Pickup Notes Read online

  She said, “It’s not just idiocy. What you’re dealing with is prejudice.”

  You know that moment where you screw up during a concert, when it seems like everyone turns toward the viola to see who ruined it all? When every other musician inhabits a sphere of perfection while you, and you alone, don’t know what the hell you’re doing? And there’s the spotlight, the kind you don’t want, glaring in your eyes while you try to pretend everyone didn’t hear the clunker note you just made? Yeah, that.

  Josh had the decency not to look at me, but the room grew a mile long.

  Shreya continued, “These folks don’t single out Harrison or Joey, right? When someone treats you like shit, it’s no different from someone hating me because I’m from India or because I have blue hair, and I don’t let them get away with it.”

  Shreya took a seat, and Josh joined her, as if listening to the pied piper. “Okay, then. How do you not lll-let them get away with it?”

  Shreya glared. “By being in their faces. I demand to be treated right. A lot of ‘Excuse me?’” She accompanied that with raised eyebrows and a glare ferocious enough that I nearly apologized. “A while ago I realized that when I let people walk over me, it’s the same as saying they’re right. But what if I decided there was no shame in being female or being Indian or having blue hair? Same deal: decide for yourself there’s no shame in stuttering.”

  Josh frowned. “It’s that easy?”

  “Not at first, no.” She bit her lip. “This one guy always bitched how my parents were job-stealing immigrants. They just took it for ages, but you know, we’re American citizens too, so I told the guy to shut his fucking mouth. He left us alone after that.” She leaned forward. “Tough as hell, but I pretended it was easy, and I kept doing it. Harrison beat me to the punch last night, but I’d have done it standing and looking a lot more menacing.”

  I smiled to myself. A golden retriever puppy mouthing a teddy bear would look more threatening than Harrison—although come to think of it, last night he had looked pretty damned intimidating.

  Josh was still frowning.

  She muttered, “Besides, any self-respecting individual in the food service industry knows you don’t harass the people paying your tip.”

  Huh. Did she have a day job as a waitress?

  “Hey, that was fast.” Harrison looked up from the computer as if no one else had been speaking. “We can get in the recording studio by Thursday.”

  I splashed hot coffee over my wrist when I yelped, “What?”

  He waved down whatever would have followed. “Relax. There’s no way we’d be ready by Thursday. But Jenny from the studio happened to be online and said she’d get us a block of time just about whenever we want.”

  Oh yeah—I’d forgotten all about Jenny from the studio. Couldn’t she have volunteered for the first manned mission to Saturn?

  I blinked hard as I reached for a napkin. “I don’t think we need a CD.”

  “We don’t,” Shreya said. “What we need is to build our customer base.”

  Was that the sound of an ally? Really?

  Harrison said, “We can do that with a CD.”

  Shreya picked up a chocolate glazed donut and broke it in half. “You’re not getting it. No one makes money off CDs. You’re thinking CD because it’s pretty and it scores a quick fifteen bucks.” She pointed her half-donut at him, and I marveled at how much nicer she’d said that than when our original second-violinist said the same—moments before becoming our ex-second-violinist. “You’ve got to think longer-term. The point is to have a reputation. And to have a reputation, we need wedding guests who remember us for more than an hour.”

  “With a CD in their hands,” Harrison replied, “they’ll have a way of remembering.”

  For heaven’s sake, did he not even listen? I said, “How many of our last CD have we sold?”

  He opened his hands. “You’re the business manager.”

  “Over a year, maybe fifty. It’s not worth the effort.”

  Undeterred, Harrison said, “But we also give them to potential clients. Our fusions will be so innovative that they’ll need to hear them to understand.”

  Next time I should talk to the donut. At least when it ignored me, it would be sweet.

  Harrison said, “Plus, brides talk to other brides. They’ll hand the thing off to each other.”

  The coffee tasted like nothing, and I set down my mug to stare at the table. Hey, donut? I really don’t want to go through this again.

  Harrison looked to Shreya. “You’ll figure out which solos we’ll work into other pieces. Josh, I know this is going to be tight, but you’ll have to arrange them. We’ll record piecemeal as we get them polished. Most of the pop tunes seem simplistic, so it shouldn’t take as long to get them ready as something by Mozart.”

  Shreya said, “We should keep them to five minutes at most.”

  Arrangements. Practice. Studio time. Graphic design. Layout. Copyright. And tension, endless tension.

  Harrison turned toward me. “Joey, I’m sorry, but we have to do it quickly.”

