Virtuosity

by Jessica Martinez

  “Why don’t you get nervous when you perform?” I asked.

  “Why don’t you get nervous?” The edge had crept back in.

  There was no acceptable answer to that question. I couldn’t tell him about Inderal, I wouldn’t admit that I did get nervous, I didn’t want to lie and tell him I didn’t … “I asked you first.”

  “I do get nervous. Really, really nervous, as in throwing up. I spent a good year having terrible performances when I was thirteen. It just hit me all of the sudden, you know? I’d been performing my whole life, obviously, but suddenly I was aware of everything that was just automatic before. And not just the physical stuff. Aware of people’s expectations. Of my expectations.”

  “But you don’t seem nervous on stage. At all.”

  He gave a wry smile. “You mean my shtick?”

  “I probably wouldn’t have called it that, but, yeah.”

  “It gives me something to focus on. Having a role to play helps.”

  “Jeremy …” I let my voice trail off without even trying to say what had to be said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do. What?”

  “You’re making it impossible to hate you again.”

  “But I thought we’d already decided it was okay to not hate each other.”

  “I don’t know. I thought we’d decided we might have to.” I picked up my fork and pushed the remaining ravioli around, making patterns in the sauce.

  He sighed. “So you don’t get nervous then. What’s your secret?”

  “No secret.”

  “Lucky.”

  I shrugged. All the lines I’d been fed by Diana and Dr. Wright about Inderal turned magically into what they had always been. Dust. Stories. It was cheating. Maybe I’d always known, but it didn’t matter now, because I wasn’t taking it ever again. I’d survived last night without it, hadn’t I? The Guarneri would be scary as hell without it, but that was the way it had to be. Jeremy’s description of performing had shaken something loose, something I’d always known but forgotten. Nerves were normal. Real musicians learned how to deal with them.

  I turned to the stage where the music had stopped. The singer was getting ready to saunter off, but first gave her two fingers a kiss and tossed it to the crowd.

  The lightness I’d felt all night was gone. It had deserted me somewhere between jazz combos and performance talks. I needed more. I needed to put my head on Jeremy’s chest and for him hold me and tell me that the next week wasn’t going to end in disaster.

  Our waitress came and cleared our plates and refilled our drinks. “Dessert?” she asked and left a dessert menu with our choices before we could say no.

  “Want to split the tiramisu?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. What time is it?”

  Jeremy checked his watch. “One-thirty.”

  “I need to get home.”

  Jeremy nodded but didn’t look at me. He felt it too. Something had changed.

  “They look so free,” I said, gesturing toward the musicians onstage.

  “I know.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was so late. Will your parents be mad?”

  I shook my head.

  He paid for our meal and we pushed our way through the crowd to the door.

  I hadn’t realized how warming the smoke and jazz were until Jeremy opened the door to the street and the icy wind cut into me.

  Before I could open my mouth to complain, Jeremy was taking off his sweater.

  “You’ll be cold …” I started to say, but it sounded unconvincing, so I let my words trail off. Wearing just a black T-shirt, he hailed a cab, while I pulled his sweater over my head.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked once we were settled in the cab, pulling me close. His body felt warm against mine and my shivering melted away. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No. I’m just sad. I think I want more than I can have.”

  He stared silently out the window, his eyes following the lights of buildings we passed.

  This time when we pulled up in front of the house the windows were exactly as they should be—black as the night sky. Diana and Clark were either asleep or still out.

  It was time to get out, but Jeremy didn’t let go.

  “Don’t be sad,” he whispered in my ear. “Look at me.”

  I obeyed.

  “You’re too used to sacrificing for music,” he said. “But we both want this, right?”

  I gave him my best smile. We can’t have both! I wanted to scream. We can’t both win! Instead, I leaned forward and put my lips on his. This kiss was different from the first. Less startling. More aching. Less dreamlike. More desperate.

  And when I left the cab this time, he was the one out of breath.

