“That wasn’t exactly at the top of my list,” Maria remarked, for she knew that Anna was referring to some of her former classmates who had yet to arrive at their table.
“I know”—Anna smiled—“but these things are important, now that you’re emerging from your cocoon.”
“So it’s finally happening,” Maria said, and sighed. “I’m trying to enjoy it—just for today—because I know that as soon as I start, it’s going to be so much work.”
“As you should.” Anna remained impassive as she looked around for a waiter. “It’s an end and a beginning, which above all calls for un coup de champagne.”
“Yes, un coup de champagne,” Maria agreed and was distracted by the commotion of the wedding party, which had just entered the room.
Wine followed champagne as Maria stiffly conversed with her tablemates, three Juilliard alums and their husbands. Only one was still singing, and she made a point to tell Maria within five seconds of sitting down how jet-lagged she was after a flight from London, where she had just finished a Handel opera that Maria was sure would have bored her to tears, and so she could express genuine admiration for the accomplishment of performing it. The woman’s husband was a fastidious little mouse who taught music history somewhere and said that he didn’t appreciate anything later than Bach. The other two, whose voices had never particularly impressed Maria, both had husbands whose striking resemblance made her imagine a grove of trees from which pasty but aggressive bankruptcy lawyers were harvested by young sopranos more interested in marriage than in a career.
“So Washington Heights—is that in New Jersey?” one of them responded with what Maria felt quite sure was a sneer after she mentioned where she lived.
She decided that, under the circumstances, it would be quite appropriate—and even amusing—to play the diva. “No, it’s on an island known as Manhattan,” she emphasized with an exaggerated sigh. “Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
He teased out the exact location, at Broadway and 160th, before he addressed the table at large. “Doesn’t it make you wonder why they didn’t keep the numbers going all the way upstate? ‘Hey, I live on 5,634th Street, how about you?’ ” He laughed moronically and then addressed Maria. “So what’s it like up there?”
“Oh, it’s a drug-infested war zone,” she replied, but in an airy tone, as though she were describing a Monet painting. “The streets are filled with garbage, it’s loud, the police are a joke—it’s a third-world country. Except for the mango ices, I hate it.”
“Why don’t you move?” asked the other one, as if the answer—money—weren’t obvious.
“I like to walk to work.”
“And what’s work?” retorted the first guy, again with the sneer.
“I’m a dispatcher for an uptown car service.” Maria decided to play her trump card, mostly for the benefit of the Juilliard alums, because even if their husbands were ignorant, they had heard Maria sing and—as Anna had said—knew that she was on the cusp of something they were not. “It’s not interesting,” she admitted, “but it gives me time to work on my voice.”
“You sounded spectacular at the ceremony,” commented one of the women, genuinely enough for Maria to appreciate why Linda had remained friends with her, even if her husband was—to use one of her grandmother’s favorite expressions—a horse’s ass. “Brahms has always been—”
“I’m curious,” the husband interjected over his wife, “how would someone like you get from Washington Heights to—I don’t know—the Metropolitan Opera?”
“The subway?” Maria answered, which made everyone—including her inquisitor—laugh. Although Maria knew very well the many different routes a singer could take from anonymity to the stage, she was not about to justify the implication that her life would be a failure if she did not make the ascent, even if in a sizable corner of her heart she believed it herself. “I don’t really think about the practical side of things,” she mused. “As Anna has always said”—and Maria nodded toward her mentor, who during this entire conversation seemed to be watching a movie screen in the distance—“when a voice is ready, the rest takes care of itself.”
“Sounds very Zen,” said the husband, as he raised his glass. “Sharon’s always dragging me to the opera—right, honey?—and it’s always better when we know someone up there on the stage.”
Maria could have responded to this in many different ways, but she decided to follow Anna’s example and simply smile and nod toward the dance floor, where Linda and Jay now appeared for the first dance.
“We’re surrounded by dolts,” Maria said to Anna after the other couples at the table left for the dance floor.
Anna nodded. “Try not to be too judgmental. I hate to tell you this, but in your career, you’ll find yourself surrounded by more of these civilians, and believe it or not, you will look back at this time with nostalgia.”
MARIA WENT TO the bar and was approached by a man—taller than she was and not exactly thin—with short black hair and impassive blue eyes. She met his gaze and did not turn away when he stated her name.
She raised an eyebrow. “Do I know you?”
“It’s been a while.” He rubbed a hand over a short beard in a gesture that made him seem a little nervous and on the whole less attractive to her.
There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t figure it out. “Uh—sorry.”
“Martin Vallence …”
“Martin Vallence,” she repeated. “Why do I know that name?”
“Pittsburgh,” he said in a flat, ambivalent tone that rekindled her interest in him. “Three rivers, Castle Shannon, Terry Bradshaw, the Thunderbolt, Evonne Goolagong, Cedar Village—”
Then she knew. He was the son of the boss, the kid who lived down the street from Kathy Warren. “My God—Martin Vallence!” she cried, genuinely astounded at the unexpected sight of someone from such a distant—and difficult—period of her life.
