Night Music

by Jenn Marie Thorne

  Not when she’d finally cracked the vault and allowed me a glimpse inside.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Stop moving!” Jules growled, her curling iron dangerously close to my ear. “Is this what you do at whatever one-percenters salon you go to? I hope you tip well.”

  I scowled. “I haven’t even gotten a haircut since last year.”

  “So that’s the problem.” She set down the curling iron and shimmied to the side, bobby pins sticking out of her mouth.

  I sat staring at Jules’s cracked cabinet doors to keep from squirming, and a memory sprang to mind. Mom, getting me ready for my eighth-grade dance. She’d built it up in her mind for some reason, insisting on staying behind while Dad traveled to a conducting clinic in Japan, going to four shops with me to pick out just the right dress, doing my hair and age-appropriate makeup, taking pictures of me and my date, Wally Lew. We were firmly Just Friends—he would come out to me and Farrah a few months later—but Mom had acted like we were getting married, hands clasped to her heart. It was too much. She was trying so hard that I’d felt a weird kind of vicarious exhaustion that I couldn’t shake the whole night. I didn’t go to any dances after that. I think she was secretly relieved.

  If she were home now, would she be ready with her camera?

  I never even saw the photos she took of me and Wally. She’d probably deleted them.

  The realization hit me like a slap, forcing a blink—so I didn’t notice Jules’s scissors heading for my face until they were already snipping, hair cascading in black spirals to the floor.

  “What are you—?”

  “Shhhhh,” Jules whispered, snipping the other side. “This is all we’re doing.”

  She gathered my hair high, set it into some odd position with the pins, and once her mouth was empty, picked me up by the armpits, pivoting me like a puppet until the mirror loomed—and there I was.

  My hair hung in loose ringlets, not frizzy-curly tangles. My face was fresh and rosy, eyes huge and smoky. I didn’t look anything like that little girl playing the piccolo or the one going to the eighth-grade dance. Maybe, just maybe, nobody would recognize me. I could just be Oscar’s plus one.

  Before I left, I added one last touch—a silver pendant in the shape of an oak tree, a gift from Nora when I was ten. After the Lincoln Center photo shoot with the piccolo, etcetera, all the usual Amberley suspects had come here for drinks. Later, while Mom performed, Nora drew me into the kitchen and handed me a blue box, whispering, “This reminded me of you. All the incredible ways you’re growing up. Wonderful shoot today, sweetie—I am really, really proud.”

  It was a tiny moment, no more than a minute, but it had saved me that night. I wondered if she knew how much.

  Oscar was sitting on my stoop when I made it down the street from Jules’s. He stood, seeing me, and dawn broke over his face.

  I glanced at my electric-green dress and new high heels. “Do you like it?”

  He stood still, hands calm at his sides. “You’re perfect.”

  I let out a white-hot breath of a laugh.

  Tonight was a good idea. Being brave, showing up—it was the right call.

  I turned, searching the street for a taxi, but Oscar pointed to a familiar black Bentley heading our way.

  “Oh my gosh, that is so—” I started to say, as Oscar explained:

  “Ms. Visser’s loaned it to me while your dad’s gone. I have this frenetic schedule right now, so the driver stays on top of where I need to go.”

  “Oh, that’s helpful.” I nodded, thrown for no good reason. Of course he had a rapport with Nora—even if he did still call her Ms. Visser.

  Oscar held the door for me, then slid in with a “Hey, Jerry!” to the driver. They chitchatted the whole way, Oscar feigning interest in local sports teams while stealing glances over his shoulder that betrayed how clueless he was. I tried not to laugh.

  And then I saw it ahead—Corinthian columns up-lit in blue.

  18.

  the Wing Club used to be a stuffy place. I remembered exploring all the empty rooms at functions I went to as a kid, cringing at the musty smell that pervaded the place, a mix of mildew and quinine and elderly folks. But apparently, after a renovation last year, it was the hot place to be seen if you were young and moneyed in Manhattan. And wherever there was money, there were fundraisers.

