by Jane Lebak
The food was hot. Good. Go was my temper.
If I weren’t furious with everyone, it would have been comical how no one wanted to sit near me. Even Josh forgot about that kiss and sat at the opposite end. Shreya put herself cater-corner to him, leaving Harrison the choice of sitting at my side or directly opposite. He chose opposite. Let’s glare. It added spice to a dinner conversation that otherwise consisted of “Can you pass the soy sauce.” Eventually Shreya forced a subject-changing (subject-starting?) question about tourism, and Harrison, tentative, talked about Fort William Henry. He said you could hear the fort fire their cannons all summer, but given my pounding heart, I could hear them now.
A thousand days later, dinner ended with Harrison snapping open his fortune cookie. “Get this, guys: ‘You are the crispy noodle in the vegetarian salad of life.’”
Josh said, “That should have been Shh...reya’s.”
Shreya intoned, “That is so deep,” and then read hers. “Your everlasting patience will be rewarded sooner or later.”
Even I laughed. Josh’s said, “Pray for what you want, but work for the things you need.”
Shreya said, “That’s usually Trust in God, but tie your camel.”
Harrison said, “Trust in God, but keep your powder dry.”
“That too,” she said.
And I opened mine to find this: “When the heart can’t speak, it sings.”
Harrison snorted. “Wholesale theft. Victor Hugo said it first: ‘Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.’”
Shreya rolled her eyes. “I doubt they have actual mystics writing these things.”
Plagiarism or not, I tucked the fortune into my pocket and ate the cookie.
While we cleaned up, Harrison handed me a number on a yellow sticky note. Four figures. We hadn’t been sued, but already lawyers were taking our money. Letting Shreya stacked dishes in the dishwasher, I logged into the bank account and reimbursed our very own son-of-a-lawyer.
As I took a screen shot of the confirmation page, Josh handed me a sticky note of his own: the circle with spikes (his hedgehog) curled into a ball and shedding sweat drops in front of a viola. A cloud hovered over the viola, raining a cluster of profanity symbols.
Grinning, I stuck it to the side of the laptop screen.
Then it hit me like a body blow—Josh had gone along with the deception. Josh would kiss me, but then he would deceive me. What had happened to my world?
When I heard a buzz, I thought it was my head, but Harrison glanced at his phone and beamed. “Great news, Josh! My dad says the neurologist can see you next week!”
I exclaimed, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Shreya said, “Who said your father could book an appointment?”
And Josh? Josh just stood open-mouthed.
“No, this is great!” Harrison beamed like a toothpaste commercial. “This guy has a waiting list for months, but he worked you into a cancellation before he goes to a conference in Germany.”
Paging Dr. Steamroller to the kitchen. Harrison must have spent half the day coordinating this. Via text, so no one could overhear.
Josh shook his head. “I don’t www-want an appointment. I’m fine.”
“And now you’ll be better than fine.” Harrison started texting back. “It’s in Manhattan so it’s not a huge inconvenience, and it’ll be free. How could you possibly object?”
“And yet he has,” I snapped. “Several times.”
Harrison looked up. “When did you become Josh’s mouthpiece?”
“When did you?”
He shrugged. “Look, I’m not a doctor. Let the doctors figure it out.”
Josh said, “I’m not g-g-g-going.”
Harrison frowned. “My dad pulled strings for you.”
“I didn’t ask him to pull st-strings!” Josh said.
“But this guy is world-famous!”
World-famous neurologists being slightly more famous than world-class violists.
Josh folded his arms.
Harrison said, “Dad says it doesn’t have to be a device. There’s also drugs that can help stuttering.”
Josh shook his head again. That wasn’t a block. He was speechless.
Harrison frowned. “My father’s going to be hurt.”
Emotional blackmail. If you can’t bulldoze them, wring them out to dry.
Josh, to his credit, said, “He has my s-sympathies. Tell him to cancel.”
