by Molly Giles
Treat.
She went back into the living room, switched off the television, glanced at Neal, asleep with his earphones still on, and went back to bed without waking him up. She checked the night table to make sure the Cadbury bar was still there, dropped her robe, and slid under the covers. The sheets felt sleek and cool against her bare skin. She thought of the paintings on Charles Lichtman’s walls. She had been too far away to make them out clearly but they looked like big clouds of soft colors. They might have been landscapes. They might have been nudes. What would he think of her, nude? Would he want to paint her? She lifted the sheet to study herself in the moonlight but instead of her own familiar mounds and hollows she saw her mother’s torso: slight, white, cut off at the knees. She bent her legs and cupped her feet with her hands, nice rough size-eight feet with calluses and corns and chipped blue polish on the toenails. Mine, she thought. Mine, not hers. She pulled the sheet up to her chin and, eyes open on the ceiling, felt herself sink, deeper and deeper, into something dark and soft and heavy that felt like sleep but wasn’t, quite.
Seven
Walt Fredericks paced back and forth in the Sunday School room, luminous with nerves. Every three or four seconds he stopped, opened the door, peered into the church and counted the number of people coming in for the concert. Then he patted Lois Hayes’s shoulder, punched Barry on the arm, gazed wordlessly into Zipper’s calm eyes, and blew a kiss to Barbara Billings. When he came to Kay he hunched down and embraced her; she was jumpy herself and breathed in his mixed odors of garlic, mint tea, and Old Spice like a tonic. She hadn’t performed in public for years. She hadn’t been mauled in public for years either, she thought, edging his eager thumb down from her breast. “Lovely, lovely, lovely,” Walt murmured, and she took it for what it was—cheerful lust plus an impersonal plea to the universe. “It’s going to be fine,” she assured him.
She knew she did not look lovely. She was wearing the last good dress she owned—a high-cut, tightly cinched, skirty black number Ida had bought for a country club dinner and given to her years ago. It was expensive, well-made, and unflattering. But it wouldhave to do; there was no money for a new one. “I have never been this broke,” Neal had said at breakfast. His voice was so frank and intimate Kay had set her coffee cup down and leaned toward him, waiting.
“Are we poor?” she’d said. “What’s happening? Can I help?”
“No.” Neal had taken a spoonful of bran. “You can’t. For a while I was dumb enough to think your father could. But I know better now.”
“You didn’t ask Dad for a loan did you? Because I asked you never to ask Dad for money.”
“Don’t spiral, Kay. This is my problem. I got us in. I’ll get us out. Just let me handle this in my own way.”
Kay tugged at her skirt and walked to the door Walt had left half-open. It was odd to see so many of her parents’ friends and neighbors from Manzanita Heights here. Especially since there was no sign of her parents yet. They probably wouldn’t even come. Ida had felt fine when she’d called with the morning health report—her cancer was in remission, her bowels were “producing cigars” and the radiation treatments were “holy rays”—but anything could have happened since. Kay watched Pete and Peg Forrest come in and sit down in the second row. They looked happy to be here tonight but then the Forrests looked happy wherever they were. They had probably looked happy when they forked over that $300 for her abortion. She narrowed her eyes, then flushed as Peg saw her and waved. Shy, pleased, she waved back. What could she do? She liked Peg Forrest. Mrs. Holland from the library sat next to them, crocheting as she waited, her glasses slipping down her nose. She liked Mrs. Holland too. Lois Hayes’s twin sister and her husband and their kids filled the next row: a nice cheering section for Lois. “Are any of your friends from the fire station coming?” she asked Barry as he joined her.
“You kidding? They’ve heard me practice so much they’ve threatened to sing along.” Kay thought of Neal in his earphones and succumbed to a quick jab of envy. It wasn’t just that Barry received acceptance, it was that he accepted acceptance: that was the hard part. All along I’ve been hoping no one would come, Kay realized, watching in wonder as more of her parents’ friends walked into the church. I never mailed those Amor Musica flyers Walt gave me. And I never came in to check out the piano. She looked at the chunky black piano waiting for her on the bare wooden floor. It might be completely out of tune. Why didn’t I come in to find out?
