Grave on Grand Avenue (6 page)

Nay checks in at a media table, while I pick up a free program.

“It was cool to meet the flaks in person,” Nay says when she rejoins me, studying her press package as if she knows what she’s doing.

Back at the media table, I spy a couple of women, including one with a familiar red ponytail. “What’s a flak?”

“You know, a public relations person. That’s what the media call them.”

So that would be Kendra Prescott. A flak. “Sounds nasty.”

Nay shrugs her shoulders, like she’s completely transformed into some hard-core journalist. She’s wearing her press pass around her neck. I fight the urge to mention that we’re at a classical music concert, hardly Pulitzer Prize–winning material.

“Too bad we missed the preconcert lecture,” Nay says.

“Oh, it’s
Don Quixote
,” I say, glancing at the cover of the program for the first time. I majored in Spanish at Pan Pacific College and we tackled excerpts from Cervantes’s novel in one of my classes. I’m immediately more interested in the concert now. “I actually know this story.”

“It’s some Dutch thing, right? Has something to do with windmills.”

“Not Dutch, Nay. Spanish. It’s, like,
the
most important piece of Spanish literature. Don Quixote, the hero, is this guy who’s really into being chivalrous, like a knight or something from the old days. But then he slowly starts to lose his mind, thinking that windmills are giants he has to fight.”

“Wow, he was really tripping out,” Nay comments.

“Oh, you’d like his trusty sidekick, Sancho Panza. He’s a simple farmer, really . . . earthy.”

“Hey, what are you trying to say? That I’m Panza? I’m your wacky but slow wingman?”

“I didn’t say that! Besides, Quixote’s the one who goes crazy at the end.”

“Hello, spoiler alert.” Nay seems genuinely ticked that I’ve given away the ending.

“It’s not like it’s a big secret, Nay. This is a classic, like
Romeo and Juliet
, not some TV show, like who got the rose on
The Bachelor
.”

“So are you going to ruin that one for me, too?”

Is she kidding?
I sigh. “Where are we sitting anyway?”

Nay glances at the tickets the PR person gave her. “Balcony. Row C.”

Nay seems to realize that our seats are less than premium as we climb one staircase after another. I bet the
LA Times
music critic isn’t sitting way up in the clouds like we will be. But as Grandma Toma likes to say, beggars can’t be choosers.
In other words, Ellie,
I tell myself,
give your girl Nay a break.

The carpet and the seats are dark red with patterns of orange and green. They are abstract flowers, designed in honor of Walt Disney’s wife, Lillian, a horticultural lover who pretty much championed the whole concert hall, though she didn’t live to see it completed. I can still remember some of the details from the tour my family took back when this place opened.

And since the hall isn’t shaped like a cube, oval, or any typical shape you learn about in grade school, the hallways are mazelike. I usually pride myself on my good sense of direction, but I’m certain that I could lose my way in here.

We finally reach the top and discover our seats are about three rows from the back.

“I guess I should have RSVP’d earlier,” mutters Nay, fingering her laminated press pass.

There are already some people sitting in our row, so we try to squeeze past their knees to our seats. Nay’s ample behind presses against the laps of the seated senior citizens.
A woman wearing a heavy turquoise necklace frowns, but her male companion doesn’t seem to mind.

“Man, it’s tight in here,” Nay comments.

“You think?”

Once we are planted in our nosebleed seats, we take in the scene in front of us. The orchestra is already onstage, looking like toy dolls from up here. All wearing black, they casually chat with their neighbors while tuning their instruments.

“Is that their organ?” Nay gestures toward a giant wooden hearth. It looks like a piece of modern art with shards of polished beams—I’ve heard it jokingly called gigantic French fries. That nickname fits it for sure.

“Ummm,” I say, but nod.

Nay leafs through the press packet again. “That Strauss guy was young when he composed this. Thirty-three.”

Wow. He
was
young. I guess Nay had the same impression I did—that only old European men wrote classical music. It’s hard to picture someone just ten years older able to create music for a whole orchestra. And not just any kind of music, music good enough to have lasted more than a century.

Nay keeps peppering me with more details and fun facts.

“So Xu’s playing the music for this Don Quixote guy?” she asks.

