Perfect Pitch

by Amy Lapwing

  “I didn’t know this would happen, really, I wouldn’t have—”

  “It’s okay, I assure you!” insisted Jacques. “I will never forget this trip.” He wadded up his napkin and held his hand out for hers. She balled it up and gave it to him and he gave them to James who trotted off to throw them away. “Or you,” he said, using the familiar ‘toi.’

  “You’re very nice,” she said.

  “Something tells me,” he said, “there will be no more whales today.” He went with her back into the cabin. James had brought cards so they sat and played Tarot and talked until the boat returned to Gloucester.

  As they got off the highway at Kennemac, Justina made a proposal. “It must be really crowded at Pascale’s,” she prefaced. “Why don’t you guys stay at my house?” She looked at Jacques in the backseat. He was looking up at the back of James’ head.

  James said, “I’m really visiting Pascale and Denis, so I don’t think I can, you know, turn down their hospitality.”

  “If it is a bed and not a couch,” said Jacques, “I would like it very much.”

  It was decided. Jacques would spend the remaining few nights of their week there at Justina’s house. James, and the car, would stay with Pascale. James dropped Justina at her house at four. “I’ll be back soon,” said Jacques. “May I take you to dinner?” James dropped him and his suitcase and backpack by at four-thirty. She showed him into the guest room and took him on a tour of the rest of the upstairs. “Here’s the bathroom,” she said, flicking on the light. “All to yourself.”

  “You do not use the bathroom?” he said, pretending that he had never heard of houses with more than one w.c.

  “Not this one,” she said and she led him into the master bedroom. He smiled as he looked around the room, the two pretty chests of drawers topped with framed photos, the flower-printed curtains, the framed needlework on the walls, the big green bed. She flicked on the light. “This is my bathroom.”

  “You Americans are so civilized, I will have to tell my friend Philippe,” said Jacques. “He believes only Europeans are civilized. Africans are primitive, but it’s all right because they are closer to nature. But Americans are barbaric because they hold the knowledge and technology to be superior human beings yet they wallow in pleasures of the flesh instead.”

  “Interesting theory,” she said.

  “Do you think so?”

  “No.”

  He smiled. “Good. That’s good. Philippe is a— how one says— beaver? No, butthead.”

  They heard the door open downstairs. Justina clenched Jacques’ arm and held him still. She pushed him toward the bed and whispered, “Sit here. Stay right here, don’t move.” She hurried downstairs.

  Michael was writing on the stickum pad. He looked up in surprise as she came into the kitchen.

  “Hi,” he said. He was afraid to smile like he felt; keep it subtle, Stickbeater.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “I have dress rehearsal tonight, so I brought you some Chinese.” He lifted the brown sack an inch off the counter. “Cashew chicken, won ton soup, and spring rolls. How does that sound?”

  “You know, you really don’t need to do this.”

  “I like to.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “You don’t want me to anymore?”

  “I don’t know why you’re doing it.”

  He shifted his weight onto one leg and put a hand on his hip and looked at the hem of his blue parka. “I just thought, I know how you are tired when you get home and you don’t usually feel like to cook. And I don’t like to think you eat just a sandwich or soup or something.”

  “Okay,” she said, putting her palms out as though he had gotten too close, though he had not moved, “let’s not talk anymore right now, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’d just like you to leave, please.”

  “May I just take something?”

  “What?” Her eyes grew wide in panic.

  “My dress shoes?”

  “I’ll get them, I put them somewhere else,” she said. “You stay here. Please.”

  She ran upstairs to the bedroom. Jacques, obedient, was sitting where she had left him.

  “That your ex-husband?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she whispered back, putting her finger to her lips. It filled her with glee to let him be called that, like getting twenties by mistake instead of tens from the ATM machine. She got Michael’s black dress shoes, the ones he wore with his tux, and flitted back downstairs.

  “Here you go,” she said, her cheeks flushed with the exercise.

