Skipping a Beat

by Sarah Pekkanen

  I put the bag on the passenger’s seat of my car and was pulling out of the driveway when my cell phone rang. I recognized the incoming number and pressed speakerphone.

  “Hey, Raj,” I said, relieved to hear a friendly voice. Raj was one of Michael’s former business school professors, and since he’d joined the company, he’d become close to both of us.

  “Julia,” he greeted me in his lovely Indian accent. “Quite an afternoon.”

  “We’ve all had better ones,” I agreed as I programmed the name of George Washington University Hospital into my GPS. I was too shaken to trust myself to find it without help. “But the main thing is, Michael’s fine.”

  “Thank God for that,” Raj said. He paused. “I hate to bother you.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m on my way to the hospital now.”

  “Oh.” A strange tone crept into Raj’s voice. “You haven’t seen Michael yet?”

  There it was again: that glimmer of—anxiety? confusion?—that everyone who’d come into contact with Michael since his cardiac arrest seemed to experience.

  “No, no, I saw him,” I said. “I just ran home to get him a change of clothes.”

  “How …” Raj cleared his throat and began again. “How was he feeling?”

  “I think he was looped up on something,” I said. “He was definitely calmer than usual.” I gave a little half laugh, but Raj didn’t join me.

  “I was there, you know,” he said. “When it happened. I was at the other end of the table, and I’d just turned my back to fill up my coffee cup. I didn’t see him fall, but I heard him hit the floor.”

  Raj didn’t say anything else, and I wondered why he’d called. It was almost as if he was waiting for me to volunteer something.

  “I’ll tell Michael you phoned,” I finally said.

  “Please do,” Raj said. “I’m here for whatever either of you need. Anything at all.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I was about to hang up when Raj’s voice stopped me.

  “Julia?” he asked. “Did Michael … say anything at the hospital?”

  “Like what?” I asked. I pulled to a stop at a red light and looked down at the phone, feeling icy fingertips tickling my spine.

  “Just checking. It’s nothing.” His voice changed; grew more forceful. “He seemed a little disoriented, that’s all. Call me anytime,” Raj said again. “I’ll have my cell phone on all night.”

  I pushed Disconnect, and as I crossed the border from Virginia into D.C., I turned up the volume on my Puccini CD, trying to drown out the troublesome thoughts buzzing in my head.

  * * *

  Five

  * * *

  SO HOW DID MICHAEL and I get from there to here, from being inseparable to becoming near strangers? There isn’t a single moment I can hold up and turn around, like one of those prehistoric insects suspended in a chunk of amber, and say, Do you see it? That’s it; that’s the precise second when everything changed for Michael and me. No, our marriage was more like spending an afternoon at the beach while the tide receded. You could be lying right there on the soft sand and not even notice the microscopic changes—the waves pulling back, inexorably pulling back—while the sun warmed your back and the happy shouts of children filled your ears. Then you’d look up from the last page in your novel and blink, feeling disoriented, wondering how the ocean had moved so far away and when everything around you had changed.

  By the time my husband collapsed at work, he and I hadn’t talked—I mean really talked, one of our all-night heart-to-hearts—in years, which is crazy, because talking was all we used to do. Well, maybe not all. We were teenagers, which meant we were so overflowing with hormones that we practically trailed them behind us like bread crumbs, but every day, when the final school bell sounded, we’d race to the banks of the river on the outskirts of our town. We’d spread out a blanket and ignore our homework while we drank each other in. No detail was too obscure or minor to revel in: He hated pickles, I couldn’t stand ketchup. “We’ll never be able to have a proper barbecue,” Michael moaned. “They’ll ban us from ever living in the suburbs.” We both secretly, humiliatingly, loved the game show Family Feud. I told Michael about how I tried to keep my lips tightly clenched for an entire year after some bitches in training on the third-grade playground told me my dimples looked like ugly holes in my face (“I’ll put itching powder in their bras,” Michael vowed, tracing my dimples with a gentle fingertip. “I’ll slip so much vitamin C into their Diet Cokes that they’ll turn orange. We’ll create an army of itchy-boobed Oompa Loompas, and force them to do our bidding.”)