“Yes. The man of La Mancha. It’s a place in Spain. I’ve never heard
Don Quixote
in concert before, but I bet it’s like a dialogue between instruments.”

“And the viola player is supposed to be the best friend?”

Nay’s distracted from her program when a musician carrying a violin enters the stage and the crowd begins to applaud.

“What’s that all about?”

I’m actually not quite sure, but I tell her, “It’s starting, it’s starting.”

The tuxedoed man strokes his violin strings with a bow, and soon all the members of the orchestra start to tweet, saw, and blow on their instruments. It’s obviously some kind of tuning exercise. Next comes the conductor, a thin man in a tuxedo with crazy wavy hair down to his shoulders. More clapping for him. And then Xu appears, also in a black-and-white tuxedo, carrying a cello by its neck. Is it his multimillion-dollar cello? Outside of that distinctive purple case, I can’t tell. It’s honey colored. Shiny. Kind of looks like a pear-shaped woman with two curlicue holes in the middle. Basically it looks like any other cello I’ve seen, but then, I’ve never really paid attention before. Either way, he’s owning it. Thunderous applause for him.

Xu sits in a chair directly facing the audience. As soon as he starts playing, I am mesmerized. When he’s not playing, he seems otherworldly, like he’s a fantasy character, maybe an elf, in an animated movie. But when he lifts his bow and plays, he transforms into a warrior. His head rocks to the music, his hair tossed from one side to another.

“Can I borrow your binoculars?” Nay asks an older woman next to us. The woman seems amused by Nay. Judging from the age of the crowd, the season ticket holders seem only too happy to see young people appreciating classical music. “You can hang on to them,” the woman generously offers. “I have another.”

As she watches Xu, Nay begins to practically groan, and I don’t mean in pain. How totally embarrassing. I take the binoculars to stop her audible aching for Xu. But magnified, I see that the star cellist is even more intriguing. He keeps
his eyes closed during some of his performance, showcasing his unusually long eyelashes for an Asian male. Dust explodes as his bow moves through the cello strings. Like a pro athlete, Xu occasionally presses a rolled-up towel against his sweaty forehead during breaks. I notice that some long hairs from his bow have come loose from his passionate playing. I bite down on my lip; I understand why Nay was making such a spectacle of herself.

The viola soloist then comes in. She has a head of platinum blond hair with a streak of pink—more appropriate for a concert on the Sunset Strip than on Grand Avenue, but as far as I can tell, her playing is superb. Her body is at one with the viola; her elbow extended, she moves her arm as vigorously as Xu does. It’s almost like they’re dancing together.

“Hot, huh?” Nay says, fanning herself with the program.

My body is pulsing. I have to nod in agreement.

I look more closely at Xu’s musical partner through the binoculars and gasp in surprise. “The blonde is Asian!”

Nay opens up the program and uses her cell phone for illumination. “Yeah, she’s from Taiwan.”

“Psst,” someone hisses from behind. “Turn off your phone.”

I give Nay a look. My “I can’t take you anywhere” look, even though technically she’s the one who’s taken me here to Walt Disney Concert Hall.

“Hey, I’m not the one who’s wearing shorts,” Nay snaps at me.

“Shh!” the same person scolds us from behind.

I lower my body into my chair. I don’t need anyone to see that my back is branded LAPD.

The performance continues with a re-creation of the bleating sheep that Don Quixote and Sancho Panza encounter,
the snorts and wailing coming from the tuba and other instruments.

“I can hear the sheep!” Nay says to me, smiling.

I smile back. I can, too.

When the performance ends, the crowd erupts in applause. Some rise to their feet and yell out, “Bravo, bravo.” Before I know it, Nay is standing, shouting, “Encore, encore!”

I sock her in the thigh.

“What?”

“You don’t say
encore
at a classical concert. It’s not like they are going to follow up with Beethoven’s Fifth or something.”

The lights come up during intermission. The session with Xu and Don Quixote is over. The second half of the concert is dedicated to Brahms and just the orchestra. I wouldn’t mind leaving, but there’s a meet-and-greet with the musicians that Nay insists we stay for.

“There’s somethin’-somethin’ going on with those two,” Nay declares, looking through her program.

“What are you talking about?”

“The way Xu and that platinum blonde were going at it with their instruments? They are definitely getting it on.”

