Night Music

by Jenn Marie Thorne

  “It’s pretty physical,” Oscar answered. “I’m more . . .” He gestured to his heart. “But I like it.”

  I nodded. “Jazz probably makes more sense if you’ve been drinking!”

  Alice slid her glass away from me.

  Daniel turned to Oscar. “You ever think about doing a school visit? Mine’s an experimental charter, so we run through the summer.”

  “He never gets a break,” Alice said, making it sound like a compliment.

  Daniel held her hand as he went on. “I gotta tell you, the kids are fantastic and music is a big focus for them. I think they’d love to hear from somebody who—you know, looks like them, who’s on his way up . . .”

  I glanced at Oscar, worried at that echo of Nancy’s words, but his expression was thoughtful. Open. Maybe because this offer was coming from Danny, a teacher, last name Ruiz—not some clueless white guy.

  “Things are hectic right this second,” Oscar said. “But that’d be amazing. Yeah. What dates are you thinking?”

  They started talking details.

  I turned to whisper into Alice’s ear. “So you’re out and about.”

  “Yes? And?” Her face remained placid, locked on the stage.

  “Did you bring your viola? So you could practice in the ladies’ room?”

  She whapped me. “No, I did not. In fact . . .” She glanced around like there were spies everywhere, then leaned in to whisper. “I’m considering a break.”

  “A tropical vacation?”

  “No.” She paused, then sipped her bourbon—Alice was drinking bourbon!—and said, “Longer.”

  The piano took the solo line and my mind drifted with it, reeling.

  Alice. Planning a break from music. Drinking bourbon. Dating teachers. Looking happier than I’d ever seen her.

  Oscar. Tapping the table along with the music. Crackling and alive. Back to himself.

  The world was wild and chaotic and bursting with possibility, for Alice and for Oscar, and maybe even for me?

  The musicians on stage pulsed on, playing notes that sounded like yes, yes, yes.

  30.

  odile Michaud lived across the park in an Upper East Side luxury apartment building, as befit a legendary opera doyenne in repose. I’d met her a few times over the years, but checking in with her doorman and riding the mirror-paneled elevator up to her suite made my skin go prickly.

  As I hesitated in the hall, I reached for my cell phone to turn it off. Then, my nerves already firing at level ten, I quickly clicked to Mom’s number and shot off a text. My first attempt at contact in months.

  I’m about to have a voice lesson with Odile Michaud!

  Then I turned my phone off, pocketed it gingerly like a live grenade, and knocked on the door.

  Odile took a long time to answer, but as soon as the door swung open, she leaned in to kiss my cheeks.

  “My goodness, you are a woman now.” She walked away, motioning me to follow.

  I peeked at doorways we passed, a small kitchen, a dusty sitting room piled with books, until we reached a dim living room with a piano filling half the space, a faded velvet sofa taking up most of the rest. A white Persian cat was asleep, purring loudly. He opened his eyes when I walked past, then shut them again as if unimpressed.

  The whole place smelled like potpourri. Nobody else seemed to live here. I wondered what her life must be like.

  She sat on the piano bench, her thick pearl necklace clattering against her silk blouse. “I did not know you were a singer, Ruby.”

  “Well, I hope I am.”

  She pointed a bent finger at me. “That is a good answer. Let’s find out.”

  I’d prepared a simple aria from Don Giovanni that I’d heard a gazillion times, watching from my child-of-the-conductor seat in the pit. But Odile started me on scales and warmups.

  “Hmmm,” she hummed, between each one. Then, after a series of arpeggios, she stood. “How long have you been singing, darling?”

  “Forever, on my own. This is the first time I’ve—oh.”

  She was touching my stomach, the way Liz had. “Let’s work on your breathing.”

  We sang through some exercises together, her fingers pushing my abdomen, her own voice ringing out through the parlor with astonishing power.

  Then she walked away. “Yes. Right.”

  Her eyes crinkled as she looked at me.

  “I brought a song,” I said, to fill the sudden silence. “Um . . . ‘Vedrai Carino’?”

