Musical Chairs

by Amy Poeppel

  He had also received an email from Jackie with a PDF of Synchronicity. Turning off the music, he sat at his table with a few sheets of composition paper and a pencil, analyzing the piece and deciding that the soprano melody would work beautifully for violin. Of course, he thought bitterly, Gavin would be the one stepping in to play the best part.

  They’d get some press playing with Gavin at the party, but Will was sorry he’d ever reopened the door to him; if he could ship Gavin off to Australia again, he thought he might do it. Then he chastised himself for being as insecure and envious as he had been when he was young.

  Maybe the kids would like Gavin. Bridget had always liked him. If the whole family decided to welcome Gavin with open arms, would Will get pushed out of the circle?

  His phone pinged, and he saw a message from Brendan: Dude you’re live.

  Will went to Forsyth3.com, ready to be wowed, and there it was: their new website. Brendan had put the logo on the home page, and the page design looked neat and professional, but other than that, the website fell short. It wasn’t Brendan’s fault. He couldn’t do anything to fix the “About Us” page that had a big white space where Caroline’s picture should have been. Nor was it his fault that the page labeled “Events” was completely blank. There was a “Gallery,” but every photo featured a violinist from their past. There was nothing to indicate the trio’s bright future or relevance to today’s music scene, and the whole site felt disappointing. Will decided not to forward the link to Bridget.

  The constant banging sounds from the construction over his head were unbearable. After gathering some paperwork (his birth certificate, Social Security card, and proof of residency), he left Hudson in the apartment and took the 1 train downtown to Rector Street to the DMV, where he took the written driver’s test with no preparation; common sense prevailed, and he passed. He had only two steps left to complete the process of becoming a licensed driver: a five-hour course and a road test. The class he would take that week. The road test would have to be scheduled. If he wanted to spend more time with Emma in the country, he would need a license.

  With his temporary learner’s permit in his wallet, he took the subway home and sat down at his piano to work on the arrangement of Edward’s piece, wondering why he was feeling so blah. He was home, back in the city where he belonged. He had interesting work to do. He was spending a summer day in his comfortable apartment with his beloved dog. He had lessons to teach that afternoon. The next day he was finally scheduled for the session at a recording studio to play piano for the heinous country song “About You and I.” This was his life. So why did he feel lost and alone?

  He got his phone and texted Emma: Miss you, babe.

  Emma answered with a picture of her hand resting on her lovely stomach, fingertips just under the lacy waist of her thong. Beside her on the mattress, there was an empty space she was saving for him.

  AUGUST

  21

  Returning to Juliette and Danny after a trip, violin case in one hand and suitcase in the other, always gave Gavin the feeling that everything was right in the world. He loved to take his key from his pocket, turn the lock on the door to his perfect bungalow, and breathe in the familiar smell of home. Danny would run to the door and hug his knees, and Juliette would tell him everything he’d missed while he was away. He loved his bed, his terrace, and his walk-in closet. The carpet in the bedroom, the marble in the kitchen. His wife and his son. Everything about his life with Juliette made him know where he belonged.

  When he came home from Germany last month, however, he found himself rejected by the source of all that comfort. One night about a week after he arrived, Danny was tucked in bed, and he and Juliette went outside to sit on their terrace. He finally decided that now was the moment to tell her. He started at the beginning, went all the way through the saga with Bridget and their night of passion, and ended with his most recent communication with Will. When he was done, he realized that Juliette was glaring at him.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” she said. “Are you some kind of sadist? Why are you telling me this?”

  Gavin was bewildered. “You said the truth should come out,” he said, “and ‘secrets damage the soul.’ I thought you’d be proud of me for telling you.”

  She was sitting in a position that was completely closed off to him: arms folded, legs crossed, and eyes squinted. “Why now?” she asked. “You’ve kept this hidden for twenty-something years?”

