She didn’t answer.
“Or I could come to you.” Yeah, right. That was going to happen. Ceylon owned that fully equipped silver XL convertible and really did shop in downtown LA. We owned a broken-down ’63 Plymouth and I shopped at Target.
“Do you mind if I ask how old you are?” I said. Not that it mattered. It didn’t matter if I liked older women. Dylan was a senior. Forget Dylan.
Ceylon said, “Seventeen.”
That’s all? She seemed…
“Let me guess,” Ceylon said. “You’re… fifteen?”
“Sixteen,” I corrected.
“Damn. I’m usually good at guessing. I hope I didn’t insult you.”
“No. Not at all.” What’d she mean “usually“?
“Carol just came in,” Ceylon said. “GG.”
“IM me later,” I blurted as she hung up. To myself, in the dark, I added in a whisper, “I love you.”
Carol was her mother. Ceylon called her mother by her first name. How cool is that?
Black_Venus: I wrote a poem for you.
Me: For me or for your beach babes?
Long pause.
Black_Venus: Don’t be like that. I haven’t given you any reason to be jealous.
My face flared. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want her to leave for a week.
Black_Venus: Do you want to hear it?
Me: Yeh, of course. I’m sorry. I love U.
Black_Venus: Here goes:
Curious mosaic
Continental drift
Parabolic metaphor
Elemental rift
Time and transposition
Conscious intermission
Assertion?
Desertion —
Black_Venus: That’s all I have so far. You finish it.
Me: How about “Spanish Inquisition.”
Black_Venus: I don’t get it.
Neither did I. It rhymed. I didn’t understand one word of that poem.
Black_Venus: How about, Esteem her/Redeem her. Something something lift.
Me: Okay. Good.
That really cleared it up — not.
Black_Venus: Can I ask you a personal question, Hayley?
Me: Yeh
Black_Venus: Are you a virgin?
My stomach clenched. Should I tell her the truth?
Black_Venus: Sorry, didn’t mean to pry. That’s out of line.
Me: No. No. I’m just wondering how many beach babes I’d be compared with.
She signed off.
I thought I’d die of loneliness while she was in Spain. I researched Majorca on MapQuest and calculated the distance from Mason City to the coast of Spain. 81,000,000 miles, I think. That might’ve been air miles, or kilometers, or dots on the legend. I’m not too good with maps. Halfway around the world, anyway. No distance at all if she’d IM. Or call. We spoke before she left and she assured me I had NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. I should think about myself, she said. She said she probably wouldn’t have Internet access in the villa they were renting. She said I should finish the poem. I said, “Send it to me on a postcard.”
All I could think about was how she was lying on the beach in a string bikini attracting babes. Beach babes. I hated Iowa. I hated being stuck here in Corncob, America, with no money or opportunity or beach babes.
Ceylon would be back Sunday. She said Sunday, I know she did. I’d been ticking off the days on my calendar. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Starting at six thirty Sunday morning, I logged on and IM’d her.
No answer. I stowed the phone in my room in case she called. If I had to go to the bathroom, I’d string the cord as far as it would go. I’d have called her, but she never gave me her number. She wanted to, she said. She had a private number and all the free minutes she could use because her uncle was CEO of a wireless company. She didn’t say which one.
Then she’d change the subject and I’d never get her number.
By nine a.m., I hadn’t heard from her. Nine a.m. in Iowa is seven a.m. in LA. She might have been catching up on sleep.
Seven, eight, nine. I IM’d her over and over.
Then it was noon LA time, two o’clock Iowa. No response.
When I hadn’t heard from her by seven p.m., I got frantic. I IM’d: R U there? U there? Ceylon. Are. You. There?
Monday morning, a blank screen. My eyes burned from staring at the monitor all night. Dad called up to me, “Hay-ley, school. Get the lead out.”
I slogged to my door. “I feel sick today. Can I stay home?”
