The Lucy Variations

by Sara Zarr

  She wove through bodies, her heart in her throat, stopped a couple of times by people saying, “Great to see you up there, Lucy” or “I never would have recognized you!” When she reached Will, he introduced her to the producer, John Tommassini. She shook his hand. “I remember. How are you?”

  “Very well, thanks. You’ve grown up.” He smiled at Will. “Of course, I would have loved to have heard the Brahms!”

  Will laughed, uncomfortable.

  Tommassini sipped his drink and said, “I’m loving the ideas Will’s been pitching us for collaborations with you two.”

  Lucy looked at Will, but he avoided her eyes. John continued: “It’s such a great hook. Student and teacher, both former child stars, together. It doesn’t hurt that you’re both good-looking. Maybe a little airbrushing for you, Will!” He grinned. “Sad to say, but that’s the reality of marketing now.”

  “Will isn’t…” Lucy started to say that he wasn’t her teacher. It wouldn’t exactly be true, though. “You can call my dad about it,” she told Tommassini. “I have to find my brother.”

  Will followed her. “Hang on, Lucy.” She turned around. “I didn’t know you were into Glass.” He tried for the Will chuckle, but it fell flat. “Seriously, though. You…it was great. Kind of weird. But good-weird.” He took her arm gently. “I can’t hear in this crowd. But I want to talk. Here.” He pointed to the bottom of the sweeping staircase that went up to the next level’s lobby.

  “I was going to do the Brahms,” Lucy said, when they got to the stairs, voice unsteady. “Until I saw you with all those people.”

  “You pulled that out of your hat on the spot? Wow.”

  She thought about the day before, at the coffee shop. How important it had been to her that he not be mad at her. Now it felt just as important to her to not be mad at him. She didn’t want that. She was tired of anger.

  “Why’d you invito;d you e them?” she asked, finally meeting his eyes. And she saw in them that he was working out his explanation, switching gears, maybe to something rehearsed. “Be yourself with me,” she said. “Remember? Just tell me.”

  He looked at her then and was real, not the charmer or the convincer. “This is myself.” He lowered his gaze. “I guess I saw an opportunity for my own…I don’t know. It didn’t start that way, though. That day, my first day at your house – not the party, but my first day with Gus – when I asked you if you ever wanted to play again, and you said you didn’t know. The look on your face.” He put his hand over his heart and lifted his head. “I could tell you did know, and you wanted to, but you were in a bind about it, inside yourself. When you came to me for help, it was like a dream.”

  “I trusted you,” Lucy said. “I shouldn’t have. I mean…you tried to get me to play within just a couple of hours of meeting me when I said I didn’t any more. From that second, I shouldn’t have trusted you.”

  He looked crushed, and even as she said it, she knew it had been sincere, him inviting her to the piano that night.

  “I promise you it wasn’t until Diane came to my party that I got, you know, preoccupied. With this other idea. Ideas.”

  She remembered Gus asking, Why? when she’d told him about Diane approaching Will. “Why was she even at your party? Does she always come? Did you invite her before or after I said I’d be there?”

  He rubbed the back of his head. “You can probably guess.”

  She nodded, going over all the moments since then that had meant so much. “What about everything else?” she asked, quiet. And for an anxious second, it seemed as if he didn’t know what she meant.

  In an instant he figured it out. “Everything else. Everything else was…a surprise. And so lovely. And as real as you up on that stage tonight.” He glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “And I swear to God, Lucy, I never had anything but the best intentions. Maybe with the career stuff, recently, I went off track. Okay, not maybe. But with the ‘everything else’, I really was, I tried to be, my best self with you.”

  She couldn’t speak but thought, Me too.

  He sighed. “Even that’s a rationalization, right? I’ll stop.”

  “Okay,” she said softly.

  “Is there anything…do you want to say anything to me? Ask me anything? I’ll be honest.”

  Was it what I thought it was? He’d be honest. She wasn’t sure she was ready to know. Then it struck her that they’d been talking in the past tense. And now they were exchanging final words. She snapped out of her hurt and confusion.

  “No. We’re not saying goodbye. You know why?”

  “Because you want to record a four-hands album with me for Tommassini?” he joked without a smile. “No? Okay. Why?”

  “Because you’re going to keep teaching Gus,” she said, resolute. It would mean she couldn’t totally avoid him. He’d be part of their family’s life. She couldn’t just exit stage right and never look back. Or, she was choosing not to.

  “Wait,” Will said, baffled, holding up his hands. “You’re not going to tell oing to your mom what a…jackass I’ve been?”

  “It’s for Gus. He still loves you. He still needs you.”

  He dropped his arms.

  “But,” Lucy said, “if I see you doing anything with his career that he’s not sure he wants, you’re going to have to deal with me.”

  “Okay. And thank you. For giving me another chance. With Gus.”

  They were saying goodbye, even if they were going to see each other again and again. Goodbye was happening. “Thank you, too,” she said, even though she wasn’t feeling it, in case she never got a chance to say it later.

