Other than Ben, my music school friends weren't the same kids I hung around with in regular school. I didn't know them as well, because some of us only saw each other on Saturdays, but we understood one another better We were all musicians who wanted our music to be great, and that's what our Saturdays were all about.
We took theory classes where we learned how to talk about music and analyze it. In classes called solfège we worked on training our ears—perfecting our pitch and rhythm skills and learning to recognize musical elements when we heard them. And we all participated in an orchestra. That was my favorite part of Saturdays, when my violin and everybody else's instruments all blended together to make music that soared.
Not that it always soared. Sometimes our conductor spent more time tapping his baton on his music stand—"Hold it! Stop playing, people. Something's wrong"—than he did actually conducting us. And even though working out a problem was interesting, nobody wanted to be responsible for whatever mistake he'd heard.
I made my share of errors, but from my seat in the second row of violins, I could see straight across to Ben in the front row of cellos, and he always knew when I needed a smile.
Besides, I could hear that my playing was getting better and better; gaining a polish it had never had before.
And then there were Sundays, with matinee concerts and operas and an occasional ballet to go to, and I had friends to go with. We didn't go every week, because we didn't always have time and because even with standing-room tickets bought with student discounts, performances still cost a lot. But we went as often as we could.
At first Mom worried. "I don't like you out on your own in the city," she said. "I want you safe. And shouldn't you be practicing or doing homework?"
"Mom, nothing's going to happen to me on a Sunday afternoon in a busy, safe part of town," I told her "Besides, I'll get graded down if I don't go. My teachers practically assigned us to go hear this violist from Russia who's never played in this country before, and—"
"And I don't like your going by yourself."
"I'm not. I'm meeting a half-dozen kids."
A frown furrowed Mom's forehead. "From your academic school or your music school?"
"Some of both."
"Boys or girls?"
"Both."
"I don't want you running around like some teenager without purpose."
"Mom, I'm going to a concert!"
She shook her head, but she also gave me ticket money. "Just don't get any wrong ideas about who's making the rules around here," she said. "You're a long way from knowing what's best for you."
MOST PEOPLE don't buy standing-room tickets by choice, but I did. I always felt special taking up a position among really dedicated music lovers, which standing-room-only patrons pretty much had to be. Usually Ben and I stood next to each other.
After a performance a bunch of us would head to a coffee shop where we'd crowd around a corner table in the back, ordering the least we could without being thrown out. Then we'd dissect the afternoon's performance into the tiniest bits.
We had opinions on everything from a conductor's timing to the volume of a timpani section, and we all tried to tell them at once. We commented on the choice of music and gossiped about composers—dead and alive—as though they were personal acquaintances.
Sometimes Ben would catch my eye and give me a private smile. Sometimes, if we were sitting side by side, he'd give my hand a quick squeeze. And sometimes we'd keep on holding hands.
I'd leave the coffee shop wishing the afternoon could have stretched on and on.
When Dad would call later on—he always called Sunday evenings—I'd try to tell him how happy I was. "School's so good—both my schools—and you'd like my friends. They're all so talented, and we talk and talk..."
"So New York's going okay, huh?" he'd say, and I could hear that he was glad for me and also a little sad.
I always told him, "You can come visit. I'll take you to meet everybody."
"Maybe one day," he'd say, although we both knew he probably wouldn't. Somehow, gradually, Mom's and my living apart from him had become Mom's and his separation, and the separation, once in lawyers' hands, had become a divorce.
I'd have felt really bad for my parents except neither one seemed unhappy about being divorced. In fact, it all seemed to have happened with so little regret that I wondered if they might not have been glad the move to New York got things rolling.
Except, of course, I knew Dad missed seeing me grow up.
Midway through November Dad and I were having one of our Sunday night conversations when he said, "Don't get too busy to come home."
"I won't," I said. "But, Dad, everything is so great here. I like school, and I've got friends—Kiah, Eleni, Ben..."
"Ben? A friend or a boyfriend?"
"Well..."
"Use good judgment. Hold him up to the questions I'd ask if I was there." Dad's voice dropped into a deeper imitation of itself. "Where are you taking my daughter? What time will you have her home? Who's driving?"
"Dad, nobody drives in New York. You've got to be practically a senior citizen to get a license."
"You know what I mean. And, Tess, about your violin ... I'll come hear you play one day. Meanwhile, remember your old man's rooting for you."
I HAD SOMEBODY else rooting for me now, too, and that was Mr. Stubner, the violin teacher I'd started with when I began music school. At first I was a little afraid of him, because other kids told stories about how he lost patience with students and even dropped them when they didn't meet his expectations.
Also, I'd never had a violin teacher who was so reserved—almost formal—or who had such planned-out requirements for what I was to master I loved some of the new music he introduced me to, but he also made me learn some that I didn't care for at all.
I struggled with pages of violin exercises where black notes ran so close together that they looked like bands of charcoal. And instead of exaggerating dynamics to cover where my technique was weak, I had to dig into problems head-on.
