At Ease

by Jeff Ross

  Everyone began clapping.

  Everyone, that is, but me. I just stared at Alisha. She was smiling and clapping along with the crowd. In that moment she reminded me of her father, and I felt a little more comfortable. I grabbed my violin and hugged it to my chest.

  “We have twenty minutes before the first session begins,” Alisha said. “If you see someone you haven’t met, introduce yourself. There are volunteers in the hallway who can help you with directions. Enjoy!”

  The brunette girl turned to me with her hand outstretched. “I’m Danielle,” she said.

  “Will.” I shook her hand.

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen,” I said.

  She wrinkled her forehead at me. “But you need to be sixteen to be here, right?” She tapped the redhead’s shoulder. “Don’t you need to be sixteen to be here?”

  “Of course,” the redhead said. “Why?”

  “He’s fifteen,” Danielle said.

  “Do you turn sixteen this week or something?”

  “No,” I said. “I actually just turned fifteen.” I had no idea there was an age requirement for the program.

  Alisha was walking past, and the redhead called to her, “Miss Jorgensen!”

  Alisha stopped and leaned against a seat. “Yes, Cathy?”

  “This boy says he’s fifteen.”

  Alisha looked at me for a moment. “Don’t you worry about that,” she said.

  “But you need to be sixteen!” Cathy said.

  Alisha looked at Cathy’s schedule. “I see you have Mr. Powell this year. You should be very happy about that, Cathy.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “I’m certain he’ll help you a great deal.” Alisha carried on up the walkway and out the door.

  Cathy turned back to me. “Are you sure you’re only fifteen?”

  “Yeah,” I said. It was a really stupid question. As if I’d momentarily forgetten how old I was.

  She shook her head. “Who do you have for your sessions?”

  I hadn’t looked at my schedule yet. Just being in that massive room had been enough to put me on edge. I pulled the folded sheet from my backpack. There was a piece of tape holding the edges together. I started working on it with my thumbnail. Before I could get the tape off, the sheet was yanked from my hand.

  I looked up to find Cathy ripping the tape off and flicking the schedule open.

  “Powell,” she said. She narrowed her eyes at me, then turned to Danielle. “He must be special.” She looked back at me. “Are you special?”

  I had no idea how to answer, so I didn’t say anything.

  Cathy stood and held my schedule out toward me. Before I could get my hand on it, she let it drop. “I guess we’ll see,” she said. Then she slipped out the end of the aisle, taking the cellist with her.

  Danielle picked up my schedule and looked at it. “We both have group performance first,” she said. “I think I know where the room is, if you want to go together.” She had her violin case in one hand and a bag over her other shoulder.

  I wiped my hands on my jeans and grabbed my violin and backpack.

  We moved down the aisle to the walkway. She opened the door for me, and as I passed through, she asked, “So are you special?”

  Three

  There were names taped to the backs of all the seats in the room. Three groupings of four chairs. I found my name right next to Danielle’s. Two other people, an Asian girl and a guy with perfectly round glasses, were already in their seats. The guy had shifted forward and seemed on the verge of speaking when a man at the front of the room clapped his hands, then raised his arms above his head.

  “Hello, hello, all. Take your seats, please. For those who don’t know me, I am Charles Powell.” He moved to the right side of the room and stood before a tall white screen.

  I’d never seen anyone so elegantly dressed this early in the day: black suit, black tie, shiny black shoes. His hair was parted to one side, each strand settled exactly where, I assumed, it always was.

  He held his hands in front of him and scanned the room, seeming to take in each person as he spoke.

  “We will begin with a simple task. Look around you at the people in your cluster. This is the quartet in which you will perform. I would like each of you to tell one another three things. Your name, your instrument and your favorite piece to play. Nothing more, nothing less.” He held his hands up. “You have ten minutes.”

  The girl across from me spoke immediately, as though she simply had to get out whatever it was she needed to say and then sink back into the safety of silence. “I am Olivia Chang. I play the viola. My favorite piece is anything by Mozart.” She didn’t smile. Didn’t react in any way at all to what she had just said. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled at the same rate and nodded in agreement with herself.

  “Anything specific by Mozart?” Danielle asked.

  Olivia had her dark black hair pulled tightly behind her head, which made her gray eyes stand out all the more. “Just anything,” she said.

  We waited a moment for something more before the boy jumped in. “My name’s Jon and I hate talking to people, but what can you do, right? You have to live in this crazy world, and if interacting with other people is what has to happen, then whatever. I don’t know what I’m talking about, so don’t even listen. But I play the cello because my parents think I should. Like, my mother played when she was younger but wasn’t great, and my father thinks it’s better to play an instrument rather than, like, Call of Duty, and I don’t even get a vote on that matter. And my favorite piece to play is anything Yo-Yo Ma has not played, because he’s a hack.”

  “Wow,” Danielle said when Jon finished. And I had to agree. Wow. I didn’t think he’d taken a breath the entire time. I felt like a stiff, angry wind had passed through me.

  “If you don’t like playing, why are you here?” Olivia said.

