Where Do I Start?

by Chase Taylor Hackett

  “I swear, Tommy. The last thing I want to do is hurt him again.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You’ve been warned.”

  “So what is the real obstacle, do you think, if it’s not Jeff?”

  “That would be you, bucko.”

  “Me?”

  “I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive you.” Fletch sighed and he looked like he was the saddest Pierrot doll from my little sister’s sad Pierrot doll collection. “You know,” I said, “you’re pretty cute when you’re serious.”

  We never did find anything for poor Roger. Fletch still had a few days to come up with something.

  We parted at the subway entrance, going different directions. I stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at Fletch for a second.

  “Do you remember I said I’d never forgive you for hurting him the way you did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s one way you can redeem yourself.”

  “Really? What do I have to do?”

  I considered for a couple seconds what exactly I wanted to say and if I should be sticking my nose in here or not. Finally I answered him.

  “Make it right,” I said, and I turned and went down the steps into the subway—like Orpheus, I liked to think.

  Chapter 20

  No, Really, You Shouldn’t Have!

  Roger

  I was practicing when the doorbell buzzed, and Haggis launched into his usual imitation of a blood-crazed berserker. Between the buzzer and the dog, it shattered me. Every. Single. Time.

  I figured it was Jeff coming to surprise me. It was my birthday, so it was possible, and I buzzed him in without thinking. Then I remembered—Jeff had his own keys. Must be a mistake. I went back to practicing until there was a knock on the door, and another round of barking mayhem, and now was I getting irritated.

  Jeff wouldn’t buzz and he certainly wouldn’t knock. I went to the door, ready to yell at the Jehovah’s Witness I expected to see there. Okay, like I would ever yell at a stranger at my door. Nor had a Jehovah’s Witness ever actually come calling. Did Jeff send me flowers or something? Some salesperson probably.

  “Haggis, I hear it. That’s enough.” He settled into a low growl as I pulled the door open.

  No flowers. And for some reason, this salesperson had a little boy with her—a little boy clinging to a tiny violin case.

  “Mr. Prescott?” the woman said.

  “Yes?” I said with some worry.

  “We’re here for our lesson.” Definitely not a sales person, definitely not a J. W.

  “Excuse me?”

  “We’re supposed to explain—there was an ad for a free violin lesson, and we spoke to the man, and here we are, exactly on time, like he said. Hello, nice doggy,” she said to Haggis, who was doing his usual in-depth ankle inspection.

  “Haggis, stop. I’m sorry, but I didn’t place any ad, and I don’t teach.” At this point my cell started ringing in my pocket. Jeez Louise. Never rains but it hails. All I wanted to do was practice! I was still holding the violin and bow in my left hand.

  “Oooh, that’s lovely,” the kid’s mother said about my ringtone, which was me playing a bit from Scheherezade.

  “Thank you,” I said, as I stepped inside to lay the violin on the piano. They followed me in, while I was fishing the phone out of my pocket. “I’m sorry for the confusion, but I don’t know where you—” I was trying to explain over the violin solo.

  “You should take that,” she said of the call I was about to ignore.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “He said to tell you to take the call. That’ll be Fletcher.”

  “Fletcher.” I glanced at my phone. She was right. Of course it was Fletch. “Just a second.”

  I swiped the screen on the phone.

  “Have you met Trevor?” said Fletch before I could give voice to my compounding annoyance, or even say hello. And to piss me off still further, he sounded totally chirpy about something.

  “Trevor?” I said. The woman nodded smiling and pushed the little boy forward half a step.

  “He’s adorable, isn’t he?” Fletch said.

  “Fletch, what is all this?”

  “It’s Trevor! He’s your first student! You said you thought you might really like teaching, so…”

  “So you hooked me up? With an eight-year-old?”

  “Nine!” the woman said, pulling her child back toward her.

  “Is this a joke?” I turned to the woman. “Is this a joke?”

