Sight Reading (19 page)

Daniel had let her borrow it on loan.

She told herself now, as she placed it in its slim slot in her case, that the bow would be more than a professional investment. It might even make a difference in her audition for associate concertmaster. Well, if indeed she were to audition . . .

There was a sudden influx of air as the door to the rehearsal room opened. Nora said, “Oh, good, you're here!”

Remy looked up to see Yoni, his cheeks rosy, as if he had sprinted from the conservatory. “Hello!” he said in his confident way. He didn't look surprised to find Remy there.

“Hi, Yoni.” Remy had forgotten that he and Nora knew each other. She watched him introduce himself to Christopher, who sidelined in historical performance and even in his daily life looked like a character in a costume drama, with a long curling mustache and ankle-length cloak. Remy no longer recalled having found him odd. She watched Yoni shake his hand and, carefully buttoning the Melustrina into its slot, thought she might just go ahead and buy the bow, to hell with the price. It was a beautiful thing, and so little about her daily work was glamorous. For some reason she thought of the leopard-print thong.

“We're planning a little going-away party for a friend of ours,” Nora explained. To Yoni she said, “I'll be right with you. Christopher and I just have to work out some scheduling.” She had taken out her datebook and was paging through it.

“Oh, and I have to show you my latest discovery,” Christopher told Nora, who hadn't yet seen the seventeenth-century flageolet he had apparently discovered in a bin at a garage sale in Concord.

Remy shut her violin case. But instead of leaving, she found herself lingering by the piano, and played a few chords. Yoni stepped up beside her. “How are you, dear?” He played a little melody on the keys beside her.

“Fine. How's school?” Her hands pressed into the piano keys, another chord resounding.

“The students are wonderful,” he said, “though sometimes, some of them, you know . . . they plop down a solo like they're plunking a bag of groceries down on a table.” He laughed, while Christopher played Nora a little tune on the flageolet. To Remy it sounded like the call of some small, asthmatic bird. Yoni picked out the same tune on the piano.

Remy moved her left hand down an octave and played the same chord in a lower register.

“It needs a melody,” Yoni said, and then she felt his body almost behind her, an arm around one of her shoulders, his other hand alongside hers on the piano keys. Every hair on her body seemed suddenly to be standing on end. “Go ahead,” he said, “give me a chord.”

She pressed into the keys, and Yoni improvised a little run, up and then down, right over her right hand, a loopy little melody, his playing not affected at all, it seemed, by the maimed finger and thumb. As his skin touched hers, something flashed inside her—but Yoni easily followed Remy's lead when she switched keys altogether, and allowed himself to doodle around on the keyboard. His head was beside hers; it seemed that if she turned her head her mouth would be on his chin.

Remy could hear Christopher telling Nora, “It's an amazing find,” as Yoni lifted his hand and placed it directly over Remy's, his fingers over hers. A flame coursed through her, straight down to her groin. Remy bore down into the keys, a loud, rumbling chord.

Yoni, his arms still encircling her, didn't lift his hands. She could feel his pulse, and now his chin grazed the side of her head. His mouth came toward her ear. “I would fight for you.”

The words were so soft, she might have dreamed them. She let the last groans of the piano strings reverberate into silence.

Nora was blowing into the flageolet, trying to muster a tune. Remy took a deep breath, felt Yoni stepping back, his arms lifting away from her. Nora handed the flageolet back to Christopher.

“I should have the
Antiques Roadshow
people appraise it,” Christopher said, and Remy laughed. But the laugh felt wrong.

“I'd better get going, guys. Have a good afternoon.” She pulled on her jacket, feeling utterly confused.

“See you at the museum,” Christopher said, and Nora gave a little wave.

“See you.” Yoni, unsmiling, leaned in to kiss her good-bye. She kissed him quickly, still hearing his words in her ear—though by now they might have been a breeze, or her own thoughts.

She took her violin case and left the room. Even as she stepped out of the building her pulse raced.

THE NEXT MORNING, IN HER
long wool cardigan and gray sweatpants and fuzzy slippers, Remy waited for Vivian.

She was alone in the house, sipping black coffee in the kitchen. It was a small room, old and high ceilinged, with an ancient stove and a floor layered with linoleum; encountering it when they first viewed the house, six years ago, the realty agent had offered a panicked onslaught of suggestions for renovation. But it was a warm room, cozy despite the high ceilings, with a back door opening onto a patch of backyard.

Remy sipped her coffee and thought. Another sort of woman would not be the least bit troubled by any of this. Another woman would not attach such significance to each small flurry of her heart.

