The Lucy Variations (18 page)

Wednesday came and went, and Lucy still didn’t talk to her mother. They exchanged words, about practical things and insignificant things, but they didn’t
talk
. There’d been chances. But when those chances presented themselves, the words Lucy had practised in her head wouldn’t come out of her mouth.

Will didn’t come; he had some commitment he’d made before taking the job with Gus.

Lucy and Will had an ongoing text conversation. They asked each other about their days, sent their status updates. Wednesday night he sent her a picture of a vegan cupcake he was about to eat, and she sent him back a picture of the page in her calculus book she was stuck on.

She’d hoped to have some time with him on Thursday, while he was at the house.
I’m home if you want to say hi
, she’d texted, but he didn’t reply, and she hadn’t heard from him since his
good morning
text, so she called him around the time he’d be driving home while she lay on her bed with the lights out.

“Lucy Luce,” he said, when he picked up.

“So we’re coming to that party thing. Me and Reyna.”

“Good! Hey, sorry I didn’t see you today. Gus wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

He paused.

“Never mind,” she said. “None of my business.”

“You sound a little down.”

“I guess. Stuff with my mom. We kind of had this fight right before she left town, and we haven’t talked about it.” She waited for a piece of advice or encouragement. He didn’t say anything. “Hello?”

“Had to make a left turn.”

She didn’t really want to talk about her mom, anyway. She focused on Will’s voice, which, she’d noticed, sounded younger on the phone than in person. Like he could be her age. “What were you like in high school?” she asked.

“Um…dorky. A bit overweight.”

“Really?” He was so fit now, and Aruna so gorgeous.

“Yeah. I was a lonely kid. Well, you know how it is. Being great at classical music doesn’t go far, socially. Even if you’re mildly popular, you’re not really
there
to enjoy it.”

“Wait.” Lucy propped herself up on one elbow. “Were you like me? I mean, and Gus? Did you travel and perform and stuff?”

“Yep.”

She didn’t remember any of that from when she’d looked him up that first night he came over. “What happened?”

She heard freeway traffic, Will breathing. “Nothing happened,” he said. “I…well, I saw I wasn’t going to make a career as a performer. I started teaching. I had the show for a while. And…here I am.”

“How come you didn’t tell me this before?”

“
Hm.
I guess I thought you knew.”

“Did you tell Gus?”

Will paused. Then: “No. It’s all on my CV. ”

“But don’t you think he’d like to hear about that stuff? More directly? I mean—”

“Lucy, do you like to talk about your glory days? Does your mom?”

After taking a second to get over her surprise at the frustration in his voice, Lucy said, “I guess not, but…”

“It’s like this for most young musicians, you know. You aren’t the only one who’s been through some version of this. We grow up, and we aren’t so special any more.”

“I didn’t—”

“Look, it’s been a long day.” He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t know what. “And I’m pulling up to my house,” he said.

“Oh. Okay.”

There was another silence, then he said, “I’m sorry, Lucy.”

“It’s all right.” What else could she say?

“No, it’s not,” he said. “I don’t want to be like that. Cynical.”

The suspicion that he hadn’t actually wanted to talk to her hurt, but she didn’t want to make him feel bad. She wanted to make him feel better. “At least you’re honest. It’s better than pretending.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” He sighed. “I’m glad you’re coming to the party.”

Lucy lay back down. “Wait, what should we wear? Me and Reyna?”

“Trust me, it’s not the kind of party where people think that hard about what they’re wearing. Whatever makes you comfortable.”

They said goodbye, and Lucy dragged her laptop into bed and reresearched Will. This time she went past the first couple of pages of links and found some references to William Devi, young performer from the mid-nineties. There hadn’t been much written about him. At least, it wasn’t on the Internet.

She found one blurry old picture, probably scanned from a newspaper, of him, fourteen, receiving a plaque. Lucy smiled at his hair in a top-heavy nineties style that didn’t exactly help him look less chubby. His facial features were unclear; zooming in only made them worse. She saved the picture to her computer, anyway, and thought about Will existing before she’d known him.

Glory days.

That made it sound like it was all behind her, when in fact having Will around had finally given her something to look forward to, faith that happiness was ahead. At the Academy, or wherever. But it didn’t sound like he believed that for himself.

She texted him:

I think you’re still special.

