Sight Reading

by Daphne Kalotay

  “Yes, brevity is key.” Yoni had joined them, from out of nowhere, grinning as he always did, as if possessing a fabulous secret.

  “Hello, Yoni,” George Frank said. “I didn’t see you at the ceremony.”

  “You know me: I only come for the buffet. How are you doing, George?”

  “Very well,” George Frank said. “And I’ve been following your latest success,” he said, turning back to Nicholas. “What a wonderful article in the Sunday Times. I imagine you could paper a small bathroom with all the good clippings you’re saving.”

  “Or just use them as toilet paper,” Yoni said. Though he was clearly joking, George Frank raised his eyebrows. Only then did it occur to Nicholas that Yoni’s tone might have been snide. He noted the feeling that, every once and again, pulsed between the two of them: a competition of some kind. Healthy competition, surely, since they had such different areas of expertise, yet sometimes there was an edge to it. Even last night, at the restaurant, he had felt some sort of tension.

  He and Yoni had passed through such moments before. If only Yoni could understand that this was how things worked, the conservatory paying Nicholas for the simple privilege of having his name on the faculty roster. That Yoni shouldered more of a teaching obligation was only natural. Yet Nicholas understood that this fact might at times be a bother. Over the past few years his own professional life had grown more comfortable—less teaching and more time for composing—while Yoni’s remained the same.

  “Oh, there are only two sandwiches left,” Nicholas said, nodding toward the buffet. “I’d better snatch one before they’re gone.” He moved toward the table, not at all hungry.

  Like a fly Yoni followed him there. “Any chance you’ll be up for another outing tonight, Nicholas?” His tone was hopeful; he must be wanting to make amends. “A pianist from Chile is playing at the club. He’s supposed to be fantastic.”

  Though his stomach was still uneasy, Nicholas said, “Sure, sounds good,” since he didn’t want to sound sore. And anyway, Remy had the Symphony tonight.

  “Good,” Yoni said. “I think it’ll be worth it. Now I’d better get back to business.” He took his leave. Nicholas looked around the room, his eyes searching, though he couldn’t think for whom.

  ONLY A FEW OTHER PEOPLE WERE AT THE CLUB THAT NIGHT, COUPLES and some men in business suits—taking prospective clients out for a night on the town, Nicholas supposed. In previous years there wouldn’t have been a free seat, just smoke swimming overhead and regulars shouting out in friendly support as the musicians burrowed in and out of their solos. But the club had come under new management a year or so ago, and the current booking agent had shifted focus to international talent. As a result the clientele had changed. The wooden tables had been replaced with glass-topped ones, and an air-filtering system had been installed. Still Nicholas and Yoni continued to patronize their old haunting ground, if less frequently and always with a pang of disappointment, as if their stubbornness alone might return it to the way it used to be.

  Tonight they sat at their usual table, a small one in the corner. Yoni was drinking bourbon, looking slightly broody. “I’d have thought you’d be pleased with today’s news,” Nicholas said, referring to the record-breaking heights at which the Dow was soaring. “They say the New York Stock Exchange traded a billion shares today. Or something preposterous like that.”

  Yoni pointed out that the majority of his investments were in real estate—but to Nicholas, wisdom in any one sphere of business was surely transferrable across all realms. In the same way, when it came to Middle Eastern affairs, he liked to treat Yoni as a political analyst, due to his mandatory years in the Israeli army. Nicholas had always admired the photograph Yoni kept tucked on the bookshelf in his living room, of himself at age twenty, standing next to his mother, casually holding a rifle and squinting handsomely into the sun.

  Now Yoni obliged him with insights regarding the U.S. economy, every so often readjusting his voice so that it didn’t overtake the pianist. The piece, slow and loosely jazzy, was one of those seemingly tempo-less variations that, rather than gathering force, simply spread out like a blanket on a lawn. Nicholas thought the pianist quite good, but he could see that the other patrons didn’t know what to make of it. On the other side of the room sat a couple that looked to be Nicholas’s age, clearly tourists, who must have read a description of the club’s former incarnation in an outdated guidebook and were now bewildered. At their right was a young couple obviously on a date, wrinkling their brows whenever they came to an awkward pause in conversation and were forced to attend to the piano. The young man looked embarrassed; clearly this was not what he had pictured when deciding what might impress his date. Should the relationship not take off, he would probably blame this place.

