At Ease

by Jeff Ross

  “What is success in anything?”

  “People are famous for being famous these days. So, honestly, what does talent matter?”

  “I think it does,” I said. “I mean, I think it’s important.”

  “So do I. But that doesn’t make it a lot easier. Anyway, I’m going to university for business. It’s what my parents have always wanted and, in a way, what I want as well.”

  “Not music?”

  “No. I mean, I know how good I am. I don’t have a career in music waiting for me.”

  “Will you keep playing?”

  She shrugged again. “Who knows? That concert we just put on kind of felt like the end for me. A final thing so I can tell myself I did it, that I tried.”

  “But you could teach or be in music some other way.”

  “I might be able to do something, sure. Anything is possible, right?” She grabbed the bun and banged it on the table. “You’re hogging all the questions. It’s my turn.” She shook the bun at me. “Why do you get so nervous?”

  I almost denied it. Instead, I set my fork down and looked at her. “Because I don’t want to fail,” I said. Which felt honest.

  “You won’t. Why else?”

  “Because I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”

  “Not going to happen. You’re annoyingly amazing. Why else?” I didn’t say anything, so she bumped my nose with the bun. “Taste the bun. Feel its ridiculous staleness. Imagine biting the bun.” She bumped my nose again. “Why do you really get so nervous?”

  “Because…” I looked at my pizza. Listened to the girl playing violin. Thought about what Jon had said. What Mr. Jorgensen had talked about. I even considered all the things I’d read on the Internet, and still I came up blank.

  But the answer was there. I just didn’t want to admit it.

  “Okay, eat the bun,” Danielle said.

  “I don’t want to eat the bun,” I said.

  “Then be honest. Why do you get so nervous?”

  “Because it matters,” I finally said.

  And it felt as if a weight had slid from my shoulders. The waiter was standing beside our table, asking if he could take anything away. Danielle looked at me.

  I said it again. “Because it matters.”

  She put the bun in the basket and handed it to the waiter.

  “Of course it does,” she said.

  * * *

  We’d finished dinner, having discussed everything from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the differences between Back to the Future I, II and III, and were outside walking when Dani said, “That’s the way you have to think about it.”

  “About what?” I said. We’d just been talking about the best strategy in a zombie apocalypse.

  “Your nerves. Your worrying about it mattering. You have to ask yourself, Who does it matter to?”

  “Me,” I said. “Before this, I’d assumed I’d always be playing violin. I’d never thought about the future. And now that I know I want to do this forever, it matters. It’s like all these people are suddenly involved in my life. They get to decide where I go. What I can do. It’s painful.”

  “That’s because you’re thinking of it the wrong way. One mistake isn’t going to end your life.”

  “Are you sure?” I said.

  She stopped and turned to me. “Will, you are incredible. You are the best violinist I have ever heard. It seems entirely effortless for you. Honestly, you’re annoying as hell.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You’re welcome. So here’s the thing. You need to play for yourself. It’s what you’ve been doing for years, right?”

  “Sure,” I said. “And for Mr. Jorgensen.”

  “Why did you play for him?”

  I thought back to Mr. Jorgensen laughing and clapping while I played. Of the smile on his face.

  Of the joy it seemed to bring him.

  “Because he loves it,” I said.

  “So don’t change anything, Will. Keep playing for yourself. And play for people who love it. Forget the judges. Forget what might or might not happen next. You need to play for yourself.”

  The violin girl was playing some modern piece I’d never heard before.

  “Look at her,” Dani said. “Look at the people listening to her. Do you think any of them care if one note is slightly off or if she forgets something halfway through?”

  The crowd around the violinist seemed entranced by her playing.

  “I guess not,” I said.

  “I know not. She’s communicating with them. She’s telling them something important and they’re getting it. That’s what we do as musicians. We talk to one another through our instruments. But in the end, you also have to make sure you don’t take it all too seriously.”

  “Don’t take it too seriously,” I repeated.

  “Nothing is ever the end of the world,” she added.

  “Except the zombie apocalypse,” I said.

  “Yeah.” She shuddered. “That would be awful.”

  Thirteen

  The following day, we had individual practice in the morning. Mr. Powell came into the small practice room and listened as I played my piece. It was seriously uncomfortable. There isn’t really enough room for two people in those rooms, and his cologne filled the space completely.

  “Will, that is remarkable,” he said. He opened the door and stepped out. People were walking along the corridor, and the sound of failure hung in the air. Failure in the best way. A missed note followed by a slice of silence, then another try. Try after try after try: this is how music is made.

  “Thank you.” I stuck my head out the door and inhaled.

  “I would like you to perform first tomorrow. Would that be okay with you?”

  “Yes.” After talking with Dani the night before, I’d tried to change the way I looked at performing. I got nervous because it mattered. It mattered because music was such a central part of me. I was putting my whole self out there.

  “Fantastic. And we’ll see you at the concert this evening?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. James Ehnes was performing at Chamberfest that night. But first he would be visiting the workshop to talk to us. If I was nervous about anything, it was being in the same room as James Ehnes.

