by Toby Devens
“Also, I got something from your ap-ba,” she said, using the Korean word for “dad.” This was the first time she’d ever called him that. “He want you to put in your pocket for audition.” She laid a chunk of bling on the lid of the soup container. “Money clip. Solid gold. For good luck. See horseshoe? Mean good luck.”
I’d take my luck where I could get it. I held the clip up and waved my thanks toward the Jag. Irwin hesitated for a moment, as if caught off guard by the gesture. Then he waved back. “Tell him I’ll carry it with me.” Oh, why not? What did the wave and a few words cost me? And the payoff was the delight on my mother’s face.
“Very nice. Sure, I tell him.” Her smile narrowed to reassuring. “Don’t worry about nothing, Judith. You do good. Lulu Cho say she have dream about you. You play cello and pig dance to music. Dream of pig very good luck in Korea.”
“So is dreaming of a big turd.”
“What is turd?”
“Ddong.”
“Ah-hah-hah.” Grace laughed uproariously, showing gold. “Yes, Korean think good to dream shit. True. My mother, grandmother used to say same. But funny, yes?” She swiped her eyes. “Listen, Lulu Cho very fine mudang. Never wrong. You believe. You win principal.”
I nodded. God knows, I was trying to make myself believe.
• • •
“I want you, I want you not.” Leaning against a wall of a toilet stall in the women’s dressing room late morning, I chatted with a hexagonal blue pill, twenty milligrams of Inderal balanced on the Mound of Mars, site of courage, on the palm of my hand. “Yes or no. Talk to me, baby.”
Recently I’d been getting it on with my confidence game. But minutes away from the showdown, my self-doubt had come flooding back.
Tucked in the bottom of my handbag was a full bottle of the meds I’d popped before my last symphony solo to conquer my performance anxiety. Now I stared at the little pill of salvation, weak with desire, murmuring, “Want you. Oh God, do I want you.”
My body was reeling from crashing weather fronts. A hot flash rolled across my chest. Rivulets of perspiration trickled from my forehead, threatening my eye makeup. My hands were ice.
A swallow of serenity was just what the doctor ordered, but I gagged on the idea. Above the flush of toilets, I could hear Richard’s disembodied voice making a last stand.
Drugs are appropriate when the anxiety is deep-seated and untreatable by any other means. That’s not so in your case. Don’t start what you don’t need. Goddamn it, Judith, I promise you—you’ve got what you need.
So playing his fabulous Goffriller mellowed by my tiny blue friend here would be a betrayal, wouldn’t it? I couldn’t dishonor Richard’s memory that way, could I?
And then there was Geoff, proxying for the dearly departed on the Just Say No ballot. When I’d mentioned to him in the synagogue parking lot after the funeral that I was thinking about calling on pharmaceutical assistance for the audition, he’d given me a stricken look.
“But why, Jude? You didn’t need it today and you won’t need it then. You just played that Thaïs piece as if it were a lament over the death of God himself, and you pulled that passion out on your own in front of all the celebs. Ach, you don’t get it, do you? You’ve broken the anxiety chokehold.”
“Today was different,” I’d said. “I had no time to think. The vote of confidence was still fresh. But the audition—that’s a whole different game. The panic could sweep back in, Geoff. The pill takes the edge off.”
“Maybe too much so. To be blunt, the night you took it I thought your playing was crap. Yeah, you got through it. But as your aunt Phyllis would say, Feh! My opinion? Go commando. Everybody’s strung out at auditions anyway. That’s the point, isn’t it? It’s the quaking on the edge that tips you over into the transcendent.”
Now I slipped the pill into the pocket of my skirt, where it nestled next to my father’s horseshoe money clip. If I felt my luck running low, I could always reach deep down for backup.
I could hear Richard call down, “Brava!” and Geoff—wherever he was—say, “That’s my sheila.” Except I wasn’t his sheila anymore, was I? I’d made sure of that.
Geoff. Since his message the day before, there had been no sign of life and no promise of seeing him soon. I wouldn’t run into him in the next few hours because on audition days the concert hall was cleared of extraneous musicians. Only those competing and those judging were allowed on the premises.