  I couldn’t meet his eyes. The last time I’d refused to give Harrison what he wanted... Well, he’d dumped me. How many violists did he have on speed-dial?

  Josh said, “Why quickly?”

  “Because in addition to wanting a group mentioned in the New York Times, some of these people have the attention span of a magpie. You can’t build publicity on nothing. That late bride gave us a gift, and we need to pounce on it.”

  He made sense. But still, couldn’t I just grab my viola and go play for a while? Shut his bedroom door, leave them to hammer out the details, then come back with my head cleared to find out exactly which way the train was going to derail?

  Harrison looked back at me. “You get the worst job, I’m afraid. You’ll need to write press releases and publicity material.”

  Writing publicity for a CD I didn’t think should exist. “That’s all?”

  He feigned a smug smile. “Well, it’s only fair because the viola doesn’t have to play any real music.”

  I gave a half-hearted glare, but he raised his hands in self-preservation.

  Great, the puppy-dog eye defense. I took back my coffee, the realest thing in the room. “You win.” My throat tightened. “So which songs do you think we’re unleashing on which defenseless quartets?”

  A stack of CDs had sat on my desk for a year. The group on the cover no longer existed.

  Fifteen months ago, I’d stupidly thought song samples would help clients make up their minds. Ever practical, Josh recorded a performance and burned the tracks to CD. At the next client meeting, I handed one over.

  On the way home, Harrison hit the ceiling, one of the few times I’d seen him truly angry. Sure, he’d been aware Josh was recording, but our intentions had gone straight over his head. That’s why, in general, it paid to listen.

  His verdict: “If we’re going to put ourselves out there, it damn well better be the same quality as the Orion String Quartet.”

  I said, “The Orion String Quartet has a record label and a budget.”

  It will surprise no one that he ignored me. For the second time in my life, he said words I’d come to loathe: “Begin as you mean to go on.”

  By the next week, Harrison had booked a recording studio. As a neophyte quartet, the expense wiped us out. No salary for a month, and man, that hurt. Josh patched together a cover using a pretty font and our brochure photo. It looked okay, and with no money for graphic design, we voted three to one to keep it. Harrison insisted he’d pay for a professional cover himself.

  Peter Merced, our original second violinist, had gone along until then but went head-to-head with Harrison over the cover. The argument erupted for the fifth and last time during practice, with Peter calling Harrison an arrogant jackass who stuffed his pillow with twenties.

  “You don’t care about the music,” Peter hollered, violin case in one hand and the doorknob in the other. “You’re a
smug rich brat playing with his little string quartet, wanting a pretend CD so your rich Mommy and Daddy can flash it to all their rich comrades.”

  Josh pursued him down the hall while I yelled at Harrison to go after him and apologize. Harrison only stood with his arms folded. You can’t bring someone back: I knew that even before Josh returned empty-handed. Josh tried again that night, attempting to talk Peter down while taxiing passengers around Manhattan. (Wouldn’t you have loved to be in the back seat for that?)

  He failed: Peter had shaken the dust from his feet, done with Harrison, done with petulant brides, done with string quartets. Last I heard, Peter went to play for a Broadway musical.

  An all-around lovely experience for no one. Yet Harrison wanted a repeat.

  Perhaps it was shock that made me follow when Josh offered a ride. Perhaps the idea that Josh might talk sense to Harrison blinded me to the more sensible thing I could have done, which was to take the subway to Brooklyn. Or walk.

  As we pulled onto the street, I said, “Look, about this CD—”

  Josh cut me off with a profanity-ridden description of the truck blocking the intersection, and that made up my mind: waiting was good. I’d wait until there was no chance Josh would drive right through the lobby of a skyscraper because I’d infuriated him by mentioning Peter.

  We pulled up in front of my house with me discreetly checking my extremities to make sure all remained attached. Keeping the engine idling, Josh finally no longer resembled the Road Runner’s hyperactive cousin.

  I said, “About the CD—are you okay with that? After what happened last time?”

  Josh’s fists clenched on the wheel. “Like anyone ever stopped H-Harrison?”

  “Yes, we can stop Harrison. He can’t record a CD if you and I fail to show up.”

  “Knowing H-Harrison, he can pull another cellist out of his top hat, and you don’t even need a viola nowadays because you can just use a ...washing machine.”

  Ah, that joke: the only difference between a viola and a washing machine is vibrato.

  I shook my head. “He won’t replace both of us if we fight. What if he gets bull-headed with Shreya and she walks? Then where are we?”

  Josh said, “I hope she d-does threaten to walk! It’s not like you or I had any effect last time.”

