The Time of Her Life (17 page)

Claudia had thought that Alice had meant this last as a little joke to moderate her sternness, and she had
laughed, but then, too, she had been met with silence from Alice at the other end.

Alice lived near the university close to the apartment Avery had rented. There were a large number of handsome turn-of-the-century
houses that had been converted into apartments. They lined the narrow streets that crisscrossed College Avenue in odd juxtaposition
to the large and unremarkable yellow-brick university buildings that ranged away row after row over the gentle roll of the
campus. Claudia climbed the stairs at the back of the house to reach Alice’s apartment, and when Alice opened the door, Claudia
was relieved. She was comforted at first glance to see that Alice’s rooms were in a state of disarray, and Alice was so slight
and solemn—an earnest little candle of a person—that Claudia felt that she herself was immensely tall and loose and easy-limbed
and lovely. It relaxed her for a bit.

“I’ve still got the three violins here,” Alice said, “but one of them may be taken. It isn’t the instrument I had in mind
for Jane anyway. Jane’s ready for an intermediate instrument. I wouldn’t want to see you spend more than… oh, between fifteen
hundred and three thousand. She may want to move on to a better instrument when she’s older. You shouldn’t spend any more
than three thousand at the most.” Claudia had followed her along through the little entry into the living room where three
violins were displayed on a table that stood against one wall and seemed to double as a desk. Stacks of papers and folders
and books had been pushed out of the way to make room for the instruments.

“I’d like you to hear all three. I can give you an idea of how they sound even though I’m not very familiar with them. And
really, Jane will have to be sure herself.
She ought to use whichever one you take today for several months before she decides. And it will feel awful to her for the
first few days. But at least it will be a surprise for her at Christmas, even if she doesn’t keep it. Give her some time with
it. I’m still trying to adjust to a new bow I invested in at the first of the school year.”

Claudia wasn’t paying close attention. She knew that she wouldn’t have any idea which violin had the best sound. “It’s nice
of you to go to so much trouble, Alice. Jane’s always working on her music these days. I think she’ll be delighted.”

Claudia sat down on a couch that was covered with a patchwork quilt, and Alice didn’t reply. She had moved over to her music
stand and was fitting an unusually light-colored violin against her shoulder, adjusting her small head until she was comfortable
at the angle required by the cradle of the chin rest. She lifted her head for a moment and turned to Claudia. “You’ll hear
the difference with this bow, too. Jane needs a good bow, and I brought back several from St. Louis.”

She settled her head once more, and Claudia felt a vicarious twinge as she watched because Alice’s waist-length hair was so
out of proportion to her small, oval face and slight frame that Claudia thought it must hurt for her to bend her head forward.
It looked to Claudia as if Alice’s heavy brown hair would pull against its own roots. But Alice began to play a familiar Handel
piece with an ease that alerted Claudia all at once to reconsider where she was.

The confusion and disorder in Alice’s apartment were revealed to her in that moment as the odds and ends that collect around
people who are otherwise devoted. This was not disorder that sprang from malaise or lethargy
or absentmindedness. The pile of mail on the end of the couch, the newspapers and books stacked here and there were not casual
messiness. They were the natural dross that gathers around a person who proceeds along a chosen course as straight as an arrow.
These things were scattered around because Alice was busy; her attention was concentrated on her music. Claudia was at a loss
once more, uncertain about how to behave around this odd young woman who clearly had deep convictions about the things she
did.

As Alice played for her, Claudia got up and went over to look at the other two glossy dark instruments, and she thought that
they were so beautiful to look at that they would be a pleasure to own beyond the fact that they were good instruments.

“Avery liked the dark wood, too,” Alice said, “but I really think this is a better violin for Jane. At least this is the one
that I think she should try first. You have to remember that it will take her about a month to get used to it and see if it’s
right for her. It’s a terrible mistake to select an instrument because of the way it looks. I did that myself when I bought
my first violin, and I sold it before the year was over.”