Whatever it was she was feeling was different, very different, from a few years ago, when she had gone through what her friend Vivian had informed her, with perfect math, was the seven-year itch. That was when Remy finally confided to Vivian, tearfully and with embarrassment, that she felt she was crawling out of her own skin. “I need something new so badly,” she had told Vivian. “Maybe I need to be away from Nicholas. I don't know how people do it.” Vivian, who had never been married but seemed to possess an overall wisdom about the world, had assured her that this was a normal phenomenon and that the feeling would eventually dissolve. “Just make sure to never, ever, put yourself in a situation where you can follow through on your urges. It's one thing to feel lust. It's another to act on it.”

The itch had indeed faded away. But this new feeling left her heavy, tumid with recollections—the murmured words in her ear, and the pulse of the piano beneath their mingling hands. She asked herself what in the world she could possibly want that she did not already have.

The doorbell rang. “Hey, you.” Remy kissed her, Vivian in her tall fur hat and matching muff, a heavy embroidered coat that reached her ankles. “Let me in out of this
weather,
” Vivian said, the only person Remy knew who could dress this way and not look ridiculous.

Just as Nicholas had his friend Gary, the one person completely outside his circle, Remy had Vivian, who lived off of a trust fund and owned an art gallery and sometimes called herself a photographer. Other times she called herself an art dealer. Now she lifted the fur hat off her head with two hands, up high, a champion displaying her trophy. Her hair rose with static. “It's so cozy here.” She placed her hat on the table; it looked like a stuffed animal. “All right, what's going on?”

Remy spoke without pause, described what had occurred with Yoni in the rehearsal room. Vivian listened without question or comment, nodding like an expert.

Finally Remy said, “I don't know what to do.”

“Nothing, silly.” Vivian always made things sound so simple. “Feelings like that are normal. You've been through this before.”

“No, this is different.”

“Well, okay,” Vivian conceded, “I don't mean to belittle it. But don't you think it's natural, too, when you've known someone so well, for so long? To have a sudden surge of affection? You two are very close. And let's face it—he's a very handsome man.”

“It's more than physical,” Remy told her. “Sometimes I think he understands me better than Nicholas.”

“Well, come on, so do I.”

Remy laughed.

Vivian asked, “Have you thought about seeing a therapist?”

Remy gave a loud sigh. Music was her meditation, her daily practice; she did not covet Vivian's $100-per-hour psychoanalyst, just as she did not covet her fur hat and muff, her artist lovers in their East Boston lofts, or the rich clients who sent top-quality champagne at the holidays and tried to match the paintings they purchased with the fabric of their sofas.

She said, “I take everything too seriously. It's from being a musician. I'm used to trying to get every little thing just right. I can't just let something be, and not examine it, or ponder it. I can't
not
think that this really matters. It
does
matter.”

Vivian's eyes opened wider. “Remy. Are you falling in love?”

Remy felt her own eyes widen. “Oh.” She thought for a moment. “I don't know.” Pulling at a few of the woolly pills on her sweater, she asked, “Why can't I be one of those women who don't obsess about these things? Who don't feel bad about it? You know, the ones who don't read into every little thing?” She was recalling the time when she had wanted to live like Oscar Wilde—insouciant, decadent, her candle burning at both ends. “I wish I were one of those carefree, witty women. The ones who don't take love so seriously. Who don't let these things overtake them.”

Vivian looked puzzled. “Who
are
those women?”

Chapter 5

T
hey were at Hugh's house, sitting before the fireplace, watching flames wrap themselves around logs. Hazel had kicked off her shoes and folded her legs to her side, propping herself up on one arm, aware of the curve of her body. Next to her, Hugh was leaning back on his arms, his legs stretched out ahead of him in corduroy pants, his feet in thick socks, one over the other. Caves of ashes glowed beneath the grill.

Luke was at a sleepover. Jessie was at that Halloween party (and in Nicholas and Remy's charge). Hazel watched the infinitesimal adjustments of each collapsing log, each dripping ember, and felt all around her the luxury of a night alone with Hugh. She was awash in ripeness, in possibility. Beyond the windows was an incredible blackness.

“I can't remember the last time I roasted chestnuts.”

“I never have, actually,” Hugh admitted. “I saw them at Bread & Circus and thought it might be a nice treat.”

Hazel smiled; she adored this man—how could she not adore him, with his honesty and goodness and spur-of-the-moment chestnuts? At last she had found someone right for her, just when it seemed there was no hope left. “Sometimes I think that's the most wonderful part of life,” she told him. “Not the big, fancy things. It's the little, hidden treats.”

Hugh nodded, a bit gravely, Hazel thought. “It's funny, isn't it,” she continued, “how life gets tossed into baskets that way? I mean, there are the days that people assume are the most important ones, like your wedding day, or the day your child is born, the few defining events, the tragedies, too—that's one basket. And there are the tiny wondrous moments that barely anyone else will ever know about, that's another basket. And then there's everything else.”

“I never thought of it that way,” Hugh said.

