Since this was the full score, the turns came quickly. The lilting music filled the room, Nicholas following along beside Remy, each turn of the page taking them forward in time.
She felt herself floating within time, the way she often did while playing, that suspension of time that is the peculiar alchemy of music. Just as Nicholas had said on that very first day, twenty years ago. Not just how fast or how slowly the music moves. It’s about how fast and slow life moves.
Now they were approaching the thick dark vertical line that signaled the conclusion of the movement. And there at the end were the penned instructions, which Nicholas had abbreviated to “D.C.”
Da capo. Remy felt herself preparing for the shift. And with perfect timing Nicholas flipped back to the first page, so that she could start again from the beginning.
Chapter 8
THE ENTIRE YARD WAS BLOOMING, BRIGHT NEW PETALS AND THE green of youth, nasturtiums by the front steps, petunias happy in their big clay tub. Among the shrubs, chipmunks ran busily, stashing seeds, and from all along the street came the hum of lawn crews mowing, blowing, raking.
Hazel stepped out onto the veranda and breathed the smell of wood chips and fresh peat—her backyard, her world, where sycamores formed a protective awning over the healthy lawn. With so much rain last month, things were growing like mad; already a few stubborn tufts of onion grass had reemerged, along with a smattering of clover flowers, their messy heads soon to be lopped off by the mower. But what a gorgeous afternoon it was turning out to be, Hazel thought as she sponged off the glass-topped table and made sure there were no spiderwebs or dead bugs on the chairs. Marta was fetching the folding ones from the garage. Everything was in place.
With a little shake of the sponge, Hazel returned to the kitchen, where an array of thick paper napkins, plastic cups, and shiny disposable plates waited to be freed from their wrappers. Her good china teacups would go on the credenza with the punch. On the counter, covered with a glass dome, was a homemade chocolate cake with marshmallow icing. The marshmallow oozed over the sides and had coagulated in shiny puffs. It looked disgusting, but it was Jessica’s favorite, ever since she was a little girl.
Marta shouted, “The chairs are all there!” She always shouted. “For the dining room, do you want the linen or the lace table runner!”
“The linen sounds nice. Thanks.” Hopefully people would spend most of the party outside.
Marta shuffled into the dining room as Hazel dumped a frozen brick of raspberry sherbet into a cut-glass bowl. She tipped a plastic bottle of soda water over it, watched it glug, then gave the concoction a stir with the matching glass ladle. Immediately the sherbet began melting in its fizzy way. Why was it that some of the most delicious things looked so revolting?
“You know, I think the lace is fancier!” Marta called.
“All right, then.” In such matters, Hazel always let Marta have her way. Sloppy and increasingly deaf, Marta had been Hazel’s cleaning lady for sixteen years and, though she continued to arrive twice a month without fail, now missed entire swaths of dust, and dirt, due to failing eyesight and aging in general. Hazel always had to go over windowsills and corners with a wet rag after Marta had gone. Well, what was she going to do, fire an old lady who had spent much of her adulthood pushing dirty water around with a mop, who had helped Hazel prepare for some of the most important parties (Jessie’s graduation, Robert’s promotion) and had witnessed her daughter transform from a girl into a woman, in and out of braces, in and out of phases? If in the end it came down to this, cleaning up after the cleaning lady, then so be it.
“Ah, that looks nice!” Marta announced. “I put the daisies in the middle!”
Hazel stepped into the dining room to look. “Beautiful.” They were Jessica’s favorite flower; hopefully she would at least notice them. “I figure we should keep the cold cuts in here,” Hazel told Marta, “so the bugs don’t get to them.”
“Right!”
The guests were due in a half hour. Jessica had sworn she and Joshua would arrive earlier, but you never knew with her. They had been staying with Nicholas and Remy; their dear friend Yoni had passed away. It happened last month, very suddenly, and Hazel could see that Jessica was still torn up about it. Yesterday they had taken part in a memorial service at the conservatory. And though Jessica had insisted she go ahead with the party as planned, Hazel knew it had been a rough time for all of them.