  “Non. Deceptive, that piece, although the range is certainly . . . hmm. I think this is a good start. I’ll give you exercises to work on at home and we’ll take it from there.”

  “So . . .” I clenched my toes, gathering courage as she led me to the door. “Am I a singer?”

  Her mouth fell open, then she smiled. “You are a Chertok. You have that drive to succeed, I can see that in you. Tell your papa we’ve made a good start.”

  “Thank you!” I grinned, then blurted, “Merci,” like a goon, and she gave a grandmotherly wave as she slid the door shut, the click-click of locks following after.

  On the elevator ride down, I turned my phone back on.

  Mom had written back. That’s fantastic, sweetheart, let me know how it goes!

  I reread her text three times on the bus ride home. And I pictured myself on the stage of the Met, singing Pamina, Susanna, Mimi to rapturous applause. I wouldn’t be making the river flow, I would be the water itself, story and song swirling into one.

  It was better than any daydream I’d ever had before.

  When I got back, Oscar was up at my house, eating cereal at the dining room table at four p.m. I glanced around to see if we were alone, then bent to kiss him. He pecked back, chewing, eyes locked on the bowl.

  “You okay?” I asked, my mood starting to fizzle.

  He nodded upstairs. “I had an argument with your dad. He’s gone now . . .”

  “What?” I sat. This was a first. “Why?”

  “Well, it started because the BBC included the Summer Symphony in a round-up of pieces debuting this season . . .”

  The BBC. Good lord. They knew about him in England.

  “A quick mention, which is great, it’s amazing, but . . .” Oscar rubbed the bridge of his nose. “They called it jazz-infused. ‘Rising prodigy Oscar Bell’s jazz-infused Summer Symphony, Amberley’s Lilly Hall’, etcetera. I . . .” He exhaled loudly, shoving the spoon so it sloshed the leftover milk. “I’m getting pretty fucking sick of this.”

  I touched the band of his wristwatch carefully. “Sick of what?”

  “You don’t see it.”

  “Well . . .” I scratched my forehead. “Your piece is not jazz-infused.”

  “Thank you!” He stood and paced in a circle. “Marty was trying to tell me it was.”

  “What?” That surprised me. “The second movement.”

  “Yes.” He leaned against the back of a chair, watching me.

  “That’s bachata. I wouldn’t say that’s the same thing at all . . .”

  “Yeah, but here’s the clincher.” He sat on the edge of the table. “The BBC hasn’t heard a note of this symphony. Nobody has! Either they were guessing or that’s the language from the press release Amberley sent out.”

  “But why jazz? That’s so . . .” My body went stiff with the realization.

  “And your dad . . . I love your dad, I do, but he started going on about Ravel and Copland, Gershwin, Bernstein—all these white guys who were influenced by jazz, like that’s supposed to negate this. I just . . .”

  “Ugh. I’m sorry.”

  “You seem happy.” His mouth smiled but his eyes didn’t. He looked tired. “I don’t want to spoil it.”

  I pulled myself up to foist a kiss on him. “No, you should talk about this stuff with me. I always wan
t to know what’s going on with you.”

  “I . . . yeah. Thank you.” He took my outstretched hand and ran his fingers along it. “So where you been?”

  “At a voice lesson.” My body jolted with the thrill of announcing it. “My first one ever.”

  Oscar jolted too, a malfunction blink that his eyes took a second to open from. “As in . . . singing?”

  “Yeah!” I walked into the kitchen, searching for a snack. “I’m finally getting the message that the universe is sending me. Took me long enough, right?”

  I dug into a bag of wasabi trail mix.

  “I mean, Mom always said I was a singer, and now Nora and you—maybe this is what I’ve been looking for. It’s August, right? Just in time to apply to conservatories! I don’t know . . .” I pulled myself onto the counter. “I think this might be my career.”

  I popped a spicy pea into my mouth and turned to see Oscar staring at me with thick confusion pooling in his eyes. He was tired.

  “Career?” he asked. “Like . . . opera?”

