The Trumpet Lesson

by Dianne Romain

  The week after she had returned to Chicago from her father’s funeral, she received a letter from her mother saying, “I would like you to come home for Christmas this year. I can buy your ticket.” She had worried that her mother thought she would not otherwise go home. But with her father’s death, she no longer had a reason to stay away. And, besides, she knew Christmas that year would be painful for her mother. She had chastised herself on reading the letter. She should have been the first to bring up going home. She called her mother immediately and said of course she would come, and she would be happy to buy her own ticket. And so she did, arriving on Christmas Eve and attending service with her mother on Christmas morning, choking up during the first hymn, recalling her father’s warm baritone.

  Still, when her mother had tried to give her his trumpet— “He would have wanted you to have it, Dear”—she would not take it. “You must be kidding,” she had said, recalling how her father had tried to distract her from French, and then softened at the hurt look in her mother’s eyes. “I would like the photo of Dad on the basketball court.”

  She swiped the dust cloth across the framed photo on her bureau. There he was at eighteen, his curly red hair, freckled nose, and stocky frame. He was short for a basketball player, but agile and effective. “The Glove,” they had called him.

  She looked at her watch. Where had the time gone? She must get the muffins made.

  She ran upstairs to light the oven. Nothing happened. Had she run out of gas? She went outside to switch to the second tank. But she still could not get the stove to light. Had there been a leak? She hadn’t smelled it. She must have forgotten to have it refilled when it ran empty. Strange.

  She poked her head out the door. There was no one on the callejón. It was, after all, only 8:30 a.m. and a Saturday, but the gas man came by every morning and should be there soon. She went back to the kitchen to get everything ready, each ingredient in its separate bowl.

  When “gas … gas butano” drifted up from the callejón below, she went to the door and yelled gas herself until the man arrived to change the tank.

  A couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses looked at her hopefully when she let him out.

  The doorbell rang repeatedly while she stirred the muffins. Must be them again. She frowned and stood her ground. Surely she had a right to her privacy on a Saturday morning. She imagined herself explaining that to them. Then she caught herself over-stirring the muffins—thanks to those meddling Witnesses. Her muffins would not rise as high as she liked. Oh, well. She shrugged, put the pan in the oven, and then went downstairs to finish the armoire.

  When she opened the armoire, Jacob came to mind again. She recalled seeing him for the first time at one of the schools in African-American neighborhoods where she went to watch the children. Various men, when looking about the auditorium, had lingered a moment over her, in spite of her being in the back, her hair covered with a black scarf. But none of them drew her attention until she noticed the tall, lanky man whose looks and comfortable air of confidence reminded her of Noah.

  He seemed to be working the crowd, going up to everyone there. “Jacob,” he said, when introducing himself to her, “but everyone calls me Jake.” Everyone but her. She called him Jacob. He said she sounded like a schoolmarm, but he seemed to like that about her. She sensed that she could be her shy, reticent self with him. He didn’t take it personally as some had, including her own father, who should have known better, calling her “standoffish” or “stuck-up.”

  “I’ve got a nephew in this performance.” He had no children of his own, he had told her, and then added, “Yet.” He was, he said, “waiting for the right broad-hipped woman.” He had looked at her, as if she might be the one. Impertinent, she thought.

  “Are you, like me, a family member?” He laughed. “Not that you look like one.”

  So, she told Jacob of her tutoring, not the full story, of course, and he accepted it without question. Though he had been surprised to learn she lived so far away when he offered her a ride. “Oh, don’t worry,” she had said, “I can take the L.”

  From then on, he often sat next to her at events, but in spite of that passing glance at her hips, he didn’t ask her out. For that she was relieved, she thought. Though she was curious. Was he gay? Or did he have a deranged wife in his attic?

  She really didn’t care. It was easy to be around him, as there was always something else to focus on, which he did well, passing along scuttlebutt about the new cheerleader uniforms or the real reason the understudy was taking over for the lead in the school play. He had a low, warm laugh she liked, and though it was Noah she thought of when Jacob first ambled toward her, she gradually found herself drawn to him for himself.

