“Hey,” he said.
“I’m gonna go take a shower.” Totally something you tell a guy you barely know.
He grinned slowly. “Okay.”
I turned away so he couldn’t see my slow self-immolation. “Where’s Dad? Um, my dad. Obviously he’s not your . . . yeah.”
“He’s out with your brother.”
I whipped back around. “Leo’s in town?”
“No, um, Winston? Win?”
Win was here? And they were having lunch together? I fumbled in my bag for my phone. No missed calls. “Oh.”
“I think it was a business lunch,” Oscar said quickly. “Something about the philharmonic.”
“Huh. Maybe they want him for a guest conductor spot.”
“Or more than guest.” At my blink, Oscar grinned. “They didn’t say anything to me! I’m just piecing it together. From bits of conversation.”
“Whoa there, detective.”
He tipped an invisible hat. “Inspector Bell.”
It wasn’t bad investigative work. Win was only twenty-nine, but he’d made a splash in Philly, and his contract was up in January. Music Director at the New York Philharmonic—that would be incredible. No wonder they hadn’t invited me to lunch. It made sense, it was fine.
“You’ll see him tonight,” Oscar said, sliding out from behind the piano. “He and Alice are coming for dinner.”
“How do you know all this?”
I felt a stab of guilt for my lack of filter. But he just shrugged, smiling bigger.
“I’m invited too.”
“Awesome!” I started up the steps with my bags, then poked my head over the railing. “So are you here practicing? Or hanging out, or . . . ?”
“I only have a keyboard in the apartment. Do you need your piano? I can—”
“No!” I coughed. “No.”
“Your dad said I should keep working.”
“Yeah, that’s great!”
Working. Not practicing, not writing, working. Like he’d already arrived, fully formed, planting flags on continents far out of—
“Do you need anything?” I shouted, tracing the curve of the banister. “Water, tea? Dad usually drinks coffee when he’s, um, working, but I could grab you a soda? An iced . . . something? Something with ice in it?”
Oscar looked amused. “I’m good for beverages. But thank you.”
“Okay.” I restarted my climb, backward. “Anything you need, just—”
“Hey actually,” Oscar called out. “Marty thought maybe you could show me around town? I’ve hit a mental lull, so . . .”
You and me both, buddy. I leaned against the wall. “I can do that. After—”
“After your shower.” He smirked. Shook his head.
I sprinted up the steps.
This isn’t anything, I told myself, grabbing fresh clothes, stepping into the hall bath, lifting my dress over my head, and disappearing into the stream of water. I’d walk him around the block. I’d print him a map, send him to Times Square, come home, get on with my own life.
Drying off, I searched for my reflection in the mirror, but it was too blurred to make out. Ruby Chertok: A Portrait in Steam.
I swiped it clear and hurried to my room before vanity could seize hold. Still, I rebraided my wet hair three times, telling myself it was because I needed to practice looking presentable, dammit, not because of the first, second, and third impressions I must have made on Oscar Bell.
Hearing the living room so unmusical as I tromped down the steps, I wondered if I’d spruced myself up for nothing. But there he was, holding the door open to the street, gazing out dizzy-eyed, like he was trying to inhale the city.
It was my turn to smirk. Tourist.
Then he turned and saw me, and I could swear, his whole body ignited, a machine revving to life. Genius or no, the guy had excellent manners.
He motioned gallantly out. “Shall we?”
Case in point.
I led the way down the stoop.
“So what do I need to know?” He parked himself in the middle of the sidewalk, arms spread wide, summoning the seven winds.
“Can you give me a category?” I asked, instead of suggesting he tuck in his hands to avoid getting them smacked down by passersby. “Geopolitics? How to make soups and stews?”
“Category . . . ah, Day-to-Day Awesomeness.” He glanced back at the stoop. “I’m gonna be living here for two months.”
Six weeks, three days. I knew how long the summer program lasted.
“I need to know what’s good.” He clapped. “Where do I get my toothpaste, what’s the best place for a cheap lunch, where do you go for inspiration?”
I started us walking west. “Duane Reade on Columbus, for toothpaste. But who knows? You might find it inspirational.”
Oscar let out an easy laugh and I adjusted my bag to hide the thrill that shot through me.
“Seriously, though. What are your go-to places?”
“They pretty much all involve baked goods.”
“Yes.” Oscar gave an awkward sideways gallop. “This. Nobody tells you these things.”
“There’s literally an app for bakeries in New York.”
“Really?”
“All the apps have now been invented.”
He nodded solemnly. “We’ve reached the singularity.”
“We’ll need pastries to help stave off madness. Um, so, SweetStreets—the app—it’s pretty exhaustive, but I can, like, curate, if—”
“That would be great. I’m more of an analog person than an app person.”
I’d sort of guessed. Oscar never seemed to have a cell phone in his hand. He was totally present, peering at every building we passed—the brownstone with the eagle keystone over the door, the burnt-umber apartment building with scaffolding attached to it for the past three years, the pink house where three tiny dogs always barked through the first-floor window.
We turned onto Columbus, straight into the spiced scent from the Turkish corner restaurant, but Oscar didn’t seem to notice.
