Passenger

by Alexandra Bracken

No one seemed in the mood to talk, which was fine by Etta. She put on her headphones and listened to the Largo all the way through once, eyes shut, concentrating on each note until her small purse accidentally slipped off her lap and the lip gloss, powder, mirror, and cash she’d shoved into it went scattering across the tile. Evan and the other man helped her scoop it all back up with faint laughter.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she muttered. It wasn’t until she began to replace everything that she realized there was a small, cream-colored envelope tucked inside.

  It can’t be, she thought. There was no way…her mother hadn’t done this for her in years. Her heart gave a joyful little bump against her ribs, flooding with the old, familiar starlight as she tore the envelope open and shook its contents out. There were two sheets of paper—one was a rambling letter that, to the casual eye, was filled with chatter about the weather, the museum, the apartment. But there was a second, smaller piece of paper included, this one with the shape of a heart cut out from its center. When laid over the first, the message changed; the heart gathered the rambling, nonsensical words into a simple phrase: I love you and I am so proud of who you are and what you’ll do.

  She used to leave Etta notes like this every time she had to travel for work, when Etta had gone to stay with Alice—little reminders of love, tucked inside her overnight bag or in her violin case. But the longer she looked at it, Etta began to feel herself drift away from that initial burst of happiness. Her mom wasn’t exactly a sentimental person when it came down to it; she wasn’t sure what to make of this, especially on top of the earrings. Trying to thaw their relationship after freezing it over in the first place?

  Etta checked her phone. A half hour until the concert.

  No texts. No missed calls.

  No surprise there.

  But also…still no Alice.

  She stood up, setting her purse down on the chair and slipping out of the room to check on her. Her instructor had seemed almost confused earlier, or at least startled. It was entirely possible someone had trapped her in conversation, or she was having a hard time getting ahold of whoever she was trying to call, but Etta couldn’t turn off the panic valve, the prickle of something like dread walking down the back of her neck.

  The auditorium was empty, save for the ushers being briefed on the evening by an event coordinator. Etta hustled up the aisle as fast as she could in her heels, catching the last few notes from the violinist onstage. She’d be up soon.

  But Alice wasn’t out in the hall, cell phone pressed to her ear. Neither, for that matter, was her mom. They weren’t loitering in the museum’s entrance, the Great Hall, either—and when she checked the steps, all she found were pigeons, puddles, and tourists. Which left one possibility.

  Etta turned back toward the steps up to the European paintings collection and slammed into someone, nearly sending them both tumbling to the ground.

  “Ah—I’m sorry!” Etta gasped as he steadied her.

  “What’s the rush? Are you—” The man stared down at her through silver-rimmed glasses, lips parted in surprise. He was older, edging into middle age, or already there judging by the streaks of gray in his otherwise jet-black hair. Etta took one look at him and knew she’d nearly mowed down one of the Met’s donors. Everything about him was well-groomed; his tuxedo was immaculate, a dark red rose tucked into the lapel.

  “I wasn’t looking where I was going,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

  He only stared at her.

  “Anyway,” she rambled, backing up to continue her search, “I hope you’re okay, I’m so sorry again.…”

  “Wait!” he called after her. “What’s your name?”

  Etta jogged up the steps, her heels clacking loudly against the marble. She made her way through the exhibits, waving at the security guards and curators, to the elevator that would take her to the conservation wing. Her mom might have needed to stop by her office, or maybe she had taken Alice up for privacy.

  The wing was all but abandoned, save for a security guard, George, who nodded in recognition as she passed by and continued down the hall.

  “Your mom’s in her office,” George told her. “Came up a few minutes ago with a lady blazing at her heels.”

  “Thanks,” Etta said quickly, ducking around him.

  “Don’t you have that concert tonight?” he called. “Good luck!”

  Concert, practice, warm-up—

  “—haven’t listened to me in years!”