With a theatric sigh, Harrison texted again. Time for a subject change. Maybe someday I’d get good at those. “Guys, can we stop bickering and have dessert? Harrison’s mom sent us a cake.”
Shreya chuckled. “That’s sweet.”
Literally, yeah. Harrison went to the cabinets, I figured to get cake plates, and thirty seconds later set a box on the table in front of Josh.
Josh glared lasers. I couldn’t figure out why until I registered what Harrison had produced. A cappuccino machine.
Harrison leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Here’s a thought. Get the right equipment, and you can have whatever you want.”
Josh stalked out of the kitchen.
Shreya turned from drying her hands. “I have a brilliant idea, Harrison.” Her voice was a taut whisper. I wouldn’t have bowed that overtightened string for fear it would snap in my face. “Shut the fuck up.”
She left too.
For a moment, Harrison and I stood alone in the kitchen, and the only things I could think to say would have started a fight—a satisfying, necessary fight I should have started months ago. Years ago. Except now I stood in a stranger’s kitchen, breathing another family’s expensive air, and I had no idea how to start. Begin as you mean to go on.
Above my head, I heard the throaty vibrations of the cello warming up. Scales. Up up up two octaves, down again to the home note, then up again. Josh, accounted for.
Harrison walked away, into the living room, he turned on the TV.
Alone, I wondered how we’d gotten to this point: a quartet, quartered. Wasn’t the point that we were supposed to stick together, each in a role?
Not wanting to be alone, I joined Shreya in the parlor. She stared out the window at rows of lights above the lake surface. A dinner cruise.
I said, “Are you still mad at me?”
She waved her hand with an eh. “You’re in luck. Harrison pissed me off more. Him and his superhero father.”
My mouth tightened. “What a jackass.”
She blew out her breath. “Substitute ‘jackass’ for ‘rich powerful guy who saves the lives of the less fortunate who don’t know how to ask for themselves.’ How could he pass up the opportunity? Don’t we see Harrison doing that too?”
“Yeah, our fearless leader.” Fearlessly watching TV. “Saving us by retaining a lawyer.”
“I’m sorry,” said Shreya. “I should have told you.”
I rested my chin on my knees. “And I should have shut up.”
It’s not noble to betray your friends.
Shallow.
Terrific. The more things changed.
Shreya’s mouth twitched. “Look, I’ll get over it. But you need to talk to Josh.” The cello sang through the ceiling, the benefit of an instrument that touched the floor. “You’re his touchstone.”
I shook my head. “I’m the last person he wants to talk to right now.”
Even as Shreya asked why, I heard, “Mind if I join you?” Harrison entered without waiting for an answer. “You guys okay?”
I refused to look at him. “I was asking Shreya if she knew why second violinists never suffer from hemorrhoids.”
Harrison knew the rest of the joke: all the assholes become first violinists.
Instead of retorting, he dropped into a seat near the windows. “Josh will come around.”
I snapped, “How’s he supposed to ‘come around’ when you keep hammering on a non-topic?”
“Yeah, funny that,” Shreya murmured.
I ignored her. “And what was that about Josh taking drugs? He doesn’t want to stick a thing in his ear, but he’d take medication?”
Shreya said, “Or conversely, were you leveraging the drugs to make a thing in his ear seem palatable?”
Harrison said, “The neurologist told my dad that dopamine antagonists can help.”
Harrison would know about antagonists. I said, “It’s not your decision! Josh is fine!”
“Josh was too wiped out to order dinner! Is that fine?” Harrison cocked his head. “At the top of our game, we’re going to play four weddings every weekend. What will clients think when he can’t talk after that?”
Unsteady, I said, “You promised you’d do the talking for him.”
Lowering his voice, Harrison leaned toward me. “But Joey, I get that thing plugged into his head, and effectively, I am!”
Shreya made a strangled yelp. “For your own sake, don’t ever say that again. He shouldn’t be beholden to you for his voice.”
“He could have everything he ever wanted if he’d just take it. He doesn’t want to be my philanthropy project. I can respect that.” His eyes were as bright as when he’d pitched the fusion mixes. “It wouldn’t be from me!”