“I don't, usually.” She thought again and added, “Sometimes I feel like I'm passing through the days, and other times I feel like the days are
mine
.”

Hugh reached over to run his fingers through her hair. “And which kind of a day is this?”

“It's mine, but I'm sharing it with you.”

He gave her a very serious look and leaned over to kiss her, longer this time than the good night kiss last week. The fire was stronger now, bright scarves of flame whipping at each other. Hugh kissed her again, and this time he did not pause except to say something brief and meaningless, so sweet and surprising that Hazel at once forgot what it was. Nor was she sure of what she said back. They continued this way, saying things in little bursts, moving closer, Hugh's fingers working open the top few buttons of Hazel's blouse.

He would see the white splotches, she knew. She felt herself shrinking back, told herself not to, told herself that in this light, the spots would not be noticed. But suddenly, just as she had feared, Hugh pulled away.

The chestnuts had caught fire. There was the smell of scorching while with tongs Hugh rescued the blistered foil. Hazel was rebuttoning her blouse, her fingers fumbling. The logs leaked orange ash. Hugh turned to look at her just as she secured the top button, then looked down at the burned foil as if it meant something. His face changed, and he tugged open the wrinkled folds of foil. There they were, little chestnut brains, some of them brown, some of them blackened. Hugh said, “I think they're okay.”

Hazel gave a laugh to show that it didn't matter. But it sounded wrong. Why did that always happen to her—even a genuine emotion, when it most mattered, sounding false?

Hugh, too, looked disturbed. Hazel said, “We should probably wait for them to cool.”

Hugh was looking into the steam that rose from the chestnuts as if it contained a private message. Hazel saw him swallow, saw the pensive movement of his throat. She decided it was better not to say anything more.

After what felt like a very long minute, in a quiet voice, Hugh said, “I've been thinking. . . .”

Hazel felt a wrenching inside of her. Whatever Hugh was about to say would have to do with her; it might be wonderful or it might be terrible. And as much as she supposed that it might be something good, what her heart felt was more like terror.

“I've been having such a good time with you,” Hugh said, and swallowed again. “A really wonderful time.”

Hazel's heart sank. That was it. When they began with something nice—when they began by praising you—that was when you knew they didn't want to be with you anymore.

“It's hard, though,” Hugh continued. “Because as much as I enjoy my time with you, as much as it feels comfortable, even tonight, even now, something's off.”

“What do you mean, ‘off'?”

Hugh frowned. “I suppose it's that I'm wondering if I'm truly able to do it.”

“Able to do what?” Hazel asked, though she knew perfectly well what he meant. But she refused to make this easy for him.

“To be with you.”

No matter how prepared she was, her heart still plunged. Now Hazel was trying to hold her face in place, her heart diving, falling. Thinking to herself: Of course. Really she had expected as much. Supreme disappointment was the only thing in life she knew she could truly count on.

“I don't know why I'm saying this,” Hugh said. “I'm having such a nice time with you. I mean to say, I've been having a wonderful time with you. You're a wonderful woman.”

Hazel looked down at the abandoned chestnuts. It hadn't been this way back before Nicholas; before Nicholas, she had been the one brushing people aside, trying not to lead anyone on. But since her divorce, the power she had once had . . . it had slipped away. The few times she found herself at all interested in a man, it had been utterly different from when she was young, when she never had to wonder whether he would like her back. And though she could still, sometimes, turn heads, her old allure somehow always eventually failed her.

Hugh was saying more now. The truth was, Hazel barely heard him. Nothing could explain it in any helpful way. Hugh himself was saying so, right now, saying that he himself didn't understand, he was confused. His confusion looked genuine, and Hazel supposed he truly didn't understand how he could want to be with her and not want to at the very same time. He tried again to explain, more familiar phrases. To Hazel it was all a bit tiresome. She looked past Hugh, through the windows, into the blackness, thinking that so many other fateful things must be happening on this same night, things that had nothing to do with her, things that surely mattered much more than this. Significant, meaningful, perhaps wonderful things. When Hugh stopped speaking for a moment, and poked despondently at the chestnuts—as though he and not Hazel were the one being rejected—Hazel leaned over and lightly kissed his cheek. “I think I should go now,” she told him, before the explanations could continue.

REMY HAD THE SYMPHONY THAT
night, and Jessie was out at a party, leaving Nicholas home alone.

He sat, lethargic, at the grand piano. The room was dark, just one lamp lit, and the tall windows closed against the cold. Nicholas wished Remy were here—that they might play together, just for fun.

It had been some time, he realized, since the two of them had made music together. Those evenings were a chance for Remy to enjoy a turn as soloist, front and center, with Nicholas accompanying on piano. Her favorite was the Franck sonata, the one she had been learning the year they met, which Nicholas loved for its swaying beauty, and for the wonderful interplay between piano and violin. Nicholas made a good accompanist, knew when Remy might want an extra moment to fill out a rubato phrase, or hold a tenuto, knew to slow down, almost imperceptibly, in those brief moments where she had to slide into a glissando, or replace one finger with another. Conducting had developed in him an instinctual understanding of musicians' needs—from having to be aware, at each moment, of what each one of them was experiencing.

