Free "The Flamenco Academy" by Sarah Bird Page B

why didn’t I think of
this before?”
    She grabbed her marg and rushed out. I
followed her into the garage where Mr. Steinberg had had his
studio. We hadn’t been in it since he’d died. Mrs. Steinberg had
cleared out most of his stuff. Didi stood at the door for a long
time. What hit you first was Mr. Steinberg’s smell, how strong it
was, how much it seemed as if he should still be there. Before I
even really had a chance to miss him, though, I was missing
Daddy.
    “Don’t you fucking cry,” Didi warned me. The
muscles in her jaw tightened and she stepped into the empty studio
like someone was behind her jabbing her in the back with a bayonet.
Acoustic tiles covered all the walls and several layers of carpet
had been laid on the concrete floor to absorb noise so that the
garage was not only soundproof but had a cozy, hobbity feel to it.
The old turntables and microphones were gone. Probably sold on
eBay. Mr. Steinberg’s battered headphones had been left lying on
the floor. Didi picked them up and pressed them to her nose. When
she turned around, she had the same expression on her face that I
knew I’d had when I realized I was standing on the edge of a cliff,
and if I fell, I would fall forever because there was no one to
stop me. My face started squirming around. The tears she’d
forbidden me to cry stung like vinegar under my skin.
    Didi abruptly hurled the headphones down,
stood in the middle of the old garage, and twirled around. “This is
perfect! Can’t you see how perfect this is? Are you going to be a
total goober and not see how perfect this is?” Her voice started
off wobbly, but got stronger as she got mad at me. I was glad to
hear it. I didn’t know what I would have done if Didi had started
crying.
    “We can be out here screaming our heads off
and no one will ever know!” she yelled, twirling faster.
    I threw my arms out and started spinning
with her. “We can commit ax murders!”
    “We can have giant parties with live
bands!”
    “And circus animals!”
    Didi stopped, picked up her bowl of ’rita,
handed me mine, and we clinked. “To the Lair.”
    “To the Lair.”
    I loved the Lair; it was our clubhouse. Didi
moved all the best stuff from her bedroom into the Lair, including
her twin beds. I stripped the primo items from my room and brought
them over. We bought a pair of really cute fifties lamps at the
Disabled Veterans, some great madras bedspreads with lines of
elephants marching across them, threw up some posters, and the Lair
was ready. Pretty soon, I was spending more time at Didi’s house
than I was at my own, which suited Mom fine.
    My mother, who had barely left the house at
all while Daddy was sick, hardly came home once he was gone. Every
morning, one of the sistern would stop by and pick her up, then
she’d spend the day at the Compound stitching quilts and dipping
candles or praying and testifying. I couldn’t remember her ever
being happier. She was always singing old-time hymns like “The Old
Rugged Cross” when she came home but would stop when she saw me.
Neither one of us was who the other wanted to see. So I spent more
and more time at the Lair and she spent more and more time at the
Compound.
    I was home, though, getting foam board and
my X-Acto knives for our world cultures class project, a scale
model of the Temple of Dionysus we were constructing in the Lair,
when my mom came home early. That day, she was so happy she didn’t
stop singing when she saw me, just looked my way and beamed. It had
been so long since she’d smiled in my direction that it didn’t
bother me that her smile was for her goofy church, not me.
    “What?” I asked, after she’d stood there
grinning for so long I started smiling too. “What is it?”
    “Oh, I don’t know how to tell you. I don’t
know how to make you truly understand.”
    “Understand what?” I was still smiling but
had started to worry.
    “Understand what a glorious day this is for
me. For