A Crooked Kind of Perfect

In reality, Zoe plays a wooden organ called “The Perfectone D-60” (3). She has nothing else to say about it.

Zoe admires a pianist named Vladimir Horowitz and considers him the best. She saw a show about him once on PBS and found out that he was a child prodigy; he was 17 when he held his first professional show and played Carnegie Hall just a few years later. Zoe’s goal is to do the exact same thing, and she tells herself she has until she turns 17 to be good enough. When Zoe tells her mom about this dream, her mom tells her to talk to her dad about it.

Zoe’s mother is a fiscal controller, which means she must keep track of the state’s finances. Zoe wishes her mother had what she considers a normal job, or a job that other people have heard of. She remembers how her mother talked about fiscal responsibility on Career Day at school. At one point, she handed out various coins to each student and then recited back which coin each student had. It impressed the class for a moment, but then she demanded the coins be given back, and nobody was happy with Zoe after that. One boy approached Zoe after class in a threatening manner, which made her so nervous she threw up.

Zoe asks her dad about playing the piano several times before he finally agrees to sign her up for some discount lessons with “More for Les” and telling her she needs to take things one step at a time. Zoe arrives at the class, which, aside from her, consists of all elderly people. Lester, the teacher, proclaims that he has a revolutionary strategy for learning how to play piano and hands everyone a songbook. In the back of the songbook is a paper keyboard, which Lester believes is the best way to practice worry-free. Nobody will actually hear how their playing sounds until they play it for the class at the end of each week. Lester tears the paper keyboard out of the book for Zoe, and it’s the only sound it ever makes.

Zoe’s family has 432 rolls of toilet paper stocked in their house, which her mom calculated should be enough to last until she’s in high school. Zoe’s dad has trouble staying calm in public, but he wants to be useful and sometimes goes shopping anyway. On one such occasion, he bought an entire display’s worth of toilet paper, thinking it was a great deal. Zoe also mentions how her dad sometimes forgets about these impulse purchases until the product arrives on his doorstep.

When Zoe’s dad went out to buy her an “elegant piano,” he came home with the Perfectone D-60 electric organ instead. Zoe already knew that he had been swindled into an impulse purchase again, but he told her the story anyway. Zoe’s dad explained that he heard a funky beat coming from somewhere in the mall and started dancing. The organ salesman, Mr. Perfectone, spotted Zoe’s dad and called him over. He showed Zoe’s dad how the organ could produce different beats and instrument sounds, and Zoe’s dad was enthralled. Two weeks later, Zoe had an organ instead of the piano she wanted.

Zoe opens the organ’s brochure and finds lots of exclamation points but nothing particularly exciting: “Twenty-four (24!) rhythm styles” (18). She turns on the organ and flips the switch, which makes it sound a bit like a piano. When she presses a key, she is disappointed with the result and realizes that exclamation points cannot be trusted.

Zoe prepares for different lessons with a new piano teacher. She imagines her piano teacher as a sophisticated Maestro who serves her tea, calls her a prodigy, and takes her to parties where she can be admired by others. She imagines Maestro thinking of her as “the granddaughter he never had” (20), and she sees herself having beautiful gowns and a diamond tiara that Maestro gave her.

Zoe’s piano teacher, who came “free” with the purchase of the Perfectone-D60, is a woman named Mabelline Person. She is very particular about having ginger ale ready for her at her lessons and likes to be as comfortable as possible. At the first lesson, Mabelline asks Zoe how old she is and whether she’s had lessons before. Zoe had a few weeks of lessons with the paper keyboard, but her dad withdrew her when he couldn’t manage the anxiety he felt over having to drive her there and pick her up. Zoe gets out the paper keyboard and starts to play a song called “Monkey Waltz,” and the teacher asks her to play it on the organ instead. Zoe does so, expecting Mabelline Person to tell her she’s a prodigy, but the piano teacher instead looks disappointed and writes something else down on her notepad.

Zoe’s dad takes various “classes” from his couch, which come from “Living Room University” (25). Most of these are quite random and don’t really apply to Zoe’s dad’s life, but they fill his time. Currently, Zoe’s dad is taking a boxing coach class and practices his affirmations on Zoe as she practices the organ. As Zoe’s dad massages her shoulders and repeats catchphrases like “float like a butterfly” (26), Zoe attempts to play the Monkey Waltz. She finds her dad’s encouragement less than helpful.

Zoe has a friend at school named Emma Dent, who is more privileged and seems to have everything a person could want. Zoe considers her a best friend even though they never see each other outside of school. After Christmas, Zoe plans to tell Emma about the organ and how her dreams of being a piano prodigy are ruined. Instead, what she finds is Emma sitting with a different girl and no longer interested in hanging out with Zoe. Zoe feels like her whole life is the opposite of what she wants.

Zoe often sits with her dad and helps him with his classes, but today he suggests she play her organ instead. Zoe starts practicing various show tunes that are in the music book that came with the organ. Even though her teacher told her not to use the organ’s electronic beats, Zoe does it anyway to add some interest to the activity. Zoe’s dad starts dancing to each of the beats Zoe plays, from Polka to marching band beats, and he and Zoe have fun together. When Zoe’s mom walks in wondering what’s for dinner, she sighs when she realizes that Zoe’s father was too distracted playing with Zoe.

Zoe gets a party invitation in the mail for Emma’s birthday party with the instructions to bring dancing shoes. The note states that Zoe is one of “Emma’s best pals” (35). Zoe reads on to find that it’s a surprise party, and she realizes that it was Emma’s mother, not Emma, who sent the invitation.

Zoe decides she will go to Emma’s party anyway and spends the day shopping online for socks with her dad. She and Emma met in third grade when they both realized they were each wearing toe socks and became square dancing partners, and Zoe decides to buy herself and Emma each a pair in the hopes of reminding her of those times.

On Saturday, Zoe is grateful that her mother is available to drive her to Emma’s party because her father often gets lost and overwhelmed on the road. On the way, Zoe admires her new toe socks, which have all her favorite colors on them. She thinks about dancing in her new socks at the party. Zoe is dropped off outside a big house with a huge inflatable shoe on the lawn. She goes inside to find 10 other kids sitting on the couches and no room left to sit, so she stands to the side instead. Zoe notices that everyone is wearing clogs with the word “BRAT” on the side. Nobody is in socks. When Emma arrives, her mother instructs everyone to hide, and then they all jump out and surprise her.

Emma opens her presents, and everyone cheers and screams for each CD or T-shirt that she opens. When Emma gets to Zoe’s gift and finds a pair of socks inside, she says nothing and checks inside the socks to see if there’s another gift hidden within. Zoe watches with embarrassment. Afterward, everyone goes to the kitchen to have cake, and one of Emma’s friends says that “nobody wears socks” (44). Zoe decides not to dance at all and just waits for the time to go home.

After the dance party, Emma’s mother surprises her with one final gift: a huge white grand piano.

On the drive home, Zoe’s mother doesn’t want to talk, because she’s listening to classical music. When they pull up to the house, Zoe’s mother sits for a moment and listens to the music finish before leaving the car. Zoe wonders if her mother is thinking about her at all and tells her that nobody is wearing socks anymore. Zoe’s mother finds that surprising, and Zoe feels like a nobody.