by Pamela Moses
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s been a while since I caught up with them.” She tossed the magazine on the floor, but she hadn’t looked at me, and I knew she sensed my nervousness and was annoyed.
Francesca made arrangements for dinner at a small Chinese restaurant in downtown Boston—Hunan Palace, a place James knew as well. “It’s a little clichéd, I guess,” she laughed from the backseat of the car on the way there, the three of us having agreed to make the trip together in James’s Volkswagen.
“Yes, clichéd, but the food’s not bad.” James glanced at me in the seat beside him.
I smiled with a carelessness I did not feel and smoothed my skirt across my knees. I tried not to think about the evening section meeting for my biology class I was missing because James had wanted to leave early, taking the most scenic route into the city.
“You are stunning,” he whispered, tracing a finger across my cheek. I was wearing an outfit he had helped me select, a white cardigan sweater with small heart-shaped buttons, a short flannel skirt, matching gray stockings. Beside me, folded, lay my ivory winter coat and a wool scarf threaded with the same color of turquoise as the bracelet he had bought me.
We joined James’s friends in the back room of the darkened restaurant, beyond a screen of wooden beads that swayed and clicked as we parted them. They were quibbling over an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts of a contemporary French painter whom Nicholas, Dominic, and Fiona admired but whom Greta, Nicholas’s date, deplored. “Have you seen it?” they asked Francesca and me as we took our seats.
Francesca hadn’t but was familiar with the artist’s work. “His early pieces do little for me.” She combed a strand of hair away from her forehead. “But his recent work is really original.”
Since they seemed to be waiting for my response, too, I said only, “I guess I don’t have the chance to come into Boston as much as I’d like.”
Like James and Francesca, the others at the table had traveled much of Europe, even Africa and Asia. They read books in German and Italian, attended gallery openings.
“My São Luis is playing in Providence now.” Francesca leaned across the round table, addressing all of us. “You know, the Brazilian film? Setsu”—she turned to me—“make James take you if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s sublime.”
“Oh”—Greta nodded—“and the cinematography is reminiscent of Sonia’s Song.” She squinted slightly as she peered at me, as if concentrating to be certain I understood.
I nodded in a manner I hoped was vague enough to cover my ignorance as I crossed and recrossed my legs beneath the table. As I listened to them argue about political refugee poets, emerging fiction writers, a controversial sculpture of Christ, I marveled that Francesca, only a month older than I, was so informed, so sure of her opinions. Like Fiona, in her long-fringed tapestry shawl, and Greta, in a suede vest, Francesca had dressed boldly, wearing high-heeled leather boots, enormous hoop earrings, and a red wraparound dress with a plunging neckline. When she leaned forward, her deep cleft of cleavage showed, yet she seemed to feel no more exposed than the rest of us, only, somehow, more assured, more substantial.
Our waiter set down the many platters we had ordered, and I watched Francesca pile her plate with crispy wontons, a heap of stir-fried rice, a bulging pancake of mu shu pork. And before I had finished the few items on my plate, she was spooning seconds. As we emptied our glasses of plum wine, the conversation grew louder, the voices more rapid. I tried to think of intelligent comments to add, but always the subject seemed to switch before I could contribute. Conscious of my silence, the blandness of my wit, my careful clothes, my meager appetite, I stared at the napkin folded in my lap and picked at its frayed edge, knowing I had added about as much interest to the evening as the wooden coatrack wedged in the corner beside our table.
At the end of the evening, Francesca chose to remain behind rather than riding back to Brown with James and me. She had made plans to meet another friend at Emmaline’s, a club in the neighborhood, and would take a late bus home. I half wished James had agreed to stay when she’d invited us along. I turned to watch her dash around the corner, the cape she’d slipped over her dress sailing behind her like some great wing.
During the return drive, with words sloppy from wine, I spilled out my insecurities to James. “Do you think I could ever be more like them? I wish I were. More like Francesca.”
“What do you mean?” James wanted to know.