  * * *

  Things were a little strange at lunch. I hadn’t seen Dani all morning, and though it was totally normal to sit with her, now it felt different somehow. She patted my knee, asked how I was feeling.

  “Great,” I said.

  “How’d your practice go this morning?”

  “Great.”

  “You excited about seeing James Ehnes?”

  “It’ll be great.”

  “Have you lost most of your vocabulary?”

  “What?”

  “You’re answering everything in one-word sentences.”

  “Sorry,” I said. She opened her eyes wide at me. “Everything’s fine. Really.”

  “That’s better. It was a lot of fun last night.”

  “It was,” I said.

  Olivia and Jon were suddenly standing above us. I didn’t immediately recognize Olivia, as her cell phone was in a pocket somewhere. It was strange to see her full face.

  “This egg salad is awful,” Jon said, sitting down. “Why do I keep eating it?”

  “You feel the need to punish yourself,” Olivia said, sliding in beside him.

  “I must.” Jon stared at the sandwich. “I think there’s shell in this one. At least, I hope that’s shell.”

  “What are we doing this afternoon?” Olivia asked.

  “James Ehnes is coming in to talk to us. Then we’re all going to the concert,” Dani said.

  “Do we have to dress up for this thing?” Jon said.

  Olivia raised her chin toward him. “What, do you always want to wear those shorts and that T-shirt?”

  “This is my look,” Jon said.

  “Consider an upgrade,” Olivia said, leaving Jon to examine his clothes and then wrap the eg
g sandwich in a napkin and shoot it deftly into a nearby garbage can.

  A shadow fell over us.

  “You guys did all right yesterday.” Cathy was above us, her cell in hand. She turned the phone around. She’d recorded the whole performance, it seemed. “You slowed up here, though, and then, for no reason at all, sped way up.” She turned the phone back toward herself. “It seems as though Will was your leader.” She looked at me. “Do you have tempo issues?”

  “It was good,” Dani said. “We were really good.”

  “I mean, if you’re as special as everyone says, then tempo should be, like, simple.”

  “Hey, Cathy?” I said.

  “Yes, Special?”

  “Shut up.” It felt good letting that out. “Seriously.”

  “Rude much?” she said.

  Dani was laughing behind her hand.

  “What?” Cathy said to her.

  “Just what he said,” Dani said. “Seriously, shut up. We’re all tired of hearing from you.”

  “You might have noticed that during my performance—”

  “We wouldn’t have noticed,” Dani interrupted. “Because we left.”

  “What? Everyone was supposed to stay for the recital.”

  “What can you do?” Dani said. “We had other business.”

  “Well, Alisha needs to know about this.”

  “She probably does,” Dani said. “Why don’t you run off and tell her now.”

  Cathy narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. She seemed on the verge of saying something else, but instead turned and walked away.

  “That was awesome,” Jon said.

  “Do you think she’ll ever talk to us again?” Olivia said.

  “Hopefully not,” I said.

  “All right, everyone.” Alisha was at the double doors leading to the lecture hall. “James is here to talk to us.”

  * * *

  I’ll admit I was starstruck.

  We came into the room and James Ehnes was standing off to one side of the stage with his accompanist, Andrew Armstrong. They were both smiling and nodding to people as we sat down. There was a quiet in the room different than we’d experienced in the whole two weeks. It was as though their presence had frozen the crowd.

  Then Andrew Armstrong said, “I feel as though a Requiem should be playing.” There were a few laughs, and then the voices rose again to a roar.

  “Everyone, quickly, find a seat,” Alisha said. All talk quieted. “We are so pleased to welcome multi-award-winning violinist James Ehnes to our little workshop.” She opened her mouth to say more, then stopped, and everyone laughed. “ I want to go on about James, but I think it’s better to just hear from the man himself. Students, James Ehnes.”

  James walked to the center of the stage in an eruption of applause. He smiled and nodded at us. He was in a light shirt and jeans, which was amazing to me. I’d always thought of him as someone who wore a suit all the time. Which is dumb, I know, but it was the only way I’d ever seen him.

  “It is great to see all of you here,” he said. “It takes me back to my time at Meadowmount. The excitement of playing every day. Of working with professionals and just being in the same room as all these other people who love the same thing you do. I don’t have a real talk arranged, so if you’d like to ask some questions, I’d be happy to answer them.”

  Hands went up. People asked about Juilliard (amazing, influential). About how much his violin was worth (lots). About whom he enjoyed performing with the most (he said Andrew, but then they both laughed, so who knows). Where, when, what. It was endless, and he answered all the questions with a calmness and ease I found amazing.

  So I put my hand up.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you ever get nervous?”

  He nodded and looked right at me.

  “I do. I did. I will,” he said. “If you don’t feel an energy before you go onstage, then something is missing. But are those nerves? I don’t know. I don’t think so.” James shrugged and moved to the other side of the stage.

  He didn’t seem nervous to me. Not at all.

  “I like to think that the energy is anticipation,” he said. “The desire to perform. To give a crowd of people music. I can’t imagine any better feeling. I am a vehicle for the music, which might sound New Agey or whatever, but it’s true. It’s why I learned to play. Why I keep learning. Why I never stop practicing and performing. I love classical music, and I want to bring it to people. I always think, There must be dozens of people out there who have never heard this piece before. I want them to love it as much as I do. I need to play with everything I have inside of me to express the music.”

