“If we get this all cleaned up quickly enough, I think I’ll just tell him that I donated them to the Orchid Society,” I said, glancing around. Not one orchid in the sunroom had been spared. Not one sex organ had survived. A snake sighting just wasn’t going to cut it. “Would you feel okay about that?”
“About what?”
“Actually, you wouldn’t have to say anything at all. We’ll just pretend that you weren’t here, and the Orchid Society ladies came and picked them up.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said with a shrug.
I gave him a bemused smile and barely managed to stop myself from kissing him again. After the sunroom had been scrubbed clean of all orchid corpses, I took him to the ice cream shop before we went to the Cowachobee Center for my music classes.
Maybe one day I would tell him the story of the orchids that gave their lives so he could go to college. Maybe I could even get it in there before he went to therapy. I hoped I would come off better in twenty years than I had that afternoon.
Carson had a crush on one of the little girls at the center. A shy, beautiful little violin player named Luz. Her mother and aunt attended citizenship classes while she practiced scales with me on one of the violins I’d donated to the center.
Other than Luz, none of the children were very interested in music. They’d all spent the day in school and were restless, so time spent trying to teach them how to read music was most often time wasted, and instead I allowed them to blow off steam by wailing away on recorders and beating tambourines.
Carson had been coming to the center with me since I’d started volunteering, around his second birthday, and he was as comfortable there as he was at home, perhaps more so as there was no older brother waiting in the wings to humiliate him, or worse, to ignore him. In the past few months that I had been working with Luz, Carson had begun to sit and watch us rather than poke around the center looking for something to interest him.
He watched as I went over the notes to a beginning piece with Luz, and then sat down at the piano when I stopped playing to loosen Luz’s wrist and adjust her fingers. When we began to play our awkward duet again, I was surprised to hear notes plinking from the piano behind us, but I tuned it out and trained my ear to hear only Luz and her fledgling efforts.
But on our way home that night I remembered Carson’s fresh boredom with Luz and was pleased that he turned to music rather than searching out a new crush. I wasn’t ready for either of my sons to have a love life, and it made me ache especially for Carson. Gib had started getting calls from girls as early as the fourth grade, all those young cheerleaders already impressed with the cocky athlete. But I knew that Carson would have a harder time with romance.
“I have a conference with your music teacher tomorrow after school,” I reminded him. “Do you want to wait for me or take the bus home?”
He grinned at me. “I’ll be there,” he said, and I raised my eyebrows at him.
“I don’t think Mr. Hailey is going to let you sit in on the conference,” I cautioned him, but he didn’t seem perturbed in the least, merely turned the radio up and bobbed his head along with the music.
Luke bought the Orchid Society story, but was furious anyway and questioned me about my motive until I wanted to scream and show him the cut on my thumb and the garbage bags in the bin at the curb. He was especially upset over the ‘Sykes Spike,’ his pride. It was only when I told him that they would all have died without constant care—which was absurd, they were fairly hardy plants despite their reputation—that he finally let up.
He needed to punish me, though, and he played computer games with Gib for the rest of the night, leaving me to pack for my trip and climb into bed without him. He woke me on purpose over an hour later, reaching for me, but I instinctively pulled away, breathing regularly, curling into my pillow, and he finally turned away.
I opened my eyes in the gloom, staring at my nightstand. An orchid stood there in a pierced ceramic pot. It was a young plant, and its green-tipped, searching roots seemed vulnerable to me, as though they sensed that an orchid murderer slept close by. It was right to fear me. Had I remembered it was up there I would have destroyed it too. I wanted to reassure it that it no longer had anything to fear from me. It had merely been one of many before. Now it was special, a fact I was suddenly envious of.
Its solitary existence seemed an omen. I’d never believed in omens before, but then I was doing many things I’d never believed I’d do before that Escalade showed up in my driveway. Confiding in my mother, agreeing to spend time with Estella, lying to my husband, and denying him my body as well.
I had been doing what I was told, keeping everything as normal as possible, keeping everything hidden from Luke, but it had not been easy. It went completely against my nature, as well as against the habit of simple daily disclosure I’d developed over seventeen years of marriage.
You think your relationship is one thing for so long, think you’re in control despite affairs or disagreements, and one day you wake up and with the gift of an expensive car or another sexy flower you realize it is something else entirely, and you haven’t been in control of anything for a very long time.
Estella
Paul says we’ve wasted too much time. He stands beside me, his touch reassuring, and we look at the calendar—not to check on the dates for Big Dune, they are too close for me to forget. Instead, he wants me to settle on a date next year. The calendar is clear after my appointment. I’ve refused to schedule anything and until now Paul has indulged me. I am grateful to him for that.
Perhaps I should be grateful again.
My finger shakes slightly as I run it down the Saturday column, through all those months, all that time. It stops on the second Saturday of April, and I calculate the dates in my mind, finding zero, and then back up to an even hundred, divided down to my age, a prime. Fighting to stop it is as useless as fighting a facial tic. It happens unconsciously, within seconds, without Paul being aware of it.
Psychosomatic, he would say, as the doctors have said, keep saying.