  She almost didn’t recognize Alice’s voice in its anger; it was so rare for the woman to raise it. It was muffled by the closed door, but still powerful enough to rage down the hall and reach her ears.

  “You don’t get to make this call, Alice,” her mom continued, sounding far calmer. Etta’s knees felt like water as she stood outside the office door, pressing her ear against it. “I’m her mother, and contrary to your opinion, I do know what’s best for my child. It’s her time—you know this. You can’t just pluck her off this path, not without consequences!”

  “Damn the consequences! And damn you too, for thinking of them and not of her. She’s not ready for this. She doesn’t have the right training, and there’s no guarantee it’ll go the right way for her!”

  Not ready for this. Alice’s words ripped through her mind. Not ready for what? The debut?

  “I love you to death, you know this,” Rose continued. “You’ve done more for the two of us than I could ever express or thank you for, but stop fighting me. You don’t understand, and you clearly don’t know Etta if you’re underestimating her. She can handle it.”

  Between the hummingbird pulse of her heart and the numb shock spreading through her veins, Etta had to replay the words again and again before she could understand that her mom was actually fighting for her—that it was Alice who was trying to hold her back.

  She’s going to cancel the debut.

  “And you clearly don’t love her the way I do, if you’re so ready and willing to throw her to the wolves!”

  Alice is going to cancel the debut.

  The one she’d given up real school for.

  The one she’d given up Pierce for.

  The one she’d practiced six hours every day for.

  Etta threw the office door open, startling Rose and Alice enough to interrupt the furious staring contest they’d been having across her mother’s desk.

  “Etta—” her mom began, standing quickly. “Shouldn’t you be downstairs?”

  “I don’t know,” Etta said, her voice thin with anger as she stared at Alice. “Should I be downstairs, or should I just go home? Is this too much for me to handle, too?”

  Her stomach churned as Alice raised a hand toward her, trying to beckon her into the office, into the soothing trap of her arms. Like Etta was a child all over again, and needed to calm down.

  There was something sharp, assessing, in Alice’s eyes that instantly brought about a tremor of panic in her. She knew that look. Etta knew exactly what she was thinking.

  “I think, duck, we should go home.” She turned and met Rose’s even gaze. “We can finish our discussion there together.”

  Etta felt her heart give a kick, then another, until she felt her pulse rioting in her ears, and the temperature of her blood start to rise.

  “I’ve given up everything for this…everything. And you want me to just walk away? You want me to cancel, to delay again?” she demanded, trying to keep the pain lancing through her from twisting the words into a whisper. “You don’t think I’m good enough, do you?”

  “No, duck, no—”

  “Don’t call me that!” Etta said, backing out of the office. “Do you realize I don’t even have a friend left? You told me I needed to focus if I wanted my debut. I gave it all up! I don’t have anything else!”

  Concern broke through even her mother’s anger as she shared a glance with Alice. “Darling, that’s not true—”

  Alice reached for her again, but Etta wasn’t having any of it—she
didn’t even want to look at her, let alone be reasoned with.

  “Etta—Henrietta,” Alice tried, but Etta was past the point of listening, of caring what either of them had to say.

  “I’m playing,” she told her instructor, “tonight, and at the debut. I don’t care what you think, or if you believe in me—I believe in myself, and there is literally nothing in this world that can keep me from playing.”

  Alice called after her, but Etta turned on her heel and stormed back down the hall, keeping her head up and her shoulders back. Later, she could think of all the ways she might have hurt the woman who had practically raised her, but right now all Etta wanted was to feel the stage lights warm her skin. Free the fire fluttering inside her rib cage. Work her muscles, the bow, the violin, until she played herself to ash and embers and left the rest of the world behind to smolder.

  THERE WAS ALWAYS A MOMENT, JUST BEFORE SHE PUT HER BOW to the strings, when everything seemed to crystallize. She used to live for it, that second where her focus clicked into place, and the world and everyone in it fell away. The weight of the violin cradled against her shoulder. The warmth of the lights running along the lip of the stage, blinding her to everyone beyond it.