“Nay, these are professionals. Just like actors. They express their passions in their art. It’s not necessarily personal.”

“No way. You can’t fake that kind of stuff. Listen, I know.”

I take the press packet from Nay’s hands and look at the artists’ bios. “Cece Lin. She’s been with the Philharmonic for a year. She’s based here in LA.”

“Un-huh, and that proves what?”

“Well, that she’s a professional.”

“Duh, you heard her play. Just because she may be
hooking up with a megastar doesn’t mean she’s shallow or anything. She is a pro.” She flips through the program, then stops again at a photo of the platinum-haired violist. “I wonder how I’d look as a blonde?”

I study Nay’s dark, uniform skin. She’d look like a Muppet with hair that blond, but I don’t dare say that out loud. “I think you’re better as a brunette,” I say instead. Then I notice that one of her false eyelashes has sprung loose, making it look like a black caterpillar has descended from her eyebrow. “Uh.” I mime that something has gone wrong around her eyelid.

“You got a mirror?” she asks.

“Do I look like I’d have a mirror?”

Nay plucks my sunglasses from atop my head and tries to see if she can make out her reflection in the lens, but it doesn’t work. “I’m going to head out for the bathroom.”

We go out the side doors together—Nay covering one side of her face with her purse. Yeah, super discreet. That’s really not going to attract attention.

Once we are on the terrace level, Nay heads for the restroom and I tell her I’ll meet her in the downstairs eating area. I’m starving, but everything here is so dang expensive. I can only afford a small bag of potato chips, for almost three bucks. Oh well, the ticket was free and I can’t have my stomach growling in the middle of Brahms.

As I’m nibbling on my chips, trying to make them last as long as I can, Nay comes back and practically plows me over. “Guess who I just saw?”

I shrug my shoulders and lick salt from my lips.

“Bono! You know, that guy who’s always trying to dig wells in Africa and stuff.”

“You know that he’s also a singer, right?” My dad is a U2 superfan and, embarrassingly, sings “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” in the shower. (What he’s looking for, especially in the shower, I really don’t want to ask.) “Anyway, that isn’t Bono. He’s just a guy who’s trying to look like Bono.”

“No, Ellie, he
is
Bono. Really.”

“If you say so.” I toss the empty potato chip bag in a garbage can and we make our way upstairs.

“Wait, wait, there he is.” Nay elbows me and points to the guy I’d been mentally making fun of earlier. He’s being tailed by a huge black man with an earpiece dangling down to a radio. It certainly gives credence to Nay’s theory that this is Bono and a bodyguard.

“Wow,” I say. Who knew that Xu could command the presence of a celebrity that big? Both Nay and I have no shame, and continue staring. Nay takes out her cell phone and starts taking pictures. I worry that might be against the rules, and look around to see whether anyone notices—and jump when I hear a voice behind me say, “Ellie? I thought that it was you.”

Oh great. It’s the assistant chief of police—aka my aunt Cheryl. I didn’t know she was a classical music fan, but here she is, in front of me. As usual, she looks like she’s dressed straight out of a Saks Fifth Avenue catalogue. She’s wearing a black tuxedo jacket over a shimmering shell the color of blue pearls. She even smells like she has money. Which she does.

I cross my arms and cover my thighs, as if that will make my bicycle shorts disappear.

“You’re not working here, are you?” Aunt Cheryl takes a quick assessment of what I’m wearing.

“Last-minute. Nay had tickets. You remember Nay, right?” I push Nay forward.

She’s been to a couple of our family parties.

“Love your lipstick color,” Nay says.

Aunt Cheryl frowns slightly. “Uh, thank you.” She’s not a warm fuzzy type; more like an ice cube. Even Nay, who could melt an Antarctic glacier, doesn’t try to endear herself, and instead excuses herself to get a drink of water.

“Actually, Ellie, I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Aunt Cheryl says when Nay leaves.

My palms start to sweat. Even though she’s my aunt, she’s also the highest-ranking Asian American in the LAPD, and she has that effect on me.

I immediately flip through the possibilities in my mind. For the past couple of months, I’ve been low-profile. A good girl. Done whatever my supervisors have told me to do. I’ve even made time to floss my teeth. Maybe this has to do with Eduardo Fuentes?

“I heard that your car was stolen.”