Page 31 of Poster Girl

Sonya’s voice is reedy and thin and coasts just under the right pitch. Her face flushes with heat and she is glad, then, of the darkness in the bar, hiding her humiliation.

Won’t you walk with me?

The path is one I know.

People hoot and raise their glasses. Knox puts her head on her hand, and watches.

Five, six, seven, eight.Sonya feels like she’s back at that table with her family. It wasn’t vibrato shaking her mother’s voice as she sang. Sonya looked at the water her father poured for her, at the way it rippled despite all the Kantors being still, like the earth itself was trembling in anticipation of what they were about to do—

I’ve been down that other road

And it’s as easy as they said.

Some people are swaying along with the lilting melody, lifting their hands in the air and laughing. Sonya remembers Susanna’s guitar, her fingers stumbling over the strings, her mother’s rich voice chiming in from the kitchen.Mom, stop! I need to focus,Susanna says, and Sonya thinks of it as Susanna stares into her water glass, pill in hand, cheeks shining with tears—

But wide and flat though it was then

Sonya trembles, and her voice trembles, but she presses on.

I didn’t much like where it led.

A group in the corner holds up their Elicits, screens lit, and sways back and forth.

Everyone laughs.

Won’t you set aside

The lies that you’ve held dear

Don’t you know that

What’s better is right here?

As a child it was her favorite line,what’s better is right here,because her father used to pat his knee whenever he sang it, and when she went to sit on his lap, he squeezed her tight and kissed her cheek with a loud smack. And she could always believeherewas good, was right, was better than whatever else was out there.

This walk is narrow and it’s steep

It’ll surely test your heart

But it’ll fill all those hollow places

You’ve had since the start.

“Hey, Deb,” someone calls out. “Want to go get ‘filled’?”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time!” someone—presumably Deb—calls back.

Won’t you keep an eye on me

And I’ll keep an eye on you

One step after another...

We’ll make it through.

Everyone joins her for the last few words:“Make it through.”

Knox applauds. Sonya sits on the stool, her face hot, her hands cold. She tries to steady herself.

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