Strings

by Megan Edwards

  Elizabeth wasn’t unique. Most students at Haviland had been guilty of such entitled behavior at one time or another. Prep schools strive to maintain high standards and strict codes of conduct, but they can’t afford to bite the hands that pay for their science buildings. Elizabeth was attached to one of those hands. Still, I couldn’t accept the possibility that there might well be no penalty for her cruel diatribe against Olivia. If things took their accustomed course, the headmaster would give a terse little talk in morning assembly on his favorite theme: To whom much is given, much is expected. If I didn’t do something, that would be the end of it.

  For the first time in my own overprivileged experience, I personally felt the sting of injustice. Olivia was so damned innocent, and she seemed so powerless to defend herself. I had never met anyone so obviously in need of a champion, and I had already been given the title. I was Lancelot, and Elizabeth Dunhill’s editorial spurred me to action.

  I didn’t wait for Dr. Whitehead’s morning sermon. I was too full of righteous anger, especially when it became apparent that the majority of Haviland’s student body didn’t care a bit about Elizabeth’s racist remarks. After my history class let out, I headed straight for the headmaster’s office. I’d be late for rehearsal, but this was too important to put on hold.

  Christopher Whitehead was the quintessential prep school leader, imported directly from the land of school ties and A levels. He had all the right credentials, including an accent that would make Queen Elizabeth weep with pride. On the wall behind his desk hung his Oxford diploma and a triumphal oar from his sculling days at Balliol.

  Fortunately, he wasn’t an over-gentrified fop. In fact, he was a pretty good guy, and he was succeeding remarkably well guiding Haviland through the rough waters of the Vietnam era. In the good old days of the Free Speech Movement, campus unrest was as much a fact of life at elitist prep schools as it was on college campuses.

  If I had been a different person, Elizabeth’s editorial might have inspired me to organize a sit-in or a noisy protest. But I was an apolitical violin player, and I wasn’t into global causes. I had never marched into a headmaster’s office unannounced before, and I could tell from Dr. Whitehead’s expression that he was just as surprised as I was.

  His secretary had already left for the day, and since the door to his study was half open, I just walked straight in without knocking. Dr. Whitehead was standing with his back to the door, a wisp of smoke rising over his head. He appeared to be looking for a book on the shelf under his oar, and he didn’t hear me enter. By way of announcement, I cleared my throat.

  Dr. Whitehead spun around immediately. He removed the carved meerschaum pipe from between his lips and looked at me questioningly. He was a fairly young man to have his job, not exactly Mr. Chips. He couldn’t have been much past forty, and his wavy brown hair was trendily cut in a style halfway between the Beatles and John Kennedy.

  “Mr. Spencer!” he said, smiling. “Or should I say Lancelot? You sneaked up on me!”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I should have knocked.”

  “No, no. The door was open.” Dr. Whitehead tamped out his pipe and sat down in the leather swivel chair behind his desk. I sat down on the other side in one of the two upholstered chairs facing him. It had been quite a while since I’d been in his office. Dr. Whitehead was a hands-on, mingle-with-the-masses kind of leader. Usually if you went looking for him in his office, you wouldn’t find him there.

  “What can I do for you, Spencer?” Dr. Whitehead asked. He folded his hands on the blotter in front of him and waited.

  “Well, I—” I couldn’t believe it. I was stammering, and I couldn’t seem to help myself. “I—I’m really upset about the editorial in today’s Horn.”

  “Oh.” Dr. Whitehead paused, then extracted a copy of the paper from a folder on his desk. “I, too, found the piece upsetting.” He paused again, and I rushed to fill the silence.

  “It’s—it’s racism at its worst!” I blurted. “And we all know who wrote it! She should be expelled!”

  Dr. Whitehead took his time before responding to my outburst. He looked at the paper, perused the story again. I wondered how many other people had already bent his ear about it.

  “As I’m sure you’re aware, Mr. Spencer,” he said at last, “we do not know positively who the author is. But whoever wrote it, Mr. Kincaid should never have let it run.”

