The Year of Shadows

by Claire Legrand

I didn’t want to keep waiting on crumpled twenties from the Maestro. Besides, who knew how long he’d keep giving them to me?

  The Barskys looked at each other, and then at me. Mr. Barsky closed the pastry case.

  “You need a job?” Mrs. Barsky asked.

  “Well. Yeah.” I cleared my throat, trying to figure out how I could somehow melt into the cracks in the floor so no one would ever have to look at me again. “See, we sold our house this summer. We moved into the Hall, backstage, and we just have these suitcases, and the orchestra’s running out of money. You know, with The Economy and everything.”

  I wasn’t too sure what The Economy involved, but everyone had been talking about it lately, and I knew it was something about no one having any money. Whenever grown-ups talked about it, a shadow fell over them, like they’d just heard terrible news.

  “Oh, Olivia.” Mrs. Barsky said that in this sad, sighing voice. I couldn’t look at her. Instead, I pulled one of my charcoals from my bag and started scratching a doodle on a napkin. I took my charcoals with me everywhere.

  “It’s just that I have to buy groceries, you know? And things for school, probably. And the Maestro doesn’t help too much. I can wipe off tables.” I dug the tip of my charcoal into the napkin. “I can wash dishes, sweep. I could probably bake cookies or something too.”

  Mr. Barsky put his hand on my hand so I had to stop drawing. “Of course you can work for us, Olivia,” he said, with his normal voice, which was warm and scratchy like wool. “We’d be glad for the help. How does twenty dollars a week sound? You can come in after school.”

  I cleared my throat. “I can only come in Mondays through Thursdays. Once the season starts, I’ve got to be around on concert nights. Nonnie likes me to be there.”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Barsky.

  “And I can probably only stay for a little bit after school.” My voice got quieter and quieter, until I almost couldn’t even hear myself. “You know, because of homework, and I’ve got to make dinner and get Nonnie ready for bed. And I’ve got to have some drawing time.”

  I didn’t feel bad talking about drawing to the Barskys. I used to go to The Happy Place all the time to draw. The green star-shaped table in the corner was my spot. Sometimes Mr. Barsky would waltz by between serving people and leave me an oatmeal raisin cookie.

  “How about just half an hour after school?” Mrs. Barsky suggested. “Maybe forty-five minutes if it’s busy and you don’t have too much homework?”

  “Perfect,” I whispered. “Thanks.”

  Mr. Barsky patted my hand, and Gerald squawked because new people were coming in, some college kids from the university. I dug out my sunglasses and shoved them on so maybe they wouldn’t look at me.

  “Here,” Mrs. Barsky said, on my way out the door. She put a twenty-dollar bill into my hand and folded my fingers over it. “Consider it a signing bonus. Go get yourself something nice, all right? A pick-me-up?”

  I shifted back and forth from one foot to the other. If I didn’t get out of there that very second, I’d start crying like some kind of pathetic baby.

  “Thanks, Mrs. B,” I said, and hurried out the door.

  The only good thing about living in the Hall is that it had lots of staircases and sculptures and weird architecture I could use to practice drawing.

  I shoved the Barskys’ twenty-dollar bill into my clothes box, beneath my underwear where nobody would go looking for it. Then I headed for the grand staircases in the main lobby. Today I planned to practice drawing steps, and the ones on the grand staircases were tricky because they curved.

  On my way through the west lobby, I peeked inside the Hall’s propped-open doors.

  A bunch of people were milling around onstage, chatting and setting out their music, blowing warm air into the cold metal tubes of their instruments.

  The musicians were back.

  Summer was off-season for the orchestra, like how football teams don’t play in the spring. Some orchestras still had concerts during the summer, but special ones, like pops concerts and concerts for kids.

  We didn’t have the money for things like that, though. Instead, the Hall had stayed locked up all summer, except for when the Maestro came here to root through the music library and “get some peace and quiet.” I’m not sure what he needed peace and quiet for; our house had been quiet ever since I woke up the morning Mom left, when I’d found the Maestro sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of cold coffee and his head in his hands.