  “I think,” he said, trying to understand himself, “that I wasn’t able emotionally to process what happened. I wasn’t ready to be a father, not until Danny came along. And now that I’ve heard from Will, and Bridget by extension, it’s like my past and my present are on a collision course.” He thought she would like a metaphor. “And I’d like the pending collision to be… unharmful to all involved.”

  “The hell are you talking about?”

  He’d never seen her angry like this before. He found that her temper was—only a little and not in a disrespectful way—turning him on.

  “What do they want from you?” she asked.

  “They’ve asked me to perform with them a few times this fall,” he said.

  She got up and started pacing around the outdoor table, not an unfamiliar act in their household since Juliette believed that most meals should be eaten in motion. “You’re not entering into any kind of arrangement with them,” she said, “especially since we don’t even know what she’s after.”

  “I don’t think she’s after any—”

  “She could sue you for past child support.”

  “This is Bridget Stratton we’re talking about,” said Gavin with a chuckle. “I hardly think she needs the money.”

  “You can’t take this so lightly. Why didn’t she get in touch with you? Why is she having Will be the messenger? It’s all very shady. I think we should hire a lawyer.”

  Gavin had no intention of hiring a lawyer, and he told her so. Juliette accused him of being naive.

  “There’s more,” he said.

  Juliette sat back down again, humming to herself with her eyes closed.

  “They’ve invited me to play a piece with them at Edward Stratton’s wedding at the end of the summer. It’s a piece written by Edward himself, arranged by Will for piano trio. I can see by the face that you’re making now that you hate the idea, but this invitation is an honor.”

  “You’re not going.”

  Gavin and Juliette were very much equal partners. So he simply looked at her and said, “Yes, love, I am going and already told Will I’d be there the day before to rehearse the piece.”

  “With Bridget?”

  “Of course with Bridget.”

  They were equals, so Juliette stared back at him and said, “Then I’m coming, too. You are not having some fucked-up, complicated reunion—”

  “Fine, come.”

  “Yeah, it’s fine, you bet it’s fine, because if you’re going to see these people, then you’re going to have your family present.”

  “Well,” he said, “technically speaking, if the twins are my kids, they’re also my family.”

  Juliette—and this was a first—stormed away into the house and slammed a door.

  Gavin wanted to make it up to her, to apologize for having kept a secret (or maybe for having told her a secret—he couldn’t tell which one had made her angrier), so as part of the trip east, he planned a romantic vacation for the two of them. Two weeks on Cape Cod, alone together, would be the perfect way to get in the right frame of mind before they went to Bridget’s house to face the music, as it were. It would have been nice, he was sure of it. But Juliette insisted on adding to their itinerary a weeklong visit to an aunt in Rhode Island. And then she insisted they bring Danny along for the whole trip.

  * * *

  To travel with a young child is to experience hell on earth. Gavin and Juliette learned this the hard way. The flight from Los Angeles was a seven-hour battle of wrangling Danny into his seat and makin
g him stay there for the duration of the bumpy flight. Picking up the rental car took almost an hour, and since Danny had barely eaten all day, Juliette broke her junk-food rule and got him a granola bar out of a vending machine. Danny threw it up all over the Avis parking lot.

  The car was not the SUV Gavin had requested, but rather an economy-size hatchback. Gavin carefully stood his violin case on the floor of the backseat, padding it in such a way that it wouldn’t tip over no matter what happened or how quickly he accelerated or braked. This was a good move, as it turned out, because the drive from Logan Airport to the Chatham Bars Inn on Cape Cod, which Gavin had imagined would be a short jaunt down the Massachusetts coast, was a clusterfuck of traffic jams, bathroom stops, crying, screaming, and one bout of diarrhea. The air conditioner stopped working about an hour in. As Juliette was jabbing at the climate-control buttons, sweat started to run down Gavin’s back. By the time they were out of the worst of the Boston tunnels and bridges and lane closings, Danny started hollering. They pulled off the highway and picked up milkshakes at Wendy’s, the only thing they could find to calm him down. Ten minutes later, he was crying again.

