Virtuosity

by Jessica Martinez

  My purse buzzed, bringing me back. Don’t be Jeremy, I prayed. Don’t be calling to cancel. I dug for my phone and raced to come up with a response for if he was and how to sound completely indifferent about it, or maybe even beat him to it and cancel first. My finger was on the talk button, ready to press it, when I glanced down at the screen.

  Diana’s cell.

  I exhaled shakily.

  It could be worse. I could already be at the game. If I was with Jeremy, he’d hear me lying to my mother and start wondering why he was hanging out with a twelve-year-old. The phone buzzed again. What would I say if she wanted to talk to Heidi? She’s in the bathroom. And what if she wanted to stop by for some reason on her way to the benefit? We’re on our way out for dinner. Maybe. It buzzed again. Next time it would go to voicemail. That could worry her enough to send her straight to Heidi’s. I pressed talk.

  “Hi.” My voice was at least two whole tones higher than normal.

  “Having fun?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. What exactly are you two planning on for tonight?”

  “Dinner, then the game.”

  “Great. Can I talk to Heidi for a sec?”

  My heart thumped. I took a deep breath. “Uh, she’s in the bathroom.”

  There was a short pause then in the same careless voice, “Is that why she can’t talk? Or is it because she’s in her apartment and you’re nowhere near there?”

  In all my musing on the nature of God, on whether He existed or not, I sometimes forgot there was another option: Diana was God. How else could she be so freaking omniscient?

  “I’m assuming Heidi coached you on the bathroom excuse since that’s exactly where she said you were when I called her apartment a minute ago.”

  I groaned. Heidi hadn’t even coached me on the excuse! Why was it so hard for her to believe I thought for myself occasionally?

  “Where are you?” The tone was all business.

  I looked up at the web of ivy. Early evening sun had warmed the stone beneath it to a pinkish brown. Had she already squeezed the answer out of Heidi? “Church,” I answered.

  “What?”

  She would be picturing Saint Clements Holy Catholic Church, the church we faithfully ignored fifty Sundays of the year. (Face time on Easter and Christmas seemed like plenty.) Why correct her?

  “Why would you be at church? Am I really supposed to believe that? Are you with Jeremy King?”

  If Heidi had told her I was seeing Jeremy, lying would be pointless. She might be trying to trap me. But I wasn’t with Jeremy. Yet.

  “No.”

  “I don’t believe you. And you’re sure as hell not at church either. What are you thinking, Carmen?” Her voice cracked over my name. She waited, though the question was obviously rhetorical. What I was thinking had certainly never been of any interest to her before. When she continued, her voice was quiet again, but still just as agitated. “I thought you understood our discussion about Jeremy’s motives. I guess I was wrong.”

  “You were wrong,” I said, “but not about me. About him.” Whose voice was that? She sounded like me, but with a spine.

  I could just picture Diana’s little nostrils flaring. “If you’re going to disregard my advice as your mother that’s fine, but as your manager, I’m ordering you to stop being an idiot and get home.”

  Or else? The absence of a threat was insulting. Was I supposed to obey just because she was angry and because I always did what I was told?

  My eyes followed a shoot of ivy as it twisted and climbed skyward over the stones. I could call Jeremy and make up an excuse. Or tell him the truth. At that point, it wouldn’t matter. I could walk out to Michigan Avenue, hail a cab and be home in fifteen minutes, practice an hour or two, and be in bed by nine.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Carmen—”

  “No. I’ve got plans. I’ll be back at Heidi’s around midnight, and I’ll be home tomorrow morning.”

  I hung up before I had the chance to hear her response.

  I powered off my phone.

  Chapter 13

  I was starting to worry.” Jeremy grinned and leaned back in his chair under the red Lavazza umbrella. He didn’t look worried. His hair was wind whipped, and his sleeves were pushed up. In front of him sat a glass, empty except for a small chocolate puddle at the bottom, atop a half-finished crossword puzzle. “I’m falling in love with this place,” he said, and gestured back toward the shop.

