Claire

A Girl, A Boy, And A Kazoo

Waking up in parking lots wasn’t the most exciting thing I could be doing, but doing it with Claire made it fun. When I awoke, we were tangled together and I was unsure as to how I could move away without waking her. I considered just sliding out from under her, but she looked too cozy to move. I was happy, so I just returned my head to where it had been and dozed in and out of sleep. Eventually, she began to stir, and I was able to slip away when she got up. I lazed onto my back. When I opened my eyes again, I saw messy blonde hair everywhere and a huge smile above me.

“Good morning Bennett!” Claire leaned down and gave me a hug, giving my face another coating of red. I smiled and sat up; we stayed close for awhile, enjoying the feeling of being sleepy together. Although I was unsure of why this was happening, I knew I had nothing to complain about, so I simply secured my arms around her waist. Her hair was sticking in all directions and when she moved back, it was both in her and my face.

“How’d you sleep, Claire?” I asked with a sleepy smile.

“Oh, just wonderful, Ben. I had such great dreams. You?”

“It was pretty nice.”

“Being beside you is nice, too,” she carried on. “You’re warm and soft.”

Being called soft was usually an insult, but in the warmth of Claire’s voice, it was the highest compliment one could pay. She smiled after her compliment to me, but also looked away, seeming a bit bashful for once. Her eyes averted mine to view the sun rising over the trees. Without words, she tugged on my hand to bring me closer. She leaned her head in so that her ear pressed against my cheek. A warm, nurturing silence enveloped us while we looked on. I felt her cheek widen and glanced down to find her with a sweet smile, staring off at the sun with nothing short of wonder in her eyes.

“The morning is awful pretty, isn’t it?” I found myself surprised by my own voice, yet it felt right to speak. She nodded.

“It really is. Y’know, this has been a really interesting trip so far. Everyone talks about the human world with so much fear, but it’s so beautiful here, from what I’ve seen with you.”

I smiled faintly. “There are some parts of the world that are scary. Things aren’t so scary with you around, though, this trip has been really happy.”

With a nod of agreement, Claire smiled and wrapped her arms around my neck. She leaned her upper body against mine, leaning on me for support, and I resorted to placing a hand in the kiddie pool to balance myself. It seemed that she was going to say something, but I decided against it and gave me a soft smile instead. We stayed there for a half hour, our hands eventually finding their way around one another. I held her at her waist and she kept a firm hold of my shoulders. The sun had risen to where it was no longer visible inside the car, but we remained unstirred until a growl rippled from my stomach. Claire looked at me with a silly grin and poked me in the belly.

“You need some food, mister!”

We prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ate chips from the bag for breakfast. It felt like a proper morning for that. Everything felt so magical and my views were crisp and vivid. I had to wipe the mess around Claire’s mouth multiple times, and each time she blushed a bit and pretended to hide behind her sandwich. The rising sun warmed the car, yet I was already warm from the inside out. My heart felt so full and happy that I hardly knew what to do other than laugh at even the least funny jokes.

As I began to think of all the things I needed, I realized I ought to get gas and groceries while I was still decently low profile. I also needed to take a detour south to visit the old couple’s granddaughter. I was unsure of how my parents would react to me returning with a shaved head and puppy, but I figured it was a bridge to cross later. We would need to get moving eventually, but I figured we had a bit of time to spare. I decided to play some music through the van’s stereo, and that’s when the questions began to flood in.

“There’s music in the car?”

We talked, then, about various modes of listening to music. We talked about CDs, internet broadcasts, and even cassettes. I told her about live music a bit, too, but no one ever went on tour in my town so I had only seen local groups. I’d seen pictures of real venues, though, and spoke briefly on them, pretending I had a clue. Luckily, it was about the time I was talking about amphitheaters that she looked increasingly curious.

“Where’s this music come from, then?”

“The radio, of course!”

Thus began the talk of radio. Claire was impressed by it all, but I could tell she wasn’t entirely certain what I was talking about. I tried to explain how the radio gets to my car from the towers, but found that I was also unsure of what I was talking about. Most of what I said was very vague, and a few things were just guesses as to how things worked, but Claire would hopefully never know that. They made sense conceptually to me, so I went with it.

“How d’ya know so much about everything?”

She was onto me.

“Honestly, I don’t. I mean, I pick a lot of things up by listening to what other people have to say, but I don’t know how much is necessarily true or anything.”