  “Well, it’s not like I hate it, it’s just that there are so many other things to do, you know? And I guess I’m good at it. It’s easy, right? You just play the notes.”

  “It is not easy,” Danielle said. She put a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I’m Danielle, or just Dani. I play violin. And stringed instruments are not easy for me. Maybe they are for you, but for me the violin is incredibly difficult. As for a specific piece, I have always been amazed by—”

  “Maybe 4'33",” Jon suddenly interrupted.

  Dani looked at him with narrowed eyes. “What?”

  “John Cage. The one that’s four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. That’s probably my favorite piece to perform.”

  “You don’t perform that,” Olivia said.

  “You do. It’s art.” Jon laughed, a quick snort.

  “As I was saying, I could listen to Shostakovich all day, but I doubt I’d ever be able to play anything. Not well enough anyway.” Dani pointed at me.

  “Um, Will?” I said. I held up my case. “Violin? And Paganini.”

  “Oh, we have a rock star in our midst,” Jon said.

  “Sorry?”

  “Paganini? He’s, like, the rock star of classical music. All that flashy stuff with the runs and the double stops and how fast it all is.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “So you admit it,” Jon said.

  “What?”

  “You’re a rock star!” He laughed.

  I just stared at him.

  “I’m kidding.” He put his arms on the back of his chair. “We’re not rock stars.” He shook his head. “We’re classical musicians, a dying breed at best.”

  Olivia inhaled and exhaled again. “Are we done?”

  “I guess so,” Dani said.

  “Good,” Olivia said, pulling her cell phone out.

  Mr. Powell clapped his hands. “That’s time,” he said. “I hope you all had a chance to get to know one another, because it’s time to get to work. You’ll find music on the stand before you. Go ahead and take a look.”

  I turned the sh
eets over to find Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C Minor.

  “Not very imaginative,” Olivia said, going back to her phone.

  Mr. Powell clapped his hands again. “Now that you see your piece, you’ll know you have been put into groups for a specific reason. I diligently listened to your audition tapes and have placed you each with people of, I hope, like mind and ability.”

  We all looked at one another.

  Right away I found myself wondering if Jon would pull his weight. If Olivia would be able to set her phone down long enough to practice.

  Most of all, I wondered which of us, Dani or I, would get to take the first violin part.

  “Go ahead and start,” Mr. Powell said.

  “I did this last year,” Olivia said. “The Fugue part is more interesting. Should we start with it?”

  “Sure,” Danielle said.

  The whole room filled with music as everyone bowed at once. Jon plowed his way through the first dozen or so bars as if he were working on an assembly line. Olivia rushed through the first sheet of the viola part with the clipped perfection of someone who had played it so often that it had become the soundtrack to her dreams.

  “Have you played this before?” Danielle asked me.

  “A few times,” I said. “But only with a recording.”

  “You play the first violin, okay?”

  I nodded and brought my violin to my chin.

  We managed to get through the first page before Mr. Powell was standing over us, his arms in the air.

  “Okay, quiet, everyone,” he said. “We’ll start with this group here. If you could please sightread the first sheet for us. Have you decided who will be the first violin?”

  “Will,” Dani said.

  Mr. Powell looked at me. Up close, he seemed even more well put together. His shirt was wrinkle free, his tie tightly clasped to his shirt with a golden clip.

  “So you are Will Neises.” A crinkle appeared at the right side of his mouth. “Okay, let’s give it a try.”

  It was then that I noticed everyone watching me. Dani and Olivia had their backs to the rest of the room, Mr. Powell was off to one side, and Jon was right next to me. So when I set my violin back in place, it felt as though everyone was staring directly at me.

  I looked at the music.

  But not really.

  I mean, I was looking at the music, but I couldn’t really see it. The notes were blurry.

  Jon tapped his foot a couple of times, then played the first note. Olivia and Dani jumped in immediately, leaving me staring at the fuzzy page.

  “Together,” Mr. Powell said. He tapped my music stand with his baton. “Start again.” He cupped his chin and looked down at me.

  There was something wrong with my stomach. It felt like someone had sent an eviction notice there and the contents were getting restless and angry. There was a strange ringing in my ears. Like little bells accompanied by a high-pitched squeal.

  I shook my head and almost dropped my bow, my fingers were so sweaty.

  I’d been forced to do things in front of people before. Presentations in school, for instance. Once, I had to hand out the awards at an assembly. I mean, I knew what nerves were. But I’d never played the violin in front of anyone but Mr. Jorgensen and, occasionally, my parents.

  I wasn’t ready for this.

  Jon pulled the first note again. Dani and Olivia jumped in. I put my bow down too quickly and forced a screech from the instrument. A couple of people jumped in their seats.

  Jon laughed.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Are you okay? You’ve kind of turned red.”

  “What?” I said. Everyone was melting in and out of focus, like the space right above the pavement on a hot summer day.

  “You have,” Dani whispered. “Are you allergic to something?”

  “Try again,” Mr. Powell said.

  I glanced at him. His face suddenly seemed larger. He flicked his sleeve up and glanced at his watch. The ticking of that watch beat in my ears. The steady, slow falling away of time. It wasn’t moving quickly enough, though, because I was still sitting there and everyone was still waiting.

