Unstrung

by Laura Spinella

  “I’m aware, Mom. I’m so very well aware.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Olivia

  The doorbell interrupts the mother-daughter standoff going on in my music room. I dart around her, hoping it’s the FedEx guy. Maybe he’s delivering another life. While no such fantasy awaits me, my one-woman cavalry does.

  Sasha passes by, her nymph-like frame weighed down by a bulging leather tote, a large hobo handbag, and a coffee tray clutched in her hands. I don’t warn her about my other visitor. There isn’t time. She is moving at a swift Sasha clip. “Sorry. My stop at Zowz’s took longer than expected.” As she moves I swear there is a hint of aftershave, maybe cigarettes. “The lazy fuck thought I filed his motion to delay, and—

  “Christ!” Sasha gasps as she makes an automatic turn into the music room. “Eugenia. How . . . nice to see you. I wasn’t expecting—”

  “Obviously not. Lovely to see you . . .”

  “Sasha,” I supply, coming around the corner.

  “Of course.” My mother touches her fingertips to her forehead, recovering. “And what a colorful, expletive-filled entrance, dear . . . Almost as striking as the contrast between your snowy white blouse and skin tone.”

  Sasha smiles tersely at me and the backhanded biracial compliment. But after a decade of this snide behavior, Sasha is impervious. She moves along, more focused on explaining her Monday morning presence. “I, uh . . . sometimes I stop by, bring Olivia coffee . . . the paper.” She raises a cardboard tray as if it’s evidence. Her tote slips from her shoulder and falls onto her crooked arm. “If I’d known you were here, Eugenia, I would have brought three coffees.” I brush alongside Sasha, removing the leather bag as I go. Inside are several legal-looking envelopes and today’s edition of the Boston Ledger. I place the tote on the sofa.

  “Interesting,” my mother says. “You have such a busy job at your legal practice, yet you have time for a social call on a Monday morning.”

  “The brownstone is really right on my way and . . .”

  “Please,” she says. “Don’t perjure yourself on my daughter’s behalf. Clearly I’ve heard all the explanation I’m going to for now.” She checks a delicate diamond-trimmed watch—a treasured gift from my father when tiny-face watches and enduring marriages were en vogue. “As it is, I have a salon appointment.” Our gazes clash as she passes by me. “Perhaps I’ll get lucky. Perhaps ShiJu has a relative who’s not in the manicure business. Do Asians work in the Suffolk County correctional system?” She tips her head at the two of us. “It may be my only way of getting the rest of the story.”

  The door slams and she is gone. “How much does she know?” Sasha asks.

  “Nothing about her house. Only enough to place blame—everything that happened from Friday night forward is my fault. Certainly it has nothing to do with her precious Rob.”

  Sasha takes off her coat and holds out a cup of coffee: black, two packets of sugar substitute. It is one of the zillion things Sasha knows about me. There is only one she doesn’t.

  I wait for her to say something cutting about my mother. She’s silent. “Uh, Sash. This is the part where you berate my mother for insulting you and throwing me under the bus.”

  “Your mother’s no picnic, Liv. I’m sure that was . . . unpleasant.”

  I take a step back. “But she’s not incorrect?”

  “Well . . .” she says carefully. “She’ll be pissed at Rob when she finds out about the house. But—”

  “But what?”

  “Just stating facts. Rob’s not the one who spent the weekend in jail or the one facing charges that could come with real jail time.”

  “Seriously, Sasha? You’re going to take the judge’s side and my mother’s?”

  She swings her coffee cup toward the door. “I’m just saying, I don’t usually deliver the paper, and I’m not here to socialize, am I?”

  “No, I suppose not.” I sip the coffee, which burns my tongue. “Thank you, Sash. If I didn’t say it when I called . . . from jail . . . or after jail.”

  “No problem.” She looks past my head. “I take it Rob’s not here?”

  “No.” I look from the newspaper tucked in her tote to Sasha’s face. “Why?”

  “Because, despite your mother, it’s too quiet.” True. If Rob were home she’d hear him on his cell phone, pacing while wheeling and dealing. “I was marginally concerned for his safety,” she says. “You know I draw the line at helping you hide a body, right?”

  “He was gone when I got up. But how long can you stay? I’m sure that showdown will make the highlight reel for this year.”

