Someday, Somewhere

by Lindsay Champion

  “I know, A Train.”

  I smile. “Okay.”

  He presses the Up button outside the elevator, and after a few seconds the brass doors open. The elevator has an actual rug in it, like one of those maroon Persian rugs you’d see in a really nice doctor’s office on TV. It’s such a waste to have a carpet so nice in an elevator. I bet no one really even notices it.

  We walk down a long hallway with more carpets and these little lamps with shades that stick right out of the wall. The place looks just like a hotel in a movie. It’s quiet and clean and … I just can’t believe people actually live here. That Ben actually lives here. I grab his hand again to try to get a little bit of that connection back, but he’s so warm and my fingers are freezing. Our hands don’t fit together the way they did outside.

  Each door has a brass carved number, and a bunch of them have welcome mats in front, and some of them even have door knockers. My heart thunks as we walk to the very end of the hallway.

  He turns his key in the door marked 1556 and we go inside.

  For the first time everything is in color. Like when Dorothy opens her door into Oz.

  There’s a dark wooden coat rack to the left of the door, and Ben takes my jacket and hangs it on top of his. One of the walls is just a giant floor-to-ceiling bookcase. I’m not sure how anyone even reaches the books on top, but somehow the hardcover copies of The Coast of Utopia and Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews and As I Lay Dying don’t look dusty at all.

  Against the side wall is a long gray couch made of what looks like velvet, and just above that is an oil painting of an audience — like from the perspective of someone standing on a stage — with bright, shining lights and red seats. It’s in this gigantic, carved frame that looks like it should be in a museum or something. If I squint hard enough, I can almost see Ben sitting in the crowd, watching La Bohème with his arm around me.

  “Oh, that’s from Rome,” Ben says. “My dad had it commissioned by a local painter when I was playing in the youth orchestra at the Parco della Musica.”

  I take a step back and realize I’m totally out of my element. I feel like an imposter. Ben wants someone honest and vulnerable and real, like him. What am I doing here, in this sparkling-clean palace? He probably thinks I grew up like this. That my parents live in a five-bedroom house in Princeton with two cars and a pool. I swallow the guilt and make a mental note to tell him about the imaginary hot tub in our imaginary backyard.

  It takes me a second to notice, but there’s no TV anywhere. They can obviously afford one — they can probably afford a few hundred. Maybe there’s a TV room somewhere else in the apartment. Or a screening room with a TV that takes up the entire wall.

  In the corner of the room, by the window, there’s a huge piano. And on the wall behind the piano there’s a violin. I wonder how many concerts Ben has played in his life. Hundreds? Thousands?

  There’s a fireplace with a stone mantel, and a bunch of important-looking awards and plaques on it. I can see from across the room that most of them are Ben’s. I look back over at him, and he’s glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, like I’m doing something wrong.

  “Dom, do you mind taking your shoes off? My mom is weird about getting footprints on the rug. I don’t know if your mom is like that, if she just flips out over the smallest things. But if you could just take them off, it would make her very happy. Socks are fine, but shoes are forbidden.”

  “Sure,” I say, and take them off. I squish my toes into the carpet and get the sense that even my bare feet aren’t clean enough for this place.

  The living room isn’t that big, but judging by the sheer number of doors in it (four), the apartment could be gigantic. A weird feeling creeps up inside me again, a pins-and-needles feeling that I don’t belong here. Ben’s parents are going to walk in any second and they’re going to see right through me, in my borrowed dress and my hand-me-down jacket, and they’re going to wonder what the hell I’m doing with their brilliant son. In real life people like him don’t fall in love with people like me.

  Ben must notice I’m flipping out, because he puts his hand on my back. My breathing slows temporarily, and he leads me down the hallway.

  “So my mom’s a nurse and she’s usually home on Saturdays, but she picked up an extra weekend shift, so she’s probably at the hospital. My dad’s a consultant for a hedge fund. I don’t even know what that really means, to be honest. I mean, I know what a hedge fund is, but what is he consulting? Couldn’t that mean pretty much anything? Why does he have to work every Saturday? When I was a kid, he would take me to auditions sometimes, but now it’s like he’s at the office consulting more than he’s home. This is my brother, Milo’s, room. And this is my dad’s office, where he can come home after consulting and do more consulting. Bathroom’s to your left. What does your dad do?”

  “Huh?”

  “What’s his job?”

  Professional eBay reseller? Couch refurbisher? Vendor of knock off purses? Odd-job guru? No. Instead I say, “He’s a consultant, too.”

  “Oh, yeah? What firm?” he asks.

  Damn it. “Hammersmith.”

  “I’ve never heard of that one.”

  “Oh, well, I’m sure there are millions.” Hammersmith? Where the hell did that come from?

  “So this is my room.” He opens the door and we walk in. “It’s nothing special. Just four slabs of painted drywall and a window, and then four more pieces of wood hammered together to make a bed, and four more to make a dresser, and —”

  I grab his hand and realize it’s trembling just as much as mine is.

  He’s nervous, too.

  “I love it,” I say.