  “No. Pop. I’m gonna be the next Taylor Swift.”

  “Oh!” He brightened.

  I threw a pea at him. “I’m kidding! Of course classical. This is home for me. Always will be.”

  I breathed the townhouse in, dust and books and music.

  The front door jangled open and Dad strode through.

  I stood quickly, hoping to defuse whatever tension lingered between them with my own good news. “Hey Dad, guess who I just saw.”

  He blinked between us. “The Dalai Lama.”

  I laughed. “No. Odile Michaud.”

  “Oh! You ran into her?”

  “I had a lesson!”

  “A singing lesson?” Dad grinned, squinting at me. “What for?”

  My own smile faltered. “Um.”

  “For Oscar’s piece? Ah, right, Nora told me she’d roped you in. Listen, sweetie, don’t worry about that. Nobody’s gonna hear you up there, you’ve got real singers drowning you out and your pitch is fine. Just show up and have a good time!” He bustled up the stairs to his office, shouting, “Give me fifteen minutes, Oscar, and I’ll be ready to hear the new stuff!”

  “Yep,” Oscar called, his eyes locked on mine, melting with . . . no. With sympathy. With not knowing what to say.

  My hands started to shake.

  I put down the bag of trail mix. “Tell me. The truth.”

  “I’m one person, Ruby . . .”

  “Tell me.”

  He sat and hung his head.

  I started to disintegrate. “You said my voice was the one you heard.”

  “It is.” He gripped his knees, peering up at me. “It always will be.”

  “But—”

  “It’s a sweet voice, Ruby. Your dad’s right, you have good pitch, but in terms of professional—”

  “Holy shit.” I couldn’t listen anymore. I hurried up the stairs, Oscar bolting after me.

  “Ruby, listen!” He grabbed my arm. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes—”

  “Nope, no big deal, I don’t have any hopes to get up!” I wiggled away and kept climbing without looking at him. “I already knew, I already . . .” I swallowed down something sharp. “I’m not Florence Foster Jenkins, okay? I just daydreamed. For two seconds and I shouldn’t have and—I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re not fine.”

  Somehow, him saying it made it true—made every dark thought I’d been shelving for later perusal tumble around me, papers flying, ground giving way.

  “I . . .” I spun around, laughing wildly. “I don’t know what you see in me. We are not equals. I am at a serious disadvantage in terms of what I offer to the universe. And I’m counting down the hours until you figure out how pointless I am and move on. But it’s fine—when that happens, I’ll be fine!”

  “What?” He reached out for me. “Ruby, you’re being crazy.”

  “Oh, now I’m crazy too! Ha-ha, awesome, yay.”

  I took the last flight two steps at a time and shut my bedroom door and sat at the foot of my bed and took a few breaths—from the diaphragm, whoopee—and here it came. Tears. I’d cried in the lead-up to my Amberley audition, little jags of stress and worry and frustration—but not afterward. Not once I knew. I’d thought I was strong, but I must have been storing the tears up for months, because now they were spilling down my cheeks in great, hot gushes. They left me drained, like I was bleeding out. It was too much, too all at once.

  Stop crying. Stop!

  “Ruby?” Oscar murmured from the other side of the door. “You can be an opera singer if that’s what you want to be. I’ll support you one hundred percent. You can do anything you . . .”

  Boyfriend-talk. He sounded like he was reading out something he’d found on the Internet. It didn’t mean anything. I knew now, I knew. I just didn’t know how I could have been so stupid. So recklessly hopeful.

  I’d been doing it all my life, though, hadn’t I? When I’d asked Mom if she thought I was good and she’d said that good was an unhelpful term and I hadn’t pressed her further. When I’d asked Dad why he didn’t want me to enter competitions yet, and he’d said I should wait until I was older so I could make a big splash, never mind that Alice had been competing internationally since she was eight. When Mrs. Swenson said how much she enjoyed our lessons and I’d thought she meant it as a reflection on my playing rather than my company. I was brilliant. Or I was going to be, any day now.

  I’d never wanted to know.