“She is so self-assured, so strong. Greta and Fiona, too. The way they talk and laugh, even the way they eat—”
“Hah!” James swatted the side of the steering wheel, in surprise or amusement, I could not tell which. Lines creased either side of his downturned lips in an expression I had never before seen him wear. I was being foolish, he said, far too easily impressed. Why would I want to be like Fran or his friends’ girlfriends? They were as obstinate as I was sweet, as contrary as I was agreeable. Had I any idea what most men thought of women like Francesca? And had he told me how many crazy demands Fiona placed on Dominic? James’s bottom lip disappeared behind his front teeth, and I heard a quiet sucking noise, a sound I had come to associate with his attempt to predict my reaction to something he was about to disclose. “Even Nicholas agrees. He said your lines were poetry.”
“What do you mean?” But before he even answered, before James parted his lips to speak, I knew Nicholas had seen the sketch.
“Are you feeling modest, kitten?” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not a photograph, just a drawing, an impression. Besides, Nicholas is a painter. It’s his work. When he looks at a human body, he sees art. Anyway, you should be flattered by his praise. So how can you even compare yourself to these women? No, you could never be them. They are nothing next to you.” And he pressed my fingers to his mouth. “Promise you won’t ever change, sweet Setsu,” he whispered.
So I nodded my assent. “Never, never—” But I turned toward the window to hide my eyes, which, for the first time in James’s presence, burned with something like anger.
• • •
For days after our dinner at Hunan Palace, knowing how James disapproved of Francesca’s conduct, her style, I was careful not to mention her name to him, or Fiona’s or Greta’s, for that matter. But on occasion and at unexpected times, flashes from our meal together returned to me, a clever phrase one of them had uttered, a wry smile, an ironic hand gesture. Every now and then as I rooted through my closet for a scarf or earrings or a pair of shoes, I could not help posing in the mirror, the scarf tossed over my shoulder, my hair pinned up to reveal my earrings, as I thought Fran might. And now when James was teaching or studying, I could not so easily ignore a panging—for a cheese omelet, batter-dipped shrimp, a piece of cake. Some women ate such foods without a second thought. Couldn’t I, too, afford a small indulgence here or there? So with an egg sandwich, a bag of fried onions, or a slice of rhubarb pie from the cafeteria, I would fill my mouth until the aching in my stomach ceased. Perhaps a part of me had hungered for these things always, and I enjoyed, for a few moments, the warmth and heaviness below my ribs, the satisfaction of having dared something so bold, even defiant. Only later, dressing to meet James for supper or standing before him in candlelight as he unfastened the buttons of my blouse, would I regret my weakness. And for the next few days, I would nibble only fruits for breakfast, vegetables for lunch, working to undo the fat I was afraid would appear on my hips and bottom, a change I worried James would notice.
• • •
For the four-day Presidents’ Weekend in mid-February, Francesca was returning to New York and had invited me along. James would be gone anyway, needing to attend a conference in New Hampshire. Ruth, too, would be home with her family in Riverdale; Opal was choosing to remain on campus to complete an art history paper.
As a child, I had spent two short vacations in New York with my family. I still remembered the bracing winds aboard the Circle Line tour boat, Toru leaning against the railing with crackers in hi
s outstretched hand, daring two gulls to pluck them, I with my windbreaker zippered to my chin, standing a safe distance from the screeching birds. More recent New York visits had been to accompany my parents for a stay in the Parker Meridien and the chance to see Toru perform with other Juilliard students at Lincoln Center.
I would not be seeing Toru this weekend, though. He was swamped with work, he had explained when I called. Francesca’s family would be away, too, touring prospective colleges for her brother, Christopher, but I had always been curious about Francesca’s home, having heard from Ruth, who’d visited Fran during the summer break, that the Covingtons’ apartment made even the Taj Mahal look a little shabby. As soon as we stepped from the elevator vestibule and through the front door, I understood what Ruth had meant. The soaring ceilings, the framed paintings illuminated by brass-shaded lights, the grand staircase to a second floor!—things Francesca seemed to take for granted, dropping her bag to the marble floor, tossing her coat over the banister as casually as if we were back in the cramped suite on campus with its university-issued furniture.
“This is so beautiful, Fran!” I said, but she only laughed, kicking off her shoes, allowing them to remain overturned in the middle of the foyer.
“Thanks. Well, it’s home anyway!” she said, as if it had its drawbacks, though I couldn’t imagine what.
