Pickup Notes Read online

  The second piece done, Harrison left to confer with the Drill Sergeant. Josh said, “Have we met? I’m Joh-joh-joh— Shit.”

  I shook my head. “What a strange name.”

  He took a few deep breaths like a diver, then blurted it all at once: “Joshuagalen.” Head down, he swallowed. “Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.”

  Shreya checked the tuning on her D string. “Explain this again. You don’t stutter if you hear your own voice?”

  Josh shrugged. “I have no idea why. But when you recite in tandem, you get fluent.”

  Harrison returned. “We’ve got time for one more. Say, is there a Josh Galen here?”

  “Why yes.” Josh saluted. “I’m Joshua Galen.”

  “Thank God, because we’re doing that piece with you in it.” Harrison settled on his chair. “Jenny, you ready?”

  “It’ll be a couple of minutes.”

  Harrison said, “Time’s money.”

  “Don’t I know it? Cool your jets for about three dollars.”

  Harrison chuckled.

  Shreya voiced my unspoken question: “Could you wear headphones and be fluent all the time?”

  “And look like a dork, yeah.” Josh grinned. “There’s a device called a EchoChamber which does exactly that.”

  Harrison’s head jerked up. “Where do you get it?”

  Josh shrugged. “I guess at a speech therapy lab.”

  “Why don’t you have one?”

  “Well,” and Josh rolled his eyes, “for starters, it’s five grand.”

  “That’s why you’ve got medical insurance.”

  “I’ve got—” Josh blocked, then gave a head-shake. “—catastrophic coverage, but even if it’s allowed, it wouldn’t come close to hitting the deductible.”

  “Consider it covered.”

  In three words, Harrison flipped the world over on its side. Consider it covered. He’d whip out the gold card and there it would be: fluency. A respectable, non-psychotic, non-brain-damaged, non-ashamed Josh.

  Harrison leaned forward. “Make an appointment. Get the damned thing.”

  Josh drew back. “That’s a lot of money.”

  Harrison opened his hands. “For something that would make your life so much easier, what the hell is five thousand dollars?”

  Josh tried to speak, and he blocked.

  “Look.” Harrison flushed. “My grandfather left me a truckload of cash, and what am I doing with it? I didn’t earn it. I doubt he earned it. I could buy a Bose sound system, or I could give you the ability to say your name five hundred times a day.”

  Take it, take it, take it!, I thought.

  Josh wore a deer-eyed look. “I’m not your phi-fi-fi— phillll-lanthropy project.” He shook his head, blinking. “I could have saved for it. I did the research. But some people aren’t helped, and even if it does, it might stop working with h-habituation. It won’t help blocks or soft syllables. And the biggest problem is, it amplifies aaa-ambient noise and distorts sound.”

  Crap. So much for Josh’s verbal salvation. “And it’s noisy in a cab.”

  He nodded. “Even worse, think about playing the cello, hearing a note in one ear at the right pitch and in the other a split-second behind and a semi-tone higher.”

  Shreya frowned. “That would suck.”

  “It would be crippling. So no. It’s a nice offer,” he added, gaze riveted to the floor, “but no thanks.”

  Jenna returned to the window. “Okay, people, we’re ready.”

  Straightening his sheet music, Harrison said, “The offer stands if you change your mind.”

  For our third piece, we recorded a fusion of the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” the viola taking Paul McCartney’s vocals, the cello playing the background, and the violins ornamenting. Josh had composed a phenomenal arrangement. He said it was just juggling the lines out of the score and assigning them to the different instruments, but if I did that it would sound like hell. He did and it sounded like a conversation: mournful, stark. With the violins constrained, the viola’s mellowness resounded, and the cello provided a support that carried the piece forward.

  We broke from “Yesterday” into the slow movement of a string trio Josh had intuited would mesh well, then circled back into the fusion.

  In one take, we finished. Breathless I lowered the viola and found in Josh’s eyes a brilliance I hadn’t seen in ages.

  “Wow, Josh Galen.” I couldn’t look away. “You’re good!”