  Now Yoni was watching the pianist. As always when in his presence, Nicholas couldn’t help expecting that at any moment some slender young thing might walk in and join them. He wondered what had happened to Patricia.

  Before her, until about a year and a half ago, Yoni had managed to remain with his girlfriend Cybil for a full two and a half years. Cybil was smart, in her midtwenties and, like many of Yoni’s women, lanky and narrow hipped, with pouty lips, short messy hair, and compact buttocks; Yoni liked his women to look like teenage boys. But this one had been able to make Yoni laugh—not all of his girlfriends could do that. And so Nicholas had supposed that would be it, that Yoni had finally fallen in love and would get married, or at least pair off for life. But then, out of the blue, Yoni had announced that he and Cybil had broken it off. No explanation. Yoni claimed not to understand, and Nicholas supposed that might be the truth. Then, not long afterward, he had introduced them to Patricia.

  They hadn’t seen Patricia since midsummer. Now, strengthened by drink or perhaps by boredom, Nicholas decided to ask where she had gone off to.

  “Oh, that didn’t work out,” Yoni said, swallowing bourbon. “Broke my heart a little bit, actually. She decided to take a job in Madrid. It was a last-minute decision.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. You can tell us these things, you know.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. I was surprised, myself.”

  The pianist had come to the end of an old standard Nicholas vaguely recognized. Applause like the last few drops from a tap. Nicholas and Yoni joined in. Yoni ordered another bourbon.

  The voices of the businessmen rose and fell among the ting of glasses and the scrape of ashtrays across tabletops. The pianist played a version of “On Green Dolphin Street” that went on for a long time, lots of slow chords and twinkling runs, the melody nearly impossible to locate. Each time Nicholas thought the pianist was about to rein it in, the music wandered off somewhere new—and the middle-aged couple, trying hard, would sigh and readjust themselves in their seats.

  It was when he had finished a third bourbon that Yoni said to Nicholas, quite suddenly and a propos, as far as Nicholas could tell, of nothing, “I sometimes find you careless with Remy’s heart.”

  Around them the music drifted in billows. For a long minute Nicholas said nothing while a glint of candlelight swam in his glass. He watched it as one might read leaves in tea—as though it might explain to him what to make of this absurd statement.

  The music stopped. A brief smatter of applause. Slowly Nicholas raised his head and looked at Yoni. “I am not responsible for Remy’s heart.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Yoni said testily. He picked up his glass, looked thoroughly affronted to find it empty. The pianist, desperate, had begun to play a calypso.

  Nicholas took a gulp of Scotch, his one advantage. He placed the glass back on the table as calmly as possible. “Then what exactly do you mean?”

  In a low, drunk voice Yoni said, “You have a treasure you don’t appreciate.”

  Again Nicholas looked down. “What do you know about my appreciation?” he said softly, to the table. “What do you know of what I do or don’t do?” But he wondered if in fact Yoni did kno
w something, like about the times he had forgotten Valentine’s Day (as if such things mattered!) or had been late meeting Remy and she had to wait . . . or when he missed the flight to Ohio for her father’s birthday dinner, was she still angry about that? It was true he wasn’t one to say “I love you”—but he had never been that sort of person, it was such a fatuous expression, so unoriginal. Remy knew he felt that way.

  The light twitched in his whiskey. He wondered if Remy might have told Yoni something—something that he himself didn’t know.

  “I only know what I see,” Yoni said. “I’m trying to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  But in stubborn drunkenness Yoni refused to elaborate. He looked suddenly exhausted, a man roughed up by thugs. With effort he said, “I suppose you’ll figure it out.”