“I feel sick,” Barbara Billings said beside her.
“We’ll be fine. Remember: we’re geniuses.” Kay turned, grinning, but Barbara, holding her stomach, moved away. Geniuses, Kay repeated to herself. She remembered a professor’s assessment of a performance she’d given: “B-.” “But that’s not good enough,” she’d said, sitting in his office at the conservatory, holding her music books. He’d looked at her hands, with their torn cuticles and nicotine stains, and then he’d looked at her, her short black skirt, her round rouged face, the mascara smudges under her eyes, the one gold hoop she wore to match Biff’s. “No,” he’d agreed. “It isn’t.”
Well don’t think about that old man, she ordered herself now. Think about the music. Just the music. Nothing else.
“It’s time!” Walt crowed. She followed the others onto the stage, slid onto the scuffed piano bench, studied the keys, and settled her skirts, listening to Walt’s bubbly introductions; already the audience was shifting, smiling, getting into the spirit of the evening. “You will hear some whoppers and some clunkers,” Walt was telling them, “and some moments of exquisite—absolutely exquisite—exuberance. We invite you to participate in our uneven adventure and we hope you will find the trip as thrilling as we do.”
Kay steadied her eyes on the plaster ceiling hung with colored cloth banners. There was no cross in this church, no altar; even the dull pebbled panels of stained glass were secular, worked in geometric designs. She caught a glimpse of Zabeth, in a lace bodysuit and boots, leading a plump man in a suede jacket down the aisle. Garret? Chipmunk cheeks and a wet bunched mouth like a baby’s? He must have to wear an executioner’s hood over that sweet face in bed. A small hand waved from the aisle and she felt her heart expand. Good. Neal had gotten Nicky here in time after all—although where Neal was—ah, yes, sitting in a corner in back, grimly scanning the program for carcinogens. Kay curled her own hands, flexed them, and, a microsecond late, hit the first chord.
The little piano was tuned and the Haydn flew out of it with the same chirpy vigor it did on the upright at Walt’s or her baby grand at home. She made the same mistakes she’d made in practice during the first movement, too, but then so did everyone else. By the second movement they had all improved. Lois was playing her viola better than Kay had ever heard, Barry was sunny and steady on the cello, Zipper flew on the flute, and Barbara was right there on the clarinet. Walt’s violin soared with conviction and her own part flowed easily: we sound good, she thought, astonished. We sound like musicians. She ended with the crisp bang she had never mastered in rehearsal and rose to stand with the others as they took their bows, beaming, reluctant to meet each other’s eyes and break the spell.
A shadow moved rapidly down the aisle as she sat down again and even before she smelled the L’Heure Bleue she knew Ida had arrived and had wheeled her chair as close to the stage as she could without actually rolling onto it. She looked over at the small white pointed face rising in happy expectation above its heaped collar of crushed velvet. Ida’s diamond earrings flashed in the undimmed church lights and her eager smile held until it drew an answering nod back from Kay. “Darling,” Ida slurred loudly. “So sorry we’re late.”
“Shh,” someone said as Walt stepped forward to introduce the next piece. Kay looked for her father. Francis was standing in the back, talking to a tall brunette in a Chinese brocade jacket. He caught her eye and gave one of his wiggle waves, two fingers making a crocodile that bit. He was drunk too. The Junior Bentleys and the Bernards tiptoed in, thei
r heads ducked like children fighting giggles. Victor, sitting next to Stacy, gave her a quick look of sympathy before dropping his eyes to the floor. Perhaps he was praying for her.
She was going to need it. This next piece was the Chopin, her solo. She shifted on the bench. Walt finished his introduction, nodded at her, eyes hot, and she dropped her hands to the keyboard. She found the opening phrase, sure, spare, and so lyrical it made her breath catch. She sank into it and moved easily into the first trill. The second. The third. And then Ida started to cough.
