Night Music

by Jenn Marie Thorne

  DIAL BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  Copyright © 2019 by Jenn Marie Thorne

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Visit us online at penguinrandomhouse.com

  ISBN 9780735228795

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,. places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  In memory of Edward Kraeder

  1.

  a stranger was playing my piano. My piano, untouched for months, purring under his fingers like a stray cat. More than purring . . . singing, leaping, laughing, dying, all in the time it took me to stumble-run downstairs.

  I stared into the dusty living room from the bottom step, not trusting my eyes—my ears even less. But there he was, half standing while he played, one knee on the bench, like this was a quick errand he’d needed to run.

  A boy. Tall, lean, angular, skin rich brown, hair a supernova of spirals backlit by afternoon sun.

  I couldn’t see his fingers, but I could feel them skipping over the keys, tiny pings in my chest, arms, spine. So many notes. It was contrapuntal, insanely complex, cogs and gears—which piece? I couldn’t pick out the key, let alone the composer, but here he was, commanding my piano, smiling at some private joke. He wasn’t even looking at the keyboard as he played.

  He was staring at me.

  “Do you like it?” he called.

  Was this a hallucination? A musical one?

  “You play really well,” I got out.

  Nobody was supposed to touch my piano. Not me, not anybody. Not anymore.

  Not a stranger in my house.

  He was still going—softly now, relentless, the key shifting. “But the piece?”

  My eyes darted to our tall many-paned windows, the big oak doors—open to the stoop. How had he gotten in? “I—I’m trying to figure out what it is. I know it’s Bach, but . . .”

  He hopped with delight, not missing a single note. “Not Bach. But oh my God, that you thought so . . .”

  He grinned, so relaxed and weirdly familiar that everything seemed to readjust like it does in a dream, making me wonder if he lived here and I was visiting. He had a single dimple, an easy smile—what was happening?

  Chatter from West Seventy-first Street filtered into the living room and away. I took a step closer. A better look.

  My age—seventeen, eighteen?—dressed like an August issue of GQ. Short-sleeved striped button-down, royal-blue bow tie, neatly pressed chinos, a canvas belt. He was definitely real. Hyperreal.

  This couldn’t be an intervention. Nobody could have been tone-deaf enough to send a brilliant pianist here to tempt me to change my mind. Could he be some stalker fan of Dad’s or Mom’s, or Win’s or—was it pure coincidence? Had I just . . . left the door open behind me and he’d seen the piano? Or, or, or . . .

  My staring must finally have gotten to him, because he bobbled the first note in twelve thousand. He took his hands off the keyboard, a magician before the reveal.

  “Want another try?” His bright eyes locked on mine.

  I didn’t. I didn’t want to talk about music at all. But I didn’t want to lose whatever game this was either.

  “Frescobaldi.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Damn, going for the deep cuts.” Then he rubbed his cheek, relaxing his shoulders, falling marginally mortal. “It’s Bell.”

  “Bell?” I eyed him warily. “Elizabeth? Or . . . it really doesn’t sound like Iain Be—”

  “Oscar Bell.” He closed the distance, extending his hand. “Nice to—”

  I edged away. “You composed that.”

  He shrugged. Cocky.

  “That’s your fugue.” A snort burst out of me. “Okay.”

  “I could sketch it out for you.” He glanced around, miming scribbling. “I should start writing this shit down anyway.”

  Before he even finished saying it, his knee was back on the bench, fingers back on the keys, repeating the first movement, adding another voice, another and another as if it were as simple as breathing.

  I didn’t realize I’d been backing up until I hit Mom’s Steinway across the room. I flinched away like her piano was a hot pipe. “You couldn’t have improvised that. There’s no—”

  “Course not.” His eyes danced up to meet mine, teasing. “I came up with it on the ride over.”

  Now that I looked out through the front bay windows, I saw an SUV taxi idling at the curb, back hatch open.

  “Sorry if I surprised you.” The boy’s voice dropped into a different register. “Mr.—uh, Marty just said to come say hi to Ruby.”

  I closed my eyes, letting out a slow breath. He knew Dad. Of course.

  “I’m hoping you’re Ruby? But right now I’m thinking you’re not.”

  “What? I’m her. Me,” I said as Dad’s voice bellowed from the street, “Carry it down there and put it by the door, that’s good!”

  This guy—“it’s Bell”—was still staring at me.

  I shrugged, flustered. “Why wouldn’t I be Ruby?”

  “I don’t know. You seem older, so I thought maybe you were another of his students. And . . .”

  Another of his students? Since when did Dad have his own students?

  “The way he talked about you—I thought you’d be short?”

