Someday, Somewhere

by Lindsay Champion

  “Ben.”

  This is the part of the lesson where Yaz tells me it’s astounding, it’s beautiful, it’s heartbreaking. This is where he says he’s never had a student as talented and promising as I am.

  He sighs and starts again. “Ben, there’s a lot of work to do here.”

  “I know. But —”

  “You’ve been practicing this regularly? This is the piece you’ve been mainly working on?”

  “Yeah. Constantly. I barely even think about anything else.”

  “You know I always tell you the truth. And honestly, Ben, the playing feels laborious. Some sections are over-rehearsed, robotic. I can’t feel anything. Some parts are frantic, like you’re moving at warp speed. It’s inconsistent, like you’ve taken the piece and chopped it up into little bits.”

  I try to focus on his notes, but I can’t. I rub my temples. It’s not supposed to go like this. The words I expected him to say were replaced. Erased.

  “But … I can’t practice any harder. It’s physically impossible. It must be something else. Maybe it’s my violin. Maybe it’s the strings. Was the E sounding out of tune to you? Is that it?”

  “Something is off, Ben, and I’m not exactly sure what it is. Maybe we should get Claire in here and the two of you can hash it out together.”

  “Wait, no, no, no — I shouldn’t need her in the room with me. I should be able to go home, rehearse and have it concert-ready.”

  “Dude.” I hate when he calls me dude. “You’re still learning. Not everything has to be in hyperdrive all the time.”

  “But I don’t see how bringing Claire in here is going to help. We’re practicing fifteen hours a week together, and I spend the entire time dragging her through. Can you teach me my part or not?”

  “Ben, let’s slow down a little.”

  Not a chance. “I don’t want to slow down. Did you even see me at Carnegie Hall?” I snap. “Why weren’t you there?”

  “I was out of town for a family emergency. You know I would have been there if I could.”

  “No one was there. I was incredible, Yaz. The entire orchestra practically bowed down and kissed my shoes when it was over. They worship me now. Everyone at Brighton knows who I am. Everywhere I go, it’s like I’m a celebrity. This is the real me.” God, I need this to be true.

  My brain fuzzes over for a second, and I can’t remember whether everyone at Brighton has been staring at me because of the amazing Carnegie Hall concert or because they were remembering — no. It’s not important what they think. What’s important is how I play, and I’ve never sounded better. And Yaz has to know that. He has to.

  “Last year was a fluke. I choked, whatever. I wish everyone would stop babying me. I’m ready to apply for competitions again. I could do the Queen Elizabeth, or the Prague International, and finally get some momentum here. If I can carry an entire orchestra on my back, and I’m one of the best violinists at Brighton, I just don’t understand why no one trusts my interpretation of Kreutzer. You’re supposed to be helping me, not holding me back.”

  He leans against the piano and puts his head in his hands. He’s silent for a moment. I know I’ve said too much.

  “Why don’t we take a break and try a different piece,” he says at last.

  “I’d rather not.”

  “I don’t know if I want to keep working on Kreutzer today.”

  “Then I don’t want to be here.”

  Screw him. Screw Robertson. Screw everyone. I pack up my violin, slam the door and race down the steps. I hear Yaz fling open the door and call down after me, but I pretend not to hear. The cool wind on West End Avenue smacks my sweaty forehead.

  Crap. That didn’t go how I wanted at all. At first I think about going back and apologizing, but I know I can’t undo what I’ve already done. Why can’t I hear what everyone else is hearing? How could my perception be so off?

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  I grab my phone, put in my earbuds and turn up La Bohème.

  {23}

  Dominique

  Even though I only got four hours of sleep, I practically jump out of bed on Wednesday morning. I promised my mom I’d catch up on washing linens, and I need to clean Monica’s shirt before her mom comes to pick up their laundry.

