Friendship Bread (29 page)

“Philippe?” Hannah is backstage now, the concert having been over for half an hour. It had been absolutely brilliant, a selection of Beethoven’s masterpieces including his Fidelio Overture, Opus 72, one of her favorite pieces of all time. The music left her on a high, and even Julia was glowing, ecstatic.

Julia surprised them both by deciding to brave the post-performance reception before returning to the hotel. Hannah is chatty and animated as she fights her way through the wave of familiar faces, all anxious to greet her, to find out how she’s been. She knows people are happy to see her and while she does want to catch up, they’re only serving to delay her reunion with her husband. As she approaches him, she sees why.

It’s the violist, Janet Vandesteeg. She was a year behind Hannah at Juilliard. She teaches orchestral repertoire for viola at Northwestern, and it was Hannah who actually introduced her to Philippe when he first joined CSO. Given the way Janet’s arms are wrapped around her husband, that was clearly a mistake.

Janet and Philippe are kissing. It’s not a polite kiss or a social kiss, nor is it the airy double-cheek kiss that Philippe is so fond of. It’s a romantic, passionate, intimate kiss. A whole-body kiss that is so entirely inappropriate and off-putting and yet Hannah can’t turn away. It takes her a moment before she finds her voice, first a whisper and then louder. “Philippe!”

It’s Janet who actually hears her. Their kiss interrupted, Janet is quick to disentangle herself and step away. The other musicians are embarrassed and mumble excuses or just leave. In a matter of seconds, it seems, the room has cleared. Philippe scowls as he crosses the room to where Hannah stands.

Hannah is amazed that Janet has the gall to stay, and at the same time finds herself unable to stop staring at her. Janet used to be as flat
chested as Hannah, who struggles to fill a B-cup. But now Janet is all curvy and voluptuous with breasts that threaten to spill out of her dress. She’s also done something to her hair—it’s now glossy with a slight curl, like something out of a Pantene commercial. Or maybe it’s more of a Lauren Bacall thing with that smoky look, full of allure and mystery. Hannah decides that she officially hates her.

“Hannah!” Philippe’s voice is low but seems to fill the room. “What are you doing here?” Philippe blocks her view of Janet and Hannah actually has to crane her neck in order to see her again. Janet is pretending to look at something on the ceiling.

“I wanted to talk,” Hannah says. She looks at her husband, tries to summon anger. He’s cheating on her! With Janet! She knew he wasn’t being faithful (it wasn’t like she thought it was the maid who had answered the phone that day) and yet here she is, she’s standing here in front of him—in front of them—and trying to have a conversation.

Wake up, Hannah!

Ironically it’s Philippe who looks put out. “Hannah, now is not the time. I just finished a performance, for God’s sake.” His voice is curt. “Go home. I’ll call you tomorrow.” His hand is on her elbow as he steers Hannah toward the door.

“Go home where?” she asks. “The apartment, you mean?”

By the way Janet whips her head in their direction and Philippe is glowering, that would be a no.

“Oh,” Hannah drawls. “You mean back to
Avalon
.”

“Hannah …”

“Don’t
Hannah
me, Philippe.” She glares at him and he takes a step back, uncertain of the woman in front of him. “You don’t get to do that anymore. I don’t know why I even let you do that to me before.” She tries to laugh but it comes out a strangled cry. “I mean, when you told me to trust you, I trusted you. When you told me things would be fine, I nodded my head. When you told me you were staying in the city because the commute was too hard—guess what?
I believed you
. Because you’re my husband and because you said you loved me. And I loved you. But not anymore.” Hannah feels a surge
of power, of confidence. Philippe no longer looks menacing. Instead he looks pathetic.

He tries to take her arm but she shakes herself free from his grasp. “You should come over for dinner sometime,” she calls to Janet. “I make a mean beef bourguignon!” She turns to Philippe. “I do it with a watercress and pear salad. Delicious.”

Philippe sighs. Hannah sees the throb of his jugular and wishes she could do some kung fu, karate-chop move that would take him out. But she doesn’t know kung fu. She doesn’t know any sport really.

“Just go, Hannah.” Philippe holds the door open, waiting for her to leave.

Instead Hannah walks over to Janet before Philippe can stop her. “I can’t believe you’re sleeping with him,” she says. “You know he cheats on his wife, right?”