He replied simply:

: )

After school on Friday, she took a bus to Laurel Heights, where she’d made an appointment to get her DIY bob fixed. She wanted to go somewhere she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew.

“You didn’t screw it up too bad,” the guy said, examining chunks of it as Lucy looked at herself in the mirror. She’d been wearing a little more make-up since changing her hair, mostly darkening her eyes with shadow and mascara. As she watched herself now, the nylon cape up to her neck, the stylist bobbing his head to the dance music on the radio and half-holding a conversation with the stylist next to him, she could see a little bit of her mother in her face. Her colouring was more like her dad’s – neither dark nor light, just sort of generically Caucasian – and she’d always liked to believe she favoured him, but her reflection didn’t lie. The shape of the mouth, the depth of the eyes, even the way her shoulders had edges more than slopes, all said Beck more than Moreau.

She could almost see the woman she might become. Physically, anyway. And maybe she’d gotten too much like her mom in other ways already. Holding things in and holding on, like Reyna said. Letting Grandpa dictate how she felt about herself.

At the same time, her mother was worthy of admiration. She was smart. She worked hard. A lot of moms of Speare kids managed to make full-time jobs out of shopping and getting massages and undertaking unnecessary redecorating projects. Lucy’s mother never slacked at managing the household and all the details of Gus’s career and helping Grandpa Beck with his charitable trusts and the family trust – the one he’d be passing on to Lucy’s mom and, maybe eventually, to Lucy.

“If you get one of our other services today, it’s thirty per cent off,” the stylist said, rubbing something between his palms, then spreading it through her hair.

“Like what?” Lucy asked.

He talked to her reflection. “Colour. Manicure. Lash tint. Brow wax. Whatever.”

“How long does the lash tint take?” She could shave a few seconds off her getting-ready-for-school time if she didn’t have to bother with mascara.

“Fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“Okay.”

She also ended up getting a manicure and spent way more time and money looking at and buying hair products than she’d planned.

The last, accidental glimpse in the salon mirror as she paid astonished her.

The haircut had changed her face. Or life had changed her face. Or her face always was like this and she hadn’t noticed. All she knew was that there was little sign of the girl she’d been a couple of months ago, or at least of the image of that girl she’d carried inside her all this time.

She waited for the bus home, her eyes watering from the lash dye. It was dark now, dark earlier and earlier these days, but there were no calls or texts on her phone from her parents or Martin worrying over her. She hadn’t told them about Will’s party. They were letting her lead her life.

She felt unmoored, like some kind of last, invisible cord between her and them had been cut in those few strange days of Thanksgiving weekend, without it being officially decided or talked about.

That was what she’d wanted, she guessed. Permission to do what she needed to do, for herself. Not to be an extension of the whole Beck-Moreau thing that had felt like such a burden for so long. To grow up.

This evening, this moment, standing in the increasing fog and cold, she thought maybe Will was right:
We grow up, and we aren’t so special any more.
It wasn’t cynical. It was just true.

The house felt achingly silent. A note on the hall table said that her mother and father had gone out to dinner, and her grandfather had taken Gus to hear a string quartet at the Herbst. She stared at the note, thinking,
I like string quartets. He knows that
.

She went to the kitchen, pulled some pieces off the roast Martin had made the night before, and ate a handful of nuts and a few spoonfuls of leftover rice.

In her room she put on music to get ready by. Reyna would be picking her up at eight. None of her usual choices inspired the mood she wanted – fun, confident Friday night party with her best friend but not in some kid’s garage. She scrolled and shuffled and played and skipped and paused and found nothing.

She got dressed in silence, putting together an outfit of dark skinny jeans, the flat boots, and a long coral sweater with a hood. The sweater had been another item her mom had bought for Lucy when Lucy wasn’t with her. At the time it had seemed too long and drapey for her taste. It had an uneven hemline, and no one she knew wore uneven sweater hemlines, so she’d stuffed it into her drawer without even clipping off the price tag. $389. For a sweater.

Now she could see why her mother had thought it would work on her. It hung perfectly on her tall body, skimming her curves in a way exact but subtle. And the colour did something for her skin. Maybe, after she talked to her mom, Lucy would ask her to go shopping for more stuff like this.

The text alert on her phone jangled her out of her mirror trance. Reyna was waiting outside in the car. Lucy got all her stuff together, left a note for her parents, and went out to meet her. “You look really cute,” Reyna said. “Super cute.”