  “Liv, I get that this is Rob’s second major money screwup. But do yourself a favor and take it down a notch.”

  I am silent. It’s not my mother’s dig, but it translates the same: Rob has caused trouble, whereas I am the textbook diagram for trouble. I’m not surprised. Sasha loves me, but she likes Rob. Everyone does—he’s easy on the eyes and clever, so quick with the right words. No one ever notices the double-talk. We’ve been married six years. It took the first four to hone my Rob-listening skills. By our fifth anniversary, and right after a memorable trip to Italy, Rob hit his first financial skid. It’s what led to the auction of the Amati, causing the initial crack in our marriage. Not so much because it happened, but because he withheld the monetary particulars right up until my American Express card was declined—it was during a birthday luncheon for Sasha, where I was supposed to pick up the tab. I shake my head at the not-so-distant memory. “My guess is Rob’s working the phones from behind his barricaded office door. But the office space is only a rental. His investors can’t repossess it. He’ll turn back up. He always does.”

  “You’ll work it out, Liv. You always do.”

  Until this past year, that would have been a true statement. We take a seat on the sofa, the tote bag in between us. Sasha reaches and squeezes my hand. If it were anyone else, I’d withdraw. But Sasha and I connect on the unspoken, sometimes inexplicable level that best friends often do. I sigh; she talks. “Despite current circumstance, and at the risk of agreeing with your mother, you and Rob are good for one another.” She smiles. “Together you’re like a violin.”

  I glance at the Guarneri, which I left sitting on top of the secretary. Everything else in the brownstone is Rob urban chic, an Architectural Digest wet dream. This room and the Guarneri are pure eighteenth century. “Tell me you’re not going to compare us to a cliché involving a Stradivarius?”

  Sasha can’t help herself. She’s a natural fixer-upper. If she were an HGTV producer, instead of a lawyer, she would have parlayed me into a blockbuster series years ago.

  “After I stopped at Zowz’s, I was thinking, Rob’s the bow, you’re the strings. It’s not a bad thing. Yes. Sometimes it makes a god-awful noise. And then other times . . .”

  “Say we make beautiful music and you’ll go out of this house.” I point dramatically toward the door. “Lately, the best we can do is a decent capriccio.” Sasha furrows her brow; I explain. “A short composition, known for its fanciful, improvisational qualities.”

  “Oh.” I know as little about the law as Sasha knows about music. It’s our balance; we are each other’s missing notes. “Anyway, about Rob,” she says. “I knew from the moment I kissed him that he was your prince.” She smiles at the mention of a favorite story, the kind that never wears out at dinner parties: Rob and I met as a result of their blind date.

  What makes an even better dinner party story, however, is the way Sasha and I met, also a date. Ten years ago, Sasha and I were paired by a popular Boston-based dating website—before the internet was quite so savvy. The site was big on things like whether or not you preferred loud parties or quiet evenings, if you were into casual sex or had strong Christian values. They wanted to know if you liked to dine out or cook for your partner. What they sorely lacked was a proofreader. Somehow, on the cyber paperwork, between our personal profiles and a mutually-agreed-upon meet up for drinks, “Olivia
” turned into “Oliver.” By the time Sasha and I realized we were each other’s date, we were onto a second drink and sincerely hoping no man disrupted our evening. As we exchanged phone numbers and made a lunch date for the following week, our biggest disappointment was heterosexuality. As far as the dating website goes, we both left five-star reviews, claiming ourselves a success story.

  At the moment, I’m not as certain the same can be said for Rob and me, and I scoff at Sasha’s prince remark. “Ha! Make that a prince who just sold the family castle out from under me.”

  “Rob will fix it. So keep that in mind when he shows up with roses and a willingness to meet you halfway.” I huff at the predictability of my future.

  “I’m just saying, despite this latest incident, Rob is there for you.” She draws the cup to her mouth but stops. “It’s more than can be said for some of the men who have come . . . and gone from your life. Given the circumstance, historical perspective isn’t the worst thing to consider.”

