When the woman smiled over his shoulder at her, Armando turned to introduce her. “These people are from Seattle. Rick and Susie Gardner. Callie Quinn.”
She nodded and tried to smile back. He would not invite the Gardners to join them, would he?
He pointed to the Yorkshire terrier asleep on Susie’s lap. “Skippy took off a moment ago when a boy passed beating a drum.” Armando moved his index fingers to show how quickly the dog’s little legs moved.
“And look at him now.” Susie looked down at the sleeping dog. Then she smiled at Armando. “Your Tavelé will come back, too.”
A waiter approached with the couple’s meal.
“Buen provecho,” Armando said and turned his chair back.
She let out the breath she had been holding.
He rose to pull out her chair and then gestured to her glass. “Your mineral water, Madam.” He returned to his chair and raised his margarita. “Salud.”
She clinked her glass against his.
“What a pretty shawl, Chou,” he said, “but not as pretty as the purple one I gave you.”
She had draped his present over her shoulders before leaving home. But she had felt conspicuous. The color was magnificent. Too much so.
“What were you doing at confession, by the way?”
She felt her face turning red. Would Armando notice? She took a sip of water.
“I thought you were agnostic. Is everything okay? Your mother?”
“Mother? She wasn’t home when I called. But I’m sure she’s fine. Maybe my aunt got her to go out to dinner.”
“So you’re okay. Everything hunky-dory?”
She laughed. “‘Hunky-dory.’ Did you pick that up from Aunt Ida? Or from that bass player you told me about?”
“Neither. A TV rerun. Anyway, you are okay. Right?”
“Right. I just ducked into the church because some Jehovah’s Witnesses came between me and the library.” She drew her shawl closer.
“So you fled to Catholicism?” He lifted his margarita to her. “Welcome.”
She looked around the table. “Do we have menus?”
“I ordered your usual. I’m having chicken mole. It’s perfect here. Perfecto. Parfait.”
His mentioning confession had distracted her. What had she wanted to tell him? Oh, yes, about the trumpet teacher and Tavelé. “Remember the callejón with the geese?”
A new, young waiter approached holding a large tray at shoulder height. As he passed, a basket of chips slid toward the rim. Armando ducked and the youth righted the tray.
Armando gave him a reassuring look, then turned back to Callie. “Did they get out again?”
“What?”
“The geese. Were they menacing you?”
“No, not that.” She paused while a waiter moved her bread plate to one side to make room for her soup. He laid a soup spoon by the bowl. Then he served Armando’s chicken with mole sauce and replaced Armando’s empty margarita goblet with a full one. “They’re gone and the family, too.”
“Good, Chou, now you can pass by there safely.” He lifted a forkful of chicken dripping in savory sauce. “Provecho.” He paused, stared over Callie’s left shoulder, and then whispered, “Don’t look.”
She had not gotten to the best part. About the lovely trumpet teacher. It was silly, she knew, her idea of getting to know her. But still Armando would want to know her. “There’s more …” She started to turn.
“I said, ‘Don’t look.’”
“Don’t look at what?”
He leaned forward again and lifted his head in the direction past her shoulder. “At her.”
Callie’s shoulders felt tight from the effort not to turn. “Her? Who?”
“The one who’s been causing all the trouble. That busybody. Metiche. Fouineuse.” He put the forkful of chicken in his mouth and chewed with conviction.
“Trouble?” She tried a spoonful of the soup. Lukewarm. Should she send it back?
He rolled a corn tortilla and dabbed it in his beans. “Remember I told you I wanted to talk with you about a personnel problem?”
She nodded and then glanced at the waiter who had just passed by.
“You need something?” Armando said. “Allow me.” He turned to signal the waiter.
“No. No. It’s nothing.” She put her spoon down. “What problem?”
He turned back toward her. “At the orchestra. Pamela Fischer, the new trumpeter, is causing trouble there, but never mind about that now. It also looks like she’s got Tavelé. The bakery lady told me he followed her to Pamela’s house, and that’s the last she saw of him.”
