“Yeah. So I said, ‘I mean it, though. For real. I’m really not going to sing.’ And she winked again and said, ‘I got it.’ So I said, ‘Ashley, I’m serious.’ And then she gave me a look likeYou adorable rascaland then said, ‘I know.’”
“She thought you were lying to her so she’d be expecting a speech but get a song instead?”
“Exactly. I just kept saying, ‘I mean it. For real. I’m serious,’ and she just kept agreeing with me—and winking.”
“So now, if you don’t sing, she’ll be disappointed.”
“As usual,” I said, “with Ashley, there’s no way to win.”
Cooper didn’t disagree.
Then I pointed out, “In a way, this is all your fault.”
“Myfault?”
“If you hadn’t made me sing with you every day in high school,” I said, “Ashley wouldn’t think of me as a person who loves to sing, and I wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“I was only singing because you were singing,” Cooper said.
“Well, I was only singing because you were.”
We both sighed.
Then I went on. “And now I’m doomed. Because Ashley can’t imagine a version of me that doesn’t walk around the house singing nonstop.”
More than doomed, really. Because now it was worse than it had been before high school. I was still shy about singing in public, like always, but now I was also out of practice—four yearsout—on top of it. And! Singing in general now—even the idea of it—seemed to turn the whole world gray.
“I can’t imagine a version of you like that, either, honestly,” Cooper said.
“Well, that’s how it is.”
“Can’t you just seriously explain it all to her—like you just did for me?”
“I can. I should. But the thing is, a few weeks ago, she told my mom that the number-one thing she’s most excited for on this cruise—besides the getting married part, I guess—is that serenade. She’s been looking forward to it for weeks. Or decades, depending on how you count.”
Cooper rolled back on his pillow to contemplate all this.
Cooper knew about music. He was a composition major in college. He could play the piano, the drums, and the mini banjo. Oh, and he had perfect pitch, too.
I’m sure this was hard for him to relate to.
“The thing I can’t get past,” Cooper said then, “is that you’re great at singing. It’s not like you’re tone-deaf. Or you don’t have rhythm. Or you lack tonal memory. You have—really—a good voice.”
“Thank you,” I said, like you do when a compliment doesn’t penetrate.
“You don’t believe me?”
I thought for a second. “I guess it doesn’t really change anything. I’ve just always been… afraid to sing in public.”
“But why?”
“Does everything have to have a reason?”
“Probably.”
We were doing therapy now? Fine. “I had a mean music teacher.”
“Definemean.”