Shreya said, “And Josh’s refusal? That means nothing?”
“Doctors live for this stuff.” Harrison pretty much glowed. “My dad’s friend would die happy if he could give Josh a voice.”
“He’s got a voice!” My hands clutched the throw blanket. “He’s doing fine!”
“He’ll do even better!” Harrison nodded. “You have to trust me. I’ve done a lot of research.”
Taking my shock for agreement, Harrison turned to Shreya. “I don’t mean to divert a good dogpile, but I’d assumed you were vegetarian because you were Hindu.”
Shreya shot me a look, and I shrank.
She said, “My parents are Hindu, and they raised me vegetarian.”
I looked up. “Wait a minute—?”
Chuckling, she sat back. “You’re going to ask why my vegetarian parents sell hot dogs?”
Harrison sounded baffled. “Your parents sell hot dogs?”
She gave a sigh that would have impressed a silent movie actress. “It’s a sordid tale of woe and lachrymation.”
“That’s a pretty big word.” Harrison made himself look serious. “You’d better lay it on us.”
“Actually,” she said, “that’s something I consider private, kind of like how you never mentioned the tooth fairy dropping by with Benjamins.”
Harrison’s gaze sharpened. “You know—”
“Yeah,” I muttered, “this is great for our stress level.”
He and she both fell silent. Finally he got to his feet. “Come outside for a bit. There’s something you need to see that’ll make it all worthwhile.”
A Stradivarius, the selection team from Carnegie Hall, and a winning lottery ticket? “What?”
He grinned. “You’ll just have to come see.”
Shreya shook her head. “Too cold for me. You want me to get Josh?”
Harrison shrugged. “If he comes down, send him. But for now he’s getting in some good practice.”
Outside, Harrison picked his steps down the unlighted walkway to the dock, me following. At the edge, he stopped.
“Isn’t this amazing?” Harrison kept his voice low. “It’s not like this later in the summer, when everyone comes back.”
I waited for his cue as to what he expected.
First I noticed the stars. In the cloudless sky, the moon had reached a crescent-phase, and under so little light, the lake lay like a moment out of the apocalypse. In the chill, I craned my neck to pick out constellations, but I couldn’t. Maybe I’d never seen stars, swallowed by streetlights as I kept my gaze grounded.
We stood surrounded by water and overarched by spangles. Harrison’s voice was like a breath. “I love the silence. If we played here, it would carry the whole length of the lake.” A wry chuckle. “I’ve always wanted to perform something from Handel’s Water Music right out there on the boat, but then I think about tipping over and my violin getting wet, and I can’t bear to try.”
He was right on about the acoustics. With us totally still, I could hear voices from other homes in different directions, mingling like one conversation.
The faint sounds held power. The plips of water in the lake, the soosh of wavelets against the pilings, the distant hum of men’s voices. Sometimes I’d hear a car. Overhead, a plane. I could pick out the notes of the cello, but muffled.
I sat on the dock, then stretched back on my hands. “I hope this works out.”
Harrison sounded shocked. “Of course it’ll work out. Trust me for once!”
“Trust you?” I struggled against the edge in my voice. “Sure, I’ll forget you lied about that attorney.”
“I never lied. I acted to protect the group.”
“Protect it from me?”
“Regardless, everything’s going to be fine. Tomorrow we’ll get up, have coffee, and buckle down to the music. Everything’s done now except playing together.”
I shook my head.
Harrison said, “Hey, how do you stop a violist from drowning?”
“You take your foot off her head?”
“I was thinking you peel the stickers off the bottom of the bathtub.”
“Ooh,” I whispered. “Sparkly stickers?”
He chuckled. “Anything you want.”
I pointed into the darkness. “I want an island. Could we maybe get the kayaks and visit one of those?”
“We could hit Diamond Island, but the nearby ones are privately owned.”