  Along with a jewelry store and a handful of expensive boutiques, Lavazza sat beneath the hotel lobby, opening onto the street. Behind Jeremy, the Drake’s awning fluttered and a doorman stood sentinel by glass rotating doors.

  “My grandparents stay at the Drake when they come to Chicago,” I said. “I’ve eaten at the restaurant inside but never here before.” I looked through the window at the tubs of glossy gelato, and pretended not to notice that he was staring at me.

  “Sorbetto cremespresso,” he said and tapped his pencil against the empty glass. “I’m addicted. It’s probably just melted coffee ice cream, but they can charge double with a name like that.” He stood and slid the pencil into his back pocket. He looked good in jeans and a rugby shirt, long and muscular.

  “You look different,” he said, squinting.

  The un-compliment. My least favorite. “Thanks. I’ve always wanted to be told I looked different. Are you ready to go?”

  “Your hair,” he said. “It’s straight.”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes I straighten it.” He didn’t need to know that the first of those sometimes was today. I checked the V-neck of my sweater to make sure my bra wasn’t showing, feeling suddenly like a Barbie doll someone else had dressed up.

  “So how do we get there?” he asked.

  “The Red Line.”

  “Lead the way,” he said, tossing his crossword puzzle into the pile of café newspapers.

  We walked side by side, but at completely different gaits, my legs taking three steps for every two of his. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “So, have you been pretty busy the last couple of days?” I said. Ouch, that sounded desperate. Why hadn’t I just lead with, Why haven’t you called me?

  He shrugged.

  With all the anticipation, and Heidi’s primping, and replaying the first kiss and then the second kiss every ten minutes for the last few days, I hadn’t planned for awkwardness. That was dumb. I should have been writing up and memorizing lists of potential conversation topics.

  I shouldn’t have flushed all my Inderal. If I could take just one, this jittery feeling in my gut would be gone.

  I glanced over at him. His hands were in his pockets and he was whistling something familiar. Maybe the awkwardness was only in my head. I leaned in to hear the tune.

  “Brahms Sonata in G Major,” I said, finally recognizing it. “Is that part of your semifinals program?”

  He stopped whistling. “I don’t want to talk violin.”

  Nope. Awkwardness not just in my head. We reached the corner and waited with the other pedestrians to cross. Abruptly, he turned to me and I saw the angry red line on the left side of his jaw from practicing. It looked sore.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just stressed out.” Then he gave a half shrug/half grin. “Let’s just have fun tonight.”

  “Sure.”

  We crossed the street and climbed the stairs to the train platform where a crowd of wound-up White Sox fans had gathered, shaking big foam fingers, already smelling like beer in their pinstripe jerseys. Poor Clark. I pictured him at a table with a bunch of symphony lovers trying to nod his way through dinner without falling asleep.

  Jeremy looked around at the people on the platform. “I can’t believe I’m finally going to my first baseball match.”

  “Yeah, we call them games here.”

  “Whatever. To be honest, I’m not even a hundred percent on all the rules.”

  “It’s pretty simple,” I said, but then w
ondered if it was, or if I’d just always known the rules of baseball. “So, do baseball fans look like soccer fans?” I asked.

  “More or less,” he said. “Except we call it football there, and I’m not afraid for my life, like I would be in a crowd of Manchester United fans.”

  “That wild?”

  “In a crazy, lawless, we’ll-kill-you-and-eat-you-for-sport-if-you’re-cheering-for-the-wrong-team sort of a way. Who are the White Sox playing, by the way?”

  “Minnesota Twins.”

  “Twins? That seems like a really lame name for a sports team.”

  “I agree. The fact that you recognize that means you’re going to be a great White Sox fan.”