  I let out a startled laugh, then glanced down. All five foot eight of me was draped in black—black ballet flats, black yoga pants, blac
k sleep top, black cardigan, its black sleeves covering my hands to the fingertips. With my pasty face and long dark hair frizzing loose, I must have looked like something out of a micro-budget horror movie.

  But Oscar extended his hand again. “Sorry. Let’s . . . I mean—I’m Oscar Bell. Nice to meet you.”

  “Ruby. Chertok,” I said, sliding my palm into his. “Pleasure to . . . um . . .”

  He smiled, lips parted as if he wanted to finish my sentence for me. His hand was sturdier than most pianists’—warm and smooth, except for his rough fingertips.

  “You’ve met! Fantastic!” Dad filled the doorway, six foot two, wild white hair, pink forehead, nose, cheeks, gray beard, arms and legs and trunk like an oak. He strode forward with his hands out and I thought for a second he wanted a hug before he zigged left and clapped Oscar on the shoulders. “This is our prodigy.”

  “Ah, I don’t know about that.” Oscar looked at the floor—smiling.

  He knew about that. He knew all about that.

  “Found him on YouTube,” Dad said, leaning against Mom’s piano like it didn’t burn his skin at all. “Can you believe it? I love the Internet, love it.”

  Outside, the scrawniest kids I’d ever seen were lugging furniture into our basement apartment from the trunks of what now looked to be a line of taxis. A desk, twin bed, chair, low bookshelf, all of it the same dorm-room pine.

  Dad laughed. “What are the odds of somebody like you going to the same school as Nora Visser’s niece?”

  Oscar’s body wavered like a struck string.

  Dad whapped him. “A once in a lifetime musical prodigy with a family connection to our board chair! Uncanny.”

  “Yes! I mean, thank you.” Oscar beamed back, height restored. “But yeah, pretty wild.”

  I tapped the window. “Dad, are those Amberley kids? Why are they—what’s with the bed?”

  Dad glanced over his shoulder. “They’re moving Oscar in. I found them lazing around the common room and they volunteered to help.”

  Of course they did. They’d go dumpster diving if the great Martin Chertok asked them to.

  Then I turned. “Wait—what? Moving Oscar . . . ?”

  “He’ll stay in the basement apartment this summer. The dorms were full and we’re between tenants—it’s kismet!”

  We’d been “between tenants” for eight years, since my brother Leo got his spot with the Boston Symphony. We stored our luggage down there now. And here it was, coming back up the stone steps, one empty roller bag at a time being hauled by a bespectacled teenager wearing a T-shirt that said: Oboe You Di’int.

  “Thank you again for this, sir.” Oscar’s voice was suddenly neutral, the light drawl I’d noticed gone. “I’m so honored to have the chance to study with you. The New City Symphony completely changed my—”

  “The honor’s mine.” Dad waved away the compliment, turning so that all I could see was his wall of a back. “I love new talent, it’s what keeps me going.” He pointed to the piano. “What was it I heard you playing a second ago?”

  “What we were talking about in the car,” Oscar said, scratching his hair so it bent like a crown and sprang back up. “The baroqueness of the bridge, you know? I wanted to try it out.”

  The baroqueness. Of the bridge.

  Oscar traced the keys and then started the melody again, lightly, carelessly. Perfectly.

  Even without seeing Dad’s face, I could sense the reverence on it. He tapped the piano lid. “This is going to be a good summer.”

  This summer. In my house. The summer I was supposed to find solace, clarity, a series of days that had nothing to do with music.

  Mr. Prodigy—Oscar—was still playing, oblivious to all damage. His song surrounded me, a trap, one strand slipping around the other—

  I was in motion. To the coat-tree. The porcelain key bowl. Bag, keys, ponytail holder into hair, me into the sweltering street. The music trailed me out, Oscar Bell’s voice following after.

  “Oh. Hey, sorry if . . . It was nice to meet you, Ruby!”

  Never missing a note.

  2.

  behind me, I heard Amberley students arguing over which way to tilt the bed through our basement door—the city din, the slam of the back of a delivery truck, a distant jackhammer, none of it enough to drown out the sound of my piano—until I reached the stoop two buildings down, where a blond girl in running gear was tying her sneaker, screaming into her cell phone.

  “That’s how you want to do this? Really? I don’t know, you could be supportive?”

  For the first time, I glanced back. Not because Julie Russo was yelling. Because she was wearing running gear.

  Her eyes drifted to mine. She blinked slowly, a challenge, just as Dad stepped back onto the street behind me, shaking hands with the Amberley kids—all those brilliant musicians hauling dorm furniture, what a travesty—and I had to walk faster.

  I could go to the courtyard. God knew it was quiet. But I didn’t want to pollute it with how I felt right now.

