The Lucy Variations (7 page)

Will had gone back downstairs to Gus, and Lucy lay on her bed in the dark until she was sure he’d left the house. She listened to her breath, felt the way her fingers interlaced and rested on her stomach.

Do you want to play again? Ever?

His question scared her.

Just like his “Now you” on Sunday night had scared her and made her run.

Because underneath the surprise of being called out in front of everyone, underneath her determination to never let her grandfather think she had any regrets about Prague, underneath the agitation of being cajoled…

She’d wanted to do it.

For the first time in eight months, she wanted to sit down at the piano, and play.

Lucy was nearly late again on Wednesday; she swooshed into class just as the bell rang, the last to arrive. When Mr. Charles saw her, he smiled and said, “Close shave. Next pumpkin bread on me.”

Mary Auerbach, from her seat in front, paused in the unloading of her bag to look at them for a couple of seconds, then at Lucy, with her trademark
I know every single thing that’s going on in this school, but what’s this?
expression. Which Lucy ignored. She settled into her desk in the middle of the room and tried to focus.

English. School. Reyna. Being Mr. Charles’s pet.

A week ago those things had been enough. With piano behind her, she was under the radar at home, and that’s how she liked it. Better to be the object of disappointment than have to constantly pretend to care about something she didn’t.

Unless she still did.

“Lucy?” Mr. Charles stood near her desk. “You look like you want to say something.”

“I do?”

A couple of people laughed.

“About what?” she asked.

He held up his copy of
Othello
.

“Oh. No. Sorry.”

“I’m going to call on you again in about five minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

She stared at her book, the words on the page turning into musical notes in her imagination.

By lunchtime Lucy mostly felt normal again. She’d spent second period explaining to herself why whatever she was feeling didn’t matter. It wasn’t like she’d ever be able to sit down at the Hagspiel again, as if she belonged there as much as Gus did. No way would her grandfather sit by and watch that happen.

And she didn’t even want that. She was just experiencing a little nostalgia was all. She should be enjoying her freedom, not daydreaming about being back in the cage.

Carson found Lucy and Reyna at their second-floor table. “I need to be with sane people,” he said, dropping his bag on the floor.

“And you picked us?” Lucy asked.

“My boys will
not
stop talking about Halo, and also Soon-Yi Pak is stalking me.”

“Wait,” Reyna said. “Weren’t
you
stalking
her
?”

“Yes. Yes, I was. Then I actually sat at her table and found out she can’t eat cheese or wheat or tomatoes or peanuts or pork or sugar and this whole list of other stuff. I do not have time for that.”

Lucy pulled out her own lunch, which in fact included a peanut butter sandwich on wheat bread and an orange. “Everyone’s got flaws.”

“Wrong. I decided Jules Shanahan is perfect, but she never eats lunch on campus, and we have zero classes together.”

“Which is why she seems perfect to you,” Lucy said. “You’re scared of real, up-close girls.”

Carson gestured to Reyna and Lucy. “Hello, do I look scared of you guys?”

“We don’t count.”

“Anyway, be happy you’re alone,” Reyna said. “Love is hell and will end in a fight.” She gave them the update on her parents’ divorce: her mother’s lawyer was on a two-week vacation in Italy, so everything was on hold. “I just want it to be over,” she said.

Lucy half listened and half focused on trying to peel her orange all in one strip while Reyna went on about how her dad suddenly wanted them to all go to temple together, getting way too into the family-therapy stuff and “expressing his feelings” to Reyna and her sister. “He’s constantly asking us how we’re doing. He doesn’t get that it’s too late.”

“Men,” Carson said disdainfully.

“It’s not a joke.”

“I know. Sorry. Lay your divorce woes on me, and I will joke no more.”

“That’s it for today,” Reyna said.

Carson looked to Lucy. “So what’s going on with you?”

She held up her orange peel. “This. Bow to me.”

“Nice.”

“Lucy didn’t tell you about Temnikova dying?” Reyna asked.

“Who?”

“My brother’s piano teacher.”

“Lucy gave her mouth-to-mouth.”

“Lucky lady,” Carson said. “Except for the dying part.”

“They already replaced her,” Lucy said.

Reyna raised her eyebrows. “Whoa. Whiplash.”

“The guy they got is like…” Lucy shrugged. “Young.”

“Cute?”

Lucy got out her phone and looked up Will’s head shot online. She passed it to Reyna, who said, “He’s not
that
young. Or cute.”

She handed the phone to Carson. “I have no opinion,” he said.

