It’s ridiculous how much I think about Griffon, considering we’d probably spent all of an hour together. Even though we’d only had one more day in London, I was tempted to try to get back to the Tower, visions of beheadings or not. We passed the Tower walls in a cab the next day and I pictured him sitting at a table in the café, probably talking to some other hapless tourist girl who needed his assistance.
“Should I even ask what you’re doing after school?” Rayne asks as we’re finally released from language arts. “I think some people are going to hang out over at Café Roma.”
“Can’t,” I say, leaning my cello case against the wall of lockers in the hallway. I fish around in my backpack for my phone, as much to find it as to avoid her eyes.
“Cello practice again? When are you going to take a break and get a real life?”
I sigh. I love Rayne, but she just doesn’t get it. “This is real life. My real life. There was the trip, and now the concert’s coming up, so I’m way behind.”
I’ve tried to explain that you don’t choose to be a musician, it chooses you. The feeling of transcendence I get when a piece is going well, the combination of contentment and exhilaration that makes it seem like I’m completely outside myself, is impossible to explain without sounding like a crazy person. It’s something that pushes me from the inside, that makes me anxious if I don’t get in practice every day. I like to blame it on my parents just so that I won’t look like a complete music geek, but the truth is, I don’t just like to play—I have to play. I doubt that people who are training for the Olympics and spend hours every day at the ice rink or in the gym have to make excuses like I do.
“Just don’t call me when you’re a fifty-year-old spinster with arthritic hands and thirty-two cats.” She grins at me. “So are you giving a lesson or getting one?”
“Both,” I say, relieved we’re off the subject. “I have makeup lessons all week with Steinberg for an hour, and then I’m giving a cello lesson at five.”
“Who’s the student?”
“That fifth-grader from Yeshiva Day,” I say. “He hates the cello, but his parents think it’s good for his ‘enrichment.’” Students who are forced into lessons are the hardest to teach. Adults who are really into learning how to play are the best—a little overenthusiastic sometimes, but at least they practice and don’t mess around. Overindulged private-school kids with hovering parents are the worst. And the kind of students I have most often.
“Sounds fun.” Rayne makes a face as we head toward the bus stop on the corner. “Talk later?”
I sit in my usual seat on the city bus with the cello case propped up beside me like a silent guardian. Mom used to pick me up and drive me home every day, but she finally let me start taking the bus a couple of years ago, and I like the few minutes of quiet that bridge the two parts of my day. As we roll toward the studio I press my forehead to the window and stare at the people swarming the sidewalks. I always like watching people from the safety of the bus, catching a few seconds of their lives before we rattle on down the street, them never realizing I was there at all. In the middle of all of this chaos are things that are like signposts in each neighborhood as we ride down Geary: the guy sitting in the folding chair on the tiny strip of sidewalk between the Chinese restaurant and the Indian market, or the people clutching their cups and staring intently at their laptops inside Peet’s Coffee.
As the bus idles at the light, a woman looks up from a window table and gazes out at the street. With a start, I recognize her as one of my cello students. I wave as the bus pulls into the intersection, but Veronique has already turned back to her work.
I lift the cello out of its seat and pull the strap over my shoulder as I get off at my stop. I use the lighter carbon-fiber cello for travel and running around, but with the case it still weighs a ton, and I’m glad there aren’t any hills to climb as I head toward the studio. My good Derazey cello has to be content with practice at home and occasional orchestra visits, ever since my parents took a second mortgage on the duplex to buy it a couple of years ago. The graceful curves of a nearly two-hundred-year-old instrument don’t come cheap. Whenever I think about the money they’ve spent over the years on instruments, gear, the conservatory, and private lessons, my chest feels so heavy I can barely breathe. If the guilt starts to settle in too heavily, I just put in a few extra hours of practice.
As I step into the studio, the familiar, safe feeling sits close around my shoulders, and I inhale the combination of rosin, antique instruments, and sweat that only exists here.
Portraits of famous musicians line the walls, and I touch Guilhermina Suggia’s frame for good luck like I always do when I come through the door. She was one of the first female cellists, and whenever I feel discouraged, one look at the painting of her fiery red dress, her head tilted at an angle that’s full of attitude as she attacks the cello, always makes me feel better.
In the back, I can hear the rich, mellow sounds of a cello echoing off the wood-paneled walls, and I feel my blood surge as I listen to Steinberg play. I creep down the short hallway, avoiding the squeaking boards next to the coatrack, until I can see him sitting bent over the glossy wood, both hands working in harmony to wring every ounce of feeling from the instrument, his eyes closed, everything abandoned to the music. In the years we’ve worked together I’ve learned to match him note for note. I’ve mastered the technical skill to play complicated pieces without a mistake, spent hours copying his fingering. My heart races as his bow glides over the strings, an unspoken communication that fills the room, replacing the air with sound and emotion.
I set the cello down gently, watching as Steinberg finishes the piece, feeling every note as it fades into the woodwork. Even more than our house in the Haight, this is home to me, and I feel a physical tug inside from being away so long.
As if he can sense me in the room, Herr Steinberg turns and gives me a welcoming smile. I take my place in the empty chair next to him, eager to get back to the one thing in my life I can always depend on.
On our front porch, I shift the cello case to my other shoulder as I lean over to put my key in the lock. “Mom, I’m home!” I call out as the door swings open, taking my key with it and refusing to let go. I jiggle it in the rusty old lock until it finally surrenders, swearing at my parents for not wanting to change any of the original features of our drafty old Victorian house. Sure, the wavy glass windows are originals, but they leak like crazy, and sometimes we have to wear jackets indoors during the wintertime.
“Ma?” I call again, dropping my things by the doorway and heading into the empty kitchen. She knows I have a lesson today. Mom and Dad don’t let me give lessons unless somebody’s home, and if she forgot again I don’t know what I’ll tell Oscar’s parents.
I think about just grabbing the phone, but Dad hates it when I call him from downstairs. Swiping an apple from the bowl on the island, I trudge back through our front door, cross the porch, and let myself in his front door. “Dad?” I call up the stairs. After their divorce, Mom and Dad bought this duplex so that Kat and I wouldn’t have to shuttle between houses. He has the flat above ours, which means that right inside his front door are about a million stairs. Yelling is easier than climbing.
“In my office,” he calls down.
“Just wanted to tell you I’m home. I have a lesson in a few minutes.”
“Come up and give your old dad a hug,” he says, his head appearing over the upstairs railing. “I downloaded the photos from our trip. There’s some great stuff in there.”