He started drifting into the Top Cat Deli. “Want lunch? I haven’t had anything since—”
I pulled him to safety.
Oscar looked at my hand, his arm, with a surprised smile. I let my fingers slip away, the feel of his biceps lingering. Kept walking—assertively, so oncoming foot traffic would part for us.
“Not that place.”
He glanced backward, galloping to catch up. “Why not?”
“It smells weird. They leave the buffet out too long.” I pointed to a shop across the street. “That’s the one you want.”
“The Three-Star Deli? They couldn’t name themselves the Four-Star Deli?”
“They’re honest.” I shrugged. “I respect that.”
The light was changing and he wasn’t following quickly enough, so I pulled him across, gently this time. “Sorry. I hate missing lights.”
“Is this . . . a New York thing?”
“Don’t know. Never lived anywhere else.”
“I live in the suburbs,” he said, following me into the deli. “I’ve been known to miss a light or two.”
“The suburbs?” I snorted. “Do you even walk anywhere?”
“Of course we do. All the way from our cars to our houses.”
“Apologies. Sounds exhausting.”
“The struggle is real.” Oscar squinted up at the endless deli menu.
I cooled off against the ice cream freezer, watching as Oscar ordered his lunch in such a roundabout way, it became a weird kind of performance art.
“I like all types of meat. And toppings. If you could only have one sandwich for the rest of your life, what would that sandwich be? That’s what I would like to try.”
I wondered whether to stop him, to tip him of
f about how to “when in Rome” when in New York. But even more mind-boggling was that this surly, middle-aged Russian dude, who had never once smiled while ringing me up, was leaning on the counter with a big grin, tickled pink to have been asked.
Oscar ate his sandwich—corned beef, coleslaw on rye—while walking. I averted my eyes, but so far, he was making an art of it. No mess, no smacking . . . as elegant as eating a sandwich in the middle of Columbus could be. Every time a passerby gawked at him, he gave a jaunty nod like he was the mayor of an old-time village out for a stroll.
“How is it?” I asked.
He let out a low moan. “You have to try it.”
“I had two slices of pizza like an hour ago. But thank you kindly.”
“New York City pizza.” He turned to me, electrified, like he’d just woken up from a nightmare in which pizza did not exist. “Is there a—”
I laughed. “Of course there’s an app.”
A blast of arctic air hit me from the open doorway of a boutique and I closed my eyes in rapture. When I opened them, the building ahead—cherry-red brick, green awnings—made my throat go dry. The corner studio on the second floor had musical notes plastered on its windows. A plump figure moved past, clapping her hands in time with a metronome. As much as the sight of her stung, I kept staring.
I hadn’t seen Mrs. Swenson since the afternoon in April when I’d turned up to our Monday lesson and told her I was done. She’d seemed sad—actually regretful, not “put on a good show for the sake of my famous dad” sad. I’d promised to keep in touch, but so far, I hadn’t. I lived in vague dread of bumping into her on the street.
Oscar was looking up into Mrs. Swenson’s window now too. His eyes drifted to mine. “Friend of yours?”
“Yes, Oscar, everyone in New York knows each other.”
He looked away, laughing, subject avoided. But I could still feel him taking mental photographs of everything we passed. He swiveled to read the curlicued name of a florist, then turned to nod at a guy loading beer kegs into the cellar of a sports bar. His fascination was a floodlight—illuminating a purple bike chained to a rack, the blue fence of a sidewalk café, two kids on scooters with stickers on their helmets, chatter peppering the air, engines purring, doors opening, pigeons coasting, the wind lifting my braid, rushing past my legs . . .
Oscar was watching me now. Probably because I looked as touristy as he did.
“Sooooo,” I said. “How does a kid from the suburbs get into classical music?”
“Same way as a city kid. I listened to it.”
I raised my eyebrows, challenge accepted. “Who’s your favorite composer?”
A grin shot across his face, then he shut his mouth like he was talking himself out of answering.
“Holy crap.” I stopped walking. “You were going to say yourself, weren’t you?”
His eyes lit up. He looked away.
I pointed at him. “Admit it!”
“You’ve got to be your own favorite!” He shrugged, still smiling wolfishly. “It’s what keeps you interested. But if we’re talking real composers, there’s no way I could pick just one. In terms of inspiration, I’ve got Coleridge-Taylor, Florence B. Price, Joseph Boulogne, so many others. If you mean who I admire most on a technical level, that’s complicated—everybody’s got that little something you can pick out and marvel at. And for who I like to, you know, listen to—that depends on my mood.”
“Okay, let’s put it the way you did with your lunch order. If you could only pick one piece of music to listen to for the rest of your life . . . ?”
“Cruelest question in the world,” he said, blithely biting into his sandwich. “Evil question.”
“Cop-out,” I coughed.
He laughed. Still didn’t answer.
I tapped my lips. “Schoenberg?”
“Heady stuff,” he answered, chewing. “But you’ve gotta love any composer so forward-thinking that his music manages to start a riot.”
“Cage?”
He walked next to me in confused silence for almost a block, and I was beginning to thrill with victory when he turned to me with a grin and I realized he was imitating Cage’s “4'33",” in which the pianist sits in silence for the length of the piece’s title.