He had learned from Remy, too, over the years—about the violin. She would point out passages that made the most of the instrument, so that Nicholas saw more broadly its range of capabilities. And over time he had come to understand, too, the sorts of technical challenges that could excite and motivate an experienced player like Remy.

She had a particularly good ear, could identify any borrowed phrase in a piece, even the smallest conceptual echo, and understand what that echo might be harkening to. Sometimes when Nicholas improvised he tossed in little riffs from other pieces, to see if she might recognize them. Now, though, alone at the piano, waking his fingers with a Bach prelude, he thought despondently of the big symphonic piece.

It was incoherent as a whole, was the issue. Kaleidoscopic changes within movements, this grand sweep from the earthy to the ethereal, the terrestrial to the spectral . . . He wanted his symphony to contain galaxies. Of course that was different, he knew, from just being all over the place. He needed to return to that first, most basic impulse, to see again in his mind's eye—and hear again—his long-ago home.

Pu' Scotland up,

And wha can say

It winna bud

And blossom tae

Yet he barely had the will to work on the piece. Was this what it meant to be “midcareer”—as he had found himself recently, gallingly, referred to? It was true that one grew tired of oneself, sometimes. That one wished, sometimes, to take some kind of leap, far away to some other place.

Perhaps this was what was happening with Remy, too. She had been standoffish lately, even about the associate concertmaster slot. Nicholas thought she ought to try for it, if only to avoid a slump. The other night, after a performance, she told Nicholas she felt she had played lazily. “Well, maybe not lazily, but at one point I realized I was thinking about which soup I wanted to make tomorrow, trying to remember which ingredients we had in the fridge!” Laughing. “I used to try to always remember what Julian said, that the rehearsal
is
the performance. But you know, sometimes, when you're playing the
William Tell Overture
for the hundredth time, even the
performance
isn't the performance!”

She had laughed when she said it. But when Nicholas suggested she try for the upcoming open slot, Remy seemed bothered, pointed out that the work would remain basically the same.

It was true, Nicholas knew. Remy's work was physical, the constant wrist and neck injuries, and every summer the travel back and forth to Tanglewood, where they played outdoors whether it was forty degrees or ninety, and only the woodwinds were allotted space heaters (so that the wood of their cold instruments would not crack from their breath). Often Remy had to learn an entire symphony in just two or three rehearsals. “Anyway, lots of people have repetitious jobs,” she had added. “What matters is your attitude.” But Nicholas sometimes worried about Remy's attitude, her self-deprecation. “I'm just one fiddler among the many,” she had said at one point. Well, it was one way of looking at herself, a mere pat of color on the orchestral palette—but that did not diminish her importance. Not at all. She was a necessary and significant member of what Nicholas viewed as the greatest musical instrument of all: the symphony orchestra itself.

Back when he met her, she had been so determined. But it was hard to sustain that degree of commitment, he told himself now. Success demanded the proper mind-set, and if one hadn't the right attitude, well, even the most gifted musicians burned out. Like that girl Lynn, who had played first chair when Nicholas first arrived at the conservatory. Nicholas had looked for her to make waves as she matured, yet nothing seemed to have become of her. A few years ago he heard that she had abandoned music altogether and become a Graphoanalyst. Apparently she lived in Bali and had a job at a fancy resort, analyzing guests' handwriting.

The recollection of Lynn, and of Remy sitting next to her, her hair pulled up into a big curly tuft, blew through Nicholas.

Yank oot your orra boughs, my hert!

He pressed into the keyboard, a bright C major chord, that most simple and satisfying affirmation. The chord resounded, and gradually faded. Keep it simple, Nicholas told himself. That was what he usually did—what pleased him so elementally. Simple manipulations that created something new. Just keep it simple, the way you like to. . . . He knew that. He
knew
it. Why, then, did such a thing no longer seem possible?

HAZEL AWOKE EARLY THE NEXT
morning, feeling hungover, as if the previous night had been one of celebration rather than disaster. Heavily she made her way to the bathroom. It was as she washed her hands, when she happened to glance at herself in the mirror, that she saw the splotches. Three new ones, large as quarters, on the right side of her face.

Hazel dropped the soap, didn't even think to turn off the water as she leaned toward the mirror. She flicked on the vanity lights, to inspect the new pattern on her skin, while water fell uselessly from the tap. The spot below her eye looked like a fava bean. In the space that went from the side of her nose to the apple of her cheek there was the shape of an artist's palette. And above her jaw was a white crescent, a waning moon reclining on its back.