by Rico, Lauren
I pack up and start back out the way I came in, noticing the light on in another practice room. Now that’s weird. I can count on one hand the times I’ve run across someone else up here ever, let alone at this hour of the night. I walk carefully, so my shoes won’t clack on the floor and disturb the person playing… what is that? A trombone? As I move closer, the tone is better defined. No, that’s a horn. When I’m standing in front of the room, I take a quick glance through the small window on the door and see the back of a chestnut head of hair.
Oh, now this really is a surprise! Jeremy Corrigan is practicing, just like the rest of us mere mortals. Since our freshman year, there have been rumors that he doesn’t practice. He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t need to. He’s just that good. And yet, here he is, in the middle of the night working on what? Weber? No, Strauss. Yes, definitely one of the Strauss Horn Concertos. I’m mesmerized as I hover in the shadows, listening as he tears through the intricate passages without breaking a sweat. This guy is amazingly good.
My thoughts are interrupted when he stops playing suddenly and turns his head to the side, as if sensing he’s being watched. I scurry away as quickly and quietly as I can, but something tells me he might just have gotten a glimpse of me. I use the rickety old back stairs and duck out of a side exit and onto the sidewalk, shiny from a late night shower. It’s just wet enough that the cars create mini-tsunamis as they whiz through puddles. There are a lot of people out and about tonight as I turn in the direction of home. They are a reminder that there are other people in this world, that I’m not the only one fighting the ghosts of the past on a Tuesday night at two o’clock in the morning. I find that strangely comforting.
It only takes ten minutes for me and the coffin case to get home to The Strathmore Building where in apartment 16D, it’s obvious that Matthew has been waiting up for me. Or, at least, he was before he fell asleep on the couch in front of the television. Well, there’s no sense waking him now. If I do, it’ll just be another lecture about staying out this late at night, getting my rest, and more sage, sound, practical advice than I can stomach at this hour. It’s been a long, stressful day and all I want is to crawl into my own bed.
I set the cello down in the foyer and slip my shoes off so I can tiptoe through the room without disturbing him. I make my way to where he’s passed out, arm splayed over the side of the couch, glasses hanging from his nose. Gently, I take them from his face and put them on the coffee table. The remote has fallen out of his hanging hand and I pick it up from the floor, using it to turn the TV off. I grab the throw blanket I keep in a basket near the couch, and drape it across his still, silent body. Finally, I turn out the light and slip down the hall.
Inside my room, I breathe another sigh of relief. As happy as I was to get out, into the night air and away from my demons, I’m equally grateful for the respite of my very own space. I’ve shared this apartment with Matthew since the day I turned eighteen. Growing up in a foster care facility, I never had anything to myself. Now, at twenty-three, I still get a thrill out of having my own room.
I pull a nightgown over my head and set my phone on the nightstand to charge. I should have checked my texts earlier in the evening. No wonder poor Matthew stayed up for me, he sent me six messages while I was busy indulging in my little bit of music therapy. I know he’s just worried about me, but I don’t have the energy for it, or anything else at the moment. It’s so much easier to just slip under the covers and allow the darkness to overtake me. Unfortunately, sleep is no guarantee of escape. Sometimes, the demons follow me there, too.
****
In my dream, it is always the same. I hear the smack of the aluminum storm door, as it slams closed. I look out the window and see my mother walking across the front lawn, carrying a small suitcase. The sun catches her bright auburn hair, making it look as if she has a fiery halo. My father is close behind her.
“Get your ass back inside!” he yells.
She ignores him, getting into the beat-up old Chevy.
Something feels terribly wrong and I go running out the front door barefoot, in my pink princess nighty.
“Mommy?” I call out.
She starts the car.
“Mommy? Where are you going?”
I walk towards the car just as she starts to pull out of the driveway. And then I am running but she keeps driving, the car kicking up a cloud of dust around me.
I’m screaming for her now. I know she can hear me.
She doesn’t slow down. She doesn’t even glance back in her rearview mirror.
I’m five years old.
This is usually the point where I wake myself up sobbing, drenched in sweat, and today is no different. It takes me a few minutes to get my heart rate back to normal.
“Julia?” comes Matthew’s voice from the hallway outside of my room.
Pause.
“Julia, are you awake?”
A rap on the door.
“Go away!” I mumble from under the covers and pull the pillow over my head to block out the sound.
“Hey, are you okay? Was that another bad dream?”
He’s in my room now, standing by the bed.
“Julia, come on,” he coaxes. “I brought you a cup of coffee…”
Hmmm. Bribery. I lower my overstuffed shield slowly and allow my eyes to get used to the light.
“What time is it?” I croak squinting up at him.
“It’s almost nine,” Matthew says. “You really need to get moving. You don’t want to be late for rehearsal or Maestro Hagen might throw his toupee at you.”
I smile sleepily, and sit up in bed, propping myself against the pillows. He’s not kidding either. Our crazy conductor actually pulled off his ill-fitting hairpiece and flung it at the trombones after they missed a cue during rehearsal. Now they duck whenever he even glances their way.