  Chapter 12

  I told Heidi you’d be taking the next two weeks off,” Diana informed me Monday morning when I came down to the kitchen table, French textbook in hand.

  “What? Why?”

  My question wasn’t dignified with a response, unless a raised eyebrow over a sip of coffee counts. Diana had an unwritten ask a stupid question, answer it yourself policy.

  I tossed my textbook on the counter. I needed to see Heidi, to talk her into being my alibi for Wednesday night.

  Diana turned to the next page of the travel section of the Tribune and gestured to the stack of blueberry pancakes on the counter. “Clark was feeling domestic this morning.”

  I ignored the pancakes and poured myself a glass of orange juice. “But I might get behind …” I started feebly and then stopped.

  “Carmen, are you kidding?”

  It was a lame excuse. “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “Let me remind you that you’ve got a full scholarship to Juilliard for this fall,” she said, “which you’ll hopefully be deferring. And besides, you’ve already completed your required courses. I’m glad you’re enjoying physics and French, but you don’t need them.”

  “What do you mean, deferring?”

  She looked up over the rims of her reading glasses. “You know if you win the Guarneri you’ll have performance obligations for the year. That’s worth more than the prize money.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, unable to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “But I just assumed I’d be able to do both.”

  Diana sighed. “Life at Juilliard won’t be like it is now. No Heidi, no days off. You’ll have to go to classes.”

  “I know I’ll have to go to classes. I’m not an idiot.”

  It had been like this since Saturday, with every interaction escalating from fine to furious in seconds. The pile of things we were sitting on but not talking about—Inderal, Jeremy, her scary apology—was getting uncomfortable.

  “You can see Heidi as soon as the Guarneri is over.”

  “But Heidi invited me to spend the night on Wednesday,” I lied. Diana leaned back, folded her arms, and stared at me. Heidi’s trendy Wicker Park apartment was slightly larger than a walk-in closet. And not only was it small, she had a roommate.

  But it wasn’t totally implausible. I’d spent a weekend sleeping on the floor, crammed between Heidi’s bed and the bathroom door, last summer when Clark and Diana had gone to Montreal for their tenth anniversary. “Jenna’s going out of town,” I added. That wasn’t unlikely either. Jenna, the roommate, was always traveling for work.

  Diana opened her mouth, then hesitated. She was dying to say no, but couldn’t. It was too much. I could see it in the way she had her arms folded and tucked around her, like they were holding her body together, and in the uneasiness around her eyes. I worried her. Good.

  She shrugged. “That’s fine. That’s the night of the CSO function, so we won’t be here anyway.”

  The fake indifference was stupid, but I didn’t need to call her on it. I had to phone Heidi immediately. I picked up my French book and turned back to the stairs. “I’m going to go practice, I guess.”

  She
didn’t answer.

  Heidi was surprisingly easy to convince. I’d expected her to turn responsible adult–like on me. We were only five years apart, but Diana’s signature on her paycheck made her a slave to the grown-up code. Agreeing to be my alibi was a definite breach of that, but I’d underestimated her romantic side.

  “Wait, wait, wait, tell it again,” she’d said after I’d recounted the events of Friday night and then Sunday night, and then she screamed into the phone at the end of the story’s second telling, just like she had on the first go round. “Of course you can spend the night!” she squealed. “But what are you going to wear?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” I said, kicking off my shoes and climbing onto my bed.

  “What is wrong with you? You haven’t thought about it? Carmen, I’ve seen everything in your closet. You can’t wear flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top to a Sox game with a guy,” she said. “Or a performance gown.”

  She was right. There was a huge gap in my wardrobe between black tie and pajamas. It had almost killed me to put together something to wear on Sunday. I had jeans and T-shirts, but nothing especially cute.

  “Don’t worry. You can borrow something from me. When and where are you meeting him?”

  “Five-thirty at the Drake,” I said. “Or at Lavazza, actually.”

  “Lavazza?”