A new colleague keeping Tavelé? Surely not. She turned her head slightly to catch a glimpse of the person.
He clicked his glass with his fork and whispered with emphasis, “Pamela will see you.”
She turned back. “So?”
He put his palms on the table and leaned toward her. “She can’t, or my plan won’t work.”
Oh, no. She had only recently gotten him to stop asking her to call Paris morgues whenever he couldn’t reach Claude. And now he had come up with another crazy scheme. She moved her chair back. “The answer is no.”
He laughed and switched to French. “Je ne t’ai même pas dit ce que je veux.”
“Agreed. You haven’t told me what you want.” She smoothed the napkin on her lap and smiled. “But, no, anyway.” She jumped. Something was tickling her ankle. “What’s that?” She looked down. The Yorkie. She laughed, gave him a pat, and then turned back to Armando.
“Like I said, good thing you bought the trumpet.”
“You called it ‘a piece of junk.’ And you were right.” She felt her chest tighten. He wasn’t right. Still, there was no point. She would never play it. Not even try. “I’m going to give it away.”
“Good idea, but not yet. First, you’re going to take a lesson. That would be perfect.”
She wanted to say, “That would not be perfect, it would be absurd,” but a drop of soup caught in her windpipe.
He handed her a glass of water and paused until she stopped coughing. “Don’t worry, Chou. You’ll just take one lesson. Then I’ll find a home for the trumpet.” His lips continued moving, but she could not hear him. Mariachis had surrounded the tourists’ table, with the trumpets aimed in her direction.
She palmed her ears as discreetly as possible.
He took a little plastic bottle out of his pocket and showed her the label. FAST: Valve, Slide, and Key Oil. He mimicked squeezing drops of oil.
She caught Armando saying “oil for your trumpet” at a pause in the music. But the mariachis soon started up again. This time they played “El Niño Perdido” (“The Lost Child”). She lowered her hands from her ears to take in the melancholy duet and then turned toward the plaza. Where was the second trumpet? The one off somewhere, usually behind the trees, calling out like a child seeking a way home.
She had heard the song many times, but had never heard a trumpet’s call choke with sobs. She moved from side to side to look through the trees.
He tapped her on the shoulder. “It’s her. Pamela.”
The trumpeter? Pamela? A lonely phrase drifted through the trees, evoking the image of a small, frightened child. She shifted again and glimpsed a flash of silver.
He tried to get her to face him, but she remained mesmerized by the trumpet. It evoked such longing that she rose to her feet and stood in silence until the song came to an end.
Callie leaned forward, fully expecting to see a frightened child emerge from behind the tree. But no. It was she. The woman with the downy curls. The lovely trumpet teacher.
Dressed in black tights and an emerald tunic, Pamela walked across the plaza with the grace of Judith Jamison. She paused by a mariachi seated under the tree canopy. When he tipped his hat to her, she bowed until her head touched her knees. She hung there a moment, then stood, removed the mouthpiece, and handed the trumpet to him. On returning to her table, she lifted a leather should
er bag from her chair and tucked the mouthpiece in an outside pocket.
Callie stood transfixed. How could someone with her poise portray such vulnerability? Then she found herself taking a step toward Pamela, who was lifting her glass in response to a toast.
She took another step and then froze. What would she say?
A table to her right paid their check and began pushing back their chairs, the women collecting their purses, and the men leaning to rub out cigars.
She held her breath. Only a few more steps to go.
The young waiter passed by with a tray of margaritas.
She could toast Pamela. Nothing to it, really. Armando toasted musicians all the time. Aunt Ida was right. She should take a page from his book.
She drew her shoulders back, pulled in her stomach, and whisked past the waiter, scooping a margarita from the tray. Open your throat, she told herself. One word. That’s all you need to say. One word. Felicidades. You can say that. Felicidades.
Behind her, a tray of dishes crashed to the floor, and Skippy, who had been following along, shot between her feet. She lurched to avoid him, but could not contain the margarita, which swished out of the goblet and splashed against Pamela’s back.
