Pickup Notes

by Jane Lebak

  I didn’t know when or how I’d get a shower again, so I rushed through, making sure to leave the bathroom immaculate. Using his phone, I called mine to pick up voicemail. My mom had left more messages, pleading with me to come home. Not that she wanted to know where was I, or how was I doing, just...come home. Delete, delete. Dad and Grandma, too, “You’re upsetting your mother!” There was nothing from Josh. I used the phone once more to call my job, leaving a message that I’d work today, then cleared out.

  Okay. So until the afternoon it was me, myself, and nowhere.

  Commuters encroached on the streets like a rising tide. With some of my remaining money I got a coffee, but I needed an infusion of cash. And soon. I was hungry.

  Viv had my apartment and all my important papers, and Josh had my soul. But I still had my grandfather’s viola. Pyrrhus would have been proud.

  The viola and my bag and I camped out on a bench at Tompkins Square Park where I finished my coffee. Those two measures of music, what were they? They felt old, like something played in an early recital, only they didn’t “feel” baroque or classical...more folksy. Finally, figuring I’d already endured every humiliation, I got out my viola to work out those notes. Familiar, so familiar. What key was that...?

  I played them again, and suddenly I remembered the next measure.

  I ran through those three, and then I had a song. A whole song.

  My grandfather’s song.

  I got to my feet and played through, starting from those two measures mid-refrain, then pushing through as I remembered the ascending sounds, the call in the middle that always reminded me of a bird of prey, how Grandpa crescendoed, and how a near-hush followed which made the house become bigger and emptier.

  Oh, Grandpa, Grandpa...

  With my eyes closed, I reached through time to resurrect his song, and I let it unfurl its wings like a bird caged for five years.

  I finished with my eyes burning.

  A small cough started me. A short woman in a brown jacket looked nervous as she handed me a dollar. “I would have put this in your case, but it wasn’t open.”

  I took it, my throat too tight to respond.

  Thank you, Grandpa. Thank you. Thank you for a song. Thank you for a way out.

  I took the train to Union Square where the L, the R, and the IRT lines intersected. I paced the uptown R platform before choosing a niche under a stairwell. Laughing at myself, I scattered change in the case. I couldn’t get any lower down the musical totem pole, but hey, if I got arrested for busking, at least the police would put me up at the New York’s Finest Motel.

  A train thundered into the station, overwhelming my opening notes. Then, after it pulled out, I restarted my grandfather’s song.

  Self-conscious, I hated how the stairwell distorted the sound. But as I stepped forward, I realized how few people watched. And if no one paid attention, why be afraid? Sometimes you just had to make a noise. So I made a lot of it.

  The trains came every three minutes. I had only that long to capture someone’s attention and their spare change. Bach was good, but I heard more coin-jingles for “Eleanor Rigby,” so I changed my repertoire to match my audience. Between trains, I cleared the bills from the case. And once I warmed up, I started to move.

  I channeled Shreya with a half-dance, then extemporized for the slate-faced commuters, bestowing a little intrigue on their trip. I played “Hotel California.” I was nowhere near as good as my role model, but nevertheless thrilled to be playing at all, and later relieved when an outgoing train swallowed my mistakes.

  The platform regularly crowded and cleared, like a pulse of people. The trains belched heat onto the platform, and next came the drafts. My poor viola. When I had only a couple of watchers, I wondered if something had happened to the L line. Maybe the police were shunting people aside, the better to arrest me.

  Then I checked my watch and discovered the reason: nine-fifteen. Wow. Wow!

  Ten minutes later in Union Square Park, I smoothed the crumpled bills: eleven bucks. At the bottom of the duffle bag, my hand probed for quarters in the sea of change. Shreya said she’d cleared twenty to forty dollars an hour. She’d failed to mention it would weigh ten pounds.

  I rubbed that scar on my hand, queasy. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday. A deli turned up a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut-butter. At the counter, I asked the sullen clerk for a plastic knife, and she thrust one at me.

