“It’ll work?” She scoffed. “That’s it? That’s all you’re giving me here?”
“It suits the occasion, it’s . . . attractive,” I tried, spinning so the skirt swished. “I don’t know! It’s clothes, it’s not . . .”
Her eyes turned into knife blades. “It’s not what?”
I smiled sweetly. “Curing cancer?”
She throttled the air in front of her. “The word is aesthetics, not clothes, asshole. As in, a key part of human civilization . . .”
I groaned, waving off the oncoming lecture. “Okay.”
“Think of this dress as a suit of armor—”
“It’s spectacular, Jules, oh my God, I’m going to faint from the fashion!”
“I hate you.”
“Kisses!” I yanked the curtain closed again and pulled the dress gently off my head.
“I’m giving you the commission,” the shop girl said to Jules as I fumbled for my credit card.
“Don’t you dare,” Jules said from behind me. “I am one hundred percent off-the-clock.”
I turned to see her scanning the racks with a closed-off look in her eye. “Why don’t you try something on?”
She looked away. “I get stuff here sometimes, but only when they’re being pulled from stock or returned for a minuscule hole or whatever. They give us a really deep discount.”
“Let me buy you something. As a thank-you.”
“Yeah, thanks but no.”
She said the word no like she was etching it into a stone tablet. I knew not to press the issue.
“Maybe you could get me ready,” I said instead as we stepped from the shop into a wall of hot air. “You might have guessed that I’m not such a makeup expert, and how do I even do my hair with this thing . . . ?”
I rattled the garment bag.
She grabbed it, holding it still. “Of course I’m doing your hair, that was the plan all along.” I could tell by the bounce in her step that she was glad I’d asked first. “We poor motherless children must help each other however we can.”
I stiffened—I wasn’t motherless. But neither was she. Our mothers just lived in different places from us. And hardly ever got in touch.
I forced my attention onto my garment bag, spinning it gently as I walked. “I do like this dress.”
“You’d better, at that price.” Jules’s eyes glowed even as she covered them with sunglasses.
“It makes me look like a real person.”
She stopped mid-stride, fingers pressed to her temples. “Just when I think you’re getting less weird, you pop out with something like that. A ‘real person’?”
“You know what I mean.” I shrugged. “Someone who can make an impact.”
She started walking again, watching me out of the corner of her eye. “You keep bringing this up, this impact thing. I don’t get it.”
“What’s not to get?”
“Why do you have to do anything? Be anything?” She rifled through her purse. “Please do not construe this as me talking you out of becoming a socialite—”
“Philanthropist.”
“But can’t you, hypothetically, be a person living your life like everybody else?”
She passed me a mint.
I popped it into my mouth, scowling around it. “You make me sound like some egomaniac.”
“You’re not enough of an egomaniac,” she said softly. Then she hit me. “You’re so down on yourself! That’s what I don’t get.”
“It’s not about ego either way.” I stepped briskly aside while a dog-walker passed with a million terriers. “It’s just . . . what am I putting into the world? That’s part of why I feel weird about this party. I’m either going as a plus one to the guest of honor or as a Chertok, and . . . that can’t be it, you know? Looking good and showing up can’t be all I have to offer.”
“This family of yours . . .” Jules started, darkly.
“They have a purpose.” I skidded to a stop as an electrician’s van barreled through the crosswalk. “They were born to play music.”
Jules looked like she was straining not to roll her eyes.
I nudged her. “No, stop. You were right, what you said about aesthetics—culture is important. It—it elevates everyday life. So in that way, their existence makes perfect sense, whereas I’m just . . . taking up space.”
“So take up space! You have every right to it.”
“I know that. Logically.” I frowned at my loafers. “But I don’t feel it.”
The light changed and we crossed.
“How much of this has to do with Mr. Guest of Honor?” Jules asked, her voice eggshell careful.
“Oscar? None,” I backtracked, weirdly protective. “Zero percent.”
She looked dubious. I glanced away so I wouldn’t wilt under her glare and confess every worry I had swirling around in my head.
“I shouldn’t have even mentioned him. One hundred percent of this is coming from the fact that I quit piano in April and I’ve been waiting for something to take its place, fill the vacuum, and—”
“In three months?” She laughed. “Tight window for finding the grand purpose for your very existence . . .” She put her hand out, Shakespearian.
I laughed. “Forget purpose. That’s pretentious, I give you that. But I need a job—”
“Do you, though?” She blinked slowly at me as we rounded our block. “Do you.”
“Yes. I do.” A scowl crept into my voice. “I’m not some heiress. And I’m one of four kids, so it’s not like I have a huge fortune waiting for me.”
“But you do have a trust.”
“Yes, I have a trust.” Which I’ve come into, as of my seventeenth birthday, and done nothing with except hidden the monthly account statements that come in the mail . . . “Given to me by my father with specific instructions not to blow it on living expenses. I am expected to have a career.”
“Well, you’re in the best possible position to look for one. It’s not like you have to apply for a job at Cluck-Cluck Chicken Shack this weekend.” She nodded behind her. “Or Cravat.”