But what Alice had said had stopped Claudia entirely from trying to sort out the merits of the violins. “How does Avery know
about it, Alice? This is supposed to be a surprise.”

“Oh.” Alice’s features went straight and blank with alarmed solemnity in the middle of her sentence. “He was helping me bring
these in from the car. I was afraid to carry them up the steps because of the ice.” She looked worried now, and like a child
in her fragility and unease. “He thought it was a wonderful idea. And it’s
a surprise for
Jane
, isn’t it? I mean, I know Avery would never tell her and ruin Christmas for her.” No one could ever be less guileful than
this small, intense woman, Claudia thought, but she still didn’t like to hear what people did or did not know about Avery.

“Oh, it is Jane’s surprise,” she said, “but I really meant for it to be the big surprise for everyone this Christmas. I meant
for this to be a sort of family surprise. I mean, we don’t usually spend this much money… Well, it’s a lot of money to spend.”
Claudia heard her own voice thin out into querulousness, while Alice gazed at her somberly and with what Claudia perceived
to be gentle indulgence. “Avery will be over Christmas morning to give Jane her presents. I’m sure he plans to. That was really
when I wanted them both to know about this. To see the violin for the first time. But it’s fine, Alice. It’ll be fine.” She
could hardly stand to hear herself speak; her voice was still quavery and filled with a defensive tone that she couldn’t control.

At last she had gone away as quickly as she could, clasping the pale violin in its case like an infant as she descended the
precarious wooden staircase without giving the other two instruments another thought, she was so glad to leave. She didn’t
ask Alice how long Avery had known about the surprise because she didn’t want to know how long he had
not
felt impelled to put in his own two cents’ worth about this whole idea. She knew that it was the sort of surprise and situation
that Avery loved and could scarcely ever be kept out of.

When Jane was at home, she spent most of the hours practicing with a kind of intensity that even Claudia, who knew so little
about it, could hear in the music she made. The notes were drawn-out with a new definition. And
she was glad when Jane was in the house. Knowing that Jane was so diligently present upstairs invigorated Claudia and gave
a shape to the long domestic days. It helped pull her out of her languor, and she straightened the rooms and vacuumed. One
day she and Jane tried a recipe on the back of a Bisquick box for “Impossible Tuna Pie.” Another day Claudia found the waffle
iron at the back of the storage closet and took it out to make waffles for dinner, but there was no syrup in the house, and
they weren’t very good with butter and jam.

Most of the time Jane was practicing, Claudia was lingering in the vicinity. She stood in Jane’s doorway or came into her
room or sat on her bed. She began to think that the garishly orange-stained rented violin had a thin, whiny sound compared
to the full tones of the Hungarian violin that Alice had played for her. She watched Jane work and work at a single phrase
of music and could scarcely keep her mind off that other violin in its buttery-colored worn leather case that she had hidden
away in her closet. She became more and more pleased with herself for thinking of making this gift to Jane, and she became
increasingly anxious to see the pleasure it would be to her daughter to discover the surprise.

Jane had stopped going to school altogether on the fourteenth, which was the Monday following that Christmas decorating party.
As soon as she had stepped aboard the school bus the day immediately after the night of the party and her friends greeted
her, she had begun to feel peculiar. Her muscles became heavy and inert, and mild cramps and nausea set in. And, also, on
that Thursday and then again on Friday Jane found that sometimes she had nothing to say. Friday, in language arts, when Mrs.
Hollis had asked her a question, she had not been able to answer. She had not intended to refuse to answer, but her face had
suddenly gone numb and tingly. When she had begun to speak, her lips would not work; she could only mumble. It was a strange
sound she made, and her classmates were kind. They had laughed tentatively, thinking that she meant to make a joke, that she
was mocking someone, but Mrs. Hollis had looked at her carefully and gone on to ask the same question of another student.
She spoke to Jane after class, as the other students were leaving, but Jane still had not been able to reply. She stood next
to Mrs. Hollis completely in the power of that peculiar paralysis. Finally Mrs. Hollis had said to Jane not to worry about
anything. “I know it must be hard for you with your parents separated. I’m sure it will all work out.”