  A guy in a suit and a jaunty cap opened our car door for us as we pulled up outside the blue-lit building. Oscar motioned for me to go in ahead of him, all courtesy—but glancing back, I wondered if there was more to it. He looked knotted up, walking like his shoes were too tight.

  My shoes were tight too, but I plastered on my event face and made it up the stairs past the empty dining room, hearing a peal of laughter and low music issuing from a golden-lit room down the dark-oak hall.

  It’s just a party.

  “Ready?” My voice shook.

  “See, that’s an interesting question.” His smile looked locked in place. “It implies prep, and now I’m wondering if there was a workshop I missed. Intro to Schmoozing?”

  I glanced behind us at a few tempting doorways. “Want to explore?”

  I was referencing the Egyptian Wing, but he grinned like I’d made an innuendo.

  “I’ve been here before,” I whispered, taking his hand. “When I was peak cuteness, they would bring me along and sit me at the piano with my mom, and the donors would go crazy.”

  “You’re peak cuteness now,” he whispered back.

  I traced the edge of a framed photograph, a black-and-white shot of lounging partygoers from the 1920s. “I always felt like I was behind glass. There was me and my family and the musicians and . . . everybody else.”

  “Yes.” Oscar stopped walking and turned to me, hollowed by the glow from the wall sconces. “That’s exactly what . . .” He shook his head, a line between his brows. “Did you know there was a human exhibit at the Bronx Zoo?”

  I laughed, shocked. “What?”

  “Way back. They kept a man in an enclosure. An African, a Pygmy.”

  “Oh my God. That’s . . .” I couldn’t think of the right word.

  But Oscar’s expression cleared, as if by force. “Hey. Come here, you.”

  We ducked into the next empty room we came across. Oscar turned toward me, his fingers grazing my back, our hips touching first.

  I heard a noise in the darkness—shuffling feet—and spun with a gasp.

  Nora Visser and Bill Rustig stood at the far end of the room, veering away from each other like they’d just finished saying hello in passing. Nora walked briskly toward us, drawing herself up to her full, tiny height, while Bill stood in place, powered down.

  My own body went pins and needles. I’d seen nothing. I knew I wasn’t supposed to have seen it.

  “Oscar and Ruby!” Nora chirped. “We were looking for you two.”

  In a random room. With the lights off.

  Bill reanimated enough to amble over, hand extended. “Thanks for coming out tonight.”

  “Absolutely,” Oscar said, his own back straightening as he shook Bill’s hand. “It’s my pleasure, thank you for the invitation.”

  Nora motioned out. “Shall we?”

  She glanced fleetingly in my direction as she linked arms with Oscar, then did a double take. “Oh my goodness, Ruby.” She pressed her hand to her heart—because of the necklace? “You hired a stylist.”

  I beamed. Jules would die if she could hear this conversation.

  “Promise you’ll give me her name,” Nora called over her shoulder.

  “I will. But you look perfect already!” I motioned to her sequined dress, then smiled at my feet, following the others into the glass-walled events room.

  The reception was in at least half swing, sleek twenty- and thirty-somethings clustered around high-ris
e tables, drinking champagne and cocktails from an open bar as a string quartet performed in the corner.

  I snuck a peek at the musicians, confirming that, yep, despite how polished they sounded, they were nearly as young as I was. Amberley. I wondered if they felt like there was glass separating us.

  A waiter stood near the door with a plate full of mini tarts, so teensy that only one fruit fit atop each. Oscar turned to it, eyes wide, but Nora steered him to a cluster of young partygoers in business suits. She was as grabby with him as Dad and Win—no glance to see whether Oscar might, in fact, like to stop for a fruit tart. She acted like he was hers.

  Something urged me to walk up and extract him, but as Nora launched into introductions, I stopped myself. He had to shake hands. That was why he was here.

  “Oscar, this is Scott Tambliss, he is a real up-and-comer on Wall Street, but before that, would you believe he played the trombone?”