  Abruptly he broke eye contact, and I hunched my shoulders, feeling like everyone in the world was staring.

  Jenny bounded into the room and threw her arms around Josh. “That was awesome! You’re amazing!” She braced her palms against his shoulders, forcing him to look her in the face. “How in the world did you learn to do that?”

  Nonplussed, he said, “Practice?”

  She laughed too loud.

  Only Shreya’s eyeroll prevented me from kicking Jenny in the embroidered behind.

  Harrison called, “Give him some air, Jenny.”

  Ooh, jealousy?

  She lowered her eyes and the pitch of her voice. “That deserves a medal of honor.”

  Josh said, “The viola carries the piece.”

  “I think it was all the cello.” Wow—she knew what a cello was? She leaned toward him and said, “Can I touch your instrument?”

  Beside me, Shreya murmured, “Smooth.”

  As Jenny ran her fingertips over the purfling, Josh removed his headphones.

  She sat back on her heels so she looked up at him, and, coincidentally, gave him a view down her shirt. “How long have you been playing?”

  Josh said, “Since f-f-f-fourth grr-rade.”

  She fell silent, her face blank.

  Whoa. Her flirting was funny in a pathetic way. But then, right then, I wanted to kill her.

  She remained silent as Josh set the cello in its case, loosened the bow, and put away his music.

  Harrison said, “So we’re scheduled for next Thursday, same time?”

  The charm returned: Jenny was all over Harrison and Harrison’s violin while Harrison relished the adulation.

  Stupid jackass. He’d kiss anyone. Anyone.

  I yanked the zipper shut and followed Josh and Shreya to the lobby.

  “You left Harrison alone with her!” exclaimed Shreya. “That’s hardly fair!”

  Right then I’d have left him alone in a tiger cage holding a violin case full of raw steak.

  Josh said, “They w-w-w—” He stopped. “They went out a few times last time we recorded.”

  “Lucky him,” said Shreya.

  Josh laughed. “Harrison never lacks for a stream of sh-shallow women who want a quick ...thrill.”

  “Hey, watch it!” said Shreya. “He hit on me too!”

  “Unlike some,” Josh said, “you had the sense to turn him down.”

  He turned to me, and for the first time I wondered if Harrison and I hadn’t been as discreet as we thought.

  Shreya said, “Didn’t you just want to spit in her face?”

  Josh shook his head. “I stu-stuttered on purpose. I figured she’d back off.”

  I went cold. “You faked it?”

  Shreya high-fived him.

  But— Faking a stutter? That was wrong. He tested her. He was mocking her.

  Josh said, “Why-why-why not? I’ve had plenty of practice!” Shreya gave him a shove. “Let Harrison have her. If stu-stuttering turns them off, then they’re not worth my time.”

  I felt dizzy.

  As Harrison and Jenny exited the soundproof room, she was gushing, “See ya!” while he looked smug. I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking, whether about her or the recording session. But as soon as we exited the building, he made it clear: “This CD is going to rule the world.”

  “If anyone ever gets to hear it,” Shreya murmured.

  FIFTEEN

  We hunched against the cold while walking to the subway.

  “Oh, not that th
is is a bad omen or anything.” Shreya handed me a CD wrapped in a plastic bag. “Enjoy.”

  In his best school-teacher voice, Harrison said, “You have to bring enough to share.”

  I peeked to confirm my guess. “It’s a garage band she told me about.”

  Shreya’s laugh sounded strained.

  “No one we’re going to cover?”

  “Doubtful,” said Shreya.

  She took the subway to Queens. Josh, Harrison and I took the R downtown, with Harrison getting off in lower Manhattan. As the doors closed, I straightened. “Oh, crap! I forgot to give him my viola!”

  Josh’s eyes stood out in relief against the windblown red of his cheeks. “I’ll keep it tonight.”

  Call me paranoid, but the last couple of days, I thought things had been moved. Usually if Viv had been through, my place was wrecked, but lately it was subtle. A drawer fully shut. The clothes huddled together on the closet bar.

  “Thanks.” My shoulders slumped. “I hate having to ask.”

