What Hearts by Bruce Brooks

“Well—yes, I guess I do.”
    â€œYou guess you do, do you. I get the feeling maybe you’re about three curves ahead of me here, but you’d just as soon I did the suggesting, so I will. Here’s what I think. I think Joel ought to kind of miss the big show and leave you to struggle bravely on. What do you think about that?”
    â€œI think he’d feel terrible.”
    â€œWell, that’s nice, but if I took care of things just right, it would probably be a week before he even remembered, and then it would be so far gone, he’d tend to regard it as a pleasant memory of what might have been. Even if he faced it straight up, he wouldn’t get too lowabout missing out; he snaps back faster than a fat man’s suspenders, Joel does.”
    â€œWell…” said Asa. And he let her talk him into it. She had it all worked out: she would give Joel the day off from school, and they would go out and buy a football he wanted, then eat lunch at his favorite restaurant, then take in a submarine movie that was playing downtown—“Just a good old day of a boy and his momma being sweet on each other.” She’d make sure his father and brother didn’t mention anything about the show at dinner, after which they’d have a checkers tournament. That was Joel’s favorite family activity, she said; he played the three of them at once on three boards, and murdered them.
    He let her talk. And as she talked, he tested every seam of her plan, first figuring whether or not it would fool Joel, and then whether or not it would hurt him. In his head, the plan worked. Joel would be fooled; and as far as pain went—well, she knew Joel better than he, didn’t she? Okay: Joel would not know. Okay: Joel would not be hurt. Okay. Okay.
    He would do it alone.
    FOUR
    Onstage, two girls were dancing in taffeta costumes. One of them had been allowed to wear makeup, and she was dancing much better than her friend, whose pale face was streaked with the trail of dried tears; she had been forbidden to “doll up,” and her misery threw her steps off. In the wings, boys were laughing as the pale girl stumbled. Asa watched, sympathetic.
    From his position in the dark he could see out into the auditorium, across a band of the audience slanting from the front row to the rear. He did not recognize anyone, but he had guessed the identities of a few groups by seeing how they perked up as particular performers took the stage. His mother and Dave were out there somewhere. Asa did not know where they were sitting; they had dropped him off early, gone out for Chinese food, and come back in time for the show. Asa had gone to “green room,” which was what Mrs. Brock called their classroom tonight. Everyone wasin there, the girls squealing and fidgeting, the boys looking pointedly disdainful and nervous. Mrs. Brock, wearing a shiny blue dress and rather more makeup than usual herself, darted from one performer to the next with quizzes, reminders, stagecraft tips. After everyone knew without exception to lick his lips, to hold her chin up, to look straight into the audience without actually focusing on a face, fifteen minutes remained before they could take their places backstage. Everyone was too finely tuned to relax, too close to fever to back coolly off, so after a couple of beats Mrs. Brock stood on a desk and sang them songs in a perfect alto voice that sounded as if it had been roasted. They were not children’s songs; the lyrics were full of desperate inquiry about strange love, and the tunes meandered like smoke from a slow-burning cigarette. The children sat and stood, holding their juggling stuff or their instruments, silent, wondering. The minutes passed. Finally Mrs. Brock closed a verse on a low, full note, hummed a whole chorus, and stopped. She looked at them as if she were somewhere else. Then she smiled and said,“Songs by a lady named Holiday. Oooh —sad