As I soon learned, we did not have the apartment completely to ourselves. Carmen, the Covingtons’ housekeeper, lived in the residence full-time. I rarely saw her except passing her as she ironed linens in the breakfast room or delivered upstairs, to the round table in Francesca’s bedroom, the meals Fran requested. Now and then, Carmen would call to Francesca, though—a question about an appointment with the window washer, then about the placement of two newly arrived topiaries for the dining room. In Maryland, different cleaning ladies had worked for my mother one afternoon a week; but not one of them had ever deferred to me on a single matter, seeming to find my presence an intrusion, in fact, if I did not vacate any room when they vacuumed or dusted.
“We could do the Guggenheim after breakfast,” Fran said on our first morning, propping herself up on her elbow, pushing back her bedspread. “And then why don’t we head to the Village. There’s a vintage clothing shop I want to show you and the best place for chocolates just down the block.”
“Sounds fun,” I said from my bed across the room from hers. I had been awake for some time, but my thoughts hadn’t moved beyond the liquid silk of my sheets and the way I had seemed to drop into the thick of my mattress as I’d slept.
Over the weekend, we watched Roman Holiday two times through on cable; we swam in the pool at Francesca’s mother’s health club. In the evening, we skated on the ice rink in Central Park, Francesca insisting we stay in the loop of fastest skaters near the center of the rink, though we tumbled several times onto the cold ice.
“You’re a terrible influence!” I told her at the end of the night, holding the ice cream she’d bought, rubbing two bruises along the side of my leg as we walked down the lantern-lit path out of the park. But with the mint of the ice cream filling my nose, cooling my tongue, and with the waltzing music of the skating rink sounding through the dark trees as tinklingly clear as the pendants of fine icicles suspended from the boughs above us, I felt I was suddenly wide awake in a moment so alive I wanted to breathe it deep, deep into my lungs.
• • •
Some days after our visit to New York and two weeks after our dinner together in Boston, Francesca invited Dominic and Fiona, James and me to join her for Sunday brunch at The Hill Club near Bristol, where her grandparents, who lived part of the year in Rhode Island, had a membership.
“You’re here! The directions must have been okay,” she said when we arrived. She looked more glamorous than usual, in a faintly sheer sweater, gold bracelets jingling at her wrists, her hair swept from her face in a broad cotton headband. She ushered us to a table covered with peach linens, beside a great bay window overlooking a terrace and a sloping, snow-blanketed lawn, at the center of which was an enormous scallop-shell fountain, now filled with a glistening mound of snow. Dominic and Fiona had already arrived and rose to kiss us on both cheeks in the European fashion. I knew to turn my head slightly as they did so that our cheekbones would lightly press.
Once we had been seated, Francesca moved to the window, lowering the shades several inches. “There was a glare, wasn’t there?” She dropped into the cushioned chair beside mine, shaking her napkin into her lap.
“So, I hope everyone likes grits and scrambled eggs with salmon.” She pulled her box of cigarettes from her handbag. “I took the liberty of ordering for the table.” She winked at me, and I could not help smiling, liking to be singled out by her.
James, seated to my right, uncrossed his legs. He tapped his knee with his fingertips, an obvious sign to me of his displeasure. But Francesca took no notice. And watching her lean back comfortably, planting an elbow on the padded leather back of her chair, I knew she would not have relinquished her role even if James had voiced his dissatisfaction.
James and Dominic began to talk of the apartment Dominic was renovating, one he and Fiona had just moved into. Francesca lit her cigarette with a new marbled green lighter and turned to Fiona. “So how was the show the other night?”
Fiona worked days teaching English as a second language to native Spanish speakers, she explained to me, but evenings, when she could, she sang at clubs or hotels or restaurants in the area—any place that would hire her. Her hope, she admitted, was to someday make a career as a jazz singer. “Music is my obsession,” she laughed, but beneath her lightheartedness, I could hear a tension, a longing I thought I recognized. “I guess it’s hard for other people to understand.” She shrugged.
But I understood. Yes. And in a rushing murmur, I told Francesca and Fiona of my years playing the violin. Of how music had seemed to live in me, how it had seemed impossible to imagine a time when it would not.
