Perfect Pitch

by Amy Lapwing

  “I don’t know,” Derek said, “just, live, I guess.”

  Michael looked to Teresa to see if this was code for something. She rolled her eyes and said, “Derek doesn’t think graduate students are really living.”

  “It’s too predictable,” explained Derek. “Go to grad school, take a bunch more courses, do a thesis, and then what? It’s still the same question. The answer is just, live, same as now. So, why put it off? Grad school’s just a delaying tactic. A fucking expensive one, too.” He looked in a panic at his mother, wishing he could take back the cuss word. He flicked his eyes at Michael. “Sorry,” he said.

  “It can be a delaying tactic,” said Michael calmly. “Or it can be a way to deepen your art. Among like-minded people that you can learn from.”

  “An artist learns much more from life, outside the academic cage,” countered Derek.

  They ate in silence a moment. Michael could see from the way she poked at her rice that Teresa was distressed by Derek’s ideas. “You could do both,” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” said Derek.

  “You could go to school part-time, supporting yourself with real work in the real world.” He glanced at Derek for his reaction. Apparently he had not thought of that option.

  “That’s a noble way to live,” agreed Teresa, “you’re independent and yet you have a tie to a community of people who are like you and can help you.”

  Derek reached for a tortilla and said, “It still delays the start of your life.”

  Michael smiled at Teresa: they could not win this one.

  After dinner Derek skedaddled off to the library to do a paper he had been procrastinating on. “It’s due tomorrow,” he said to his mother’s protests, and the ex-lovers were left alone. Michael helped Teresa clear the table and they worked side-by-side in the kitchen.

  “He must sound like such a bohemian to you,” said Teresa.

  “Better to be a bohemian at twenty than at forty,” he said to reassure her.

  “He doesn’t listen to me,” she said.

  “Of course he does, he just can’t let on.”

  “No, I mean, I can tell that whenever I give him advice he shuts it out. He thinks I play it too safe. I think it’s just because I’m his mother. He would listen differently to Whit, I think. My ex-husband.”

  “Does he see his father?”

  “No. He remembers what Whit used to do to him. He cannot respect him.”

  She looked up at him. Were her eyes moist?

  “There’s no man he’s close to,” she went on, “no one he can respect. That’s hard for him, isn’t it?”

  Michael felt her worry for this almost-grown son, a young man with no other judgment to rely on than his own. He put his arm around her shoulders. “Perhaps he’ll meet someone in the next few years that can help him. There was no one at Emory, in Atlanta?”

  She shook her head.

  “Let him go and find out what life is. He’ll find out how hard it is to make a living. Either he’ll be a success, or he’ll change his plans.”

  She squeezed his side and suggested they go into the living room.

  She invited him to sit on the sofa while she went round behind him and leaned over the back and said softly by his ear, “I can’t think of anyone else who would actually like to do what we’re about to do.”

  “Really?” he said, panicked.

  She went to the bookcase and came to sit by him with a big photo album and he suppressed a sigh of relief. They looked at snapshots of the two of them and their friends at the Universidad de Costa Rica. She showed him a picture of her friend Lita. “You followed her around like a puppy that whole trip.”

  “I did?” he said.

  “Mm-hm. She was heartbroken when you never called.”

  He smiled at her picture. “She was very pretty. And very silly.” He sat back from the photo album and looked at Teresa. “I remember it was you I followed around everywhere.”

  “Unh-unh,” she uttered, shaking her head.

  “I even sang under your window.” He softly sang part of a Spanish love song. She was shaking her head. “Oh!” he moaned. “You don’t remember? And your neighbor, that little old lady, Señora Cramped-Toes or something, called the police? And they heard me and they said, lady, what are you complaining about?”

  “It wasn’t me,” said Teresa, trying not to smile.

  “¡Ay!” he complained and he showed her his left ear.

  She peered up into his face and sang the next verse of the song he had started. He smiled. She laid her hand on his arm as she finished. He hooked an arm around her shoulders and rested his cheek against her hair.

  His face went slack. He lifted his arm off her and sat forward on the sofa. “I’d better get going. I should see how Justina is doing.”

  She followed him to the door. “I’m glad you could come, Miguel. I can tell Derek listens to you. I’m so gratified, thank you.”

  “Thank you for dinner,” he said. He would not let himself say how good it was seeing her again, he did not know why.

  He entered their bedroom softly when he saw the light was off. He sat on the bed and tried to see if she was awake.

  She rolled over to him, pushing air from the depths of the bed out to his nose: the thick smell of sleep, accented with her body’s scents and a faint remembrance of sex.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “So, how’d it go?” she asked.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  He put his hand on the other side of her legs and leaned over her. “We talked about her son a lot. She’s worried about him.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “‘Cause he’s growing up, I guess. She wants him to be successful.”

  “Sounds pretty normal.”

  He studied the pattern of flowers on the pillowcase.

  “What else?” she prompted.

  “The usual let’s-look-at-the scrapbook thing.”

  “Really took you back, I bet.”

  He bobbed his head toward one shoulder. “Did you eat anything?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I ate the soup.”

  “Not hungry?”

  She shook her head.