  “You’re strong, you know. A very strong person.” He smiled his crooked smile. “It’s one of the things I love you for.”

  She shook her head, and now, after holding it together through the evening’s ordeal, now the tears threatened to spill. “Don’t…talk to me like that. I’m strong but not that strong.”

  His smile disappeared. “I’m sorry, Lucy,” he said. And when she started to walk away, he touched her elbow gently. “Hey, the director of the Academy loved what you did. I don’t think you’ll have a problem, even with the whole mortal-enemies-with-your-grandpa thing.”

  She let herself look at him one more time. “I’ll see you around.”

  It was hard to get Gus away from his admirers. Lucy watched Will go to him and stay by his side the rest of the night. She found Martin and waited with him. “I don’t know if you saw me,” he said. “But I cried my eyes out to see you on stage. And you did so well.” Lucy huddled against him, and he put his arm around her. They stayed that way until the crowd thinned and eventually dispersed.

  She watched Will say goodbye to her parents and grandfather.

  Gus saw her waiting, and turned away.

  “Gustav!” Martin called. “Get over here and talk to your sister.” He gave Lucy a last pat. “I’ll see you tomorrow, doll.”

  Gus, obedient, approached Lucy. She desperately wanted to hug him, but she also respected his right to not want to be hugged. “You blew them away,” she said. “It was perfect. I’m super proud of you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I have something for you.”

  “I don’t want the bow tie.”

  “I know.” She opened her palm, where she’d been warming Will’s nail clippers. “Here.”

  He took them out of her hand. “Um. Okay.”

  “They’re a good-luck charm. Trust me.”

  Gu

  s put the clippers in his pocket. And she could see it was hard for him to say it, but he straightened up his back and said, “I’m proud of you, too.”

  She fought not to cry, which she knew would mortify him. “Gus,” she said, stooping a little to be closer to his face, “Will is all yours, okay? You can have him.”

  “Are you guys still going to be friends?”

  “Not like we were.”

  On the car ride home, she felt the CD she’d made for Will in her coat pocket
. She hadn’t given it to him, and to him,never would.

  Reyna had left her a voicemail earlier that day that she’d somehow missed.

  “Hey. Carson told me about your thing, and I also saw it in the paper. I’m coming. You can’t stop me. And I wanted to say it was really cool to see your name like that, and I thought, Hey, I know her, she’s my best friend. And I wanted to say break a leg or whatever. I love you.”

  The mid-January cold, for San Francisco, was brutal. Lucy walked the couple of miles, anyway, and let the wind slice through her, swearing under her breath with a kind of deranged glee. She wore a scarf that Felicia Pettis had given her when they’d met for coffee after Christmas. “It’s not a gift,” she’d said, when Lucy expressed chagrin that she didn’t have anything for Felicia. “Just something I saw that made me think of you.” She wound the purply fabric around Lucy’s neck and snapped a picture with her phone.

  Lucy’s mom had offered and expected to give her a ride this morning, standing in the hall, ready. She’d looked a little hurt when Lucy had said no.

  “It’s the first day,” Lucy had said. “I want to kind of…keep it personal. Make it mine.”

  It wouldn’t be like before, when she’d go to cities but not see them, when she’d perform

  but be too stressed to think about the beauty of the music, when she’d trudge to the piano like it was a punishment.

  This time, the second she felt herself not caring, she’d pay attention, she’d ask herself: What do you love, Lucy?

  And she’d remember. Ryan Adams and the first sip of coffee in the morning. Her mom singing along with the B-52s. Vivaldi, and Beethoven’s French horns. And people, even though they were complicated.

  Not that she’d always know what she loved, or even what she wanted. She needed, actually, to feel uncertain. She held on to her doubt the way she used to hold on to the security of a good grade from Mr. Charles, or the assurance of best friendship for ever from Reyna, or Will’s adoration and attention.

  Now, she didn’t want to know her future.

  All she wanted was to be there, for every little minute.

  She opened the wide double doors of the Academy, and made her entrance.

  Lucy’s Love List for Will

  “Legal Tender”, The B-52s – My mom used to play this in the car all the time when I was little, and it always worked to keep me entertained. I guess she was really into the B-52s when she was young. (I try to picture her at a show – can’t do it.)

  “More”, Usher – I know, but Reyna has brainwashed me. Good workout song.

  Changing gears:

  “Everybody Knows”, Ryan Adams – It’s those two little drumbeats in the intro that kill me. Every time.

  “Fold”, José Gonzáles – Look up the lyrics. Exactly where I am right now.

  “Lodestar”, Sarah Harmer – Starts like no big deal and turns into this epic masterpiece. Inspired by a D. H. Lawrence poem. It’s basically perfect.

  “Sugar on the Floor”, Elton John – Another one of my mom’s, from a collection of rare masters and B sides. There’s an Etta James version, too, which is just okay IMHO. Elton makes it sound sadder. Too sad. So:

  “Happier”, Guster – I discovered Guster one night when I went down some Internet wormhole. I have this song in my head, like, all the time.

  “The Rifle’s Spiral”, The Shins – Current obsession. Play count over 100.