It was a new cough, thick and phlegmy as a rope dragged through seaweed, and it uncoiled forever. Kay stiffened, forcing herself to play through it, but though she was hitting the keys correctly she couldn’t balance the tempo. She slid too fast off one note, lingered too long on another. And Ida’s cough didn’t stop. It went on and on. She’s going to die! Kay thought. She’s going to die in the middle of my solo. Well do it, she thought. Go ahead and do it. She went into another trill so cold and heavy it felt like a death stomp and under it and under the cough she heard another sound: sobs. Ida’s sobs as she tried to stop. “Oooh,” in Ida’s hurt and helpless voice. “Oooh.”
All right, Kay thought, defeated. You win. I can’t play anymore. I’ll never play again. She took her hands off the keyboard and turned to help her mother but at that moment Ida stopped. There was no sound in the room at all. Ida waved to her weakly, eyes glowing above the Kleenex pressed to her lips, and Kay, shaken, pivoted back, steadied into the legato once more and brought the piece to a false, showy flourish. Everyone clapped as if nothing had happened.
During the piece which followed, Ida sat straight and attentive, swaying only slightly. When the lights came up for intermission, she called, “My darling!” and flung her arms out. Kay walked to her warily. Ida gripped her and drew her down and Kay had to steady herself, her fingers sinking into the slippery folds of Ida’s velvet coat. “I am so sorry,” Ida hissed in her ear. “I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s all right,” Kay said, tired. After all, this wasn’t the first time. How could she have forgotten the sixth-grade recital when Ida came in late and dropped a coin purse of change on the floor or the high school concert where she had entered escorted by a traffic cop? She straightened, rubbed her arms, and waited for Francis, who was making his way down the aisle toward them. The Bernards were right behind him, followed by the brunette. Untangling Ida’s wet hand from hers, Kay asked, “Who’s that?”
Ida turned to look. “That’s Glo Sinclair. You know her. She sent me those gorgeous roses. Oh darling. You played like an angel.”
“Very nice,” Francis agreed, coming up to them. “And loud for once. We could actually hear you in back.”
“Could you hear Mom?”
“Why we could indeed. And what was Mom doing?”
“I was coughing,” Ida said. She hung her head.
“Doncha know better?” Francis wagged his finger at her.
Well that’s that, Kay thought. She looked at Glo and held out her hand. “Hi,” she said, “I’m Kay.”
Glo looked at Francis. “I have never shaken a musician’s hand before,” she said.
“You’re not shaking it now,” Francis pointed out.
“I don’t want to injure you,” Glo said to Kay. “Aren’t your hands supposed to be insured?”
“I don’t even have my car insured,” Kay said. Glo gasped and pulled her hand back. She was about an inch taller than Francis, with small white teeth and taut skin. Pretty, in a skull-like way.
“Kay lives on the fringe.” Francis bent over Ida, who, starry-eyed and completely composed, was letting Pete and Peg Forrest each pat one of her shoulders. “Think I ought to take you home,” he said.
“Oh no. Please let me stay.” Tears rose at once in Ida’s blue eyes. “I’ll be good. I promise.”
Kay waved to Nicky, who was weaving through the chairs toward her with a guarded look on his face. “Dad won’t get me anything to drink,” he complained. “They’re selling apple juice and cookies out in front but he won’t let me have any.”
“Tell me I played nicely and say hi to your grandparents and I’ll get you something later.”
Nicky kissed Ida, who closed her eyes and pressed toward him, and shook hands with Francis, who looked down at him, laid his palm flat on the top of his head, and then lifted it, inch by inch, as if measuring.
“Yep. Just as I suspected. You’re taller than you were last Sunday. Someone needs to stunt your growth and it might as well be me. Tell you what. I’ll buy you an apple juice if you’ll come outside and join me in a cigarette.”
Glo, who had been staring at Nicky with a fixed smile, said, “Don’t believe a word that man says.”
“I don’t,” Nicky said.
“Good-o,” said Francis, “let’s get out of this hellhole.”
“I could go for a cigarette,” Ida said as they left.
Glo said nothing. Kay said nothing. Walt Fredericks bustled up, beaming. “This has to be your lady-mother! May I kiss your hand? An honor! A pleasure! You must be so proud of Kay! What exquisite shading! A Polish heart! She has one, I tell her, and now that I see her mother: ah.”