“I realize that. I do. I just wish there were a clear path forward.”
“You’re going to have to live here in the murk with the rest of us.” She winked over her sunglasses at me. “Come on in, the water’s blah.”
We’d reached her building.
She leaned against the iron railing of the stoop. “I mean, who the hell knows what I’m going to do. Work retail through college and then get some marketing job to pay off student debt and dream of a better career until it’s time to start dreaming of retirement.”
“Marketing?” I held up my garment bag. “Not fashion?”
“‘Fashion’?” She made air quotes.
“This is the place to do it, right?”
She snorted. “Yeah, if you’re rich. I could intern at Vogue and earn next to nothing. I’d lose twenty pounds, what with the whole no-money-left-for-food thing.”
I nodded up at her building. “You have free housing, at least.”
“No, I don’t.” Her voice sharpened. “I pay as much as I can. Just because our rent is cheap doesn’t mean it’s free and . . .” She heaved a sigh. “I’m sorry, I’m on my period and I don’t feel like talking about my financial future.” She kicked my loafer. “Much more fun to talk about yours!”
I laughed weakly, my stomach twisting. Why even bring up money? I had no idea what I was talking about. Again.
But Jules seemed perkier as she faced me, playing with my hair. “Some people are born to be socialites and some to be shop girls, and contentment lies in accepting which one you are. You’re a celebutante-in-training for Christ’s sake. You should go work for Vogue. I’ll be your PA.”
“You would definitely have to dress me.”
“Already do.” She reached out a
finger to twirl my dress.
I grinned a good-bye as she raced up the steps to her house. And in my head, I crossed “fashion” off my list of possible paths to glory.
That future belonged to Jules.
17.
i texted Nora before Oscar, since she’d been the first to invite me. She wrote back, Brilliant, Ruby, BRILLIANT! which did make me feel brilliant for all of six minutes.
I was making too much of this. It was a party. In a world I knew. A chance to try out the other side, get dressed up, eat tiny food, report back on it to Jules.
Nobody would whisper behind their hands about my non-debut or my Amberley audition. Or my mom. Or my date.
It would be fine.
I’d planned to tell Oscar I was up for the party in person, but our paths didn’t cross all day. On Saturday morning, after Dad left for the airport, I texted: Hey do you still want me to come to that donor event? I bought a dress.
I hit send before I could double-guess it. Then I read it back—and buried my head under a pillow. I bought a dress?
My phone beeped with a reply. But it was Alice.
Free for brunch?
I should have expected the text. Alice always invited me for one-on-one time when Dad traveled so she could reassure herself that I was alive and well. In the past year, it had become a revolving date.
Dad jetted off at least once a month for quick engagements—but this trip was longer than usual, and I’d forgotten to ask him why. It was a long flight. Maybe he wanted some time to decompress on either side of his gig at Royal Albert Hall. He was getting older, after all.
We met downtown, because that’s where Alice insisted on living now, even though the philharmonic was up by us. I liked visiting her in SoHo. It felt like a different city from the Upper West Side, and transformed Alice into a more contemporary person, which meant I was cooler by proxy.
The sidewalk café she chose was a Brazilian place with unlimited weekend mimosas, which everybody but us was taking advantage of. Alice wasn’t a drinker. She did, however, eat a basket of cheese bread within the first five minutes of sitting down.
“What’s going on in your world?” she asked between buttered bites. “I have to admit, I’m kind of fascinated by you right now.”
“Only now?” I shot her a mysterious look.
“You’ve gone civvy. What do you do with your free time?”
“Good question.” I searched for answers in the zigzag pattern of my T-shirt. “So far, I’m experimenting.”
“Oh yeah? Do any of these experiments involve our young genius?”
“What young genius, I don’t know any young . . .” I yawned broadly. “Oh, do you mean Oscar?”
She raised an eyebrow.
I squeezed lime into my water. “I don’t like calling him a genius. It’s othering.”
“Look at you, little miss not-even-an-undergrad.”
“And . . . maybe.”
“Maybe? I knew it!”
Before I could hide my grin by sliding all the way under the table, her phone beeped—and her neck went red.
She blinked up at me. “Tell me more. When did this start?”
I took a massive bite of papaya French toast, forcing her to wait while I chewed. “You first.”
She stared, expressionless.
I stared back.
“Fine. His name is Daniel. He’s a public school teacher.” A smile started to spread across her face. “He bought his grandmother a season pass and he takes her to all the Meet the Orchestra events. It’s their thing. And he chats with me afterward. I mean, it’s been years of this. And . . .” She leaned way back in her chair. “I always wondered if there was more to it—didn’t want to be presumptuous. But last month, he asked me out. He was so shy about it.”
She slumped, as if she’d run out of breath thinking about him.
“And?”
“I freaked out. I said I had a busy rehearsal schedule before the season starts again, which is true, but . . . ugh, I don’t know.”
“Why? Because he’s a teacher?” I grinned, teasing her. “Too nerdy for you?”
I had a flash image of Mrs. Swenson’s piano studio—a Carnegie Hall program from her concert pianist days proudly displayed over a framed cross-stitch of a bear playing a baby grand—and felt my heart clench.
