Night Music

by Jenn Marie Thorne

  “What?” I nearly whapped him, but stopped myself.

  “I was wrong! You’re all . . . human.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I did. And I liked it. And there was something about that one word, human, that leveled us out. I only wished it were that easy.

  Oscar’s phone rang from his pocket—a classical piece I didn’t recognize, overloaded with strings. Instead of answering the call, he texted with his thumb while we walked.

  “What was that ringtone?” I asked, the safest question.

  “Oh.” He glanced up, looking embarrassed. “It’s . . . um . . . Farzone?”

  I blinked. “Is that a composer?”

  He laughed, a sudden blast. “No. It’s a PlayStation game. It’s kind of old but my friend TJ is hardcore into it, so . . .”

  He held up his phone. It looked like it had been dropped on hard floors a few hundred times.

  I smiled. “Hi, TJ.”

  Oscar wiggled his phone like it was saying hi back. Then he pocketed it.

  “He, ah, calls a lot, on his headset thing . . . So, where are you taking me?”

  I skipped a little at the question. “Only to the best-reviewed patisserie on the Upper West Side.”

  He clapped, delighted. “That has got to be the whitest thing I’ve heard you say.”

  A laugh burst out of me. “What if I’d said ‘most exclusive’?”

  “Ooh, that’s whiter.”

  “‘Upper East Side . . .’”

  “Throw in something about how they sell treats for your goldendoodle—”

  “How did you know? We go there every week after Barkley’s massage!”

  “You win. Stop or my head will explode.”

  L’Orangerie was open until nine on Saturdays, so we made it by two minutes. The girl behind the counter avoided eye contact, clearing out the display counters, when the owner walked in from the back of the shop, polite-face curdling at the sight of us.

  Not us, exactly. She was squinting at Oscar. And my jokes about white people no longer seemed so funny.

  “Closed,” she said in her light Parisian accent. I gave a grudging wave and watched as recognition bloomed. “Oh! Yes, come in, we can serve one more.”

  “Two more,” I corrected.

  “How is your father? Please tell him I say hello.”

  I bit back a knee-jerk “I will” and turned away. I didn’t even know this woman’s name, just that with Mom gone, half the ladies-of-a-certain-age in Manhattan thought they had a shot with the Martin Chertok. But I didn’t like how it felt knowing that my face was what turned this woman’s expression into artificial sweetener, like we were in the same noxious club. I wouldn’t tell Dad a thing.

  Oscar was whistling Grieg, scrutinizing what remained in the display case. He glanced at me. I kept my eyes on the food. Tarte au citron, petit gateaux chocolate, a couple of sagging croissants, and—

  “Those fruit tarts, please!” I chirped to the shop girl, pointing into the glass. “And a lemonade.”

  “Two fruit tarts?” Oscar side-eyed me. “You mean business.”

  “One’s for you, you have to try it.”

  “Your face right now!” He laughed. “You’re taking this pastry thing seriously.”

  “I take everything seriously,” I said, but cracked a smile. “Get whatever else, it’s my treat.”

  “No, let me—”

  “I’ve got it.”

  I usually hated these arguments, but this one felt like a dance.

  “Okay.” He nudged me. “Next time.”

  I slid into an iron table on the sidewalk while Oscar finagled an elaborate macchiato drink with a heart-shaped swirl on the top—nothing compared to the glory of this tart. Round and creamy with pops of color, green, red, piercing blue.

  Across the table, Oscar tilted his back and forth.

  “I can get into French pastries. French entrées on the other hand . . .” He puffed his cheeks like he was going to be sick.

  “French food is amazing!”

  “I have sampled it firsthand, ma chérie,” he said. “I went to Paris with my school freshman year and the first night, we had this prepared menu at a corner bistro, all of us piled in—to this day I don’t know if we all caught a virus or if it was the soufflé we ate, but the hotel that night and the next two days . . . holy Lord above. Stuff of nightmares.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “It kind of bonded my class. We speak excellent French but none of us will ever eat anything Gallic again. Like . . . even the smell of thyme . . .” He raised the tart and looked at me over it. “This I can do. I’ve come so close to getting one of these at Whole Foods, but if I buy one, my mom’ll give me her four-hour Sugar Is a Drug speech. So how do you do it? Not a one-bite deal.”

