New Year's Resolutions

by Briggs, Laura

  “Tell me about it,” said Henry, gloomily. Although his mind was busy rearranging the list in order of importance. Loves food, the outdoors, laid back with no hang-ups over little habits–and not Lois.

  *****

  “Loves music,” said Abby. “All kinds...”

  “Including your kind?” hinted Maureen. “Maybe what you need is one of the performers from the coffee house joint around the corner.”

  Abby jabbed Maureen in the arm with her elbow. “It doesn’t have to be folk or rock,” she said, “it can be jazz. Or techno. Or even opera.” This, with a slight reluctance, since one opera per year was Abby’s general indulgence in classical. She preferred something linked with smoky voices and dim lights, simple, scratchy instrumental accompaniments like a record turning beneath its needle.

  Beside her in the cab, Maureen squirmed to reach the compact in the bottom of her purse. The cab trundled along in pre-midnight traffic, en route to the late-night cinema showing that Maureen persuaded Abby was the perfect way to celebrate their post-New Year’s cheer.

  A girl’s night out–or her way of saying thank you for tactfully leaving her and Richard on their own all afternoon.

  “What about books?” asked Maureen, checking her makeup.

  “Books, definitely,” said Abby. “He has to be a great reader. Books are a deal-breaker.” She glanced out the window at the colored lights glinting from the buildings they passed.

  “What about fitness?” asked Maureen. “Is he a jock, or isn’t he?”

  Abby snorted. “No jocks, thanks. No outdoorsmen or sports enthusiasts or weekend warriors.” She shuddered at the thought of being dragged along to a marathon run or a basketball court in the blazing heat of the park, discussing every minute detail in the car ride home afterwards.

  “Got it,” said Maureen, as if making a mental note. “No caffeine hounds, I can assume?” She was acquainted with Abby’s revulsion for coffee addicts, akin to her feelings on cigarettes and compulsive gum-chewing.

  “Correct,” said Abigail. She stretched her legs out as far as they would reach in the cab’s cramped backseat. “After that ... I don’t know. There are things that I would want anyway. Honesty, kindness, good sense of humor.”

  “But without a love of coffee. Or physical activity,” Maureen supplied. “So when I run into this guy on the street–”

  “No setups,” warned Abigail. “You know how I feel about setups. They never work out; they just end up forcing you to be polite to someone all evening. I‘ll find someone on my own, promise.”

  “The way you have the last–oh, let me think, zero times?” her friend laughed.

  Abigail refused to comment on this, switching the subject as she fiddled with the buttons on her coat. “I’ll find somebody on my own. Maybe I already have someone in mind.”

  This casual remark attracted Maureen’s notice, even as she craned for a view of the cinema’s marquee rolling into sight. “Someone?” she repeated. “So there’s a man on the horizon already?”

  Abby shrugged. “Maybe.” With that, she popped open the cab door and stepped onto the damp pavement outside, giving her friend a secretive smile.

  Chapter Five

  Abby wrinkled her nose with disgust when she opened the envelope. A folded New Year’s card featuring confetti and a certificate of membership inside for a yoga circle.

  “Curse that fitness resolution,” she said, stuffing the card out of sight in her bag. She’d scold Maureen later for this one. Her fingers returned to gathering up loose papers from her students on Bach or Beethoven, a cd of Handel’s choir music for her lesson plan for the first day after vacation.

  She needed her raincoat for walking to the bus station, the primary form of exercise Abby engaged in short of taking the stairs at work. Rummaging in the closet, she found a pink vinyl one hanging next to her usual winter coat. The bottom of the fabric brushed against a cardboard box underneath, its dusty sides taped shut with thick packing tape.

  She gazed at it for a moment with a frown. She knew what was inside without opening it, even though the contents were largely forgotten in the individual sense. Taped shut since its arrival, a collection of odds and ends from her childhood that served as a reminder of her final visit home. A stormy session during college, only two weeks before her mother died.

