Unstrung

by Laura Spinella

  I dip toward Sasha and whisper, “Am I, like, under oath here or anything?” She doesn’t reply, rubbing two fingers across her forehead.

  “I, uh . . . It’s not that simple, Judge. You don’t—”

  Sasha interrupts. “Your Honor, my client is here for an arraignment based on the incident stemming from the evening of September 8, not—with all due respect—to have her character judged.”

  He holds up a hand. “It pains me to say it, Miss Pease, but you are correct.” Sasha relaxes a bit, though it hardly stops him from sharing his opinion. “However, this is my courtroom.” He smiles. “Aside from your client’s careless disregard for an instrument that is a revered piece of art, her admitted conduct this evening proves her character could benefit from a modicum of judgment, perhaps some advice.” He looks directly at me. “When you return here, Mrs. Van Doren, know that overprivileged attitudes won’t be tolerated. Not the kind that takes for granted a God-given gift or callously sells a coveted Amati like it’s a garage sale fiddle.”

  The word fiddle sinks into my ears, triggering a full-blown eruption of ancient history. “Come on, Livy . . . Grab your fiddle and play me something fun . . .” I close my eyes; the smell of Kentucky Clear is sudden and strong, so is Sam’s voice.

  Judge Nicholson interjects; the visuals vanish like dying fireflies.

  “Clearly you were an overindulged child, who grew into an entitled adult. One who sees it as acceptable to destroy property like a common hoodlum, blaming others for her behavior.” He pauses to offer Rob a sympathetic glance. “May I suggest some serious introspection before returning here? Perhaps an anger management class. Work past whatever it is in life that has turned you into, exactly . . .” He looks me up and down. “This.”

  That’s it. I won’t be judged. Not by a man who is the most abhorrent garden-variety elitist snob—an admitted talentless wannabe. “You know what?” I take a formidable step toward the judge. The bailiff takes one too. “Go fuck yourself, Jack Nicholson. Parting with a hunk of wood that came with more strings attached to it than an entire violin section has nothing to do with how awful I turned out.” It’s said with more clarity than anything I’ve uttered so far. But as I lunge forward, the stiff arm of the bailiff impedes any progress. “Superior, presumptive jerk!” I say, flailing about. The next thing I know, I am physically subdued and cuffs are clamped around my wrists. I don’t look at Rob or Sasha as two bailiffs usher me out of the courtroom. But I do glance back, speaking to anyone who is listening. “You don’t have the first clue why I turned out exactly like this.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Olivia

  Something like a day and a half later, I wake up in my own bed. Rob’s side is empty. I don’t know if he’s slept in it. I don’t particularly care. He’s probably out trying to glue his Porsche back together, maybe collecting the parts in a bucket off Newbury Street. Yesterday was Sunday and today isn’t a rehearsal day. That’s a good thing—though I am curious if my brush with the law has made its way back to New England Symphony brass, and I don’t mean the horn section.

  On the nightstand are two Excedrin and a glass of water. I see Remorseful Rob has been to my bedside, if not between the sheets. I shovel in the pills and gulp the water, which dribbles down my chin. I face-plant into the pillow, screaming bloody murder and kicking my feet like the spoiled child Judge Nicholson sent to a timeout. Mercifully, it had been a cell for one and I only had to use the toilet to pee. The food was inedible, making it easier to convince myself the whole thing was some trendy fast. By the time Sasha picked me up, I was hungry, dirty, and doubly pissed off. I specifically requested that she come instead of Rob. I wasn’t ready for that showdown. I’m still not.

  On the ride home and during a night in my own bed, I decided Judge Nicholson was right: I didn’t give a fuck about the Amati. Technically, I sold it to save Rob’s ass. Realistically, parting with it gave me perverse pleasure and a financial boon—money that could be put to better use. On the other end of that scale, surely the sale of the Amati left my father and the revered craftsman Nicolò Amati spinning in their graves. I never wanted the violin or the ability to play it like one of Nicolò’s seventeenth-century apprentice virtuosos. Similar to Nicolò Amati, my parents had no son to inherit a stunning musical gift. Well, that’s a lie. They have a son, my brother, Phillip. But luckily for Phillip he doesn’t possess my father or Amati’s ear for music—which is to say, in so many ways, he might as well not exist. It’s a slight exaggeration, but not meritless. At the very least, Phillip’s parental disappointments—abandoning life here to live abroad and his sexual orientation—can be swept under the rug. My transgressions are far more glaring.