He wrapped it all up in a ball he called discipline, and I gradually learned that he didn't mean how much I practiced, but how—and what—I worked on. He wanted me to command a full range of fundamentals that would let me take my violin playing as far as possible.
I worked for what I could learn, and I worked for his rare, pleased nod of approval.
Ben and I talked about everything. I told him, "I know that one day my violin playing's got to turn into a job, but I wish it didn't have to. I wish I could keep going to school forever."
He said, "I thought you wanted to be a concert soloist."
"I'd like to play well enough to be one, but to actually have that kind of career ... It's scary to even think about. Although I suppose I'll have to try. Mom brought me to New York so I'll have a chance."
"You're here for your mom?"
"I didn't say that. Anyway, what about you?" I asked. "What do you want?"
"Too much," Ben answered, with a quick shake of his head. "I came here for my cello, but since I started studying composing, I've begun thinking that's the direction I want to go. I feel bad about it, because of all that my folks have sacrificed to help me become a cellist."
"Have you told them?"
"I did the last time I was home. They're worried about me getting into such an uncertain field, but they accept that it's a decision I have to make for myself."
I gave him a wry smile. "Mom and I aren't there yet," I said. "Actually, I doubt if she ever will be."
COME SPRING, Ben and I began taking an occasional afternoon off from school. We weren't supposed to, of course, but it was as close as we could get to going out.
None of my friends dated. We didn't have time.
Anyway, sometimes Ben would catch me in the hall at our academic school—or I'd go find him. Then whoever it was would ask, "You got anything you can't miss this afternoon?" That was our code for "You want to cut classes?" We only did it once in a while. An
y more and our teachers would have asked for notes confirming the special music practices that we gave as our excuses to be absent.
The most difficult thing about those afternoons off was deciding where to go. New York held so much that choosing one thing meant not choosing a hundred others.
The first time we took off we caught a bus to Times Square and hung around there. We spent another afternoon riding the subways, getting off to explore Greenwich Village and Tribeca. Ben tried to write that day into a piece of music he called "Cityscape," using weird instruments and jangling, thumping rhythms to represent shops and street vendors and noisy, rushing crowds. He got a B on it and the instructor wrote, "Interesting effort but a bit hard on the ears."
One time we went to the top of the Empire State Building, and on another day we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and back.
"I never want to leave this city," I told him.
"Don't you ever miss Montana?"
"If I think about it, I do. But there's not much here to remind me of it." I gestured toward a plywood wall shielding a construction site on one side of the street and then at a glass-fronted skyscraper opposite. "Ben, when was the last time you touched a tree?"
"Touched a tree? You mean like hug-a-tree environmental?"
"No! I mean like felt bark. Smelled leaves."
Forty-five minutes later we sat in Central Park, our backs against a maple, and I tried to describe a mountain forest that stretched as far as a person could see. I told Ben about how a forest viewed from a distance might look all the same, but when you got in it, you'd find more kinds of trees and flowers and grasses than you could imagine, and more kinds of shrubs and brambles. You'd walk among Douglas firs and larches, spruces and ponderosa pines, and each species would have a different kind of bark.
"It sounds to me like you're missing Montana right now," he said.
"A little. I'd like you to see it."
The only thing wrong with that afternoon was the letdown I felt when we said good-bye and caught our separate buses home.
One day early in our sophomore year we got the afternoon off without even having to cut class. It happened when smoke from a nearby restaurant fire filled our school and everyone was dismissed until the building could be aired out. Delighted with the unexpected freedom, a bunch of us headed to a fast-food place.
Besides Ben and me, Kiah and Eleni were there. Also a voice student named Katya, who I didn't know very well, and two more guys: a French-horn player named Chi; and Liam, an acting student who had a part in a Broadway show. Liam had a grin that made you grin back, and while he used to be just cute, lately he'd become downright handsome. Audiences, I thought, must love him.
I was offering around a plate of onion rings when my gaze fell on a newspaper that someone had left on the next table. "Hey," I said to Liam. "This is Wednesday. Don't you have a matinee?"
"Not today."
"How come? Is this your alternate's day?" Shows with kid actors often let them share roles so the kids wouldn't have to work eight performances a week.
Liam shook his head. I thought he wasn't going to explain, but then he burst out, "I got fired."
"But why?" Kiah asked. "You're a great acton."
"I outgrew my costume. My own fault for having a summer growth spurt." Liam was trying to joke, but he sounded bitter "It's cheaper for a show to replace an actor than to have a new costume made."
"That's awful," I said.
"It happens to more than just actors," Katya said. "The biggest fight my mom and I ever had was over a wedding job I didn't get because the bride hired a curly-haired little eight-year-old instead. Mom said I must not have sung my best, and I told her the reason I didn't get hired was I had braces on my teeth and my forehead was breaking out and I had boobs. The stupid bride didn't want boobs. She wanted cute!"
I glanced at Ben. He was looking down, picking at his hamburger bun like it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.
"So what did your mom say?" Eleni asked.
"That she'd make me an appointment with a dermatologist." Katya laughed, but her eyes welled. "I guess I ought to be grateful she didn't make me wear a girdle around my chest!"