  When the train came the whole crowd packed into the cars, and I found myself wedged between Jeremy’s body and a greasy window. We were too close to talk, what with my head being a full foot below his, but that was kind of a relief. The nearest pole was too far away to hold onto, so when the train lurched forward, I fell into him, my face landing in his chest. He laughed and caught me, then helped me regain my balance, but left his hand resting on my lower back. His shirt smelled fresh and sweet like detergent.

  We arrived in time to see the end of batting practice, which Clark was always adamant about. That and staying until the last out. None of that leaving-early-to-beat-the-crowds crap.

  “Who’s throwing the opening pitch?” Jeremy asked.

  “A fellow Brit, I believe. And a musician too.”

  “Should I guess?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Um, Elton John?”

  “No. Younger and less pudgy,” I said.

  “Amy Winehouse? Or is she in a treatment facility somewhere?”

  “Let’s hope so, and it isn’t her.”

  “I hope you don’t think Madonna is actually British.”

  “Nope, but I think she thinks she’s British. It isn’t her anyway.”

  “I give up,” he said.

  “Victoria Beckham.”

  “Of course. Our nation’s greatest asset. I don’t know if I’d actually consider her a musician.”

  “Me neither. How about an actress? I think the Spice Girls may have made a movie.”

  Just then she tottered out with five-inch heel/running shoe hybrids on her feet, looking like an anorexic bird on stilts. She gave the crowd the peace sign, and tossed the ball a couple of feet. Everyone, including Jeremy and me, went crazy.

  The game started, and in the mayhem of the screaming fans, we slipped back into what we had been at the jazz club. We watched the game, or pretended to watch the game, but really just watched each other, and talked, and felt the spaces between us shrink.

  At the top of the third he went to get food and came back from concessions with two sausage dogs covered in grilled onions and peppers so hot my lips burned. We ate them while making fun of the of the Kissing Cam victims, cheering especially hard for the holdouts when they finally gave in and kissed.

  Between the third and fourth he helped me compose a haiku about the Minnesota Twins (Ball-dropping fat dudes/ Your mothers have moustaches/Girl Scouts run faster). When we scored our only run in the seventh, I spilled my soda all over his pants, but he just laughed and bought me another one.

  All in all, it was perfect.

  “This feeling crosses the cultural divide,” Jeremy said as we watched the final pitches being hurled. “It doesn’t even matter that I’ve only been a Sox fan for a few hours. I want to throw a peanut at that idiot in the Twins jersey over there who won’t shut up.”

  “Agreed.”

  “You think I should do it?”

  “I was agreeing with the feeling. I’d rather you didn’t get us thrown out of the game.”

  “For you,” he said and rolled over the top of the paper bag of peanuts, then put it on my lap.

  Losing the game didn’t even feel all that bad. There was an understanding among the fans that it was more noble to love a team with heart than a blood-sucking soulless franchise like the Twins.

  Clark would be checking the score and swearing into his cocktail.

  The entire stadium seemed to stand and push toward the exits simultaneously, but we sat still, neither of us ready for it to be over.

  “Should we go?” Jeremy asked finally. People in the aisles were still just inching toward the bottle-necked exit.

  “Let’s wait.”

  “I guess it’s not like they’re going anywhere fast.”

  “Nope,” I said. “Your jeans still wet?”

  He pressed his hand to his thigh where I’d spilled the Coke. “Yeah.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You don’t need to apologize again. I probably deserved it.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. The last obnoxious thing I said?”

  I thought for a moment. “You haven’t really said anything obnoxious since we got here.” He hadn’t said a word about violin either. Not one.

  He laughed. “You sound surprised.”

  “I guess I am. Would you like me to count it against one of the obnoxious things you said when I first met you?”

  “That would be great.” He looked like he wanted to say more, like he wanted to apologize for that ugly competitive streak he’d let show. But neither of us wanted that. We were in a perfect bubble of baseball and drunk Sox fans and mindless banter. No need to ruin it now.