Wow, your own island. Just sail off and if anyone follows, you tell them it’s private. No one banging at your door, no one saying you’re a goth who solicits from men in cars, no rich guy solving problems you don’t have.
I could no longer hear traffic, only water slucking beneath the dock. “I still don’t know.”
“Trust me.”
“But Josh—”
“He’ll see reason.” Harrison sounded breezy. “I wear contact lenses. People use hearing aids and crutches and insulin pumps all the time. You’re supposed to use a device if your body isn’t working right.”
“Do you even hear yourself?” My voice dropped. “You’re saying he’s defective.”
Harrison said, “He is defective. If his car had a flat tire, would he ride around on the rim?”
Conscious of the night, I kept my voice low. “He communicates fine.”
“Haven’t you ever wanted to reach down his throat to pull out whatever word’s stuck this time?” Harrison shifted behind me. “I’ve seen how you want to slink away when someone stares.”
Crap. Well, now I wanted to slink away.
“Why are repeating low notes so gorgeous in music and so awful in speech? I hear how he could be speaking, the same way I heard the way we could be playing.” I heard a shuffle behind me as Harrison folded his arms, either stubborn or freezing. “Don’t you ever hear what he isn’t saying?”
My eyes stung. A month ago, I had. And ever since, I’d wished I hadn’t.
He laughed. “We’ll fit him out like the Bionic Man, and he’ll tour the country telling kids about the cello and giving them taxi tours. Don’t worry. I’ll win him over.”
“Of course you will.” I sighed. “You know what’s best for everyone. You’re rich, charming, good with kids and good with dogs. What else is there?”
Harrison sounded hurt. “You left out my incredible good looks.”
“I also left off your world-class ego.”
“Touché!” He laughed out loud, and it carried over the water.
I couldn’t get over how night could feel without thousands of cars passing by. I tried to memorize the moon, the black smudge of the trees. Harrison wasn’t the one I wanted on the dock, though. That one was ensconced on the second floor, playing his cello and smoldering. Although come to think of it, I could no longer hear the
cello, so maybe he’d played himself into calmness.
Harrison said, “He’ll regret it forever if he doesn’t seize this opportunity.”
Wisdom from the Great Harrison. “How would you know? You’ve never regretted a thing.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He drew out the final syllable.
His hand closed on my shoulder. Oh, no.
“About upstairs. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You already apologized.”
“Yeah, but—”
I didn’t turn to him, instead focusing out over the water. Not this. Not now.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to. I never thought of it as sexual harassment, and I’ll stop. But—” His voice was very low. Subito piano. “Maybe I’m having difficulties with the professionalism thing.”
I wanted to run. “Why bring it up now?”
He hesitated. “Maybe I’ve been looking for a halfway point, when there can’t be. So… If I were to say it again—?” I braced myself. “Would you marry me someday?”
I didn’t give myself rein to think in case I second-guessed. “I’m not marrying you, Harrison.”
Other than the lapping water, Harrison’s quiet spread to quell every sound around us.
I turned, and my night-adjusted vision could make out his face. Even I could barely hear myself. “If anything, these last weeks proved you right. It wouldn’t end well. We work great together, but—”
“Spare me the ‘you’re a great guy’ talk.” Harrison glanced away. “I wish you didn’t always have to make sense.”
I made a strangled noise. “I make sense?”
“You know what I mean.”
I couldn’t have explained the layers of his thoughts, but I didn’t think he regretted breaking up, not in general. Right now he did, and until the moment passed, it would eat him alive. Then he’d set it aside and we’d move forward. Friends. Partners. Players. But never lovers.
I looked over the water. “You’ll do best with some classy chick who speaks French and never shopped Goodwill.”
Harrison chuckled. “No one outclasses you.” He waited. “Are you and— And who would you end up with?”
Not a cabbie cellist who looked coy when he averted his eyes or who had a characteristic smirk when starting trouble or who had told me to my face that he’d never trust me again because I tossed my friends to the lions. And who’d been right. Right about me.