Janet avoids her and looks to Philippe instead. “Philippe …” she intones, her lilting voice carrying a hint of warning. When did Janet get a lilting voice?

Philippe quickly intercepts the two women. “Hannah, stop it.” He puts his hand protectively on Janet’s arm.

Hannah stares at him. Why does Hannah have to stop anything? She hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s the one who has something to say, who is in the right here. She’s the jilted wife.

But as she looks at her husband and his lover in the back rooms of Symphony Center, Hannah feels her bravado slip away. She has every right to be there and yet it’s clear who doesn’t belong.

Hannah straightens up, praying that she won’t cry, at least until she’s out of the building. That she leaves with dignity. She doesn’t say anything when she hears Philippe calling to her, lamely saying that he’ll call her tomorrow. She says nothing at all, but holds her head high and walks out of the room.

“No, that is
not
a good idea.” Julia is adamant about this point. They’re back at the hotel, having raided the minibar. Jack Daniel’s for Julia, a wine cooler for Hannah. “You cannot poison your husband.”
She’s pretty sure Hannah is just upset, but she also saw a flash of possibility, and it makes her nervous.

“Ex-husband,” Hannah corrects with a vehemence. She’s paging through
Joy of Cooking
in search of the perfect recipe. Julia wasn’t surprised to see it in Hannah’s bag, knowing that she carried the book with her everywhere so she could skim recipes while standing in line or waiting for the light to change. “Here, look! Philippe loves quail. Something about small defenseless game birds. I can do a Spicy Maple-Roasted Quail. He won’t know what hit him.” The look in Hannah’s eyes is wild but gleeful.

“Stop!” Julia covers the page with her hand, forcing Hannah to look at her. “You’re not thinking straight, Hannah.”

“Of course I’m not thinking straight! I just walked in on my husband kissing another woman. In public!” Hannah slams the book shut, her eyes brimming with angry tears. “All my life, I’ve been the good girl. I studied hard, I practiced all the time, I ate my vegetables. I got a good night’s sleep. I never snuck out, never partied, never disobeyed my parents.”

Julia looks at her friend. “There’s nothing wrong with doing the right thing, Hannah.”

“But what’s the point? I worked hard to become the best cellist I could be, and then I got hurt. I saved myself for marriage, and then my husband cheated on me. I tried to keep my body in good shape, and then Janet Vandesteeg goes out and buys new breasts!” Hannah takes a swig of her wine cooler then looks at the small bottle in disgust. “Look at me! I can’t even get properly drunk! What am I, in high school?” She throws it in the trash and marches over to the minibar. She rummages around until she holds up a bottle of Smirnoff vodka. She unscrews the top and takes a sniff, then makes a face, her resolve faltering. “Ugh. I can’t do it. This stuff is nasty.”

Julia stretches out on the bed, gazes up at the ceiling. What would she do if Mark cheated on her? The thought is ludicrous—Mark isn’t the kind of person who would do that sort of thing. At least, he used to not be. Julia isn’t sure anymore, tries to remember the last time they slept together. It was a long, long time ago. She had asked
him about it once and he said he didn’t mind, that he understood, but did he really? Besides, she’s the one thinking about moving on, about putting the past behind them, including their marriage. So why does it matter if Mark has slept with someone? Julia winces, uneasy, because even as she contemplates a life without him, she feels hollow at the thought of him with someone else.

Hannah is rifling through the mini fridge, testing each bottle of alcohol with no luck. Despite her agitation Hannah still looks elegant and beautiful, and Julia feels a wave of tenderness for the young woman. “Hannah,” she says. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find something that isn’t completely revolting so I can get myself into a drunken stupor.” She holds up a bottle of whiskey and gives it a taste. “Ew.”

“Who says you’re supposed to end up in a drunken stupor?” Julia asks.

Hannah screws the cap back on the whiskey, dejected. “It just seems appropriate under the circumstances.”

Julia rolls to her side. “Says who?” she wants to know. “Everyone’s different. That’s what they used to tell me in the beginning, that everyone grieves differently, but if you aren’t going through the steps in the right order, and in the right amount of time, people start to think something’s wrong with you. Everyone’s got their own definition of what they think is appropriate under the circumstances. Forget them. You just need to do what’s appropriate for you.”