  Mr. Kincaid was the Horn’s faculty adviser, and my wrath was rekindled as I realized he was going to be the fall guy.

  “Elizabeth Dunhill wrote it!” I almost shouted. “Everyone knows it! She’s been boasting all day!”

  Dr. Whitehead was maddening in his measured response, and I was tempted to grab his oar off the wall behind him and whack him with it.

  “Calm down, Spencer,” he said. Another pause as he pushed up his wire-rims and looked me straight in the eye. “Perhaps you will enlighten me as to why you are making this your personal crusade.”

  I jumped to my feet. “It should be everyone’s crusade!” I cried. “Olivia de la Vega’s civil rights have been violated! Isn’t this what Selma was for? Isn’t this what Martin Luther King is always talking about?”

  Once again, Dr. Whitehead was infuriatingly slow in his response, and I sank back into the chair with my head down, fuming. My heart was racing, and I could feel beads of sweat collecting on my forehead. Why was I so upset, anyway?

  I looked up, locked eyes once again with the headmaster, and suddenly, I knew. What’s worse, Christopher Whitehead knew, too. I had just made a giant horse’s ass of myself.

  Chapter 4

  As I stumbled out of Dr. Whitehead’s office, the full realization of my affliction washed over me. I was in a state of full-blown puppy love, a condition I had naively misidentified as genuine humanitarian concern. But how was I supposed to know? Somehow, in my seventeen years on earth, I had never developed a crush on a girl before. I hadn’t even dated, unless you count a couple of debutantes my mother had insisted I escort to their coming-out balls. Five hours of violin practice every day didn’t leave time for much beyond academics and sleep. I was a virgin in every way possible.

  This is the story I’ve been telling myself for the last thirty-three years. Acknowledging the real nature of my connection with Olivia would have been far too painful. Instead, I’ve convinced myself I was an innocent boy, caught in the hot flush of infatuation. It happens to everyone, doesn’t it, that overwhelmingly powerful tsunami of emotion that vanishes almost as abruptly as it arrives? It was just a crush, a youthful, desperate obsession. It must have been! How could it possibly have been anything else? There’s no such thing as love at first sight, and children aren’t capable of lasting feelings. Right?

  I’ve always known I was lying to myself. I’ve let my mind do all the talking, and I’ve persuaded my heart to stay mute. It’s an uneasy truce that might have lasted the rest of my life if Olivia hadn’t rolled up my driveway yesterday.

  It’s been over three decades since our eyes first met in a schoolroom on a January afternoon, but when I opened my front door to find her smiling there, not a single moment had elapsed. Her eyes met mine, and my heart pounded the truth it had always held. Olivia and I share a link that time cannot corrode, that distance cannot sever.

  How can she be gone again? How can I live without her? I can’t even retreat into denial with this violin here to remind me. I know I could tuck it away in a cabinet, but I can’t bring myself to move it beyond my sight. Like a moth drawn to a lighted candle, I somehow need to suffer its silent accusations. No matter how painful, never again will I try to ignore my love for Olivia.

  I couldn’t have ignored it even if I had tried back then in high school. During Camelot rehearsals, I wasn’t acting. When I sang “If Ever I Would Leave You” to Olivia, I meant every word about how I could never do it. And of course I had to kiss her, which terrified me until I found out tha
t touching lips with someone who is only acting doesn’t mean much. Even so, it inspired vivid dreams when I was off stage.

  Haviland’s founder had been a firm believer in personal space, which meant that every boarder had a private room. I know that sounds cushy, but the rooms were little more than walk-in closets. There was barely enough space for a twin bed, a desk, and a small wardrobe. Nonetheless, I was grateful for that cubicle of solitude, especially those last few months in residence. In my room, I could dream of Olivia without embarrassment, and I retreated there so often that my friends began wondering what was wrong with me.