  Nicholas turned his head in rebuff, saw the young couple, and the tourists, and the now-drunk businessmen. The music had become lively and easy to follow. But Nicholas’s ears rang with Yoni’s words: “Careless with her heart.” What did that even mean? It was true that there had been moments when Nicholas hurt Remy’s feelings without knowing it, times when Remy told him in a bruised voice that she felt neglected. There had been a big fight after a visit from her parents, once, where she said that even when he thought he was doing something for others, he was really just thinking of himself. But Nicholas had taken note and rarely erred that way now. And though they still bickered, at times, Remy no longer seemed to feel the need to make a scene, the way she had in her twenties. It was years ago, now, that she had thrown that teakettle at him.

  “I’ve overspoken,” Yoni said, having regained his strength. He shook his head at himself. “It’s time I dragged this drunk man home.”

  Nicholas nodded, his mouth tight. But he managed, after Yoni had forced himself up from the table and they had told each other (as if nothing had happened) good night, to add, “Take care of yourself, now.”

  As for what Yoni might have meant, by “careless with her heart,” Nicholas still didn’t understand. By the time he returned home it was very late, and Remy was fast asleep.

  Chapter 4

  THIS IS THE FIRST HALLOWEEN JESSIE ISN’T GOING TRICK-OR-TREATING,” Hazel told Ginger. “There’s a party at her new friend Kevin’s house instead.” Boyfriend was the word, though it was still a bit of a shock even to think it. Jessie and two friends were dressing as flapper girls, long strands of plastic beads draped over dresses from the local vintage shop, and flat bands of fabric around their heads, and leather shoes from jazz class with buttoned straps and Louis XIV heels. “They have to look feminine,” Hazel continued, checking the tag on a swatch of pale linen. “No more green face paint. Suddenly they’re young women, when just a few months ago they were kids.” She shook her head, still not quite believing. “I just bought Jessie her first bra.”

  Ginger, who had been practically reclining on a pile of translucent fabric, straightened up. “Well, now, that’s a big deal!”

  Hazel decided not to mention how it had come about, Jessie turning up at home wearing a training bra that was too small. Immediately she had modeled it for Hazel, the minute she walked in the door, peeling off her T-shirt right there in the foyer. And though Hazel was proud of Jessie’s comfort in her own skin, she was also horrified—that she herself had not noticed her own daughter having grown this way. In fact, the bra strained to stretch across Jessie’s rib cage, the straps barely long enough for her broad shoulders.

  “Sweetie, it barely fits you,” Hazel had told her.

  “That’s what Remy said. She said we could exchange it.”

  “But not if you’ve been wearing it around!”

  “I like it,” Jessie said.

  “Well, we’ll just have to get a bigger one. I don’t think I ever realized what a strong upper body you have.”

  “Remy says it’s from swimming,” Jessie said, unfazed.

  After work the next afternoon, Hazel had gone to Saks and bought the most expensive brassiere she had ever purchased, pale pink lace with a little pearl at the center and expandable straps of silk ribbon. Yves Saint Laurent, size 36A, a truly exquisite piece of equipment. That Remy had harnessed her daughter in something as ugly as that Warner’s thing . . . The beige elastic reminded Hazel of the sanitary belts her mother had worn. No, for this awkward moment in time, while Jessie’s body became, briefly, something bewildering, Hazel wanted her to have only the best, to be proud of her body, to adorn it with beautiful things. No need to feel constantly embarrassed, to cover up, to hide—the way Hazel did.

  “Sometimes I look at her and I can see the woman in her,” Hazel said now. “And at the very same time I see her the way she was when she was a little girl.” Hazel unrolled a new import, damask, the faintest green with yellow threads. “I was remembering, the other day, the sweetest thing, from when she was still little. She was always very protective of me, and I remember one day, it was the year that Nicholas and I separated, Jessie seemed to know that something was wrong. She looked up and asked me, ‘Mommy, what’s the matter?’” Hazel paused, remembering Jessie’s tiny voice, the concern in it.

  “I’d vowed to myself never to complain in front of her about the situation; I wanted her childhood to be as normal and happy as possible. So I said, ‘Oh, I was just thinking about some things that have been difficult.’ And she asked me why things were difficult, and I said, ‘Sometimes things can be a bit hard, that’s all.’ And Jessie thought it over for a moment, and then she shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘Well, then, let’s just play.’”