  Ugh. Even just admitting I borrowed the shirt in the first place makes me feel like a terrible person. I keep imagining what I’d do if someone wore one of my shirts without telling me. And the truth is, I’d be totally weirded out. There’s no way I can do this again. It was a one-time thing. I need to be thankful I didn’t get caught. I’ll never tell anyone I did it, and that will be that.

  As I load sheets into the washer, my mind keeps drifting back to Ben, like a sweet dream I never want to forget. I wonder what he’s doing right now. I wonder if he’s a night owl or a morning person. I wonder what he eats for breakfast. Is he a waffles or a toast guy?

  Only three more days until I get to see him again. Some people would be more excited about the opera, but I’m most excited about the person who’ll be sitting next to me.

  What do you even wear to an opera? Cass didn’t seem clear on it. And what would Ben wear? Probably a suit. I know I definitely shouldn’t do it, but it would be so easy to look through a few of the other laundry bags and check if any other customers have a dress in my size.

  Then I remember the dry-cleaning rack.

  A company ten minutes away comes with a truck and picks up all our dry cleaning. We don’t have the space or the equipment to do it ourselves, so they drive it to a warehouse out in Newark somewhere, then bring it back a week later, all wrapped in plastic and smelling like chemicals.

  I start to flip through the clothes on the rack, and oh, my God, there’s actually a dress in my size there. It’s black velvet with a scoop neck and cap sleeves and a stripe of lace trim on the bottom, and it totally looks like a dress someone would wear to an opera in the city. I’m not a huge dress person, but I have to admit it’s sleek and sophisticated, and I’d probably look pretty damn good in it. I check the tag — it belongs to someone named J. Wagner. My mom must have processed it, because it’s not a name or a dress I remember.

  I check the ledger. It was dropped off yesterday. There isn’t a dry-cleaning pickup until Monday.

  No. I can’t do this. I can’t start stealing people’s clothes.

  Then again, it’ll just be sitting here for the weekend. And it’s not like I’m going to return it dirty or anything. Damn it. No. This is so wrong. I put the dress back on the rack and try to forget about it.

  By the time I’ve washed and dried the shirt along with a bunch of random sheets it’s 8:00 a.m. — time to unlock the door for customers. A woman I don’t recognize has been waiting outside, and she huffs and puffs as she pushes in a rolling metal cart filled with her overflowing laundry bag. She immediately starts talking to me in Spanish, so I ask her if she can speak English and she lets out this heavy, irritated sigh like I’m inconveniencing her.

  “No fabric softener. You have?”

  “Yeah,” I say, and grab the plastic bottle behind the counter for her. She takes it without saying thank you.

  I’m so engrossed in my internal “to take or not to take the dress” struggle I don’t even notice Anton and his family walk in. His mom has already put their clothes in, and she’s trying to wrangle mini-terrors Freddy and Maria, who are rocking the vending machine. Anton is leaning against one of the dryers, tapping on his phone. Probably playing some shooting game.

  Freddy races to the quarter machine and begs his mom to put a dollar in. He has a red-stained ring of fruit punch around his mouth. He’s wearing this old baseball cap Anton always used to wear when we’d hang out — Anton must have gotten sick of it and given it to him. Freddy spots me first.

  “Hello,” he mumbles. He freezes for a second and looks at the ground, then ru
ns back to the vending machine.

  I go behind the front desk and pretend I’m busy with paperwork. Really I’m just pushing papers from one part of the desk to the other, then scribbling on a piece of scrap paper, then moving everything back to the other side of the desk again. My eyes are stinging, I don’t even know why. It’s not like he’s going to say something mean to me when his mom is standing right there.

  But then she’s walking to the counter. Her short hair is plastered down, swept to one side and pinned back in a tiny bun that looks like a cotton ball.

  “Hello, Dominique,” she says.

  She speaks in the softest, friendliest voice, and I wonder how she even spawned those three monsters in the first place.

  “Can you believe it? Anton’s actually helping his momma with the laundry. Never thought we’d see the day, right?”

  Freddy throws a handful of quarters at the vending machine glass, and they fall all over the floor. The other customers stop what they’re doing and turn to see what happened.