  And sometimes a best friend can know too much and not quite enough. Sasha’s referring to my life long before she existed. Sam Nash was my first husband. He comes after the runaway incidents and prior to the years of hourly-wage jobs. He’s part of my North Carolina days, or more accurately, he was the nucleus. It was long before he achieved his baseball legend status. Sam’s subsequent fame is the part of the story that makes the marriage memorable—at least to everyone but me. Back then, he was just a boy from the South, both of us mixed up and rebellious. It’s a tale I’ve shared in pieces, mostly on drunken New Year’s Eves.

  With that timely reminder, we’ve now touched on all the things that caused me to rupture a vein in front of the judge. However, the fact that Sasha has alluded to my first husband tells me how concerned she is that Rob and I may not fully recover from this wild ride.

  As noted, she’s a Rob fan, though their blind date ended a little differently than Sasha’s and mine. When the two of them arrived at the obligatory good-night kiss, with Rob’s tongue in her mouth, she withdrew—as Sasha likes to tell it—saying, “Damn. You are a really good kisser. But I’ve been thinking all night . . . I’ve got a friend you should meet.”

  I assume it was a litmus test on Sasha’s part. Setting me up on a date with a poor kisser wasn’t worth the risk. She still likes to joke, “Thank God I didn’t sleep with Rob for shits and giggles. It might have been a deal breaker.”

  You think?

  Their personalities are like oil and oil—determined minds and bodies (both are fitness freaks) and driven to the core, but perhaps more importantly, Rob and Sasha are equally willing to love the DNA experiment that is Olivia Klein, something that’s worked out on most days.

  Sasha’s fingers tap the top of her leather tote. It’s code for “I’m weighing my words.” “Liv, I get that Rob is far from perfect. But I did warn you that—”

  “Don’t say it!” In response, Sasha purses her lips tight. “This is not my fault. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly not because I added Rob’s name to the Wellesley house deed.”

  When we first married, Sasha warned that adding Rob’s name to the deed on a house, bequeathed solely to me, wasn’t a great idea. My father left Phillip an equivalent sum in trust. But being as Phillip ran away to New Zealand nearly three decades ago, the house and our mother became my responsibility. My mother was to live there until she, too, expired. Then the house would be mine, to do with as I pleased. I had big plans for it—Rob knew that. He knows every detail. But adding his name to the deed allowed my husband to jeopardize the house via his most recent murky business venture.

  I attempt to qualify. “When your shiny new husband gives you a Boston brownstone as a wedding gift . . . Well, my gesture seemed reciprocal.” Sasha looks unconvinced. “Listen, I didn’t get married—not for real—until I was almost forty. Aside from you, long-term relationships are not my strong suit. I was just trying to play nice.”

  “And it was a nice gesture, Liv. Just not a great business decision, as the past seventy-two hours has proven.” She sips her coffee. “So let me ask: Are you going to tell your mother? Or, if need be, are you just giving her change of address cards for Christmas?”

  I hurl myself into the cushion of the sofa. “No. I’ll leave the house explanation to Rob.”

  “I can’t disagree. Eugenia will take it better coming from him.” Sasha also sinks into the sofa and bats her honey-copper eyes at me. “Doesn’t she still own a condo in Boca Raton?”

  “She does. But in her social circle, summering in Florida would be tantamount to moving to a Southie flat with a window air conditioner. With my luck, Rob—in his own magnanimous gesture—will invite my mother to move in with us.” I leap from the sofa.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking. Destroying Rob’s Porsche doesn’t solve a thing. I should torch the brownstone, collect the insurance.”

  “Olivia!” she calls in a shrill tone that smacks of my mother.

  In the pocket-door entry I spin back around. I glance up, then down. The pristine foyer shows off a stunning coffered ceiling and high-shine herringbone hardwoods. I could never set a match to it. “It may be easier just to give her the brownstone.”

  “Because my selfish side insists I need the small pockets of sanity you possess, I won’t dismiss it as an option.” She narrows her eyes at me. “I remember your father. I know your mother. I do feel for anyone who actually had to live with them.”

  “Doesn’t excuse anything,” I concede. “But it explains a few things, doesn’t it?”

  Sasha smiles. “Give Rob a chance to come up with a plan. In the meantime, we have something more immediate to discuss. While you were enjoying your stay at Suffolk’s day care for the wayward, I hammered out a plea deal with the ADA.”

  I stride cautiously back into the music room. “And what did Justin Bieber offer, because right now, factoring in my mother, six months to a year in a seven-by-ten room isn’t sounding so bad.”