  Oscar shook, greeted, all polish. I was being silly, he was made for this. Nora graced me with a cheerful glare, the kind you give a puppy for come, but I let my eyes drift, clinging to my current status: Oscar Bell’s anonymous date.

  “Champagne?” A waitress in an all-black uniform offered me a glass.

  “Um.”

  Her tray wavered. She looked tired already and the party had just begun. Part of me wanted to help her hand these out.

  “Thank you.” I took the flute carefully, like the stem might notice I was underage and snap in protest.

  The last time I’d come to a party at this club was four years ago—a Diamond Tier reception following a performance of Rigoletto at the Met. Thirteen-year-old me had ordered a ginger ale in a champagne glass and felt transgressive, waiting for someone to cry out in shock. Nobody looked at me the whole night—Mom, Dad, any of the guests. I could have just as easily been drinking the real stuff.

  Well, I was drinking the real stuff tonight! It fizzed and burned and swirled as it went down. And this time people were looking at me.

  Men were looking, in every corner of the room. My instinct was to slump, cross arms, duck into shadows, but I didn’t. I pulled back my shoulders. I sipped my illicit champagne, steadied my ankles in my heels, smiled vaguely back at groups of strangers while Oscar worked the room.

  Standing beside the window with what looked like a married couple, a guy—too old for me by a measure of decades—raised his glass in a tiny toast. I sipped from my own in reply.

  Maybe Jules was right. Maybe aesthetics could be a kind of armor. Standing here with strangers’ eyes roving my body, I felt more invisible than when I was a kid, hiding behind the roll-up bar, stealing cherries while the grown-ups talked. This dress, this hair, this makeup, was more of a costume than anything I’d worn yet. Skimpy as it was, it covered me completely.

  And yet I could feel it taking over. To all these people, I was the green dress girl. I could do nothing but stand here and they would think they knew something about me.

  I scanned the room, spotting a brunette in a brocaded cocktail dress laughing at something the man with her had said before turning away, her face sinking with boredom for a telltale blink. Could I guess what her life was like? Did she have a job, a passion to pursue, a singular impact, or did she flit from event to event, patron of the arts and sciences and social service organizations and children’s hospitals . . .

  “Oh, would you please?” Nora’s voice rose above the string quartet like she was trying to accompany it in a light lyric soprano.

  I turned to see her dinging her champagne flute with a knife she’d produced from God knew where. At the sound of it, the musicians stopped playing and the room’s conversation settled into a curious hum. Beside her, Oscar rocked back onto his heels, waiting.

  “I’ve spoken to many of you tonight about our newest prize pupil here at Amberley,” Nora sang out. “Well, I’m pleased to tell you that he has just agreed to honor us with a performance.”

  “Ooooh,” went the crowd in unison as Oscar shot them his spotlight grin and strode to the piano. His step was so assured that I had to assume he’d been prepped on this “impromptu” in advance. Then his eyes flitted to mine—briefly, imploringly—and the world stopped.

  He’d been put on the spot.

  But, without hesitation, he started to play, calling out a casual “Here’s a little something I came up with on my ride from the airport.”

  The whole party laughed appreciatively, and there it was, the fugue—the first “Bell” tune I’d ever heard—and I wondered why I’d bothered to worry. This was where he lived. This was where he made sense.

  As he was reaching the end of the exposition, he glanced around the room and said, almost flirtatiously, “Requests?”

  “The song from YouTube!” a young blonde called back, her fuchsia-lipped friend giggling beside her.

  Everyone in the room shouted agreement. Had they all seen the video? Oscar wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest. He launched into it.

  “An abbreviated version of the Kudzu Variations. Let’s call it the YouTube Suite.”

  “A world premiere, ladies and gentlemen!” Nora said, sweeping across the room to whisper in another woman’s ear before arcing back in my direction.

  I took another swig of champagne and ditched it on a side table before she could reach me, feeling unbalanced as I glanced around. Oscar was playing, layering, ornamenting. The music—you could taste it, fizzy, tart—why were these people chitchatting over it?

