The Trumpet Lesson

by Dianne Romain

  But then, after Callie told her the “truth” about the trumpet, her mother paused a moment, and then said, “Let’s get these dishes washed.” They stood side by side, like they had each night, her mother washing and she drying and putting away. Callie turned the conversation back to John’s little niece, questioning her mother about her, and her mother answered, but without her earlier enthusiasm.

  When they finished the dishes, her mother dried her hands. “It’s been a long day.” She picked up the phone to carry it into her room. Before she closed the door, she turned back toward Callie and said, “Your aunt said something to me about you taking up the trumpet because of Armando. From what you’ve both said about him, I understand he needs your support. But tricking Pamela. That doesn’t sound like you.”

  She sat on the floor and leaned against the closed door. She thought of what Pamela had said, about defining yourself through your actions. Was it not her, not the way she acted, but how she told the story that made her sound deceptive?

  She could have told the story differently. How she had been drawn to Pamela by her vulnerability and poise when she played “The Lost Child.” How apparently going along with Armando’s crazy idea that she take a lesson to search for Tavelé was just a ruse. That she had gone to the lesson to get to know Pamela. How Pamela had become as dear to her as Armando. How honored she was that Pamela would entrust her with her baby. But with that story, she would come off no better. Then it was not Pamela her omissions misled, but Armando.

  There was another story. About how she had been drawn to Pamela first because of the caramel color of her skin. About how, at her first lesson, when Pamela led her in a breathing exercise, images of Gwendolyn came to her. About how, when she saw the photo of Pamela’s graduation, she realized Pamela and Gwendolyn had gone to the same high school. How she had fantasized that they were friends and that she would one day meet her daughter because of Pamela. She didn’t think she would come off better telling that story. Not that it mattered, if she would. It was a story she couldn’t tell.

  She sat there listening to the sound of her mother’s muffled voice. It went on longer than previous nights and, this time, without laughter.

  Thirty-Nine

  CALLIE OPENED THE DOOR A CRACK. “MOTHER’S sleeping.”

  Armando whispered, “I have to talk with you.”

  Now was not the time. “Oh, Armando, can’t it wait?”

  “No, I have to talk. Now.”

  She tensed. Had he learned Pamela had selected her as her baby’s local grandmother? She pulled the door open and led him up the circular stairway to the roof terrace. On the way up, he started to talk several times until shushed, but once there all he did was look away, his arms dangling by his side.

  She stood beside him looking across her patio and recalled the pile of rubble outside her wall. How Armando had worried that kids would use the rubble to climb in. She should ask him to have someone remove it. But not now. She looked over at him standing there, staring off to the northeast. To Paris?

  He turned to her. “I didn’t tell you everything about Veracruz.”

  Veracruz. So, it wasn’t about her being Pamela’s local granny.

  “About how Claude and I danced in my room. He could move to Latin rhythms okay, but so stiffly that even those perfect wrists of his seemed made of wood. I didn’t care. Honest. And he didn’t either. We laughed. It was the most fun dancing I have ever had. Ever.”

  She pictured them together. Claude’s left hand on Armando’s shoulder. Armando’s right hand on Claude’s back. Their beautiful heads tossed back in laughter.

  “Later, at the bar, I danced with the waiter’s sister. It took me a while to talk Claude into asking her to dance. But he finally did and—you won’t believe this—when he danced with her, he danced as if he had been born in Havana. Afterward, a woman passed by our table and glanced over at him. She said nothing, as she was on the arm of a partner who watched with jealous eyes. But the way she looked at Claude, I knew she wanted to dance with him, too.

  “He didn’t seem to notice her or the other women who watched him dance. But I noticed. It seemed all the women’s eyes were upon him.”

  He paused and placed both palms against the top of the half wall that rimmed the terrace. “It was bad enough imagining him with other men, Callie, but with women. There are so many of them. He only danced with the waiter’s sister, and she’s just a kid, really. Still in high school. But I cannot stop thinking of his hand confident against her back and her skirt, slinky and short, shimmering when her hips moved. I swear, Callie,” he said turning to her. “He danced like a Cuban. You would not have believed it.”

  She did not believe it. Claude had probably been more ill at ease with the girl than with Armando. But she would have been dancing the way she always did, and that’s what Armando noticed: her rhythmic hip movement, the lightness of her steps, the grace of her arms. She had made Claude look like he could dance, the way Armando made any partner look good. He would have made Claude look Cuban, too. But, of course, no one could have told him that. No one would have seen them dancing.

  Armando went on. “After that evening I noticed other women looking at Claude when we took our morning strolls.” He gestured toward his neck. “He always wore a scarf—you know how Parisians are. But they weren’t wondering who would wear such a thing in the heat. It’s lightweight, and, besides, their look wasn’t that kind of look. They looked as if they wanted to rid him of the scarf and his shirt and the rest of his clothes, to lie next to him with those perfect wrists.”

  He paused, and then continued. “Dark glasses hid his eyes.” He smiled. “Gray with golden flecks that you see only if you look close. No one would notice those warm flecks on the street, even without the dark glasses. But I knew they were there, and I knew those beautiful eyes were looking back at the women.”