She looked at her watch. Robert, just back from racquetball, was upstairs showering.
Hazel took the feather duster from the broom closet and stepped into the hallway to glance around appraisingly. The living room looked especially nice, brightened by the many colors of the antique carpet. She and Robert had purchased it the year they married; the old, smaller one was up in the study now. Hazel shook her head, recalling Nicholas’s mix-up—as if Remy would ever have even cared about a thing like spilled wine on a carpet. But Hazel understood: to Nicholas, the recollection concerned his friend and his wife, and he could have only one wife at a time. It would therefore have to be Remy.
From upstairs came the squeak of the shower taps being shut off. Truth was, Hazel thought to herself as she dusted lightly at the end tables, she couldn’t imagine reacting quite so strongly, now, to a spill. She smiled at the sounds of Robert upstairs dressing in his speedy way, the drawers quickly opened and shut, a crisp clean shirt plucked from a hanger in the closet. In the foyer she sighed, from habit more than emotion, at the nude crystal girl lying in the curl-wave on the pedestal.
The fact was, the “artist”—Hazel could not even think the word without quotation marks—had died. Just last week. He wasn’t even old. Midsixties. It was a yachting accident; she read about it in an article Laura had clipped for her from the Times. Robert told her that, according to the dealer who had sold it to him, the sculpture was now worth three times what he had paid.
“Then can we sell it now?”
Robert had laughed at that. “Well, all right. Although I’ve already grown rather fond of it.”
“I’ll bet you have.”
Supposedly he was negotiating its sale this week. Hazel felt herself relaxing at the thought; soon the imitation crystal wave-girl would be gone.
“It’s art!” she could still hear Robert insisting, the day he brought it home. It had taken her a full two weeks to finally find a way to explain why it could not be art: because it wasn’t true. But Robert had just replied, “It’s one artist’s vision.”
“Yes, but it’s a fantasy,” she had corrected him.
“But isn’t that what art is meant to do? To posit another possible world? Create something more beautiful than our pedestrian lives?”
Hazel had been frustrated at that, because she couldn’t find the words to explain why this plastic girl’s beauty was not real. “This is a fake woman with no thoughts or emotions,” she had told him. The girl’s face did not reveal a psyche at all; her perfect, slender body might as well be a pinup or an inflatable sex toy.
To that Robert had said, “It’s not pornography.”
Maybe not, but the fact that it passed as art was a crime.
“This isn’t art,” she declared now, to herself, with conviction. After all, she knew true beauty when she saw it. It was thanks to her that so many local craftspeople were able to sell their work, and to find a following. She had been a godsend for the woman in Somerville who made those clay beads, and Sam the silversmith out in Wellesley. Just yesterday she had put in another order for those woven bags from the pretty Hispanic girl. The girl had sounded delighted; Hazel had felt good about it all afternoon.
Of course, few people thought of her as a curator. Many thought her work nonessential. Jessica, in her college years, during her antimaterialist phase, had referred to Hazel’s wares as “rich people thingies” (phrasing that must have come from Remy). Yet even Nicholas had marveled, the first time he saw the Newbury Street boutique, at the fine workmanship Hazel had managed to cull. He was the one who,
at the shop’s grand opening, had said, as if just realizing it, “You’re an artist, too. You’re the one who brought all of this together. It’s your imagination that orchestrated this entire arrangement.”
His words had touched her. He was one of the few people secure enough in his own accomplishments to be able to truly praise the talents of others. It was the insecure artists whose anxieties left them clinging to the notion of certain arts as somehow more noble than others. To them, the fine arts would always be of a higher calling than mere arts-and-crafts. Even this atrocity . . . Hazel looked down at the sculpture. A lie that pretends to be the truth is not art. That was all it came down to. The fact that Hazel had ever put up with this thing surely deserved some sort of award.
Yes, there was a lesson in it, she decided as she dusted one final time around the girl. In fact, it seemed at this moment the only real advice she might be able to hand on to Jessica now that she was engaged. They always say marriage is about compromise, about accepting the bad with the good, the happy with the sad. Well, sure, Hazel would tell her, that’s all perfectly true—but what it boils down to, really, is having a tacky nude statue backlit in your foyer.
