by Amy Poeppel
“I like having you here, but my place is a pretty serious downgrade from what you’re accustomed to. Bridget’s house is gorgeous.”
Emma lived in a drab, one-story shoebox near the center of town. She had decorated it with a Bohemian flair; batik fabric covered the wall beside him, and a red, beaded chandelier hung over his head. There were billowing curtains, wind chimes, and potted plants that draped and bloomed all over a small patio in terra-cotta pots, but all that decor was trying to give character to a home that lacked even a single remarkable architectural feature. “I’d rather be here with you,” he said over the ruckus of Ronaldo squawking and Hudson growling. Will turned his head to look at the bird, an intense, muscular little critter, very masculine and proud of his plumage, or at least it seemed that way since he kept puffing his feathers up to show off. “I know I should call her, but I don’t know what to say. I’m worried we won’t recover from this.”
Emma uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “Can I ask you something?”
Will knew exactly what she was about to say, the same thing all the women he dated wanted to know. “Look,” he said, sitting up, “Bridget and I are just friends. I know it seems strange because we act like a couple, but the truth is we are and always have been friends and colleagues, and nothing more. There’s no sexual tension, no secret attraction. I’d say Bridget’s like a sister, but she’s not because, unlike my family, I choose to have her in my life. I love her, yes, but it’s a platonic friendship, always will be.”
Emma took a moment, and then smiled. “Wow. No, I was just going to ask if you guys ever discussed quitting the trio.”
“Cock,” squawked Ronaldo.
Will squeezed his eyes shut. “Sorry,” he said, “I guess I’m a little defensive.”
“A little?” she asked. “Look, I assume if you and Bridget wanted to be together, you’d be together. Nothing’s stopping you.”
“Exactly,” he said. He moved closer to her and saw that Ronaldo was glaring at him, hopping madly in his cage from one end of his bar to the other. Hudson whimpered and tried to hide his large body under the coffee table.
“Bridget’s father,” said Emma, “was telling me last night how hard life is for chamber musicians, as opposed to being in an orchestra, so I just wondered if you guys ever considered alternatives.”
“I’ve never thought of quitting, but I’ve imagined having an easier, steadier life. A full-time teaching job maybe, settling down.” And then, considering how he felt about her, he added, “Recently, I’ve even been thinking I’d like to be in a real relationship, spend more time with you.”
“Uh-oh,” said Ronaldo.
Will wanted to tell her how he felt about her in flowery, poetic language. What were the right words to use? “I know we only met a month ago,” he started. Should he try an endearment? Which one? “Honey” sounded too 1950s domestic. “Darling” was 1920s corny. He decided to start instead with practical matters instead. “I’d like to stay with you all weekend, if that’s okay with you.”
Emma smiled. “I invited you, remember?”
“Of course,” he said. And then he tried again. “I like you. And I was wondering if you’d… want to come to New York sometime?”
Will’s building had sold, and all he knew about that was that the apartments on the top floors were being gutted and renovated. The noise from this project, a letter had informed him, would begin in the coming weeks, and he was to be assured that steps would be taken to mitigate any disturbance. He and Mitzy had discussed meeting with a lawyer to find out how high their rents could go, what their rights were, if any. He wanted Emma to come visit before the construction started, and before, God forbid, he was forced to move.
“I’d like to,” she said, “but I’ve got the shop and Ronaldo.”
“Right.”
“Hello,” said Ronaldo. “Good-bye.”
Will got a sinking feeling, remembering what his cabdriver Frank always said about people who live in the country and their attachment to their communities. “Does that mean… Do you like New York?”
“Not especially,” she said, as though she was saying she didn’t care much for eggplant, “but it’s a fun place to visit. I tried living there once, in my twenties; it didn’t take.”
Ronaldo squawked, and Hudson started barking from under the coffee table.
“Shhhhhh, Hudson, no,” said Will.