  He shuddered, and she reached out to touch his arm, but he pulled away. “After breakfast, when we walked along the boardwalk, Claude would tear off chunks of bolillo and throw them in the air for the seagulls. They swarmed above him squawking and flapping their wings. He laughed, but all I could see, looking up at them, were pointy faces of women vying for his attention.”

  She resisted reaching out again.

  “I can’t stop thinking of him. In the middle of a concert, when I hear a cello solo, I imagine Claude there. And I get lost, Callie. I lose the beat.” He slapped the top of the wall.

  “I took down the poster above my bed weeks ago, but when I lie there and look up, I still see him.”

  He looked into her eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like. To see images as if they were real.”

  She wanted to say such images could be comforting. It could have been yesterday when her baby rested in her arms with complete trust. She cherished that image. But if she told Armando that one day he would have his memories, but without the pain, it would not be true. It could have been yesterday, too, when her baby was taken from her arms. So all she could muster was the cliché, “You will meet someone else.” She looked away.

  “Really?” he said, putting his hands to her face to hold her gaze. “Did you?”

  When she said nothing, he dropped his hands and started toward the stairs.

  She wanted to stop him, but what could she say? She followed him to the door. He stood back while she opened it.

  He stepped toward the opening and then turned toward her. “Tell me, Callie, how would you feel if Claude came here, if you saw us walk hand in hand through the Jardín de la Unión? Saw us kiss in the Callejón del Beso. It would make your stomach turn, wouldn’t it? Admit it, Callie. Be honest.”

  She would be honest, but she had to gather herself first. “No,” she said, finally. “My stomach would not turn.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  He deserved her honesty. “But my eyebrows might go up or I might cough.”

  “See. I told you!”

  “But only because I am unfamiliar with m
en kissing in public. Not because I disapprove.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “But what if I did disapprove? What matters is not whether I have eradicated all the roots of homophobia. What matters is, have you?”

  “You really don’t understand, do you? I am Catholic, Callie. A good Catholic.”

  That wasn’t right, what she said. She tried again. “What matters is, can you love regardless? Can you risk your faith for love?”

  “You sound so high and mighty. But you have no idea what I’m dealing with. What I’ve given up to be with Claude. And neither did he.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “The last night in Veracruz, when we came back from dancing, I confronted Claude about the women. How they looked at him … How he looked back … But he only laughed. He laughed, Callie.” He dropped his hands to his sides and bowed his head. “And I hit him. I hit Claude.” He looked up again, his eyes intense and tired. “Hard.”

  “Oh, Armando,” she said as softly as she could and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Don’t worry.” He put his hand on hers. “It’s better this way.” He went through the door and then turned. “Tell Pamela she can have Tavelé.”

  SHE stood watching him walk through the shadows cast by moonlight. He didn’t turn to wave, the way he usually did, before disappearing around the corner below. She closed the door behind her and then went down to the patio. Seeing her reflection as she passed the window of her bedroom, she noticed her shoulders drooping the way Armando’s had when he walked away. She took in a breath and stood straighter. He hadn’t meant that about Pamela having Tavelé. But his saying it showed how he must be feeling about himself. She went to her room for a sweater and then sat at the table under the avocado tree. She unbuttoned the sweater. Bad enough to hurt himself more. She pushed her hands out the sleeves and shook the sweater into place. Wasn’t it enough that he thought he had lost Claude? Or had lost Claude? She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin against her cupped hands. Or had given up on having Claude? Or had given up on himself? That was more like it. She flattened her hands against the table and tapped her fingers. He couldn’t trust himself to treat Claude well. And so, he let him go. It was, wasn’t it, a question of honor?

  But there must be another way. A path she could help him find. If only she could think of a husband story. She leaned back in her chair and looked up at the whispering leaves of the avocado tree. But all she heard was Jacob, Jacob, Jacob. She frowned. There was nothing comforting in that story. And neither had the end come just when they were to be wed. She closed her eyes and put her face into her hands.

  “WHAT happened?” Her aunt had asked. Callie and Jacob’s twenty-four-hour dates each weekend had gone on long enough that her aunt had thought they were for good.

  Callie, too, had thought they were for good. But then one night she realized that was just one more of her fantasies. She chided herself. Years older and yet as naïve as she had been at seventeen, imagining that Noah, smelling of cinnamon and hope, would find his way to her hospital room, and they would raise their baby together. Years older and yet immersed in the fantasy that she and Jacob could go on indefinitely, neither asking more than the other offered.

  There had been, after all, plenty of clues that the end was near. Jacob’s stories of the couples set on marriage. His saying she must have had plenty of beaus and showing surprise that none them had carried her across the threshold. He had even asked at one point, “Had you taken a vow of some sort?” But she had willfully ignored the hints.

  She should have known something was amiss when Jacob called to ask her to meet him at the jazz bar of their first date. It wasn’t Saturday, nor was there a special group he wanted to see. There weren’t any musicians at all that night. Nor were there other patrons when she arrived. Just Jacob at a candle-lit table in the corner.