  Normally, I’d have gone to say hi to the musicians—given Hilda Hightower a hug, let Richard Ashley ruffle my hair, which always gave my stomach these weird floaty flips because he’d smile at me when he did it.

  But not today. Today, I stayed in the shadows. If the musicians didn’t already know about us selling the house and moving backstage, they’d know soon. And I didn’t want to see them looking sorry for me, or hear how awful it all was, or—even worse—how everything would be okay.

  I heard voices coming from around the corner, and slid back against the wall behind a pillar. The Maestro and Richard Ashley entered the Hall from the lobby.

  “Maestro,” Richard was saying, “you can’t be serious.” He looked furious. “This is no place for a twelve-year-old girl to live, much less an eighty-year-old woman.”

  “I had no choice,” the Maestro said.

  Some of the musicians onstage paused at the commotion. The Maestro clapped his hands. “What are you staring at? We start in five!”

  “Maestro. Otto,” Richard whispered. “Are things really that bad?”

  “Yes.” The Maestro ran his hands through his oily black hair. “If this season goes as badly as last season . . . I don’t know what will happen. The numbers don’t look good. Donations are down. Even our regulars don’t have money to give these days.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “We just need a year. A year to get back on our feet. Things will get better. Next year will be different, and I’ll move Olivia and her grandmother back uptown. We just need a little time.”

  “Do you really think things will change this year?” Richard said.

  The Maestro looked at him, not saying anything. Then he headed for the stage.

  When he was gone, Richard sighed. I must have moved or something, because his eyes narrowed and he peered behind my pillar.

  “Olivia!” He flashed me a smile, the one Mom had always said to watch out for, because it was “pure trumpet player,” and trumpet players could be real charmers, whatever that meant. “How was your summer?”

  I wanted to shrivel up and die. I could tell he was worried I’d heard him and the Maestro talking; his voice sounded bright, and too happy. Why had I let him see me?

  “You know. It was all right.” I folded my arms over my sketchpad and hugged it tight. “I drew a lot.”

  “I would expect nothing less from my favorite artist. You’ll have to show me your new work sometime.”

  My cheeks turned hot. “Okay.”

  “So, Olivia.” Richard got this weird look on his face. He cleared his throat and looked back at the stage. I saw Hilda Hightower polishing the bell of her French horn. I saw Michael Orlov wheeling out his double bass. Hilda waved at me. I waved back and hoped they wouldn’t come over. I started inching away.

  “I just want to check on you,” Richard said.

  “About what?”

  “Your dad told us what happened this summer. With your house, and the move.”

  My stomach flipped, but not in a good way. “Oh. Yeah.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear about this, Olivia.” Richard squeezed my hand. “I really don’t know what to say. Your dad said you’re living backstage now.”

  It was even worse hearing it said out loud, but I would not cry in front of Richard Ashley. “Yeah. That’s right.”

  “It’s not right, though. Don’t you have family or friends you could stay with?”

  I’d thought about that before. “No. The Maestro’s family is in Italy, except for Non
nie, and Mom’s family . . . they don’t talk to us. They’ve never liked us. They didn’t want Mom to marry Da—the Maestro. And the Maestro doesn’t have friends.” My fingers tightened around the edges of my sketchpad. “He doesn’t keep up with people. All he can think about is the orchestra.”

  Richard got quiet for a minute, and then he put his hands on my shoulders. Normally this would have sent my stomach into floaty-flip overload, but now it just made me feel sick.

  “Olivia,” Richard said, “I know you probably don’t like us a whole lot right now, but we’re here for you. You know that, right? The whole orchestra is here for you and your dad and your grandma.”

  That was too much. The orchestra was here for me? The orchestra was the whole reason this was happening.

  I shrugged him off me. “Yeah, I know.”

  “If you ever need to talk to someone, you can always talk to me. Okay?” He held up his fist for our secret handshake. “Capisce?”

  I shook my head and looked away. “Yeah, okay.”

  “What?” Richard put a hand to his heart. “No secret handshake? You wound me, madam.”