  Hand-drawn pictures from kindergarten, lumpy clay sculptures, old report cards. Those kind of mementoes lay inside. The kind of thing her mother had clung to after Abby was gone.

  Abby hadn’t returned for the funeral. It was too much, too soon after what passed before that. The final pressing of the hand between her own, the painful glance as she rose to leave, these were all she had left besides the box. She knew how her father felt– he preferred for it to end that way, to avoid her as a reminder of frustrations and misunderstandings now that the connection was severed.

  A New Year’s resolution to fix that–was it beyond her powers? Or was she simply unwilling to cross that bridge? The thought persisted for a long moment as she gazed at the box.

  Pulling the coat on, she grabbed her bag and headed for the bus stop, splashing through puddles as she walked. Walking, she reflected, made her happy–much happier than yoga.

  Maybe there was a club for walkers she could join. With a large group of single guys who loved literature as members.

  *****

  “All right, who’s excited about Handel?” Abby held the cd aloft, waving it slightly to gain the attention of her scuffling, fidgeting students still in social mode at their desks. An orchestra comprised of middle school students was bound to be restless, especially when the class consisted of special-needs candidates.

  It was a unique program, but that’s what Abby liked about it. The restlessness, the frustration, the fears and struggles of these students didn’t intimidate her; the challenge made her feel alive. Taking children who were bouncing off walls and giving their energy a purpose, taking students slow to understand and teaching them painstakingly to understand something– that was worth every afternoon spent struggling through lines on a note and guiding fingers along the strings and keys.

  “Handel!” A chorus of small voices, some rough, some energetic, some sleepy-sounding in the post-lunch period.

  “Today we’re going to hear a choir sing one of his most famous pieces of music,” said Abby, “the Messiah. Then we’ll practice playing a little bit of it. Whose my assistant today?” She opened the cd case and glanced around the room. Already one of her students, Rodney, was waving his hand enthusiastically.

  “Me, Miss Abby!” he called.

  “Then step up here and assist me,” she laughed. The little boy bounded from his seat with all the untapped energy of an ADD student. Abby knew that his parents had been pressured for months to put him on medication.

  “Put this in the stereo,” she said, gently lowering the disc into his fingers. As Rodney carefully loaded it in the boom box slot, she drew a rolling chair from behind her desk and sat on its edge, balancing a violin beneath her chin.

  The cello was Abby’s primary instrument, but she could play several, thanks to years of practice, lessons, and a music education degree in college. While her fingers were less adept at the violin, she could play well enough to teach the basic principles of classical music to kids who were learning simplified Bach and Mozart, a little Schumann and even John Williams.

  Rodney’s forehead puckered with concentration as his finger searched for the “play” button. A moment later, the first strains of music filled the air.

  The reaction in the room was a sudden hush in whispering voices, a sense of surprising calm. Heads tilted in listening, the blank, daydreaming expressions, a sneaker squeaking against the floor. Abby had discovered that nothing quieted the room more quickly than a new composition. For all their unspent energy, her students genuinely loved music.

  After the first few bars of O Thou Tellest, Abby paused the cd with her remote.

  “Hear the way that sounds, g
uys? The soft, hopeful opening?” Lifting the violin bow from the bookshelf, she mimicked the opening lilt of the composition.

  “That’s what you violinists will be learning,” she said, jabbing the bow playfully in the direction of a beaming, somewhat plump little girl in pigtails. Her student Jacqi, a foster child whose history of abuse was almost as long as the list of academic complaints, poor grades and inattentiveness in the classroom.

  “Now, you heard the voices singing,” she said. “Imagine horns instead–Bobby and Travis will be playing part of that, won’t they? You’ll hear a flute, a clarinet–and what else, George?” She directed this question at a freckled boy whose arm was resting against his head as he held a hand up high.

  “A trumpet?” he said, his face screwed up with concentration. George, not surprisingly, played the trumpet in the orchestra.

