Pickup Notes

by Jane Lebak

  “I don’t mean to interfere,” Shreya said, giving the world’s most ironic preface, “but are you a speech pathologist?”

  Mrs. Archer said, “St. Francis is a cardiac care center. He’s a surgeon.”

  Ha-ha, I got jitters when the worst I could do was hit a wrong note, and this guy resectioned aortas with a knife.

  Mr. Archer plowed through two theories about a neurological basis for stuttering, something about the Lancet saying the left hemisphere had low activity in the speech areas and high levels of dopamine... and while it was nice not to hear Josh treated like an idiot, this felt intrusive. Dr. Archer wanted a world-class neurologist to scan Josh until he lit up like a Christmas tree.

  Harrison said, “It’s too bad musicians can’t get employer-based health insurance.”

  Shreya sounded icy. “As I recall, Harry, it wasn’t about the money.”

  Mr. Archer said, “Not a problem. I know a neurologist who does quite a bit of pro-bono work. I’ll find out where he’s working now that St. Vincent’s closed.”

  Harrison looked across the table. “Isn’t that great, Josh?”

  Josh shot me a look. Helpless. And my brain dial-toned. Change the subject. Somehow. Anyhow.

  I said, “Those are both Catholic hospitals, right? That’s why they do charitable work?” I looked right at Shreya, and her eyes went wide. “Did you know Shreya became Catholic last year?”

  Based on her glare, the next glass of water was heading right in my face.

  Mrs. Archer said, “Oh? I assumed you were vegetarian for religious reasons.”

  She forced a laugh. “You mean if you’d known it was only dietary preference, you’d have slipped me some chicken?”

  “Of course not,” she said, as if my mother didn’t brag about crap like that. “Did you become vegetarian in college?”

  Shreya looked like she’d make an exception for my still-beating heart. “I’ve never eaten meat.”

  Harrison’s mother said, “That’s wonderful. I’d be lost if I had to remove meat from my diet, but you didn’t have to habituate.”

  “I wish I could convince all my patients to try vegetarianism,” said Mr. Archer. “It’s so much healthier for their hearts.”

  We never got back to Josh. Shreya praised the increase in vegetarian restaurants, and Mr. Archer reassured Harrison the Inn had veggie entrees. Good. I could hear Josh sweating.

  After lunch we transferred our stuff into the SUV, which Harrison’s mother worried might be too much vehicle for Harrison to handle. I kept unpacking the dog from the trunk, so I didn’t notice right away what Shreya had brought: a double-violin case.

  Harrison said, “You play two at once?”

  Shreya seemed subdued. “It was supposed to be a treat. If we’re jamming.”

  Josh exclaimed, “And an amplifier!”

  I rushed over. “I can’t wait to hear!”

  She turned away.

  Josh said, “Can we amp the c-cello?”

  Harrison said, “If we amp the viola, maybe we can hear it,” and I shot him a filthy look.

  Harrison’s mother said, “Harry, show them your little violin.”

  His eyes flared. “Uh—they’ve seen those before.”

  She returned a moment later with a tiny coffin-style case.

  “Eighth-size?” I said.

  “Quarter.” She opened it with flourish. “He bought it with his tooth fairy money.”

  Josh murmured to Harrison, “Dude, you had a hhh-hundred teeth?”

  Shreya had to turn away or die laughing. I’d never seen Harrison this red, not even last year when a bride flashed him.

  “He knew exactly what he wanted,” Mr. Archer said as Harrison slipped it away from his mother. “He paid for it himself, and then we had to drive him right to his instructor.”

  About-facing, Harrison said, “Thanks for the trip down memory lane. We need to finish packing.”

  “Can we take the little violin?” Josh sing-songed.

  Harrison stalked away. “No.”

  The hilarity over, we loaded the SUV with a cello, three violins, an amp, and my viola. Josh fixed his EZ Pass to the windshield and dropped his iPod onto the console. Harrison went afterward with his own iPod and plugged it in.

  Mr. Archer had boxes filled with cleaning supplies and liquids that would have frozen in an unheated house. When I bent to get one, Josh grabbed me around the waist. I shrieked as he lifted, then carried me over his shoulder and set me in the trunk.