“Cute is as cute does,” Lucy said, taking back her phone. Her standards of attraction were…different from her peers, as far as she could tell. She didn’t find any of the so-called hot guys at school very interesting, and she was pretty sure she was the only person at Speare who understood Mr. Charles’s appeal. For her it was a combination of kindness and smartness and good humour. And the eyes. Something in the eyes. It all came together to make his face more than the sum of its parts. It was kind of the same way with Will. She didn’t know him that well yet, but she could tell he had one of those personalities that might make up for whatever was missing.

“Anyway, it’s supposed to be nice this weekend,” Reyna said. “We should do something.”

Carson scrolled through his phone with his thumb. “When you say ‘we’, am I actually invited, too, or are you talking about you and Lucy like usual? I mean, should I be paying attention right now or tuning you out and pretending my feelings aren’t hurt?”

“The first one.”

They made a plan to get Carson after Lucy’s orthodontist appointment and drive down to Half Moon Bay, in Reyna’s car, while she still had it. It was another potential casualty of the divorce, since the lease was in Dr. Bauman’s name.

It would be good to get out of the house and be reminded there was more to life than what went on there.

When she got home after school, she went in the back door, sweaty from her walk up the hill. Martin sat on a stool at the kitchen island, his notebook and a cup of tea in front of him. He’d worked for their family for ever; Grandma Beck had hired him when Lucy was a baby, after Martin had just turned forty.

“There she is,” he said, looking up briefly. “I’m making a grocery list. Anything you need?”

Lucy set her bag in the serving pantry and inventoried the snack situation. “Can you get pistachios? And some hot chocolate? The spicy kind.”

He jotted a note with his fountain pen. Martin never used a rollerball or gel pen, and most definitely not an old-school ballpoint. One shelf on the spice rack was totally dedicated to storing his little bottles of ink – mostly shades of blue and purple. Once, when Lucy was a kid, she’d taken a bottle of ink up to her room to play with, dipping her fingers in it and making abstract art in one of her school books. The ink didn’t wash off her hands for a couple of days, but Martin never got her in trouble with her parents about it, which made her love him.

“I’ll hide the nuts from your mom,” he said. “She thinks they’re fattening.”

“Did she say something about my weight?” Lucy studied herself in the upper oven door. Same as always. Not gaunt, not chubby.

“No, sweetie. About
her
weight.” Martin set down his pen and ran his hand over the grey stubble that dotted his shaved head. “So what do you think of the new teacher?”

Lucy turned away from her reflection. “I don’t know. I mean, Gus loves him. That makes me happy.”

“Mm.”

“What do you think?”

Martin folded his arms on the kitchen island. “Zoya Temnikova was an extraordinary woman. You probably don’t realize this, but she and I got to know each other in the way only two employees of the household can.”

“Martin. No one thinks of you as an ‘employee of the household’. ”

He smiled. “Okay. The point is I admired her. I’m sad she’s gone. And I’ll miss the bottle of Stoli she gave me every Christmas.” He straightened up and tore his grocery list off his notepad. “That said, I think Will is exactly what Gus needs. And I’ll tell you this: your grandmother would have absolutely adored him.”

“How do you know?” Lucy asked. She suspected he was right. “You’ve only met him like twice.”

“I just do. The two of them are – would be – kindred spirits.”

For the rest of the week, Lucy made a point of not being home when Will was there. She didn’t want to hear any follow-up questions, invitations to play, any more comments about how tragic it was that she’d quit. Each day she went to CC’s after school and picked up coffee for her and Mr. Charles, then did homework in his room while he graded papers. She felt safe with him; no surprises.

When Saturday morning arrived, she baulked at the idea of seeing Dr. Bauman, Reyna’s dad. It would be her first visit to the office since the more sordid details of the divorce had come out. How were you supposed to look people in the face when they knew that
you
knew something they – and you – wished you didn’t know?

“I could probably just stop wearing it.” Lucy sat at the kitchen island bolting down cereal, her mom across from her, working on her laptop. Gus and her dad were off doing some father-son thing that Lucy suspected involved doughnuts they’d never confess to.

“Wearing what?”

“My retainer.”

Her mother looked up. “You can’t stop
now
. That would be like quitting the marathon at the twenty-fifth mile.” Their eyes met for a second as they both thought the obvious: it wouldn’t be the first time.

Lucy let it pass. “Maybe I could go to someone else.”

“I know. It’s unpleasant.” Her mother’s eyes drifted up to Lucy’s hair, which declared with every flyaway that she hadn’t been using the silk pillowcase.