He nods, looking at the date. “Yes, I think that would be fine,” he says. “And it gives us almost a year to plan.”
Almost a year.
I am trying to get through these three days, and then I must try to get through the three weeks on Big Dune, and then the three more days to Dr. Fellows. Three days, three weeks, three days.
Three facts about three:
Three is the first prime Delannoy number.
Three is the smallest Fermat prime.
Three to the third equals three squared three times.
It happens in a split second. Dr. Fellows will say I am imagining things. Playing Go with Lisa I see the black and white disks form the old shapes before my eyes, I see the grid rise off the board and rotate in front of me, showing me where to place my piece.
And now I am calculating dates, zipping through simple number facts. It is child’s play, a bright fourth grader could do the same. I don’t believe in psychosomatic. I believe in what my past has taught me.
Paul wants another year, and I cannot help but feel that he is asking for too much. But I circle the second Saturday in April anyway, and he is pleased.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Streams of chattering fourth graders flowed around me as I walked down the hall toward the music room, their faces bright with anticipation of summer vacation. Mr. Hailey was waiting for me, smiling like an excited boy, and I imagined he was as pleased about school ending as the students were. He led me down the hall, away from the music room, and opened the door to the auditorium.
When I saw the stage, I marveled at what a wonderful teacher Mr. Hailey was. Luke had wanted to send the boys to private school, but I’d somehow won that one, and Mr. Hailey was just the sort of teacher who reminded me that I’d made the right choice. He was also one of the first teachers who accepted Carson for who he was and not a clone of his popular older brother.
Carson sat on the stage, with a strin
g-bass player on his right and a pianist on his left. I glanced around for the other parents, but Mr. Hailey and I were the only members of the audience. Carson waved at me and nervously shuffled his music as we took our seats.
“Mrs. Wilder, I’m very excited about this,” Mr. Hailey said, turning toward me in the tiny upholstered seat.
“I’ve never seen him play with bass and piano,” I said. “I didn’t even know he was working on anything like this. Is this how his Benny Goodman fixation came about?”
“I’ve played some Goodman records, but I think this piece is more reminiscent of the Blue Wing Trio.”
“I’m not familiar with them,” I said. “Jazz?”
He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes, but what I’m most excited about is that you, well, you know music, so you’ll understand. I’ve seen your trio.”
“Really?” I said, truly surprised.
“You’re all very good,” he added and I nodded my thanks. “But, please, listen, not just to Carson, but listen to the composition. That’s what I really wanted you here for.”
Warning bells sounded in my head. “The composition? You know I really don’t play professionally—”
He looked startled. “Well, certainly you do, Mrs. Wilder. But maybe we should just sit back and listen. Ready?”
I nodded, but a feeling of dread was coming over me. Obviously Mr. Hailey had composed the piece we were about to hear, and he hoped that by placing Carson in the jazz trio I might give him an entry into the local music scene in return. Had it not been my son up there I would have made my excuses and rapidly left.
Not only did I have no influence on the local music scene, I wouldn’t even know where to begin with a jazz composer, or a composer of any stripe. Mr. Hailey would be sorely disappointed to discover that the only real contact I had was a down-on-his-luck cellist.
Mr. Hailey nodded at the players and raised his hand. The clarinet, Carson, led. It was a bit wavery, a bit weak, but strengthened quickly, and then the bass and the piano joined in and a bouncy, New Orleans-flavored jazz number filled the auditorium.
I forgot all about Mr. Hailey and his dreams of launching a composing career off the backs of schoolchildren, and watched my son in amazement. He wasn’t great; in fact, the bass player and the pianist, both older than him, could likely play rings around him. But he was obviously having a ball, and it lent his playing a new, more powerful and confident sound.
The piano backed off and the bass surged, leaving Carson to find his way, the music wallowing a bit, and when the piano took off again with the bass in tow and left Carson once more out of the loop, I began to pick apart the composition. It was a fun piece, and Hailey was obviously talented, but it lacked polish, as if he had the raw stuff but perhaps hadn’t studied as much as he should have.
The piano dropped out, and then the bass, and the final notes, like the first, were Carson’s to play with. As the cry of the clarinet faded away I stood and began to applaud, as did Mr. Hailey.
“Yes, oh, fantastic, just fantastic,” Mr. Hailey cried, his enthusiasm carrying him away. “Thank you, Tabitha, Kyle, you’re dismissed,” he called across the auditorium. “I’ll see you in class. Great job today. Carson, why don’t you pack up and we’ll meet you in the music room. I’d like to speak to your mother for a few minutes.”
Carson nodded and raised a hand to me before gathering his music and trotting off the stage. Mr. Hailey turned to me again, his eyes bright with hope.
“And what did you think about that?”
“It was very nice,” I said, trying to be kind but noncommittal. “Carson’s playing has really come a long way, and the bass player and pianist are terrific.”
His face fell a little bit. “Well, yes, he’s a good student; he practices, that’s half the battle right there. But what did you think of the music itself? The composition?”
I swallowed. I had never been good at letting people down. “I thought it was very nice, but, ah, I’m afraid I really don’t have the sort of connections you might need. Perhaps you should get in touch with a jazz group in the area? I’m sure they’d love to discuss your work.”