Matthew hands me a steaming mug of coffee. I take it in one hand and pat the side of the bed with the other, inviting him to join me. He climbs in and we sit, side by side, against the headboard.
“What time did you get home?” he asks. “I didn’t even hear you come in!”
“Mmm… just after two, I guess.”
“You’re insane!” he says, shaking his head at me. “No, I take that back. You’re obsessed. God, you must be practicing five hours a day!”
More like seven, but I’m smart enough to keep my mouth shut on that point. So I do what women have done for centuries. I deflect.
“Matthew, I’m trying to make it into the next round of the Kreisler’s. If that means I have to live on catnaps and coffee for a while, I’m going to do it.”
He looks as if he’s about to start lecturing me, but I hold up a finger before he can reply.
“Besides, Mr. Pot-calling-kettle-black, who do you think you’re fooling? You spend just as much time practicing as I do.”
I conveniently neglect to mention the fact that he’s not in school anymore. But he doesn’t.
“Not the same, and you know it. Besides, I’m not a grad student, am I?”
“You were,” I point out.
“Yes, I was. And maybe I was running on too little sleep when I was finishing up at McInnes and getting ready to audition for the Walton, but now that I’ve got the job, I’m taking better care of myself.”
“See? Exactly!” I say victoriously, slapping the mattress and making my coffee slosh dangerously close to the rim of the mug.
“What?” he asks, perplexed.
“You put in the hours. You did what you had to do and look at you now! You finished your degree and won a spot in the most elite string quartet in the world. Tell me it wasn’t worth it,” I challenge him.
He can’t. Instead, he just rolls his eyes at me.
“You’re impossible, Julia James.”
I smile at him with a frothy milk mustache and he laughs.
“But I’m cute, right?”
“Yes. Very cute,” he concedes begrudgingly. “Seriously. Are you okay? That night
mare sounded pretty bad, even from out in the hallway.”
I nod.
“It’s just the stress of the last couple of weeks, that’s all. Things should calm down after they announce the audition results.”
“How do you figure?”
I don’t answer and he nudges me hard.
“Unless, of course, you’re not expecting to make it to the second round. Is that what you think?”
I should have just kept my mouth shut. Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut?
“I don’t know what to think, Matthew. There was some pretty stiff competition. I just don’t want to get my hopes up too high.”
“You’ve got this. I know you’re going to win it,” he says without the slightest hint of doubt.
I smile and, not for the first time, wish I had as much confidence in myself as he does.
“What? Win it? God, we don’t even know if I made the first cut. Let’s not hang that medal around my neck yet, okay?” I laugh.
“I know it, even if you don’t,” he says, snatching the now-empty mug from my hand and untangling from me.
“I’m headed out to rehearsal, I’ll see you tonight,” he says, raising the mug as if to toast me.
Once he’s gone, I haul myself out of bed and rummage around in my dresser for some clean clothes. I’m about to close the drawer when the pair of framed photos on the dresser catches my eye. The smaller of the two is terribly faded. Even through the glass that now protects it, there are visible folds and creases from years of keeping it under my pillow. The man and woman look happy. He’s strong and tall with sandy blonde hair. His arm is draped easily over the shoulder of the woman by his side, a petite redhead whose emerald green eyes are still striking, even after the picture has had so many years of abuse. She’s holding a toddler with a crop of strawberry blonde hair and those same eyes. Me. What I wouldn’t give to be able to call to mind memories of the happier days of my young life.
I carefully return the plain, black frame to its spot and pick up its partner. There’s a little less mileage on this one. It is a candid of Matthew and me under the big apple tree out front of our home. The North Fork Children’s Home where we were foster kids together. Neither of us could have been more than eleven or twelve-years-old in it. Even now, he claims that this was the moment he fell in love with me. I put this one back too, close the dresser drawer and start my shower running in the bathroom.
Matthew has never once hidden the fact that he wants something different from our relationship than I do and, over the years, he has held fast to his belief that we are destined to be together. The truth is that there is nobody I love or trust more on the face of this earth than Matthew. That’s the problem. I’d be lost without him in my life, without our relationship. If we give in and sleep together, if we try to live as a couple rather than best friends, there is no guarantee that we won’t screw it all up. We have too much to lose if things don’t work out for us and for me, that’s an unacceptable risk.
I’m really not interested in romance at this point. I’m barely twenty-three; there’ll be time for love later on. Besides, I’ve had more than enough chaos and drama to last me a lifetime. No, what I want right now, is to play my cello and finish my Master’s degree. And, I suppose if I’m really honest with myself, I want a slot in the Kreisler Competition. But, that’s such a long shot that I don’t dare consider it. Not seriously, anyway.
3
I’m sitting on stage in the concert hall, rubbing rosin on my bow and waiting for the orchestra rehearsal to start. I use the term ‘concert hall’ loosely. It’s actually a cafeteria retrofitted with seats and stage.
“He talked to me the other day, you know,” says my stand partner, Mila Strassman.