  “Right,” said Abby. “Now, what are you percussionists doing?” she asked.

  “Waiting,” droned Tyrel, one of Abby’s more solemn students. “We get less– like, less stuff to do than tuba players.”

  “The tuba–who heard where they think the tuba will be?” asked Abby, her eyes darting from eager hands to eager faces, the students still lively enough to ask and answer questions. Some of her most difficult students–shy ones like Harry and overly-aggressive ones like Tina–were listless today, a sign nothing would draw them out except special effort.

  “The tuba plays low, low, low,” intoned Audrey. “We play under–I mean, behind– like, in the back of a song. Not the same as the violin.”

  “You mean harmony,” said Abby. “That’s right, Audrey. You guys play a special part to make the melody sound good.” She played a few more notes, then untucked the instrument and rested it on her knee.

  “Now, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover if we’re going to play this really well,” she said. Laying the violin on her desk, she swiveled her chair towards the white board, reaching for a marker to begin writing the lines and notes for her students.

  A hand rose–Rodney’s, as he lingered by the stereo.

  “Miss Abby,” he said. “This year, are we gonna play? I mean really play,” he said. “Like the school band.”

  She smiled. “Sure you are,” she said, “at the recital. Your mom will be there,” she added. Although she knew what Rodney really meant. He meant a concert, not an afternoon of familiar grownups seated in folding chairs with cups of punch, clapping loudest for their own performer.

  More than one student here had dreamed of a solo, she knew; more than one had probably imagined themselves impressing the whole student body–even strangers in the audience. A dream that Abby had imagined once or twice for herself whenever strolling past a coffee house or jazz club.

  “Okay, everybody” she said, shaking off the urge to sigh. “Let’s get started by writing the notes on the board.”

  Sheet music would follow, along with hours of painstaking practice, including solo sessions with almost every student in the class. The end result would be a shaky but recognizable version which would stir the hearts of listeners–usually parents and guardians at an afternoon recital–along with Abby’s own heart. Which was aware how much struggle was behind each student’s performance.

  “Now, who wants to guess when Handel was born?” As Abby’s marker squeaked across the surface, squiggling notes traveling across the lines in a musical parade.

  The class lasted almost an hour, with private sessions conducted in late afternoons and on weekends, on weekday evenings when parents or guardians were willing for Abby to come by their homes. Since Abby’s students were limited in their options, other students pursuing school clubs and sports programs like the swim team or choir, she was willing to take on as many as her makeshift orchestra could hold. The experience resulted in a handful of recitals for the class as a whole, but Abby felt the music meant more to those kids than their limited public performances suggested. Even more than the driven ambition behind the school’s more advanced music program.

  After class, Abby exited into a hallway packed with students in transit from classes and activities. She dug through her bag for a juice box tucked in one of its pockets, behind a book on the lives of famous composers and one of her student’s flutes in need of a replacement reed.

  “Hey, Abby, nice holiday vacation?” One of the P.E. teachers, Ed, greeted her in passing as he hoisted a bag of lacrosse equipment.

  “Great,” she called over her shoulder. She offered a friendly nod to another coworker, a harassed-looking English teacher Pam, who was arguing with a student in an obscene t-shirt. She received a faint smile in return, but no conversation.

  Two other teachers were busy rearranging the public announcement bulletin board, snatches of the conversation audible to her in passing.

  “–the spring chorale was singing Ode to Joy for the competition.”

  “I think my students could handle it. Three new scholarship students show fantastic progress ...”

  Scholarship students. Winning competitions. Abby felt a twinge of jealousy on behalf of her students, a touch of envy as she imagined her students assembled in coordinated shades of black and white with instruments gleaming beneath stage lights.

  Was it possible? Her steps slowed as she neared the main entrance, the moving bodies around her suddenly unnoticed as the vision in her mind grew clearer. It wasn’t impossible, she decided. In fact, she could make it happen with a little effort. She could give her students the thrill of their musical experience, the kind of performance they dreamed about every time the school music program celebrated a stellar year.

