by Sara Zarr
She’d hoped to have some time with him on Thursday, while he was at the house. I’m home if you want to say hi, she’d texted, but he didn’t reply, and she hadn’t heard from him since his good morning text, so she called him around the time he’d be driving home while she lay on her bed with the lights out.
“Lucy Luce,” he said, when he picked up.
“So we’re coming to that party thing. Me and Reyna.”
“Good! Hey, sorry I didn’t see you today. Gus wanted to talk.”
“About what?”
He paused.
“Never mind,” she said. “None of my business.”
“You sound a little down.”
“I guess. Stuff with my mom. We kind of had this fight right before she left town, and we haven’t talked about it.” She waited for a piece of advice or encouragement. He didn’t say anything. “Hello?”
“Had to make a left turn.”
She didn’t really want to talk about her mom, anyway. She focused on Will’s voice, which, she’d noticed, sounded younger on the phone than in person. Like he could be her age. “What were you like in high school?” she asked.
“Um…dorky. A bit overweight.”
“Really?” He was so fit now, and Aruna so gorgeous.
“Yeah. I was a lonely kid. Well, you know how it is. Being great at classical music doesn’t go far, socially. Even if you’re mildly popular, you’re not really there to enjoy it.”
“Wait.” Lucy propped herself up on one elbow. “Were you like me? I mean, and Gus? Did you travel and perform and stuff?”
“Yep.”
She didn’t remember any of that from when she’d looked him up that first night he came over. “What happened?”
She heard freeway traffic, Will breathing. “Nothing happened,” he said. “I…well, I saw I wasn’t going to make a career as a performer. I started teaching. I had the show for a while. And…here I am.”
“How come you didn’t tell me this before?”
“Hm. I guess I thought you knew.”
“Did you tell Gus?”
Will paused. Then: “No. It’s all on my CV. ”
“But don’t you think he’d like to hear about that stuff? More directly? I mean—”
“Lucy, do you like to talk about your glory days? Does your mom?”
After taking a second to get over her surprise at the frustration in his voice, Lucy said, “I guess not, but…”
“It’s like this for most young musicians, you know. You aren’t the only one who’s been through some version of this. We grow up, and we aren’t so special any more.”
“I didn’t—”
“Look, it’s been a long day.” He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t know what. “And I’m pulling up to my house,” he said.
“Oh. Okay.”
There was another silence, then he said, “I&rsquoldquo;I&;m sorry, Lucy.”
“It’s all right.” What else could she say?
“No, it’s not,” he said. “I don’t want to be like that. Cynical.”
The suspicion that he hadn’t actually wanted to talk to her hurt, but she didn’t want to make him feel bad. She wanted to make him feel better. “At least you’re honest. It’s better than pretending.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He sighed. “I’m glad you’re coming to the party.”
Lucy lay back down. “Wait, what should we wear? Me and Reyna?”
“Trust me, it’s not the kind of party where people think that hard about what they’re wearing. Whatever makes you comfortable.”
They said goodbye, and Lucy dragged her laptop into bed and reresearched Will. This time she went past the first couple of pages of links and found some references to William Devi, young performer from the mid-nineties. There hadn’t been much written about him. At least, it wasn’t on the Internet.
She found one blurry old picture, probably scanned from a newspaper, of him, fourteen, receiving a plaque. Lucy smiled at his hair in a top-heavy nineties style that didn’t exactly help him look less chubby. His facial features were unclear; zooming in only made them worse. She saved the picture to her computer, anyway, and thought about Will existing before she’d known him.
Glory days.
That made it sound like it was all behind her, when in fact having Will around had finally given her something to look forward to, faith that happiness was ahead. At the Academy, or wherever. But it didn’t sound like he believed that for himself.
She texted him:
I think you’re still special.
He replied simply:
: )
After school on Friday, she took a bus to Laurel Heights, where she’d made an appointment to get her DIY bob fixed. She wanted to go somewhere she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew.