“I used to look forward to seeing him,” Lucy said. She’d always, always liked Dr. Bauman. Of all the dads she knew, he was the cutest and nicest. He had the black hair and intense blue eyes Reyna had inherited, and he was funny and charming. Hot moms flocked to him for a reason.

Lucy wanted her to admit that it was more than unpleasant. That something had been lost. Instead, her mom went back to typing and said, “You don’t have to think of him as a role model. Just go and get it over with.”

“But it’s so…”
Sad
. “Never mind.” She should know better than to look to her mom for consolation, about basically anything.

The walk to Reyna’s house felt long. Even though it was only seven or eight blocks, the last couple were hills. When she arrived, she stood in front of the office entrance and thought again about ditching the appointment and going straight up to Reyna’s room. But that would only get her in trouble, and she’d have to come back later.

The new receptionist was a guy. A handy way to thwart any more inappropriateness while the divorce remained unsettled. “Hi,” Lucy said. “I have a ten o’clock appointment.”

“Make yourself comfortable. Dr. Bauman will be right with you.”

She sat in one of the wing-back chairs that were impossible to make oneself comfortable in, texting Reyna, until Dr. Bauman came out of the inner office, smiling. “Lucy, you get more beautiful every time I see you.”

He’d been saying it to her for ever, even during her über-awkward years when it had been an obvious lie. Before it always felt like friendly dad-talk. Now she couldn’t help but cringe away from his hug the best she could without being rude. “Thanks,” she said.

“Take a seat, honey.” He steered her by the shoulders into his office.

What proceeded was the same kind of check-up he always did, but the way he put his fingers on her lips and the smell of his latex gloves, the way his leg brushed against hers slightly when he had to reach for her chart, the little
mmm-hmm
noises he made while inspecting her mouth…suddenly everything formerly innocent seemed tainted by what she knew. The former receptionist. Soon-Yi Pak’s mom. There were others.

The second he took his hand off her face, she turned away from him, a reflex. Not subtle. She pretended to study the poster of straight teeth, a dozen tiled pictures of lips drawn back from red gums.

Dr. Bauman rolled his chair to his desk, snapped off his gloves, and made some notes in her file. “Any headaches or any other kind of pain? Especially when you wake up in the morning?”

“No.”

“Everything else going okay?”

“Yes.”

“How’s Gus?”

“Fine.” She ran her hands over the seam at the knee of her jeans.

She thought he’d say something about her teeth, the kind of adjustment he would make to the retainer, increasing or decreasing the time she wore it.

“Hey. You threw up in my Jag when you were nine. I helped you put on a funeral for your guinea pig. We came to your concerts.” He sounded hurt and tired. “This is me, Lucy.”

She made herself look at him, and nodded.

“Things are always more complicated than you think,” he continued. “You’ll find out when you’re older.”

She hoped not.

“All right. Give me five minutes here, and then we’re done till next time.” He smiled a sad version of his old, winning smile. “I assume you’re going up to see Rey. Tell her I said hi.”

Reyna had divided the contents of her closet into several piles. She pointed to one of the smaller ones. “That’s stuff for you to try on. Mostly tops, obviously, since your legs are miles longer than mine. There are a couple of skirts, though, that might not be indecent.”

“Thanks.”

Lucy sat on the edge of the bed awhile, debating whether or not to pass on Dr. Bauman’s greeting. Reyna’s mood seemed a little…volatile. She whipped a sparkly cocktail dress off a hanger and held it up. “My dad bought me this for the museum fundraiser. Kinda slutty, don’t you think?”

“It looks like the kind of thing people wear to that.”

She threw the dress on a nearby pile. “Discard.”

Lucy reached down to pick it up. It was so pretty, a kind of ruby red that looked absolutely gorgeous with Reyna’s Snow White colouring. “Maybe you should save this. Put in a ‘deal with later’ pile?”

Reyna stood still for a second to stare at the dress, then shook her head and went back into the closet, jerking hangers across the rod. “I’m sorry, but I just hate him right now. And everything that reminds me of him.” She glanced over her shoulder at Lucy. “Clothes. Try them on, please. It will cheer me up.”

Some of Reyna’s favourite tops were in the pile; for example, the Burberry polo with the checked sleeves she’d just gotten a month ago. Lucy put it on to make her happy; a tight squeeze across the chest. Then she noticed Reyna standing on tiptoe, grasping for some boxes of shoes on an upper closet shelf. Lucy went in. “Here.” She reached the boxes easily and handed them to Reyna, whose face crumpled as she clutched them to her.

Lucy took the boxes back, set them on the floor, and put her arms around Reyna, who said, “Oh my God, Lucy. It’s so awful. You don’t know.”

