting in the back seat while he and current wife sat in the front.

I went to my room. Stayed there. Pulled my violin out and played a few songs that Mom knew. Cried. Played some more. Cried some more.

Gentle knock on the door.

"Come in."

Ysabela with a tray covered with a white cloth. "Kara. I am so sorry. I made these for you." She presented me with a plate of little tamales wrapped in real banana leaf wrappings. "Do you wish to talk?"

Plump, middle-aged Guatemalan friends are a good place to cry one's soul out.

I decided that I needed to get on with life. Dad's house was my only real option for living. Since Mom's mother died, her dad was in no position to care for a teen girl and Dad was, well, my father, and he's supposed to do it.

He made it mostly comfortable, at least from a material standpoint. I was fed and clothed. And schooled. Dad tried putting me into the local public school system, but it was disastrous. I got my purse stolen twice in three days. The second time I caught the thief red-handed and got into a physical altercation.

I ended up in a private school after Dad pulled a few strings to bypass the waiting list. That's where I am today. Further, since I WANTED to get further along with the violin, dear old Dad popped for some of the best tutors available.

Some of those guys won't be bought. They only select students with promise. I got that kind of tutor, and I went twice a week and practiced interminable hours at home.

Got selected for the local student honors orchestra. First chair violinist. I was proud. My teachers were proud. Dad gave me a car. That's nice. I can get around without resorting to Ysabela or the yard and house guy, Jorge, driving me. Or Dad or Mommie Dearest. Oh, I shouldn't be so snarky. She really tries, in her own way.

Anyway, with the orchestra and the 4.0 grade point average, I had no more pressure in school than I wanted to accept. I pushed myself. Daddy Dearest was quite happy to see my grades and he stayed out of the way when my social life included a group of music geeks like me. I had friends.

That's a good thing. We would all load up in one or two cars and go to recitals and concerts together, and we'd get together at one house or another, mine being VERY popular, and practice and play.

I could've been quite happy just going along like that, but one of the two guys in our little group, Mikel (Why didn't his parents just name him 'Michael'? That's how they pronounce his name anyway.) decided that he and I needed to be more than just friends with common interests.

He started hitting on me, and not very subtle, he was. What he lacked in sublety he made up for in persistence. I said 'No' a lot. Started adding exclamation points, as in 'No!!!!'.

That's where Kara Sevinsky was in life. We went to a concert. University orchestra. Right before Christmas. I'd been to a few. They have some good players for soloists and overall they're very competent.

That's the night I saw Johanna and Stoney play together for the first time. I'd seen Jo before. She's beautiful AND talented. Stoney, though, that's a new one on me. The conductor, who is also the professor for much of the music program, introduced the performance as a duet, Mozart's Concerto for Flute and Harp, then announced that since they didn't have a harp, they made a substitution.