  She was comfortable, too, because, when the play or game or concert came to an end, he politely took his leave to mingle with the crowd, allowing her to slip out on her own.

  It turned out he, too, attended school events with an agenda, one he shared readily enough with her. He was a social worker doing community building, and he sought connections with parents through their children. And so, she learned, he went to events even when he had no nephew or niece involved, as she occasionally went to one when no student had invited her, and more so as her comfort with him grew. Eventually she was attending events all weekend long at one school or another, and, often as not, he would show up, too, and make his way through the crowd, nodding and shaking hands until he was by her side.

  One night he got it out of her that she, like he, had no reason to be at that particular event other than to be together. Only then did he invite her out. “How about sitting beside each other somewhere else, a place for adults?” he asked, and when he described the jazz club he had in mind, she liked the idea. It would be dark, and they could sit in a corner. She wouldn’t be expected to talk to anyone but him. “I don’t drink,” she had said. But neither, it turned out, did he, and so it seemed easy enough for her to say okay. And that’s how she had slipped down the slope into his arms.

  THE timer rang the moment she finished the armoire. When the muffins were out of the oven and cooling, she changed from her sweats into one of her “uniforms.” Then she packed her other backpack for working in the library. At the terrace door, she lifted her hand to open the lock and then remembered the silk scarf Armando had brought her from Paris. Just like the ones Claude’s aunts wore to cover their hair when dusting, he had said. Too lovely for dusting, she thought, but just right for sun protection. She went back downstairs, found the scarf, and tied it around her throat. She caught a glimpse of herself in a window on the way down the callejón. The scarf was lovely. Too bad Armando wasn’t there to see it.

  Fifteen

  CALLIE HAD BEEN SO EXCITED THE NIGHT BEFORE that she couldn’t go to sleep, and then she had overslept that morning and so had not been able to dust the beams as planned. Nor did she have time to breathe. She had showered, dressed, added the muffins to the backpack, and was halfway up the callejón to the Panorámica, where she would meet Pamela, before she remembered the leash. Armando had called the night before to remind her to take it along. Then he went on for some time complaining about Pamela insisting on seeing Callie on Sunday, which was his day with her, as Pamela had weaseled out of him before he had known better than to tell her anything.

  Callie had wanted to respond that Pamela could hardly be faulted for selecting “their day” for a walk while he was not in town. And she had hoped to tell him about her insight that Pamela reminded the maestro of his wife in her youth. But she didn’t have a chance to do either. When Armando finished his rant, he said he had to get back into the club—Claude was waiting—and hung up before she could say anything.

  SHE paused on the callejón and looked at her watch. There was time to go back for the leash, though she would have to move more quickly than she liked.

  When she opened her door after retrieving the leash, Juanito was standing there. “I rang your bell yesterday, and you didn’t answer.”

&nb
sp; “Sorry, Juanito, I thought you were … ah … well, I was busy.”

  “Look what I have for you.”

  A letter from her mother, delivered to his grandmother’s by mistake. Not the first time. She should have guessed.

  “Just a minute,” she said, as Juanito was turning away to leave. She would walk up the hill with him. She went back in to lay the letter on the dining table. When she turned to leave again, the jaguar by the door looked at her with reproach.

  She went to the kitchen and wrapped up some muffins for Juanito, his younger sister, and his grandmother, Doña Petra.

  After Juanito bid her “Que te vaya bien” at his doorway, she noticed a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses gaining entry to a house further up the hill. Better them than me, she thought. Then it came to her that she hadn’t reviewed her answers to personal questions that might come up with Pamela.

  When Armando had asked her about men in her life, she had distracted him with the potential husbands, all of whom, for one reason or another, died before the wedding. He had loved her stories and started making up ones of his own. His husbands, however, never died. They were always still out there somewhere, hoping. Several of them, wearing scarfs and berets, in Paris.