  “What now?” Gavin snapped.

  “Don’t ask me, ask him,” said Juliette with a bitchy edge to her voice. “You undermine his autonomy when you act like he can’t speak for himself.”

  “I can’t comfort him and drive at the same time,” said Gavin.

  “Just admit it, you expect me to do everything.” She turned around. “Danny, sweetie, are you too warm?”

  “He’d better be on fire making noises like that. If you see a CVS, I’m stopping.”

  “What for?”

  “Earplugs,” said Gavin.

  “Very funny.”

  Gavin wasn’t joking. “I’m a musician, and he’s doing actual damage to my ears.”

  “Oh, boo-hoo,” said Juliette, miming a baby wiping her eyes.

  Gavin heard a loud, violent thump in the backseat, a sound that in Gavin’s mind sounded exactly like Danny’s fat foot kicking the back of his Stradivarius case. “What was that?” He reached his hand behind him to make sure his violin was safe.

  “Watch the road,” Juliette yelled.

  He heard the thump again and swerved off at an exit while simultaneously holding on to Danny’s feet to keep them from kicking. He thought Juliette might do something to help, but she just sat there, looking out the window. He parked the car at a gas station and turned around in his seat to check on his violin, stretching Danny’s right leg out to see how far it could reach. Juliette unclicked her seat belt, opened the car door in a huff, and stomped around to the driver side of the car. “Out,” she said through the window. “You babysit your precious violin, and I’ll drive.”

  “Good idea,” he said, getting out of the car.

  Danny was still sniveling in his booster.

  Gavin walked around to the other side of the car, and before he got back in, he took his violin case and then sat in the passenger seat, hugging it to his chest.

  Juliette pulled out of the parking lot and got back on the highway as Danny kicked the back of his seat, knocking Gavin’s chin into the hard case.

  “I don’t see why Danny couldn’t stay with your mother,” Gavin whispered. “This is so not the trip I had in mind for us. Maybe we should go home.”

  “We can’t,” said Juliette, “because somebody knocked up his college sweetheart—”

  “I told you, she wasn’t my college sweetheart.” He thought they’d been through this already. “I just really wanted her to be.”

  Juliette stepped down hard on the gas, and they sped along the highway at a nice clip. For a brief, lovely moment, the only sound was Danny singing a song to himself. It was sweet and quiet, a gentle cooing. Then, the moment Gavin started to relax and try to enjoy the ride, Danny lobbed his chocolate Frosty onto the dashboard. Gavin hugged his violin tighter.

  Juliette turned on the wipers, which did a good job getting the smashed bugs off the outside of the windshield but did absolutely nothing for the milkshake running down the inside. Gavin looked for a napkin in the glove compartment, thinking that if he and Juliette were in a movie, they would find this situation funny; they would see the mess dripping and the wipers wiping and burst out laughing.

  Neither of them laughed; Danny was wrecking everything.

  * * *

  After four hours in the car, they reached their destination, an elegant resort on the beach. The bellhop carried their luggage to the room and demonstrated how to work the remote control for the television. Danny, who had never been allowed to watch TV, spotted a character on the screen named “SpongeBob” (who, Gavin came to learn, lives in a pineapple under the sea), and thus began a family fight that got so noisy, someone walking on the beach went to the front desk to report a domestic dispute.

  Although he demanded food at all hours, Danny never wanted what was offered. Gavin and Juliette took turns chasing him around restaurants, forcing him into high chairs, and apologizing to people at neighboring tables for his behavior. Other daily activities included making sure that Danny didn’t fall down stairs, get sand in his eyes, poop in the swimming pool, or drown in the Atlantic. His bathing suit chafed his ass, his sunblock stung his face, and he lost his favorite beach toy in the surf. And just when Gavin thought things couldn’t get any worse, Danny stopped sleeping.