“You didn’t screw it up too bad,” the guy said, examining chunks of it as Lucy looked at herself in the mirror. She’d been wearing a little more make-up since changing her hair, mostly darkening her eyes with shadow and mascara. As she watched herself now, the nylon cape up to her neck, the stylist bobbing his head to the dance music on the radio and half-holding a conversation with the stylist next to him, she could see a little bit of her mother in her face. Her colouring was more like her dad’s – neither dark nor light, just sort of generically Caucasian – and she’d always liked to believe she favoured him, but her reflection didn’t lie. The shape of the mouth, the depth of the eyes, even the way her shoulders had edges more than slopes, all said Beck more than Moreau.
She could almost see the woman she might become. Physically, anyway. And maybe she’d gotten too much like her mom in other ways already. Holding things in and holding on, like Reyna said. Letting Grandpa dictate how she felt about herself.
At the same time, her mother was worthy of admiration. She was smart. She worked hard. A lot of moms of Speare kids managed to make full-time jobs out of shopping and getting massages and undertaking unnecessary redecorating projects. Lucy’s mother never slacked at managing the household and all the details of Gus’s career and helping Grandpa Beck with his charitable trusts anble trusd the family trust – the one he’d be passing on to Lucy’s mom and, maybe eventually, to Lucy.
“If you get one of our other services today, it’s thirty per cent off,” the stylist said, rubbing something between his palms, then spreading it through her hair.
“Like what?” Lucy asked.
He talked to her reflection. “Colour. Manicure. Lash tint. Brow wax. Whatever.”
“How long does the lash tint take?” She could shave a few seconds off her getting-ready-for-school time if she didn’t have to bother with mascara.
“Fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“Okay.”
She also ended up getting a manicure and spent way more time and money looking at and buying hair products than she’d planned.
The last, accidental glimpse in the salon mirror as she paid astonished her.
The haircut had changed her face. Or life had changed her face. Or her face always was like this and she hadn’t noticed. All she knew was that there was little sign of the girl she’d been a couple of months ago, or at least of the image of that girl she’d carried inside her all this time.
She waited for the bus home, her eyes watering from the lash dye. It was dark now, dark earlier and earlier these days, but there were no calls or texts on her phone from her parents or Martin worrying over her. She hadn’t told them about Will’s party. They were letting her lead her life.
She felt unmoored, like some kind of last, invisible cord between her and them had been cut in those few strange days of Thanksgiving weekend, without it being officially decided or talked about.
That was what she’d wanted, she guessed. Permission to do what she needed to do, for herself. Not to be an extension of the whole Beck-Moreau thing that had felt like such a burden for so long. To grow up.
This evening, this moment, standing in the increasing fog and cold, she thought maybe
Will was right: We grow up, and we aren’t so special any more. It wasn’t cynical. It was just true.
The house felt achingly silent. A note on the hall table said that her mother and father had gone out to dinner, and her grandfather had taken Gus to hear a string quartet at the Herbst. She stared at the note, thinking, I like string quartets. He knows that.
She went to the kitchen, pulled some pieces off the roast Martin had made the night before, and ate a handful of nuts and a few spoonfuls of leftover rice.
In her room she put on music to get ready by. Reyna would be picking her up at eight. None of her usual choices inspired the mood she wanted – fun, confident Friday night party with her best friend but not in some kid’s garage. She scrolled and shuffled and played and skipped and paused and found nothing.
She got dressed in silence, putting together an outfit of dark skinny jeans, the flat boots, and a long coral sweater with a hood. The sweater had been another item her mom had bought for Lucy when Lucy wasn’t with her. At the time it had seemed too long and drapey for her taste. It had an uneven hemline, and no one she knew wore uneven sweater hemlines, so she’d stuffed it into her drawer without even clipping off the price tag. $389. For a sweater.
Now she could see why her mother had thought it would work on her. It hung perfectly on her tall body, skimming her curves in a way exact but subtle. And the colour did something for her hing forskin. Maybe, after she talked to her mom, Lucy would ask her to go shopping for more stuff like this.
