Sight Reading (28 page)

The backgammon set lay against the wall. To Remy it looked reproachful, a reminder that she, too, had slipped. But she had paid for her lapse. That was the problem; paying for a mistake was nothing Nicholas had ever done.

Her mind whirred through the revelations of today. Hard to stop the whirring. Her fury came and went in bursts. The thought came to her again that she could leave him, leave here, start anew. She could, if she wanted. There was even a job she might try for, with a new orchestra in Barcelona. Her friend Christopher had been telling her about it.

Enough of this life—these secrets and lies.

She went back inside and dialed Jess's number. She simply wanted to hear her voice, to be reminded of the other people she loved.

Instead there was the recording of their golden retriever barking and Jessica saying, “Hey, leave us a message,” as if it didn't really matter to her one way or another.

“Hi, sweets, it's me. Just calling you back. Glad you're coming to visit. I'll call again soon.” She hung up and waited, as if Jess might call back any minute. She was unaware of exactly how much time passed, just that at a certain point she found herself marching angrily through the French doors into the music room, as if she might find Nicholas there as usual. The room looked beautiful as always—more beautiful, now that they had finally pulled up the carpet and polished the parquet floor. Why had they waited so long? Remy saw that she had left the windows open, but luckily no rain had gotten in. She twisted a handle to open one of the windows wider. From the next block came the hooting of the trolley's horn.

Remy turned to Nicholas's desk. It was messy as always, covered with scattered pages of his manuscript—
the
manuscript, or “the beast,” as they had called it, for a long time now. How odd, to see it there without Nicholas hunched over in contemplation.

He had gotten on with it recently—gotten past whatever had blocked him. Remy had noted the change in him, the way his mood had lifted despite the increased hours at his desk. Lately, when she returned home from Symphony performances, he would still be up, working, but instead of fatigue in his eyes there was a glow.

She looked down at a page of the score. It was in its final stage, she could tell, because instead of pencil Nicholas had used ink. He was old-fashioned that way, still wrote out his next-to-final copies by hand, on sleek staff paper with preprinted clefs, before handing them off to his copyist. Seeing his handwriting now, Remy felt oddly moved, at the thought of him having drawn all these dots and stems. The many staves were stacked one upon the other, rows and rows, for each instrumental voice. A single page contained so much; it was nothing a simple glance could easily make sense of. The only reason Remy was able, at all, to comprehend the thing was because of Conrad Lesser, all those years ago, insisting his students understand not just their parts but the orchestral scores, too.

She could almost hear him now, explaining how to approach new work: first look the thing over and suss out the piece as a whole, its form, its mood, its principal idea. . . .

But even this one single page—the woodwinds up top, and below them the rows of brass, and then the percussion, and on down the busy page—was really too much for Remy. Though she could read well enough the individual lines, she wondered at the fact that composers managed to hear internally how the piece would sound as a whole. Here was the oboe's part; there was the trumpet's. Here came a piccolo. Remy could hear individual parts in her imagination, but to synthesize these varied voices, to mentally weave them together all at once, was too difficult. It struck her now how odd it was, that this man she lived with had for years been listening to these harmonies and melodies in his mind, without Remy ever hearing more than a scrap here or there on the piano.

Her eyes continued down the page, to the string section. There was the first violin part, and the second. Above, tucked between the harp and the violins, was a word in capital letters: “SOLO.”

A violin solo.

Remy flipped backward through the movement, to see where the solo began. With only eight or so bars of score per page, the pages made a thick stack. Ah, here was the beginning of the solo; it was quite an extended one. But how was that possible? Nicholas had never mentioned it. Surely he would have asked for her input—or at least mentioned what he was doing.

Remy's heart sank all over again, to know that he hadn't even bothered telling her. Really that was what hurt the most. Not just the other woman. It was how easily he had excluded Remy from the most important parts of his life. A violin solo, and he hadn't even thought to consult her, hadn't thought she might have something to offer. So that now this solo, too, was yet another thing he had kept from her—the very thing she had always thought they shared.

