When I was in second grade, I had a special part playing the xylophone in a musical performance for the whole school.
When I was in second grade, I was in a new school, a new house, with a new stepmom and a host of concerns in my little bowl-cut adorned head.
I told my very busy father (also in a new job as leader of the SMS athletic department) the wrong time for the assembly at which I would play the xylophone. He was planning to bring my Nanny and Auntie Grace to watch me. (He did stuff like that: showing up on the playground to say goodbye before leaving for a trip; always being the one to take me to see Dr. Palcheff, the magical pediatrician; attending a parent-teacher conference in the same year when I wrote him a note in my disheveled desk saying “I know it’s a mess, Dad, but life is hard” to assuage his judgment of my housekeeping faults, which haunt me still.)
This time, though, I really blew it.
When my little class returned cross-legged to our spot on the cafeteria/gym floor after our big performance and the third and fourth graders had taken the stage, I looked over to see my Pops guiding my beloved grandmother (in her grey leather coat that I can still smell) and her sister in their matching wigs down the stairs into the cafeteria/gym. They had missed it. It was my fault. I buried my bowl cut in my hands.
I don’t remember what happened next. I don’t think I cried. Maybe I did. I do know that I just wanted to vanish and that we returned to Mrs. White’s classroom, and we hadn't been seated for long when we were ushered back to our places in the cafeteria/gym and reprised our performance for an audience of three.
That little 8-year-old with the unibrow and the bad hair is still in the mix, as is the memory of the day that was saved. Sometimes, you just need one more shot with the xylophone; and someone who sees the need for the encore.