She heard herself call, “Felicidades!” and then she froze. What had she done?
Pamela turned in surprise and then glared—not at Callie— but at Armando, who sighed in disgust and clamped his mouth shut.
“Oh, no …” Callie said, “I mean … I’m sorry. Skippy. I should have been more careful … The new waiter … I should have known …”
Pamela’s hand went to her wet shoulder.
“Oh, that must be sticky. Let me help.” She took off her shawl and started to offer it to Pamela, but her hands were shaking so much she dropped it. She looked down at the shawl. She must get a hold of herself or she would be lying there, too. Pick it up, she told herself. Fold it end to end, and then again. She squatted by the shawl and began to fold. Carefully. Perfectly. Still, it wasn’t working. Her heart was beating so fast and hard she felt dizzy. She looked around desperately.
Then she noticed the bulge of the mouthpiece in the pocket of Pamela’s shoulder bag. She pursed her lips. Breathe. Hadn’t her father said that was the trick? She looked up and saw Pamela smiling at her. It came to her again that she looked familiar, though still not like anyone she knew. Armando’s arm tightened around her and pulled her to her feet. She glanced at his solemn face and then back to Pamela’s eyes, which twinkled with a mixture of curiosity and delight. She began to smooth the folded shawl over Pamela’s shoulder. Pamela, still smiling, reached up to help and patted her hand. It felt warm and reassuring. Still, she was surprised to hear herself say, “I understand you give trumpet lessons.”
Nine
ARMANDO GUIDED CALLIE OUT OF THE RESTAURANT, handing the maître d’ a handful of bills on the way, and then led her through the packed central plaza. He took her elbow when the crowd thinned at the narrow end of the plaza and escorted her to the quieter Plaza Baratillo, where he found a free bench facing the central fountain. “You’re trembling,” he said, and draped his jacket around her shoulders. After she sat down, he flopped down beside her and hunched over, looking down. “Why did you do that, Calecita? Why?”
She pulled his coat closer and then sat up straight with her hands on her knees, one on top of the other. Asking for a lesson and agreeing then and there on Thursday—only three days away. She shuddered. “I … I am not sure …” There was something about Pamela, the poignancy of her playing, the way she had metamorphosed from the lost child, the warmth of her hand, the familiarity she could not put her finger on. Was that it? Had curiosity overcome her shyness? Her voice had not even wavered when she asked about the lesson. But still it didn’t make any sense. Asking for a trumpet lesson, of all things, and especially from someone she didn’t know. And feeling so calm at that moment, though now she was shivering, as if she had been the one doused with a cold drink.
He turned to her. “Once she saw you with me, there was no point in asking for a lesson. She wasn’t to know you knew me. Remember?”
Her hands felt clammy. He was right. He had said that. But she hadn’t agreed, had she? Not that she would have gone up to the young woman at all, if she had been in her right mind. And then why hadn’t she just stopped with the toast? Or at least thought of another way to see the young woman again— which would not be difficult, in any case, given that they lived within blocks of one another.
He turned and looked at her. “Callie, are you listening?” He adjusted the jacket on her shoulders.
“It’s hard to explain.” Not wanting to get to know such a woman. Who wouldn’t want to? Still, it was crazy, wasn’t it, asking for a lesson?
“I had anticipated your protests. Your garden, your translations, your calls to your mother and Aunt Ida, your obsessive cleaning. You pack your schedule so tight I can barely get you out for a walk, and here you are planning a lesson on an instrument you don’t even like. Don’t deny it. I see you covering your ears when the trumpets start up. You might enjoy strumming a harp, but blasting a trumpet? Never. You have to breathe to play the trumpet, Callie. Breathe. And, besides, you don’t know Pamela from Adam. That’s what really gets me. How could you go up to a perfect stranger like that? And her of all people.” He shook a finger at her. “Well, you’ll find out what that metiche’s like soon enough. Trouble.” He leaned forward and put his head in his hands.
“I saw her the other day. With some girls. With trumpets. I thought you would like her.”
“You would have known better, if you had been to the symphony recently.”