But what Jane was finding so wearisome was the effort of clarifying the images that drifted in and out of her own memory.
Every night she lay in bed remembering how her father had planned the round window over her bed just for her, and with irrepressible
enthusiasm, because he and she shared an interest in astronomy.

These December nights she could lie in bed and look straight up into the winter sky and name the constellations within her
view. It would come into her mind over and over again how pleased her father had been, the year before last, on the day his
new Celestron telescope had arrived. He had unpacked it in the living room and examined each piece with a deep delight that
was not like his usual restless excitement; his enjoyment
had been almost reverential. “Claudia, I don’t see why we don’t make an occasion out of this,” he had said. “Listen, I’ll
take the barbecue pit down the hill, and we can cook out after I set up the telescope. It won’t be too cold with the charcoal
going.” He had called this out to Claudia, who was somewhere else in the house, but she wasn’t much interested in any of it.
In fact, it was Jane who had sat on in the living room, watching her father, although Claudia did pass through. She had come
into the room to say this or that to Avery, although she was strangely jumpy and irritated, and she never stayed in the room
long enough to inspect the new telescope.

When Jane and her father had gathered everything together and were ready to set out for the meadow, Claudia had followed them
as far as the back door. “Avery, do you really think it’s such a good idea to do this now? Janie has school in the morning.”
And she had that expression on her face that indicated faint irritation, faint disdain.

But when Jane and Avery had found the best place in the lower part of the open meadow, Avery had been engrossed in the process
of aligning the tripod and telescope exactly right, so that they headed precisely due north. Whenever Jane pictured him there,
in the long grass, so angular and intense and lonely-looking, she was filled with puzzling remorse, as if there had been something
she had not done for him. She always tried to replace that picture with any other picture at all, but she never could, and
she grieved for her tall, handsome, lanky father working so hopefully with his telescope.

He had adjusted the scope so Jane could look through it. He helped her find the Orion Nebula, which Jane
thought was such a beautiful, hazy shape as opposed to the sharp definition of the stars. She found the giant stars, Betelgeuse
and Rigel, and identified them by herself, which had pleased her father as much as she thought she had ever pleased him. While
she was still following his directions and gazing at the rings of Saturn, Claudia had drifted down the hill, following the
path, and waded through the tall grass toward them, carrying a tray of drinks and a plate of tomato sandwiches. It was cold,
and she had put on her long black woolen cape with the hood drawn up so her pale face cut through the dark like some ghostly,
celestial phenomenon, itself, in the surrounding night.

What Jane could not forget as she lay in bed at night was the odd twist of regret that had shaped her father’s mouth just
for one moment, as though he were a child caught out in something shameful, when he first saw Claudia come toward him from
the house. But the three of them had sat down to eat the sandwiches, and finally her mother had urged them inside. “It’s past
nine, Janie, and you can play with this again tomorrow night.” She had got to her feet and waved away Avery’s suggestion that
she look through the telescope, too. “It’s really awfully cold out here. It’s much colder than I thought.”

These were the things Jane thought about at night, but in the morning she had to train all her senses on her peers: who to
sit with at lunch, what couples had broken up, and who was now going together. It was work; it was hard work, and Jane found,
all at once, that she had simply run dry of energy.

That Thursday and Friday at school, if her friends spoke to her, she turned away because she could not make her mouth work,
and oddly enough, this made
her angry at them. She began to hold them in contempt. She sat in class feeling like some foreign creature, completely dissimilar
to the students around her. She quietly began to regard those other children and thought that they were grotesque. In social
studies on Friday she found herself studying the hand of the student who sat in front of her, which was splayed out over his
desk, and she could not make sense of it. She could not name it, but she gazed on in fascination at the pale, cylindrical,
sausage-shaped digits attached to the fleshy, hairless palm. She became so dizzy as she stared ahead of her that she put her
head down on her desk since she thought that otherwise she would fall out of her chair. Mr. Alberti had noticed that she seemed
ill, and he excused her from the room.