  Propped up on my elbows, I flex my delicate digits. When you tell people you’re a violinist they immediately stare at your hands. Permanently ribbed fingertips show on the underside of mine; they are the dents most rarely seen. I reach for the phone and call Sasha. I hear, “Hey, Liv,” and the Spice Girls in the background—Sasha’s been on a nineties music binge.

  She’s in her car, en route. The peppy tune clashes with her voice, which sounds tense. Sasha informs me that while I paced a seven-by-ten box of introspection, she was schmoozing with the Peter Pan ADA. It’s probably not something she planned on fitting into her Sunday. She says she’ll fill me in when she gets here and hangs up. It’s my hope she and Pete have been snorting serious fairy dust, reaching a plea bargain largely slanted in my favor.

  Before getting out of bed, the clock radio catches my eye. In brightly bolded blue are the numbers—9-11. The annual date would cause anyone to look twice. For me, it evokes a frame of reference that surely differs from any other human being. I shake it off and pull on loose loungewear, ambling toward the first floor.

  I love this house—one of the few tangible things I’d say that about. My address, the décor, would make you believe I’m into stuff—gratified by possessions. I’m honestly not a stuff person. I shop because it’s Sasha’s hobby, because Rob is gratified by possessions. As I descend the creaky but well-preserved steps, a twinge of sympathy nudges at me. If Rob needed collateral, I get why he put the Wellesley house at risk. If he’d used our brownstone, I would have taken the bat to his head. The Wellesley house was a twisted, if not careless, compromise.

  Inside my music room—a small, sunny space that was once the front parlor—are pages of sheet music, among them The Planets, Gustav Holst’s seven-movement orchestral suite. It was written between 1914 and 1916. As a child, the facts were drilled into me. Ironically, the music connects to the Wellesley Klein home. The story goes that it was the private setting for the American debut of the English composer’s masterpiece. Holst and a few fellow musicians debuted the suite during a dinner party given by my great-great-aunt . . . or was it a distant cousin? Anyway, I’ve known the complex piece and the story about how it connects to the house my entire life. At the time, the stately property was owned by the American clique of Kleins. Closer relatives, including my grandfather, would not emigrate from Germany for another thirty years.

  “Mars, the Bringer of War,” sits on my music stand. How appropriate. Holst’s suite is slated for the symphony’s fall-winter schedule, and the first movement boasts a couple of rough sections that even Amati would have to practice. My current violin, an eighteenth century Guarneri, eyes me from across the room. I like it well enough with its darker sound, deeper tone. While the Amati looked smart in here, I never felt the jaw-rattling reverence Judge Nicholson or Gustav Holst would, certainly not my father.

  No matter my reasons for parting with the Amati, my father would have only been appalled. Not surprised, but appalled. I pick up the Guarneri and pluck at a few strings. I’m a formidable musician, but my real talent is dodging my past. The violin is good for some things, and I aim for a quick fix. Snatching up the lesser instrument and bow, I fly into a furious attack of The Planets. I can detect a difference between the sound this instrument makes and the celebrated Amati. But frankly
I’m good enough not to allow it to matter much. Only music purists, people like Mary Alice Porter, my symphony stand mate, would notice. She would have taken my father’s side and nearly did pass out when she learned I auctioned off the Amati.

  My bowing intensifies. It’s not the music that soothes me, more the drowning of memories. Like a deep ocean, it swallows all disappointments—the ones connected to my father, and others that are not. I close my eyes and the past sinks to the bottom, where it belongs.