  Be more assertive, said her New Year’s resolutions. It was time to take that challenge to heart.

  *****

  “Yoga, Maureen?” Abigail’s voice was slightly sarcastic.

  “Why not?” Maureen asked. “Weren’t you planning to take up fitness? This was my class before I switched to pilates–I absolutely loved it.”

  “My New Year’s resolutions don’t need help,” Abby retorted. “Besides, you know how I feel about workout sessions–”

  “That’s why I didn’t give you gym membership instead,” said Maureen. “I thought this would be a nice experience to ease you into a lifestyle of physical activity.” Her bony physique jutted determinedly beneath her turtleneck sweater, her angular face an advertisement for healthy living in Abby’s opinion. Abby’s own figure was thin, but soft in comparison, her curves a gentle slope outlined by close-fitting jeans and a pea coat.

  Richard didn’t mind Maureen’s sharp edges, apparently, all elbows and corners, but this “toned” physical appearance sported by her friend tended to annoy Abby. Who remembered a time when Maureen preferred her yogurt frozen with sprinkles and rated her fitness according to how easily she squeezed into a medium size.

  Abby opened her copy of Middlemarch where a nature-themed bookmark noted her last place. The George Eliot book club was reading its way through the author’s works in reverse order this season, giving Abby a chance to enjoy her favorite volume first. Beside her, Maureen opened a copy that bore the hallmarks of a new trade paperback, right down to the price sticker half-peeled from the cover.

  “Where’s your old copy?” Abby’s voice dropped to a whisper as more members trickled into the library reading room, filling the metal chairs and faded velvet seats assembled around the carpeted space.

  “Dropped it in a rainy gutter last week,” Maureen murmured as she licked her fingers and thumbed through its chapters. The club president was uncorking a bottle of wine and pouring it into mini sherry glasses for the members to sample.

  “By the way,” said Maureen, “I’ve got an idea for your final resolution.”

  “Final resolution?” repeated Abby. “What are you talking about?” Her brow wrinkled as she turned towards her friend, but there wasn’t time for Maureen to reply. The club president cleared her throat as she seated herself on a heavy red plush chair, her leather-bound book open on her lap.

  “Let’s
pick up where we left off last week,” she said, “with Russell’s pointed comments on the first encounter between Dorothea and Will–against the Ladislaw’s honeymoon backdrop.” A few chuckles escaped members of the group in response to this description as pages rustled throughout the room.

  Abby’s mind was far away from the scenes of picturesque Italy and Eliot’s Quaker-like heroine, still pondering her friend’s remarks. She had a sneaking suspicion she knew which resolution Maureen was referring to, even without nudging her friend to ask.

  At the herbal tea shop after the meeting, Maureen tapped a button on her phone and presented the screen to Abby, with the image of a smiling man whose hair was bleached beyond Abby’s darkened shades.

  “Who is that?” asked Abby. “Don’t tell me you’ve set me up with him–”

  Maureen laughed. “No, it’s just a thought. An online dating service–you create an account, they match you with eligible singles throughout the city based on your criteria.”

  Abby snorted. “Do you really think I’m that hard to match?” she asked, tearing a sugar packet open over her coffee mug. “So impossible, so picky, that I need a total stranger to pair me with someone?”

  “Maybe,” murmured Maureen, cutting her eyes away from Abby’s pouting lip.

  “It just happens that I have my own plans for making romantic connections,” said Abigail. “So why don’t you keep yourself confined to my general health and let me worry about my heart, hmm?”

  Through the windows of the shop, she watched the pedestrians moving to and fro, shopping bags from Saks Fifth Avenue and baby strollers. A few faces among the crowd caught her attention, the kind of guys she found attractive in college. Beatniks, sandy-haired beach boys with carefree expressions–one particularly charming specimen in her botany class had caused her to drop two grade points due to the distraction of his smile.