Two-Part Inventions (13 page)

“Fine, I'm almost done. Just another two minutes.” He'd been pondering whether it was safe to give Bobby Foreman, a bass player, an 85 rather than the 75 he had earned. If Mr. Sadler gave the papers back without looking at them, which often happened, it was quite safe. Phil could simply enter the higher grade in the book. But if Mr. Sadler went over the papers, then
Phil would have to alter Bobby's work, a greater risk than he cared to take.

The teacher pulled up a chair and sat down near him. He often liked to have a chat. Maybe he was lonely, Phil thought. He'd come to regard these chats as part of his job, and reminded himself that he was earning extracurricular credit for them. He set the test papers aside.

“So, where are you thinking of applying to college, Phil?” Mr. Sadler's hairy fingers played restlessly with a pencil. Phil knew he smoked—he was probably dying for a cigarette.

“Well, the applications are still a couple of years away, so I'm not sure. Juilliard, maybe, but it's a long shot. Or there's always City. My aunt and uncle can't afford to send me out of town. Wherever I go I'll need financial aid.”

“City's a good idea. What about other colleges in New York? NYU, Columbia? Columbia has an excellent business school, by the way.”

“But they're not known for music, are they?”

“On the contrary, Columbia has a fine music department, very innovative. Though I suppose it's more musicology than practical experience or performance. Anyway, it's a good idea to have a wide choice. You know, just in case.” He was beginning to sound like Uncle Mel, Phil thought, with his strategies. “Juilliard is extremely competitive, as I'm sure you know. People apply from all over the country, the world, even. And you're very good in math. Science, too, I understand from Mr. Peterson. Do you have any idea what you want to do, I mean career-wise?”

Mr. Sadler was speaking quite slowly, as if he were planning his words in advance. Again Phil was reminded of Uncle Mel,
struggling to explain his parents' death. That same deliberate tone, like treading gingerly, walking a tightrope, though Mr. Sadler's manner was much smoother than Uncle Mel's, and his voice was sharp and crisp, not grainy.

“I really don't know yet. Definitely something connected to music.” He was about to mention the band he hoped to get into shape in the next few months. He had a trumpeter and drummer lined up, and they needed to find a good guitarist, maybe a banjo or uke, then see if they could get a practice room or use the cafeteria after school. But he changed his mind; he didn't want to hear his plans addressed in that same cautious tone.

“Music, of course. I understand that. There are lots of ways to work in the music business, you know. People don't realize it's not just performers. There's artists' management, public relations, even entertainment law. That's something to think about. Writing reviews, criticism. Sound engineering—so many new technologies are in the works, they're going to transform the music business as we know it. What I mean is, consider all your options. I have a friend in the admissions office at Columbia. I could have a word with him when the time comes. Of course, it's no guarantee of anything, you understand. Who knows, you might win a state scholarship if you do well on the test. That would cover a good part of the tuition.”

“Well, sure, any help I can get . . . I'd really appreciate that. Thanks.”

“Okay, I'm off now. When you finish entering the grades, leave the papers in the right-hand drawer and I'll return them first thing tomorrow. Be sure to lock up.”

Alone again, Philip entered a grade of 85 for Bobby Foreman.
He raised Freddy Bocelli, the other senior, a few points as well. Mr. Sadler wouldn't bother looking at the test papers again. Who the hell did the old fruitcake think he was, anyway? What could a math teacher know about who would get into Juilliard?

He locked up and went to the practice room he had reserved for four thirty. He was working on a Bach fugue from
The Well-Tempered Clavier
. The fugues eluded him: Four voices in counterpoint made for a struggle, and he tried the piece over and over, more and more slowly. He'd get it eventually, he always did, but it took so great an effort. There were students who could sight-read those fugues and make them sound halfway decent the first time. Each time he paused he could hear the faint sounds of others practicing in the nearby rooms.

Who was he kidding, anyway? He didn't stand a chance of getting into Juilliard. The best he could ever be was a gifted amateur. A knowledgeable one—he excelled in the music history courses and had a good ear besides. He knew how the music ought to sound. Occasionally he wrote reviews of concerts for the school paper, and the faculty advisor had praised them. But a performer, never. He didn't have it. He could end up in an office, arranging tours and concerts for Bobby Foreman and the others, the ones practicing in the rooms around him.

All the while he worked doggedly on the fugue, but by the time the hour was up he had made up his mind to apply to the schools Mr. Sadler had suggested. If the old guy could wangle him a scholarship, he wouldn't refuse. It wasn't giving up. The other was a dream he'd never really believed in. This was just being practical.

 

T
O ESCAPE the packs of students clattering down the hall between classes, Suzanne turned around to face the bulletin board outside the secretary's office. Maybe if she moved very close she might magically dissolve into the bulletin board, become two-dimensional, a paper cutout. Or even more miraculously, someone who'd seen her in a class would notice her and speak to her. There were times when her old childhood anguish about being real overcame her, times she wished she had never come here and gone instead to the local high school with Eva and Alison and the other girls from the neighborhood. But Richard and her piano teacher, Mr. Cartelli, even her parents, had said how wonderful it was that she'd passed the auditions and been accepted at the High School of Music and Art. She must take the opportunity, even though, her mother added, it meant that long subway ride from Brooklyn alone every day. Gerda had offered to come with her the first day, but Suzanne refused in horror.

Everything about the school was better than what she'd known before, more colorful, more intense, high on a hill overlooking miles of city streets—the very air felt charged. She'd learned more French in one week than she had in a year in junior high. Except that no one knew who she was. To be
known: It was what she craved. It was her second week of high school, and still she was anonymous, invisible amid strangers. She was not used to anonymity; at home, on her street, she had come to take her reputation for granted. She was the lively, sweet-natured girl with the special gift that would someday bring her a special life that the others, the ordinary ones, couldn't hope for. The reputation could be a burden, an embarrassment, yet now she missed it. Here, if she didn't turn up her absence would barely be noticed.