The text alert on her phone jangled her out of her mirror trance. Reyna was waiting outside in the car. Lucy got all her stuff together, left a note for her parents, and went out to meet her. “You look really cute,” Reyna said. “Super cute.”
“Thanks.”
“Do I look like I’ve been crying all day?
”
“Nope. Well, let me see.” Lucy turned on the car’s interior light and pretended to scrutinize Reyna. “Gorgeous, as usual.”
“ ’Cause I have.”
Lucy didn’t have to ask why. They held each other’s eyes in the yellowy glow. “Do you want to…” Cancel? She couldn’t say it, couldn’t give Reyna the chance to not go to the party. If she didn’t see Will tonight, it would be two more whole days before she did, which felt too long. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We’ll have fun tonight. Promise.”
“All right,” Reyna said, turning off the dome light. “Let’s go show those Daly City people how it’s done.”
Will and Aruna’s house actually had some character and charm, considering it was basically a stucco box, like every other house in the neighbourhood. The paint job – cream with brick-red trim – helped, and so did the plants on the stairs leading up to the front door, which had a non-tacky Christmas wreath on it.
Lucy reached for the doorbell; Reyna grabbed her hand. “You don’t ring the bell for a party. You just go in.”
“At my house you ring the bell.”
“Nothing that has occurred at your house could remotely be called a ‘party’. ” Reyna opened the door, then stepped behind Lucy and gave her a push inside.
The house didn’t have a hall. They were suddenly right in the living room, which was filled with people ranging from more or less like Will and Aruna – youngish, cool – to those older, greyer, or geekier. A few of them turned to look at Lucy and Reyna.
It wasn’t like making an entrance to a music-festival party or benefit reception. Lucy had no certainty of belonging, no sense of her place.
“I don’t know how long I’m going to last here,” Reyna whispered.
Me neither, Lucy thought, but she wanted them to try. “You’ll be fine. There’s Will.”
Lucy pulled Reyna towards the other side of the room, where Will stood. He looked good: jeans, a light-blue T-shirt that had been washed into comfortable perfection, and a soft-looking navy cardigan. He hadn’t shaved; his stubble had a bit of red in it, though his hair was nearly black.
“Hey, I’m so glad you came. You look lovely.” He gave Lucy a kiss on the cheek, right in front of everyone. The stubble left a scratchy warmth. “Can I take your coats?”
Lucy handed him hers. “Mine’s in the car,” Reyna said. “And thanks for inviting me.”
“Sure.” He turned his attention back to Lucy. “I’ll go put this down, then introduce you around.”
“Cheek kiss,” Reyna said to Lucy. “Is that what you guys do now?”
“We’re friends.” He’d never actually done that before. She resisted touching her face.
Will came back before Reyna could say anything else, and for the next ten minutes or so, he introduced Lucy to his guests. And she noticed: they knew who she was. Not everyone, and no one said anything obvious about it, but as Will took her from person to person and introduced her by her full name – Lucy Beck-Moreau – she saw it happening: extra attention suddenly paid, a few ohs, the sincerity behind the nice to meet yous.
When they got through the living room and made it to the kitchen, Lucy sensed eyes following and people talking in lowered voices. Then Will had to excuse himself to greet someone else who’d just gotten there.
At least half the people they’d just met were women, but Reyna misread the stares, anyway. “Why do I suddenly feel like a massive hunk of jailbait?” she muttered.
“It’s not that.”
She peered back through the kitchen doorway and wondered what they were saying about her. Maybe that she was a has-been. Or a spoiled brat in a four-hundred-dollar sweater who’d thrown away the life they would have treasured.
Then Aruna came into the kitchen, dressed in faded jeans and silver sandals and a flowy top, and opened up her arms. “Hey, my girls!” She gave them each a hug, then held up a bottle of gin. “Anyone? No, what am I saying? I guess you’d better not.”
