The Lucy Variations

by Sara Zarr

  Lucy texted a quick yes and put down her phone.

  “Pretty quick on the draw, there, cowgirl,” Carson said.

  “Yeah,” Reyna said, “who was that? All your friends are right here.”

  She looked at them, considering if and what to share. “Will.”

  In unison they asked, “Who?”

  “My brother’s new teacher.”

  “The cute-not-cute guy?” Carson asked.

  “Who you might meet on Thursday,” she told Reyna. “Gus is inviting him. And his wife.”

  “Soooo,” Carson said, rubbing his chin, “silly question – why are you guys texting?”

  Lucy shrugged. “Just setting up a time to talk.”

  “About what?” Reyna asked.

  “I…” He was going to listen to her. That’s all she was certain of so far. After that, who knew what she’d decide about piano? She wasn’t ready to attempt an explanation of what she wasn’t sure of. “A surprise for Gus.”

  Reyna dropped it, but when they drove to CC’s after school for coffee to go, she brought it up again. “So the cute, young piano teacher is texting you. Tell me more about that.”

  She made it sound…creepy. “You said yourself he’s not that cute or young.”

  “Young biedp " aly your standards. So he’s married?”

  “Reyna, I’m not—”

  “Crap. There’s no parking. You run in; I’ll drive around the block a few times.”

  Lucy got their coffee and stood on the street waiting for Reyna to come back. It was colder out than she’d expected. Thanksgiving this week. Christmas after that. Then the long stretch of January and February. She wondered what her life would look like by then.

  Reyna’s car pulled up, and as soon as Lucy got in, Reyna said, “I’m just saying remember that teacher at Parker Day who got fired for texting with students?”

  “He’s sent me one text.”

  “…And you should see the records of my dad’s texts that my mom’s lawyer got.”

  “Okay, stop. Seriously. One, he’s not my teacher. Two: gross. Three…can we talk about something else?”

  “Yes. If you promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “Reyna!”

  “I mean with your heart, okay?” She glanced at Lucy. “I know you. Now talk about whatever you want.”

  Lucy tried to think of a new subject. She wished she hadn’t mentioned Will, not yet. She wound up telling Reyna that even though she was looking forward to her mom and grandpa being gone for the holiday, she also wished she could be there for her grandmother’s memorial in Germany, and the spreading of the ashes.

  “Hm,” Reyna said, handing her coffee to Lucy while she made a left turn. “Do you think your grandpa would, like, notice if there were a few ashes missing? Like, I don’t know, half a cup?”

  Lucy, catching up, turned to Reyna. “I don’t know…do you think?”

  “I wouldn’t notice, if I were him.” She took her coffee back. “Or you could just ask him. Maybe he’d give you some.”

  “No. He’d be offended and appalled and make me feel like a sociopath for even thinking it.” It might hurt him, too, to think about dividing up Grandma’s body that way, even though it had already been reduced to so little. “Plus it would require actually talking about Grandma’s death. It’s not our family’s favourite subject.”

  “Right. You have to steal them.” When they got to the house, she asked, “You’re totally sure about Thanksgiving? It’s okay for us to come?”

  “Totally sure.”

  “Love you, Luce. I don’t know how I’d be getting through this divorce stuff without you.” They hugged, and Reyna asked, “What are we going to do with them? The ashes?”

  “We?” Lucy laughed.

  “Obviously. It was my idea!”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe spread them at Seal Rock or something?” Every year for Lucy’s birthday, her grandma had taken her to the Cliff House for dinner, and afterwards they’d stand at the cement wall and watch and listen to the waves. “But maybe I want to keep some. I don’t know.”

  “Then don’t skimp when you have your moment. Get a nice big scoop.”

  Martin stood over the dishwasher, unloading and polishing and putting away dputhen you hishes. “Hey, doll,” he said.

  Lucy put her bag on the island. “Are there any of those brownies left?” Martin gestured to a plastic container on top of the fridge. She took it down, removed two brownies, and put it back. “What do you drink with vegan brownies instead of milk?”