  Central Park swayed across the street, a border to cross. I sprinted through the crosswalk as the light stopped flashing, then past a watercolorist’s easel, a pretzel stand, a busker playing the flute, “Danse de la Chèvre,” so clear, I could practically feel ice crunching on grass, wind surging down—

  I kept going until I couldn’t hear the flute anymore. Just bikes ticking along the path behind me. Ducks squabbling on the lake. My wool cardigan, hot. Itchy.

  I found a bench and sat, watching the world spin on.

  Was this the plan? No, it was not.

  Dad was supposed to be doing his “in residence” thing, presiding over the Amberley School of Music’s prestigious teen summer program, preparing the upcoming Met season, being the human mascot for Lincoln Center. I was supposed to cover the pianos in our living room with tasteful dust sheets, enjoy the silence, smother every mope, hide from prying questions, take the opportunity to . . .

  To . . .

  No idea.

  When I reached the shadow-dappled edge of the park again, the honk-clamor-shriek of Central Park West splashed me like a puddle. I checked my phone for the time.

  4:07. Still a few hours left in the day to accomplish . . . something?

  A taxi stopped a few feet ahead and a petite forty-something stepped out, sunglasses sliding low as if to avoid detection. The sun reflected off a high-rise window like an arrow onto her copper bob.

  “Nora?” My step slowed. She didn’t hear me.

  Nora Visser, Amberley’s board chair. Family friend since before forever. My godmother. Not a musical genius—she just had this weird gift for living. She could trip over a curb and make it look like the happiest thing that had ever happened. And here she was, stumbling onto the same stretch of concrete as me while the taxi she was in sped away with someone else still sitting in the back.

  I felt like a sailor spotting land. “Nora!”

  She turned—and the look on her face made me wish she hadn’t. Her first reaction was close to horror, such an alien expression that I thought for a second I’d confused her for someone else. But I stepped back, and there she was again, the real Nora, tickled to confetti bits to see me.

  “Ruby!” Nora extended her arms like a net and I walked in, noticing as I did how flushed her cheeks were. “You have just made my day, I can’t even tell you!”

  “What are you doing here?” By here, I really meant the taxi. Nora never took cabs.

  “Oh, lord . . .” She shook her cell phone like she was trying to strangle it. “One appointment to the next. You know how I am, I overbook. I just can’t seem to say no! How are you, sweetheart?”

  She adjusted a frizz of my hair, and something about the small touch made my eyes go tingly.

  I smiled to cover. “Good. Great! What’s next, then?”

  “Oh!” She slumpe
d daintily. “A reception for the Central Park Conservancy. A tea . . . sort of . . . thing?”

  “Tea sounds nice,” I said, mostly to unfrazzle her.

  “Would you like to come?” The instant she said it, I knew that it was a formality, the done thing, but—

  “I’d love to!” My skin went from hot to scalding. Taking someone up on an empty invitation was the opposite of the done thing. Even so, I wanted it. Tea. Park. Distraction. “Would you mind?”

  “Oh my goodness, please do!” Nora squeezed both my hands and bounced on her low heels. “You would be saving me.”

  I laughed. “From what?”

  “Boredom!” Her eyes flitted to my all-black outfit, smile unwavering.

  “Oh. When does it start? Do I have time to—?”

  “Absolutely!” She swiveled toward my block. “We’re close, and it’s a pop-in kind of thing . . .”

  We linked arms and hurried to the crosswalk.

  “Don’t you dare spruce too much. A light dress is fine, especially in this heat. How is it July already? You don’t even need any makeup. You’re just”—Nora framed my face with her hands, eyes proud, like she’d painted me—“charmed!”

  Charmed. That wasn’t a word I heard much, especially from someone as sparkly as Nora. I was stupidly pleased by the compliment.

  We got to the stoop and I found to my relief that all the Amberley students had disappeared back through their prodigy portals. The front room was silent, but I could hear Dad pacing the floor up in his study.

  “I won’t be long,” I called over my shoulder.

  “No rush!” Nora was already absorbed in her cell phone, pushing buttons with the tip of one finger like she wasn’t sure how to work it.

  I took the stairs to my fourth-floor bedroom two at a time, passing dusty-framed black-and-white photos—a recent pic of Alice playing the viola, Win at the podium, Leo with his oboe, me at ten holding that ridiculous piccolo.

  Then I confronted my closet, every hanging garment blurring into a smear.

  Dress. A light dress.

  I pictured Nora’s outfit—knee-length pink and orange, heels—and picked the most similar dress I could find—pale blue, starchy. I hadn’t worn it for a few years. It was tight against my armpits, shorter than I remembered, but whatever, it would work.