  He stood and offered me his hand. I took it and he pulled me up, then turned and led me out of the stadium.

  “What time do you have to be home by?” he asked as we stepped away from the doors and into the dark. A stream of people flowed past us to the train platform.

  “I’m not going home. I’m spending the night at a friend’s, but I’m supposed to be back there at midnight.” For all I knew, Diana was already waiting for me on Heidi’s couch. But I wasn’t going back yet. She was going to kill me whether I saw her in ten minutes or in ten hours.

  “Hmmm.” Jeremy looked down at me and smiled with one corner of his mouth. “Staying at a friend’s? So that’s how you’re dealing with the leash?”

  “Don’t judge me. Your parents let you go halfway across the world by yourself and stay there for weeks on end. I’m not allowed to go to the bathroom without permission. Trust me, you’d lie too.”

  “It’s not as wonderful as you think it is,” he said. “Being on my own, I mean. My mom has to stay at home with my brother. He’s disabled and it’s tricky to work out care for anything longer than a couple of days. And my dad. He’s … high stress. I’m on my own because I have to be if I want to do violin.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he said. “You obviously don’t have it easy either.”

  A wind blew into us and through Heidi’s thin jacket. I shivered.

  “I’d offer you a jacket, but I don’t have one,” he said.

  “And I’m already wearing one.”

  “That too. Not to mention the fact that you still have the sweater I gave you on Sunday.”

  “Oops. I was going to bring that.” That was a complete lie. I didn’t ever want to have to part with that sweater.

  He paused and ran a hand through his hair. His expression changed as he clenched his jaw, and his fingers tapped nervously against his jeans. He was mulling over something. “I’ve got something I want to show you.”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “No, it’s not here. It’s back at the hotel.”

  “What is it?”

  “I can’t tell you. You just have to see it.”

  Possibilities. I looked back toward the stadium. The artificial lights had given everything a Hollywood glow; there’d been warmth in the rich colors. But we’d left. Out here, things were real again.

  “All right,” I said.

  The trip back was nothing like the first ride. We got seats and he stared out the window at the murky outlines as they flew by in the dark. I listened to two older men a couple of rows up blame the loss on a fourth inning call t
he umpire had screwed up. In their drunken opinions, that had been the turning point.

  “Why didn’t you come hear me on Saturday?” The question was out before I remembered we weren’t talking about violin.

  He looked uncomfortable. “I …”

  “No. You don’t have to answer.”

  “Yes, I do. I couldn’t.” He folded his arms over his chest. “It’s too close to the Guarneri. I can’t listen to other violinists and not go a little crazy. I don’t need to hear how amazing your Tchaikovsky is right now.”

  “But you don’t know it’s amazing.”

  He smirked. “I’m sure. The competitions, the recordings, the Grammy—that’s all just hype? I have to make a conscious effort not to think about you already when I’m performing. I don’t need more stress added to it.”

  “But you seem so in love with your own music on stage.” I didn’t say in love with yourself, but it hung in the air between us.

  “You’re dancing around calling me a narcissist onstage, but nobody wants to see a self-conscious violinist out there. Especially not a guy.”

  “I don’t see what gender has to do with it.”

  “You can go out and be shy or nervous, and you’re beautiful so the audience thinks you’re sweet and lovely and whatever else. If I pulled that, the review in the paper would describe me as tense or incompetent. That doesn’t sell tickets.”

  “So much for not talking about violin.”

  “I guess that’s impossible,” he said, his voice resolved and a little sad. He took my hand again, this time lacing his fingers through mine. “I’m sorry I didn’t go to your concert.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I kind of wish I hadn’t gone to yours, except for all the stuff that happened afterward.”

  “So why did you come?” he asked.

  “Um …” Why didn’t I have a simple answer to that question? Enough people had asked me—Heidi, Diana, now Jeremy. “Because …” I looked around the train at the people laughing and shouting. They looked like they’d forgotten we’d lost.