“I’m sorry.” Reyna’s stomach trembled a little against hers, as if she were holding back a bigger sob.

“We were, like, a happy family. I thought we were.”

“I know. Me too.”

Reyna let go, and Lucy got the box of tissues off the nightstand. Reyna took one and blew her nose. “And the worst is explaining it to Abby without
explaining
it. Me and Mom trying to be careful what we say. We can’t be all, ‘Daddy is a lying, cheating sack of crap’, you know?”

“Right.”

“I hate men. I seriously do.” Reyna threw the tissue on the floor and took another, and while blowing her nose a second time finally got a good look at Lucy in the polo. She laugh-sobbed. “You can’t wear that. When did your boobs get so awesome? It’s obscene.”

“I’ll keep it for you. And the dress, okay? And whatever else. I’ll keep them with my stuff at home in case someday you realize you actually want them.”

Reyna nodded and hugged Lucy again briefly. “You’re a good friend. The best.”

“You too.” Lucy stripped off the polo and put her own shirt back on. “Let’s get out of here. We can fix this mess later.”

They picked up Carson and wound down Highway 1 in Reyna’s Mini, Lucy up front and Carson folded into the tiny back seat. To their right the Pacific sparkled deep blue, and the midday light cut depth and shadow into the crags of the bluff. Mesmerizingly. Gorgeously.

Lucy thought:

Beautiful beautiful beautiful.

It had been too long since she had that thought, that feeling. Of joy and things being right or at least okay, because even if your own life wasn’t perfect, there was this
world
. And you were
living
in it, somehow, away from parents and classes and practice rooms.

“The wonder of beauty, in all its forms,” she said aloud, to feel the shape of Will’s words from the toast coming out of her own mouth.

“What?” Reyna shouted, over Usher, over the wind blowing in through the windows, which were wound halfway down, over the noisy car.

“Nothing.”

There had to be a way to know wonder again, without it needing to be connected to piano. More time in nature, maybe, like this? Helping others? She could sign up for a well-digging trip to the Sudan or something.

“No, I just can’t hear you!”

Carson lurched forwards to yank the lead to Reyna’s phone out of the dashboard. “
Any
way,” he said, tapping Lucy’s shoulder. “What were you saying?”

“It’s nice out. That’s all.” She turned awkwardly in the bucket seat to see if he had his phone in his hand, like always. He did. “Which you’d notice if you’d put that thing away for five minutes.”

“Ha-ha, well, guess what, I
did
notice and was updating my followers on how brilliant the view is right now.”

He waved the phone at her; she grabbed it. “Your
followers
? Well, now I’m telling your followers that you’re going away to experience life for a couple of hours.”

“Lucy! Give it!”

“You sound like my little sister, Carson Lin,” Reyna said, laughing.

Lucy dodged Carson’s hands coming at her over both shoulders, leaning forwards until she shut down the phone and stuffed it into the bottom of her bag. “There.”

Carson slumped back. “Wow. I don’t even know what to say about this. I feel violated.”

“It’s called an intervention,” Reyna said. “You’ll live. Now somebody plug my Usher back in.”

“My turn to pick the music.” Lucy connected the stereo cord to her phone and thumbed through screens until she found Vivaldi and hit Play.

As soon as the opening notes filled the car, Reyna groaned. “Didn’t you get enough of this for the first fifteen years of your life?”

“Maybe instead of assuming you hate it, you could listen.”

“It’s not bad,” Carson conceded.

“Shh.”

The allegro of the “Winter” concerto began. Lucy loved this piece. Obsessively.

She turned it up and rolled down her window all the way, the wind whipping cold, almost painful. The violins made their steady advance towards the moment about a minute and a half into the piece when they exploded into the main theme. That was Lucy’s favourite part: the microsecond between anticipation and full-born joy.

Joy.

Joy on steroids.

Lucy closed her eyes and reached her arm out of the car to feel the air. And reached and reached and let out a yell. Tentative at first, then louder. Vaguely aware of Carson and Reyna laughing, she beat her hand on the car door and opened her eyes again, the wind stinging tears into them, the ocean relentlessly dazzling.

The world was full of beauty.

She wanted to grab hold of it and take it all down into her bones. Yet always it seemed beyond her grasp. Sometimes only by a little, like now. The thinnest membrane.

Usually, though, by miles.

You couldn’t expect to be that kind of happy all the time. She knew that.

But sometimes, you could. Sometimes, you should be allowed a tiny bit of joy that would stay with you for more than five minutes. That wasn’t too much to ask. To have a moment like this, and be able to hold on to it.

To cross that membrane, and feel alive.