  “No.” No stupid secret handshake. If he didn’t stop talking to me, I was definitely going to cry.

  “Maybe we can work something out. Maybe you can spend the night at Hilda’s place now and then, or with any of the girls, really. They’d love to have you. It’d be like a slumber party. You could invite your friends.”

  “I don’t have friends.”

  “Olivia. What can I do? Anything?”

  He felt so sorry for me; I heard it in his voice. But it didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel about two inches tall.

  “Leave me alone,” I whispered. “Please?” Then I hurried away in the other direction, into the main lobby and up one of the grand staircases. I threw myself down near the top, on a step with the carpet rubbed through to the wood underneath, and yanked out my sketchpad.

  “Slumber party.” I wiped my eyes. That’s what the Maestro had said too. It’ll be like a, what is the term? A slumber party. Every night, all of us backstage. It will be an adventure, Olivia.

  Why couldn’t I stop sniffling? At least Richard couldn’t see me up here. “Adventure. Yeah. Some adventure.”

  All I wanted was to go home—our real home, with the blue door and the yellow kitchen, and the creaky ninth step on the stairs that went up to my room. And Mom. Mom had to be there too, or else it was no good.

  As I thought of our house a gust of cold rushed past me. It was the kind of cold that lingers, settling deep in your bones. I shivered and rubbed warmth back into my arms. I could have sworn someone was watching me; I felt eyes on my skin. But when I looked around, I saw only the familiar, dusty portraits of dead musicians on the walls and the faded angels on the ceiling.

  And a black cat, staring up calmly from the lobby floor.

  IT WAS A fat black Tomcat with crooked gray whiskers and patches of matted hair all over his body. His tail flicked slowly back and forth.

  I slid my sketchpad back into my bag and started inching down the stairs. “Here, kitty, kitty. Here, cat.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, I put out my hand, knelt down, and waited. One of the Hall’s front doors stood open. I must not have shut it all the way when I came back from The Happy Place.

  “Thought you’d just come in and make yourself comfortable, huh?” I said to the cat.

  His tail twitched. He butted his head into my fingertips.

  “You know, some people might call that trespassing.”

  The cat watched me as I petted the scruff of his neck, like he couldn’t believe he was actually allowing this to happen.

  “You’re kind of ugly,” I said, tilting my head for a better look.

  The cat narrowed his bright green eyes at me.

  “And fat.”

  The cat yawned.

  “But your hair is black. I like that.” I pulled a section of my hair over my eyes. “See? Mine is too. You’re a little shadow, like me. Nonnie calls me that, but in Italian. It’s ombralina.”

  The cat got this expression on his face that looked exactly like someone saying, Fascinating. And by that I mean, you’re boring me.

  I sat back on my heels. “You have a great face, cat. Real expressive.”

  At least one of us does, he seemed to say as he flicked his left ear. He plopped down on his belly and stared at me through half-open eyes.

  I plopped down on my belly too, watching him. “You have a home, cat?”

  The cat started cleaning his paw. I figured he meant: Not really. Here and there. Mostly nowhere.

  “Yeah. Me too. Well, my home is here, anyway. In the Hall. Which is basically nowhere because it doesn’t count.”

  Why doesn’t it count? If the cat could have talked, that’s what he would have said. He would have sat there, just like this, and listened to me, and asked me all the right questions. His voice would sound kind of like Cary Grant’s, all weird and halfway British. Mom would have liked that.

  “Because I hate it here,” I whispered. “The Maestro said it would be an adventure, but it’s not. It’s just this prison. It’s ugly and it’s embarrassing.”

  The cat rolled over and looked at me upside down.

  “Who’s the Maestro?” I rolled over on my back too. Staring at him like this made my head hurt, but it was kind of fun. “Well, technically, he’s half my DNA. But I don’t like to think about that.”

  The cat blinked slowly, like he was already half asleep.