  I stared up only to find him grinning. I gulped.

  His eyes glinted. “Sorry. M-mistake.”

  As I slid out of the SUV, I noticed Harrison open-mouthed. “Just a misunderstanding,” I called, darting back to the boxes.

  Harrison thrust a crate at Josh’s chest. “You need to work on your aim.”

  Josh smirked.

  Right, just a misunderstanding. This was Josh on the move, and it made no sense, no sense at all. Harrison thought it too—and he didn’t even know Josh kissed me.

  Mrs. Archer brought out a cooler. “Things for breakfast.”

  Harrison seemed startled. “We’d planned a grocery run tonight.”

  She kissed him on the cheek. “Now you can wait until tomorrow.”

  I looked away.

  At noon, Josh took the keys from Harrison. We hadn’t even gotten out of the driveway before he said, “You’ll need to dirrr-rect me to the highway… Harry.”

  “Don’t even,” he muttered. Thus began our musical vacation.

  TWENTY-TWO

  On the highway, the universe inverted. Josh turned into a good driver.

  Once we entered the Saw Mill and weren’t turning left, merging, or stopping for lights, Josh settled into one rate of speed. He didn’t insult the other drivers; instead, he talked to us. He had his arm resting on the door, with the beginning of a driver’s tan, and he was wearing the hell out of a pair of sunglasses. He was speeding—of course he was, or I’d have checked for a pulse—but not enough to make me curl into a fetal position and find religion.

  In a white Ford Expedition with leather interior and surround sound, he’d taken the Cabbie out of the Cellist. He was comfortable. Happy.

  Meanwhile, I wasn’t. I mean, the seats were cushy, the temperature fine, and the engine less noisy than my fridge. Harrison and Shreya chatted while Beethoven played. But my brain itched.

  Hadn’t Josh said we could expect only a certain level of friendship? Forever? I’d figured Harrison would start gunning for a friends-with-benefits arrangement. Not Josh.

  Yet he wasn’t leaving many options. Kissing me might have meant, “Since we’ll be sleeping in the same house, maybe we can get some action.” It might have been rubbing my past in my face. It might have been “On second thought, maybe I can tolerate you.”

  Harrison and Josh began ranting about last night’s Yankee game. Harrison had watched it; Josh had listened in the cab. It was a barn-burner but hardly a pitcher’s duel, with a final score of twelve to ten in extra innings. Josh and Harrison had reversed roles in the Yankee Fan Dance. Harrison had decided management and all the pitchers needed to be tried as war criminals, while Josh crowed that this was the year they’d go all the way, that of course they wouldn’t choke this year.

  “Never underestimate their ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,” Harrison said. Then, “Joey, know anything that rhymes with ‘direct deposit’?”

  Josh laughed. I said nothing.

  He turned all the way in his seat. “You okay back there?” I nodded. “For a minute I thought we’d forgotten you.”

  Shreya stared out the window.

  Harrison said, “You don’t get car-sick, do you?”

  “I’m fine.” Fine being a relative term. “Just thinking.”

  Josh checked me in the rear-view mirror, but I couldn’t see his eyes through the dark lenses.

  Harrison said, “Want to share?”

  And because I didn’t want to share, I said, “D
id I tell you? About eleven o’clock last night, a driver asked me to marry him.”

  All three burst out laughing. Harrison said, “No kidding? Doesn’t he know you’re supposed to marry me?”

  “I guess not, because he paid his toll and proposed. Said he’d been admiring me for weeks.”

  Harrison looked baffled. “You don’t know who he was?”

  “Not a clue.” I rolled my eyes. “I hope he didn’t have a ring.”

  Josh said, “Was he drunk?”

  Oh, good call. I never thought to have the boys in blue pick him up at the other end of the tunnel, assuming the guy even got there, and then he could weave all over the same roads as Josh. Damn.

  Harrison snorted. “Are you jealous because no one ever hopped in the cab and proposed marriage to you?”

  “One very dr-runk woman did.” He laughed. “I rrr-replied to her in Spanish. She left me alone after that.”

  Shreya picked up her head. “Hablas español?”