“You remember?”
“Well, yeah—did you think I was acting?”
“No—well, maybe,” he added, somewhat too pensively to be funny. “I figure if you can sing you can act, right?”
“In theory, but no, I remember you from your father’s company.” She resisted the temptation to add how much she had hated working there during her summers. “So, Martin Vallence, what brings you to the Pierre?”
He did not exactly return her smile. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“Okay—I’ll go first,” Maria offered. “I went to music school with Linda—we were roommates for four years at Juilliard.”
Martin nodded. “What’s funny is that my last memory of you—before today—was after you won that singing competition in Pittsburgh.”
“The Heinz Recitals,” Maria said curtly. “That was another life.”
“My mother was very impressed,” Martin remarked, with a trace of sarcasm that might have annoyed her if he hadn’t immediately followed with a more earnest response. “I went to boarding school with Jay,” he said and cocked an eyebrow at her. “I take it you missed my toast?”
“I was, uh, in the bathroom, I think—you know, smoking crack.”
Martin laughed. “Not that I’m an expert or anything, but from where I sat you sounded incredible—I thought the roof was going to cave in.”
“Thank you very much,” Maria replied as the bartender approached. “Can I get you a drink? It’s on me.”
She liked that Martin seemed to appreciate the joke but also admired a pervasive coolness in his expression that made his smile more genuine. He ordered a whiskey and after receiving it suggested they moved to a nearby table to talk. “So—you live in the city?”
“Yes, I came here after high school,” Maria answered and told him a few things about Juilliard. “I live uptown now—Washington Heights.”
“What’s that like?”
“It’s a challenge.” Maria shrugged. “How about you?”
“East Village—I moved there after co
llege. I was roommates with Jay.”
“So you live in a slum, too—congratulations,” she said. “What do you do down there?”
“I used to be a music writer,” he replied, “but now I’m a lawyer.”
“You’re a lawyer? You don’t look like a lawyer.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said. “I represent rock bands.” He pulled a card from his wallet and gave it to her.
He drank the rest of his whiskey and then contemplated her with his tranquil eyes. “There’s something I want to tell you …”
“Uh-oh,” Maria said.
He did not hesitate: “My parents are dead, too.”
“What?”
“My parents died, too,” he repeated, but so softly that she could barely make out the words above the music. “Only about five months after yours.”
Unexpected as this was, Maria found it difficult to speak; a sick and spinning weightlessness reminded her of those first months after the fire, and she couldn’t decide if she was too drunk or not drunk enough.
Martin apologized for the abrupt delivery. “I thought it would be unfair not to tell you. I assumed you didn’t know.”
“No, I didn’t,” Maria managed as she shook her head. “What—what happened?”
“Car accident. We were driving home from my high school graduation and it was raining and there was construction.” He paused for a second as she listened in disbelief. “A truck skidded out and jack-knifed right in front of them.”
Shocked as much by the story as by its odd proximity to hers, Maria found it difficult to think. There was a part of her that wanted to laugh it off with the flick of her wrist and a suggestion for a stiffer drink, but to do so would have felt too much like a dismissal of her own past, so instead she offered a trembling hand, which he took. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“How could something like that happen—to both of us?” she asked, still gripping his hand. “I mean—how do you explain it?”
“How do you explain anything?” he replied with a subtle aggression that made it easy to believe he was a lawyer. “How do you answer questions like ‘Why was I born?’ or ‘Why am I living in 1989 and not 1889?’ or ‘Why am I in New York City and not East Bumblefuck?’ ”
“I know why I’m here.” Maria laughed uneasily.
“You’re lucky.” He rotated the glass in his hand for a few seconds before he looked up at her with eyes that seemed to flicker as they caught the reflection of candlelight. “Whenever I run into something crazy—something that doesn’t make logical or scientific sense—instead of asking myself ‘How could that have happened?’ I sometimes think the right question is ‘How could that not have happened?’ ” He shrugged. “Is that too much legalese for you?”
Maria slowly shook her head. It actually did make sense, particularly as she considered her impending contract with the Met; of course she had worked for it—and the fact of having it made everything she had endured seem to fall into place, at least in retrospect—but getting to this point had been anything but certain, as the other Juilliard alums more than demonstrated. She returned her attention to Martin. “Okay, then—our parents: how could it not have happened?”
He considered her. “We’re here, aren’t we? I mean, you and me—at this moment, at this table, talking?”
“I guess we are,” she acknowledged, and though it was a vague answer, she understood what he meant, that this bizarre coincidence or twist of fate—whatever they wanted to call it—was the reason she could consider him with such empathy; more than anyone she had ever met, he understood that part of her life—and vice versa—without having to be told.
He stared through her and smiled. “I think my destiny—at least for now—is to get another drink. Want one?”