A part of me was ready to grab my cell phone and punch in his speed-dial number to hear his rich baritone insisting I was good at this, I knew the pieces, I’d done the work, I wasn’t going to screw up. Then my left brain kicked in, reminding me what acting on impulse had led to the day before. It wasn’t a good time for us to talk about my perceived deficiencies, a subject that might stray into relationship territory. No, I needed to remain focused.
The crowd of contenders did nothing to reassure me. The scuttlebutt was that the principal posting had turned out an unprecedented number of responses from first-class musicians. In a lousy economy, smaller orchestras were closing shop, major ones weren’t promoting so fast, and principal seats were scarce as magpies’ teeth.
There was no way I could tell the exact size of the contestant pool from what I saw milling about in the bowels of the Berenson. Of more than two hundred applicants, sixty had made it to the initial round the day before. Scheduled five or six per hour, given maybe ten minutes apiece onstage to do their thing, they’d been told their fate and had gone back to their hotels to pack or stay another night for their crack at the next level. As the Philharmonic’s associate principal, I’d been able to skip the first cattle call. By now, the herd had been culled, leaving maybe ten or fifteen serious rivals. If I made this morning’s cut, I’d be competing in the afternoon’s final against the top two or three, very likely including Vincent DeGrassi, who’d ambushed me in the hall to say hello and size me up. And psych me out, the ever ambitious Vince.
Musicians are a collegial bunch. Our report cards could read, “Plays well with peers.” There is hardly any backstabbing in the profession, but Vince had a reputation for doing what it took to advance his career.
His cologne—a vapor of cloying sweetness—preceded him. “Hey, Judith.” The smile below the pepper-and-salt mustache was too broad to be true. “I was wondering when I’d bump into you. How long has it been? Jacob’s Pillow, right? Ten years?” He took my cold hand in his warm one. Not a lot of nerves in play for him. “You look great. Burt says you’ve got the big five-oh coming up.” The timpanist was on the party list. “I have to say you look amazing for your age.” The first shot landed wide of the target—he wasn’t that much younger. The second found its mark. “Sorry about Richard Tarkoff. Terrible loss. For you especially. Gonna be rough without him out there, huh?”
Very skillful. Under the guise of sympathy, he’d reminded me that my mentor had been on the judging committee when I’d tried out for associate. Up to the final round, candidates played behind a screen and judges were scrupulous about objectivity. However, just knowing Richard was there had given me a boost.
“So sad. I always liked the man. And I think the feeling was mutual.”
No, not really. Richard had thought Vince was a prick.
“He once said, ‘You remind me of me when I was young, Vince. Incredible focus combined with impeccable technique.’”
Richard would never have said that. He was far too modest for self-aggrandizement.
When I didn’t bite, Vince bumped it up a notch. “You heard Cynthia and I are divorcing? No children, thank God, but she’s being a witch about the settlement. A very controlling woman. The quintessential concertmaster.”
He gave me a calculating look before firing his next shot. “There must be something in the air because I heard you and Geoff Birdsall split . . .” He fiddled with his tie, wondering, I suppose, if he’d
hit the bull’s-eye.
Slightly off center. I’d known the news would make the circuit. Nothing was sacred in the musical community.
“. . . and that he’s taking it hard.”
That rocked me a little. Geoff wearing his emotions on his sleeve. That wasn’t like him.
I checked my watch. Vince was in the audition slot before me. His predecessor had just been escorted upstairs to the stage. That gave me maybe twenty minutes to get in my warm-up and do my breathing exercises. This conversation wasn’t doing my pulse rate any favors. I’d taken one step toward my escape when he hooked me back.
“I can understand his wanting to move. I’m doing the same thing, trying to put California behind me. Get some distance from the disaster. But London! Jesus. I suppose it’s not such a stretch for an Aussie, but to be away from the—”
My feet, suddenly lead weights, locked me to the floor. Good thing, too, because from the ankles up I swayed like bamboo in the wind. My brain, on the other hand, had braked to a halt at the mention of London. It took Vince’s smirk to jump-start it.