  “Too big,” I agreed. “I have a method.”

  “I’m shocked.”

  I glared across the table. “Do you want to know? Or—”

  “Sorry! I do. Please . . .” He grinned. “Go ahead.”

  “The polite thing is probably to take dainty bites from the side, but I eat it”—I plucked a blueberry from the center to demonstrate—“one at a time.”

  The blueberry burst in my mouth, sour and tangy. Then the next blueberry and the third. Then I moved on to the strawberry, sweeter even than the custard, bright like sunshine. Then the kiwi, its faint grittiness tickling my teeth. The apple came next, thin sliced, flat against my tongue before that satisfying crunch. All that was left was that gorgeous piecrust and a generous layer of custard.

  I hesitated, but then . . . screw it.

  I closed my eyes and licked the custard out of the crust with the tip of my tongue, a spiral from the edge inward, until there was nothing left but to fold the tart in half and finish it off in two floury bites.

  Oscar let out a slow breath. “Damn.”

  He looked like he was taking mental photographs, locking me into his memory.

  “I’m going in. I’ll try it your way,” he said, closing his eyes and eating a single blueberry. “This is . . . an education.”

  “Happy to help.”

  I was happy. I felt new. Primary colored.

  He’d moved on to the strawberry, nodding thoughtfully as he tasted it. Wind swept down the avenue, touching awnings and café umbrellas and cars, whispering under the city din.

  I stretched my legs, hands resting on my happy stomach while I let my head loll back. It was easy to forget how three-dimensional the city was until you had the chance to sit and take it in. By day, the buildings looked like castle walls—now, with their windows lit gold, it felt like we were being cradled by stars.

  I glanced back at Oscar. He’d finished his tart and was looking at me like he’d been waiting to say something, trying to find the right words.

  “You really do . . . tackle things, don’t you?”

  Heat shot up from my ankles—but it didn’t sound like an accusation. More of a compliment. “I do. When they matter. The trick is finding something that matters.”

  “Like, say . . .” Oscar held up his empty paper wrapper. “Fruit tarts.”

  “Exactly. So what do you think? Worth it?” At his confused expression, I added, “Worth hearing your mom’s lecture, or—?”

  “She doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

  “No sugar? At all?”

  “Apart from national holidays? Nope.” He swirled his coffee. “Obviously, we eat what we want when she’s out of range, but . . . let’s just say we had a lot of kale growing up. Not greens. Kale.”

  “Kale’s okay!”

  “In extreme moderation.” He leaned back, stretching. “I don’t mean to act like she’s some tyrant. She’s a hospital administrator, so it’s more about ‘best practices.’ Li
ke, we were all born exactly two and a half years apart, because that’s supposed to be the best gap. I . . . don’t even want to think about how they managed that.”

  Like Leo and Win and Alice. Thirty-two, twenty-nine, twenty-six . . . then me, nine years later. Surprise!

  “She played Mozart for all of us in the womb to make us smart, that kind of thing.” Oscar sipped his coffee. He tilted it, offering me some.

  I swiped cinnamon off the foam with my pinkie. “Hasn’t that been debunked?”

  He pointed at me. “That’s what they say! I don’t know, though. We all came out sharp. I was the only one who started kicking every time she put on the Jupiter Symphony. Mom said we all liked it, but I seemed to recognize it.”

  The Jupiter Symphony played in my mind, grief rumbling under it like static.

  I smoothed my hair back. “So who is ‘we all’? What’s your sitcom cast?”

  He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Two sisters. One older, one younger.” Then he handed it across the table—a photo of two grinning girls piled onto a pink sofa. He leaned over to point, his face inches from mine. “Etta, Bri. They’re crazy, I love them a lot.”