“You know I’ve had deadlines …”
“I can’t even remember when you were there last. Anyway, if you had seen what a spectacle she makes of herself, you would understand. That engraved silver trumpet she’s so proud of. That hair glowing like the burning bush. No wonder Maestro Chávez gets distracted.”
He went on, but her mind was elsewhere. She could remember the last time she had been to the symphony. Not the date or the program. It was the newborn that stayed with her.
She had waited outside, as usual, until the lights dimmed, and then she went to the section generally occupied by her neighbors, the Ramirez family. She took the seat by Paulita, the oldest of the three younger daughters, sitting side by side in full-skirted white dresses. Paulita held her tiny nephew bundled in a blue blanket. The young mother, sitting behind them with the older siblings, leaned forward from time to time to peek under the flap over the baby’s face and then put her finger to her lips to quiet her whispering sisters.
Callie had not held a baby since releasing her own years before, but she did not need to hold her neighbor’s baby to feel his weight against her arms or to breathe in his milky fragrance. She recalled her newborn lying asleep on her breastbone, then worming her way across her chest to rest her head on her breast, as she lay in drowsy wakefulness. She pictured her baby’s face forming one emotion after another, eyebrows crinkled together, a flaccid jaw, a curled upper lip, a smile, pursed lips, raised eyebrows, lips turned under as if to begin a wail, a pout, another smile, all in one effortless flow. On the last morning, when her baby was taken from her arms, a questioning look had crossed her face. Had she sensed she was being taken away for good? Had she wondered, why?
“Callie, are you listening?”
What had he been talking about? The maestro getting lost. Well, he had been getting lost for a long time.
“Brash. Culturally insensitive. Arrogant. That’s her.”
“Pamela?” She did seem confident. But arrogant?
“She’s only been here a month. She can barely speak a word of Spanish, and she’s collaring musicians, saying it’s time for the maestro to retire.”
Oh, so that’s what this was all about. Maestro Chávez. The maestro and his wife had met Armando when he came with the orphanage choir to sing with the symphony. They took him in when he attended the university music
school. Then they sent him to Paris for additional study in tympani and composition. When the maestro’s wife died, leaving the maestro alone and depressed, Armando had come back to stay.
“Was that the personnel problem you wanted to talk about? The maestro?”
“Not the maestro. Her. Pamela.” He jumped up to intercept an errant soccer ball flying toward Callie’s head. He kicked it in a high arc back to the boys playing across the plaza. Then he stood, looking down at her. “Look. Forget the lesson. She won’t let you near Tavelé now that she knows you’re my friend. And, besides, look at you. You’re a wreck. But don’t worry.” He tapped out a drum roll with his fingers. “Aux grands maux, les grands remèdes. I’ll take the police to her house. She’ll have to give Tavelé to them, and, besides, once I have proof she stole Tavelé, I can get her fired, and with no job, she’ll lose her visa. She’ll have to go then.”
Callie was too flustered at Armando’s hysteria to think up an appropriate husband. The only one that came to her was the timid one who had dropped his car key and, finding himself on his knees in front of her, had blurted out his proposal, and then, apparently in shock, keeled over from a massive heart attack. She felt a little lightheaded herself. She had to calm down. She pictured herself putting her spices in alphabetical order. Allspice. Basil. She was crazy to have asked for a lesson. Cardamom. She wasn’t just shaking, she was hyperventilating. Dill. But Armando was right about one thing: desperate situations called for desperate measures. E … Did she have a spice that started with E? Ah, epazote. She used it when cooking beans. Better to take a lesson than see Pamela arrested. If she did have Tavelé, she would give him to her. She was sure of that. But she couldn’t contradict Armando when he was in a mood. Fenugreek. Greeks. The gods. Zeus. Hera, Aphrodite. Oh, the Virgin. “Why don’t you talk it over with the Virgin? Then decide.” She stood up. “I can walk home alone.”
He began to protest, but then stopped to listen to a trumpet coming from the jazz club on the other side of the plaza.
The Trumpet Lesson Page 5