  He rose to help her with her chair and then called the waiter over. “Champagne,” he said. When she looked at him in surprise, he said, “I’ve thought it over. It’s time for a change.”

  “Well,” she had said, “I suppose a glass won’t hurt.”

  He didn’t say anything else until after the waiter returned with the Champagne, and then when he started in, she felt comfortable enough, sipping her Champagne while he talked.

  “I always put work first, and so I never offered a ring to any of the women I dated. One by one, tired of waiting, they left me, and I started all over again. I was relieved, then, when you appeared to have no interest in marriage.”

  The word “ring” had given her pause, but she had relaxed when he said that about being relieved she wasn’t interested in marriage. She wanted to say how glad she was about that, but before she could get the words out, he went on.

  “I had been relieved until I realized it was time for a change.” He hesitated and then continued, “I hope you are ready for that.”

  That confused her for a moment. Hadn’t she already agreed to a change? Wasn’t she sitting there before him sipping champagne? She held up her near-empty glass, in case he hadn’t noticed.

  He signaled to the waiter for more and then went on. “It’s not just because my family has been pestering me.”

  The waiter filled her glass.

  They had teased him about being a teetotaler, she knew that. But pestering him about Champagne? She held her glass up and looked at the sparkling bubbles. Well, why not. There was something charming about it. She took another sip.

  “I realized that our bond took me out of myself as nothing else did. There is something sacred in that.”

  She put her glass down and stared at him. She wasn’t sure what he was getting at, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t Champagne.

  He took a little box out of his pocket and opened it, showing a gold band.

  The ring shone in the candlelight. Simple. Lovely. And impossible. She could see that clearly enough, in spite of feeling dizzy from the champagne. A change she then realized she should never have agreed to. Why had Jacob offered her champagne? Her face felt flushed. Had he wanted to confuse her?

  He apparently sensed her reluctance, because he went on explaining how she could stay the private person she was. “You can go or not go to social events, as you wish. I’m not planning to run for president, after all.” He laughed at the idea and then became serious. “I want to devote more time to you, to us, to who we are together. And, besides, you are a good cook.” He laughed again.

  But she had not been amused. “You seem to have it all figured out. You like my cooking. But what about me? Why would I marry you?” That sounded harsh. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions. She had to be. “Uh …” She coughed. “I mean …” She looked from the ring to him. “What did you have in mind?”

  Jacob smiled and started to stand up. “Would you prefer I got down on my knees?”

  She put her hands out, palms facing him. “Oh, no. Stay where you are. Please. I get it.”

  Jacob smiled and settled back into his chair. “You give me a quiet space to rest, to dream, to feel myself open up, to want what we have to go on until death do us part.” He took her hands in his. “But I’m good for something besides a weekly bag of groceries.” He winked. “We could have children.”

  Children? Not just one child, but a host of them. She pulled her hands away. What had come over him? He had led her on, Saturday after Saturday, led her to believe she was safe with him. She shivered. He had even said he had been relieved she did not bring up marriage. And then he had turned the tables on her. After first dosing her with Champagne. Well, she would tell him a thing or two, if only she could think of something. She finished her glass and set it down on the table. She looked over and saw that look in his eyes again, the look he had given her the night they met. And the words just popped out. “If it’s children you want, look for some other broad-hipped woman.”

  A gust shook leaves from the avocado tree. She pulled her sweater closer and stood up. She never told her aunt what happened that night
. And she wasn’t about to tell her what she realized once she sobered up, that if anyone had led the other on, it was she. She had loved Jacob fully, but not well. She had not told him why she could not have children. Nor why she could not marry him. She couldn’t explain without breaking her commitment to her daughter’s privacy. And so, when Jacob in disbelief had asked, “What is it, Callie? I thought we were good. It’s not someone else, is it? It couldn’t be that?” she was relieved that he had offered a way out and she took it. “Yes, Jacob, that’s what it is. I’m sorry.” So, that’s what she told her aunt, too, that there was someone else. And she had left it at that.

  Forty

  CALLIE WOKE TO THE RING OF THE PHONE. HAD IT woken her mother? She frowned. Who could be calling so early?

  “Callie?” It was Armando.

  She looked at the bedside clock. Seven a.m.

  “She doesn’t have him.”

  Him? Claude? She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Who doesn’t have him?” A pencil and her latest translation lay on the bed beside her. It wasn’t due for some time. But starting it had been the only way she could get her blunders of the evening before off her mind.

  “Pamela.”

  She sat up. “Pamela?”

  “Of course. Who else?”

  She flopped down. “I told you so” went through her mind, but she resisted saying it. “Oh, so you’ve found Tavelé?” Not Claude. Too bad. She yawned and stretched her free arm. “That’s a relief.” She picked up the pencil.

  “Señor Gonzáles, you know, the Jehovah’s Witness. He found him. And, no, it’s not a relief, Callie.”

  Her chest tightened. “Not the … the … pound.” He had told her of the cement floor, the scarce food, the cages of hungry dogs.

  “Worse, Callie, worse. If he were there, I could get him back.”

  She wrote “Dead” on the manuscript. There was no way back from there. Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry, Armando.”