She smiled and nodded, but didn’t insult me for being uneducated or for sounding stupid sometimes. I smiled too. There was no way I could tell whether she was thinking poorly of me for my response, but she was kind in her manners, so I wasn’t nervous. We continued to eat while chit chatting about music. She told me about the music under the sea and I couldn’t even begin to conceptualize it. I wished I could visit her under the water, but I would have to be satisfied with stories. They were fascinating still. Claire went on.

“A lot of people like making music, but I was never one. I liked the idea, but I’m not very good with small movements; I couldn’t even tell you if a note was right or not. I sing a little because I have to, it’s just not my favorite. Music is very pretty to listen to though! Do you make music?”

“Oh, not necessarily.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I don’t really know how to make music right, and I don’t play a big instrument like a guitar or anything.”

“But you do play an instrument, is what I’m hearing?”

“Sort of,” I replied, “but it’s a pretty easy instrument.”

“What is it?”

“We call them kazoos.”

“Cashews?” She didn’t say it quite right, but it made me chuckle.

“Yeah, uh, it’s like a comfort object for me, I guess.”

“That means you brought it, right?” She glanced excitedly at my bag.

“Well, yeah, I did, but it’s not super interesting.”

“Play it for me!” She demanded, trying to push her excitement down with a more serious tone. I figured that even if my kazoo was underwhelming, it was her first land instrument, so she would be interested. The car radio was on low enough that I didn’t feel the need to turn it off. I leaned over to my bag and withdrew a bright red instrument that looked fit for a five year old. A feeling of reassurance came as I place my hand on it and drew it up to my mouth. With a sigh, I began to play a simple tune.

Claire was, unsurprisingly, left in a state of delight after my small performance. She clapped her hands together and complimented my playing.

“I’m not really sure what it’s supposed to sound like, but I like it, Ben!”

“Thank you, Claire.”

“Keep going a little longer?”

With the request, I smiled and played a few more tunes. I found myself surprised that I was performing kazoo covers of multiple popular love songs; anyone with a clue would find the scene hilarious, but Claire simply rocked gently back and forth to the music. She tapped her fingers on the side of the kiddie pool, mostly hitting the beats correctly, but neither of us quite cared about the correctness of the situation. Everything about Claire and I was different, and that was alright. We made our own normal.

I think we spent so much time sitting because any movement was essentially a movement away from one another. Even entertaining the idea of moving to a new activity made my heart hurt a bit; if we moved to the next thing, one of those next things would involve final goodbyes. I longed to live in this moment forever. A kazoo song had never held the passion it did now, and my audience never held someone with so much excitement for a kazoo. When she asked to try it, I obliged happily. To see a pretty girl interested in my interest was shocking and endearing. Dreams I had never dared to dream came true with Claire.

When she first put it up to her lips, she just blew heavily into it. There was no musical grace about Claire. I laughed a bit, and she gave me a sarcastic pout before blowing again. She seemed to think she hadn’t gone hard enough, and I was surprised she had the lung power for her second breath. The kazoo let out a distressed scream and she took in an even deeper breath. I waved my hands to get her attention. She looked at me, cheeks blown up with air, and paused.

“Hum, don’t blow.” I advised her.

She gave me back a questioning “hmm?” and I restated myself. I explained that with kazoos, it was necessary to hum the beat and tone rather than just blowing in it.

“With a flute, for example, there are holes that players put their fingers on. That changes the way the sound comes out, making different notes. And with harmonicas, players wave their hand in front of the holes on the front, which makes it have different sounds. Kazoos don’t have anything like that, so it’s sort of like we sing into the kazoo instead. Does that make sense? We use our voice instead of just our breath.”

I was surprised at my ability to, for once, explain something without feeling flustered or out of place. There was something nice in sharing my views and slight talents with her. It made me feel special, because not many other people could tell her about kazooing, but I also hoped I wasn’t being overbearing in telling her about my hobby. It seemed that she was interested, though, even as she curled into herself and blushed a bit.

“I’m not too good, I really don’t sing, Ben. ”

“So what?”

“It’s not going to sound good.”

“Good is subjective. Give it a whirl anyway!”

“No, it’ll sound bad!” She laughed and scratched the back of her head.