  “I carried it for you in grammar school.” He shrugged. “Not a p-problem.”

  Our voices varied in volume as the train slowed, sped up, stopped at a station. It was a New Yorker technique developed the day you realized you rubbed shoulders with millions, to be heard by each other but not everyone else.

  I clenched the handle. I should ask about what he’d said, about women like me not being worth his time. A simple “I’m sorry” loomed like a brick wall I couldn’t scale. Instead I said, “I would change my locks, but all hell’s going to break loose if I do.”

  He said, “Why would you care? You’d be on the inside.”

  I snickered. “I’d need to leave eventually.”

  The train stopped in the tunnel between Whitehall and Court Street. I checked my phone for the time. “Why are we sitting here?”

  “No clue.”

  We lurched forward three feet, and the lights blinked out.

  A child shrieked. I turned, but I could see only shadows outlined by the yellow smudge of the tunnel lights.

  An announcement: disabled train at the Court Street station.

  “Terrific.” It could take half an hour to clear something like that. Longer. My uncle once spent an entire night in a subway car. “I’m going to be late for work.”

  The sound of the crying child resolved into words: it’s dark, it’s dark, turn the lights back on. Her mother carried her to the door, but all the cars were unlighted, not just ours.

  Josh said, “Ex-cuse me? Does she like mmm-music?”

  The mother said, “What we need is a flashlight.”

  “I’ve got a ch—cello.”

  Josh opened his case. I had my viola set up in fifteen seconds, and I started “London Bridge” in my best impersonation of a first-year student. Beside me, Josh got the cello ready, and he joined me on the repeat.

  The girl’s cry subsided to whimpers and sniffles, a shade in the dark. I said to Josh, “Do you remember ‘Freres Jacques’?”

  I counted to start. Although we’d played like pros in the studio, while playing kids’ songs in unison we sounded stilted.

  Regardless, the girl had quieted.

  I said, “I hope no one minds.”

  “Keep on,” someone called in the dark. “It’s not like we have anything else to do.”

  Except for the people wearing iPods. But they couldn’t hear over a screaming child anyhow.

  The mother whispered to the girl, “What else would you like to hear?” When the little girl said nothing, she prompted, “How about, ‘If You’re Happy And You Know It’?”

  I said, “I’m not sure I know it—” before realizing how stupid that sounded, and Josh laughed. He experimented until he got a decent tune.

  “Oh,” I exclaimed. “Wait, Josh!”

  We had a fun version of “Happy Birthday.” Josh had whipped it up ages ago, turning the regular song into a canon (him four bars behind me) and then mixing it up. Because we’d done it often, once with beer involved, the rambunctious tune flowed easily. Although hardly in Shreya’s league, I played this best on my feet, the viola’s scroll dipping and rising.

  The girl laughed every time we circled back around to “happy birthday to—” but cut it short. The mom settled on the opposite bench, daughter on her lap. Yes, we were stuck in the dark, but we had music. We had everything.

  At the end of our demented birthday serenade came a smattering of applause. The girl asked, “Is it your birthday?”

  I said, “It must be someone’s birthday…?”

  Josh called, “Anyone?”

  From down the car, a voice: “My son’s birthday is tomorrow!”

  I replied, “Happy birthday to him!”

  Laughter again. My heart swelled. I was working a crowd like Shreya.

  Behind me, Josh started “Yesterday.”

  This wasn’t a fun song, but we’d just played it in the studio. The dark enhanced its mourning, and I made my vibrato wide and slow so it reverberated off the car, making the space seem emptier. We couldn’t see one another, but hearing was enough to keep us together. I could tell when he was about to slow, when he was poised to increase volume and overpower the viola, and again when he prepared to back off so the viola could melt out of the dark like dawn.

  At the end of the fusion, rather than shifting into the classical material the violins would have played, Josh tapered into silence while I ornamented the final notes, and we closed.

  In the momentary hush, Josh slumped against the bench. I stood breathless, bow poised over the strings.

  This time, it sounded as if the whole car applauded.