  At first I don’t hear the doorbell. I assume it’s been buzzing a while because whoever is out there is leaning on it like a drunk on a wall. I put down the violin and head for the entry. While most brownstones have been converted into condos, ours was vertically divided into just two units, making it a rare single family gem—also a better example of Rob’s financial prowess. It’s too soon for Sasha, who said something about having to drop legal papers off to Nick Zowzer, her chief rival at McCluskey, Reingold & Schwab, and the largest thorn in her side. She loathes him; another hobby is casting him in every bad lawyer joke: “Hey, Zowz, do you know what would happen if a lawyer like you took Viagra? You’d get taller!”

  In the foyer, my socked feet shuffle to a halt. I can make out the glob of a figure through the opaque glass. It’s not Sasha. Not even close. I do an abrupt about-face, scurrying toward the stairs.

  “Olivia!” I halt, my head drooping forward. “Do not even think about it. If I must, putting a potted plant through this glass is not beyond my resources—or mood.”

  I pivot on the herringbone hardwoods. Returning to the door, I repeat the mental prayer I do every time she turns up. Dear God, please do not behold my future . . . I flip the bolt and swing open the door. And every time, God answers with a belly laugh. Before me stands an aged looking-glass image. My mother’s hair, while shorter, is chemically preserved to the same sable brown as mine, an oval face with bone structure that looks surgically tweaked. When I was a girl, she liked to show me off to her friends. Proof that her nose and chin come by her naturally. Her once full lips have collapsed like a puffed pastry into fine layered lines—years of cigarettes before cigarettes were no longer fashionable. We used to stand at exactly the same height, so I know that in my early sixties my five-foot-five frame will begin to shrink. Our similar glares have a volume all their own. Right now, hers is on full blast.

  “What brings you here, Mom?” I ask cautiously. “Early for you on a Monday, isn’t it?”

  She glides by me and into the living room. As always, I check to make certain her feet are touching the floor—there is a presence to Eugenia Klein that defies human form. She pauses to twist a lampshade so its seam doesn’t show. “I’ll get right to the point,” she says, turning. “Yesterday, I played bridge with Marjorie Levinson.”

  “Ah. And did you run right over here to tell me you actually bid a grand slam and made it! Are they sending you to a Vegas tournament?” She narrows her eyes. My mother would rather take a bus to Pittsburgh than go to Las Vegas under any circumstance.

  “Hardly. I understand you had an interesting weekend, Olivia.” I pin my hands behind my back and take a glancing inventory of the hardwoods. I neither confirm nor deny this. I need to know exactly what she knows. “According to Marjorie, it was quite the scene. Outrageous comportment I haven’t witnessed from you in ages—certainly not since your years at UNCSA.”

  I bristle at the mention of the dedicated school for the arts. Like Judge Nicholson, her conclusion sparks my indignation. But unlike the judge, I’ve been sparring with her for a while now—four-plus decades. I stay on point. “So you’ve come to hear about my weekend firsthand.” Her stare is stoic. “I didn’t assume you stormed over here to let me know that Marjorie Levinson is spreading vicious rumors about me.”

  “If only it were a remote possibility.” She cocks her head in the opposite direction of mine. “Marjorie can be cutting, but she’s not a liar. Can I tell you what a thrill it was yesterday? To be sitting with Gail Shumer, Bitsy Devine, a few other of my closest friends, when Marjorie—who I did beat handily—pounced at the precise moment to ask if my daughter ‘had been released from prison yet.’”

  My smug expression folds. “And how did she know—”

  “Seems Marjorie is chummy with Conchetta Nicholson. They serve together on the Gardner Museum board. Now,” she says, pointing a rose-colored nail at me, “I realize you don’t know Conchetta. But I heard you met her husband, Judge Nicholson. I believe he was working at the time.” She smiles so wide my jaw aches. “Apparently, you offered a few choice words to the judge. But, of course, this is only a morsel of Marjorie’s tale. The kind a mother would likely endure at a support group meeting. A setting where the parents of out-of-control, rebellious teenagers come to commiserate. Tell me, Olivia, after all these years, am I still that parent?”