“It’s just the two of us. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Something about this eased her. “Yeah, it is just the two of us,” she said with a smile. She ran her fingers along the kazoo a bit more, as if thinking of what she should do. “What song?” She asked, and I replied that she could play any. This simultaneously excited her and unnerved her. She was free to choose anything, but I could tell she had a fear of making the wrong choice. Our body language had began to sync up, apparently. That or she had always rubbed her cheek like that and I had never noticed. I smiled when she began her song.

I wasn’t sure at all of what tune it was. Perhaps it wasn’t being performed right, but I knew I still wouldn’t have been unable to tell what song it was if it was perfect. I tapped my foot along to the beat, and her sense of rhythm improved a slight bit. The music was far from beautiful, but there was an innate talent there. I noticed a beautiful tone underlying her voice, and I stared at her while I contemplated it.

“Ben? Ben?” The music had stopped and I had forgotten to applaud. I focused my eyes in on Claire and saw her with a look of absolute distress. She saw that I was alright and seemed to relax, but she still ran me through a few tests.

“Say your ABC’s.” She demanded, and I did.

“Tell me our names!” She asked next, and I did.

“Now what’s a quote you like?” Her final question seemed both out of necessity and interest. I smiled.

“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours.” I hadn’t realized how accurate this quote was at the time. I had always told it to my siblings when they collected bugs and other backyard critters. They insisted that they were their new pets and that they liked it. It had made me smile to think of the quote and remember all the large spiders that my siblings tried to adopt. Now, I felt a bit disheartened by it, but Claire seemed distracted by another thought.

“What’re you thinking, Claire?” I startled myself with my own voice. I normally just wondered what was going on with her, but now, I asked. I felt rather comfortable with her.

“That’s, uhm, that’s why I don’t sing.”

“What, because I liked your voice? You’re not as bad as you say, that was good!”

“No, you liked it because of who I am. Or what I am.”

“I don’t follow, Claire. Are you alright?”

“I’m a siren, Ben! That’s why that happened! Don’t you see that I’m dangerous? I wasn’t even singing and you got all tranced up. I don’t sing because it can hurt people. What if something bad had happened while you were like that? I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone, I don’t want to be like this.”

It dawned on me that the brilliant tone in her voice was due to her being a siren. I felt like a complete moron. Somehow, I hadn’t made the connection as my mental state faded into whatever it became. I had just stared at her dumb, which had caused her a great deal of distress and it seemed some anguish. She resented her nature.

“You won’t hurt anyone!” I assured her, but ran out of things to say. I could have told her I acted like that only because I was admiring her voice, but I didn’t feel that was necessary. It also likely would serve no good; I wasn’t even sure if it was truthful. My head felt a bit funny after the experience and everything was a bit hazy. It was strange to think that had just happened.

“I won’t sing any more.” She looked dejected.

“I bet you could sing if I didn’t focus on you so hard!”

“Maybe so.”

“Let’s try it!”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Come on! Give me some kazoo action, baby!”

“No!” She snapped it at my this time. “I don’t want to. Not now. Not this morning. Let’s just have a good day, without all this nonsense.”

Silence fell, but it wasn’t the familiar one that I had grown used to. This one returned to the roots of silence. It was awkward and tense, I balled up my fingers and then let them go. I chewed on my lip a bit. I felt bad, but I wanted to hear her voice again. Thinking on it, that was probably a tall order for her. She had probably been instructed to sing to kill multiple times.

“I’m sorry I pressed it, Claire.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry I snapped about it. It’s nothing you’ve done, it’s just the way the song makes you. I would love to sing for you, but I don’t want to risk anything. I just want to be safe.”

“That’s reasonable.”

“Being asked to sing also sort of reminded me of home. It was weird.”

“I bet you had to sing a lot, huh?”

“Well, they told us to. I denied a lot. I got in a lot of trouble at school, y’know. That’s why I found so much solace in the animals. They taught me real things, but in school, I was just supposed to learn how to be charming and sing pretty. I didn’t like that. I liked what the boys are learning about. They learn about animals, and humans, and all sorts of things! I got in trouble when I read my brother’s textbooks, but they were so interesting, I couldn’t stop! I get like that a lot. I just can’t stop some things. Like talking. I know I ramble to you, and I feel bad, but you seem to enjoy it and you’re the first kind person I’ve ever met and you really let me express myself. You don’t judge me and you let me tell you my stories. So that’s really nice. You don’t just demand that I ‘do my job’ and sing.”