“Let’s turn the display light on!” Marta had emerged, a bottle of Glass Plus and a roll of paper towels in her hands.
“Ugh, Marta, I don’t know. I hate to call attention to it.”
But Marta loved this statue, had proclaimed to Hazel the moment she first saw it that it was beautiful. Hazel had asked her to explain what made it beautiful, thinking that then she herself might be able to see what Robert saw. Marta had just said, “She’s pretty, and the glass is so shiny, like a big diamond!”
Now she was polishing the thing, somewhat heedlessly, and Hazel couldn’t help smiling: though it might pose as art, it couldn’t escape Glass Plus and Marta’s rough hand.
“I think we should turn the light on!”
Hazel laughed. “All right, then, fine.”
Marta flicked the switch, and the naked girl glowed.
Funny, Hazel thought, how separate this was from the real thing. Jessica, for instance—now, there was real beauty. Of course Hazel would think that about her own daughter, but Jessica truly was more than a pretty face. She was a force of nature. Next month she and Remy were going to Spain for three weeks, just the two of them, while Joshua took a month-long intensive teaching certification course back home.
“It’s just us gals for the first week,” Jessica had said, when Hazel asked if Nicholas would be going with them. Remy apparently had professional business there, and Jessica, too, had decided to mix business and pleasure. “A reconnaissance mission. I’m going to scope out some hotel packages for work, so that I can write it off.”
Hazel laughed to herself, at Jessica’s notion of a business trip, picturing her on the Andalusian coast in some newly purchased bathing outfit. Hazel was able to hold completely different images of Jessica in her mind at the same time: in her soccer uniform in college; in her ice skates with the pom-poms in middle school; swimming in Walden Pond when she was still a toddler; and strapped into her collapsible stroller when she was one year old, bouncing along the bumpy cobblestone streets that summer when Nicholas had the fellowship in Belgium. It was amazing, actually, the way that, in Hazel’s mind, Jessica could be all those things at once.
Hazel glanced at herself in the oval mirror above the side table. From the little drawer she took a plastic comb and made a few brief adjustments to her hair. Then she opened a small compact and lightly powdered her forehead and nose. That was all she needed.
Here came the springing steps of Robert descending the stairs to join her.
“Hey, there!”
The voice came from outside.
Hazel turned to the screen door to see Jessica hand in hand with Joshua, the two of them smiling broadly as they approached the front door.
“Look who we brought along.”
Behind them on the curving path were Remy and Nicholas. They were walking unhurriedly, side by side, with Jessie and Joshua just in front. The door became a frame, then, the crosshatch of the screen muting the four of them, making them look soft, ethereal, so that for a brief second they were a picture, stepping forward, and Hazel nearly lost her breath, so taken she was by this movement toward her that was her family.
Glossary of Musical Terms
ARPEGGIO: (Italian: “like a harp”) A broken chord in which the individual notes are sounded one after the other in rapid succession (usually ascending) instead of simultaneously.
BADINAGE: (French, badiner: “to jest, joke”) Term used to describe a piece of music with a lighthearted, playful mood, as in a bantering conversation.
BAGATELLE: (French: “trifle”) Term used as the title of a short lighthearted piece of music, in no specific form, often for piano. The term was first used by François Couperin in 1717 and was employed most notably by Beethoven in a series of such compositions for piano.
CADENZA: (Italian: “cadence”) An ornamental passage, often improvised, usually leading to the last section of a movement or composition (most often an aria or concerto), in which the virtuosic ability of the soloist might be shown. Cadenzas are now more often written by the composer, although some modern performers continue to improvise.
C-BOUT: The “waist” or C-shaped indentation of a stringed instrument’s body. The upper bout would form the instrument’s “shoulders,” and the lower bout its “hips.”
COL LEGNO: (Italian: “with the wood”) The strings (for example, of a violin) are to be struck with the wood of the bow, making a percussive sound.