  I peeked up at him. I loved my family but I never talked about loving my family. It wasn’t how we worked. And here was this boy, just throwing the word out there . . . love . . . so comfortably.

  “What’s your brother’s name, the older one?” he asked, leaning back to pocket his phone. “I can’t believe I’m blanking. He’s an amazing oboist . . .”

  “Leonard. Leo. He’s got two little kids, Aaron and Matilda, so I’m an aunt.” Sort of. I’d only met them once.

  “What about your mom?”

  My mouth went dry. I sipped my lemonade.

  “She’s touring, right? That’s what your dad said.”

  “Well, yeah.” I peered over at him, confused. “I mean, she’s not with Dad anymore. They split up last year. Amicable. Totally fine, no drama.”

  “That’s ideal.”

  “Yeah, it was really . . . evolved. They’re still friends, it’s just the way it is.”

  Another swig.

  Oscar smiled. “But she’s been on tour?”

  “Yeah! The last . . . eleven months? She’s doing great, getting tons of high-profile bookings, it’s awesome. You know, for so long it was all about Dad, and now her name is getting out there. I really admire that.”

  I finished off my lemonade and capped the bottle, turning it over in my hand.

  “Do you get to see her much?”

  “She’s taking a break soon. So. We’ll catch up then. I mean, it’s not like I’m five, right?”

  “No,” he said softly. “Well, I hope I get to meet her while I’m here. She’s an incredible artist.”

  I stood, jaw tight. “She is. You ready to—?”

  “Oh. Yes.” He tossed his trash into the bin by the door and followed me to the intersection.

  As he drew level, I glanced over at him and caught him staring. Instead of looking away, he shot me a brazen, single-dimpled grin, and it edged out all thoughts of my mother.

  We strolled around to the park, passing high-rises with their doormen waiting in pools of lobby light, carriages clip-clopping back to the park stables, taxis, vans, buses skidding past, taillights cutting a red streak through the darkness.

  Normal life, summer in the city. It had been here this whole time, year after year, and now I was in it.

  We looked at each other again, briefly this time, and our steps took on a different beat, like gravity wasn’t working as well as a second ago. Oscar started humming to the rhythm. I recognized the tune.

  “Is that something you’ve been working on?”

  “Yeah, I can’t . . .” He reached out, fighting with something invisible. “I can’t get rid of it, so I’m trying to figure it out.”

  “You act like you’ve got cholera.”

  “That’s what it feels like!” He walked backward to face me. “I’ve come down with a melody. But the only way to get rid of it is to make it music, find it friends.”

  “Friends?”

  “Harmony. You know, you have the theme . . . bah-dum-dum, deedly-dum. Dumdum.” He sang the tune—clumsily; thank God there was something he wasn’t good at—while clapping the rhythm like a dance. “And then you could do an undercurrent, vrum-vrum-vrum-vrum progression, a Haydn kind of deal. Or you could ornament it even more, like my boy Wolfgang. Undermine it, make it an abstraction, there’s a million ways you could go.”

  He fell silent.

  I glanced over. “Why are you looking at me?”

  “I want to know what you think!”

  I shrugged, laughing, but he still seemed to expect some insight. “You need to write what you want to write. There’s no, like, absolute correct answer.”

  “That’s what Marty—um, your dad says. I’ve got to find my own voice. I’ve kind of never thought of it that way. I was always playing around. It’s like, what are those people who write extra chapters of books online . . . ?”

  “Fan fiction?”

  “Yes! Bri’s into that. And it’s what I’ve always done—I write symphonies in the style of Mozart because I love Mozart symphonies and I want there to be more of them.”

  “There are forty-one!”

  “Fifty if you count mine.” He rubbed his palms together. “Fan composition. That’s my thing.”

  “Time. Out.” I stopped. “You’ve written nine symphonies. Full—?”

