The Shippers(38)

All true. In ninth grade, Cooper’s mom—who had wanted more than anything in life to be a singer but had never made it—set her entire vinyl collection out on the street for garbage collection. Cooper found stacks and stacks of records all piled up, along with her record player, just in time—and he rescued everything and brought it to my room for safekeeping.

After that, he had full permission to climb through my window anytime and play her records. And so he did. All the greats: Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mercer, Anita O’Day, Frank Sinatra. If it could be sung in a lounge, Cooper’s mom had collected it.

“But you and I—we sang all through high school. All the time. Every day.”

“Yes,” I said. “I sang all the time with you. But you were the only person I ever sang with,” I said.

Cooper stared in disbelief. “Is that why you used to be so quiet?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Until I got the hang of it.”

Singing with Cooper had been the exception in my life, not the rule.

Next, Cooper asked, “Why did you stop?”

Did he really need to ask this question? I thought about saying, Because you broke my heart when you left. But that felt a little on the nose. Instead, I just stated a fact. “You weren’t there to sing with,” I said.

“You don’t need me to sing.”

I sighed. “Yes, I do.”

After Cooper left for London without telling me, I never sang again. Even thinking about it now, I couldn’t imagine anything more lonely than singing by myself in my room, Cooper-less.

“Hearing that makes me want you to sing something,” Cooper said.

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I told you. I don’t sing anymore.”

This really wasn’t computing. “But we used to sing all the time. We’d harmonize and everything. Your face would light up.”

“I remember.”

“You seemed like you were having fun.”

“I was having fun.”

“I just don’t see how you shifted from memorizing every lyric in my mom’s old vinyl collection to never singing at all.”

The answer was right there. But if he couldn’t see it, I wasn’t going to show him.

Moving on: “You’re missing the point, anyway.”

“What’s the point?”

I took a breath and said, “The point is, it gets worse. Because despite it all, I have to sing at this wedding.”

“This wedding? This week?”

“Ashley wants me to serenade her at the reception in lieu of a toast.”

“Why?”

“Because when we were little kids, we promised each other we would do serenades at our future weddings. And back when I was the one getting married, Ashley signed up for actual voice lessons so she could totally crush it at mine. But when I finked out, she was off the hook.”

“Why would you make a promise like that with Ashley if you had a fear of singing?”

“I didn’t know the contract was binding.”

“She can’t hold you to a promise you made as a child.”

“It’s Ashley. She can do what she wants.”

“Just tell her you can’t do it.”

“I did,” I said.

“And?”

“It didn’t work.”

“What do you mean, ‘It didn’t work’?”

“She thought I was lying so I could surprise her.”

No response from Cooper, like he was trying to imagine how that could happen.

I explained. “I told her, ‘Look, I’m not going to serenade you at your wedding after all. I’m just going to do a normal maid of honor speech.’ And then she said, ‘Okay,’ and then she winked at me.”

“She winked at you?”

“Yeah. So I said, ‘I mean it, though. For real. I’m really not going to sing.’ And she winked again and said, ‘I got it.’ So I said, ‘Ashley, I’m serious.’ And then she gave me a look like You adorable rascal and then said, ‘I know.’”

“She thought you were lying to her so she’d be expecting a speech but get a song instead?”

“Exactly. I just kept saying, ‘I mean it. For real. I’m serious,’ and she just kept agreeing with me—and winking.”

“So now, if you don’t sing, she’ll be disappointed.”

“As usual,” I said, “with Ashley, there’s no way to win.”

Cooper didn’t disagree.

Then I pointed out, “In a way, this is all your fault.”

“My fault?”

“If you hadn’t made me sing with you every day in high school,” I said, “Ashley wouldn’t think of me as a person who loves to sing, and I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“I was only singing because you were singing,” Cooper said.

“Well, I was only singing because you were.”

We both sighed.

Then I went on. “And now I’m doomed. Because Ashley can’t imagine a version of me that doesn’t walk around the house singing nonstop.”

More than doomed, really. Because now it was worse than it had been before high school. I was still shy about singing in public, like always, but now I was also out of practice—four years out—on top of it. And! Singing in general now—even the idea of it—seemed to turn the whole world gray.