The Babysitter Murders - By Janet Ruth Young Page 0,2

song is Mr. Gabler’s arrangement of “Old Cape Cod,” originally recorded by Patti Page. The Hawtones would prefer a mix of new and classic music, but Mr. Gabler has a weak-ness for all songs pertaining to Massachusetts. He plays last year’s concert recording on his computer.

Nathan is a sophomore prodigy. He memorizes most songs by the second rehearsal, and he can imitate the sounds of twenty-five instruments. He listens by tilting his head, as if his ear were a bowl the music was being poured into.

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When the song ends, Meghan adjusts her top to show more midriff. Meghan’s a junior, and everyone says she’ll get a music scholarship. Dani doesn’t care for her singing, but Meghan has a knack for attracting attention and striking photogenic poses that might sell tickets. Gabler favors her too. He usually doesn’t stop the song when she goes off key.

“Places,” Gabler says. “Let’s run it through once.”

The group makes a tight semicircle that lets the singers see every performer and hear every voice. The vibrations from their throats meet in the center, making a thick column of sound. Dani loves feeling her voice knock on the door of other voices and finding them completely solid.

“You’re the best suited to ‘Cape Cod,’” Nathan tells Dani during a break. “You sound the most like Patti Page.”

At home by herself, Dani is a great singer, but she’s afraid to sing lead with the Hawtones. If they do a love song and she looks at Gordy, she might choke. And in a cappella music no instruments cover your errors, so every flaw is magnified. The Hawtones’ semicircle is one being, one organism, a giant C of closeness. In performance the singers cue one another with a tiny look, a foot shift, the lift of a shoulder. My turn. Your turn. Sing louder. I need to clear my throat; can you fill in? Except for Meghan’s pitch problems, the Hawtones never miss a note or a lyric. If Dani sang lead and faltered, she’d hurt the whole group.

Dani still squirms over a mistake she made last fall. Shelley was out with a cold, and Mr. Gabler gave Dani two copies of a new song they had to learn quickly. Dani meant to deliver one 8

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copy to Shelley’s house, but she was thinking about Gordy all the way home, and even when she played tennis with Shelley that weekend she didn’t think to mention the song.

The following Monday Gabler said, “Get out ‘Charlie on the MTA’” and Shelley said, “We have a new song?” Mr. Gabler said, “Didn’t you give Shelley her music?” And they both looked at Dani like she had seventeen-year-old Alzheimer’s and Dani wished she could drop through the floor into the boiler room where no one went except the janitor, and way down to the core of the earth, banging on every surface and object along the way.

Mr. Gabler called Dani’s mistake “a failure to execute.”

Dani wasn’t stupid, and she couldn’t blame it on Alzheimer’s.

She inventoried her motives. Do I hate Shelley? Do I see Shelley as a rival? Did I set her up? Do I want Shelley to fail? She later apologized to Shelley for “the Charlie incident” until Shelley asked her to shut up. Now Dani wonders again, Am I a crappy friend?

Dani needs to forget the incident, so she focuses on Mr.

Gabler. His thinning hair; his L.L. Bean polo shirt in an unflattering shade of electric blue; his tan pants that have been through the dryer so many times that when he turns his back he has a case of VPL (visible panty line), which is especially unfortunate in a man. Apparently Gabler wears briefs, not boxers. This is visual TMI, the other kind. Too much information.

Mr. Gabler signals the altos to sing louder. “Give me more,”

he says. He winks at Dani. He must have forgiven her for the sheet music. Why am I still thinking about the Charlie incident? she wonders. Everyone else has moved on.

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Dani begins to relax, but then, without wanting to, she pictures herself reaching out and cupping Mr. Gabler’s testicles.

Oh my God, she thinks. That’s so disgusting. If she were alone, Dani would shudder and put her hands over her face. Although she’s been staring at Mr. Gabler’s thin pants and VPL, the idea of grabbing his genitals has come out of nowhere. No, no, no,