“Not at all.” Alice leaned over the table. “I love that he’s a teacher. It’s . . . noble. And the way he talks about the kids . . .”
She was going to explode like a party popper if we kept talking.
I stirred my water with the lime. “So why didn’t you say yes?”
“Because I’m crazy and weird, like the rest of this ridiculous family. Win’s a wrecking ball, Leo’s talking to burning bushes, Dad’s out to lunch, Mom’s unmentionable . . .” She leaned on the table. “Can you please turn out to be a normal person, Ruby? For the sake of the rest of us?”
“That’s the working plan,” I said drily.
“Good,” Alice said, perky as she put her phone away. “Full disclosure, I saw him again and asked him out, and it’s now a verified thing and it’s lovely and that’s all I’m going to say for now.”
I smiled around my straw. She seemed happy. Flustered, but in a good way—waking up to a racing heart every morning, wondering what was around the corner, when she’d see him again . . .
“I’ve been thinking about you, you know,” she said. “What it would be like to make the same call.”
The sunlight shifted. I shaded my eyes. “What call?”
“You know.” She ran her fingers through her chin-length curls and gazed across the narrow street like her future was beckoning from the Williamsburg Bridge. “Walking away. Choosing normal.”
Choosing normal? Why would anyone choose normal?
“You’re first chair viola at the New York Philharmonic.”
“I know. It’s amazing. And all-consuming. And it’s making me kind of deranged, I think? I keep daydreaming about taking a break. What if I went away for a few weeks, somewhere tropical?” She lifted her mango iced tea as if to demonstrate what she would drink on vacation. “We have a recess coming up, I could do it. But would I bring my viola? Could I take a couple days off from practicing or would I lose my edge and my chair and my will to do it in the first place? Is there even a way for me to do something else, or is this it? Am I just—trapped?”
Her voice got louder and louder, like now that she’d told me one thing going on in her personal life, everything else was fighting to come out.
“I didn’t know you felt that way,” I said. “I always thought your life was . . .”
“What?” She leaned in.
“Perfect.”
“Fair enough,” she sighed. “But let me say, it’s easy for a life to be perfect when there’s hardly anything in it. Anyway, I don’t know how I feel yet.” She cut her omelet into triangles. “So tell me. Are you happier now?”
I considered the question, then took a bite of my brunch, closing my eyes as the papaya topping burst against my tongue. “I feel more awake. More like a real person.”
Jules might not have understood what that meant—but Alice did. She watched me for a moment, quietly nodding, then changed the subject. “Any wild plans for the weekend?”
Perfectly on cue, my phone pinged, and I picked it up to see a reply from Oscar to this morning’s awkward text: THANK! GOD!
I grinned. “I’m going to a young donors’ event at the Wing Club.”
Alice put down her fork. “For Amberley?”
“Yeah, with Oscar.”
“Huh. Well, have fun but, whatever you do, don’t give that woman any money.”
I laughed at the very suggestion, then squinted. “That woman? You mean Nora?”
Her mouth was set in a tight line. “I’m serious. I know she’s
your godmother, and Dad said you’ve been spending a lot of time together—”
“Not that much time . . .” I frowned at my lap, marveling at how quickly Alice had managed to put me on the back foot.
“Listen, just be careful. Those two are wearing Dad out as it is. Sometimes I wish he weren’t so attached to that school.”
“You went there.”
“Like I had any choice!” She nodded as if I’d proven her point. “All I’m saying is . . . I know Nora’s all cotton candy and bunnies in a meadow—”
“Ha-ha, what?”
“But she’s a lot smarter than she lets on. And don’t forget how close she and Mom were for all those years. There’s a reason those two got along so well.”
I winced, thinking of the word she’d used for Mom. Unmentionable.
I didn’t want to ask. Needed to know. “Are you still not talking to her?”
Her eyes shot to mine. “Are you?”
My mouth opened. “I . . .”
“When she calls you, I’ll call her,” Alice said, shut-down mode. “Until then, somebody needs to hold her accountable.”
I wanted to talk Alice back from the brink like the last hundred times we’d had this conversation, tell her it was no big deal, it didn’t bother me, she didn’t need to be my champion, Mom was not toxic, she just had emotional baggage to struggle with, dead-mother-young-age etc., etc., but I couldn’t gather the energy this time. And something else was gnawing at me, her “wearing Dad out” comment—but before I could rewind far enough to ask about it, my phone pinged, another text from Oscar.
I bought a new suit! Well, my dad bought me one. Got it UPS—it’s sharp!
My mood went from slate gray to midday sunshine, picturing Oscar’s dad picking something out for his son to wear to a swanky Manhattan fundraiser, packaging it to be delivered . . .
“Look at you,” Alice said quietly. “You like him.”
I started curling back into a ball.
“It’s okay to be happy, Ruby. It’s sort of the point.”
I watched her push her omelet around her plate, her mind swooping up and away. She was thinking about her public school teacher, but I wasn’t going to tease her about it.
Night Music Page 14