  This was not one of those moments.

  A flustered, panicked Gail had met her in the hall, and dragged her backstage as guests began to file into the auditorium.

  “I thought you said I’d have time to rehearse!” Etta whispered, nearly stumbling as they took the stairs.

  “Yes, twenty minutes ago,” Gail said through gritted teeth. “Are you all right to just go out there? You can warm up in the green room.”

  Panic curled low in her belly at the thought, but Etta nodded. She was going to be a professional. She needed to be able to take any hiccup or change in plans in stride. What did it matter that she’d never played on this stage? She’d played the Largo hundreds of times. She didn’t need Alice standing by, waiting to give her feedback. She would give Alice proof that she could handle this. “That’s fine.”

  Michelle, the curator in charge of the Antonius, met them in the green room. Etta actually caught herself holding her breath as the Antonius was lifted out of its case and placed gently into her hands. With the care she’d use to handle a newborn chick, Etta curled her fingers around its long, graceful neck and gladly accepted its weight and responsibility.

  Ignoring the eyes of Sophia, the dark-haired girl watching her from the corner, Etta set the bow to the violin’s strings, crossing them. The sound that jumped out was as warm and golden as the tone of the instrument’s wood. Etta let out a faint laugh, her anxiety buried under the fizz of excitement. Her violin was a beauty, but this was an absolute prince. She felt like she was about to melt at the quality of each note she coaxed out of it.

  She’s not ready for this. She doesn’t have the right training, and there’s no guarantee it’ll go the right way for her.…

  Etta closed her eyes, setting her jaw against the burn of tears rising in her throat, behind her lashes. What right had Etta had to yell at Alice like that? How could she think her opinion was somehow more accurate than Alice’s, when the woman was lauded the whole world over, when she’d trained dozens of professional violinists?

  A small, perfect storm of guilt and anger and frustration was building in the pit of her stomach, turning her inside out.

  What had Pierce told her? You’ll always choose playing over everything else. Even me. Even yourself.

  Etta couldn’t even argue with him—she had made the choice to break up with him. She loved him in a way that still made her heart clench a little, from memory alone. She missed the light-headed giddiness of sneaking out at night to see him, how reckless and amazing she’d felt when she let herself relax all of her rules.

  But a year after they’d gone from friends to something more, she’d placed second in a competition that she—and everyone else—had expected her to win. And suddenly, going to movies, concerts, hanging out at his house, waiting for him outside of his school, began to feel like lost hours. She began tracking them, wondering if Alice would let her debut with an orchestra sooner if she dedicated those precious minutes to practice. She pulled herself deeper into music, away from Pierce.

  As she had done with everything but the violin, she’d shrugged him off, and expected that they could go back to the way they’d been for years—friends, and Alice’s students. The only way to get through the breakup was to focus, to not think about the fact that no one called or texted her, that she’d chased away her only friend.

  Just a few weeks later, she’d run into Pierce in Central Park, kissing a girl from his school. Etta had spun on her heel to walk, and then run back up the path she’d just taken, cut so neatly in half by the sight that she kept looking down, as if expecting to see her guts spilling out of her skin. But instead of letting herself cry, Etta had gone home and practiced for six straight hours.

  Now not even Alice believed in her.

  She should have asked Gail for a minute, a second, to get her head and heart straightened out. Instead, when the woman appeared, chattering into her headset, Etta found herself following her, walking out into the flood of soft blue light on the stage. The applause rolled over her in a dull wave.

  Don’t drop it, don’t drop it, don’t drop it.…

  Etta found her mark and took a moment just to study the violin, turning it over in her hands, fingers lightly skimming its curves. She wanted to still everything that was hurtling through her as she stood under the stage lights; to freeze the fizz of disbelief and excitement, remember the weight and shape of it in her hands.