  It took half a minute to make a sandwich, and I devoured it on a bench, wondering when was the last time a sandwich had left me filled. I thought about making a noise, making money, making joy.

  At nine-forty-five, I finished an interminable call to get my bank account locked tighter than Fort Knox. I’d missed a call from Harrison, so looking with sadness at the fading battery indicator, I called back.

  “What’s up?” I’d separated ten dollars in quarters into one of the side pockets, and they gave a metallic grind as I moved.

  “I’m home. Were you serious about practicing today?”

  “Sure, before I go to work. I—” As I looked around Union Square Park, my voice caught. I imagined playing under the sun, not for the spare change but for the music. Why did it feel so long since I’d truly played?

  Harrison said, “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’ll be there at ten-thirty.”

  “Where are you?”

  Practically under his window. “Just go ahead and call Shreya and our replacement cellists.”

  I powered off the phone to preserve whatever battery remained.

  I strolled in Harrison’s general direction, no longer surrounded by speed-walking office workers, and held both my viola and duffle bag on straps over the same shoulder. Manhattan in the daylight seemed like a wedding hall with the tables stripped. I could make music here. It was a stage with no props on it. Yet.

  I walked past Only Strings, and with nowhere to go, I stopped inside. At the counter, Arvin explained to a woman that he didn’t sell rosin, Only Strings. Next he answered the phone, paused, and said, “No, sir. Only Strings.”

  The person in front of me: “Full set of strings for a hurdy gurdy.”

  “Vielle a roué?”

  “Yep.”

  Smooth as gourmet coffee, Arvin pulled six square packets from an unlabeled drawer. The man paid.

  Arvin turned to me. “Corelli Alliance mediums? Already?”

  I shook my head. “Have you got an empty apartment and a new quartet?”

  He squinted. “Sorry. Only Strings.” Then he paused. “You look like hell.”

  The hurdy gurdy man left. I said, “Josh quit the group.”

  He stopped cold. “I thought you two were buddies.”

  I dug my nails into my palm. “I guess we weren’t.”

  Arvin jutted forward with his elbows on the counter. “What happened?”

  “He got tired of being treated like crap?” Light-headed, I closed my eyes. As it turned out, peanut butter wasn’t the best breakfast. “I don’t know. Harrison dogpiled him, and I said something stupid, and he blew up.”

  Arvin sighed. “Why’d you let that happen?”

  My eyes flew wide. “Let it?”

  He stared off sideways, maybe at the bulletin board. “Yeah, doll. It sounds like you treated him badly.”

  I stared at the floor.

  He said, “That was wrong. So he changed what was wrong.”

  I said, “He changed everything.”

  “Tell me,” said Arvin, glancing at my face and then back at his countertop, “if you bow the C string by the bridge, doesn’t the whole string vibrate?”

  I breathed sharply.

  “And doesn’t the G string vibrate too, even though you didn’t bow it?”

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  “When you tighten one string, it can put the other three out of tune.” Arvin frowned. “Sometimes yeah, you have to change everything, even if it means losing something you love.” He leaned up close, an eye-to-eye I rarely got from Arvi
n. “And sometimes you need to fight real hard for something you love too.”

  This time I was the one who turned aside. “You’re full of wisdom today.”

  “No, doll.” He rested his smooth hand on mine. “Only Strings.”

  A customer entered, and I left as Arvin explained that no, he sold Only Strings.

  Tuning a viola. Tuning a cello. Tuning a quartet.

  Half an hour later at Harrison’s, I found him on the phone, pacing. A lot of mm-hmms. Then, “Okay, what time?” “Have you got a song list?” “No, don’t worry about that.” And finally, “I’ll call back after I check whether everyone’s available.”

  That didn’t sound good. Add in his downcast eyes plus the way he clutched the phone, and it sounded totally awful.

  The last thing he said was, “No, thank you for calling us. I’m sorry.”

  He hung up the phone with a dark, “Josh, you idiot.” Then he bit his lip as he met my gaze. “We need to play a funeral.”

  All the strength drained from me.