  “I said ‘¿Dónde está el m-museo, señorita?’” He grinned. “I can stu-stutter in two languages.”

  The trees thickened, and then the mountains swalllowed us. I-87 ran parallel to the Hudson River, and every so often we crested a rise that drew an “Oh, wow!” as the valley and all the Earth’s grandeur opened before us. Although not from Harrison, who after Fleetwood Mac ran out of greatest hits took the opportunity to play “Guess the Soloist” with five versions of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto.

  By the fourth one, it became apparent: the host for our working-weekend-musical-retreat felt the pressure crescendoing like the mountains putting pressure on our eardrums. His great-grandparents might disapprove from the grave when he didn’t serve tea as the clock chimed four.

  Past Albany, Harrison latched onto a new topic: Are you sure you can do the driving? And every time, Josh replied, Yeah, I drive for a living. We heard advice about speed traps, or whether Josh was too slow or too fast, and Josh mm-hmmed but kept doing whatever he wanted.

  By the time we crossed the Hudson, the river was narrow like Park Avenue. Harrison suggested we stop at the Glens Falls rest area because the water wouldn’t be on in the house. We took turns baby-sitting the car, and Harrison phoned the plumber to meet us.

  At that point, inspired either by male bravado or by concern that we arrive in one piece, Harrison insisted on driving the final fifteen minutes. He took us up the west side of the lake and showed us Millionaire’s Row, but (he laughed) we would just drive right past that.

  At what was barely a gap in the woods, Harrison made a right, and the SUV dipped down an inclined driveway so steep Josh must have been slamming the imaginary brake pedal. I leaned forward for the first glimpse of our destination, a two-storey white house with red trim and a wraparound porch. The windows were larger than our SUV.

  “Whoa,” Shreya breathed. “You spent your summers here?”

  I wouldn’t have asked questions while Harrison crawled our vehicle down the slopes of doom, but Shreya never struck me as risk-averse.

  “Only weekends, although some years we got summer jobs.”

  The woods closed around our car. We descended until the house dominated our field of view, and then the driveway opened out into enough pavement to park five cars. The lake side of the house was windows, windows, windows, and beside the house a wooden walkway led to a dock.

  I pointed to where the driveway continued to the lake’s edge. “Do you sometimes park underwater?”

  He snorted. “All the time. Or maybe it’s a boat ramp.”

  Josh laughed.

  Flushed, I hopped out of the car and put some distance between us. Sure, because where to park my boat is one of those questions I consider on a regular basis. That and how to polish my gold.

  I stopped at the edge of the grass to zip my jacket and shove my hands in the pockets. Well, maybe it was a dumb question. Dozens of boats dotted the lake.

  After a moment, I spotted a hawk circling. The water sounded so still, but the air clamored with birds. The trees had the tiniest light-green leaves, which confused me until I realized these were buds, barely erupted. The rare pink or white tree was covered in flowers. We’d come to open Harrison’s house, but nature was opening house too. New branches, buds, seeds pushing their heads from beneath leaves that had fallen four months ago.

  I’d expected the brochure of a resort. But this...? Maybe they had houses like this in heaven. I couldn’t imagine owning this and not living here all the time, certainly not in favor of New York.

  It was too much, too much. A symphony of greens had assaulted my world of grey and black. Instead I retreated to the porch where Harrison wrestled a lock last bolted in October.

  It clunked open, and we stepped inside to stale air in a huge open space. The foyer had a twenty-foot ceiling and a window where there should have been a second floor. Shreya and Josh followed my lead, gaping in the cathedral entryway.

  Harrison let down his bag and flipped on the lights. “Cool. Power’s on. It’s always a trick when they forget.” He rubbed his hands together, then adjusted the thermostat. In the basement, a heater huffed to life. “Let’s unload the car. Then I’ll give you a tour.”

  Following him, Shreya murmured, “Yeah, I think we’ll do okay this week.”

  In came the instruments, the bags, the cleaning supplies. In came the cooler, which Harrison would have unpacked right away, except I shut the refrigerator door and turned it on. “We need to leave things in the cooler until this gets cold.”

