Things Hoped For (15 page)

“So what’d he say—when you said that stuff about how he thinks he’s invisible?”

“Well, the detective took this long pause, like a count-to-ten, because now he’s not so sure about
me
. And he said, ‘So you think he might try to hang around the meeting this afternoon, right in the police station?’ And I say, ‘This man seems to think he can get away with anything.’ Also true, and also great bait for a detective. Then this was the crowning touch. I said, ‘If he’s so good at hiding himself, I think an infrared camera would probably make him show up plain as day.’ ”

“Robert!” I stop short on the sidewalk, and he faces me, beaming.

“And that’s what they did. They lit up their camera, and they tracked his body heat right there in the room after we left. And it was four guys to one, so I’m thinking William the invisible creep is in jail. Right now.”

I reach into my shoulder bag and pull out my cell phone. “Call him.”

Robert looks at me like I’m insane.

“I mean Detective Keenan. Call him right now. I want to know, to really know that that man isn’t walking around my neighborhood tonight. Because if he’s still on the loose, and he wants to find you, he’s going to come to Grampa’s house again. And I don’t want that to happen. Or if it might happen, then I want to be prepared. So call, okay? For me.”

Robert takes the phone and calls 411 to get the non-emergency number of the Twenty-fourth Precinct.

“Hello? Could I talk with Detective Keenan? It’s Robert Phillips calling.”

Robert nods to me and whispers, “He’s there.”

“Detective? This is Robert. We talked about that crazy guy, remember? I just wanted to know if you got him. . . . Oh, that’s too bad.”

Robert shoots me a glance, and I gasp and grab his arm. He pulls loose and keeps talking.

“But I really called because I remembered something else he told me yesterday. He said he had an apartment north of Fourteenth Street, a first floor walk-up above an old meat-packing plant. . . . Right, with an electronic keypad instead of a lock. . . . Right. So I thought you should know about that. . . . Well, anyway, good luck.” And Robert hangs up.

I’m frantic, and my voice has gone up an octave. “They didn’t
get
him? Robert, that’s really bad. It’s terrible. Because he’s not stupid, and he knows the police were looking out for him, and . . . and nobody could have told them but you. Or me. So now . . . now he
knows
that one of
us
tried to turn him in. And . . . and he’ll try to do something, he’ll—”

Robert waves his hands at me. “Hold it, hold it, hold it—calm down. The detective was lying to me. I’m sure they got him. No doubt at all. So just relax.”

I’m stunned. “
Lying
? What do you mean? He’s a
policeman
. Why would he lie? Police don’t do that.”

“Right,” says Robert, “
unless
it’s in the interest of public safety. If the police have a photo of a dangerous suspect, but the suspect doesn’t know that, do they go on TV and say, ‘We have no information at this time’? Yes they do, because that
lie
makes the suspect think he can walk around freely, and then the police can spot him and arrest him.

“Do you think that detective, who’s got an invisible man in his custody, is going to tell people about it—even me? No way. And about the rest of it, whether William tells him about me being invisible and all that? I don’t know what’s going to come of that. But for now, I think the police are going to keep a tight lid on this, or maybe they’ll make William an offer he can’t refuse, make him go to work for them. Who knows? Anyway, I’m sure it was right to get him off the streets. So we’ve done our civic duty, and we’ll have to see how all the rest of it works out. Because that’s not our job. So. Where’s the ice cream in this city?”

How Robert can think about ice cream right now is beyond my understanding. Of course, I’ve been on such an emotional seesaw today that everything is beyond my understanding.

But Robert turns on his ice cream radar, which guides us across 105th Street, where we find a sweets shop that’s actually selling waffle cones in February, and he orders for both of us, two massive cones with three scoops each, whipped cream, nuts, sprinkles, the works. Then, by carefully decorating his nose with an assortment of toppings, Robert finally gets me to smile.

Even though I’m having a little fun, and even though I’m grateful for the good things that have happened today, I’m still uneasy about the William situation, and always, always, I feel this sadness that won’t go away. Because I can’t stop thinking about my grampa and that big freezer. About what he did.