DA CAPO: (Italian: “from the beginning”) The letters D.C. at the end of a piece of music or a section of it indicate that it should be played or sung again from the beginning (Da capo al fine) or from the beginning up to the sign (Da capo al segno).
FERMATA: (Italian: “finished, closed”) A notation (sometimes called bird’s eye) indicating that a rest or note is to be sustained for a duration that is at the discretion of the performer or conductor. A fermata at the end of a first or intermediate movement or section is usually moderately prolonged, but the final fermata of a symphony may be prolonged for dramatic effect, up to twice its printed length or more.
FOUR-PART CHORD: A combination of four notes played simultaneously.
FOURTH POSITION: Placement of the left hand on the strings at the fingerboard, where the forefinger is placed on the E string at G. Musicians may choose a different position to produce a particular timbre; the same note will sound substantially different depending on what string is used to play it.
FUGUE: (Italian, fuga: “flight”) A contrapuntal composition. A short theme (the subject) is introduced in one voice (or part) alone, then in others, with imitation and characteristic development as the piece progresses. Generally the voices overlap and weave in and out of each other, forming a continuous, tapestrylike texture.
GLISSANDO: (French, glisser: “to slide”) This Italianized word describes a continuous sliding from one note to another. On the harp or the piano this is achieved by sliding the finger or fingers over the strings or keys; on a stringed instrument each semitone would be sounded as the finger is slid up or down the length of a string.
MARCATO: (Italian: “marked”) Execute every note in an accented, stressed, or emphasized manner.
MELISMA: (Greek: “song”) In vocal music, especially in liturgical chant, the technique of changing the note (usually at least five or six times) of a syllable of text while it is being sung.
OPEN STRINGS: For stringed instruments, a pitch (note) played on a string that is not stopped (held down) by the finger.
PARTITA: (Italian, partire: “to divide”) Partita is another word for suite, used first in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries where it referred to a multimovement composition consisting of dances and nondance movements or entirely nondance movements.
PIANO: (Italian: “soft”) This notation is generally represented by the letter p in directions to per
formers to play gently. Pianissimo, represented by pp, means very soft. Addition of further letters p indicates greater degrees of softness.
PORTAMENTO: (Italian: “carrying”) A smooth, unbroken gliding from one pitch to another, where the intermediate pitches are audible. This term is used primarily in singing and string instruments. Often called glissando for other instruments.
RITARDANDO: (Italian: “becoming slower”) Often abbreviated to rit., this notation directs players to slow down or decelerate the tempo. Opposite of accelerando.
RUBATO: (Italian: “stolen time” or “robbed”) Short for “tempo rubato.” A direction to perform music more expressively, faster, or slower than strict adherence to the basic tempo would indicate, by taking part of the duration from one note and giving it to another. This tasteful stretching, slowing, or hurrying thus imparts flexibility and emotion to the performance.
SCORDATURA: (Italian: “out of tune”) An alternative tuning used for a string instrument, generally used to extend an instrument’s range, or to make certain passages easier or more possible to perform, or to achieve certain special effects. Scordatura was popular between 1600 and 1750 but is used rarely now.
SONATA: (Italian, sonare: “to sound”) Designates music that is to be played on an instrument rather than sung, by a soloist or ensemble, usually in three movements.
SPICCATO: (Italian, spiccare: “to separate”) A way of playing the violin and other bowed instruments by bouncing the bow on the string, usually with the point of the bow, giving a characteristic separated, detached sound.
STACCATO: (Italian, staccare: “to detach”) A style of playing notes in a detached, separated, distinct manner.
STAVE: Staff, stave, or pentagram. A framework of five lines on which musical notation is written such that the higher the note-sign on the staff, the higher its pitch. Note symbols, dynamics, and other performance directions are placed within, above, and below the staff.
SUL PONTICELLO: (Italian: “at the bridge”) A direction to string players to bow (or sometimes to pluck) near the bridge (the small piece of wood that raises the strings away from the instrument). The tonal resonance is reduced, producing a characteristic glassy and more metallic sound.
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