Page 32 of It's a Love Story

Finn walks onto the stage and sees us. He says into the microphone, “Can you hear this?”

Dan gives a thumbs-up.

“How does this sound?” He starts to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle.”

Dan gives a thumbs-down as we approach the stage.

A man in all black walks out behind Finn. “Awful, but it might just be you.”

Finn shrugs. “This is Leonard. My brother Dan and his friend Jane.”

“I think it sounds fine,” Dan says. “And it’ll sound better with a room full of people.”

Leonard shakes our hands. “I hope so. Last year we had a bunch of divas complaining while I was adjusting amps and things. Let me go to the back of the room and listen.” He shakes his head at Finn. “Try not to suck so bad.”

Dan asks, “Any Jack Quinlan sightings today?” Leonard shakes his head. “Someone saw him at the berry stand on Main Street. He hasn’t shown up here.”

Dan turns to me. “It’s just the first day.”

“Too soon to panic,” I say, though it’s never too soon to panic.

Finn turns to me. “Can you sing, Janey Jakes? Were you on backup, or was it just the keyboard?”

“No,” I say. It comes out so fast and hard that it’s clearly a lie.

“You literally just told me you could sing,” says Dan. “You’ve got to be better than him.”

Finn walks over to a small keyboard and bangs on a few keys. “Come on, Janey, give us a little ‘Jump-Start Love Song,’ you know you know it.”

I don’t dislike singing. In fact, sometimes it feels like magic. A breath in and then a breath out brings music. It’s amazing to be able to access something like that, a lifetime of songs that are stashed away somewhere waiting to come out after your next inhale. But it’s not a thing I do in front of people anymore. Not even my mom. It was a joyful thing that turned sour and false. What’s inside of me can stay right where it is.

“No,” I say again, but I’m lighter about it. “But I’ll play it, and you two jokers can sing.”

Dan says “No” at the same second Finn says “Danny doesn’t,” and they sort of laugh.

Dan explains, “I’m not that kind of Finnegan.”

“Well, Friday night you will be,” Finn says. “We’re giving a group toast. I picked the song.”

“No,” says Dan. It might just be the hardest no I’ve ever heard.

“It’s their fortieth anniversary. Get over yourself. It’s five minutes.”

“Finn, come on.” Dan says it like it’s definitely not the first time. It seems impossible now that I’ve met this family that Dan wasn’t sure if he was coming here this week. Until I needed help, he hadn’t told them one way or another. This reads rude, where Dan does not.

“You can lip-sync, Danny. And Aidan wrote you the shortest part of the toast. It’s so easy.” Finn turns and walks back onstage and announces into the microphone, “Janey Jakes on the keyboards.” I follow him up the steps to the stage and play the first few notes. They come from my subconscious. It’s been almost two decades, but I’ve played this song so many times that it’s just muscle memory, like braiding a piece of your own hair. My body also remembers how to withdraw into the background, how to subvert my own confidence. I am so, so small playing this song that I made a hit.

I leave my body and focus on Finn as he sings. He throws himself into the song, terribly singing both Hailey and Will’s parts, only getting half the words. Dan stands back and watches, as if this is a show he’s been watching his entire life.

Leonard’s waving his hands from the back, and Finn stops. “It’s fine, the sound works. I heard every awful note.”

Finn grabs the mic. “Are you sure you don’t want one more?”

“Yes!” Leonard shouts.

Dan is leaning against the bar, arms folded across his chest, and clearly happy to be out of the fray. Finn waves him over, and the two of them lift some equipment onto the stage. Whatever disagreement they had about the toast is forgotten. It’s such a basic thing, siblings. I look at Dan with his quiet but twelve-dimensional perspective on everything and Finn with his big energy. I wonder what it would be like to live with so many distinct versions of yourself. And I wonder if things would have been different if I’d had a sister or two and we could take turns worrying about my mom. Maybe we’d fight and make up; maybe I’d know how to fight and make up. I’d have a favorite who I would text right now so that I could tell her that Dan is softer at home. I’d tell her that when he’s not saying something annoying, I want to touch the back of his arm and I have no idea why.

I text Clem: It’s so humid here, I can’t think straight

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