  “Oh—no, not Josh’s. God, Joey, sit down.” He grabbed both straps off my shoulder and pushed me into a chair. “Josh is fine. I mean, I think he is. Remember the guy from the retirement party? His wife was sick? She died yesterday. He wants us to play her funeral.”

  I rubbed my temples. Breathe. Breathe.

  Harrison shook his head. “The funeral’s Tuesday. But without Josh, I’m not sure how we’ll sound.”

  Letting off a long breath, I shook my head. “Okay. Um—” Why was it so hard to think? “Josh hasn’t contacted anyone?”

  Figure it out, Arvin said. Fight for what you need.

  “Will you play with him if he shows up?” I lowered my voice. “Because this bullshit about him being gone for good because of one fight? It’s stupid.”

  “It’s as much your fault as it is mine.”

  “I’m not assigning blame, damn it.” Think like my mom. What can I use for leverage? I stood. “Get his practice cello.”

  Harrison’s eyebrows shot up. “What are you doing?”

  “That’s a four thousand dollar instrument. He’ll talk to me for four grand.”

  Harrison produced the cello, then fished in his jacket for Josh’s EZ Pass. “He left this, too.”

  With my viola case like a backpack and my duffle bag over my shoulder, I grabbed Josh’s cello case by the handle and tested the wheels. I couldn’t hike a mountain this way, but to Brooklyn I’d manage.

  As I left, Shreya walked in. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m going to solicit Josh. Get the details from Harrison.”

  “And practice—?” said Harrison.

  “If I wait, he’ll go to work, and I need him face-to-face.” I smirked at Harrison. “You don’t need me anyhow. I only sit in the back and play the wrong notes.”

  Thirty minutes later, I stood on Josh’s stoop. It was easy to sound brave in Harrison’s apartment, where the scariest things were the tropical fish. The facing of Josh was another matter.

  Why does a violist stand in the street? Because she can’t find the key, and she doesn’t know when to come in.

  Yeah. Go me!

  I pushed the doorbell.

  With cunning that would impress a Navy SEAL, I propped Josh’s cello behind the hinges of the outer door. To get the thing, he’d have to come out long enough to talk. That was a trick I’d learned from living with my mother: if they might not listen, make sure there’s no choice.

  Josh answered through the intercom. I said, “I’m here with your cello.”

  Silence.

  I could have counted out the steps to the front entrance. How many seconds it should take. But the time passed, and that was the loneliest feeling in the world, knowing that even with his cello on his doorstep, he wouldn’t face me.

  Screw this. If he didn’t come, I’d take it with me. Maybe he’d chase me down the block.

  But he did open the door, and then I could say we both looked like hell.

  I held the EZ Pass at arm’s length, and he took it, careful not to touch me. When he stepped out to get the cello, I slipped between him and the door. “We need you to play one more time.”

  With shadowed eyes, Josh glared under the brim of his baseball cap.

  “Remember the retiree’s wife from the baby shower? She died. They asked us to play the funeral. There’s nothing on the playlist you’d need to practice ahead of time. You’d only have to show up.”

  “Th-tha-that’s what it’s come down to?” About to step forward, Josh realized I was blocking the door, so he held position. “I j-j-just have to show up?”

  “No, you were my friend, and I screwed up badly.” If I met his eyes, he’d see tears, but it was time to quit channeling Mom and do the right thing, so I stared at his sneakers. “I want you to reconsider, but I have no right to ask. I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry.”

  Josh said nothing.

  Still looking down, I said, “Will you do it for them?”

  “I’ll th-think about it.”

  “They need to know by this afternoon.”

  It was so tense. Where was the rapport? How could one stupid disclosure change everything?

  Josh said, “If I ‘just sh-show up,’ do I have to keep my defective mouth shut so you won’t be ashamed?”

  “I’m sorry for being an idiot. That was my issue, not yours.”

  More silence. Then, “For the last month, you rrr-really thought I’d never...forgive you?”

  “I was right, wasn’t I?” No one ever forgave me. “You said I was too shallow to trust. I thought you had good reason.”