  Anton shakes his head, his lips curling up into a nauseating half grin. Oh, yeah, he’s really helping. He doesn’t even look up from his phone.

  I try to ignore the whole thing and go back to my pretend paperwork. I draw a picture of a girl with curly hair punching herself in the face.

  I don’t understand why they can’t do their laundry someplace else. Couldn’t Anton convince his mom to go to the place off Route 1, like basically everyone else in town?

  Freddy whines about being hungry and Anton’s mom finally gives in, agreeing to let the kids split an egg-and-cheese on a roll from the bodega across the street.

  “Anton, baby, you want one?” she asks.

  “I’m good,” he says.

  I hate that she still calls him “baby,” exclusively, like he’s five years old. That jerk hasn’t been a baby in a long time. But then I think about Ben, and realize Anton’s basically an infant. He can’t do anything for himself, except sell weed and hang around with his friends. His mom will probably be supporting him for the next twenty years. I refuse to look directly at him, but I bet you anything he still hasn’t glanced up from his phone one time.

  Anton’s mom and the brats go across the street, and it’s oddly quiet after that. The washers whirr and a TV news anchor talks about the drought in California. I think about what it would be like to live in California, with all those palm trees and convertibles. I wonder if Ben has ever been there, and if he’d have to slather a whole bottle of sunscreen on his skin to keep it from burning.

  One of my dryers buzzes and I speed-walk through the store as fast as I can, avoiding Anton. I unload the sheets, which are so hot you can only touch them for a second before they scald your fingerprints off.

  Then I hear his voice behind me, his breath wet and prickly on my back. “You do something different with your hair?”

  The sensation feels ugly and familiar, and I reflexively whirl around, like a scared animal. He’s about an inch from my face, so I take a step back.

  “No,” I say. “Same as always.”

  “There’s no one in school more beautiful than you are, you know that? And smart. You’re like Miss America. You get an A on the chemistry quiz?”

  This is how he does it. This is how he’d always draw me back to him. Not this time.

  I laugh him off and go back to folding.

  “I haven’t seen you around much,” he says. “You don’t ever hang out in front of school anymore.”

  “I don’t smoke. What’s there to do out front of school besides smoke?”

  “I don’t know. Chill.”

  “Not my scene.”

  He raises his eyebrow with the notches shaved in it. “Yeah. Not really your scene.”

  “Nope.”

  “Heard you’ve got a boyfriend.”

  I stop, midfold, holding a hot pillowcase in my hand.

  “Yeah,” I say at last, carefully, robotically, knowing even the tiniest hint of emotion in my voice could be used against me. Where could he possibly have heard about Ben? No one knows but Cass. Shit. One of his asshole friends could have overheard us at Lombardo’s Pizza. Cass always talks too loud, and I wasn’t paying attention to who was coming in and out. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “What’s the guy’s name?”

  I look around the laundromat helplessly, but there’s no one to rescue me.

  “Since when do you care what I do?”

  He leans against the folding table, getting right in my face, hissing in my ear. “Just don’t forget who taught you everything you know. You’re not some special snowflake, you know that?”

  “Get the hell out of my face,” I say, pushing him away and ducking back behind the cash register. My face is heating up and my neck is sweating and I know I must be bright red and splotchy.

  “You’re a piece of trash just like the rest of us, and don’t you let some rich boy tell you otherwise. Just because your mom is white, you think you should live on Fifth Avenue? Enjoy the ride while it lasts, baby girl.”

  My chest is throbbing, and it takes me a second to register why. Then I realize I’ve basically been holding my breath since Anton came into the store. A tiny part of me deep down knows he’s right. I should just give up. Ben would never be interested in me if he didn’t think I went to NYU. If he knew I was still in high school. If he knew I lived here and was this poor. And as soon as he finds out who I really am, he’ll realize I’m not good enough for him and that will be that.

