Being Henry David - By Cal Armistead Page 0,42

on in. She leads the way through a front hallway and I follow, noticing that she’s not wearing shoes and her socks are two different colors, which reminds me of her unmatched earrings the other day. Either she has a habit of losing socks and earrings or she’s making some kind of quirky fashion statement.

Her house is one of the smaller ones in her neighborhood, which basically means it’s a normal size. The other houses look way too big for one family, like mansions. Even though it’s smaller than the neighbors, it’s decorated really nice, with fancy furniture and paintings and Oriental carpets. She leads me into a room that’s all white. No kidding. White rug, white sofas, white walls, even a white grand piano. I’m afraid to have a dirty thought in this room. Which is difficult, considering the way I’m starting to feel about Hailey.

“Wow, you could hide a polar bear in this room if you wanted to,” I say. Lame, but a smile twitches at the corners of Hailey’s mouth, which is good enough for me.

“My mother likes to do dramatic decorating stuff. It’s just annoying.”

She shows me where I can plug in the amp, then I sit on one of those white sofas and tune up the guitar. Sensing that Hailey is not in the mood for small talk, I let my fingers launch into a random tune, just to warm up and get used to the guitar. It plays real nice. Smooth.

As I’m playing, Hailey finally smiles at me, then shakes her head and bursts out laughing. She has a great laugh.

“Cute,” she says.

I stop playing, fingers suspended above the strings. “What?”

“That song you’re playing.”

I stare at her and blink like a total idiot. “I’m sorry?”

“Come on, Hank. You’re kidding me, right? You’re playing ‘White Room,’ by Cream. My mom is a big Eric Clapton fan too.”

Clapton. Of course. In my real life, I must be a big-time classic rock geek, and this crazy room triggered my muscle memory. I smile at her like, yeah, “White Room.” I meant to do that.

Now that I’ve got Hailey in a good mood, I start in on the song we played in the band room, “Blackbird.” The Beatles. She lets me play the first verse all the way through before she starts singing. Her voice is quiet at first, almost a whisper, but then she clears her throat and allows her voice to rise. Again, that gorgeous, silky alto voice. Funny how just a voice can drive me crazy. I finish the song and we just stare at each other like we’re holding our breath waiting for what comes next.

“Hailey,” I say. “Your voice just blows me away.”

She looks down at her fingernails, picks at some red polish on her thumb, and I figure she’s just being shy. But when she looks back up at me, her eyes have gotten all shimmery.

“Thanks, but it doesn’t do me any good if I’m too scared to get up and sing.”

I stare at her, my eyebrows crunching together in disbelief. “Why would somebody like you ever be scared to sing?”

“Something bad happened. Last year, at the Battle of the Bands.”

“What, like stage fright? Hey, that happens to a lot of people.”

“No. I wish that’s all it was.” Hailey clears her throat, avoids my eyes. “Remember the day we met, when Danielle was bugging me about looking kind of sick?”

“Yeah, I do.” I’d thought of asking her about that, but figured it might still be a sore subject.

“Well, it’s like this. I’m diabetic. My blood sugar was starting to crash after lacrosse practice, so I got a little dizzy. After you left, I had to drink some juice to jolt it back up.”

Diabetic. My damaged memory banks seem to recall what that is. Something about the pancreas and insulin.“Is that what happened at the Battle of the Bands too?”

“Yeah, but it was much, much worse. I was nervous, so I didn’t eat much that day. Didn’t even think about it. By the time I was up on stage, I went into this full-out insulin reaction. I mean, I passed out and started having this seizure, in front of everybody. They had to call an ambulance and everything. It was humiliating.”

Tears stand in her eyes, ready to roll down her cheeks. I wish I could magically say the right thing to make it better. “You couldn’t help that. I’m sure everybody understood.”

“The problem is, almost nobody knew about the diabetes. I’ve had it