Ida, dimpling, said only, “I coughed.”
“But in exquisite time. Right on the beat!”
Walt talked on. Kay watched the familiar transformation, Ida beginning to lighten and lift like a plant drinking water, and Glo watched too, her long bare heel rising out of her shoe and back down again, either out of impatience or from an intense, unselfconscious interest in the phenomenon, Kay couldn’t tell. Zabeth came up beside her and scratched her lightly on the arm with blunt, black-painted nails.
“Imagine coming all this way just to jinx your solo,” Zabeth grinned.
“It’s true dedication,” Kay agreed, and then, worried, “Was it jinxed?”
“Not at all. It was totally perfect.” Zabeth was too quick and Kay groaned. Dishonesty from Zabeth was not a good sign. Well: too bad. Too late to do anything about it now. People with “Polish hearts,” whatever that meant, plowed on. She took Garret’s moist hand as Zabeth introduced him, and tried to block the image of his plump pale body trussed and tied as she in turn introduced him to Ida. Stepping back, Kay saw that Ida was now completely encircled with admirers. She was free to slip away. She made her way back to the Sunday School room to recoup. The muscles in her hands and arms were tight with frustration.
“Hey. Piano Princess.” A deep voice. Victor. Trying to be funny. She made a face and looked up. But the man standing before her was not Victor.
“Hey,” she echoed, and then, to her horror, “What are you doing here?”
Charles Lichtman, up close, was so beautiful that if she weren’t in shock already she would be. Caramel skin. Chocolate eyes. Sugarplum lips. He looked like a dessert to drown in. “I came to hear you play,” he said. “And I was not disappointed. I enjoyed every note.” He smiled. “Just say, ‘Thank you, dear.’”
“Thank you, d-----”
“Thank you. Break a thumb.” He raised both of his in a victory gesture and walked away.
The rest of the concert passed in a dream. A Gershwin medley, less demanding than the earlier works, seemed to invite more mistakes. Lois flubbed her entrances and Barry ended too soon. Kay’s part was easy, but even so she missed several notes. The audience didn’t seem to mind and the clapping extended just long enough to make the performers feel good, while falling short of suggesting an encore.
“Could have been worse,” Barbara said as they bowed.
“Should have,” Kay agreed. She searched the crowd, saw Charles smile and wave again before he left. He had come alone. He had called her “dear.” Her eyes followed him out the door, then reluctantly returned to look for Neal, who was still hunched in the back, looking miserable.
“That bad?” she asked, going up to him.
“Oh babe. I hate to see you playing with amateurs. They bring you down.”
“So
I was playing ‘down’?”
Neal was silent. “Silent” meant “yes.” “Yes” meant “divorce him.” Kay smoothed a fold on her stiff black dress. “Would it kill you,” she asked, “to be kind?”
“What do you or anyone in your family know about kindness?”
With surprising swiftness, Neal stood and walked outside.
Kay stared after him, then turned as Victor came up to her. “I’m going to leave him,” she said.
“He’ll be fine. Give him time.”
“What a pro you are!” Stacy breathed. “That was such a groovy concert.”
“You know, you really are a good pianist,” Victor said. “You have a clean touch and lots of feeling. You probably could have been famous like Mom always said.”
Kay, distracted, shook her head. “Mom was the one who wanted to be famous.”
“Yeah but you were the one who had the opportunity and the lessons. She just had the ambition.” His hand fell heavily on her shoulder. “You did great. Love to see you play in a real church sometime.”
“This is a real church, Victor.”
“Right.” Victor turned away and Kay followed him and Stacy outside to the parking lot, then looked around for Neal. We need to talk, she’d say when she found him. We need to talk for about two weeks straight. She paused on the stairs. The Bernards and the Junior Bentleys were departing with flurries of laughter and Francis was loading Ida’s wheelchair into the back of the Volvo. Ida, crumpled in the front seat, saw Kay and cried out. “Did I tell you,” Ida slurred, “how sorry I am?”