And the selfish part of me is still wishing that all the complications would vanish. Because I want to get my story back.
My
story. I just want to be a musician, and suddenly, I know why.

It’s because I’ve been imagining that it’s going to be easy. It’s because I think I’ll be able to lose myself in great sweeps of harmony, and the all-knowing, infallible conductor will always lead the way. And me? I imagine myself gliding seamlessly from one movement to the next, with hardly a rustle as I turn the pages of the score.

Because I want things to work out the way they do when Bach is in charge. Or Paganini. Or Jane Austen. Or even Yeats. Because I’m desperate for a nice, tidy ending, maybe with a pleasant rhyme or two, or that wonderful last burst of symphonic harmony that makes me want to shout “yes!”

But it’s not happening that way.

It’s Monday night, and Robert tells me again that I should practice, but I say, “No, it’s all right. You go first tonight.” And like a gentleman, he goes down to the rehearsal room and leaves me alone.

With Daddy upstairs watching TV, I hide out in my room. I’ve talked to my mom for half an hour, said hi to both my sisters, and I’ve talked to both my big brothers. Plus I’ve had a call from Uncle Belden, and while we were talking, I could hear a West Virginia catbird singing, and I pictured its little throat moving, pictured it sitting in a tree out in front of his crooked front porch. And as he said good-bye, Uncle Belden wished me well on my auditions.

My auditions.

My first audition is at eleven tomorrow morning, but I don’t care anymore. I don’t want to go. There’s a line in a Yeats poem that comes winging up out of my memory, and it slaps me hard:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

 

And it hurts to feel this way. I’m so used to being Little Miss Organized and Little Miss Punctuality, and I’ve been a perfectionist for so long that I can’t remember any other way to be. I didn’t even get to my lesson this afternoon, and I missed my only practice session with the grad student who’s doing the piano accompaniment on the Sibelius during my audition. It’s like I don’t know myself anymore.

I keep thinking about the questions Robert asked me this afternoon, after we’d had our ice cream. He said, “You know, I don’t believe that, what your grampa said in his letter. He said, ‘I’m at that point in my life where I know what’s going to happen next.’ And I don’t think anybody can know that, do you? I mean, when he climbed into that freezer, like what was he thinking? Because you never know what’s going to happen next, not really. You just have to take your best shot and keep hoping things’ll work out. Right? Because no matter what the coroner says, I don’t really think your grampa died of natural causes. Do you? I hate to say it, but it seems to me like he was kind of bailing out. And didn’t he sort of create more problems than he solved? What do you think?”

The worst part is that I just kept shrugging my shoulders. I couldn’t answer any of Robert’s questions. I still can’t. I wanted to say, “Well, if Grampa hadn’t done what he did, I probably wouldn’t have met you. And that would have been too bad.” But I couldn’t say that.

It’s dark now, and I turn off the lights in my room so the place matches my mood. And I lie across my bed and stare up into nothing, and I think back just five days ago.

Last Wednesday night Grampa was sitting upstairs watching CNN. I’d had a good lesson with Pyotr Melyanovich, and I was down in the practice room making Sibelius smile. My first audition was still almost a week away, but I was going to be ready. I was building up my confidence. I was almost at the peak of my preparation, and soon I would march across the plaza at Lincoln Center, throw open the doors of the Juilliard School, and show those people how a violin ought to sound.

And now I almost want to laugh. Or cry.

What pride. And what ignorance—to think everything was going to just trot along like the pony ride at the state fair in Lewisburg, to think that Lizzy would get to marry Mr. Darcy in real life. And to think that I could keep telling myself my own perfect little story.

Right. Think again.

I know that I’ll go and take that audition at Juilliard tomorrow. I’m not a no-show. I’d still go if both my arms were broken.

But I don’t kid myself. I know I’m not ready, mentally or musically. So I’ll have to muddle my way through.

My cell phone rings, and blue light fills the room. All these calls. Everybody means well, I know that. And everyone wants to say how sorry they are about Grampa. But I don’t want to talk to one more person about him. I don’t want to share those memories. I need to keep that part of my story for myself.