  “I mean, I guess, yeah, he’s my father.” I made quotation marks with my fingers. “On paper, maybe. But not to me. I’ve disowned him, I guess you could say.” I paused, tapping my feet together. “Everyone at school thinks I’m crazy these days, you know. Because of my clothes and because I draw all the time instead of talking to people. I guess by talking to a cat I’m proving them right.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know what’s worse, talking to myself or talking to a cat.” I pulled the cat onto my chest. “Oof. You really are fat.”

  The cat’s eyes narrowed. I’m sure he was just sleepy, but I took it to mean: You’re not a very polite hostess.

  “But we’re still friends, right?”

  His ears flicked. Friends? That’s presumptuous of you.

  I scratched under his chin.

  The cat stretched out his neck and closed his eyes. Oh. Keep that up and we may have something.

  I snorted. “You might be the cutest thing ever.”

  “Hey, cool,” a voice said from above. “You found a cat.”

  I scrambled up into a sitting position and faced the voice: red hair, tons of freckles, stupid ears that stuck out.

  Henry Page.

  Ugh.

  Henry’s parents started dropping him off for concerts a couple of years ago, and eventually he’d begged his way into an usher job—just a part-time thing, and it didn’t pay much, but you’d think it was heaven on Earth the way Henry took to it. Now he was one of the two ushers left. Everyone else had quit a long time ago, except for ninety-something-year-old Archie, who was basically a walking corpse.

  Henry was in my grade at school. He played baseball and ran track. He made good grades because he studied a lot, but somehow he still got to sit at the popular table at lunch, which were two things I didn’t think ever went together. But they did for Henry because Henry was perfect. His whole life was perfect. It was so perfect that I had to make a Reasons to Dislike Henry Page list and keep it in my sketchpad so I could look at it whenever I caught myself thinking that it might actually be okay to like him.

  The only things that weren’t perfect about him were his millions of freckles and the fact that his ears stuck out. One day last February, people kept coming up to me at school, saying, “Sorry about your mom, Olivia.” “Man, that really sucks, Olivia.” “Why’d she leave, anyway?” Someone had blabbed, and it hadn’t been me. The last thing I wanted was for everyone to find out my family secrets. The blabber had to ha
ve been Henry, who was always hanging around the Hall and learning everybody’s business. So I drew this picture of Henry looking like an elephant, with red hair sticking out everywhere and freckles all over his trunk and ears hanging to the ground. I’d labeled it DUMBO PAGE and hung it on Henry’s locker.

  All that had done was make people give me nasty looks instead of asking about Mom. Then they’d started ignoring me altogether.

  See, that picture couldn’t hurt Henry, even though it was the best elephant I’d ever drawn. Everyone at school loved Henry Page.

  Everyone except me.

  “Where’d you find him?” Henry said, bending down to pet the cat. The cat started to purr.

  Traitor.

  “None of your business.” I slung the cat over my shoulder and stalked away, toward backstage. Sounds of the orchestra tuning drifted out through the Hall doors.

  “So, I heard your dad talking to Richard earlier.” Henry was hot on my heels.

  “Go away, Henry.”

  “Something about your family moving backstage? It sounded pretty rough. Are you okay?”

  “Go away, Henry.”

  But he wouldn’t give up. “I’m really sorry that happened, Olivia. I don’t . . . well, I know we’re not great friends or anything, but did you want to go get an ice cream or something? Donatello’s is having a back-to-school deal, and I just got my allowance.”

  I stopped so abruptly that Henry almost ran into me. We were in the west lobby, right by the cracked violinist fountain, which hadn’t worked for years.

  “Listen, Henry. Butt out, okay? Stop eavesdropping and sticking your nose into other people’s business. Why do you care, anyway? Don’t you know you’re supposed to hate me?”

  “Why am I supposed to hate you?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Remember? That picture?”

  “Oh. Right. The elephant.” He shrugged. “Well, I don’t hate you. I know you did it because you think I told everyone about your mom.”

  I stepped back. “What? How do you know that?”

  “I just assumed.”

  “Well, you know what they say about assuming.”

  Henry rolled his eyes. “I didn’t tell anyone, by the way. I don’t know who did, but people would have found out eventually anyway. Lots of people have family problems.”