  They had enjoyed playing that little game together, when walking along looking for Tavelé. But then there had been that time when he named one of them “Noah.” She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Diverting the question with fictional husbands wouldn’t be the way to go with Pamela, in any case. If the topic came up, she would give her standard reply. She liked living on her own.

  And if Pamela asked about children? Well, she had had plenty of practice with that question, since every child in the barrio and almost every other Mexican, including taxi drivers, asked first thing, “Do you have children?” That was something she could not joke about. She had told them the truth. She would love to have a child. “It’s not too late,” a taxi driver once said to her. “I hope not,” she had dared reply.

  She looked at her watch and realized she needed to hurry up. She did not want to be late. Nor did she want to trip herself up this time.

  She trudged up a few more stairs. The backpack did not make it any easier, not that she had stuffed it full. No trumpet bumping against her back. Just the picnic items. And the leash. Would it help if she stuck her tongue out and panted like a dog?

  And to think that just yesterday under the tree her breath was slow and relaxed. If she practiced regularly would she breathe that way wherever she was? It could pay off with deadlines, since she typically ended up hyperventilating as they drew close. She had almost passed out once.

  A baby’s breath speeds up, too. She had watched her baby’s chest rise and fall, slowly and then more quickly. Had listened to the little sounds she made. Had noticed, cradling her in her arms, how time disappeared. And then the nurse came, and the social worker. And the baby was gone.

  Now her baby was a grown woman with children of her own. A grown woman who knew nothing about her. She stopped. A grown woman who had made no effort to find her. A grown woman who didn’t want to know her. Isn’t that what she would learn from Pamela? That Gwendolyn had no desire to know the woman who let her be taken away.

  She felt her heart racing. What had come over her, agreeing to take a walk? A lesson was one thing. Conversation focused on the techniques of breathing and, eventually, she assumed, the details of playing the mouthpiece and trumpet. That was fine. But this. This meandering across the hills. That was another. Anything could come up. And it was not what Armando had in mind when he asked her to see Pamela again. She was to go to Pamela’s house. Not to the mountains. Tavelé never ran off there. She really should stay home. She had those beams to dust.

  She continued up the hill. She would explain it all to Pamela. She would understand.

  SHE startled when she saw the Mustang convertible. Pamela had said, “I’ll be in a red car.” Then she added, “Don’t worry. You can’t miss me.”

  She did not know much about car makes, unlike Armando, who knew all of them, though he did not drive. But she knew a Mustang when she saw one. There had been a couple in her high school, the tight end on the football team and the head cheerleader. His father had given him a red Mustang when he graduated. They died in it.

  Pamela got out of the car when she saw her, and called, as she walked toward her. “Ready?”

  She hesitated. No. She had no business going off into the hills and certainly not in a convertible. She would not be asking Pamela any questions about her friends. That’s for sure.

  Pamela came closer. “Are you all right? You look pale.”

  She paused. She should be at home. The beams. A new translation. She had some more lists to make, too. And there was Tavelé to look for. “Well, I am feeling a little … off.” Her head ached, didn’t it? Was it a migraine coming on? She had never had one, but there was always a first time.

  “Here, let me help you.” Pamela reached for her backpack. “A walk in the country is just what you need.”

  A walk where anything could come up? She didn’t think so. She stepped away from Pamela’s reach. She really should get home. So why didn’t she just say so? Nothing was stopping her. Pamela had even given her an opening, saying she looked pale. But Pamela looked so hopeful. How could she let her down? She took in the lines of the car. Imagined them crumpled.

  Pamela noticed her gaze and walked back toward the Mustang. She patted the hood. “I bet you don’t see many of these babies around here.”

  “No. Not around here.” But she had seen them plenty of times. Never without thinking of the young couple who had died.

  “Well, come on. We can put your backpack here.”

  She approached the car following Pamela’s gesture. There in the back seat was a leash. A leash? Had Armando been right after all? She sighed and slipped out of the backpack straps.

  Pamela took it from her and tossed it in the back seat. “Nothing breakable I hope.” She shut Callie’s door behind her and then got in herself. “Tighten up your seat belt.”