Remy read the opening few bars to herself. But then she had a better thought.

She spread the pages out along the piano so that she wouldn't have to keep flipping them quickly, and went to fetch her violin. When she was ready, she raised her bow and began to play.

Chapter 2

J
essica called,” Robert announced when Hazel arrived home from work. His eyes smiled from behind small wire-rimmed glasses. “They're coming to visit next month after all. The third week of June.”

“Wonderful!” Hazel said, leaning in to kiss his smooth mouth. “I'm so glad.” And then: “What's
that
?”

“That,” Robert said grandly, gesturing toward the corner of the foyer, “is my new acquisition.”

“But what
is
it?”

“It's art!”

Heart sinking, Hazel asked, “Are you sure?”

“It's a sculpture,” Robert said, but his face had lost its glow. Quietly he asked, “Don't you like it?”

“
Like
. . . is not the word.” Hazel tried not to let anything show on her face. She walked closer to the “art,” which sat on a large steel gray pedestal lit from behind. It was a sculpture of sorts, in what might have been crystal or imitation crystal, a carving of a curling frothy wave, and inside the wave, reclining (sleeping? dead?), the figure of a naked, nubile young woman. She was slim waisted and smooth skinned, utterly expressionless, with long flowing crystal hair that melted into the curl of the wave. Her limbs, too, were long, unnaturally so, one leg bent slightly so that her crotch was concealed. There was, of course, no pubic hair, and her face was devoid of emotion, eyes closed and the mouth, with perfect, lush lips, just slightly open, making her look comatose or perhaps mentally retarded.

“Cooper says it's a collector's item.”

“Really?” Hazel heard the tension in her voice.

“Or it's going to be. He said it was a good investment.” Robert paused. “And I think it's nice.”

“Nice.” The girl (nymph? prostitute?) lay there incapacitated, light shining up on her from below. With trepidation Hazel asked, “How much did it cost?”

The number shocked her.

“The artist is famous,” Robert explained, and picked up a big, glossy magazine to prove it. “See, right there. A whole article on him.” The magazine, thick with advertisements, was open to a two-page spread, photographs of more crystal waves, and a tan, fit, gray-haired man posing at the prow of a boat.

“It says here that people from all over the country order pieces from him. He'll even customize them for you.” But Robert's voice was wavering a bit, which made Hazel feel even worse. Not only was she horrified by this blemish he had brought into their home; now she had made Robert—kind, generous Robert—doubt his own judgment. This seemed to her the crueler of her crimes.

She looked at her husband, saw how badly he wanted to please her. It was one of the qualities she loved in him, this willingness, for it made him open-minded and adaptable; he liked to laugh, even at himself. Sweet Robert. Though a few years older than she, he still cut quite a dashing figure, lean and fit, with a kind face, and hair that had been silver since his twenties. Now he glanced back at the sculpture. “I don't see why you think it's so awful.”

Worried, she asked, “Did I say it was awful?”

“I can tell by your face.”

“I'm sorry.”

With real curiosity he asked, “But what's wrong with it?”

Where to begin? Hazel wasn't sure she could even articulate her thoughts. “It's a bit tasteless,” was what she said.

“Well, I suppose you would know,” Robert said in a bruised way.

After all, Hazel spent each workday in a shop filled with only the most elegant of objects: hand-worked gold earrings, woven sweetgrass baskets, Shaker sewing trays. “It's true,” she said, “I'm not used to tackiness.”

Robert said, “Well, not all of us devote our time to tchotchkes.”

“Tchotchkes!” Hazel felt her face heating up. “Do you know what I sold today? A necklace of pure Austrian crystal.” She tried not to let her voice rise. “My store is one of only two in Massachusetts that carry authentic Navaho woven carpets. I have blankets hand-quilted in the Ozarks.” Hazel dealt in hand-carved chessboards, black-and-white nature stills, photograms by a local artist, no two alike. Every one of those “tchotchkes” had the mark of a human hand. Not like the plastic woman in the wave of spittle here in the foyer. This really
was
a disgrace—so smooth and flawless, there was no mark of craftsmanship at all.