"MOM," I SAID that evening, "do you think Mr. Capianelli and the others—all the people who went to my recital—would they have liked my violin playing so much if I'd been older?"
"What?" Mom asked, her mind someplace else. "Oh. Of course they would have, Tessie, although you might not have gotten the same attention."
I wondered, Is that a yes or a no? What if I'd played my recital at nineteen instead of nine? What if I'd just been Mr. Capianelli's student Tess, instead of his precocious Tess?
I couldn't get Katya out of my mind. I'd never tell Katya, of course, but I'd heard her sing, and I didn't think she was all that good. Maybe she'd needed to be a sweet little girl to get as far as she had.
When I got ready for bed I spent a long time looking into the bathroom mirror I told myself that I ought to be pleased with what I saw. That I was lucky my eyes looked good even without makeup. That I ought to be glad my face was showing cheekbones and my body finally getting some shape.
Of course I didn't want to be little again, but I did feel like someone had played an unfair trick on me. And while I told myself it wasn't what I looked like but how well I played my violin that mattered most, Liam and Katya had put a doubt in me I hadn't had before.
"Tessie," Mom said, tapping on the door "You need to turn your light off."
"Mom!" I said, snapping even though she wasn't the one who'd made me mad. "I'm old enough to know how much sleep I need. And stop calling me Tessie. It doesn't fit anymore."
Tess
In the late afternoon a distant bank of dark clouds gives us our first hint we're going to lose our good camping weather By early evening the sky is heavily overcast, the temperature is dropping rapidly, and we're feeling a few drops of rain. We eat dinner quickly, and I help Dad wrap the food bag in plastic and hoist it out of reach of animals.
Then, chilly and with nothing left to do, we all retreat to our sleeping bags.
I try to read but don't have enough light to see decently, and as soon as I put my book down, Amy says, "Tell me about Ben."
"You've got his picture, so you know what he looks like."
"But what's he like?"
"Well, he's my age. Really nice. Really talented. Really busy."
"He looks Chinese in his picture."
"Vietnamese, or half anyway. That's what his mom is."
Amy thinks about that. "Have you met her?"
"Just once, when Ben's folks traveled to New York to hear him play. They can't afford to live there and also pay for his school and music."
"Then who does Ben live with?"
"Officially he stays with a cousin, but he lives with some other guys."
Amy's eyes widen. "With nobody to be the boss of him?"
"Nobody." I throw her a sideways glance. "He's got just himself to see he gets his schoolwork and practicing done, plus laundry and cooking and rounding up paying gigs."
"Oh," Amy says, sounding more impressed and less envious. "I don't think I'd like that."
"Me, either" I tell her.
Then my face gets warm as I consider how my leaving New York the way I did might seem to someone who has to work so hard to be there. Probably Ben wouldn't think I'm ungrateful, but somebody else might.
Amy says, "Mom and I were on our own when she went back to school."
"Where was your dad?"
"He was gone and we didn't need him. Anyway, Bop says I'm his girl now."
Amy turns to face me, propping herself up on one elbow, and in a suddenly worried voice she asks, "Do you mind?"
"No," I answer realizing that I really don't.
"Good," she says, lying back down again. "We're pillow talking, aren't we?"
"I guess, if you can call rolled-up sweatshirts pillows."
"Like at a sleepover."
"I guess," I repeat.
"I've never been to one."
"Why not?"
"There wasn't time Not with academic school on weekdays and music school on Saturdays and then home-work and practicing."
"Whoa!" Amy says. "You went to school on Saturday? You went to two schools? I wouldn't. Nobody could make me. It's probably against the law. Did you tell your mom that?"
"It's against the law not to go to school, not the other way around," I tell her.
"But..." Amy twists her fingers, crossing one over another "Didn't you ever have time for fun?"
"Maybe not the kind of fun you're thinking of; but, yes. A lot."
"I don't see how. Why didn't you just quit your violin? I mean, a long time ago?"
"Because I love playing it."
I want to explain more, but I doubt she'd understand.
Anyway, I wouldn't know how to tell her what it's like to wake up in the morning hardly able to wait to take your violin from its case because the few hours that you were sleeping were a long time not to have it in your hands.
And how could I explain about Saturdays and music school? About how included—almost embraced—you can feel in the moments before orchestra practice begins, when you're tuning and warming up, and all around you other musicians are doing the same thing.
Some days you hold your breath watching for the baton downstroke that will set a hundred instruments playing together You don't want to be an instant late plunging in; don't want to miss an instant of being carried along on sound that comes from every side and up from your violin, along your jawbone, to your ear.
When you go home at the dark end of a winter afternoon, after you've gone to music classes and ensemble and orchestra and maybe had a private lesson, you're so keyed-up weary you can hardly eat your dinner.
And then there's still more practicing to do. And tired as you are, you get on it, because maybe this night will be one of the special ones. A night when your violin comes to life in your hands and everything you play comes out better and better When the music flies and you fly with it, higher and better and faster until you're playing more beautifully than you ever have.
Mountain Solo Page 11