“Thanks.”

“Do I look like I’ve been crying all day?”

“Nope. Well, let me see.” Lucy turned on the car’s interior light and pretended to scrutinize Reyna. “Gorgeous, as usual.”

“ ’Cause I have.”

Lucy didn’t have to ask why. They held each other’s eyes in the yellowy glow. “Do you want to…”
Cancel?
She couldn’t say it, couldn’t give Reyna the chance to not go to the party. If she didn’t see Will tonight, it would be two more whole days before she did, which felt too long. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We’ll have fun tonight. Promise.”

“All right,” Reyna said, turning off the dome light. “Let’s go show those Daly City people how it’s done.”

Will and Aruna’s house actually
had some character and charm, considering it was basically a stucco box, like every other house in the neighbourhood. The paint job – cream with brick-red trim – helped, and so did the plants on the stairs leading up to the front door, which had a non-tacky
Christmas wreath on it.

Lucy reached for the doorbell; Reyna grabbed her hand. “You don’t ring the bell for a party. You just go in.”

“At my house you ring the bell.”

“Nothing that has occurred at your house could remotely be called a ‘party’. ” Reyna opened the door, then stepped behind Lucy and gave her a push inside.

The house didn’t have a hall. They were suddenly right in the living room, which was filled with people ranging from more or less like Will and Aruna – youngish, cool – to those older, greyer, or geekier. A few of them turned to look at Lucy and Reyna.

It wasn’t like making an entrance to a music-festival party or benefit reception. Lucy had no certainty of belonging, no sense of her place.

“I don’t know how long I’m going to last here,” Reyna whispered.

Me neither
, Lucy thought, but she wanted them to try. “You’ll be fine. There’s Will.”

Lucy pulled Reyna towards the other side of the room, where Will stood. He looked good: jeans, a light-blue T-shirt that had been washed into comfortable perfection, and a soft-looking navy cardigan. He hadn’t shaved; his stubble had a bit of red in it, though his hair was nearly black.

“Hey, I’m so glad you came. You look lovely.” He gave Lucy a kiss on the cheek, right in front of everyone. The stubble left a scratchy warmth. “Can I take your coats?”

Lucy handed him hers. “Mine’s in the car,” Reyna said. “And thanks for inviting me.”

“Sure.” He turned his attention back to Lucy. “I’ll go put this down, then introduce you around.”

“Cheek kiss,” Reyna said to Lucy. “Is that what you guys do now?”

“We’re friends.” He’d never actually done that before. She resisted touching her face.

Will came back before Reyna could say anything else, and for the next ten minutes or so, he introduced Lucy to his guests. And she noticed: they knew who she was. Not everyone, and no one said anything obvious about it, but as Will took her from person to person and introduced her by her full name – Lucy Beck-Moreau – she saw it happening: extra attention suddenly paid, a few
oh
s, the sincerity behind the
nice to meet you
s.

When they got through the living room and made it to the kitchen, Lucy sensed eyes following and people talking in lowered voices. Then Will had to excuse himself to greet someone else who’d just gotten there.

At least half the people they’d just met were women, but Reyna misread the stares, anyway. “Why do I suddenly feel like a massive hunk of jailbait?” she muttered.

“It’s not that.”

She peered back through the kitchen doorway and wondered what they were saying about her. Maybe that she was a has-been. Or a spoiled brat in a four-hundred-dollar sweater who’d thrown away the life they would have treasured.

Then Aruna came into the kitchen, dressed in faded jeans and silver sandals and a flowy top, and opened up her arms. “Hey, my girls!” She gave them each a hug, then held up a bottle of gin. “Anyone? No, what am I saying? I guess you’d better not.”

Aruna chatted away while mixing up a pitcher of martinis, raving about Martin’s cooking at Thanksgiving. “I don’t know how you don’t weigh three hundred pounds, Lucy. But you’re…” She looked Lucy up and down, holding fast to the gin. “Wow, young lady. Did you change your hair? Tell me about your dozens of boyfriends.”

Reyna, examining the non-alcoholic drink options on the table, said, “Lucy’s hot but doesn’t try at school. Plus she has a thing for older men.”

Thanks, Reyna.