Of course I’d chased Geoff off. Been a bitch. Beyond self-absorbed and into selfish. Taken him for granted. Told him—by words and actions—to get lost. So I could hardly blame him for refusing to wait in the wings while I dallied with my old boyfriend. Geoff wasn’t an understudy type of guy. Okay, I tried to soothe myself, maybe it would be better with us oceans apart. Better for him, certainly. For me, right now I wasn’t so sure. Wasn’t sure at all.
I nervously jiggled the cello charm, Geoff’s gift to me. “He’s moving to London.” I tried to make the question a statement, but my voice was vibrato and Vince was sharp. He caught on.
“Oh boy, you didn’t know. I had no idea. I figured he might want to keep management in the dark, but you . . . Well, now the cat’s out of the bag. The UK Concert Orchestra is looking to fill an open principal trumpet. Burt says Geoff flew over last night to check it out. I’ll bet they won’t make him go through this fucking rigmarole. My understanding is he’ll have it if he wants it. Smaller ensemble. Lighter schedule. Cushy job.” He licked up to his mustache like a tomcat relishing a dinner of broken bird. “Goddamn, I feel awful about laying this on you, Judith. Especially now.”
No, he didn’t. He’d done what he’d set out to do. Rattle me. Make my stomach clench and my hands tremble. Joke (mine, made up on the spot):
Q: “What do you call a cellist with the shakes?”
A: “I don’t know, but you don’t call her a cellist.”
I reached into my pocket to feel for the happy pill. Still there.
Not for long.
This time Geoff had deliberately held out on me. I suppose for a decent man it made sense not to tell me just before I went on to win or lose the rest of my life. But look how it had turned out: me facing Vince DeGrassi, who was knitting his bushy brows in ersatz sympathy.
Except what screws people like Vince is their arrogance. A limitless ego never knows when enough is enough. He’d knocked me out with the Geoff bombshell, so the jerk could have bounded off with a spring in his step, convinced he’d put away the competition. But he had to push. He had to make sure the body wasn’t twitching.
“Judith, I almost forgot . . .” Almost forgot. What a crock! It was obvious from the anticipation on his face, whatever he had up his sleeve was going to be the coup de grâce. He’d planned on saving his best for last, but what could be worse than his news that Geoff was moving to London? A parry that caused me exactly what he was aiming for, a swift stab of agony that still throbbed, soon to be followed by a distracting soreness. Right now, I had to blank it all out. Hurt, angry, sad are not a combination plate you want to carry with you into an audition. Vince was unable to hide his satisfaction at the outcome of his ploy. Though he worked on keeping a straight face, his gray-streaked mustache made little rays above the sunny arc of his mouth.
Maybe this was about the North Korea trip. Vince was a notorious gossip. Maybe he’d heard it really was me who’d wrecked the negotiations. Maybe something Grace had done or not done on her paperwork sixty years before had screwed up a history-making international cultural exchange. With Angela out there, if I was the spoiler, I’d be lucky to keep my current seat, let alone move up to principal.
“Congrats on the Goffriller.”
Ah. So the Goffriller was his ace in the hole. I wondered how he was going to play that hand. As it turned out, dirty.
“That must have been a staggering surprise. It was for your friends and colleagues. You and that priceless cello of yours are the hot topic of the week. Everybody’s talking about it. And I mean everybody.”
Of course they were. If my Baltimore colleagues knew, the woman who mopped the stage at the Bangkok Symphony knew.
“I’m sure you’ve seen on Google that the last Goffriller put up at auction went for a cool million five. Now that’s one hell of a parting gift.”
Crass. But not deadly. Deadly was coming, I could tell from the cattiness that had crept into his voice. “You two must have had a very special relationship.”
So there it was. Overcome by revulsion, I backed up a step.
In case I’d missed the lack of subtlety, he drove the knife home again with a redundant twist in the singsong of a taunting five-year-old. “Unusually close, even for stand partners.”