  “What’s with you, man?” Bill Cross asked one afternoon after he’d burst into my room unannounced. He parked himself on my bed and tore open a bag of M&M’s. “It’s like you’ve become a monk or something.”

  “I have not,” I replied as nonchalantly as possible. “I just have too much to do. Thanks to you and Lancelot.”

  “Ha!” Bill said. “You know you love it.” He dumped a pile of M&M’s onto my pillow and started picking out all the green ones. “So what’s the deal?”

  “I—I’m worried about college,” I said. “I haven’t heard anything yet.”

  Bill threw a handful of M&M’s at me.

  “Cut it out, slob,” I said. “I always get ants after you’ve been in here.”

  “Tell me the truth.”

  “I did.”

  Bill jumped up and thumped me on the chest. “Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit,” he said, and he ran out and slammed the door before I could do anything to retaliate.

  In fact, I hadn’t told Bill a total lie. I actually was worried about college, which is another excuse I’ve used all these years to justify my behavior toward Olivia. I had known my whole life that I was expected to enroll at Yale, but Albert van Doren, the Santa Barbara violinist with whom I’d studied since ninth grade, had infected me with the notion of attending the Juilliard School. He had helped me with my application, and he had even agreed to travel with me to New York for my audition. My father thought the whole idea was ridiculous, but my mother convinced him to humor me. Neither one believed that I was really good enough on the violin to be offered a spot at Juilliard, and I was a shoo-in at Yale. Why not let me choose my own backup school?

  I was grateful for their indulgence because I knew in my belly I could never follow the well-marked trail of my forebears. I would never major in economics and join the coterie around the boardroom table at Spencer Luggage, Inc. The only luggage I wanted anything to do with was a violin case.

  The trouble lay in the possibility that I’d score acceptances from both institutions. I’ve always done my best to avoid confrontations. As a child, when I knew we were having lima beans for dinner, I would wear a sweatshirt with a pouch to the table. The offending food would disappear, and my mother was never the wiser. I could deal with, “Ted! Aren’t you hot in that sweatshirt?” better than I could handle a face-off about the real issue.

  Even though I wasn’t sure I’d be accepted to Juilliard, I prayed for a rejection letter from Yale. Of course, with the illustrious careers of three Edward Spencers paving a golden road ahead of me, I might as well have hoped for the earth to change course. I had the inexorable force of legacy combined with a near-perfect grade point average to guarantee a “yes” letter from New Haven.

  If I got into Juilliard, a showdown with my parents would be inevitable, and I awaited my April envelopes with a feeling of foreboding. Thoughts of Olivia were even more intoxicating when they distracted me from playing out the unavoidable battle I was doomed to wage. I lived for Camelot rehearsals, and the rest of the time, I clung to the moments I’d spent with Olivia, weaving from them delicious new scenarios.

  She really was incredible, and I’m not just talking about my feelings for her. From my earlier experiences with Haviland’s spring musicals, I expected lots of fooling around at rehearsals. Mr. Harper’s exasperated threats would steadily increase in number and intensity until opening night loomed so large that everybody had to learn their lines or risk terminal embarrassment. Once, when Tevye had missed his third Fiddler rehearsal in a row, Mr. Harper said, “Well, Ted, at least we’ll have a decent fiddler up there on the roof. I swear, you’re the only person here who really understands the importance of practicing.”

  At the first Camelot rehearsal, Mr. Harper made the whole cast sit in the front rows of the auditorium. Bill Cross and his two apprentices were in the booth at the back testing the stage lights, and as Mr. Harper delivered his pep talk over the whispers and snickers, the footlights behind him changed from blue to red to yellow.

  “Okay,” said Mr. Harper after he’d commanded us to learn our lines no later than the end of February, “we’re going to begin with Guenevere’s first number.”

  He punched the button on his tape recorder, and Olivia walked up on stage to the last strains of the overture. Penelope Lambros said, “Oh, my God” a little too loudly, and Caroline Buckley said something else that made all the girls laugh. They were still giggling when the overture ended.