  But then I do one of the bravest things I’ve ever done: I take a deep breath and push that tiny part of me even deeper. Farther and farther, until all I can feel is Ben, smiling and cheering me on.

  “I’m not your baby girl, and if you don’t leave in the next thirty seconds, I’m calling the cops,” I say in a strong, sharp voice I barely recognize. It’s the same voice my mom used when those creepy drug addicts from Parkside Avenue tried to rob the cash register last year. Mom said we had a gun under the counter and they’d better get out of here if they didn’t want to be dead. They ran away, then Mom called the cops, turned out the lights and locked the door. We hid under the folding table for forty-five minutes. The cops never came. Eventually, when we’d stopped shaking and it felt safe enough to go home, we counted to ten, held our breaths, then ran into the cold night as fast as we could.

  “Whoa, baby. Calm down. We were just talking,” Anton says. He repeats this, glancing at the two customers standing by the dryers, staring. “We were just talking.”

  I shake my head. I open my mouth to let out all the comebacks, the insults — everything I’ve been saving up for the past year, everything I’ve been practicing in the mirror, everything I’ve wanted to shout in his face, to scream until my throat bleeds, everything.

  But I’m all out of words.

  That twisting grin. The door slams and the bell rings overhead. It’s over.

  {24}

  Ben

  Friday is a good morning. When I wake up, my mind is still. Quiet. Serene. Like the duck pond in Central Park in February. I’m not worrying about Claire or Yaz or Kreutzer — not even the opening phrase — and Dom and I are seeing La Bohème in twenty-eight hours. I even eat some breakfast, and my mom makes this huge, exaggerated deal out of it, praising me and saying she’s proud of me. Like by eating half a plate of scrambled eggs I’ve just cured cancer or something.

  I run through some scales before my rehearsal with Claire. We haven’t been texting each other as much, mostly because of the stuff with Robertson and the shitty rehearsal. But also because I’ve been more focused on Dominique these days, and I guess I’m not relying on Claire like I used to. I don’t know. Whenever I get the urge to text her, I change my mind and text Dom instead.

  The practice room is empty, so I set up my sheet music and lift the wooden cover on the piano keys. Someone left an empty coffee cup and
a few crumpled napkins on the floor in the corner, so I pick them up and go out into the hallway to find a trash can. There’s a jumbled blast of sound when I step outside — a dozen students are all locked away in their own cubbyholes, each playing a different piece. The practice rooms are supposed to be soundproof, but when you’re standing out in the hall, the noise from all the separate instruments hits you all at once, like an accidental symphony.

  It’s 10:06, then 10:07, then 10:08, and no Claire. I wonder if she’s trying to punish me for being late to our meeting with Robertson. I wonder if she thinks of me as “the late guy” now, and she calibrates her timetable according to my new reputation. I’m never late, not if I don’t have a good reason. She should know that. But … 10:09, 10:10, 10:11.

  That’s when things start feeling strange again. There’s this clock on the wall — one of those round white clocks that no one would have in a house, but for some reason it’s the clock to have in all school classrooms. Would a nice grandfather clock, a throw rug and a couch with a couple of pillows interrupt our learning? Aren’t my parents paying some huge amount of money for me to be here? Why do we still have to sit on hard plastic chairs and stare at ugly white clocks that tick way too loud?

  I cover my ears and tap my feet, trying to distract myself. Just focus on Kreutzer. Infuse the second movement into your body. You can do this.

  And then there’s Claire, through the tiny window in the top of the door. I hear her laugh. I can tell she’s with someone else, a guy, but his face is just out of my view. I stand up to see who it is, but I’m not tall enough.

  She opens the door, still laughing. Carter is walking down the hall in the opposite direction.

  “Good morning,” she says breathlessly, like laughing so hard with Carter just knocked all the air out of her. “Did you work on the second movement?”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, just the pacing in this stupid piece. We were saying, what if Beethoven didn’t even like music? What if he just hated music students, so he wrote all these impossible pieces with a million traps to torture us for centuries?”