Richard and I had an affair. And the Goffriller was a gift to a mistress from her dying lover. That’s what he was saying, what everyone in every symphony orchestra in the world was thinking. And didn’t that imply I hadn’t, couldn’t make my way up the professional ladder on talent alone? I had to rely on the trading of sexual favors for success? Therefore I was a weak slut sister and an alpha male like Vince DeGrassi could mug me for the principal spot.
As he took in my offended, teeth-gritting silence, he straightened the knot of his tie. Tighter, I urged silently. Tighter, until your eyeballs pop and your evil swollen tongue flops like a limp dick under your silly mustache and the coroner pronounces you DOA.
But he was alive and he wasn’t finished. “Fabulous instrument you inherited. Up there with the best. But you do know it’s going to create unrealistic expectations. You playing the Goffriller, there’ll be no excuses for a less than perfect performance. No room for the slightest mistake.” Bastard. I wanted to jab my knee into his balls. Hard.
I took a deep, cleansing breath, trying to pull up Dr. Gottlieb’s words at our second appointment the week before. Before your audition, think confident, think calm. Remember, serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm. Had she been quoting Mahatma Gandhi? Al Roker? The session had been devoted to my terror onstage, which tellingly took place only when I played solo. “Alone again. Does it feel something like abandonment?” she’d suggested. “But you’re never alone, Judith, when you fully trust yourself.”
Facing Vince, I pulled up one of Theodora’s self-soothing exercises. You couldn’t risk closing your eyes on that weasel, but I unfolded my clasped fingers and breathed to a calming rhythm. Peace. Inhale. Peace. Exhale.
Sorry, Doc. Peace was the farthest thing from my mind. Victory occupied every vigilant brain cell.
Then I said, because it was true, and also because I knew it would throw him, “You’re right, Vince. I appreciate your reminding me. That was just the push I needed. Really, thanks.” I gave him a grateful smile. Swallowing my loathing for the greater good, I topped the smile, à la mode, with a peck on his nasty, cologne-soaked cheek.
And that’s how it should have ended. But his ear—large, lupine, and springing a bramble of kinky hair—was so close. And telling him off would be so satisfying. Self-destructive, maybe, but satisfying. Oh, the hell with it. I couldn’t resist. I whispered into his hairy ear: “I hope you crash and burn, DeGrassi. Now go screw yourself!”
There’s a Korean proverb my mother liked to quote: “Even a fish wouldn’t get
in trouble if it kept its mouth shut.”
I left Vince standing there gaping like a flounder.
Chapter 38
There was no way I was going to sit in second chair while DeGrassi in principal called the shots till death or retirement did us part. No way in hell I was going to sit shoulder to shoulder with him as stand partner, suffocating in his stinky cologne Eau de Smug. And after my kamikaze screw-off, he’d have it in for me with a vengeance. To stay with this orchestra in any capacity, I knew what I had to do.
I must have looked as fierce as I felt because our personnel manager, who’d come to escort me upstairs, gave me a curious look. “You okay?” He really wasn’t supposed to communicate with me beyond clarifying procedure. As I patted my new sidekick of a cello, I curved a smile. “Fine.” Which I was close to, now that I had a mission.
Onstage, I took the candidate’s chair, spread the same long black skirt I’d worn to audition for associate principal, my lucky skirt with the lucky horseshoe money clip and the Inderal still in its pocket. My music had been placed on my stand in the order I’d be playing the selections. Muted voices and the rustle of evaluation forms floated in from behind the concealing screen.
The committee was made up of colleagues, some of whom were also friends. In my mind’s eye I envisioned the lineup: Angela, then the concertmaster, second violin, principal viola, principal bass. Principal cello, dear Richard, absent. The next row was smudged. I had no idea which members of the cello section had accepted the invitation to sit in on the audition as I’d done many times myself.
A coughing fit broke the silence. High pitched with a soprano whistle at its crest, it erupted from Lauren Symonds, I was sure. Our principal viola had been out for two weeks with pneumonia. I’d chipped in for the get-well plant the string section had sent. Lauren was unaware that the person who’d insisted on a gardenia bonsai rather than a cactus dish garden was candidate number seven, at that moment drawing her bow on the first note of the opening to Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5.