“I’m not like you, Julia.” Hannah puts her hands over her face.

Julia stares at her. There it is again, another faint echo of Livvy. Livvy was always comparing them, because their parents were always comparing them. It used to irritate Julia to no end, because she didn’t understand why Livvy didn’t just ignore their parents and get over it. But now, to hear a woman as accomplished as Hannah compare herself to Julia—Julia who passed out in Madeline’s house, Julia who is a bundle of raw emotions and clearly not quite ready to be out in the real world—she’s beginning to wonder if she’s been too hard on Livvy growing up. Or even now.

Hannah is crying, distraught at her own apparent failures as a
person. Julia wishes they could rewind to the beginning, to a time pre-Philippe, pre–musical prodigy even, and start over.
Be yourself
, she’d tell the young Hannah, just like she told the young Livvy. But maybe even then it wouldn’t make a difference. Even with our environment shaping us, we are born as we are. Julia sees this more and more with Gracie, who embodies her name. Grace. Julia never has to say,
Be yourself
, because Gracie always is.

“Hannah,” Julia says gently. “My sister Livvy spent a lot of her childhood trying to do what she thought other people wanted her to do.” Julia remembers Livvy polling her friends to see what kind of birthday party
they
thought she should have. “She tried very hard to be appropriate. It didn’t work out so well.”

“Why not?”

“Because Livvy is Livvy.” Julia pushes a wisp of hair away from Hannah’s damp face. “She came into her own her junior year when she made the varsity cheerleading team. Stopped apologizing for who she was, stopped asking permission. But she was still easily affected by what other people thought of her. Probably still is.”

“Livvy is lucky though.” Hannah looks up.

Julia smiles. “Really? How so?”

“Because she has you.”

Julia opens her mouth to respond but doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m not close to my brother, Albert. I never was—it’s very hard to talk to him. He’s a very angry person, especially toward my dad. The whole Chinese push-your-kids-to-excel thing didn’t really work on him.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Nothing happened. He did what my dad told him to do—got into Harvard undergrad, then Yale for medical school. He’s the head of pediatric surgery over at Johns Hopkins. He married Lynn, who’s an endocrinologist. They have two kids who are going through the exact same workup we did growing up. We see each other once a year but it’s always pretty painful.” Hannah makes a face. She sweeps the small alcohol bottles into the wastebasket, a look of satisfaction on her face when she hears them clink again each other.

Julia tosses her own bottle into the trash can, too. “Livvy and I don’t talk anymore. We haven’t in years.”

“Because of what happened to your son?”

Julia nods.

“But you were close! Albert and I never even had that.”

Julia picks at a loose thread on the bedcover. “It’s complicated, Hannah.”

Hannah doesn’t disagree. “I bet she misses you, though. I would.”

Julia drops her shoulders and gives a sigh. “Death is a big thing,” she says simply. “It changes a lot of things.”

Hannah nods, but she seems sad at the thought, and Julia doesn’t want her to feel bad about something that no one can really do anything about. “Hannah, it is what it is. It’s like you and Albert now, I guess.”

“Oh God, I hope for your sake it’s not.
Bleah.
” She makes a face so comical that both women break out in grins.

“Whatever the case, you need to step back into your own skin, Hannah. Remember who you are and just take it all one step at a time.”

“One step at a time?”

“It’s an annoying truth. Nobody knows that better than me.” Julia nods to the bottles in the trash can. “Anyway, you have too much class for that. You’re not really a minibar kind of gal, Hannah. You used to play for the New York Philharmonic,
don’t forget that
. Let those other gals drink themselves silly. You should be ordering room service instead.”

Hannah brightens, considering this. “Room service. I’m pretty sure they have caviar. I can definitely see myself drowning my sorrows in some beluga. I haven’t saved my money for nothing.”

“Exactly.” Julia grins.

Hannah walks over to the desk and looks through a large leather binder imprinted with the hotel’s logo. “Oh,” she exclaims. “They have a bath sommelier!”

Julia’s never heard of this. “What’s a bath sommelier?”

“Someone who actually prepares a bath for you in your room.
Listen:
Sink into your tub as aromatic fragrances surround you, tantalizing your senses, bringing you to a renewed state of relaxation …
” She looks up at Julia. “I could use a renewed state of relaxation right about now.”