Robert looked sadly toward the sculpture. “I can try to sell it back, I suppose.”

“No, no,” Hazel heard herself saying. “I mean, I do hate it, but maybe I'm wrong.” Why was she saying that? She wanted it gone. And yet she wanted to be tolerant. The wave-girl had done her no harm. Perhaps Hazel was having a negative reaction to the subject itself. After all, here was a young woman with all the physical qualities Hazel herself no longer possessed, lying expectantly with her mouth half open. Just because it bothered Hazel wasn't enough of a reason to make Robert return it to the dealer.

And yet . . . If only she were able to explain precisely why it was awful, then maybe she could ask him to take it back.

“I'm going to read that article,” she said solicitously. “Maybe he's someone I should know about.” In order to not have to look at the wave creature, Hazel went into the kitchen, where a big calendar hung on the wall. “I'm so glad Jessica's coming,” she said, to end the conversation. “Did she say what day their flight gets in?”

“That Sunday,” Robert called back. He had gone to his sofa chair in the corner of the living room, where he kept a pile of word puzzles to exercise his brain. “I think it's the eighteenth.”

Hazel marked the date on the calendar. “We should throw an engagement party,” she called, over the din of pouring rain. It had started again, the second big burst since this afternoon. Outside the window, thick vines streamed down.

“What did you say, honey?”

“We should have a party for them. An engagement party.” She was aware that she and Robert were doing what her parents had done, yelling back and forth from two different rooms, slightly mishearing each other—one of those unattractive habits old marrieds slide into. But now that she herself had begun to do it, she didn't quite know why she had thought it wrong in the first place.

“Did they say they wanted one?” Robert was asking.

Hazel went back out to the living room. “No, but you know Jessica loves a party. And they're only here a few times a year. Oh, Robert. That . . .
thing
.”

She wondered, was Robert having some kind of late-blooming midlife crisis, where instead of a new car he had gone and bought a . . . girl? Probably his age was on his mind; his older sister's sixtieth birthday was tomorrow. They were to celebrate with her family in Framingham for dinner.

Sixty years. The number wasn't all that far off for Robert—nor would it be, one day, for Hazel. She used to think she would be frightened as it approached, but lately she found that she worried not so much about age as about bad things that might accompany it—cataracts, Alzheimer's, colon cancer. At the same time, she had always sensed, hidden within her, a certain wisdom she associated with older women.

And luckily Robert had healthy ways, ate lots of salads and whole grains and went to the gym a few times a week. On weekends he played racquetball. Hazel liked the way he would come back from the gym, bathe and shave in minutes flat, and emerge perfectly dapper in slacks and a crisply ironed shirt. He was kind and thoughtful and considerate. That was what had most impressed Hazel when she first met him: that he would never hurt her. It was why, with confidence, she had been able to marry him. No risk of again finding herself in the situation she had suffered through decades ago—and that Remy was apparently in right now.

Or was she? Hazel had been so sure, today, that something was wrong. Those brown eyes streaming tears . . . But then Hazel blinked and Remy's tears were gone.

Even as Remy stooped into the taxi, Hazel stood there, confused. She felt like a fool, had just muttered, “Oh, I thought . . . never mind. Please go ahead.”

A splatter of raindrops had started, and as Remy looked up at her from the backseat, the taxi gave a small, impatient lurch.

Her face a torrent of tears . . .

Hazel had seen it, so clearly—and then, nothing. All afternoon the thought had troubled her. She had even allowed herself to mention it to her coworker, Laura.

“Maybe you were seeing a moment from the past,” Laura had reasoned. “Like déjà vu, you know? But instead of a feeling, it was an image.”

Hazel considered this. “I guess it's possible—but has that ever happened to you?”