  “I hope not.” She pulled the kid tighter.

  “Fletch, you should have said something—why didn’t you ask? I’d have told you, if nothing else, that today is not really—I don’t imagine you remember, but it’s my birthday.”

  “Of course I remember! And—ta-da! Trevor!”

  “What?”

  “I know you hate surprises, but still, look at him! I even bought the cutest, dinky violin, a ‘liddle-fiddle.’ Happy birthday, Roger.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Definitely not. Now go play. Have some fun.”

  And the son of a bitch hung up on me.

  A student? I stared at the phone. It was ridiculous! I had the day all planned out but now this, this Trevor thing. God, I hate surprises. Fletch knows that. And here was this four-foot-nothing surprise, whose little high-tops—exactly like Fletch’s but in the teeny-tiny version—seemed to be a source of great fascination for the dog.

  “Haggis,” I said. He ignored me.

  And this little surprise was standing in my living room!

  You know, if Fletch wanted to give me a real surprise, he should leave me alone and not screw up my schedule. Now that would be a surprise, and something I’d actually like! But no, wherever Fletch finds order, he has to mess it up. He is entropy. The Prince of Chaos. He loves to make trouble for people, especially for me, and I’m sure he thinks it’s really funny. I bet he’s laughing himself sick right now, knowing that he’s ruining my day—my birthday!

  This was so like him.

  No, it wasn’t either. It was actually a new low, involving total strangers in his stunts. Doesn’t seem to bother him in the least that he’s embarrassing this woman, not to mention what he’s doing to this poor little kid just so he can have a laugh and wreak his havoc in my life. Such a selfish, irresponsible, thoughtless jerk. I should really tell him—this whole let’s-be-buddies thing isn’t working out.

  I looked down at my birthday present. Great. Just what I always wanted. A mop of hair.

  Now what am I supposed to do?! The kid is here, in my apartment! How am I supposed to get rid of him now? I’m supposed to teach him? I don’t give lessons.

  Here. Have a student. Take two, they’re small.

  Fletch gave me a student for my birthday?

  Yeah. He gave me a student.

  He did.

  It’s ridiculous. People don’t—

  He gave me a—

  I looked back at this skinny little kid staring at the floor, clutching a violin case the way another kid would hang on to a teddy bear. My first student. Maybe. Oh my God. Fletch gave me a little boy who wants to play violin.

  Really?

  It suddenly occurred to me that this was maybe the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me in my entire life.

  My eyes were burning.

  “Everything okay?” the woman asked.

  “Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Everything’s—I’m sorry for the confusion.” I tried to regroup and not be rude. “And I’m sorry about the dog.” I grabbed Haggis by the collar and pulled him away from Trevor’s little sneaker. “Haggis, go lie down somewhere.” He went to the couch, climbed up his little steps, and watched from there.

  “Don’t worry. Fletch said it would go exactly like this, including the funny lit
tle dog. So you’ll give us a lesson free? Like he said?”

  “You’re really here for violin lessons, Mrs…”

  “Ms. Johnson, but call me Betty. Yes!”

  “Roger,” I said, shaking her hand. “Okay.” Needless to say, I wasn’t really prepared for a student. “Has he had any lessons so far?”

  “No. There were some visiting musicians at his school, and I guess Trevor got to play a violin for a bit, but that’s all. And then he was so excited about it when he got home, and he doesn’t really get excited. He won’t let it drop, either.”

  “Okay then.” I leaned down to Trevor, hands on my knees. “Hi, Trevor. My name is Mr. Prescott, and it looks like I’m going to be your first violin teacher. That okay with you?”

  He nodded.

  “You really want to learn violin?”

  He nodded a little more forcefully this time. He was obviously shy, and I could obviously relate.

  “Okay then.” I straightened up. “Do you have anything else to say before we get started?”

  To my surprise, he nodded again.

  “And?”

  He didn’t raise his eyes from the floor, and he spoke in the tiniest voice, no more than a cracked whisper.