  “I shudder to think.”

  She poured herself milk and sat at the island. “Can I tell you a secret?” He would understand about her grandmother’s ashes. He’d loved her at least as much as Lucy had.

  “Not if it’s going to get me in trouble later.” Martin closed the dishwasher, then wiped out the sink and ran the disposal.

  When the grinding stopped, Lucy said, “Never mind. I’ll tell you after it’s too late to stop me.”

  “I appreciate that. Anything you need before I take off?”

  She shook her head and watched him roll down his sleeves, put his watch back on, and take off his black apron and hang it on the pantry hook. They said goodbye and Lucy sat still, feeling herself there, in her kitchen, the sweetness of the brownie on her tongue, the cold milk glass in her hand.

  These little things, even, were a kind of beauty.

  She held them close.

  It was difficult to wait until Tuesday afternoon to talk to Will. She nearly texted him Monday night to see if he could talk then but stopped herself, picturing Carson’s and Reyna’s faces if they could see her.

  When she got home, she bolted into the house and went straight to the piano room, where Will and Gus were working. She paused just outside, listening.

  “…hear that odd repeated note?” Will asked. “It’s a striking thing about the theme, right?”

  “Sometimes I can’t hear it,” Gus confessed.

  She shouldn’t barge in.

  “That’s because you’re getting too caught up in the measure-to-measure stuff. Let yourself mess up a little on that and listen for the big picture. You want a map of the piece in your head, but don’t think about it step-by-step. Here.”

  Unable to wait any longer, she burst into the room. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  Gus stopped playing. Will, leaning on the piano, smiled. “You can interrupt any time.” He wore black jeans and sneakers, a chocolate-brown hooded sweater. He had really good style. Casual but classy.

  Gus slid off the bench and came over to her, making fake punches in her general vicinity. “Wii boxing. Let’s go.”

  She put her hand on his forehead while he threw fists at the air, giggling. She caught Will’s eye and they both laughed. “I want to talk to Will for a minute.”

  Gus let his arms drop to his sides. “Why?”

  “Just because.”

  “You can go box or take a quick run,” Will said to Gus. “It’s almost time for a break, anyway.”

  He left them, reluctant. And Lucy felt shy, suddenly, not sure where to stand. She chose a spot behind her grandfather’s armchair; Will sat on the piano bench, his hands holding the edge of it on either side oputhe whf his legs.

  “Hey, I heard you stuck up for me with your grandpa the other night,” he said. “I appreciate that. I like this job, you know. And I do sort of feel like I’m on probation here.”

  “Gus told you about that?”

  He nodded.

  “If you haven’t figured this out yet,” Lucy said, “my grandfather is a little obsessed with results.”

  “Yeah, I got that. Your mom, too.”

  “That’s not really her. She’s just…” Just what? Trying to make up for letting her dad down all those years ago? Afraid of him? Staying on his good side for the sake of all the money that would come when he died? No, her mom wasn’t greedy, and she had her own inheritance from Grandma, anyway. “She just doesn’t know how else to be, I
think.”

  Will nodded.

  “I was sort of sticking up for myself, too,” she said. “With my grandpa.”

  “Ah, good for you!” His pocket chimed; he took out his phone. “Sorry. Hang on.” He thumb-typed into it, then put it away. “Proceed.”

  “So,” she said, “what we were talking about…” She paused. “You know?”

  “Yes. The thing about which we were talking. On the stairs. In the hallway. That thing. I’m following.” He rested his hands on his knees and sat forwards a bit, and Lucy wondered momentarily why she trusted him. He was on Grandpa Beck’s payroll. He’d barely been around for a couple of weeks. And as far as this house, he sort of belonged to Gus.

  “This is confidential, okay? I mean, maybe I shouldn’t.” She clenched the back of the chair. “Yeah, I think, no. It’s kind of…”

  “Did you rob a bank?”

  She laughed. “No.”