  Our conversations were like Russian nesting dolls: With each layer of thoughts and fears and memories we uncovered, we only grew more eager to delve deeper, to tease apart the outer façades, until we finally uncovered each other’s hidden, secret parts. We stretched out those delicious afternoons as long as possible, folding up our blanket and shrugging into our backpacks only when mosquitoes began nibbling on us and I imagined my mother’s anxious face peering through the living room window.

  Though it took him a while to open up, I slowly came to understand how horrible it was for Michael at home. Before they moved out, his older brothers had teased him relentlessly, calling him a nerd and a geek, landing charley horses on his skinny biceps or sticking out a foot to trip him as Michael walked by, engrossed in a book. Worst of all, his dad didn’t try to stop the torment. Once when his oldest brother punched him in the stomach, Michael doubled over, then looked at his father for help and caught him smirking.

  “I think my dad’s jealous that I’m smarter than he is,” Michael said, his lighthearted tone contradicting the way his mouth twisted around the words. “And I look more like my … my, ah, mother. That’s part of it, too, I guess.”

  Eventually I told Michael about my father, too. He was the first person I ever talked to about it.

  Sometimes we just lay silently for hours, our legs, arms, and even fingers entwined, as though we couldn’t bear for a single part of us not to be touching. I honestly believe Michael and I saved each other that year, the final one we spent in our hometown.

  Now, when I mentally trace the trajectory of our relationship—and I’ve had plenty of time to do it, lots of silent evenings alone in our home—I realize there wasn’t a sharp breaking point or single furious argument that set us on our current path. And yet, a particular evening always comes back to me when I wonder how and why everything changed for us. It was the night I listened to an opera and fell in love for the second time in my life.

  I’d heard opera music before, of course, but I’d always flicked past it to a different radio station or talked over it at dinner parties. Go to an opera? I mean, if you were looking for that kind of a thrill, why not just volunteer to referee a shuffleboard tournament on a seniors’ cruise?

  Then I agreed to take on the D. C. Opera Company as a client on a pro bono basis. It was a win-win: My company could use the tax write-off, and the opera company desperately needed the infusion of cash that my fund-raisers would attract. As a thank-you, the company sent me two tickets to opening night of Madama Butterfly.

  “Do you want to go?” Michael asked as he looked in a hallway mirror to straighten his tie. He was heading out even earlier than usual that morning; he’d just bought a minority interest in the Blazes, and he was meeting with the D.C. mayor about building a new basketball stadium.

  “Sure.” I shrugged, yawning sleepily and glancing down at the tickets in my hand. “I should probably learn something about my new client.”

  “It’s Friday night? What else do I have on Friday?” he asked.

  I narrowed my eyes. “You better not have forgotten.”

  Michael smiled and held up his briefcase like a shield against my death glare. “Kidding. I have to go to New York that day,” he said, opening our front door and stepping outside, then quickly ducking back in to kiss me. “I’ll meet you there.”

  As the evening approached, I began to
look forward to it more and more. At least Michael and I could laugh at the opera snobs—they didn’t actually use those silly little glasses, did they?—then, afterward, we could have a late dinner together. I’d surprise my husband, I decided, impulsively reaching for the phone to make reservations at a fancy Italian restaurant where every booth was sealed off with thick velvet curtains.

  At five o’clock, I stopped working and took a long, steaming bath in my Jacuzzi. I spent extra time on my makeup, blending a peach blush high on my cheekbones and smoking my eyes; then I put on my new emerald-colored silk underwear. Michael had once told me he liked the way the color brought out the green in my hazel eyes. If my push-up bra lifted and plumped with the enthusiasm it promised, I doubted Michael would be noticing my eyes tonight.