“No. I sometimes dream things before they happen—just little things. Like a certain color that was in my dream, or the shape of a bird flying by. Actually, once I dreamed that a bird went to the bathroom on my window, and then that morning I went to get in my car, and a big splash of bird shit came down just as I got in.”

Hazel laughed.

Laura said, “I do believe people can have psychic powers. Ones they aren't even necessarily aware of. I remember reading about this guy in India who helped people by physically embodying their traumas. If they were sick, he would become sick instead, and the patient would get well. Even if they didn't tell him what the specific ailment was. It was called . . .” She closed her eyes. “Empathic assimilation. I think that's it. He internalized their ills.”

“What a crummy job.” Hazel had to laugh. “
Empathetic assimilation
.”

Laura laughed, too. “But I do think we have more powers of intuition than we realize.”

Hazel said, “My friend Ginger took a course called Tapping into Your Third Eye. She wanted to, you know, ‘harness the hidden insight within.' ”

“And? Did it work?”

“Not that she ever mentioned. I guess I don't really believe in that kind of thing.” Hazel thought for a moment, then decided she dared continue. “A long time ago I had a sort of vision. I saw my double. Not just another woman who looked like me. It
was
me. She was even wearing the same clothes. It happened twice.”

“You mean like a doppelgänger?”

Hazel explained to her about the woman in the hospital corridor, and at the airport gate, making a point of sounding as sane as possible. “I haven't thought of it in a long time, actually. I used to worry about it; I mean, you know they say that seeing your doppel is a bad omen. But it never happened again. And I still don't know what it meant!”

Laura considered this. “You know, in Judaism, it's not a bad omen. It means you've reached a prophetic state.”

“Really?” Hazel thought for a moment. “Well, I have to admit, it was right before my husband left me.”

Laura nodded knowingly. “Maybe you do have some kind of second sight.”

“Oh, I don't know about that.” And yet she knew for certain what she
had
seen: Remy's cheeks wet with tears.

Even now, back home with Robert, the feeling clung to her—that something was amiss.

But she didn't dare tell Robert. His mother had slid into dementia in the years before her death, and the first clues of deterioration were just this sort of remark. Visual confusion, logistical impossibilities, contortions of memory. The first sign was when she said she had been chatting with someone everyone knew was dead. Then came recollections of things she had never actually experienced. Things that sounded fine at first but didn't quite make sense. For that reason, Hazel didn't even consider telling Robert what she had seen, or not seen, that afternoon.

IT WAS THE MORNING AFTER
his second time with Paula that Remy asked Nicholas, “What did you do last night?”

“Oh, you know, wrestled with the beast.” Nicholas had said it automatically, with no real forethought, since it was what he usually said. Ever since Christmas he had been working exclusively on the symphony.

“Oh.” Remy paused. “I thought you went out. The car was wet when I got home.”

Nicholas could have said, with unfeigned surprise, “Oh, that's right, I did go out.” Because it had felt so odd and unlikely to be there at Nestor's, dancing again—which must have been why Nicholas heard himself say instead, “Hmm? I guess it's just so damp in the garage.”

Immediately an icky feeling overtook him. But now that he had evaded the truth, it became all the more awkward to mention when he went dancing again the following week. That time he took the T instead, and Paula gave him a lift to Nestor's. It was afterward, as she drove him back, that Nicholas noticed the many skeins of wool in the backseat of her car. Piled to the side were big woven tote bags—stripes and zigzags in all sorts of colors. “I dye the yarn myself,” she told him. “I can't always get the colors I want. I see them so clearly in my mind, how I want it to look, you know? But the stores around here are pretty limited. And the more subtle colors, they cost a lot. Luckily my grandmother taught me how to work with dyes, so I can mix whatever colors I need.” The very best was New Zealand wool, she explained. She hand-dyed it in batches. Her current project was a pattern she had worked out based on some Polish pottery she had seen. “But I haven't been able to afford the good stuff for a while now.”