  “Well, as long as it’s not something that, by law, I have to report, go ahead. I’ll treat it as classified.”

  “I think…I think I know that the answer is yes.”

  He smiled. Her hands relaxed, but a tide of emotion rose in her chest. “This is hard for me,” she continued. “Because it’s like you said. I’m not allowed. I’m not…he wouldn’t want me to. And in a weird way, I feel like he’s right. Or like playing is giving in to him or something and I know that’s crazy because I also feel like not playing is giving in and—”

  “Lucy.” He held up one hand. “Forget about him.”

  “I can’t.” The emotion turned into a few tears, which she brushed away.

  He nodded. “All right.” He got up and brought a box of tissues from the end table over to her, standing on the other side of the armchair. “It must be hard,” he said.

  She blew her nose. “When I quit I didn’t mean to quit. I mean, I meant to. I did mean to. But I didn’t know I was quitting for ever.”

  “Of course not. No decision is for ever.”

  “But he said it was.”

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t even know the whole story, I bet. Only what the blogs and everything said.”

  &ldqu width="25" align="justify">“You walked offstage in Prague and never came back.” He offered her another tissue; she took it. “I assume there’s more to it.”

  She laugh-cried and wiped her nose again. “Uh, yeah.”

  Will took a few steps back and perched on the piano bench. “Why did you? I was pretty curious, myself. I followed the story for a while, hoping you’d explain, but it seemed like you didn’t want to.”

  She tried to picture it. Him, eight months or less before they’d met, reading about her online, on purpose, looking for answers while she had no clue he even existed.

  “What did people say?” she asked. “Back then? I made a point not to find out.”

  “Let’s see, the popular guesses were nervous breakdown, stage fright, just hitting that wall where you’d had enough. Everyone in the business knows the pressure.”

  “Is that all?” Like Lucy’s mom had said, people loved to gossip. And they loved to see those who’d been a big deal fall on their faces. “Come on. There had to be worse stuff than that. That I was on drugs? Pregnant? In the loony bin?”

  He folded his arms and shook his head. “Nope. Hey, it’s the Internet. It’s humans being at their best, all the time. Nothing but love for Lucy Beck-Moreau.” He smiled crookedly; she smiled back and said, “Ha.”

  “Do you want to now?” he asked. “Tell your side of it?”

  “How many hours do you have?”

  He pretended to examine his watch. “Well…”

  Lucy came around and sat in the armchair. “The main thing I wanted to tell you is I want to play, but also I don’t know how it’s going to work. All I know is I miss it. Parts of it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe I’ll play just for me. I don’t want to be perfect, and I don’t want—”

  “You don’t have to be perfect.”

  “Tell that to my grandfather.”

  “Why are we talking about him again?”

  “Oops.” Lucy took a deep breath. “I was thinking…maybe you could help me. Not like you help Gus. Not as a teacher. I don’t need that. I need…sorry. I only thought of this all yesterday, and I guess it’s kind of half-baked.”

  “Sounds pretty simple to me.”

  “It does?”

  “When I said to think of me as a friend, I wasn’t just talking because I love the sound of my own voice. You need a friend who gets it. You want support.”

  She watched his face. Trustworthy. Sincere.

  They heard Gus’s footsteps in the hall. Will glanced at the door. “Listen, the confidentiality has to go both ways. I could get in trouble with your family, you know, if they find out I’m helping you, or whatever you want to call it.”

  She nodded quickly before Gus burst into the room, flushed. “I ran around the block.”

  “Good job,” Lucy said, standing up.

  “What were you guys doing?”

  “Lucy robbed a bank,” Will said. “Needed legal advice.”

  “"25" align="justify">“What?” Gus asked, with an uncertain smile.

  “Just kidding, Gustav,” Lucy said. “I’ll go back into my homework cave.”

  Later, when her grandfather was downstairs reading and her mom and dad had taken Gus out to shop for a new suit for the showcase, Lucy dug through the kitchen drawers until she found a medium-sized glass container with a snap-on lid.