  “I don’t know what you heard, but—”

  “Oh, by all means, let me recap.” She takes two steps away from the corrected lampshade and toward me. I back up. I haven’t backed up from her in twenty years. “According to Marjorie, you threw a drunken tantrum in the middle of Newbury Street, beating your husband’s Porsche to a pulp with a baseball bat.” I open my mouth and she holds up a hand. “Then after resisting arrest and a myriad of charges, you appeared before Judge Nicholson and suggested to him, by way of an expletive that I won’t repeat, to go fornicate with himself.” Her tone shifts from mockery to outright anger. “How close am I?”

  “Close,” I admit. “Did Marjorie bring a transcript, or was this all from memory?”

  My mother’s gaze delivers glancing blows off the objects in my music room. I suspect she was hoping I’d say Marjorie was exaggerating. That the whole incident really amounted to a few unpaid parking tickets. She clears her throat. “I see. Tell me, Olivia, are you on drugs?”

  I narrow my eyes. “What?”

  “Drugs. I understand it’s not unheard of—people from well-to-do backgrounds can be just as susceptible as those from a lower socioeconomic status. In fact, I suppose once you’ve succumbed it might even be easier. You have means—inherited money from your grandfather that you do God knows what with, surplus from the auction of the Amati.”

  “I’d never—”

  “Did Rob find out? Was that it?”

  “Mom, I’m not on . . . How could you even . . .” My hand slams against my forehead as I turn toward the music room. While blurting out what instigated Friday night’s episode would be exquisitely ironic, I don’t. Telling my mother that Rob’s put her beloved Wellesley home on the chopping block isn’t an option. I don’t have enough facts, and, frankly, I believe Rob should be on hand to take his share of the blame. I squeeze my eyes shut. Wait. Doesn’t he deserve all the blame? I whip back around. “No, Mom, I’m not on drugs. Would you like me to pee in a cup for you?”

  “Then explain it, Olivia. Explain what could have possibly happened to incite such disgraceful conduct.” She glides through the foyer, and I backpedal until I am pinned against the antique secretary in the music room. “What could have possibly occurred to make you revert to behavior that I haven’t had to endure since . . . well, since before you married Rob.”

  “Why don’t you ask Rob?”

  “Fine. Is he here?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Then I should assume some sort of marital discourse started it?”

  “You could say that.”

  “I did say that,” she seethes. “Would you say it? I realize sharing your personal life is not something you do. That leaves my imagination. I know Rob well, but I know you better.”

  “So no matter what started the whole thing, the downward spiral of the evening is surely more my fault than Rob’s?”

  “He’s not the one who spent the weekend incarcerated. Other than the Porsche, Rob wasn’t even part of the story I heard from Marjorie. But you were, Olivia, like you always are—right at the epicenter of trouble. Everything from running away from home when you were sixteen,
through your tumultuous, endless college years. Dismissals from one music program to the next. Treating your gift like a burden—an extra appendage you’d like severed.” I attempt to speak, but nothing short of shoving the lampshade down her throat would stop her. “When you abandoned school in North Carolina, I’d hoped some time away, with your brother, would settle you down. Foolish me. Upon returning, you continued to ignore your music education and chose to job hop. Such an impressive list.” She smiles warmly and rolls her eyes toward the coffered ceiling. “Let’s see—waitress, ticket taker at the USS Constitution, beer wench at the Sam Adams brewery and . . . Oh, what was my favorite?” She looks me up and down. “Right. Working as a dog-walker-slash-pet-sitter in the Commonwealth Ave, Beacon Hill areas. It was quite gratifying, knowing I had someone to recommend when Tallulah Carson needed a reliable pooper scooper for her Pomeranian.”

  “And the nasty little bastard bit me, if it makes you feel any better.”

  “Not entirely, but good to know. My point is that nothing in your life settled down until Rob showed up.”

  “Not even the part when I made your dreams come true and won a symphony chair on a whim of an audition?”

  “Whim?” she says, raising a brow. “More like retribution. Winning the chair before your father died would have been a bit more on point. You know what it would have meant to him.” My chin tips upward; I view the timing as purely coincidental. She prattles on. “While I shared in his expectation, the hope for your talent, playing in the symphony was truly his dream, not mine.”