  The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium in the Metropolitan Museum of Art wasn’t the grandest venue Etta had ever performed in. It wasn’t even in the top ten. But it was manageable, and more importantly, hers to command for a few minutes. Seven hundred faces, all masked by shadows and the glare of the lights high overhead as they shifted into a final, rippling blue that reminded her of the ocean, with wind moving over the surface.

  You have this.

  The applause petered out. Someone coughed. A text alert chimed. Instead of sinking into that calm, the deep concentration, Etta felt herself hovering on the surface of it.

  Just play.

  She dove into the Largo, pausing only for a steadying breath. Seven hundred audience members stared back at her. Two bars, three bars…

  It crept up on her slowly, bleeding through her awareness like light warming a screen. Her concentration held out, but only for another few seconds; the sound that began as a murmur, a growl of static underscoring the music, suddenly exploded into shrieking feedback. Screams.

  Etta stumbled through the next few notes, eyes frantically searching the technician’s booth for a sign about whether she should stop or keep going. The audience was still, gazing up at her, almost like they couldn’t hear it—

  It wasn’t a sound a human could produce; not one anyone could get without ravaging an instrument.

  Do I stop? Do I start over?

  She crossed strings and flubbed the next three notes, and her anxiety spiked. Why wasn’t anyone doing anything about that sound—about the screaming feedback? It crashed through her eardrums, flooding her concentration. Her whole body seemed to spasm with it, the nausea making sweat bead on her upper lip. It felt like…like someone was driving a knife into the back of her skull.

  The air vibrated around her.

  Stop, she thought, desperate, make it stop—

  I’m messing up—

  Alice was right—

  Etta didn’t realize she’d stopped playing altogether until Gail appeared, white-faced and wide-eyed at the edge of the stage. Pressing her face into her hand, Etta tried to catch a breath, fighting through the sensation that her lungs were being crushed. She couldn’t look at the audience. She couldn’t look for Alice or her mother, surely watching this play out in horror.

  A nauseating wave of humiliation washed over her chest, up her neck, up her face, and for th
e first time in Etta’s nearly fifteen years of playing, she turned and ran off the stage. Chased by the sound that had driven her off in the first place.

  “What’s the matter?” Gail asked. “Etta? Are you okay?”

  “Feedback,” she mumbled, almost unable to hear herself. “Feedback—”

  Michelle, the curator, deftly plucked the Antonius out of her hands before she could drop it.

  “There’s no feedback,” Gail said. “Let me get you a glass of water—we’ll find a place for you to sit—”

  That’s not right. Etta swung her gaze around, searching the faces of the other violinists. They would have heard it—

  Only, they clearly hadn’t. The sound of the feedback and her own drumming heart filled the violinists’ silence as they stared back with blank faces.

  I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy—

  Etta took a step back, feeling trapped between their pity and the wall of sound that was slamming into her back in waves. Panic made the bile rise in her throat, burning.

  “Go!” Gail said frantically to one of the older men. “Get out there!”

  “I’ve got her.”

  The dark-haired girl, Sophia, stepped out of the green room, reaching out to take Etta’s arm. She hadn’t realized how unsteady she was until the arm Gail had thrown around her lifted, and she was forced to lean on a stranger a whole head shorter than her.

  “I’m…I’m fine.…” Etta muttered, swaying.

  “No, you’re not,” Sophia said. “I hear it, too. Come on!”

  The easiest explanation was that she’d snapped, that the stress had gotten to her, but…someone else had heard it, too. It was as alive and real for her as it was for Etta, and it flooded reassurance through her system to know she hadn’t lost it, that she hadn’t just crashed and burned because her stage fright and anxiety from childhood were colliding with the way Alice had doubted her.

  Etta thought, just for a moment, she might cry in relief. The sound moved like burning knives beneath her skin as Sophia expertly wove them through the dark backstage area and out a side entrance that dumped them directly into the dark, silent museum, just at the entrance of the Egyptian wing.