  When her number began, Olivia opened her mouth to sing. But before she could, somebody let out a loud, prolonged burp. It echoed all over the auditorium, and everyone froze. It was too awful, even for spoiled Haviland brats.

  Mr. Harper stared at us, his face a ghastly yellow from a spotlight Bill was testing. He shook his head, and then he reached for the tape recorder. His finger was just descending to the “off” button when Olivia’s voice filled the auditorium.

  The yellow spotlight flicked off, and a white one suddenly lit up Olivia. As though nothing at all had happened, she kept on singing.

  I was spellbound, but given my feelings for her, that wasn’t surprising. What was astonishing is that everyone else was struck dumb, too. Olivia de la Vega, the invisible girl who lived in a cleaning lady’s cottage, stood there singing as though she had been born in the footlights. Her voice left no room in Goddard Hall for anything but awe. The final notes of her song were still hanging in the air when Mr. Harper clicked off the tape recorder.

  Olivia stood on the stage, the white spotlight full on her face. Everyone was quiet, even the girls in the front row. Then, from somewhere in the back, came the sound of one person clapping. I turned, and, silhouetted in the light booth, I could see Bill Cross and the two freshmen. They started clapping, too, and one of them whistled. Then the spotlight followed Olivia as she walked off the stage, and the room fell silent again.

  I wish I could say that from that moment on, everyone was friendly toward Olivia, but that didn’t happen. The girls kept a surly distance, and the boys turned shy. But to Mr. Harper’s great delight, our rehearsals were suddenly very serious affairs. Though they still snubbed her, the girls tried their damnedest to match Olivia’s professionalism on stage. The boys struggled, too, even though there was no hope we could look like anything but rank amateurs. It was a real miracle. All Olivia had done was sing her song, but it brought the best out in all of us.

  Most importantly, it brought out the best in me. Because of her, I was a better Lancelot than I ever dreamed possible. Olivia maintained a flawlessly professional front, and I strove to match it. I memorized all my lines and lyrics within a week, and I practiced singing when I should have been playing my violin.

  When I made it through a rehearsal, I’d retreat immediately to my room to let my feelings flood over me. Lying on my narrow bed, I would go back over every moment. I tried to feel her presence, to breathe her in. I relived every smile, every touch, every word.

  The trouble was, the words were all courtesy of Lerner and Loewe. Even after a month of rehearsals, Olivia and I still hadn’t exchanged a sentence that wasn’t in the script. Olivia was punctual at Goddard Hall every afternoon, and she departed when Mr. Harper gave the nod. In between, she was all business.

  But, oh, when she was Guenevere! Those liquid green eyes bore straight into mine as she p
rofessed first her scorn and then her everlasting love. As I struggled to match her ability and strove to take direction as easily, I hoped desperately that my feelings might make up for my lack of acting experience. I have no doubt, however, that I looked exactly like what I was: an awkward high school kid in tights. At least Bill had been right about my voice. I could carry a tune, and my legs weren’t bad.

  At the end of February, I received a letter from Juilliard inviting me to come to New York for an audition. I couldn’t quite believe it. It wasn’t an offer of acceptance, but it was tangible encouragement. Damn! Even if I never got to go there as a student, I was definitely going to see it. I was going to walk through the door, try the place on for size. All at once, one of my dreams was tantalizingly close to coming true.

  Riding on the wave of confidence this good news inspired, I decided to invite Olivia to go to the Spring Gala with me. The Spring Gala was Haviland’s version of a prom, and every student in the school willing to pay the price of admission was invited. I’d never attended, and I was nearly positive Olivia hadn’t either. Tickets were close to a hundred bucks a couple, which was a lot of money in 1968. The event was held at the Ojai Valley Hunt Club, a fancy resort not far from Haviland where my parents stayed when they came to visit.

  I figured Olivia might accept my invitation just so she could go to the Gala. Since I was certain she harbored no feelings for me, my offer would really be a bribe, and I hoped desperately I was dealing in the right currency to tempt her.