  “You tired?”

  “I was,” she yawned. “I’m not so tired now. You going back downstairs?”

  He looked at his watch. Not yet nine o’clock. “Guess so.”

  “Me, too.” She got out of bed and put on her robe and went with him downstairs. They sat and watched Masterpiece Theatre, and tried to let themselves be transported to Brittany Major. Their minds were far away, his among the college buildings of San Pedro, hers in the house of an unknown woman she tried to make look like the library bag-checker but who kept reverting to Cher. I got you, babe.

  Chapter Seven

  Good Ho

  Twenty-three years. That was pretty good. Except that the last ones were so shitty. So, maybe fifteen good years. Nana and Grampy, though, they must be going on forty years now. But they’re from that stay-married generation. From Mom and Dad’s generation, I can’t think of anyone who’s been stay-married. Professor Trimble? I wonder how long they’ve been married. Ten years? Shit!

  Grace checked her other pocket. She was out of yellow and black ribbons. She would have to go find Howard and ask him to get her some more. She walked down the aisle and saw a wooden-slat-and-wire fence stretched behind the jonagolds. She looked to her right and saw fencing there too. She hurriedly looked left: more fence. Great, now I have to break through the fence and go find Howard.

  She came to the end of the aisle and looked for a seam in the fence that she could pry apart. She walked along it and found a place, but the ends were joined by wire looped about the slats. Fine, I’ll just destroy it! She tried pulling the slats apart, then she knelt down and tried to unwind the wire. She got an end loose and began unlooping it from the wood.

  “What are you doing?” asked a man’s voice, a note of panic at the end.

&n
bsp; Grace looked up, expecting to find one of the other workers, or Howard. She would curse him out, the stupid fuck.

  A young man strode quickly from the green Abbey Orchard pick-up to where she was. “I just put that up,” he said. “What are you doing in there?”

  “I’m working?” said Grace, standing. He was looking at her with the biggest brown eyes she had ever seen. Warm brown, like hot fudge. He was looking at her as if trying to decide if she was lying. “I was putting ribbons on back there.” She pointed behind her, keeping her eyes on him.

  He looked over her shoulder and squinted at the yellow and black ribbons twisting in the light breeze. “That area’s closed.”

  “I know,” said Grace, impatient.

  “I just closed it,” he said.

  “I know, but when it’s open, people have to know what kind of trees those ones are.”

  He looked again at the ribbons in the distance. “You were ID’ing them?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she explained: he must be new. “See all these other trees?” She waved at the trees outside the fence. “They’re Cortland and Mac. But these—” she waved an arm at the enclosed trees behind her— “are jonagolds, and when they’re ready, Howard’ll tell you to take this fence down, the one you’ve just put up, and really well, I can see that. And then people’ll think these are Cortland and Mac trees too, except they’ll see the ribbons and they’ll think, oh, these are different. What are these again?”

  “Jonagold,” he said.

  “Right.” She pushed her brows down to keep her smile from spreading too wide. He had really nice hair, dark brown or black, she couldn’t tell, but really lustrous. She wanted to touch it, touch the curls. “You want to help me get out of here?” she prompted.

  He looked at the fence and then at her and seemed just then to realize she was penned in. He smiled. “You’re not done, yet,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t see any ribbon on that tree—” he pointed over her shoulder— “or that one, or heck, that whole row on that side’s missing their ribbons.” He cocked his head and crossed his arms and his tongue tip touched a corner of his mouth.

  “I ran out of ribbons,” she said and she grabbed the fence again. “Come on, you did this too well. You didn’t have to do this this well.”

  “If I let you out of here, you have to do something for me,” he said.

  That was a very dickheadish thing to say. But he was smiling nice, kind of boyish-like.

  “Will you explain something to me?” he asked. “I’m new here and something’s been bugging me.”

  “What?” she asked, intrigued now: he was new. He probably didn’t know anything about her. At all.

  “This is New England, right? So, how come everyone I meet has an Italian name or a French name or a Greek name? Or Spanish or Chinese or German? Where are all the English?”

  “I’m English,” she said.

  “What’s your name?”

  She was right, he didn’t know who she was.

  “Unh-unh,” she said. “Let me out first.”

  “Oh, well,” he said, “I don’t really need to know your name. It’s enough that I’ve at last met a Yankee.”

  “You sound like a Southerner,” she said.

  “I’m from Atlanta. But I’m not a Southerner. I’m from Costa Rica. You probably don’t know where that is.”

  “Yes, I do. I know someone from Costa Rica.”

  “You do? Who?”

  She pulled at the fence while looking at him, her lower lip rolled under her upper teeth.

  He put his hands on the fence and held it still. “What’s your name?” he murmured.

  She shook her head.

  “Come on,” he coaxed. “How do you expect me to ask you out if I don’t know your name?”

  “What makes you think I’d go out with you? I don’t even know your name,” she purred.

  “Derek Bartel. My major is music. I don’t sing, I compose. I came from Emory in Atlanta. I’m a Tico, from Costa Rica, and I’d really like it if you went out with me—” He ended his request on a high note that begged for resolution, for her to tell him her name.