Dad appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He gazed up at me, studying my face. I know I looked like a corpse with my straggled hair and bloodshot eyes. Dad set his slice of toast on the TV and jogged up the stairs. He felt my forehead. I had to be terminally ill before he’d let me miss school. “Hang on.” He hustled back downstairs.
I curled on my side on the bed. Dad returned with the thermometer. “Open.” He stuck it under my tongue. We stared at each other until the thermometer beeped.
He checked it. “Sorry, kid.” Dad patted my shoulder. “Normal.”
Whatever that was.
At school I kept ducking into the media center, logging on to the computers to check my e-mail illegally, to IM her. Maybe her server was down. That happens, right? Wasn’t MSN the server? MSN worked for me.
At lunch I called home to see if she’d left a message on the machine. There was one call from George Finkel, Dad’s poker buddy, about a venue change for the game Saturday night. I hung up. My stomach plunged. What if her plane crashed? That happens. We’d never hear about it in Iowa.
There was a TV in the media center, so I switched it on. Soaps, talk shows, infomercials. It was the middle of the day. You’d think there’d be news. ABC? CNN? We didn’t have cable at school. Finally, Fox News. Same old thing: weather, war, murder.
I snuck out and raced home. If I got marked truant, so what?
No mail. No postcards from Spain. One spam alert in my e-mail box. All I could think to do was log on to the chat board.
Scar_tissu: Has anyone heard from Black_Venus?
Sunshine26: Hi, Scar. How R U? I thought U were gone for good. I hoped U were.
What did that mean? She hoped I was dead?
Bikrchik: bak so soon? wat u do? fk up again?
Sunshine26: Tht’s not funny. What happened, Scar? She said you were ready to love.
Who?
Scar_tissu: Black_Venus? Have U heard from her? Is she back from Spain?
There was a long silence. Then —
Bikrchik: th rain in spain
Sunshine26: She said U were saved. U didn’t need us anymore.
Bikrchik: add 1 to her scorecard
Sunshine26: That’s not fair. She’s here to help. U know that.
Bikrchik: our savior
Willowwind: Hi, I’m new here.
Bikrchik: hey, sup, willo?
Willowwind: My gf broke up with me
Bikrchik: epidemik
Sunshine26: Be quiet, bikr.
Saving_grace: Hi, Willowwind. Welcome to the board. What happened with your gf?
Willowwind: She said she wasn’t really “that way.” She thought she was bi, but after she tried it with me, she decided she wasn’t into girls.
Bikrchik: ow. bitch
Sunshine26: Bikr. God. U R really insensitive sometimes.
Bikrchik: shut up
Sunshine26: Grace, make her leave.
Saving_grace: Could we be more respectful, please? People are hurting. Willowwind, the same thing happened to me. I can’t know how you feel exactly, but I wanted to die when I lost my gf. Sometimes it helps to talk about it. We’re out here. We’re listening. TIAD.
Two-Part Invention
When I hit the summit of Red Mountain Pass, I had to pull over to the side of the road and hurl. Never, in all my years of performing, had I suffered one anxiety attack, one wave of nausea, one skipped or hurried heartbeat. Ever since I’d made my decision to come to camp, major stomach eruption.
>
I cleaned myself up, wishing I had a Coke or something to swish out my mouth. My throat was raw. I hiked down to a ledge overlooking Wild Horse Canyon and gazed across the riverscape. Breathtaking view. I’d forgotten how beautiful it was up here. Remote. Sweeping. How freeing, exhilarating, to play my music in the mountains. With Annika.
Wherever I played, though, my music transcended time and space. At home in my bedroom, in a stuffy practice room at school, in a closet, garage, backstage. It wasn’t my music making me sick. It was the thought of losing it.
A long lenticular cloud sluiced across the sky. Was it last year we lay on the river rocks after morning practice conjuring shapes and stories in the clouds? The ripple of water over stones filled the quiet moments. Was it last year? Or the year before? Hard to remember; all the summers jumbled together. Annika had said, “When I’m reincarnated, I want to return as water.”
I’d laughed.