  Ginger laughed and said, “That’s sweet,” though Hazel could tell she didn’t appreciate how much it had meant at the time. Those early days had been so painful, all the more so for having to hide the pain and never complain about Nicholas lest she color her daughter’s impression of him. Back then Hazel still wanted him back. And as, with each passing week, it became more and more clear that he wasn’t coming back, her pain only grew.

  The worst part was that she didn’t understand why it had to be that way, why there could be no other outcome. If only she could understand, she kept saying. Other husbands strayed, she knew, but returned to their wives and regretted their mistake. Nicholas, though, was adamant; he had “fallen in love” was how he explained it that horrible night in the apartment, when he decided to break the news. It was nothing he could control; he had no choice.

  “Oh, right—no choice!” Hazel felt her pain turn to anger. Standing there enraged, looking down at him while he sat limply on a chair in the kitchen . . . “As if you have no ability to make decisions or do the right thing!”

  Nicholas shook his head, eyes bloodshot, cheeks wet. He kept wiping his tears on the sleeve of his shirt, as though he were the one whose heart had been broken. “I’m so sorry, Hazel. I don’t know what else to say.” It was true, nothing he said helped. They had been talking in circles for hours, during which Hazel had gone through an entire spectrum of emotions: shock, hurt, hate, fear, desperation.

  “You made a vow, and making a vow means sticking to it.” She was trying another approach, gathering up her strength. “How can you just turn around and give your love to someone else?”

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t understand it myself. All I know is what I have to do.”

  Yet she kept asking, throughout that long night and the tearful days that followed, as though it might have helped: Why?

  He could not say.

  And then Jessie told her Let’s just play . . .

  That memory had reemerged last month, after Hazel glimpsed Remy in the department store. At home afterward she must have been furrowing her brow, because Jessie asked, “Are you okay, Mom?”

  Hazel had looked at Jessie and felt two things simultaneously: gratefulness, and a wish to protect her. “I’m fine, sweetie,” she said, forcing herself not to mention what was most on her mind—and looking into Jessie’s green eyes she could see that her daughter knew nothing of Remy’s pregnancy
. It even occurred to Hazel that perhaps Remy wasn’t pregnant at all. Perhaps she had imagined the whole thing. But no, that would be too easy an escape; this pain felt inevitable.

  Since then, Hazel had been bracing herself daily for Jessie to learn the news and relay it to Hazel.

  Until she had confirmation, she didn’t dare mention it, as much as she wished to confide in someone. Twice she had nearly said something to Ginger. But she had stopped herself, knowing Ginger disapproved of that sort of lingering, unnecessary grief.

  “I am come back from lunch!” Maria announced. She was a woman without embarrassment; no lack of vocabulary or shakiness of grammar ever stopped her from conversing with complete freedom. Ginger turned away, annoyed, but Hazel smiled. Maria was a wonder, a self-styled businesswoman whose glamour always looked slightly out of place. Hair dyed unnaturally black, and bright eyes with too much green eye shadow glittering above. Her earrings were always large and matched her necklaces, and though she carried herself with hauteur and owned the most expensive fabric store in the Back Bay, she never hesitated to cough extravagantly or blow her nose loudly into a dirty Kleenex. “Let me tell you what I eat. So delicious!”

  Maria’s lack of self-consciousness was so different from the way Hazel had been when she lived abroad, always trying to slog her way through some foreign language. Only now did she see that there was something beautiful in the incongruity of an alluring, cultured woman speaking incorrectly, something fabulous in the harsh accent and brazenly improper syntax. Why was it, Hazel wondered, that what she found lovely in another woman she could only abhor in herself?

  If Maria had been the one to see Remy in the department store that day, and Remy were the wife of her ex-husband, Maria would probably have gone right up to her and asked, “You expecting?” in a loud voice. She wouldn’t have huddled behind a tie rack, fumbling a packet of men’s underwear. Even if Maria hated Remy, she wouldn’t allow herself to feel envy; she would simply revel in thoughts of a pregnant Remy nauseated and puffy and having to pee all the time.