I look up to see who it is she’s talking about, and I’m not at all surprised to find that it’s Jeremy Corrigan. Of course that’s who she’s talking about. He’s the guy most of the girls in the orchestra talk about.
His entrance is the same every time. He unpacks his horn, tucks it under his arm like a football and lopes– yes, actually lopes– up the steps onto the stage. Long, lean legs stride easily past the first violins, then the harp and finally the percussion to take his place at the head of the French horn section.
If even once Jeremy would go around the other way, if he would just turn right at the conductor’s podium instead of left, he’d walk right past the cello section. That would certainly make Mila and several other female musicians very happy. But he never makes that turn. Personally, I think it has something to do with the violin section, which looks like something out of the talent portion of the Miss World Competition. I’ve never seen so many beautiful women playing in the same string section.
“Julia, you should have seen him at the auditions last week,” Mila is saying.
“I did, actually,” I correct her, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
“God, he is so hot! I asked him if he was nervous,” she informs me. “Do you know what he said?”
I consider answering, but she continues before I can.
“He told me he just takes whatever he wants.”
Now she turns to look at me.
“How sexy is that?”
I nod politely without comment.
“I wouldn’t mind if he took me,” she mumbles under her breath.
The thing with Mila Strassman is that she’s a talker. Chatter, chatter, chatter about anything and anyone; to me, to herself, to no one in particular. And I have to say she’s not the most stimulating of conversationalists either.
“So the Kreisler list is out this week, right?” she asks.
“That’s what I hear,” I reply as she flips through our music folder and pulls out the Tchaikovsky Symphony No.4.
“Aren’t you just dying to know?” she presses. “I know I am! I mean there were, like, hundreds of cellists going for it. Pretty much everyone here is hoping to be invited to play for the committee. And then there are, like, cellists from all over the country. What will they take, like ten or something? And that’s from all over right? So who knows how many cellists are trying out for it that we don’t even know!”
All of that without taking a single breath.
I have taken to clocking Mila’s ramblings just for the fun of it. She once yammered on for nearly a minute and half without so much as a tiny gasp for air.
When I don’t respond to her latest monologue, she just keeps going.
“Well, like I said, I know pretty much every one of the cellists here auditioned, probably the violins, too. But I’m not sure anyone here is really good enough...”
She stops and turns toward me. In a rare moment of clarity, Mila realizes she may have just offended me.
“Oh, gosh, I didn’t mean you aren’t good enough… It’s just… well, you know. All those people from around the country…”
“The world, Mila. That’s why they call it the Kreisler International Music Competition,” I say a little too sharply and immediately regret it. She looks stricken.
“I’m sorry,” I say, quickly. “I’m just tired. I was practicing late last night.”
Her face instantly becomes sunny again, and she picks up her prattling where she left off.
“Well, the horn players, I think at least one of them has a good chance, don’t you? I mean Cal is so solid. Never misses a note that one. And Jeremy... well, you know. He’s so... you know…” she smiles as she leaves that sentence hanging.
I do know. Jeremy is one of those guys who is just enough of everything. Lips that curl into just enough smirk, stubble that gives him just enough ruggedness and hair just tousled enough to look neat, but not too neat. His brows appear to be set in a perpetual arch, framing brown eyes. I’ve never been close enough to get a good look. In fact, I’ve never even spoken to him, but you can clearly see he’s just one of those guys. You know, the funny, charismatic ones to whom people are just naturally drawn. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had the same effect on the Kreisler Competition judges
, especially the female ones.
Mila looks about ready to launch into another conversation with herself when, to my immense relief, the concertmaster stands up and faces the orchestra, violin under his chin, bow poised. Once we have all quieted, he nods to the principal oboist who plays an A for the group to tune to. Across the orchestra strings, winds, brass all align themselves into perfect unison. The concertmaster nods and takes his seat again and we wait.
It’s only a few seconds before the stage curtains part and Maestro Gunther Hagen takes his spot on the podium. He’s a small, older man with the aforementioned floppy patch of wild hair that, since the unfortunate trombone incident, we can now confirm is not real. Sometimes, when he’s conducting a particularly energetic piece, the faux hair will shift and he’ll actually swipe at it with his baton.
Like many Maestros, ours is prone to the dramatic and right now, he’s standing on the podium, eyeballing us, when he should be telling us what we’re going to start with. There are a few soft coughs and shuffling feet until, finally, he smiles with twinkling blue eyes and wishes us a good morning in his soft German accent.
“I’m sure most of you are familiar with the Kreisler Competition. And if you’re not, you should get out of the practice rooms once in a while,” he chuckles.
Polite laughter from around the orchestra.
“As you know, this competition only takes place once every four years, and it is divided into three rounds over the course of three months. The gold medal winner of The Kreisler Competition will not only receive a substantial cash prize and a recording contract, but will also embark upon a concert tour that takes him or her around the globe. To say that this could launch a young musician’s career is an understatement.”
Hagan pauses to look down at his podium for a long moment before he picks up a single sheet of paper, and holds it above his head for all of us to see.
“It just so happens that I have a friend on the committee and he slipped me the preliminary round results a little early.”