And she had looked forward so much to the new school. The prospect of escape—in Brooklyn, Manhattan seemed like another country—and of finding new friends had helped through the long hot summer, a summer the kids on the block had inaugurated with a trip to Coney Island. Knowing she would very soon be in a new world had gotten Suzanne through that dreadful evening when she was crowded into a car in the Cyclone roller coaster with the fattest boy on the block, Arnie Perchusky.

It had been a humid June night, school would be over in two days, and the dreaded Regents Exams were finished. She had the whole summer to practice. Mr. Cartelli had set her to work on a Brahms early sonata, and Richard said she must start learning some twentieth-century music as well—Bartók, Stravinsky, Satie. . . . She dreamed daily of the future, of the miracle of being accepted at Juilliard when the time came, of someday playing on a grand stage—but she was superstitiously afraid to extend her fantasies that far. Meanwhile, she practiced fervently to make them come true.

She was lonely, but leaning against the parked cars on the street with the girls and boys from the neighborhood didn't
relieve her loneliness, merely screened it; still, the warm nights drew her outside with a hope shadowed by hopelessness. So when the group decided to borrow enough cars to drive to Coney Island—several of the local boys were old enough to have driver's licenses—she went along. The Cyclone was nightmarish, the fat boy beside her an opaque stranger. Everything about the excursion made her swear to forget this part of her life, nearly over. When the awful ride was finished she and the boy slunk apart, he too perhaps dreaming of a future in which he would be thin, an athlete maybe. Suzanne was certain she would leave, one day for good.

And now here she was, again feeling alien. The worst moment of the day was lunch in the cafeteria, carrying her tray and heavy book bag, gazing straight ahead, trying to appear casual as she moved through the aisles, looking for an empty table. She could usually find one near the edge of the room, and once she was seated and peering around, her fingers unconsciously marking a Bach Invention on the tabletop, she noticed a few others like herself, alone and reading, or pretending to read, while they ate. Why couldn't the solitary ones approach one another? You're alone and I'm alone, so why not sit together? But that wasn't the way things were done, not in high school, at any rate, perhaps not anywhere. No one wanted their humiliation exposed.

As the students jostled behind her in the hall, she made a show of studying the notices pinned to the bulletin board, then began reading them in earnest. One offered free tickets to a Sunday matinee concert at Carnegie Hall. Suzanne had never been to Carnegie Hall. Richard had taken her twice to recitals at Brooklyn College—her parents had let her go, provided
he escorted her to her front door immediately afterward—but never to anything in Manhattan. Why not? She plucked up her courage and stepped into the office. Trying to keep her voice firm, she inquired about the tickets.

“Sure, and you can have two if you like,” the secretary said brightly. “Maybe you want to bring a friend.”

“No, one is fine. Are they really free?”

“Of course.” The secretary had two spots of rouge on her cheeks and gray ringlets, and on her smooth empty desk stood a cut-glass vase with a single flower. She reminded Suzanne of Mrs. Gardenia, and like Mrs. Gardenia, she smiled too much. “Are you a freshman?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you're in luck. They don't often give away something as good as this. Rudolf Serkin. I'd go myself, but I've got to take care of my grandchildren. Here you are.” She handed her the ticket. “Enjoy it. And keep checking the bulletin board. You never know what might turn up.”

Suzanne tucked the precious ticket in her wallet. She could tell her parents it was a required assignment. Her mother still fussed about the subway and warned her every morning to be careful. Careful of what, she didn't say.

She arrived twenty minutes early on Sunday afternoon and ambled up and down Fifty-seventh Street, though it was hardly suitable for ambling. The rattling, incessant traffic made the manhole covers rumble; trucks and taxis blared; caravans of green buses slogged along. Next door to Carnegie Hall was the Russian Tea Room, with a gleaming gold samovar in the window, flanked by reproductions of ancient icons. Peering inside, she glimpsed velvet curtains and waiters dressed in embroidered
tunics. Farther down the block was an enormous bookstore, and beyond that, a Bickford's cafeteria where solitary people sat over cups of coffee, looking dejected and aimless, reading newspapers or staring into space.

Back inside the lobby a crowd had gathered, women with faces caked in makeup, moving gingerly in high heels, draped in furs though the weather was still mild in September, and gray-haired, clean-shaven men in dark suits. She felt shabby in her nondescript gray jacket and Cuban heels. No one else was alone.

She edged her way through the crowd toward a woman taking tickets, who directed her up a flight of dingy stairs with dingy, pale green walls. The staircase continued endlessly, round and round. After several flights she showed her ticket again and was told to keep climbing. As the stairs continued, the crowd thinned out and she stopped counting. At last, when there were no more steps, she was handed a program and directed to a seat in the center of a row, fortunately not yet filled, so she didn't have to step over too many people.

The hall was immense, a fairy-tale palace, its luscious cream-colored walls and ceiling adorned with elaborate curlicued carvings. High up were suspended magnificent chandeliers with glittery crystals that stirred faintly in the air currents. Everywhere was red velvet and a heady scent of opulence. On the stage hung a heavy crimson curtain, and on each side were the box seats with their red plush chairs. She had never been in such a huge theater before. Years ago, when she was a tiny girl, her parents had taken her to see
Peter Pan
and, a few years later,
The Sound of Music
, but those theaters were not as large or glamorous, as richly garnished and decorated, as here,
and her parents had flanked her like bodyguards. Here she was alone. Not lonely anymore in the crowd. Yet she was trembling at the newness of it all, as if something would be required of her. There was nothing she need do, she reminded herself. Only sit still and wait, look and listen.