  He looked surprised, but then Josh entered with a man in his late fifties. Harrison greeted the man by name and went with him to whatever mysterious equipment would get the water turned on. Shortly after, the thrum of the heater was joined by the whirr of a shop-vac.

  Shreya opened all the ground-floor windows, then looked at me on the white leather couch. “Was I the only one who had no clue how posh this place would be?”

  I chuckled. “You don’t live like this?”

  “Somehow, no. Will your apartment ever be featured on a reality show?”

  “Not unless they start one called Dumps.” I glanced at Josh. “How are you doing?”

  He joined me on the couch. “T-t-t-t—” He stopped, collected himself, then tried again. “Ti-red.”

  Shreya said, “I thought you drive for a living.”

  I gave Josh a little push. “This wasn’t even combat driving.”

  He shifted so he was closer to me, and the hair stood up on my arms. “This was lon-ng and steady. No breaks.”

  Josh then told his own tale of woe: knowing he’d lose five days’ income, he’d picked up one last passenger at LaGuardia after he’d ordinarily have gone off-duty. Of course she wanted a ride to Yonkers, so he got home after four, then was up again at eight to pack and get us.

  Harrison called up the stairs to test the sink, and a minute later, he bounded up from the basement with the plumber-guy. As the guy pulled away, Harrison shook his head. “We could do that ourselves. In October he filled the pipes with antifreeze, and now he vacuumed it out. Big deal.” He turned to us. “The faucets need to run for a bit, so let’s have a tour!”

  We began exploring Casa Archer on the Lake, a house with no name but which really needed one. Harrison started with that amazing foyer, gesturing left toward the living room with white leather couches and bookshelves. Passing through that, we reached the formal dining room at the back corner, featuring a china cabinet and sideboard, plus a shiny table that seated twelve.

  Harrison led us through the kitchen (directly behind the foyer) and past a breakfast nook to a sunken family room that took up the right half of the house. Under the cathedral ceilings were a pool table, home theater, and stereo. It had a fireplace, but I couldn’t imagine Harrison’s family doing anything as pedestrian as burning wood.

  Harrison had us bring our bags up the curving staircase to the second floor, although he left his downstairs, maybe waiting for his butler. Upstairs was quite a bit smaller beca
use (Harrison said) they’d knocked out two bedrooms to remodel with the cathedral ceiling. He stopped at the first bedroom (“Josh”) which had a blue wallpaper theme and a view of the lake.

  “Don’t sit on the Sacred Quilt of Doom,” I said, and Josh mischievously touched it while Shreya gasped.

  The next bedroom faced the woods, neutral beige and with a star on its sacred quilt. “Shreya.” At the bathroom he turned on the faucets, and then we stepped into a master suite larger than my apartment. It had a king-size bed, a checkerboard Sacred Quilt, a window seat in a bump-out window, and its own bathroom.

  I wasn’t the world’s best mathematician, but we’d just run out of bedrooms. Harrison put his arm around my shoulder. “You and I will stay here.”

  I twisted out from under his arm and bumped into Josh, who’d come up behind me. “What are you talking about? I’m not marrying you, Harrison!”

  Shreya got right in Harrison’s face. “For God’s sake! Did you plan this whole trip just to proposition her in front of me and Josh?”

  I wrapped my arms around myself. “How is that professional?”

  “I’m kidding!” He shot a look at Josh, but he might as well have asked for help from the National Organization Of Women. “I screwed things up. I forgot the air mattress. I was going to camp out on Josh’s floor.”

  Josh said, “I’m f-f-fine with a couch.”

  Shreya said, “This is a huge bed. Joey and I will stay right here, that way you and Josh each get a room.” She folded her arms. “But cut the bullshit. We’re all tired and hungry, and that’s not improved by the addition of sexual harassment.”

  Harrison’s eyes flared. “That’s not sexual harassment!”

  “Why don’t you call your attorney brother and ask what happens to a CEO who informs his direct report she has to put out on a business trip.” She stalked out of the room, only to return momentarily with her bag. She dropped it on the bed.

  Harrison had gone white, and his voice was stricken. “I never thought about it that way.”

  She glared at me, and I set my bag beside hers. “Let’s go back downstairs, okay?”