  “Challengers”, The New Pornographers – No comment.

  “Symphony No. 5, third movement”, Ludwig van Beethoven, as performed by the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein conducting – Some performances of this are too slow, or the horns

  aren’t loud enough. This is my favourite version, and I wish everyone knew the third movement the way they know the first.

  “Four Seasons, Op. 8, Winter: Allegro con molto”, Antonio Vivaldi, as performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Itzhak Perlman conducting and on violin – And some performances of THIS are too fast. Or you don’t really hear it because it’s so familiar. Somehow this recording makes it sound new every time.

  “Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor”, Johann Sebastian Bach, as performed by Matt Haimovitz – Sort of in love with Matt Haimovitz. And I wish I could play cello. Maybe I will someday.

  “Metamorphosis I”, Philip Glass – I’ve been learning this one. Weirdly satisfying to play. The repetition means something, though I haven’t yet figured out what.

  Listen to the playlist online

  Discussion Questions

  The author has chosen to narrate the story through the third person narrative; discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this perspective, and the connection between the reader and Lucy. Explain your reasons.

  Over the course of the novel, Lucy’s moods are often reflected and linked to the places around her. Find three examples where her physical surroundings directly correspond to Lucy’s emotional state. What do you think this technique adds to the novel?

  “Because every thought she had, everything she observed around her, every conversation, every experience, everything that made her laugh – she imagined telling him, or him watching.” Seeing and being seen are recurrent motifs of the book; discuss the ways in which the author presents the idea of the self as a “performance”.

  “I take this as your final decision, Lucy. Do not come to me tomorrow and say that you’ve changed yop hur mind.” Lucy’s grandfather is absolute in accepting her decision to quit. Why do you think he does this? What did you think of her grandfather?

  Compare and contrast Lucy’s relationships with the male characters outside her family (Will, Mr. Charles, Carson) and her relationship with her father and brother. How do they differ? Can you see any common themes?

  After the fundraiser, Will tells Lucy that “I swear to God…I never had anything but the best intentions. Maybe with the career stuff, recently, I went off track. Okay, not maybe. But with the ‘everything else’, I really was, I tried to be, my best self with you.” Do you believe Will? Can you sympathize with him? Did your impression of Will change during the book?

  Lucy comments that: “Even her best friend, Reyna, didn’t know and wouldn’t care that she could nail a Rachmaninoff all

  egro.” Consider Lucy and Reyna’s relationship. Do you think Reyna’s place outside Lucy’s world of music brings her and Lucy closer together or further apart? Why?

  “Decisions were made the usual way: Grandpa Beck steamrolling over everyone, aided by her mother, her dad standing off to the side letting the whole thing happen.” Discuss the dynamics of the Beck-Moreaus, and the way in which they are portrayed throughout the book. Do you think Lucy’s summation of them here is fair?

  Listen to Philip Glass’s Metamorphosis – what feelings does this piece evoke? Why do you think Lucy chooses to play this for her comeback performance?

  Look at Lucy’s “Love List for Will”. Put together a playlist of your own, choosing songs that are particularly important to you. Which songs evoke the strongest memories for you and why? Discuss the reasons and stories behind your choices.

  If you’ve loved The Lucy Variations, you might also love:

  by Sara Zarr

  Read on for a sneak preview…

  Mandy

  From: MMK333

  To: heart_homeDen

  Subject: Re: [lovegrows] Christmas wish

  Date: Jan 1 03:09:47 AM UTC-6

  I am writing in response to your Love Grows post from Christmas Day.

  I think I might have what you’re looking for.

  It should be available on March 1. Or around March 1.

  Right now I am living in Omaha, but this is not where I want to be. So if you pay my way, I will bring it to you in Denver. If that is where you really live. No offence but a lot of people on this site lie. I know they all say don’t send money and don’t send tickets and don’t do this and don’t do that. Rules don’t always apply, though, and you never know what another person has gone through to end u
p here. After reading your post, I knew you would understand this.

  No lawyers. No agencies. That’s why I am on this site. If either gets involved, I will disappear with the item in question. I don’t mean to sound threatening. That’s just the situation.

  I would like to come a little bit early and have the matter taken care of there. This way we can get to know each other. I’m not asking for money. Just expenses. It’s getting hard for me to stay here much longer.

  This offer is good until one week from today. After that I will seek other solutions. I’m sorry if I’m rushing you, but you have to understand – I’m trying to do what’s best. I have attached a picture of myself and as you can see I am white and in good health and not bad-looking.

  A lot of people in my situation might have a problem with some of the facts you mentioned in your post about you. Not me, because I think I understand.

  If you accept me, I accept you.

  Please write soon.

  Mandy

  Jill

  Dad would want me to be here.

  There’s no other explanation for my presence. Sometimes it’s like I exist – keep going to school, keep coming home, keep showing up in my life – only to prove that his confidence in me, his affection for me, weren’t mistakes. That I’m the person he always said I was. Am. That I know the right things to do and will always do them in the end, even if it takes me a while to get there and even if I fight the whole way.