“Eh?” He put his arms out.
I didn’t want to laugh. “It’s the eh that really sold it.”
“You should always explain your jokes. It makes them extra funny.”
“I like to end my jokes with ‘get it?’ In case, you know, people don’t get it.”
“That’s just good manners.” He took another bite, smiled around it.
“So, where are you from, exactly?” I asked as he chewed. “I thought I’d heard an accent.”
“Exactly? 5320 Falmouth Road, Bethesda, Maryland. Upstairs, first bedroom on the right.” He peered up at the leafy ironwork on the building we were passing. “Not sure about an accent . . .”
I glanced at him. He stared ahead. I took the hint.
Finishing his sandwich, he crumpled up the paper, tossed it at a corner trash can. Missed. As he veered to retrieve it, I kept walking so he couldn’t see my smirk.
He jogged to catch up. “So what about inspiration?”
“You want me to tell you a place where you can be inspired?”
“I want to know where you, Ruby Chertok”—he stroked his chin as we waited for the next light, then laughed, breaking pose—“I was going to use your middle name but I don’t know it.”
“Anna,” I answered. Don’t mention my mom.
“Where you, Ruby Anna Chertok, find your inspiration.”
“I’m more of a mundane person than an inspiration person.”
“Doubtful,” he said, and before I could figure that out: “Your dad said you study piano.”
“I don’t play anymore.” I watched the sunlight strobe between rooftops as we walked. “I don’t know why he told you that.”
“Have you gone back to wind instruments?” His face dropped at my blank reaction. “I saw the photo. In your house. The piccolo . . . ?”
“Oh.” I groaned. “Ha. No. That was just for the, um . . . it was an ad campaign for Lincoln Center. They had a bunch of kids for different areas of the arts. Shakespeare, ballet. Like we were the future, la-la-la. Most of the models were actually studying, but for my shoot, they just handed me random instruments. Violin, French horn. I never played a note. So . . . yeah.”
Where were we even going? A light was changing—I veered us randomly left.
“You’re a model. Whoa.”
“For two hours when I was ten. I’m retired now.”
“Congratulations on your retirement. Are you embarking on a twilight career?” Oscar asked. “Golf? Mahjong?”
His voice was light, but I sensed sincerity in the question. What could I answer? I’m going shopping for party clothes later this week!
“I’m going to be an arborist.”
“Word!” Oscar skipped ahead and walked backward. “You’re branching out, then.”
A laugh caught in my throat. “Wow.”
“What’s your favorite tree?”
I stared.
“If you had one tree to look at for the rest of your life, what would it be?” He squinted, thinking. “I’d pick the dogwood.”
“Oak. The mighty . . . oak, I was kidding about the whole arborist—”
Oscar fell into step to stage-whisper, “I got that.”
“Although, who knows? I don’t not like trees?” I wasn’t ready to talk about the park and Nora and parties for the greater good. “I’m just . . . between passions right now.”
“So what you’re saying is you’ve got free time.”
I blinked up at him.
His eyes flashed as he nodded. “Good to know.”
I wasn’t sure
how much to read into that, how much to react, what to do with my arms, so I crossed them and started blabbering, “So hey, I think I should lay this out there—I’m not like the rest of my family? They’re wizards, I’m a squib. I tried to be magical. It didn’t work out. I’m not complaining! Just the way it is. So now all I know is . . . I’m going to try something different. And, like, tackle it. So.”
“I like that.”
“You like what?” I glanced at him, cheeks burning.
“Different. Tackling.” He shrugged. “You.”
“You hardly know me.”
“Okay, yes, true.” He stopped walking, turned to face me. “I guess I mean I like you as a thing.”
“A thing!” I burst out laughing. It couldn’t have been what he meant. Then my gaze drifted past him to the hectic intersection where we were standing.
“I like that someone like you exists,” he went on. “You are . . . an object of interest.”
I stopped smiling. Froze in place, staring. Of all places, I’d walked us here.
I’d been on autopilot and my system was still set to Lincoln Center.
“Wow. Um, why?” Oscar closed his eyes. “I . . . if my sister were here, she would be full-on slapping me. Just, like, Feminism 101: Don’t Call Somebody an Object. And I’ve made you totally uncomfortable—”
“I’m not uncomfortable,” I said, my fists balling. Not because of him. Because of here.
“I apologize.” His eyes were intent on mine now. “We just met, but that’s not what I’m about. I just . . . I can’t always control my mouth.”
Which made me look at his mouth. Full lips, creased charmingly at the corners. I looked away, thawing, trying to remember what he was apologizing for.
Then he glanced behind him and hopped in the air. “Hey! Where it all happens.”
I stared across four lanes of stopped traffic, taking it in, Dad’s office, his fiefdom, home of the philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the American Ballet Theatre, the Amberley School of Music. Once, it was just my playground, a place with walls to climb and benches to do coloring and flat tiles to bounce my pink sparkle ball. And I remembered when it changed, shifted, lodged itself in the exact center of the universe—the night of Alice’s professional debut, right here at the phil, an absolute triumph.
Night Music Page 4