  She stole up to her grandfather’s bedroom. The urn sat on the dresser, on Grandma’s lace scarf, still spread there to protect the wood. Lucy peeked inside. She’d forgotten that the ashes were inside a plastic bag in the urn, secured with a little piece of adhesive tape. She worked it open slowly and got it undone without ripping the bag.

  Ashes didn’t seem like the right word. It looked like ground-up seashells, white and chalky. Lucy touched the top layer. All of what had been her grandmother’s body burned down to this.

  The bag had more heft to it than she expected. Lucy carefully poured out as much as she could without leaving too noticeable a dent in what was left. A little spilled out onto the scarf, but she cleaned it all up, resealed the bag, put the top onto the urn, and made it to her room.

  Lying on the bed with the container resting on her stomach, she texted Reyna.

  Ashes retrie

  ved. No problem.

  A moment later, the reply:

  that’s my sneaky grl

  She opened her contacts and looked at Will’s number there. After hesitating for a few moments, she decided to text him, just a brief Thanks for listening.

  He replied right away.

  Any time, Lucy.

  Wednesday before break was a half day, and there was a substitute teacher in English. When Lucy got home, her mother was in full packing frenzy, walking up and down the stairs with a checklist in her hand and the phone to her ear. She had on sensible but chic shoes for the trip, and a stretchy black knee-length skirt. Lucy went into the parlour, clear of the main line of action but close enough to help if her mother needed her to, and draped herself on the chaise before realizing Grandpa Beck was sitting in the chair across the room. As surprised as she was, he said, “Lucy. Did you just get home?”

  By instinct she sat up straight. “Yes. I…” She’d strolled home, done some window-shopping. Was that something an “entitled brat” would do when she knew her mom was here packing? “…was working on my paper. In the library.”

  He gave an approving nod. “I’ve wondered what you do with your free time these days.”

  He’d wondered? Since when? If he wondered so much, he could have asked.

  They hadn’t really talked since their confrontation on Saturday; the fight might not be finished, and Lucy readied herself. But he seemed to have forgotten, or at least did an impressive job pretending he had. “Is English your favourite subject now?”

 
; God. How uncomfortable could two family members be together?

  “Yes,” she said, with a definite nod.

  “You’re good at it, then?” He sat forwards a bit, suddenly interequosted, the book still open on his lap. Lucy could almost see, flashing through his imagination: Ivy League, MFA, New York City, Pulitzer, world domination.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Lucy, there’s no shame in saying that you excel at something.” He took off his reading glasses and folded them into his chest pocket. “You did homework in the library the day before break. I don’t imagine very many students would do that.”

  “They would. They do.”

  He seemed not to hear. “I know you work hard. You’re up in your room every night, putting in the time. Your grades are good. Of course there’s room for improvement, but—”

  “I just enjoy books. Now that I have time to read.”

  Her mother came in, speaking into her phone in broken German. “Here, Dad.” She handed Grandpa Beck the phone. “It’s about the car service in Dresden. They can’t understand me.” He took the phone and left the room; Lucy stood and picked up her things to make her escape while she could.

  “I thought everyone there spoke English,” she said.

  “So did I,” her mother replied. “Lucy, wait. I want to talk to you before we go.”

  Lucy waited, unmoving.

  “Sit back down, honey.”

  She lowered herself onto the chaise while her mother sat in the chair. This was a page from her worst nightmares – being trapped in a small room with her grandfather and mother in quick succession. “What?”

  “I’m a little bit concerned that while we’re gone, Gustav’s practice will fall by the wayside.”

  “Mom, you know Gus. He’s not lazy.”

  “No, no, he’s not.”

  “It’s going to be, what, five days?”

  “Five days is a long time to lose so close to a big performance,” she said. “You know that.”

  Lucy reminded herself what she’d said to Will about her mother: that she didn’t know any other way to be. “I’m sure Will has it under control,” she said. She wanted to get out. She began to rise from her seat; her mother motioned her down.