“Why didn’t I know this about you, Setsu?” Francesca squeezed my arm. “All this time you never said a word about it! I knew you’d taken lessons, but I’d no idea this was your passion. And you gave it up! That’s a crime!”
Fiona agreed. I must do something. Not just let part of my being die! It wasn’t too late, she said. Didn’t I know the reputation of Brown’s orchestra? What an opportunity I had here!
“No, no.” I shook my head. I was just sharing the story, that was all. Too much time had passed, too many things forgotten. Anyway, my brother was the true talent in the family.
“Ridiculous. It will come back to you like that.” Francesca snapped her fingers to indicate her point. “You have to take charge of your own life, Setsu. Claim it! Often I suspected there was more to you than it seemed, a side you’ve kept hidden. And it’s true—” She rapped her box of Parliaments excitedly against her palm. “Doesn’t James beg you to play? He must.” Leaning forward, reaching for a pitcher of pineapple juice at the center of the table, she interrupted James’s conversation with Dominic. “Why did you let your girlfriend keep such a secret from us?” she said with a ringing of her bracelets. “I had no idea she was a real musician. You must encourage her. Tell her she mustn’t waste her gift.”
From the stiffening of James’s jaw, I knew I had made a mistake by confessing things to Francesca I had never shared with him. “I know. She’s wonderful, isn’t she?” He reached for my hand, clasping it in his, but before he did so, I thought I saw a flickering as his eyes shifted from Francesca to me, a darkness, something unfamiliar.
Returning to Providence, James chose the most direct route, rather than the quieter one along the river we had followed on our way to The Hill Club. Few cars were on the road, and there was little sound but the whirring of his tires on the paved highway. Each time James adjusted his legs or cleared his throat, I prepared for him to mention the revelation Fran had made. But for many, many miles his only comments were about a crow we spotted perched atop a decaying tree and
the gathering clouds overhead.
So I was left to my own thoughts, and my mind began to wander, to dream of unlikely things, of old abandoned hopes. And when I could no longer bear the suspense of trying to guess James’s opinion, I blurted the question that had been aching in my throat since leaving the club. Some students from the music department were starting their own chamber ensemble, I explained. Last week I had seen their posters near the campus mailboxes. They needed a violinist and auditions would be in the spring. “I didn’t really consider it until now, until Fran . . . Do you think it would be silly of me? You know, with just a few months to prepare . . .”
James’s eyes narrowed without blinking, puckering the skin between his brows as if he were focusing hard on some object in the road. For a time he said nothing, and I felt the blood rush to my ears, certain that James was about to point out the irrationality of my suggestion. But when he finally turned to me, it was with the half-smile he saved for our most private moments. No, no, of course he did not think me silly. It was only that he had some concerns, he said, petting my forehead, running his fingers through strands of my hair. Wasn’t my schedule full enough already? Hadn’t he heard me complain that I was beginning to fall behind in my Chaucer reading, that I had needed an extension for my most recent Dickens paper? “I just don’t want you to feel overloaded,” he said. And as I nodded, he peered at me intently, then lifted my wrist to his lips.
James was right, I was quite sure. It was probably unreasonable to think I could manage another demand on my time. For a day or two, I tried to forget my conversation with Francesca and Fiona and any foolish notions about joining the chamber ensemble. Francesca could talk of independence and daring, of living life with courage, but, of course, these things came easily to her, things one could not fake or pretend, and I did not know if they could be learned.
But then memories began to disturb my nights. I would wake in the dark to the sound of a Mozart symphony or a Beethoven sonata, only to realize the music was playing in my own head. Beautiful sections of pieces, the notes clear as crystals, as if I’d practiced them just the day before. One night I was startled from sleep by a dream I had not dreamed since early girlhood: I am in Japan, never having been taken to America. I am sitting on a stone bench in a small garden with my birth mother, who is alive and well. She is playing the solo part of Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto in E” on an instrument with wood that shines gold-brown in the sunlight. When she finishes, she bends her head to kiss my cheek, then, smiling, passes the violin to me, waiting for me to play with notes as strong and clear as hers. Lying in James’s bed, having woken from my dream, I stared at the ceiling, at the faint shadows of tapering tree branches, and brushed at the tears that slipped silently from the corners of my eyes.