Emma came over to the couch and sat next to him, draping her legs over his. She leaned in and kissed him. “Too bad. Only a month together. I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”
Will was used to deal-breakers, and while he knew that dating a woman who ran a business in the country, two hours away from where he lived and worked, certainly sounded like a deal-breaker, he wasn’t worried, not even a little. There were longer long-distance relationships than this one.
“Oh well,” she said, as if it would be nothing to end things between them right then and there, “sure was fun while it lasted.” She smiled.
“It was all right,” he said, shrugging, also pretending like he didn’t care, like he wasn’t willing to do pretty much anything to be with her.
She started to get up again, and he pulled her back down on the couch and kissed her. Ronaldo squawked loudly.
There was a knock on the door, and Emma got up, fixing her shirt and smoothing her hair. Hudson, almost knocking the coffee table over, followed her, as Will adjusted the crotch of his pants.
He heard mumbling, and then Emma came back in the room, smiling encouragingly. “Bridget’s here,” she said quietly. “She wants to know if you can come out and play.”
“Now?” said Will, embarrassed by the weakness of his voice. “But…”
“Go,” said Emma. She went over to a bookshelf and gave him a house key on a disco ball key chain. “In case I’m at work when you get back.” She held his hands. “Say you’re sorry, and don’t get defensive. If you take a left and walk north for about a quarter mile, you’ll see a dirt road on the right that goes along the Housatonic. It’s beautiful down there, very few cars.” She gave him Hudson’s leash and a bottle of bug spray. “You’ll need it.”
She walked Will to the front door and gave him a little push. There was Bridget, standing in Emma’s yard in running shorts and a T-shirt, her back to him. Oscar’s lab, Hadley, was running around the yard with Hudson, both completely carefree, while Will’s stomach was in knots. Bridget turned around, and from the look on her face, he could see how tense this interaction was going to be. “Take a walk with me?” she said with a forced smile.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, trying to keep the tone light. “Where’s Bear?”
“I couldn’t handle that much dog,” she said. “I’m sorry to take you away from Emma.”
“No, I’m so glad you’re here. I was going to call. I barely slept.”
They walked in silence down the dirt road for a moment, with both Hadley and Hudson scrabbling at the ends of their leashes, delighted by the smells. Bridget turned toward him. “Is it true you exiled Gavin to the other side of the world?”
Will looked down, rubbing the back of his head. “Yes,” he said plainly, wondering if he would lose her over a dumb mistake in the past, dumb but so very consequential.
She looked away. “Why?”
“Initially I said it as a joke.”
“Since when do you make jokes with my father?”
“No, more like I was joking with myself. We were at Tanglewood, and we played for your dad. Gavin was being Gavin, an unbearable show-off, and he waved his bow so close to my face, he almost hit me with it.”
“I remember,” she said.
“And then afterwards your dad took us for a drink at the Red Lion—”
“In the bar downstairs, I remember—”
“And you and Gavin went off together, who knows where, and I—”
“What?” she said, stopping dead in her tracks. “What does that mean, ‘who knows where’? What are you even—”
“Gavin was leering at you all night—”
“So?”
“I know it’s irrational,” Will said, feeling simultaneously ashamed and righteous, “but it was messing up our chemistry—”
“You’re obsessed with ‘chemistry.’ ” Bridget looked disgusted. “I could handle Gavin—”
“Between his insanely inflated ego and his mad crush on you—”
“Why would that even bother you?”
Will knew it would be difficult to explain his jealousy. He and Bridget had always dated other people and talked about it openly. He never felt jealous. But for Gavin to think he had a chance with her, for them to look at each other in a way that sometimes felt surreptitious, private, like they were keeping something from him, hurt. He was too embarrassed to explain it, so he just said, “We were working together and investing ourselves in an enterprise that had real potential, and Gavin felt like a threat to that.”