  “Thank you. You’re in such a hurry. You going out?”

  “Yeah, actually.”

  “With Pascale and Denis?”

  “No.”

  “With Charles and Helena?”

  She shook her head.

  “With students?”

  “I’m late!” she went to the front door and opened it for him. “Please?”

  Before going out he asked, “Do you come to the concert? It will be very nice. Grace will sing.”

  “Sure. Of course, I’m coming.”

  He smiled as he said goodbye, but she could tell from his eyes that he was sad, so sad simply because he wanted to tell her he loved her. Sad, mad, I want to feel glad. She closed the door on Michael and went up to see if Jacques had moved.

  He stood in the doorway. While he was hiding and piecing together what was going on downstairs between Justina and her shoe-seeking ex-husband, it had occurred to him that he might try something. She came down the hall and stopped in front of him.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Guess we can go now.”

  He put his arms around her and kissed her. It was a rather sloppy kiss, but exuberant and joyful. Glad. She kissed him back. As their lips parted, she belched loudly.

  She covered her mouth and muttered, “Excuse me,” while he laughed. “I am like a meal to you!” he cried. “A delicious, flavorful meal!” He pulled her close again. “Maybe we skip dinner?”

  “Actually,” she said, “I’m starved. Really.” They got into her car and drove to Danny’s in Brookhurst, that really nice place she had not been to since two anniversaries ago. The sack of Chinese sat spoiling on the counter.

  Chapter Twenty

  O, Sweetest Boy

  Tuesday’s snow was looking worn by Friday, the smooth undulations pocked with boot holes, the edges by the roadsides dirty and splattered with spewed slush. The walkways on campus were strewn with white rock salt; the patrons tracked it into the concert hall on their boots and shoes. It promised to be an especially jolly evening, this year the President and Mrs. Updoc were throwing open their house for a reception following the concert and all, faculty, staff, students and their guests, were invited. Diane Updoc was worried it would be too crowded. Updoc told her not to fret, if it was, it would keep things short. He did not like staying up late.

  Justina invited Jacques and James and Pascale and Denis to her house for dinner. Pascale and Denis declined, their sitter could not come before seven-thirty. James came by her office at six with Jacques, fresh from a jaunt over to Bournemouth, they had not gotten enough of the sea, and she drove them to her house and let James help her cook dinner while Jacques drank wine and explained to them why the French so admire Nixon. Justina listened to all he said, and she understood every word. But all she could remember of the conversation was that Nixon seemed strong to the French, like De Gaulle. She could not remember why. It bothered her, her political deficiency, in the face of this impassioned French man who had opinions, informed, it sounded like, on any political topic she cared to name. She was relieved when the subject switched to French films.

  “What do you think of Truffaut?” asked Justina.

  “Next question,” scoffed Jacques.

  James laughed and they got to talking about Luis Buñuel.

  “All right, smart asses, so what does the razor blade across the eye mean in Un Chien Anda
lou?” she asked, to show she knew something, anyway.

  “Pyih!” ejaculated Jacques. “It is simply a metaphor for how little we perceive.” He asked James his opinion of the new gang of French filmmakers.

  Look at him, thought Justina, he’s like that roofer that wouldn’t answer my questions, kept telling me to have Michael call “if he has any questions.”

  “It’s smelling very good!” said Jacques. “I will get the table ready?”

  Her attitude became more generous as the evening went on. Jacques was ebullient and attentive, all red smiling lips and riveting brown eyes. She decided he just really wanted to get into that particular film topic with someone well-informed, which James was and she was not. She was guilty of the same thing, she was sure, keeping Michael out of the conversation sometimes when she was talking with Pascale. She took a look at Jacques as he tore off a piece of Italian bread and pushed it around on his plate. He wasn’t good-looking, really, except when he looked at her. Then he still was not handsome, just arresting. He seemed to find her new and exciting. He made her feel feminine.