“What?” She’d angled her head up at me. “You don’t think I’m worthy of water?”
“Of course you’re worthy. You’re a drip.” It must’ve been last year because her hair had grown out and she was wearing it natural. “I’m just not sure I believe in reincarnation.”
Annika had rolled over and propped herself on an elbow. “Really? Why not?”
“I’m not religious.”
“It’s not about religion.” She’d plucked a blade of grass and nibbled on the tip. “Is it?”
I’d focused on her face. Her skin, so warm and brown.
“I think it is. The afterlife. Belief, faith. I guess I’m more about making my life on Earth count. Not letting it elude me.”
“You mean using your gift.” Annika had nudged me with her foot, and we’d laughed. Our so-called “gifts.” Everyone always referred to our “God-given talents.” I didn’t believe in such a thing. Sure, we might be born with a natural talent, an enhanced ability for… something. In our cases, music. But unless you worked to develop your ability, unless you worked your ass off, all your talent did was trickle downstream and empty into the vast unknown of human potential.
Wow, that was deep for me. I’d have to tell Annika that one. No, she might tell Bryce.
Up here you could be the next Sarah Chang, the next Yo-Yo Ma — like Bryce thought he was — and still, talent alone wouldn’t carry you. If you didn’t practice, didn’t reach, didn’t maintain your level of commitment, if you had an overblown sense of yourself the way Bryce did…
Why was I thinking about him? He made me sick. Annika had mentioned him, again, in her last e-mail. “Bryce got a new teacher. He sez ‘Fear Me Now.’”
Fear her, Bryce. Annika had beat him out for principal cello last year. He was stunned. I loved it.
He so obviously had the hots for her.
My stomach churned. I hauled myself up and dusted off my rear, inhaled the view one last time, and clambered up the hill to the car. I checked to make sure my case was in the front seat. Stupid to leave it out in the open with the door unlocked. Stupid to leave the car. Last thing Mom said before I tossed my duffel into the backseat was, “Don’t stop for anything, Kat. Drive straight through. You don’t know what kinds of crazies live up in the mountains.”
Right, Mom. Cannibals and yetis. She was paranoid. “Don’t walk home alone in the dark.” “Don’t stay in the practice room after six.” “Don’t take shortcuts.” “Don’t talk to strangers.”
Strangers. The only person in the world who didn’t feel like a stranger to me was Annika.
The last stretch of road was hairpin turns. No cars on Red Mountain Pass. What if I got dizzy from altitude sickness and swerved over a cliff? The gas gauge wiggled on E. How much farther to the junction? I might be thumbing a ride the last twenty miles. Twenty miles to Annika. Twenty miles to doom.
Stop it. Stop thinking. I needed distraction.
Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto. Saint-Saëns’s Havanaise. All the pieces we’d be performing this summer. I should run through the passacaglia in my head, or my Paganini Caprice again. I was so happy to read in the program that I’d be doing the Caprice in A Minor. Solo violin. Even more stoked to see Martinů’s Duo #2 for Violin and Cello. Last year Annika and I had slipped out the first night after curfew. We’d grabbed our flashlights and snuck deep into the woods to a small clearing. She’d set up her cello and perched on a low branch to balance, while I stood beneath the canopy of blue spruce. Intoxicating smell. The smell of her.
L’Air du Temps. That was the perfume Annika wore. I wonder if Bryce knew that.
We played. First Bach, to warm up. Two-Part Inventions. Then my two-part invention, a speed metal piece that would sound awesome on acoustic strings and synthesizer. We did the Martinů. We were lost in the dissonance, resolution, tempo changes, meter, mood, dominant/submissive. We played as one — one instrument, one voice.
There were plenty of professional string quartets, but not many duos. Annika and I both liked classical, but we loved jazz and rock and alternative and rap and even new country. We clicked. From that first year, we’d just connected. I’d been writing music for the two of us.
The two of us. Would there be a two of us? My gut twisted. Chill, Kat. It’ll be fine. It’ll be a medical miracle if you don’t have an ulcer.