  “Happy birthday,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said over the lump in my throat. “Okay, Trevor, why don’t you open your case, and let’s see whatcha got.”

  Chapter 21

  And Many Happy Returns

  Fletch

  Option A: Everything went according to plan, Trevor had had his lesson, and Roger had maybe found something he really liked to do. All because of me. I would be covered in glory and could do no wrong, right? And if I, completely by accident, just happened to call smack-dab in the middle of dinner (I got Tommy to find out what time their dinner reservation was), Roger would still take my call because I was the golden boy.

  So I figured, with a reservation for 7:30, fancy-schmancy eat-slow restaurant, if I called at, say, 8:45, they’d be nearly finished, but not quite. Make it 8:43, just to be safe.

  I can be a total bastard sometimes. This was one of those times. And Jeff had it coming.

  Option B: Good old I’m-not-very-spontaneous Roger didn’t actually rise to the occasion, and he kicked little Trevor down two flights of stairs—in which case, I was toast.

  Deep breath.

  I had my phone in my hand, watching the time. 8:42:50. 8:42:55. Three. Two. One. I pressed the phone thing next to Roger’s cell number.

  “Hey!” he said, picking up. He sounded really happy. He did not sound like somebody who had heartlessly tossed a little boy out on his little keister.

  Option A had won out.

  Booyah!!!

  The first thing I did was doodle-oo-do-do-doo—through a very fast “Happy Birthday” song.

  “Thanks!” he said.

  “So?”

  “I wanted to shoot you, you know that, don’t you. You know how I hate surprises.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how’d it go?”

  “Trevor’s great, and adorable, like you said. He was scratching out ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ by the end, and I didn’t know who was going to faint first, Trevor or his mother. Probably me.”

  “Was it fun?”

  “It was a blast.”

  “Awesome. You think you’ll take them on? Regular lessons?”

  “Absolutely. Although that violin you bought him is complete crap. Can you return it?”

  “I’m counting on it. I need the sixty-seven bucks back!”

  “That is so wrong!” I could hear the grin on his face. “So wrong on so many levels.”

  “True, but my heart’s in the right place.”

  “Your heart was never the problem. It was another part of your anatomy that was tough to keep track of.”

  “Roger!” I said, shocked. He’d obviously had some birthday champagne.

  “But, seriously, I want to return the violin pronto and find Trevor something he really can play. What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Don’t you have to work?”

  “I can figure it out. I’ll text you, okay?”

  “Cool.”

  “And Fletch, thank you. That was an incredible birthday surprise, and I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “I mean it, the best birthday present ever.”

  “Say that again.”

  “Shut up,” Roger said.

  “You shut up.”

  “No you shut up.” I don’t know what made it so delicious—that Roger was flirting with me like a fifteen-year-old with a crush? Or that Roger was flirting with me like a fifteen-year-old with a crush while Jeff was sitting on the other side of a romantic table for two? I wondered what poor old Jeff had given him for his birthday.

  “Hey, Roger, it just occurred to me,” I asked, suddenly sounding all concerned and stuff. “Are you and Jeff at dinner?”

  “Yeah, but he’s gone somewhere. There he is. You got our coats? What about dessert? Hey! What’s up with you? Sorry, Fletch, I have to go.”

  “Happy birthday, Dweeb.”

  “Thanks. Bye. Why are you all of a sudden—”

  That last was obviously addressed to Jeff, just as Roger hit the disconnect.

  I sat in my little house-sitting apartment in Brooklyn, also known as the Top of the World, because that’s how awesome I felt.

  I knew it had been small and petty of me to make that obnoxious call in the middle of dinner, and I wouldn’t have done it if ol’ Jeffie hadn’t been quite such a monumental dickhead the last time I’d seen him. But he had been, so I did it.

  Poor Roger. No dessert, no birthday cake, no singing waiters with sparklers.