  Three days into the trip, and they hadn’t had sex even one time, nor were they reading by the ocean or enjoying a romantic harbor cruise to watch the seals. Nor did they team up and deal with Danny together, bonding over a common enemy, which might have offered some consolation. Danny, who had been their joint cause, who had brought them so close together as a couple, set their nerves on edge and drove a wedge between them. They bickered constantly and over everything. Who was this woman with the scraggly eyebrows and the mean tone to her voice? Gavin wondered. He missed his wife, longed for their well-regulated life in LA, her hands on his face, a gesture that, for some reason, never failed to put him in the mood.

  Through it all, he was consumed with thoughts of seeing Bridget, her children, and Will. Every time he took off his baseball cap and ran his hand over his head, hairs came loose in his fingers. He would shake his hand and watch the gray strands float to the ground.

  * * *

  In the late afternoon on the fifth long day of their trip, Juliette made a spa appointment for herself without so much as consulting Gavin, telling him he was “on duty” all afternoon while she got a massage and a facial. She did not suggest reciprocating the next day.

  “What do I do with him all afternoon?”

  “Figure it out,” she said, putting on her sunglasses and walking out of the hotel room.

  Gavin talked to the concierge, who came up with a swell idea: putt-putt golf. There was a course not too far from the resort that boasted waterfalls, caves, lighthouses, and pirate ships. Gavin was sure this outing was going to be a winner. He imagined coming back to the hotel and gloating about it to Juliette. He and Danny headed off happily in the car together in matching salmon-colored Bermuda shorts. Gavin hadn’t realized, however, how difficult putt-putt would actually be for a little kid. Danny smacked the ball with his club over and over and over, missing the goddamned hole every time and then getting screaming mad about it. He was so slow, the players started to pile up behind them, and Danny refused to let Gavin cheat on his behalf. They finally gave up on the seventh hole and got ice cream.

  Sitting at a picnic table with a soft-serve cone that was melting rapidly and dripping all over his shirt and shoes, Danny seemed happy for the first time all day. He was a cute kid when he wasn’t howling. Gavin reached over and patted his son’s head, just as Danny’s soggy sugar cone squashed and crumbled in his little fist, sending his ice cream to the concrete patio.

  Ten minutes later Gavin had calmed Danny down and was getting him into his car seat when his cell phone rang.

  “Gavin, old friend,” said a deep voice with an upper-c
rust British accent. “Nicholas Donahue here.”

  “Nicholas, hey, how’s it going?” He had meant to call Nicholas early in the summer after he ran into Miriam, but he’d never gotten around to it.

  “I heard you’re on the East Coast. Edward Stratton tells me you’re attending his wedding.”

  “That’s right,” Gavin said. “I’ll be playing actually. But don’t mention that to Edward. Apparently, it’s supposed to be a surprise.”

  “How thrilling. Which piece?”

  “It’s called Synchronicity, one of his earliest compositions.”

  “I wonder if I can get my hands on a score,” Nicholas said, more to himself, it seemed, than to Gavin. “I’ll be going to the wedding as well. And I was calling to see if there’s any chance you could stick around for a day or two after the big event and come by my cottage in the Berkshires? You’d be welcome to stay with me, of course. I’ve rented this place on a lake, you see, while I’m writing a book on Edward, and I’d love to get your insights if you’d be willing to make the trip.”

  Gavin liked this idea very much. Anything to get him out of this miserable family trip. Anything to get out of the weeklong visit with Juliette’s aunt in Providence. “Actually,” he said, “what if I visited the week before the event? Would that work?” Maybe, he thought optimistically, he could go by himself. Rent a second car for this last-minute, work-related excursion and meet back up with Juliette and Danny just before the wedding. “I’m on the Cape right now for a vacation.”

  “Perfect,” Nicholas said. “Let me know.”

  “I have to check with my wife, Juliette. We’re here with our son.”

  There was a lengthy pause that made Gavin wonder if Nicholas was hesitating over the idea of having them all show up.