  “It’s an Italian coffee house beside the Drake, or under it. I’m not sure.”

  “Be at my place at two. I’ll be your fairy godmother.”

  “Isn’t that a little early?”

  “Date prep takes time. Trust me.”

  “She’ll probably call to check up on me,” I warned.

  “It’s okay. I can lie.”

  “But what if she catches us?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “She’ll probably fire me.”

  I stopped. This wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t have asked her.

  “It’s okay, Carmen,” she said softly. “It’s almost over anyway. Juilliard in the fall, remember?”

  I leaned back into my pillows and closed my eyes. I hadn’t thought much about Juilliard—it was just the next logical career step—but then Diana had talked about deferring as if I’d already known and I’d wanted to throw my French textbook at her head.

  “So you’ll be here at two o’clock on Wednesday?” she asked.

  “You’re the best. Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me,” she said. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to give you a makeover?”

  “I don’t think that’s a compliment. Should I be worried?”

  “No, you should be excited.”

  I looked out the window, down to the street where the cab had pulled over and Jeremy had kissed me. And then where I’d kissed him. “I am.”

  I hung up and took a long look in the mirror. She’d been dying to give me a makeover?

  I lifted my dark curly hair and twisted it up into a clip. I had Diana’s eyes, grass green and almond shaped, but my nose was a little too big and my chin was a little too pointy. A makeover couldn’t change that.

  But Jeremy liked what he saw anyway, didn’t he? I smiled. He did.

  Unless he didn’t. And suddenly there it was, Diana’s voice in my head. People will do anything to win …

  “Let’s go over this again,” Heidi said, running the wand through the lashes over my left eye. Her face was uncomfortably close. There was nowhere to look, so I was trying to focus on the crease between her nostril and her cheek rather than stare straight up her nose. “You meet him at five-thirty and take the Red Line to the stadium. The game is six-ten to—I don’t know—nine-thirty? When does your mom’s benefit dinner start?”

  “Cocktails at eight, dinner at nine.”

  “Hmmm …” She put the mascara back on the table and reached for lipstick. “Dinner at nine and she’s on the organizing committee?”

  I nodded.

  “Hey, did I give your permission to move your head?” She grabbed a tissue and wiped where the lipstick had smudged. “Benefit dinners go on forever. The earliest she could possibly be out of there is midnight, which means you have to be back here by then. You seriously ruined your lipline with the nodding.”

  “Midnight. I can do that, but I don’t think she’ll stop by. She’s been really preoccupied with this dinner. It’s been four days since the name Jeremy King was even spoken in our house. She thinks I believed her when she said he was just trying to mess with my brain before the competition.”

  Heidi bit her lip and squirted makeup remover on another tissue. “But you don’t?”

  “No. Not after going to that jazz club with him. Maybe I should be thinking about it though.”

  “It’s kind of funny, actually,” she said. “Most girls have to worry about guys just being after sex, but you should really be more worried if he isn’t after sex. You just can’t do anything normally, can you?”

  I didn’t answer. Sometimes Heidi’s ability to hit the nail on the head hurt.

  “What did you tell your mom, by the way? We should probably have our story straight.”

  “She thinks we’re going to the game together.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “But I’m a Cubs fan.”

  “Yeah, but I needed to get the tickets from Clark somehow, and I’m pretty sure Diana doesn’t keep track of the teams you cheer for.”

  “Well, I hope the Sox lose.”

  “That’s fine with me, as long as I don’t get busted.”

  “I’m glad I attacked those eyebrows the minute you walked in the door,” she muttered, rubbing the sore skin above my eye with her thumb. “The redness is just now fading.”

  “I can do my own makeup you know.”

  “Wrong.” She dipped a makeup brush in powder and swept it over my cheeks. “You never wear makeup unless you’re on stage, and stage makeup makes you look like a transvestite.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “You know what I mean. Just from up close.”

  I ran my hands over my straightened hair. It felt weird and smooth. “When do I get to look in the mirror?”