  “Let me out,” she said coolly.

  “Wouldn’t want you to think I thought women should be kept in cages,” he said, and he neatly undid his work and separated the two sections of fencing.

  Grace stepped out of his enclosure and stood to the side, suddenly shy at not having the fence for a prop any more. He seamed the fence back together and stood with his hands in his back pockets. He dipped his head and looked up at her through his curls. She was smiling shyly at him. “I’m Derek Bartel,” he repeated.

  “Grace Hardy,” she said and stuck out her hand.

  He held her hand. “Hardy? That’s English?”

  “Yes!” she said, was he calling her a liar? “What’s ‘Bartel?’”

  “English. My father’s American, my mother tells me. She’s Costa Rican, like me.”

  Probably divorced, thought Grace. So, we have something in common. Along with music.

  “Grace,” he said, stretching out the vowel as though savoring it, “will you go out with me, this weekend?”

  “I don’t know,” said Grace, “I just met you.”

  “But you already know a lot about me. I’m a Costa Rican transfer student from Atlanta, I like music, I work part-time at this orchard, and I make a damn good fence.”

  “This is true,” she said, bobbing her head.

  “And I can show you a good time.” She was lowering her head; he peered at her. “Maybe you haven’t been out and really lived, you know? Just really felt alive.”

  “What do you mean?” she said. “I know how to live.”

  “You strike me as someone who knows how to be safe. You go to class, you go to work, you do your homework, you study for tests, you go out for a few beers. But do you really live?”

  She looked at his face, letting the full effect of his charms work upon her. He was different, he said unusual things. She felt an excitement, not just physical, but spiritual, perhaps, possibly, maybe, resonating within her, from nowhere.

  “Come out with me and let me show you how we live,” he said.

  “If I say no, you’ll think I’m a dweeb.”

  “No, I won’t, I’ll just think you’re not ready.”

  He sounded neutral, as though he didn’t care what she said. She wanted him to return to enchanting. She had never felt enchanted before, not since Shane, but that didn’t count, she was only thirteen then. Since then, she had been in control with boys, she knew how to attract them and how to keep them. And how to get rid of them. “When?” she asked.

  They made a date for the coming Saturday night and he drove her to find Howard and more ribbons. She filled her pockets with yellow and black streamers and he let them both back into his enclosure and together they finished tagging the trees, clearly distinct now from the multitude of ordinary fruit-bearers around them.

  Tuesday night, Derek decided to take a break and left his books on the library table and walked over to the Tau Nu frat house. He found that friendly guy Aaron up in his room watching a video with a couple other brothers. They called, “Dude!” and Aaron invited Derek in. Aaron told him to help himself to some weed. Derek said he’d just take a hit from one of the other brothers’. Aaron asked, “What’s up?” and Derek said not much, he had a date for Saturday. “Who is she?” asked Aaron and then he crowed, “Ho!” when Derek told him. Derek wasn’t sure if that was a good ho or a bad ho. Aaron gave him the word on Grace, as the other brothers smirked and added their versions. It was a good ho.

  “Who’s doing dinner this week?” asked Michael at breakfast on Wednesday. Their Sunday dinner circle had widened to include Helena and Pascale and Denis, as well as Charles, of course. They still got together every other week, rotating the host home. Two weeks ago it had been the Calderón-Trimble house, last week was an off week, this week was on.

  “Helena, I th
ink,” answered Justina. “Supposed to be Pascale and Denis, but they’re still relieved of duty.”

  “I wonder,” started Michael. He checked Justina’s look, as though she could answer his unspoken query by the way she spread jam on her English muffin.

  “What?” prompted Justina when the interval had gone on too long.

  “You think we could have Teresa and Derek over here, before, in the afternoon?” he tested.

  She looked at him with wide eyes, trying to think of some reason why he would want to do that.

  “Just to reciprocate?” he tried.

  She put down her knife. “Are we socializing with her now, then?” She took a bite of the muffin.

  “Are we cutting her?” he asked.

  Yes, that’s exactly what we’re doing. “I don’t know,” she said. She tried to imagine, first, telling Pascale that she was entertaining Michael’s old lover for afternoon coffee, and, second, how she would act toward her. She looked at Michael; he was sipping his coffee, looking at her, waiting for her okay. Is he insane?

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said, hoping that would put an end to it.

  “Okay,” he said and put down his mug. He turned to the paper.

  What, now he’s pissed at me? “Michael,” she said. He looked up. “It just doesn’t feel right, you know?”

  “Okay,” he repeated, and took up the paper again.

  She lost her appetite and felt a nub of cold in her belly as she looked at him reading the paper. She took a section and opened it and did some mental arithmetic. She would be ovulating this week; it was probably just her hormones.

  Grace came out her door and met Derek on the walk. She did not want to let him in to see the tight expressions of her parents, fresh from a feud over ownership of the boat— Jack wanted Linda to acknowledge part-ownership, and pay half the storage bill, Linda wanted no part of it— so she had intercepted Derek before he got to her front door.

  “You look really nice,” he said, after taking a look at her in her short brown velour skirt and breast-hugging cream-colored knit top with the rosette on the front.