“So, you got rid of him?” They were standing in the middle of the road and had to step to the side, pulling the dogs toward them as a car slowly rumbled by.
“I was left at the bar talking to Edward,” said Will, “who was going on and on about how fabulous Gavin was, how immensely talented. And my feelings were hurt, and I said, ‘You think he’s better than us, don’t you?’ And your father said, ‘I do. Because he is.’ So, I said, ‘Well, I hope he achieves his biggest dream in life someday. He wants so much to be in the orchestra in—’ And I thought, China? Russia? The moon? To where would I banish Gavin if I had the power? And I blurted out, ‘—Australia.’ And then a few weeks later, Gavin announced that he got second chair in Sydney. I didn’t know your dad would actually do anything. It was just a stupid thing to say.”
“But you did want to get rid of him. And it’s a fact: Forsyth was never as good again.”
The weight of what he’d done settled over him. “I’m sorry. I was young and stupid, and threatened by him, and jealous, and I had every other unattractive quality you can think of. If I could take it back, I would.” Hudson and Hadley were looking down the road, eager to press on. “What can I do?”
They began walking again in silence, kicking up dirt from the dry road. The Housatonic was on their right, and they turned onto the path. The mosquitoes and gnats began to swarm. “Bug spray,” said Will.
They each unclasped the leashes, and the dogs took off into the woods. Bridget sprayed the back of her neck and her ankles and handed the bug spray to Will.
“I really am sorry,” he said sincerely.
“It was a long time ago,” she said.
“Does that mean you forgive me?”
“The thing is,” she said, and then she let out a heavy, deep sigh, like she didn’t want to go on. “This may sound nonsensical, but if you hadn’t sent Gavin away, I might not have had Oscar and Isabelle.”
Will didn’t see the connection.
“I was with Gavin the night he got the offer,” she said. “And I slept with him.”
Will stopped walking. “You and Gavin?” He wanted to add, I knew it! but he kept himself from blurting it out, feeling more stung by the revelation than pleased for being right about it.
“It was only one night,” she said. “And I understand your whole point about group dynamics, and I agree with you, but it didn’t apply in this case because he told me he was leaving us.”
“Eww,” Will said flatly, hating the idea of them together, even now.
“Don’t judge me,” she said, taking his arm, making him walk again.
“Did you love him?”
Bridget didn’t answer right away. “No, not like that. Even when I had the chance to bring him back, I got rid of him, too, just like you did.”
“Wait,” Will said, recalling that she’d brought Oscar and Isabelle into the discussion. “Is this… You’re saying that Gavin’s—?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“I went to the doctor the next morning for my appointment to get inseminated.”
Will was processing, more slowly probably than he should have. “So, you really don’t know? Why didn’t you find out? Do a paternity test?”
“I called Gavin when I found out I was pregnant, and he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with them.”
“He’s known all this time?”
“Only that it’s a possibility.”
“What a dick,” said Will. “And to think he missed out on… everything.” Will was glad—and proud—he hadn’t missed out, that he’d stepped into a role that perhaps should have been Gavin’s.
“It’s not his fault,” she said. “He offered a few weeks later to find out and do the right thing, and I told him to stay away. And then I acted like the whole thing never happened.” She looked at him, pleading, “I don’t think he’s their dad, though, do you? They have zero musical ability. Oscar’s tone-deaf—”
“What do they think?”
Bridget didn’t answer. She kicked a rock, hard, and it rolled off the path.
“You’re telling me before you tell them?” Will said, feeling the responsibility of their friendship, wondering how he could help.
“I’m not proud of any of this,” she said. Then she looked into the woods, saying, “Where are the dogs?”
Will whistled, and they turned at the sound of snapping twigs. “They’ll be covered in ticks,” he said as they came bursting out of the woods and back onto the path, their paws muddy.