It’s on the fourth ring now, and I want to whip the thing against the wall.

But like a nice little girl, I flip open the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Gwen? This is Alicia. Bobby gave me your number. Is this a good time?”

“Oh—hi . . . sure, this is good. Robert talks about you all the time.” Which feels like the right thing to say to a girlfriend when she’s there and he’s here.

She giggles. “Robert. I keep forgetting that he’s trying to use his
professional
name now.” Another giggle, and there’s a whiff of sarcasm in her voice. I like her.

She says, “Anyway,
Bobby
said it’s been a rough couple of days. And I’m so sorry about your grandfather. But that’s not why I called. Bobby said if I asked, maybe you’d play a little violin for me. Over the phone. He said I should request the fast caprice.”

I can’t help smiling. “He’s trying to be my big helper, and he’s recruited you to cheer me up, right?”

She laughs, a beautiful sound. “That’s my Bobby . . . and your Robert. Not very subtle, but sweet. But I wouldn’t have called if I didn’t really want to hear you play. Bobby says you’re a great violinist, and he never exaggerates, at least not about music. So, how about it?”

“It’s going to take me a minute or two to get ready. Want to wait?”

“Minutes, hours, days—I’m all ears.” Again, that trace of irony.

I toss the phone on the bed, flip on the light, and run upstairs to get my violin.

My dad’s in front of the TV, and he says, “Hey there, you gonna play for me now? How ’bout somethin’ by Bach?”

“A little later, Daddy,” and I’m back down the stairs.

Talking loud toward the phone, I say, “I’m opening the case . . . and this is a quick pluck or two to check the tuning . . . and now I have to get the bow tight, and it needs a little rosin.” I pick up the phone, and say, “Could you hear any of that?”

“Loud and clear. And this is by Paganini, right?”

“Right. He’s this wild, romantic Italian guy, a real genius, like a violin rock star. And he wrote these twenty-four solo pieces back around 1800, and they’re just incredible. And impossible. So here goes. This is caprice number two.”

I bring two pillows to the edge of my bed, put the phone on top of them, stand up straight, set my bow, take a deep breath, and begin.

The fast caprice. And it is, because it’s all sixteenth notes, and it dips and sweeps and skips all over the fingerboard. It’s been over twenty-four hours since I’ve played, probably the longest break I’ve had in years, but I’m hearing and feeling every note, and every hair on the bow is alive and speaking. And the insane double-stops and the nonstop octaves that constantly challenge the melody—it’s all flowing, and the music is pouring out.

It’s when I’m riding my bow on this wild climb up the fingerboard, and it’s when I’m skidding down the other side—that’s when I’m suddenly hearing Charlie Daniels, and he’s playing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” the instrumental section in the middle. Because this caprice and that song, they’re blood brothers, with the same sizzle and pop and showmanship, except the bearded guy with the leather hat plays
so
much faster.

And when I’m almost to the end, and I’m out there on the edge of the musical universe, and I start trying to re-enter the atmosphere so I can land this song, there’s Charlie again, running side by side with Paganini. And I’m thinking that I’d pay a million dollars if just once I could see old Niccolò up there on the stage of
Austin City Limits
, just him and Charlie Daniels, both of them setting their strings on fire.

And when I finally drop into the wrenching, clenching, double-stopped finish of the caprice, I can’t quite believe what I’ve just heard. And felt. Because it’s been three minutes of pure beauty. And I played that piece with my whole self, my whole heart.

And I played it with the lights on.

I pick up the phone. But for ten seconds, maybe fifteen, I can’t talk. Because something new just happened, something important.

Alicia doesn’t talk either.

Finally I clear my throat and say, “So, that was it.”

She’s quiet another few moments. “That was . . . it was just beautiful. Really. Thank you. Perfect. And Bobby’s right about you. I’m sure of it.” Then she pauses. “Bobby told me that you know what happened to him. Two years ago.”

“Yes, and he told you about the man that showed up here? In the city?”

“Yes, he told me. Scary.”

Then I say, “Look, I hope this isn’t too personal or anything, but when Robert disappeared for all those weeks—like, afterwards, did he change? From the experience?”