  And one more thing I was pretty sure of:

  No birthday nookie tonight!

  A big-ass smiley face goes here.

  Chapter 22

  Diagon Alley

  Roger

  It had taken some doing to get the little violin out of Trevor’s little hands at the end of his first lesson, but I had managed it somehow, without tears, and with the promise of a much better violin for his next lesson.

  Monday, I canceled a late-morning meeting and blew off my entire afternoon. I wanted to return the garbage violin right away, which meant a trip to Sam Ash, the store where Fletch had bought the thing. For a music store, it’s really big. I’m sure, for the average thirteen-year-old with a garage band, it’s a slice of paradise. For me, it’s a waking nightmare.

  They had some kind of light-rock background music in the front of the store and a different light-rock in the back of the store. I swear to God I’m not making it up. The string department, such as it was, sat on the cusp between the two, so we were lucky enough to be able to hear both. Add to this a woman, who could actually play a little—which made no sense to me—bravely trying a violin, and a woman behind us simultaneously testing a piano. Every cell in my body was howling, “Get me out of here!”

  So, when this troglodyte clerk with more tattoos than brains started to give Fletch just the tiniest hassle over the refund, I had had it.

  I explained that the violin was both untunable and unplayable, that they should be ashamed to offer such a terrible instrument for sale, and that even calling it a violin probably constituted fraud—and I cited a New York State statute about the cancellation of a retail contract, which was total BS. I mean there probably is such a law, but I was quoting subsections by number, making the whole thing up as I went. I don’t know what got into me, and all for Fletch’s sixty-seven dollars. But it worked. The manager couldn’t ring up the refund fast enough.

  “Wow,” Fletch said as we went out past the wall of a thousand electric guitars. “Roger. You were amazing. I’ve never seen you so—forceful.”


  “A little soft rock, and I turn into a beast.”

  “Grrr! Kinda sexy.”

  “Shut up and get us a cab.”

  From there we were off to find a new “liddle fiddle” for Trevor. I knew a much better store than Sam Ash.

  We went to the shop where I had bought my violin as a teenager—in an office building just north of Lincoln Center. I knew they’d have something appropriate for Trevor. I also knew it would cost considerably more than sixty-seven bucks—but what the hell. And you can always sell a good violin when the kid outgrows it. Or quits. Or switches to bass guitar.

  We waited in the hallway—it looked like any office building—there was an accountant’s office, a dentist, and one glass door at the end of the hall where we waited to be buzzed in. When the buzz came, we pushed open the door with a tinkling bell. It was a small shop, with dozens of instruments everywhere you looked, rows of them covering the walls and hanging from the ceiling.

  Mr. Rosen came out to meet us. He, of course, wasn’t likely to forget me, not after my father and I had bought a violin that cost as much as a car. A really nice car.

  “Roger, so good to see you. Look what a man you’ve become! What can I do for you today?”

  I explained the situation, and we discussed what the best size would be—I’d measured Trevor’s arms—and he went on to set out some instruments for us to look at.

  I didn’t know if Fletch would be bored by this, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was even a little awestruck by the whole thing.

  When Mr. Rosen stepped away, he finally spoke, but in a whisper.

  “We should have brought little Trevor with us, you know? Like in Harry Potter. Let the fiddle pick the wizard?”

  “It does sort of look like the shop in the movie but without the dust.” I weighed the first instrument Mr. Rosen had laid out on the counter for me, inspecting it all around and peeking inside. I plucked the strings with my thumb, tuning as I went. It was so different here from Sam Ash. No background music, just quiet. You could really hear.

  “So how do you pick a violin? What are you looking for?”

  “Right now, just a sense of the quality, the balance. And a little bit of the tone. I’ll play them later. And I always look in the f-holes because I feel like I should, not because I really know what I’m looking for. I mean, I know there’s supposed to be a sound post in there, but beyond that? But I figure if there’s like a dead mouse in there or something, I should probably know that.”