I couldn’t believe this was our eighth year at St. Ives. Couldn’t believe we were going to be seniors in high school. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t told Annika.
At the last minute I decided not to pack her cards and e-mails. I’d printed them off, of course, all her letters. Read them over and over, trying to glean a hint of anything. Beyond friendship, I mean. Any emotional tenor in her words.
Her face materialized behind my eyes and I felt myself being swept into my newest composition. It was a duet, of course, a slow, romantic piece. Long, lusty bows and sexy riffs. I called it Strings Attached. Why? Would there be strings attached? The refrain had emptied over and over in my sleep, my deepest REM. In my dream I’m coming in late. Always late. Coming in after the downbeat. I miss my cue and it’s frustrating. I’m concentrating so hard on getting it right, getting in, once I’m in, I’m solid. I nail it. On her cello, Annika is my alter ego, my reflective voice. We play the notes by heart, of course. By soul. We master dynamics and form. This is how my most personal composition will be played. Perfect. In concert with Annika. My violin gives me presence and purpose. My music is my truth.
Annika got me. She got it. I thought I kept a killer schedule, getting up at five and practicing until school started at eight, then rushing home to put in another three or four hours before homework, finally drifting off around midnight, my fingers still buzzing with the vibrations of the strings. Annika managed to fit, at minimum, six hours of practice into her day and still have a life. She was on the debate team. She played field hockey. She said it was mostly to please her mother, who begged her to “expand her repertoire and live a little.” The only thing Annika lived was cello.
Until I met Annika, until I came to St. Ives, I had no idea there were others like me. Addicts. People who sacrificed body and soul to be one with their art.
The picture of Annika playing, eyes closed, fingers flying across the strings, bowing fiercely, shifting effortlessly in rhythm with her head. It gave me chills. That first time we played a duet, the Sibelius Canon, I never felt so alive. The energy, the electricity. Literally, sparks between us. Last year we ripped the Ravel sonata. The frenetic, agitated ending. The last pizzicato chord punctuated the turbulent air.
We opened our eyes at the same time to the dull roar of applause, shouts of “brava.” We looked at each other and knew. We knew. The fire burned through us. It was in her eyes, her face, her bow that trembled in her hand, same way mine did.
Was it my imagination? Did I wish it so hard I’d altered my own sense of reality?
How is that possible?
It’d been a year. A whole year trying to recapture that moment. Impossible to do without her. She lived in Maine. I lived in Utah. Half a cou
ntry away. A lot could change in a year.
I’d changed. I’m not sure why or when, but suddenly I needed more than my music. It used to take everything I had to bring my music up from my very core; there was nothing left over. No time for games or groups or growing up; getting to know people. Surprise, Kat. There are other people in the world. It was like coming out of a seventeen-year coma. I know people at school thought I was a mole. Some dark, burrowing rodent that moved in the shadows. I didn’t have friends. Not like Annika. She was the closest person to me, in heart and soul and mind.
She was going to cry when she saw me. We always cried at our reunions. We cried more when the three weeks ended and we had to return to our real lives. Last year I think I cried myself to sleep for a month. I missed her so much.
We couldn’t afford long phone conversations.
We’d e-mail. She’d send me cards and notes throughout the year. Holiday greetings. “Thinking of You” cards.
She couldn’t know how often I thought of her. And in what way. When did it start? I don’t even know. Our last good-bye, clinging to each other, holding on until the very last second, until her father had to pry us apart.
Her mother said, “Kat, you know you’re welcome to come to Maine and visit us anytime.”
“Seriously.” Annika held on to my hand. “Come for Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. Come spend your Christmas break with me.”
I held her eyes.
She knew it was impossible. I didn’t have money to go to Maine. I wouldn’t let her pay either. Annika was here on scholarship too. Besides, there was Mom. She needed me. I was her only family, her baby.
Excuses, I know. I was afraid to go to Maine. Afraid for Annika to visit me. Terrified to alter the stasis of our relationship. Would we still be friends? Would it be the same?