  “When I’m done.”

  I fished my phone out of my purse. It was four fifty-one. “Hopefully that’s soon. I need to go in ten minutes.”

  “Wrong again. You have to be late. Trust me, you don’t want to be there before he comes down. He needs to be standing around wondering if you’re actually going to show up. It puts you in a position of power.”

  Power. I was so clueless. Obviously, there were mind game components to relationships I hadn’t even begun to think through. I wasn’t dumb enough to ask Heidi why it couldn’t just be about me liking him and him liking me, but I could think it. “I’ll be late then,” I said.

  “Good girl.” Heidi took a bushy makeup brush off her desk, dipped it in a jar of bronzing powder, and gave my face a liberal dusting. Then she took two steps back and put her hands on her hips. “I give one freaking fantastic makeover. Put your boots on and stand up.”

  I zipped up the knee-high brown boots, stood, and adjusted the jean skirt. She squinted and grinned. “Go look in the mirror,” she said, gesturing to the full length at the end of her very short hallway.

  I turned and studied my reflection, slowly letting out the breath I hadn’t even known I was holding. Hallelujah, still me! Somewhere midmakeover I’d started to worry that the finished product was going to look nothing like the original, and that Jeremy would take one look and know I’d spent the entire day primping. But Heidi was good. I looked fresh and natura, and my hair looked so … smooth. I ran my hands over it again. It was going to be hard to go back to the fuzzy ponytail. Maybe I’d just never wash it again. Heidi’s clothes certainly helped—Vera Wang flat boots, a snug indigo-denim mini, a vintage red wraparound sweater tied at my hip.

  “Adorable. You look like Selena Gomez. And that skirt is perfect on you. It kind of makes me not want to wear it again,” she said, as she slid a bracelet
onto my arm. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re a miracle worker.”

  “Hardly,” she said, still grinning. “I had good raw material to work with.”

  “I love it. Thank you.”

  “Good. You can show your appreciation by not spilling mustard on the boots. They cost about half a month’s rent.” She fished around in her front closet and handed me a tailored khaki jacket. “You should go. You know which bus you’re taking to the Drake?”

  I nodded.

  “And you’ll be back …”

  “By midnight,” I said, and grabbed my purse from the couch.

  “One more thing.” She put her arm around my shoulder and walked me to the door. “Forget the violin crap and just be have fun.”

  I gave her a hug. “I’ll try.”

  * * *

  The bus that took me from Heidi’s to the Drake lurched and squealed like a drunk pig. My stop was still two away, but I stood and made my way to the exit, clinging to each safety bar as I went. I was starting to feel motion sick and Heidi was right. Being early would be a mistake.

  I stepped off the bus and into a cloud of tulips. I’d forgotten about Tulip Days. Every April hundreds of thousands of tulips bloom overnight on Michigan Avenue. The explosion of crimson and tangerine was even more dizzying than the bus, a sea of rippling red heads bobbing around me.

  I wove through clusters of shoppers and tulips, noting Diana’s favorites as I passed them: Saks Fifth Avenue, La Perla, Tiffany & Co., Ralph Lauren, Gucci, Louis Vuitton—Michigan Avenue was high-end retail paradise.

  Then up ahead the Gothic facade of Fourth Presbyterian Church appeared, and I remembered the hidden courtyard. I’d played concerts at the church before, but I’d never been there without my violin. Never alone.

  I checked the time. It was 5:18 and the Drake was only a block up. I crossed over and slipped under the graceful stone archway that led into the courtyard. It was empty. Stillness weighted the air. I walked slowly to the fountain and surveyed the space around me. Emerald green ivy blanketed the stone walls, growing up to the sky. It looked so vibrant I reached out and touched a leaf with my fingers. It was warm from the sun. That ivy worked a kind of magic on my nerves, absorbing the sounds of traffic and shoppers on the other side of the wall. Just a few feet away, they didn’t exist.