  By the time I began to climb the majestic marble steps leading to the opera company’s front doors, I felt almost giddy. Michael and I needed to do this more often, I realized, inhaling the crisp air that made me think of bonfires and hot apple cider and the crunch of orange and gold leaves under my feet. How long had it been since we’d had a quiet dinner, just the two of us?

  I looked off into the distance at the Washington Monument and nearly laughed out loud, remembering the first time I’d seen it, more than a decade earlier. Michael and I had been teenagers then, freshly graduated from high school and driving toward our new life together in an ancient station wagon with a piece of paneling missing from the side and garbage bags stuffed full of our belongings in the trunk. Every fifty miles or so we’d had to stop and fill the radiator with cold water and check the patched tire to make sure it wasn’t leaking.

  Then we crossed from Virginia into D.C. and the huge, pencil-shaped monument loomed into view. Michael pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car while we gaped at it. We’d really done it; we’d escaped our town and our families, and we were crossing the threshold into a brand-new life together.

  “I can’t believe it,” Michael breathed.

  I blinked back tears, too overcome to talk.

  “I mean, I can’t believe they built that thing just to honor me,” he said, guiding my hand to his lap. “Isn’t it a perfect replica?”

  I batted his hand away. “Freud was right about you men,” I said. “Do you really think everything is about your anatomy?”

  “Absolutely not! Gherkin pickles and Vienna sausages couldn’t be more different.” Michael leered, and I hit him again, then kissed him long and hard while cars flew past us, honking and weaving in and out of lanes.

  But five minutes before Madama Butterfly was scheduled to start, the smile dropped away from my face. I’d gotten used to sending our regrets when Michael begged off from dinner parties, and I’d canceled our trip to Paris—the first real vacation we’d ever planned to take. But would he really do this to me tonight, when he knew I’d be standing outside, waiting for him?

  As if on cue, my BlackBerry buzzed with a new message: MEETING RUNNING LATE. FLYING HOME IN THE MORNING. SORRY.

  I stood there uncertainly, watching a few stragglers hurry inside.

  You don’t have any right to be upset, I told myself, trying to push back the anger and hurt that instantly flooded me. You wanted Michael to be successful. So he has to work late; it comes with the territory. You can’t change the rules now.

  Michael’s unstoppable drive was one of the things that had attracted me to him, back when we’d stood on another set of front steps so long ago. He’d given me the kind of life any woman would dream of; he’d accomplished everything he’d promised to, and then some. How could I complain now?

  So I didn’t text him back or call him. I didn’t let Michael know how much I wanted to be with him. Maybe it was because I couldn’t bear to hear what he’d say if I asked him to choose between me and work, or maybe it just seemed easier to let the moment slide by, another wave infinitesimally pulling back. It was too late now, anyway. The night was ruined.

  I’d go home and watch a movie, I decided as I began to reverse my climb on the steps. Take off my new dress and put on some soft pajamas. Maybe I’d wander through our wine cellar and pick out a special bottle to savor. The chef who came by our house twice a week always left the refrigerator stocked with all my favorites—Thai peanut noodles, and shrimp quesadillas with fresh guacamole, and all kinds of salads … I’d almost done it, almost talked myself out of my mood, like I was cajoling a little kid back from the brink of a tantrum. Then the romantic meal I’d secretly planned—just Michael and me in that candlelit booth—flashed through my mind, and a powerful wave of loneliness almost knocked the wind out of me. I ducked my head and wrapped my arms around myself as I stared down at the steps.

  I couldn’t go home and dull my feelings with a few extra glasses of chardonnay, like I’d done on so many other nights. But what else could I do?

  “Excuse me? Are you coming inside?”

  I turned around and saw an usher in a red coat preparing to close the door.

  “No—” I began to say, but then my feet took charge, whirling me around and leaping back up the steps two at a time. I slipped inside the tall doors just in time for the usher to lead me to my seat as the lights dimmed.