As the four of them went farther along, the river widened and the water coursed around big, bleached rocks. Will put a hand on Bridget’s shoulder. He hadn’t seen Gavin in a long time, but he certainly didn’t see any resemblance between him and the kids. The same coloring maybe, somewhat, but it wasn’t an obvious match. None of Gavin’s smirking arrogance or cocky affect.
“What I want you to know…” Bridget said, “the reason I came over this morning is to tell you that I only slept with Gavin because he quit Forsyth that night. And he only quit Forsyth because you gave him the reason to go. So it’s possible, in a roundabout way, that your actions led to Oscar and Isabelle.”
Will was taken aback. “Ah, are you thanking me?” he said.
“Sort of,” she said with a smile.
“And if they’re not his kids?”
She shrugged. “Gavin was going to leave us eventually anyway. He had his sights set on something more prestigious.”
She slid her arm around his waist, and he put his over her shoulders, relieved to feel her close to him. He whistled again to the dogs, who came running toward them, Hudson carrying a tree branch in his mouth.
“I need your help,” she said. “Gavin’s coming here now and—”
“I’ll cancel,” Will said. “I’ll tell him not to come. I never should have talked to him without telling you—”
“No, I should have dealt with this question a long time ago, and—to be honest—I feel like we both owe him an apology.”
“He hasn’t committed to any concert dates,” said Will, “but he said he wants to come here and see us.”
“Can you call him and ask him to the wedding and to play my dad’s piece with us?”
Given all she’d just told him, he wasn’t entirely sure this was a good idea.
“And will you arrange the piece for us?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said, trying to mask his reservations. “I’ll do it, but honestly, I don’t think Edward wants me messing around with one of his compositions. If he’s willing to have it arranged for piano trio, he’d rather do it himself.”
“We’re not telling him,” she said. “I want it to be a surprise.”
Edward had never struck Will as the kind of man who appreciated surprises.
“Then hire a real composer,” he said, “one of the composers he has coming to the retreat. I’m not… worthy.”
“You are.” Bridget held on to his arm. “Please? A collaboration would be like an icebreaker, a way into the world’
s most awkward conversation ever. Gavin wrote saying he wants to talk, and somehow I don’t think he meant that in a casual way.”
Will didn’t feel like this was a moment to argue with her. “I’ll try,” he said. “Get me a copy of the score.”
Bridget stopped walking and covered her face. “How do I tell my kids about this? What am I going to say to them?”
“You say, Isabelle, Oscar, it’s possible that a wonderful old friend of mine, a brilliant musician and good person—”
“Oh, come on, you hate him—”
“Have we not established that my judgment in my twenties was terrible? And we’ve all grown up since then, or I should hope so. You tell them, He’s possibly your father. Would you like to find out for sure?”
“And when they say, Why didn’t you tell us?”
“You say, I should have. But he left the country for several years, and we lost touch. The door between us closed, and I didn’t know how to reopen it.”
Bridget nodded.
The path came to an end at an entry point to the Appalachian Trail. There were boulders by the river, and Bridget walked down the bank and sat down on one. Will chose his own flat rock next to hers, while Hudson lay in the mud, chewing on a stick and Hadley sat in the river, lapping up water.
“There’s something else, Will,” she said, looking as though she might cry. “After all these years, I think we have to consider letting Forsyth go.”
Will felt a sharp pain in his chest. “I don’t want to.”
“I don’t either. But here we are, and I think we should make a conscious decision to opt in. We have no manager, no violinist, so before we start all over again, we should decide: Is this really what we want, over everything else out there?”
Will held up a hand and started to tell her, Yes, of course it is.
“Don’t answer now,” she said before he could speak. “Let’s take the rest of the summer to think about it, ask ourselves what we want moving forward, and then we’ll see where we each stand.” Bridget leaned across to his rock and took his hand.
Will didn’t answer. A sadness swept over him, and then fear joined in. The idea of a career without Bridget was unthinkable, lonely. And then a tiny little sliver of excitement made itself known as well: What were the possibilities?