  Before we could start another, the train lurched and the lights returned. I lost my balance, caught it like a perfect New Yorker, and returned my viola to the case before we reached Court Street. A thousand people waited on the platform, refugees from the disabled train.

  The mother brought her daughter to us. “What do you say?” Black-eyed, skinny, and with corn-rowed black hair, the girl thanked us. I handed the mother our flyer, and then three more people asked.

  The girl asked to touch the cello, and Josh let her hold down a string to feel the vibration as he bowed. The girl’s mouth opened; a light kindled in her eyes.

  Oh, to bottle that moment: the instant the world births a musician.

  The doors opened. I turned to Josh to find him beaming at me. Someone exiting the train murmured, “Only in New York.”

  SIXTEEN

  As evening crept across my toll-booth, I slipped Shreya’s CD into the radio.

  The cover presaged stereotypical indie rock: blue-haired Shreya, three guys, and one other gal, all wearing a soulless pout. The male vocalist and the bass guitarist were brothers. An insert gave a long list of “the band thanks,” something Harrison insisted we not include. Shreya thanked her parents, a crowd I didn’t recognize, and God.

  How odd: I knew nothing about her life, yet to her it was the world. We worked and lived in the same place, but each our own sphere, our private universe that collided with others’ universes and bounced off unchanged.

  Playing the CD, I couldn’t pin down the style beyond early garage band, over-practiced and under-produced. Sergeant Jenna would have brought the treble down and enhanced the vocals. The two lead singers (one male, one female) had stunning voices. He had depth, and her sultry alto reminded me of Stevie Nicks. The lyrics were banal, but man, what they’d done with them.

  Cars pulled in, paid up, pulled out. Bach and I toe-tapped with the fast songs, swayed with the slow. A pair of violin solos left me dizzy, but I analyzed her technique: a wide, fast vibrato you never hear in classical but which blended perfectly with the electric guitars. She’d put a lot of reverb into the violin, but I couldn’t figure out how.

  The final piece was a cover of “Come On Eileen,” a song I never thought needed to be covered but which now, I realized, did. Needed to be covered by these guys. The track was eight minutes, five of them a shared-solo (a contradict
ion, so shoot me) where the lead guitar, the drummer, and Shreya kept trading it off like basketball players gunning for an open shot. Shreya took the song’s violin line and turned it into a paragraph. Maybe several pages. I listened with my heart in my mouth.

  The CD ended. I let it repeat.

  I wanted to love it, but I knew the story’s end. They didn’t go into the studio intending to leave with a dead band and a dead-end album. They wanted to create. Instead they were left with nothing but a toll-booth operator dancing alone at the mouth of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

  I’d texted Josh my lane number, but he hadn’t replied. He didn’t owe me anything—he’d made that clear—and yet I wished he’d look up from the driver’s seat to connect my universe to his for a moment.

  Instead I looked out and groaned: The Gentleman.

  I busted a roll of quarters into the register, and while he took his sweet time unrolling the window, I ripped open a packet of dollar bills.

  With Shreya’s CD playing, I leaned out to take his hundred. There was no one behind him. Good.

  Blank-faced in response to his smile, I dropped his hundred into the safety box. Then, serenaded by a defunct band, I took one twenty from the drawer.

  And one ten.

  And two fives.

  I counted dollar bills onto the shelf. I knew there were fifty. I counted out forty-two of them.

  In my peripheral vision, I detected The Gentleman’s concern. I had reached eighty-two dollars.

  And now, at my leisure, I counted the entire roll of quarters that the bank had counted already. Forty.

  “Here you go!” I sing-songed. I poured out two pounds of quarters, then counted into his hand all forty-two singles, the fives, the ten, and the twenty.

  Two songs later, he was all set. Beaming, I thanked him for visiting the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, and have a pleasant evening. He did not look pleased. Poor baby.

  No one came for a while, and I wished for a yellow cab. But then I remembered Josh laughing that stuttering weeded out the shallow women, and I thought about how he provoked Jenny to see what she was made of. He’d said to me I’d be surprised by the shit he could get past even though he remembered it just fine.

  I hadn’t thought he meant me.