  Ninety minutes later, the lights flicked back on for intermission. All around me, people stood up and stretched and murmured to each other as they began walking toward the lobby bar and restrooms, but I didn’t move. I just sat there, blinking slowly, feeling as though I were awakening from a beautiful dream. All the empty places inside of me had been flooded with heat and color. How had I misunderstood it so completely? Opera wasn’t stuffy at all; it was messy and passionate and … and real.

  The story told through song was that of a beautiful young Japanese woman named Cio-Cio San who was pining for her American husband, who’d returned to the States and forgotten about her. I hear you, sister, I’d thought as she sang of her pain and sorrow at her abandonment. Hot anger flooded me when the husband’s new American wife appeared on the scene, and I brushed away tears as Cio-Cio San realized her husband didn’t love her, not in the way she yearned to be loved. Not in the way she loved him.

  She’s singing to me, I thought as she began her heartbreaking aria.

  After that night, I secretly bought a subscription for one in the orchestra section, where I was so close I felt like I could practically touch the rustling, jewel-colored costumes; so close I could feel the music swelling like air in my lungs, almost lifting me up out of my seat with its power. Opera quickly became my addiction and my therapy, my secret escape from a life that—at least on the surface—was everything I’d ever dreamed of and more.

  When I arrived home that night, still hearing echoes of Cio-Cio San’s aria, I unlocked the door and my eyes fell on a table in our grand foyer. Crimson roses overflowed prettily in a huge crystal vase. Naddy, our maid, must have arranged them there so I’d see them as soon as I came in.

  At least Michael had remembered what he’d murmured in my ear right after we got engaged. He’d given me a single perfect rose—all he could afford—and promised, “I’ll buy you a dozen roses for every year we’ve been married on our anniversaries.”

  “Even our fiftieth?” I’d laughed, wrapping my arms around him.

  “Especially our fiftieth,” he’d said, tickling my neck with the soft petals.

  I walked over to the vase and counted. Five dozen roses, just as Michael had promised. I picked up the little white card and read the message a florist had typed: “I’ll make it up to you on our sixth. Love, M.”

  Ever since that night, I’ve gone to the opera as often as possible, and I’ve never been disappointed. But I dream of going back in time to see opera the way it was meant to be. If you skipped back a century or two, you’d forget all about exorbitantly priced seats and lace-trimmed handkerchiefs dabbing at damp eyes and genteel murmurs of “Brava!” Opera, in its heyday, was a bloody, bruise-filled, raucous sport.

  Audience members booed wildly when they hated a song, and they roared loud
er than rabid football fans when they approved. Opera halls were filled with shouts and fights and foot-stomping, cheering celebrations. Decorum was nowhere to be found during opera’s early, heady days; it was probably cowering under a seat, terrified someone would throw a drink down its throat and make it dance in the aisles.

  The people who inhabited the world of opera were completely nuts, which probably had something to do with all the chaos swirling around. Once, when the soprano Francesca Cuzzoni refused to sing an aria written by the composer George Frideric Handel, he grabbed her and threatened to dangle her out a window until she came around to his point of view (she saw it quickly enough). Then there was the guy who watched his wife flirt with a tenor during Wagner’s Ban on Love. The husband flew into a jealous rage, jumped up onstage in the middle of the performance, and punched out the poor tenor, who could probably at least take solace in the fact that his acting was believable. And I’ve always loved the story about the woman, who told her rival, mid-performance, that one of the rival’s false eyebrows had come off. So the rival ripped off the other one and soldiered on—except her first eyebrow had been fine, so the poor woman went through the rest of the opera looking slightly deranged.

  Can’t you just see it? All those people, bound together watching the spectacle onstage, strangers becoming friends as they flooded the streets, carrying a triumphant composer on their shoulders, reliving the glow of the most glorious music ever invented?

  Nowadays, it seems like the audience is removed from the chaos and madness unfolding behind the scenes. It isn’t that the performers have suddenly become less quirky—Luciano Pavarotti was so superstitious that he wouldn’t perform until he’d scoured the stage and found a single bent nail—but somehow, the belief that opera is supposed to be as stuffy as a bad head cold has come into vogue.