Chasing the Score of Perfection

The first time I met Aileen, she was humming to herself. It wasn't even a hum, really. It was more like a low-pitch drone that seemed to roll in and out of my eardrums. I didn't know it then, but it would be the defining sound of her entire life.

In hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprised by the fact that Aileen was adopted. The Chalamet family had never been what you would call normal. Our father played bass in an indie band called The Flat Earth Society; our mother sang opera at the Met when she wasn't busy getting stoned at CBGB's. Both were heavy drug users and irresponsible parents, so when they died in a car crash on the FDR, Uncle Tom stepped in to take care of us.

You've probably heard the stories about him by now. He's not just a talented actor, he's also a genuine renaissance man who is fluent in six languages, has three degrees from Oxford, plays piano and guitar...the list goes on and on. He's one of those people who seem like they're from another planet, able to accomplish anything they set their mind to. And that's why he was perfect for us. At least at first.

Aileen came into our lives right around the time he finished shooting "Thor" and moved over to London for his role in "The Night Manager," so we got accustomed to having famous actors dropping by the house. But even among them, Aileen stood out like a sore thumb. She always shunned human contact and kept her head down while she hummed whatever tune popped into her head at any given moment. Most people simply assumed she had some kind of mental disability when they met her for the first time - which suited her just fine.

She used this anonymity to explore every nook and cranny of our childhood home, running up and down the stairs as if being chased by demons or hiding under covers whenever Uncle Tom showed up to practice with his acoustic guitar for some project he was working on at the time. Whenever anyone asked her questions about herself, she'd simply put a finger over her lips and hum ever louder than before until they stopped talking altogether. In this way, she became the perfect foil for our uncle's eccentric personality: one eccentric artist surrounded by another eccentric artist whose art consisted entirely of muteness itself. Harry Styles once said that if he ever wrote poetry instead of music, Aileen was exactly who he would want writing the score behind him - because all of his songs felt exactly like how she muttered to herself during a creative rush as she sat down at her piano: full of longing and passion but also rambling, almost nonsensical at times; with fragments here and there that seemed like they were written down on napkins or cocktail coasters rather than in notebooks or composition books; but always beautiful and endearing nonetheless because it was so perfectly imperfect in its own right.

But then things started changing between them (as they do) after Uncle Tom left for America for his role in "Thor 3." He couldn't afford both places anymore - it would have been too much for him to maintain two houses - so he sold our house in London and decided to relocate us into his Hollywood mansion instead (his partner Colman Domingo was thrilled). And once again, Aileen found herself abruptly uprooted from her safe haven: an untidy English cottage right next door to a pub where everyday felt like Sunday; where even on Mondays you could still hear Uncle Tom playing jazz standards on his piano with all the windows wide open while stopping every few bars to yell at someone who'd parked their car illegally outside his house; where our dog Willie used to sleep in front of the fireplace every night because it made him feel safe no matter how many times we told him there are no such things as ghosts...and suddenly dropped into the middle of Los Angeles where you have to pay $15k just for a parking spot in your driveway because everyone else is trying desperately hard to get away from wherever they came from too? Suddenly it was all about making appearances at superficial gatherings where everybody thought themselves important just because they could recognize our faces from some movie or another; suddenly instead of living with people who loved us no matter how weird we were, we were expected to be more Hollywood-like than we already were: flawless beauties with flawless smiles while wearing flawless clothes just so we could sit around with other flawless beauties with flawless smiles while wearing flawless clothes before getting ready for yet another flawless party where we would probably drink too much champagne because alcohol is illegal everywhere else now except California...so obviously everybody needs more alcohol than usual because otherwise they'll go insane as soon as they step outside their door every morning! Suddenly Aileen found herself staying inside most of the time while Uncle Tom took refuge in his study upstairs or wherever else he went whenever he needed peace and quiet because otherwise everyone around him would start feeling like