  “Don’t joke, Liv. I may have avoided jail time and a record, but who knows how the New England Symphony front office will take to the news. They may not find infamy all that appealing.”

  “No, probably not.” I cock my chin toward the newspaper sticking out of Sasha’s bag. “Did I make the papers?”

  She pulls out the neatly folded edition of the Boston Ledger. “Sorry to say you did. It’s buried enough, page twelve police blotter. And it refers to you as Olivia Van Doren. Maybe no one will notice.” I cringe at the odds. “If you’re lucky, the symphony front office will only read three pages in, to their full-color ad touting the fall schedule.”

  “If we’re lucky.”

  “The good news is the ADA is amenable to community service. Of course Rob won’t press charges for the damage to the Porsche. I mean, I don’t know that for a fact, but I assume he . . .” I widen my eyes at her question. “Right. He wouldn’t dare. Before your court appearance, that would have left us with disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, and the weapons possession . . . If it were just that, I’d have gotten our ADA down to twenty hours. As it is . . .”

  “As it is, what? I didn’t do anything else.” I run fingers through my hair, squeezing hard.

  “Liv, you told Judge Nicholson to go fuck himself.”

  “Yes, but I spent the night in jail for it.”

  “He didn’t see it as sufficient comeuppance. He viewed your remark as that of a rude, spoiled, privileged woman who needs a lesson in decorum.” She raises her hands in an at a loss gesture. “Real Housewives of Boston?”

  “Me? Maybe he has me confused with my mother—or her housekeeper. I don’t even know where we keep the vacuum.”

  “Liv, you’re not your mother. But you do have a tendency to . . . display token abruptness at inopportune moments?”

  “What eloquent code for I’m a bitch.”

  “Code it however you like. But this time, I’m afraid it wasn’t the waiter who brought you a
vodka martini when you ordered gin, or the man who sat in your first-class airline seat—it was a Municipal Court judge who has the authority to punish your behavior as he sees fit, within the confines of the law.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Instead of twenty easy hours of community service, he’s advised the ADA to accept no fewer than a hundred. He was agreeable to taking your symphony schedule into consideration.”

  “One . . .”

  “Hundred,” Sasha repeats. Her gaze glances over me and my sudden shake-and-stir life.

  Three days ago, I sat down to a sixth-anniversary dinner celebration at David’s Bistro and a perfectly made gin martini. I was preparing for my seventh season with the symphony. It’s an enviable gig, despite my bad-blood history with music. I get it. Rob and I . . . Granted, we’ve slipped into a marriage valley during this past year. That said, I know how good the peaks were. As for my mother, she was sequestered behind the walls of her Wellesley fortress. In my own way, I was managing—which isn’t something I could always claim. I know a lot of that has to do with Rob. But because I tell a judge to “fuck off” for not understanding anything about me, I’m to be punished for that?

  I wonder if karma has finally bitten me square in the ass.

  Sasha pulls what I assume is the plea agreement from her tote, along with a list of possible community service options. I see she’s redlined the ones to which I’d be completely opposed. It’s more than half. Her phone rings. She says she has to take the call and strolls off toward the dining room. Even at five feet two, sporting a waistline that means I can always find her at the size-four rack in Ann Taylor, Sasha is the poster girl for empowered women.

  I brush my hand over loose loungewear and disheveled appearance. I struggle internally—the good and bad that is me. In some ways I’ve tried to do better. I sink back onto the sofa. In most ways I’ve failed miserably. But as Sasha noted, as Rob is also aware, the deck has always been stacked against me.

  When I was four and Phillip six, it was concluded that he possessed my mother’s near tin ear and I my father’s profound gift—the same gift that belonged to our grandfather. Phillip had no idea how fortunate he was. Many things are inherent, or so I have learned, including reckless behavior. At twenty-three Asa Klein, my father, succumbed to his eccentricities, a careless act that abruptly ended his dream of being a violin virtuoso. My inborn talent became his second chance. Expectation mounted, year after year, a weight so heavy Atlas would have dropped it, muttering, “Fuck this.” The never-ending practice and rehearsals, the vetting to find the right instructor (few ever were), recitals, auditions, competitions, the swirling vat of endless anticipation. In almost every way, I was not his daughter but merely a conduit, albeit a faulty one.