Claire was such a sweet girl that her story was both believable and surprising. It was hard to imagine her acting out, but if her actions were to preserve her morality, it became a little more feasible. I envisioned her young and bright eyed, watching her older brothers come home with new knowledge, and then having her dreams shut down when she was told not to be like them. She was brilliant and vibrant; she deserved an education more than a lot of people. I believed she could change the world. She changed mine.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. It’s really awful you had to experience that, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I think that maybe that’s why I don’t want to go home. I mean, I do want to go home, because my tail is getting a bit sore of sitting,” she laughed, “and I don’t like this hiding thing. If I could, though, I think I’d like to stay up here. You’ve already taught me so much. Your land is so interesting. I like learning a lot, and learning from you is nice. You’re nice to be around.”

We smiled. It was bittersweet to hear her say things like that. It was nice to hear her say she wanted to stay, because I wanted her to, but I felt bad that I’d be returning her to somewhere she didn’t want to be. I looked down at her tail, which she gently flexed and stretched out, and felt a bit of resentment. If her tail was instead a pair of legs, she could stay with me. We would run off and no matter the trouble it caused, we could stick together.

“Thank you, Claire. We’ll figure it out.” I assured her. I didn’t know what I was assuring her of. I didn’t know how things would be figured out or what we would do, but I still wanted to see her smile. She did, but I could see the falseness behind it. We tried to make one another feel better but our efforts were made less impressive because of how much time we had spent with one another. It was unfortunate and perhaps counter to what one would hope. The more you were around someone, and the more you may want to hide that you’re upset around them, the more difficult it comes to push your emotions down. We couldn’t convince one another now.

Her smile faded quickly when it was insincere or forced. Normally, she would smile for minutes on end, and a shadow of the smile would remain even after the interaction. When she didn’t mean it, it was gone almost as soon as it came. If you blinked, you might miss it. I appreciated the transparency in her emotions, but it was painful, too, to know she was hurting.

“We should probably start on our way to the next place, shouldn’t we?” She asked.

I sighed, but nodded. We would have to get a move on at some point, and I hoped to reach Spencer before her birthday, but I still felt the need to drag my feet as often as possible. Each mile I drove was a mile I would have to drive back. Thinking about the return journey home maybe my stomach thick. Having spent all this time in this van with Claire, driving without her would feel wrong. Living like this felt so meant to be. There was no reason for it to, but it made sense to be here with her. I was reminded of our talk of fate and smiled gently.

“We’ve still got lots for me to teach you about, so yeah! We’ll head onto the next lesson.”

For the most part, that was my goal, but it wasn’t really a plan. I wasn’t entirely sure what things I should do for her. There was still so much I wanted to show her, but at the same time, I thought of all the normal teenage date ideas that we wouldn’t be able to do on account of her being half fish. I didn’t mind altering our plans, but I did find myself feeling wishful for more adventure. What we were doing was adventure enough for me - but was it for her? I felt like I should be doing more. I just didn’t know how. I thought I could sneak her in places with wheelchairs and blankets, but the risk of being caught would be so high. I’d also have to get my hands on a wheelchair and that seemed near impossible.

I buckled my seatbelt as my thoughts wandered. Claire had become quiet and just stared away. My mind was ricocheting to different ideas, but I was almost able to comprehend everything I was thinking. I was gaining control over what went on inside my head; I was nowhere near the level of Claire’s composure, but I was getting a handle on my emotions. It brought me a sense of awareness, though, and I realized that I was terribly overwhelmed. There was an ache in my head and my chest felt tight. When I looked to the speed limit sign, I saw a very blurry fifty five. Or maybe it was fifty. I looked at my steering wheel and tried to clear my eyes. I returned my focus to the road and just saw blurry asphalt.

I think she understood, because she didn’t ask what was wrong. She just placed her hand on my shoulder and let her nails drag across my shirt in a gentle tug. When I glanced over to her, I knew her vision was blurred too. We gave each other watery smiles. Claire had seemed beyond perfect for the whole time I knew her, but no one had ever seen her that way before. I felt as if they didn’t deserve her beauty if they couldn’t truly appreciate her, but I knew I could offer her no better life than one surrounded by the beauty of the ocean. We sat and let the feelings wash over us. No one had ever found us to be perfect before, but together, we were ideal. The best things in life seemed to be temporary. But a memory I could hold onto forever. I clung to the memories we had already made as we progressed to our next destination.