  Jacques looked at his watch. “Should we get going?” They cleared the dishes in a hurry and got on their coats and went out, Jacques singing like José Carreras, with a runaway vibrato on “O sole mio.” He was loud and flat, unlike Carreras; Justina resisted putting her hands over her ears.

  Pascale and Denis and Helena and Charles were seated toward the front; they had saved three seats for them. Charles sat on the aisle, Justina to his left and Jacques on her left. Just before the house lights came down, Charles caught sight of Jacques’ hand laying itself atop Justina’s. Charles spent the next several minutes, until Michael came out, talking to Justina about this and that.

  “How goes the separate life, Justina?”

  “What are you telling him about me?”

  “Nothing,” Charles replied. “He’s never around to say anything to about anybody.”

  “Keeping himself busy, is he?”

  “Oh, yes. Despondently busy.”

  “Not too busy to cook me dinner every night.”

  “He does?” said Charles, with surprise. “I don’t know how, he zips off to Boston almost every afternoon.”

  “Boston?”

  “He’s on the faculty at New England Conservatory now.”

  “They lose their choral director?”

  “Nope,” said Charles. “Voice coach. He’s taking students down there. Voice program’s pretty small here, by comparison.”

  Justina remembered the unaccounted-for deposits to their checking account last month. “Why’s he doing that?”

  Charles shrugged. “He says he likes it.”

  She appeared to be pondering the truth of that statement.

  “He’s a brilliant voice coach, you know,” said Charles.

  “I know that,” she lied.

  “Of course,” said Charles. “You’re his wife.”

  Students were seeking him out. Proud of him, she whispered, “He has a cure for Vlatil’s pebbles.”

  Michael came out and made his welcoming bow to the darkened room, confident that Justina was out there, somewhere.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said in his operatically trained speaking voice, “I would like to dedicate tonight’s performance to the woman who is mi alma y mi corazon.” He laid his hand over his breast. “My soul and my heart. She will be angry with me if I say anything more to embarrass her, but you know who she is.” The audience chuckled, happy for any kind of entertainment. “We sing and play for all of you, and especially for you who know the joy, and the pain, of love.”

  “Give me a break,” said Justina under her breath.

  “Quoi?” said Jacques, putting his ear by her face.

  “Nada,” she said.

  Michael turned and held his hands high while the orchestra held their instruments up and the chorus held their breath, waiting for their entrance. Jacques smiled at Justina and squeezed her hand. He did not know it was the hand of the maestro’s soul and heart.

  Michael did the Carmina with a full orchestra and the medium-sized Concert Chorus, which meant he repeatedly gestured to the orchestra to be softer and to the chorus to be louder. He held a finger to his lips again and again during the solos, so that the amateur voices could be heard. The other soprano had three of the solos, Grace had two. The other girl did a correct but passionless interpretation of “In trutina,” she had obviously never had to pose to herself the question of “‘lascivus amor’ or ‘pudicitia.’”

  Grace’s two solos were back to back, the first one part of a number with the chorus and the children. It was not really a solo, since she sang with the children, her voice holding up their wandering pitches, a mother tree holding up her heavy little fruits. And it was hardly a warm-up to the difficult solo that followed, since it was such a low tessitura, and the “Dulcissime” was fantastically high.

  They finished the explosive “Tempus est iocondum” with “‘Quo, pereo, quo pereo, quo pereo!’”— ‘I die of it, I die of it, I die of it!’— and Grace kept her eyes on her teacher. There would be a single downbeat, watch! he had rehearsed her, and then her entrance. Thankfully, the solo started on a low note. From that point on, there was nowhere to hide until the last note. Michael brought down his baton and held his hands at his waist while she performed, his eyes in hers.

  “‘Dulcissime!’” sang Grace.

  "O, sweetest boy!"