  I bit the heel of my hand so Oscar couldn’t hear me crying. So I couldn’t either. After a minute, my dad’s voice shouted from his study and I heard Oscar trudging away and the door downstairs creaking shut behind him. And then the music. His goddamned taunting music.

  Even through the blanket I shoved over my head, I could tell Oscar was off today. And still a million times better than I would ever be.

  They’d ended early. I peeked out my window to see him walking around the stoop to his apartment, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked up to my window.

  I ducked away. Sat on the bed.

  Then a giant’s thudding steps sounded on the stairwell, followed by three great knocks on my door.

  “Ruby,” Dad said. “It’s time we had a talk.”

  31.

  dad sat on the corner of my bed while I crawled up to make a nest of pillows, wondering how long it had been since he’d been in this room. Years, maybe.

  Besides me and our old housekeeper, the last person to set foot inside was Mom. She’d sat next to me right here, languid and soft and warm, playing with my hair, comparing toes, before getting into it. We’d already had the “this is an amicable divorce, nothing needs to change” chat with Dad in the kitchen the week prior, and this had been the follow-up—the “I want to talk you through my tour dates” conversation. I’d been stoic even as she flipped to a new month, and another, and another. I’d told her how exciting it was.

  Now, wiping my eyes dry only to have them fill back up again, I wondered what might have happened if I’d cried then like I wanted to. Would it have changed anything? Would she have cared enough to stay?

  “Honey.” Dad rubbed his beard. “I try my very best not to dictate what you do with your life. If you want it, my job is to give it to you, period. But this isn’t a good idea. And I think you know it.”

  “Yeah.” My voice came out like a kid’s. I pressed my lips together to keep from tipping into sobbing. “I’m not a singer, I was being stupid. I don’t know.”

  Dad’s brow creased. “Not the . . . if you want to sing, you should sing. Christ, Odile’s not cheap, but I’m happy to pay for lessons if that’s what you want to do. No. Ruby. I’m talking about Oscar.”

  My arms went cold. I reached out to flip off the AC and picked up a pillow to hug. “What about him?”

&nb
sp; Dad cleared his throat. “I want you to give him a wide berth.”

  “You’re . . .” I clutched the pillow. “Wait, is . . . ?”

  My mind swam between visions of Nora and her sister debating my usefulness and Dad’s face, closing off, when Oscar asked for his blessing. The way he’d been avoiding looking at me all summer.

  Dad raised a hand. “Maybe in another life, another time, the two of you would make sense, but this is—”

  “Another time? This is the twenty-first century, Dad. And we’re us! Progressives, smart.” I stood from the bed, pressing the glass of the window. “I cannot believe you’re saying this!”

  “You’re not listening, Ruby.” He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m not such a wordsmith, as you know, so I’m going to be a blunt instrument here. I don’t think you’re what he needs right now.”

  “What he needs.” I could only dully repeat his words as they fluttered around in my head. Oh.

  Oh.

  “This is his shot, Ruby. This summer, this school—everything is conspiring to give him a launch pad into an incredible career. I believe in Oscar like I’ve never believed in a student before. He’s the real deal, but this”—Dad motioned to me with both hands, sketching the general shape of a girl—“isn’t helping.”

  “I’m not distracting him,” I croaked.

  “You say that.”

  “I’m not. I’m not pulling focus, I’m not doing anything but supporting him.”

  A chill shot through me, like I’d confessed something deeply incriminating.

  Dad gestured to my face. “And look how happy you are about it.”

  Another goddamned tear slipped out.

  Dad scooted over to wipe it off, but I flinched. Undeterred, he leaned forward and wrapped me in a hug. I was angry, I wanted to wiggle loose, but it had been so long since he’d held me like this, a real squeeze. I’d missed it—his scratchy beard, his musty vest, the way the world seemed like a diorama that just belonged to the both of us: Marty Chertok and Daughter at Home.

  “Listen, I’m not asking you to make a hard-and-fast decision,” he murmured, patting my hair smooth. “But I have a suggestion.”