  Nora played with the clasp of my necklace as she stood on her tiptoes to whisper, “You’re doing so well. I’ll introduce you around in a second.”

  I mouthed a quick thank-you, but didn’t know what she meant by doing well and didn’t care. My world was this “premiere,” the birth and life of Oscar’s song. I didn’t want to matter. I wanted to listen.

  Oscar’s grin dropped as he concentrated, composing as he went. He was trying to block the party din out, but it only grew. I heard the music shift to an inverted seventh and into the first strains of a Mozart homage—then he shook his head, sketched an arpeggio and closed it out, the music dropping off a cliff so quickly that I gasped. Oscar frowned at the silent keys.

  The crowd whistled, applauded. His smile returned. “Thank you for indulging me. I’m no pianist. Not like Miss Chertok here, who was kind enough to accompany me tonight.”

  No. What. No, no.

  Everyone was looking at me now, their expressions shifting as their assumptions about me made a 180. Still wrong. Completely wrong. I noticed some familiar faces among them, shapes popping out of a wallpaper pattern—donors to the opera, a couple of teachers. Arnold Rombauer, by the bar, watching me with strained pity.

  “Perhaps Ruby could play for us,” Nora called out. Her hand was on my back now—nudging me in the direction of the piano.

  I stared in horror, body locked in place. Nora knew me. She’d been there seven years ago, the last time I’d played for a gathering of this stature. She’d given me this necklace, eased the shame of that night. She knew that what happened in April was the final straw, that I was done—that it wounded me to even talk about it.

  But Nora was wearing her fundraiser mask. Was this how she got people to give money? By telling them they were going to, in front of witnesses? Was I still a child to her? A photo-op?

  “I’m not . . . I can’t play anything.” My voice hardly came out.

  The crowd was clapping halfheartedly, curious about my name more than anything. I turned to Oscar in desperate appeal, but he was shifting down the bench, making space.

  “We could duet,” he murmured, his innocence cutting. “Just something easy . . . a Chopin waltz? And I’ll do an embellishment. Sound good?”

  Heat raced up my body like I was tied to a burning stake. Everyone turned to watch as tears sprang to my eyes, sweat stung my forehead, my curls stuck and melted flat.

 
“I can’t play.” The room fell strangely silent, everyone sensing drama unfolding.

  Oscar cocked his head, still not understanding.

  A clock chimed down the long hall and I nearly let out a hysterical laugh.

  Instead, I took my cue, cutting a line through the crowd, clip-clopping faster, down the stairs, out the door, into the muggy night, past a drunk couple, straight to the curb, desperate for a lit taxi to swoop me safely home.

  19.

  “ruby!”

  As I clomped into the street, Oscar burst out of the building behind me.

  “What . . .” He stumbled to a stop, hesitating on the sidewalk. “Are you . . . okay? What was that up there?”

  I turned, anger boiling in my throat. “I don’t. Play. The piano. I’ve been telling you that over and over but you don’t seem to want to listen to me.”

  “I’m sorry.” He ran his hands over his cheeks. “Oh God, Ruby, I really am. I don’t know why I put you on the spot like that. I guess I panicked and figured you were used to it, being—”

  “I’m not. And you know what? I don’t have to get used to it. But you do.”

  He shuffled backward. “I guess so. I mean, you’re right.”

  A taxi dropped somebody off on the near corner. I raised my hand for it.

  “Where are you going?” Oscar asked, a note of panic in his voice.

  “Home.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No.” I leaned on the car door. “No. Oscar. That’s sweet, but . . . you need to go up there and shake more hands.”

  “But—”

  “They’re giving you this platform. You have to help them fundraise.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “That’s what Dad’s always done, that’s what Win does, even Leo and Alice, when they’re asked to. It’s part of the job. You were doing great, keep it up.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the lit-up windows and let out a little laugh. “I feel so . . . on parade.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  “No, I mean . . .” His jaw clenched through his smile, like he wanted to confide something.