  I tried to breathe, but that felt impossible.

  I’d already screwed up. Apparently, my head looked like it was going to explode. The notes were still a blur on the page before me.

  Everyone was watching me.

  I could see the redhead, Cathy, whispering behind her hand to her friend. She moved her hand away to reveal a knowing smirk.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m…I think I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “Try the first line, Will,” Mr. Powell said, his voice suddenly reverberating around the room.

  “No. I mean, I need to…” I got up, knocking the music stand as I did so. I felt hot and damp. Also like my legs weren’t attached. I was just this big red head floating toward the back of the room.

  “Leave your violin…” I heard someone say behind me. But I was already gone. Out the door and into the hallway. I stumbled past a dozen doors before I saw the little man symbol and bashed through, almost dropping my violin on the tiled floor.

  I went into a stall, sat down on the toilet seat and breathed in the foul bathroom stink. But even that didn’t matter, because I was completely alone. No one was watching me.

  “What the hell?” I said to the empty stall. “I mean, seriously, what the hell?”

  Four

  “Tell me all about it,” Mr. Jorgensen said when I returned home that night. “I want to hear everything.”

  He was outside our apartment building, sitting on a lawn chair we kept on the porch. His big smile shone up at me. I sat on the railing and went through the whole day: the group class, the private practice session and the end-of-day meet and greet. I left out the part where I lost my mind.

  A bus stopped outside, releasing people from another workday. They all seemed so tired and worn. My mother exited last. She came up the steps and inspected me with her red eyes. She worked for the government as an office manager, and it seemed as though every day was more difficult than the one before.

  “How did it go?” she said. It was humid, as Ottawa often is, and her hair was all puffy.

  “Great,” I replied. I already knew that these stories wouldn’t hold up. Alisha would have heard what had happened, and she’d eventually pass it on to her father. There could very well be a message on his answering machine already.

  “Good.” She pushed her hair from her face. “Is your father home?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t been up yet.”

  She opened the door and stepped inside. “I’ll get supper going.” And then she was gone.

  “That was only the first day,” Mr. Jorgensen said. “There is so much for you to learn.” He grabbed my arm. “You need to blow those Juilliard people away, Will. They are your ticket.” He kept biting his lower lip, and there was a shake to his head that I’d never seen before. “I’ve helped you as much as I can. Now you have to go out into that world and perform. Play your heart out.”

  I’d spent the entire afternoon feeling like a complete loser. I knew I could play the piece, yet in that moment I’d been unable to move. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. But then, I’d never had to play in front of an audience before. It was as if my mind no longer controlled my body. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and my eyes couldn’t focus; I hadn’t even been able to hear properly.

  “I worried that keeping you away from performing was a mistake,” Mr. Jorgensen said. “That maybe you should do more with others. But I think we made the right decision all along.”

  * * *

  After dinner, I sat down with the music and played through it five times without a hitch. I put my violin away that night thinking the next day would be easy. That what had happened to me had been a fluke. Too much to take in at once.

  Or maybe it was a bad bagel or something at breakfast.

  Whatever it was, it wouldn’t happen again. I hoped
.

  In bed that night, I rolled so much that my sheets were wrapped around me as though I were a mummy. In the morning, I ached. Not my muscles though.

  Something else entirely.

  Something I’d never even considered before.

  Something sunk so deep inside me, I had no idea it was even there.

  Fear of failure.

  Five

  “So, is he special?” Cathy asked Dani.

  We were all standing around in the cafeteria, eating donuts and drinking orange juice.

  “Who?” Dani said.

  “Him,” Cathy said, pointing at me.

  “I don’t know,” Dani said. She smiled at me and raised her eyebrows.

  “What was with the freak-out yesterday?” Cathy said, suddenly addressing me.

  “I think I ate something bad,” I lied.

  “Sure you did.”

  “It was the first appearance of Hulk-Aid,” Jon said.

  We all looked at him and waited.

  “Like, Will’s superhero personality,” he said. “A combination of the Hulk and the Kool-Aid Man. Hulk-Aid. Instead of turning green, he turns red. And then he destroys walls and stuff. But it doesn’t happen when he’s angry, it happens when he’s nervous. It’s literally terrifying.”

  “Um, okay,” Cathy said, then fake shivered. “These are your people?” she said to Dani.

  “Yes. These are my people.”

  “Well, good luck with that.” Cathy walked away, leaving an almost perceptible fog of self-righteousness in her wake.

  “What’s up her butt?” Jon asked.

  Olivia, for once without her nose touching her cell screen, said, “She’s being realistic.”

  “How so?”

  “She knows that this is super important. Like, Juilliard people are going to be here. Can you imagine going to Juilliard? Everyone who comes out of there has a career. They have the best teachers on the planet. There is no better place for creative people. I intend to apply there for grad school.”

  “So because everything is competitive, she has to be an idiot? I don’t understand the relationship,” Jon said, pumping his arms and talking like a robot. “Does not compute.”

  “You’re the idiot if you don’t see it,” Olivia said. Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it, then back at us. “Did you all practice the Adagio last night?”