  It’s the perfect room. It’s just like a room in one of those sitcoms where the family has three kids and a golden retriever and all the clothes are folded and put away and every surface is sparkling clean. The carpet is cushy and I wish I could lie down and take a nap on it. I think about the threadbare rug in our living room with the duct tape spot where my mom patched up a hole.

  I sit on the edge of his puffy comforter and he plays me songs on his fancy stereo system. First a couple of jazz songs. Then La Bohème. Then the Kreutzer Sonata, the new piece he’s working on.

  “I know I’m probably supposed to know this, but what is a sonata, exactly?” I ask him.

  “Great question, A Train. It’s a classical piece with one or more instruments. So for Kreutzer, which is one of Beethoven’s most difficult violin sonatas, it’s a violinist with a piano accompanist. There are three movements — uh, sections of the piece — and each one is totally different, and the violin and the piano take turns playing the melody. So first there’s the allegro movement, and the theme of the sonata is being explored for the first time. It’s a little frenetic and intense. Then when things begin to come together in the second movement, everything slows down. You’ll hear the same things repeating again and again in the second movement, because Beethoven does this thing called ‘theme and variations.’ So he’ll have an instrument play a theme, and then play it again a bunch of times with slight differences. And then there’s the finale, presto. Basically, that’s when the shit hits the fan. It’s the fastest, craziest movement. It’s basically like the end of a Fourth of July show when all the fireworks get set off at once.”

  He’s talking a mile a minute and I can barely follow. “So basically, sonatas have a ton of rules,” I say.

  He snaps the music off and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “You know what? This is stressing me out. Let’s listen to some jazz.” He puts on Duke Ellington and we get lost in it together.

  {28}

  Ben

  Before I knew her, there was a cavernous black hole inside me and I couldn’t figure out why. Now, when she’s with me, I’m still. I’m calm. Everything slows down and I can actually think. But my brain isn’t filled w
ith all my usual thoughts — worrying about how much more I need to practice and how much better I need to be. I’m just thinking about how lucky I am to be sitting here with her, listening to music on my bed as the world moves all around us.

  The strangest thing is we didn’t even kiss this time. I’ve kissed her before, so it’s not like it would have been any big deal. But it’s almost like sitting on the bed kissing Dom in total silence would be a waste of her. There’s so much I want to ask her about and so many things I want to show her. I could sit in the dark with my eyes closed and kiss anyone. And don’t get me wrong — I really, really want to with Dom. But with Dominique, you have to be slow and quiet and deliberate. You can’t rush her. I would never want to rush her. Well, I’m so excited to be with her I never stop talking, so I probably end up rushing her, anyway. But there’s something about her pace, like drips of honey, that I want to slow down for.

  Like adagio sostenuto. At ease.

  But now she’s gone. It’s back to reality, back to the empty apartment and back to Kreutzer. Alone, it’s become painful. It’s hardly music anymore, just a jumble of notes that hurt my ears.

  It’s never taken me so long to learn a piece before. Usually I play something a few times in the morning and I’m soaring through it by the afternoon. This one is tough, but it shouldn’t be this tough. It’s like I can’t even trust myself anymore.

  I try to listen one more time, then turn the recording off.

  I need to schedule another rehearsal with Claire. That’s the problem. We’re not practicing together enough. That has to be it. I can’t play a duet alone. I text her and wait for her to respond.

  Robertson has to lose his mind when he hears us perform this, just like he did at Carnegie Hall. I’ve done it before. I can do it again. I just have to get it right.

  I pull my violin out of its case and hold it under my chin as I grab my bow. There’s one part of the third movement that’s still not clicking, so I climb back in and hide there for the rest of the night. Trying to play the ache. Or is this piece causing the ache? I can’t even tell anymore.

  * *

  “Ben, the kitchen’s a mess. Could you come clean this up please?”

  Mom in the doorway.

  “Five minutes.”

  When I get to the end of the movement, I put down my violin. I come out and throw away Dom’s granola-bar wrapper. I walk into the living room, and Mom is removing her coat and hanging it on the rack. She sighs, takes her hair down and combs through it with her fingers. I always forget how young she looks with her hair down. Like she could be in college.

  “Did you have someone over?” she asks.

  “Why?”

  “The guest towels are all bunched up. You and Milo don’t usually touch those.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Who?”

  “Just a friend from school.”

  I’m not sure why I don’t tell my mom about Dominique. I guess I just want to keep her to myself. I know this is not something that can last forever — eventually Dom will have to meet my family — but not today. Today I want her to be mine.

  “When you have friends over, make sure they use the towels on the bar by the sink.”

  “But aren’t the guest towels for … guests?”

  “Not those kinds of guests. Thanksgiving guests. Passover guests.”

  “I don’t understand the point of having something called a ‘guest towel’ if the guest can’t even use them when she comes over. You can just throw them in the washing machine and clean them, can’t you?”

  “She?”

  “Yeah.”

  She smirks and flops on the couch. “The first girl you’ve had over since Juliette.”

  I hate talking about this stuff with Mom. I change the subject. “How was your shift?”

  She looks up at me with this strange expression, like she hasn’t really heard me.