Aruna poured a few careful drops of vermouth into the pitcher. “Oh, I understand that.” She glanced up towards the doorway as someone walked in. “Here’s an older man for you now. Julian, Lucy. Lucy, Julian.”

“And Reyna,” Reyna said.

“Nice to meet you both,” Julian said. He stood close to Aruna and touched the back of her hair. “And I thought I was a
younger
man.”

“To me you are. Not to them.” She tilted her head towards Reyna and Lucy, and walked out with the pitcher.

Julian had longish hair and a sandy-brown goatee and was taller than Will. “I’m not that old,” he said. “I’m twenty-two. Same as you guys, probably.” He stooped down to dig in a cooler under the table and retrieved a beer.

“Yep.” Reyna looked at Lucy and rolled her eyes. “Close.”

“I’ll be right back,” Lucy said. She wanted to find Will.

Reyna coughed conspicuously into her fist. Lucy knew that meant she didn’t want to be ditched with Julian, but then a couple more women came into the kitchen and Lucy repeated, “I’ll be
right
back.”

The living room seemed to have twice as many people in it now, and Will was clear on the other side of it, by the bay windows, with his arms folded talking to some middle-aged lady in a saggy dress. Crossing the room daunted her. She turned and retreated into the hallway.

She didn’t want to go back to Reyna and her anti-party attitude. The door at the end of the hall had been left ajar. A dim light – a night-light, maybe – emitted a kind of faint welcome. An invitation. Lucy checked over her shoulder, then peeked inside. It was Will and Aruna’s bedroom. She went in and closed the door behind her.

Lucy hadn’t exactly spent time imagining their bedroom, but if she had she wouldn’t have pictured this. She would have figured them for a simple and clean IKEA-looking set-up. Instead it was lush, and a little cluttered with books and clothes and shoes. The bed, in the centre, was a low platform, covered with the coats and handbags of party guests and a lot of throw pillows with exotically embroidered covers.

The room smelled faintly of the spicy perfume or lotion or whatever it was Aruna wore. Lucy went to the dresser to see if she could find out what it was. She’d never had her own signature scent; maybe she should.

With an eye on the door, she dug through a shallow, rectangular basket that contained that kind of stuff – lipsticks, lotions, perfume samples, bracelets, hair clips that still had strands of Aruna’s dark hair attached to them. Nothing that smelled like Aruna. Then she saw, just behind a framed picture of a dog, a slender bottle. She uncapped it and sniffed. Yes, this was her. Lucy positioned the bottle near her wrist.

Don’t be an idiot, Lucy. Like no one would notice you reeking like her.

She put the perfume back and instead slid open the small middle top drawer of the dresser, not sure what she was looking for.

There were voices in the hall, and she froze for a second, but then the voices faded. She couldn’t stop now. She moved to the bedside tables – one a mess of books, magazines, more lotions, reading glasses, a dirty coffee cup. A red scarf had been draped over the lamp. That had to be Aruna’s side.

On the other, Will’s nightstand was nearly bare except for one book, a small notepad on top, a pen on top of that, and a bowl of change by the lamp. Lucy wanted to see the book; one single book compared to Aruna’s leaning pile must mean something.

A mystery novel; no big revelation.

In the change bowl, nail clippers. If he was like every other pianist she’d known, he trimmed his nails obsessively so he wouldn’t feel them touching the keys.

Voices in the hall again made her jump. Lucy grabbed the clippers and shoved them into her jeans pocket, then pretended to be looking for her coat on the bed. A couple came into the room – Lucy had a random jacket in her hand, the clippers in her pocket. She attempted a smile as she put the jacket back down and walked out.

When Reyna saw her emerge from the hallway, she grabbed Lucy’s wrist, hard. “Where were you?” she asked through gritted teeth. “You left me there with creepy whatshisface and his salsa breath.”

“Not alone. Anyway, I thought maybe you liked him,” Lucy tried.

Reyna dropped Lucy’s wrist. “Yeah, because you know how I love gangly college music nerds.”

Lucy looked over Reyna’s shoulder, searching for a glimpse of Will in the living room. The nail clippers in her jeans pocket made a comforting pressure on her thigh. “I want something to drink…” She moved away from Reyna, towards the kitchen.

“I don’t want to go back in there!” she hissed. “What if that guy wants my number or something? He was giving me
looks
. Can we just go?”

Lucy turned around. “We’ve only been here, like, half an hour.”