  “In the style of Mozart,” he corrected, walking backward again. “Couple of Beethoven symphonies, pieces for piano and violin—Chopin, Schumann, easy stuff—singspiels, a Joplin rag, a Strauss waltz . . .” He beamed. “That one was tough! You need a hook or it’s not danceable.”

  I was so thrown that it took me a second to realize we were back at the house. Half the lights were off upstairs. Win and Alice must have left already.

  “This was . . .” Oscar looked like he was searching for the right word, but gave up with an exhalation. He motioned to the basement apartment and I felt an almost physical tug toward it. “I’ve got this keyboard, that’s it, but I could play you some of the stuff I was working through last night . . .”

  “Oh.” I stepped back. “I’ve got an early morning. I’m going jogging. And . . .”

  And nothing.

  “Wow. Jogging.”

  “Yeah. Jogging? Running?” I leaned against the stoop rail. “Running. It’s new. We’ll see. But I’ve got to get out super—”

  “I should wind down too,” Oscar cut in.

  “Dad does like to work early, so . . .”

  “I have to rewire myself. I’m not great at sleeping when I’m supposed to be sleeping, working when I’m supposed to . . . you get it.”

  I did, sort of. I wondered how he got through high school, but if I asked him, it would extend tonight even further and I would absolutely find myself going downstairs and sitting on his dorm bed and . . . not . . . sleeping . . .

  “Good night,” I said, not firmly at all.

  He leaned in for a side-hug and . . . goodness. I could feel his hipbone slip perfectly against my own, the length of his rib cage running all the way up my torso, my face in line with his. When I inched away, I smelled boy—warm, salty, unfamiliar.

  “I’m gonna dream about that fruit tart.” He stepped away, eyes sparkling like he’d said something scandalous.

  I replayed it in my head all night long.

  8.

  all Jules said when she saw me on the sidewalk in the sickly pre-dawn light wearing the ridiculously short shorts and synthetic top I’d bought yesterday was, “Let’s go.”

  No “Hi.” No “Here are the basics of jogging technique.” No “I’m glad we have this chance to catch up.” She got going and I trailed her, frantic, like she’d stolen
my phone.

  “How long have you been with your boyfriend?” My voice was shrill from trying to keep it level as I ran, but I still felt a shiver of glee saying the word boyfriend. Like maybe, possibly, it could belong on my lips.

  Jules blinked hard at me. “What?”

  “Your . . . boyfriend?” I smiled, polite.

  It had become hard to smile, though, let alone talk. We’d crossed the road, onto the park paths where runners go and I was now one of them, and it had felt weird and loose and awkward at first, but now it was starting to hurt. My ankles were wobbling, my throat raw, and I could feel everything—knee joints, rib bones, the skin on my face. I’d run before, of course, in gym, but only the bare minimum, and I didn’t do sports, I did orchestra, used to, anyway, and this was a million times more excruciating because I was in public and trying to keep pace with Jules and she wasn’t even sweating yet.

  “If you want to catch up on all the time we’ve missed, that’s completely cool,” she huffed, in rhythm with her stride. “Just not . . . right . . . now . . .”

  “Right,” I said. “Good idea.” But my breath felt like lava, so it came out, “Gun . . . duh . . . I can’t.”

  I stopped. I had to. Spots were gathering.

  She glanced over her shoulder with a thumbs-up. “Good start!”

  I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic.

  Falling onto a park bench, I retied one squeaky new sneaker, tugged up the sock, and looked at my watch. It was 6:09. I’d been jogging for four minutes.

  The park felt weird this early in the morning, like if you weren’t exercising, you didn’t have permission to be here—until dawn, it belonged to animals and homeless New Yorkers. Right on cue, I looked at the treetops and saw a hawk swoop by on his way to his aerie in one of the high-rises bordering the park, the luxury apartment buildings where Sarahs and Lydias and Noras lived.

  What did that hawk do all day? Did he have a mate? What was my squirrel up to? Were they mulling their destinies, their talent, their impact, or were they just watching the sunrise?

  What was Oscar—?