  “I always trusted you.” He paused. “That’s why this stinks.”

  This was going to be it, wasn’t it? I had only one weapon left.

  I handed him the creased paper square in my pocket. He unfolded it to find a blank music sheet with my attempt at a drawing, neither improved nor hampered by the lurching of the subway. At the top I’d put a bass clef with no notes. Below that, a viola and a sad face on one side of a slash, and on the other, a cello with some hedgehogs and a question mark.

  He didn’t fold it back up, nor look at me, nor even crumple it. Instead he looked for a really long time.

  I had nothing left. Rather than keep him trapped, I went down the steps.

  As I reached the sidewalk, he said, “I’ll play.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  That night in my toll-booth, Bach grooved to Rachmaninov. The woman with 1985 hair handed me her toll and a chocolate bar, smiling when I exclaimed in surprise. She thought it was a snack. I’d call it dinner.

  I turned on my phone to check messages and found a text from Josh: “Hey, genius, when/where is this gig anyhow?”

  Oh, yeah, that detail might be important.

  Ten minutes after, he’d sent a second: “Not an insult. Sorry.”

  On eggshells. I hated it.

  Someday, maybe ten years from now, I’d see Josh again. Maybe I’ll hail a cab in the rain and climb in, drenched, with my instrument and my umbrella, and the driver will say, “Oh, are you a mmm-musician?” When that happens, I’ll look up, and he’ll recognize me. He’ll say, “Joey?” and I’ll say, “Wow—” and we’ll be awkward. I’ll tell him, “Grand Central Station.” He’ll ask what I’m doing, and maybe I can apologize again, and just like Peter he’ll tell me he’s over it. And I’ll be scared he’d get upset if I tip him high, but...well, I might never see him again after this week; there was no point in anguishing over what to tip when I did.

  Arvin was right. Bowing one string vibrated the whole instrument. If you dampen that vibration, the instrument wouldn’t sound. Tightening one string would cause the other three to shift, but then you retuned, and you kept at it until all four strings sang together.

  But if the fourth string snapped, could we get it back on the instrument?

  We brave warriors of the MBTA were keeping it down to a steady five cars in line as it grew dark. Well, relatively dark. Out at Lake George,
it had been truly Dark, but here we’d tamed the beast with fluorescent bulbs, traffic lights, and the radio.

  I thought of my viola safe in my locker with my duffle bag, visualized playing Mendelssohn’s Viola Sonata in C-Minor to the incoming traffic, imagined everyone sailing through while I gifted their world eight extra dollars and music.

  I’d make the paper, and any publicity was good publicity. Of course, I couldn’t afford to lose my mind now, but somehow that made insanity more attractive. I flexed my fingers in an approximation of the notes.

  The radio changed to Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. A black Cadillac pulled into my lane, and I smiled until I realized who it was.

  The Gentleman lowered his window. “Pleasant evening to you.”

  He held out his hundred.

  The viola vanished from my mind. How much longer would this guy keep jerking around the toll-booth operators? How long would I keep hitting my knees in the face of his ego?

  I pushed the security button, then shut off Tchaikovsky. Herr Bach paused mid-bop. “I’m sorry, sir. I can only accept denominations under twenty.”

  He extended it. “This is all I have.”

  This life was all I had. “I’m bound by the regulations of the Metropolitan Bridge and Tunnel Authority.”

  A hardness came to his eyes. “You have to take it.”

  Good. I’ll see your anger and raise you a ream of paperwork. “You can be billed. Please hand over your driver’s license.”

  I wouldn’t want to be on the sticky side of that red tape. You probably had to fill out a form to request the application you needed to acquire the paperwork so you could send in your check.

  He put ice into his voice. “I demand to speak to your supervisor.”

  Ted would have suspended me. Walt, our on-the-spot security dude, approached instead. I leaned out when he stepped between me and the Cadillac.

  “He says he can’t pay.” I gestured to The Gentleman. “I’ve requested his license so we can bill him.”

  The Gentleman said, “She’s refusing my legal American tender.”