  She climbed down the scale, “‘Ah!’” and then back up, and up, and still further up, floating the sound away over their heads. Perhaps she was a hair sharp on the top note, but only Joshua could tell, and he managed to keep from plugging his ears. In the face of the innocent girl, in her steady gaze and in the blush of her cheeks, in the sound of her agile, young, bright voice, each person in the hall saw the innocence of a virgin, the girl they had once been or a girl they had once known long, long ago. A giggling girl dressed in a pink gown, photographed with her boyfriend at the prom. A girl in shorts and tee shirt who lived next door and barely spoke to you, washing her parents’ car and spraying you over the hedge when you weren’t looking. A girl by herself at the school dance, waiting, waiting, for a boy to ask her to dance, smiling so wide when one finally did. The girl in English class who loved to talk and give her important-sounding opinions on the needs of the elderly, raising children, marital troubles, things she had no inkling of. Held aloft by all of their eyes and their arrested breaths, Grace surrendered.

  "All to you I give!"

  On her last note, Michael pointed his stick at the timpani who rumbled a faint warning of an imminent crash. He held his hands up for silence. The surprising applause started low then quickly grew thunderous. It was not the end of the piece, there were two more movements. Michael let his hands fall to his sides, there was no use trying to go on. He looked up at Grace, his eyes smiling, his teeth biting his lower lip. She tried to hide her smile in her neck and cast her eyes from side to side.

  The people stood up. Michael held out his hands to her, then he turned to the audience and extended his arm to her. Now she understood. She bowed to the audience. The applause intensified. Someone called, “Brava! Brava!” Michael turned back to her and blew her a kiss. Her body trembled at their appreciation. She had ceased to exist; she was a part of them all and she was beautiful.

  Michael held his hands up and the audience quieted and sat back down. The chorus and orchestra took a running start and jumped into the hurly-burly of the “Ave formosissima,”

  “Hail light of the world,

  Noble Venus, hail!”

  Justina could not make out the words, despite the Kennemac Concert Chorus’ Very Fine Diction, and besides, her Latin was almost as bad as her Spanish, but it was clear to her that Michael had made possible this opportunity for his student to show the world that the judgment of her at the trial was a lie. How brave she was to perform for them at all, and this very difficult piece in particular. How good of her husband to show her she coul
d.

  She took her hand out of Jacques’ and held it over her mouth. He put his arm about her shoulders, he was the strong man comforting the emotional woman. She could not cry.

  People were packed in at Updocs’. Michael arrived with Charles and Helena and looked about for Justina, she had rushed out of the concert hall before he could meet her. Charles did not tell Michael about Jacques; he hoped she would ditch him before coming to the party.

  Pascale suggested James ride with Denis so they could talk some more about Quebec separatism. In fact, she wanted to ride with Justina and Jacques, so she could praise Michael to them and so that Justina would not chicken out of showing up at the party.

  “Wasn’t it so wonderful, how Grace sang!” cried Pascale from the back seat.

  “Very pretty, for that kind of singing,” said Jacques. “And she is not fat!”

  Pascale ignored the remark. “Did you know, Jacques,” she went on, “that Michael— he’s the maestro— he’s Justina’s husband?”

  “You guys warm enough?” asked Justina, adjusting the heater. “Didn’t Charles throw out more candy than usual this year? Seemed like he would never stop. Yikes! I hope you guys are up to a hike.” She backed up and parked the car down on the road, the long driveway to the president’s house was all parked-up.

  Pascale looked around for Michael the instant they got in the door. She dragged Justina with her, past the drinks table and past the treats, Jacques affably bringing up the rear. She found him almost back where they started; they were in a front room, to keep an eye on the door, and had somehow missed them when they came in. “Ah, here you are!” said Pascale. She added her congratulations to Michael to the many he had already collected. Justina stood by, mute. She knew she must speak to him. She did not know what to do about Jacques, who kept trying to take her hand.

  Denis and James came up to them. Pascale said, “Michael, you remember James Benn?”

  “Of course,” said Michael, shaking James’ hand. “How are you, James?”