Mr. Hailey stared at me, obviously puzzled, but then he opened his eyes wide. “Mrs. Wilder, do you think I wrote that piece?”
“I, well—” I stopped, uncertain of where he was going.
“Carson wrote that,” he said, with a soft smile.
“Carson? Carson—wrote that?”
“Yes, yes, he did. I’m sorry, I thought you understood.”
I began to laugh, first out of relief, and then out of sheer astonishment. “But how? I didn’t know anything about this.”
“It happened several months ago, after I brought a Blue Wing Trio album in for music theory class. We’d been listening to jazz, some Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Bill Evans.” He smiled ruefully at me. “I hate to say it, but it’s stuff that puts most of the kids right to sleep. But it was obvious that Carson was fascinated, and the Blue Wing album just seemed to click with him. He started asking me questions about why we didn’t play that sort of music in class, why didn’t everyone play that way, how did they know how to play the music like that, just full of questions. It was the most I’d ever heard him say at one time. After a few days I started to realize that the core of his questions, what he was really intrigued by, was composition, the building of the music itself, the form, especially with these three instruments.
“He seemed to understand strings well enough—he said he’s been watching you since he was a baby—and then showing him the scales on the piano was the next logical step, and then I started working with him on his study hour with composition basics. You know, some people believe that musical composition can’t be taught, but he took everything I showed him and ran, just ran with it. It’s really quite amazing.”
“So, what are you saying?” I asked, my initial astonishment slowly being replaced by a chill of fear.
Mr. Hailey leaned toward me with an earnest look. “I’m not saying he’s a prodigy exactly. He’s not Beethoven, he doesn’t automatically know what to do as if born with the knowledge already. Gifted? No question. Genius? Perhaps. I think time and instruction will tell.”
And there it was. Genius. My neck and face felt as if they were on fire. Mr. Hailey looked at me in concern, and I realized that I was twisting my rings again, as though trying to unscrew my finger. I tried to remember that to most people it was a good word, a word that most parents prayed they might hear one day.
Mr. Hailey was still staring at me. “I’m sorry,” I said, falling back on good manners, my only cover. “You’ve just caught me by surprise.”
“But are you—aren’t you pleased?” he asked, inclining his head toward the stage, indicating that of course I must be, I had to be. But I wasn’t. I was terrified—I wasn’t ready for the roller coaster to begin with Carson, especially not this particular ride.
“I am, I’m very impressed,” I finally said. “Thank you for allowing me to watch, and I hope you have a nice summer.”
I hope you join the Peace Corps and go to some distant Third World black hole, I thought fiercely. And if he didn’t, then I would look into private schools.
Mr. Hailey laughed, as though I still didn’t comprehend the wonderful news. “Mrs. Wilder, I don’t think you understand—”
“I understand everything,” I said. “I understand that you think you have some right to make decisions for my child. But you don’t.”
He cut his laugh off and slowly stopped smiling. “I haven’t made any decisions for your son. Carson made his own talents clear. He really has something here. Don’t you want him to follow this gift?”
“Mr. Hailey, what exactly is in this for you?”
“I’m not sure what you’re implying.”
“What’s in it for you? Why are you so interested?”
“I’m a teacher, that’s my job.”
I nodded. “In a small-town elementary school. But you’re a musician too,
aren’t you? It might be a good way for someone to notice you, maybe get you a better job.”
He flushed, and when he spoke his voice was hard and tight. “Yes, I’m a piano player. Not a genius, not even particularly gifted or talented. And now I’m a music teacher, and that is exactly what I was put here on this earth to do. And I don’t want to be anything else.”
“Really? Then why this performance? Why didn’t you notify me before this? Why the secrecy?”
“Mrs. Wilder, it was Carson who wanted it to be a surprise, and quite frankly, I resent the implication that I have something to gain from this. Do I hope that one day a Schumann or a Nyiregyhazi will walk through my door? Sure, but neither of them turned out to be very happy people, did they? That’s what I’m concerned with: finding out what makes my students happy.”
“As his mother, I am better qualified to decide what will make my child happy.”
“I don’t think any mother can decide what makes her child happy,” Mr. Hailey said quietly. “Carson doesn’t have a lot of friends, which I have to assume you’ve noticed. This is the first time I’ve ever seen him truly excited, truly passionate about anything. I can see his mind working, taking the music apart, figuring out how it was done. It’s startling and wonderful. Does it excite me to think I might be a part of that? Of course, but I have no designs on your son.”
“I’ve seen people like you before, and I won’t allow you to ruin Carson’s life.”
“Ruin his life?” Mr. Hailey repeated in bewilderment. “And what will you do when Carson grows up and wants to know why you didn’t allow him to pursue what he so obviously loves?”
“That’s not something you need to worry about, Mr. Hailey, as you won’t be around to find out. My family history gives me an edge when it comes to children and genius. I have more experience than you in this matter.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You have more musical geniuses in the family?”
“No, my sister is a math genius. She went to college at twelve. Do you know what that does to a child?”
Catching Genius Page 9