“Please.” She nodded, and was relieved to be left alone for a few minutes. She watched him lean against the bar in the self-assured posture of one who was very much at home there, and felt a glimmer of something else—clearly not grief—and was amazed at how her mind could occupy two such disparate spaces at once. Although he wasn’t exactly her type—for one thing, he was too tall, and for another, she distrusted lawyers of all stripes—she felt more intrigued than threatened by their shared past. If it would have been an exaggeration to say she had given up on men in the past few years—though more than once she had claimed to have had her fill—she could not help but wonder if, despite her avowals to the contrary, she had just been struck by the fabled arrow of love, here at Linda’s wedding. It seemed too perfect, pure storybook, to fall in love with Jay’s best friend—a boy she had last seen at the company where their fathers worked—but she felt certain that if he were to ask her to marry him, she would say yes, why not?
Back at the table, he handed her a new glass. “To death,” he toasted.
Maria was relieved to find no trace of irony in either his tone or his expression. “To death,” she repeated but barely sipped her wine before she set it down on the table. “You probably can’t tell, but I’m drunk.”
“That makes two of us,” he replied. “In case you couldn’t tell.”
She laughed and decided her attraction to him was a bit sacrilegious, but then decided she didn’t care. “Do you want to dance?” she asked and nodded at the dance floor, where a bunch of people were doing the twist.
“Not at all.” He shook his head. “Do you?”
“Not at all,” she admitted. “But I don’t want to sit here anymore, either.”
“We could go for a little walk,” Martin proposed. “I could use a break.”
Maria followed him out of the ballroom and into a long hallway, the quiet reverberation of which made her melancholy, and she paused.
Martin wrapped one of her arms around his shoulder as she steadied herself against the wall. “I thought you said nobody could tell when you were drunk.”
“I’m just really fucking tired,” she murmured, but already the touch of her hand on his and her arm around his back electrified her, even as she felt her eyes start to tear. “And thanks to you I’m really fucking sad, too, even though I just found out about the biggest break of my career.”
She had already told him about her acceptance into the young artist program and everything that implied. “Don’t blame me,” he said with a smile. “I don’t trust anyone who thinks happiness is ever more than fleeting.”
It was a gesture of resignation that she never failed to find charming in men who attracted her, so that, when he turned to face her, she could not resist placing her hands on his shoulders, only a few inches from a real hug, and then, when he showed no resistance, closing the gap. Nor did she object when, in return, his hand on her back went from a gesture of reassurance to something more, which led her to grip him a little tighter, which he reciprocated, so that she felt inclined to nuzzle a little at his neck, where his beard gave way to an afternoon stubble, which left her no choice but to kiss him.
“I wish we had somewhere to go,” she said.
“What about in there?” he suggested, nodding at an adjacent door.
“It looks like a utility room,” Maria said. “I bet it’s locked.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Martin said and reached over to push down on the lever.
The door gave way, and Maria cried out—a scream, really, but a very controlled one—in surprise and triumph, after which she followed him into a small supply room, so they were alone in the dark. As soon as the door clicked shut, she grabbed hold of him, an action he did not so much resist as envelop as he fell into her and brought them both to the floor, along with a cascade of toilet paper rolls that strangely never seemed to land. She felt nothing, really, except an odd, blissful heat, until she heard sobs and realized that they were her own. This grief—along with the understanding that Martin shared it—increased her desire, so that she pulled at his shirt and kissed him harder than she had ever kissed anyone, until she was sure her teeth had turned to dust and she tasted blo
od. Completely immune to any pain, real or prospective, she did not stop as he unhitched his belt and pushed his pants down while she did the same with her dress and underwear, which she left hanging on one ankle, just above a black leather pump she did not bother to remove. She twisted around on her back, and they attacked each other like starving animals. They heaved and flailed, so what they did seemed less and less like fucking than like some strange ritual of initiation Maria both wanted and did not want to stop. She was beneath and above him at the same time, surrounding him as he surrounded her, melting into him as she lost her vision and spun away from this dark room toward some disembodied space. When they were done, she returned to her body and cried new tears of relief and—somehow—resurrection, as if, it occurred to her, she had just clawed her way out of a coffin.
37
The World Is the Totality of Facts, Not of Things
PARIS, 1870. Waking up in the diffuse light of dawn, Lucien realized he had been asleep only a few hours. Still shaken by the nightmarish visions he had suffered, he could not believe he had not died from the vaccine. The beating of his heart and the heavy, humid air moving into and out of his lungs confirmed he had not, and as he slowly flexed his fingers, he felt oddly relieved; whatever else had happened—and he was not yet prepared to think about the consequences—the grief he had brought with him to Paris a few weeks earlier had been stripped away, exposing a core of resolve where before there had seemed to be nothing but despair. He crawled a few feet over to his father, still supine on the floor. While it was unbearable to think that Guillaume would never again laugh or smile or even distractedly examine a flower, Lucien’s sense of loss was tempered by the knowledge that his father had died in a manner of his own choosing, with no doubts and fully aware of the risks; his death was the culmination of decades of work, and Lucien could appreciate why he had done it.
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