  He stopped and looked at me again. “So yes, there is energy, but not really nerves. If you get nervous, think of it differently. Think of it as your body preparing to exhaust itself with the effort. But most of all, we need to get used to things.” He smiled. “And the only way to get used to anything is to do whatever it is again and again. So in order to be less nervous about performing, you need to perform more. It takes a lot of courage to get up there that first time, the second time, the twenty-fifth time, but eventually, it is just something you do. Does that help?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good.” James turned to Andrew Armstrong. “Anything to add, Andy?”

  “When you’re as good-looking as I am, you just worry whether people will hear the music at all.” There was a lot of laughter. “I mean, seriously, who can pay attention to the performance?”

  “Right. Any other questions?” James said.

  There were more. Many more. After a while Alisha took to the stage and thanked James, letting him know we’d all be at the concert that night. James thanked us and bowed before he and Andrew left.

  “I think we could all use a break before the concert tonight,” Alisha said. “We’ll see you at Chamberfest. Please consider what you wear. I know it’ll be hot tonight, but let’s try and have some decency.”

  “Decency,” Jon said, looking at his Scooby-Doo T-shirt and wrinkled shorts. “I’m totally decent.”

  * * *

  The four of us decided to meet outside the church where the concert was going to happen. Jon was in a pair of black trousers, with a green jacket and blue tie. I’d have said it was a bad idea, but somehow it worked. Olivia was wearing a dress. She took a picture of Jon with her cell phone, then hunched over it as we waited in line.

  We were almost inside by the time Dani arrived.

  “Sorry,” she said as she slipped into the line beside me. “Just talking to Pierre.”

  “Oh,” I said. “How’d that go?”

  She shrugged. “I told him I’ve decided to live on campus next year.”

  “Oh,” I said again. “And?”

  “Yeah. Well.” She smiled. “We should go in.”

  The church was hot and muggy. Fans blew air around the large room but not enough to make it comfortable. We found space on a pew and crammed in behind Mr. Powell and Alisha.

  “Are you excited?” Alisha asked us.

  “Absolutely,” Jon said. He was smushed against Olivia, so I wasn’t certain whether he was excited about that or the performance.

  Olivia held her phone out in front of us and took what Jon explained would be an “epic group selfie” but which ended up showing us with seriously extended chins and half-closed eyes. She was about to try again when someone shut off all the fans and dimmed the lights.

  Andrew and James came out together and bowed. As Andrew settled behind the piano, James introduced the piece. “Tonight we will be performing Sonata in D Major, Op. 9, No. 3, by Jean-Marie Leclair.”

  “Oh,” Andrew said. He pulled the sheet music in front of him off the piano and replaced it with another. This got a good laugh.

  “You ready back there?” James asked.

  Andrew nodded. “Absolutely.”

  And with that, they began.

  It was incredible. What James had said about delivering the music was totall
y correct. It just rolled out of him. It seemed effortless, but I knew there was practice behind it. Hours and days and weeks and years of practice. He looked entirely at peace on the stage. As though he could be playing in his living room or busking on a street corner. He kept his eyes trained on his violin, his head snapping to the speed of the music now and then. His fingers moved so sleekly that it seemed they were everywhere at once.

  I’d seen him play before, but this time I was in the second row. I heard the thud of Andrew hitting the pedal on the piano a couple of times. I didn’t know the piece, but it didn’t seem as though either of them made any mistakes. I closed my eyes and tried to hold the music in me. Tried to let it flow through my body like something that had gotten into my bloodstream.

  Three encores later, they finally left the stage.

  And I felt like a new person.

  Fourteen

  “I ’m going to play,” I said to myself, bending down to bring my violin out of its case.

  My mind was already leaning toward total failure. “I am playing for myself. I am playing because I love it. I am playing because it’s what I do,” I whispered. I tried to recall James the night before. The calmness that he had brought with him to the stage. The poise.

  My head was dizzy, my hands sweaty. I could have given in at that moment. I could have simply put down my violin and stopped. Walked away. Quit for good. But I wanted to play. That was the thing. I wanted to play this piece. Not for anyone, but just to play it. To hear it fill that room. To watch the notes wash over everyone.

  “Paganini,” I said. “Caprice No. 24 in A Minor.” I caught a smile from James Ehnes. We’d done a master class with him that morning. In the end, there were only three of us admitted: Elliott, Sung and I. James had seemed really impressed with my playing but still had a lot of suggestions for how I could make it better. A shift of the wrist, a different angle on the D string. Little things I’d never even thought of.

  The hall was full of people. I looked up, set my violin in place, inhaled deeply and played.

  It was like every other time I’d played the piece. A flurry of motion. A mess of notes all dancing around in front of me, just waiting for me to catch up. I didn’t notice what the audience was doing. Not even James Ehnes. I just watched those notes moving along in front of me and plucked them out, one by one. It was like running really quickly without letting up. Like swimming through some glassy lake.