Aruna chatted away while mixing up a pitcher of martinis, raving about Martin’s cooking at Thanksgiving. “I don’t know how you don’t weigh three hundred pounds, Lucy. But you’re…” She looked Lucy up and down, holding fast to the gin. “Wow, young lady. Did you change your hair? Tell me about your dozens of boyfriends.”
Reyna, examining the non-alcoholic drink options on the table, said, “Lucy’s hot but doesn’t try at school. Plus she has a thing for older men.”
Thanks, Reyna.
Aruna poured a few careful drops of vermouth into the pitcher. “Oh, I understand that.” She glanced up towards the doorway as someone walked in. “Here’s an older man for you now. Julian, Lucy. Lucy, Julian.”
“And Reyna,” Reyna said.
“Nice to meet you both,” Julian said. He stood close to Aruna and touched the back of her hair. “And I thought I was a younger man.”
“To me you are. Not to them.” She tilted her head towards Reyna and Lucy, and walked out with the pitcher.
Julian had longish hair and a sandy-brown goatee and was taller than Will. “I’m not that old,” he said. “I’m twenty-two. Same as you guys, probably.” He stooped down to dig in a cooler under the table and retrieved a beer.
“Yep.” Reyna looked at Lucy and rolled her eyes. “Close.”
“I’ll be right back,” Lucy said. She wanted to find Will.
Reyna coughed conspicuously into her fist. Lucy knew that meant she didn’t want to be ditched with Julian, but then a couple more women came into the kitchen and Lucy repeated, “I’ll be right back.”
The living room seemed to have twice as many people in it nowple in i, and Will was clear on the other side of it, by the bay windows, with his arms folded talking to some middle-aged lady in a saggy dress. Crossing the room daunted her. She turned and retreated into the hallway.
She didn’t want to go back to Reyna and her anti-party attitude. The door at the end of the hall had been left ajar. A dim light – a night-light, maybe – emitted a kind of faint welcome. An invitation. Lucy checked over her shoulder, then peeked inside. It was Will and Aruna’s bedroom. She went in and closed the door behind her.
&nbs
p; Lucy hadn’t exactly spent time imagining their bedroom, but if she had she wouldn’t have pictured this. She would have figured them for a simple and clean IKEA-looking set-up. Instead it was lush, and a little cluttered with books and clothes and shoes. The bed, in the centre, was a low platform, covered with the coats and handbags of party guests and a lot of throw pillows with exotically embroidered covers.
The room smelled faintly of the spicy perfume or lotion or whatever it was Aruna wore. Lucy went to the dresser to see if she could find out what it was. She’d never had her own signature scent; maybe she should.
With an eye on the door, she dug through a shallow, rectangular basket that contained that kind of stuff – lipsticks, lotions, perfume samples, bracelets, hair clips that still had strands of Aruna’s dark hair attached to them. Nothing that smelled like Aruna. Then she saw, just behind a framed picture of a dog, a slender bottle. She uncapped it and sniffed. Yes, this was her. Lucy positioned the bottle near her wrist.
Don’t be an idiot, Lucy. Like no one would notice you reeking like her.
She put the perfume back and instead slid open the small middle top drawer of the dresser, not sure what she was looking for.
There were voices in the hall, and she froze for a second, but then the voices faded. She couldn’t stop now. She moved to the bedside tables – one a mess of books, magazines, more lotions, reading glasses, a dirty coffee cup. A red scarf had been draped over the lamp. That had to be Aruna’s side.
On the other, Will’s nightstand was nearly bare except for one book, a small notepad on top, a pen on top of that, and a bowl of change by the lamp. Lucy wanted to see the book; one single book compared to Aruna’s leaning pile must mean something.
A mystery novel; no big revelation.
In the change bowl, nail clippers. If he was like every other pianist she’d known, he trimmed his nails obsessively so he wouldn’t feel them touching the keys.
Voices in the hall again made her jump. Lucy grabbed the clippers and shoved them into her jeans pocket, then pretended to be looking for her coat on the bed. A couple came into the room – Lucy had a random jacket in her hand, the clippers in her pocket. She attempted a smile as she put the jacket back down and walked out.