  “What’s wrong?” I say.

  “You haven’t asked me that in months.”

  “I haven’t? That’s not true. Every night you come home and you come into my room and I ask you how your day was. Don’t I?”

  “You don’t.”

  “I’m sorry. I guess I’ve just been busy.”

  “It’s okay, honey. I know you have a lot on your mind.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yaz called yesterday to see how you were doing. Did you two have an argument?”

  “Sort of.”

  “But you’re feeling okay?”

  “Yeah, I just lost my temper. I’ve never worked on a piece this hard before, and I guess I got frustrated. I’m fine.”

  “Do you want a bagel?”

  “I’m okay.”

  We sit there for a minute, saying nothing. There’s nothing to say.

  {29}

  Dominique

  It’s a nice night on Sunday, so I meet Cass on his stoop after helping Mom through most of the weekend laundry. He thinks we’re just going to play the celebrity game and relax, but I can’t. I need his advice.

  “I can’t do this,” I say as I bound up the steps and sit down next to him.

  “Can’t do what?”

  “I have to tell Ben the truth.”

  “What do you mean? It’s been going great so far. He hasn’t found out yet, right?”

  “No, but he went on this whole thing after the opera about how important honesty is to him, and it’s just making me feel terrible. I can’t lie to him for one more second. I can’t do it.”

  “Okay, I know you’re feeling guilty, but I want you to really think this through. What if he gets upset? What if he never looks at you the same way again?”

  My heart drops. It might mean that. There’s a really, really good chance it might.

  I have to be brave. I have to let myself be vulnerable.

  “I need him to know. Even if it means losing him.”

  Cass shakes his head. “But this isn’t supposed to happen until the end of the movie.”

  * *

  After Mom closes up, she texts me and asks me to meet her at Adelia’s Drugstore so we can pick up toilet paper and shampoo. The drugstore is an independently owned shop, and there really is an Adelia. She’s in her eighties and too old to really work shifts now, but tonight, like most nights, she’s sitting out front in her old white folding chair, doing a crossword puzzle. She waves to us and blows us a kiss as we walk in, and Mom and I wave back. Now her son, Carlos, and daughter, Paula, run the drugstore, and her grandkids work part-time after school, like I do. So many families came to Trenton with dreams of opening their own stores. So even though shopping here is a little bit more expensive than going down the street to the CVS Pharmacy, we try to support local businesses if we can. And they do the same for us. I just wish it were enough.

  Mom puts a bottle of conditioner in her basket, adding up prices in her head, then roots through her purse for coupon combinations. She’s been up since five. I don’t know how she’s even still standing. She’s been working so hard, tirelessly, endlessly, for years, and makes only just enough to stay exactly where she is. Meanwhile Ben’s parents can live in a huge, luxurious apartment with pristine white carpets and cushy couches and bookshelves. There’s no way they work harder than my mom. So why isn’t my mom the one who’s rich? Isn’t that the way things are supposed to be? If not, what’s the point of working hard in the first place? I remember the $20 I took and get an awful feeling in my stomach. What kind of person steals from her own family business? Just for some stupid guy.

  “Dom. Wake up.” My mom is snapping her fingers in front of my nose.

  “Huh?”

  “I asked, ‘Do you want lavender, vanilla or citrus?’ ”

  “Surprise me,” I say.

  She throws a bottle of citrus-scented shampoo into the cart and we keep rolling
down the aisle, fluorescent lights humming and flickering overhead.

  I need to find a way to make the money back.

  {30}

  Ben

  Auditions for the Sonata Showcase are in two weeks and — surprise — Claire is avoiding me. I tried texting her again last night and she didn’t respond. So I sent her an e-mail. Then another e-mail an hour later. Then I walked over to her building on West Sixty-Third Street and left a message with her doorman. Then I hung around outside for half an hour until the doorman came out and asked me if I needed help. I told him no, not unless he could help me get in touch with Claire. He told me he’d let me know as soon as she came home, then asked me to please stop standing in front of the building.

  I spit on the sidewalk and walked away.

  But I don’t go home, because I can’t sit still. It’s like an itch that runs wild, covered in wool, and I can’t predict when and why it happens. Dominique helps. But when she’s not here, it claws the walls. It multiplies. It’s itch on top of itch until I can’t eat or sleep or breathe, and the only thing I can do is think about how I need to make it stop.

  Stop.

  If Claire isn’t serious about our duet, we might as well not audition in the first place. I just wish she had the guts to tell me, instead of avoiding me like some coward. I’ve already devoted hundreds and hundreds of hours to this — I’m consumed, I can’t even see straight. And she doesn’t have one minute to text me back?

  I’m ten blocks from Lincoln Center when the phone stops ringing. There’s a click on the other line and then Claire’s voice. I’m startled. Now that she’s picked up I don’t know what to say.

  “What do you want, Ben?”

  “We need to practice.”

  “I can’t tonight.”

  “When can you?”

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I have other classes? Other responsibilities? Other things going on besides you?”

  “I have other things going on, too, but I’m willing to sacrifice my time because this is important to me.”