  She leaned back in her seat, resigning herself to death.

  Sixteen

  I’M GLAD YOU COULD COME TODAY,” PAMELA said. “I’ve had some company, but I haven’t made any friends here. Oh, I played a few times with some of the mariachi guys. But I don’t know enough Spanish to strike up a conversation with them.” She stopped and signaled for a woman holding the hand of one child while carrying another to cross the road. Then she drove on. “I thought Armando and I would become friends. He plays in a Latin band—he’s good, you know, and he invited me to jam a couple of times. But when I asked him about gay clubs in town, he gave me the cold shoulder, and it’s only gotten worse since. What is it with him, anyway?”

  Had Pamela suspected Armando was gay? “Well …”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I don’t expect you to explain for him. Anyway, I’ve wanted to get to know you even before you tossed that margarita down my back.”

  She felt her face begin to glow again.

  Pamela laughed, but then, noticing Callie’s discomfort, she reached over and put a hand on her arm. “Oh, don’t feel bad. I was feeling sorry for myself that night, and the splash brought me out of it. That, and you, looking so distraught.” She put her hand back on the steering wheel. “Anyway, before Armando stopped talking to me, he mentioned this friend of his who taught him French grammar and who was also a wiz at Spanish. That’s you, right?”

  “A wiz. Well, I am not sure.”

  “Well, he insisted you were. But tell me, did you really have twenty-six husbands? I’ve been dying to ask you, but I didn’t want to ask at your lesson. I hope it’s not too personal.”

  Too personal. The husbands. No. Though she was surprised Armando had mentioned them. “Well, no.” She smiled. “I’ve never been married.”

  “Well, I am married. Not in the eyes of the law, mind you. But in the eyes of those who matter. And happily.”

  If only Armando c
ould come to see himself that way. Happily married to Claude. But how could he, when he wouldn’t even tell anyone in Guanajuato other than Callie of his love?

  “She would be here now, but she’s at an artist’s retreat, making a new dance. She’s talented, as well as beautiful. But then you’ve already seen that for yourself.”

  “I have?”

  “My photo gallery. Didn’t you notice her?”

  “In the kimono.”

  “Yes, Ami Mai. I won’t get to see her when I am in the States, alas, but I will see an old friend from high school.”

  She took in a breath. What if it were Gwendolyn? Those images that kept coming to her of Pamela and Gwendolyn as friends. Could they be true?

  Pamela turned off the panoramic road along the hills above Guanajuato and headed up a gravel road on the edge of a ridge that dropped down to a mountain stream. A battered truck loaded with chunks of bluish-green stone lumbered down the road toward them.

  “We went to school together. Graduated a year apart.” Pamela looked toward her. “She was my best friend.” She laughed. “We would stay up all night on weekends. Shared all our secrets. You know, the way high school girls do.”

  Best friends. Then Gwendolyn would surely come visit. She imagined waiting with Pamela at the airport, seeing her daughter emerge from customs, hearing her voice, shaking her hand. And then she caught her breath. How would she contain herself? What if she blurted out something her daughter did not want to know? She peered over the side of the road to the stream below. A long way down.

  Wouldn’t it be better if Pamela had known Gwendolyn casually? That one day, maybe today, Pamela would mention her in passing. Perhaps some forgotten memory of a girl from her high school. She hadn’t known her long. They had only overlapped a year. But she suddenly found herself thinking of her. Maybe something about her, herself, reminded Pamela of that classmate. Like the way she paused before she spoke. Now, what was her name? Pamela would say. Oh, she thought it started with a G. Gina. No. Not Gina. And then Callie would give a hint. Gwen? Could it be Gwen? Ah, yes. Pamela would say, “Gwendolyn. Like in The Importance of Being Earnest.” Wouldn’t that be lovely? Gwendolyn, Pamela’s acquaintance. Remembered, because of Callie. Lovely. And safe. She crossed the fingers on both hands and turned toward Pamela.