“It feels longer.”

“Another half an hour.” Reyna made an anguished face as if Lucy’d just requested one of her kidneys or something. Frustrated, Lucy said, “I never ask you for favours, Reyna.”

“Yeah, except for when you need a ride somewhere. I know that’s the only reason I’m here tonight.”

Lucy pressed her lips together and went to the kitchen.

There were a few people getting drinks. Lucy found some sparkling water and studied the pictures on the fridge, trying to guess who were friends and who was family. There were a lot of shots of Will and Aruna together, dressed up at various events.

And one of Will with a young Asian girl, maybe nine or ten, in concert attire. Lucy had known he must have other students. She just never pictured them as actual people. Kids, and maybe students her age or older. Girls. Women.

Did he go out to coffee with them? Ask them what they loved? Text with them?

Someone touched her shoulder. She turned. It was the lady in the saggy dress who she’d seen talking to Will earlier. “Lucy. It’s so great to see you here. I’m Diane Krasner.”

They shook hands. Lucy knew exactly who she was, though they’d never met. The name Diane Krasner had been spoken in their house for months; she’d put together the showcase Gus was preparing for. “Nice to meet you,” Lucy said. “Gus is really excited about his piece.”

Immediately she wanted to take it back. She had no idea if Gus was excited. But schmoozing was habit. This was exactly the kind of fake life she didn’t want to go back to.

“Excuse me,” she said to Diane, in hopes of escape.

“Wait, I’d love to hear what you’ve been doing,” Diane said. She had grey hair cut into a chin-length bob, large black-framed glasses, and a thick coat of red lipstick. “Is it true you haven’t touched the keys since Prague?”

“Yeah, I…”

“Until now, I mean.” A slow smile formed; she had a smudge of lipstick on one of her top teeth. “What made you decide to go back to it?”

A flicker of shock zipped through Lucy’s brain. Will had told people? She stammered out an “I don’t know.”

Then Will came into the kitchen, and Diane grasped his elbow. “Let’s get Lucy into the showcase,” she said to him.

“Oh,” Will said, glancing at Lucy, “no. It’s so soon.”

“From what you told me, she’s ready enough. It would be such great publicity.”

Lucy watched Will’s face. From what he’d told her? She waited for him to say something, like what a ridiculous idea it was. He held up one hand and brought it towards her shoulder, but she stepped back.

“Um, I have to go find Reyna.”

Will’s and Diane’s voices faded, and Lucy found Reyna sulking in the hallway, one shoulder resting against the wall as she stared towards the living room. Lucy was ready to say,
Come on, I’m going to get my coat and then we can go
, but when Reyna saw her, she said, “Do you want to hear my theory about you?”

“Your theory about me about what?” she asked, distracted. Maybe she should go back to the kitchen, tell Diane directly that no, she had no interest in the showcase.

“Men. This.” Reyna gestured to the living room. “That thing at the pier.”

“Not really.” Lucy turned towards Will and Aruna’s room to retrieve her coat. Reyna grabbed her arm from behind; she yanked it away. “Fine. Tell me your theory.”

“You miss having an audience.”

Reyna said it with a sly smile, like they could be, possibly, joking around. Lucy put her hand on her chin and nodded and made her eyes wide – exaggerated, fake listening. “Tell me more.”

“See, you got screwed up by performing so much as a kid. You were, like, conditioned to be on stage. Now you want a round of applause for, I don’t know, writing an English paper or showing up at school or wearing a sexy dress.”

Lucy dropped her hand from her face.

“Guess what, Lucy? You’re just a normal, boring person like the rest of us. No one cares about this stuff except, like, the six people in your world. And now you think Will’s gonna—”

Then Lucy put her hand over Reyna’s mouth and pushed her against the wall. She glanced towards the kitchen. “Don’t.” And they stood in a lock, bodies pressed together, close enough to kiss. Something in Reyna’s eyes clicked on. Lucy took her hand away.

“You like him,” Reyna whispered slowly. “As in you actually think…I told you to be careful and – wait. Wait. Are you guys…”

“It’s not like that. He believes in me.”

She laughed. Lucy felt the gust of it on her face. “He believes he’s going to get some teen-girl action.” Reyna tried to squirm away, but Lucy was stronger and kept her pinned there. She wouldn’t let Reyna make it all into a dirty joke.