  I said, “But Peter left!”

  “And did that change anything? No!” Josh got more fluent as he got angrier. “He got everything he wanted. He got the CD, and he got a new second violinist to boss around. He probably counted that a straight-up victory.”

  I recoiled. “But—”

  “I was one step away from lll-leaving myself.” His eyes stood out as his cheeks flushed. “I was waiting for just one more thing, one more push, and I was out the door. Only Peter left first.”

  Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit—and I’d set him off again. I whispered, “But you wouldn’t!”

  He slammed his fist into the seat. “I hate the way he says things you can’t fight at the moment, like he’s the authority on the way the world works!”

  My heart raced. I had no clue how to stop this speeding train. “He just wants us to succeed.”

  “Succeed?” He glared at me, and I recoiled into the door. “What the h-hell good is ‘success’ if we’re a bunch of sss-sycophants who just do whatever the hell he asks? He’s condescending and sarcastic to you, ignores Sh-reya when she disagrees, and when did he become the authority on publicity?”

  I was shaking. “But—”

  “But what? I recorded a whole CD, and what did he do? Not good enough. I designed a cover, and what did he do? Not good enough! It’s never good enough! It’s always just one more thing, one more, one more! Does he think it’s possible one p-person can always be right? Really?”

  I said, “But he doesn’t—”

  “We are not his property!” Josh was breathing like he’d just run a mile. “I still haven’t forgiven him for railroading us.”

  Vision blurring, I wrapped my arms around myself. “I’m sorry.”

  Whipping his head away, he glared out the windshield.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Yeah, thank heaven I didn’t start this while driving.

  Then, silence. Nothing from him. Nothing from me. Him still breathing hard, me still trembling. And I couldn’t even reach across to touch him because of the instrument case in my lap, the steering wheel across his, and two decades of history dragging behind us like a hundred-car freight train.

  I tightened up around myself. “So should we push back?”

  “Forget it.”

  I’d seen Josh do this before, seen him stockpile until he detonated. Like uranium where it’s stable until it reaches critical mass, and then you get the whole blast at once.

  “I can’t just forget it. You haven’t forgotten.”

  Josh shook his head. “You’d be surprised by the shit I can get past even though I remember it j-just fine.”

  And because I had to go to work, and because I couldn’t tell what would happen if Josh took it to Harrison and our first violinist couldn’t work together with our cellist anymore, I took the only course that made sense. I capitulated.

  I gave a lame, “Maybe this time it won’t be so bad.” So much for recruiting an ally.

  That night at the toll-booth, I waited for a lull in traffic so I could do two jobs at once. My mom always griped how owning your own business takes over every part of your life. This held true for the quartet. When we weren’t practicing or performing, Josh was creating musical arrangements and Harrison or I were dealing with clients. And as the business manager, I’d gotten saddled with generating publicity.

  They’ll give even a violist a library card. Two years ago, I’d checked out The Idiot’s Guide to Public Relations, and since then I’d cobbled together press releases for our first CD, our change in lineup, and anything else I could think of. I passed them on to thirty-five email addresses for New York/New Jersey newspapers. And then they’d get deleted.

  That, apparently, was the point of a press release. The book described a “news hole,” where a newspaper first lays out the ads and next fills the remaining empty spaces with articles. If they had an opening three column-inches long and your press release happened to fit, they might run it. Kind of like a publicity lottery.

  Tonight, between cars, while my plastic Bach danced to Samuel Barber, I prepared to alert the media about our mention in the Times and subsequent trip to the recording studio, and heaven help me, our availability for interviews. As if. But it sounded good, and we were all about sound.

  As an expert multi-tasker, I also spent quality time wishing I could put Harrison on a barge and push him out to sea. And that’s when I got The Gentleman.

  Every business must have its version of The Gentleman, that particular customer who excels in his particularity. In my case, his effect was enhanced by a spineless manager who caved in a stiff breeze. The sight of The Gentleman’s black Cadillac engendered in me an urge to put up the toll arm, pay his fare myself, and cower under the register.

  The white-haired Gentleman took a good fifteen seconds to lower his window (with a manual crank because his Caddie was of the “tanks with hood ornaments” vintage). After extracting his wallet from his breast pocket, The Gentleman unfolded it and selected a hundred dollar bill.

  Signs at every lane stated we don’t accept bills larger than a twenty.

  I said to The Gentleman, “Have you got anything smaller?”

  He looked placid. “No, I haven’t.”

  In the past, Ted’s only response was, “For God’s sake, just take the man’s money! The customer is always right!” Thus Herr Bach watched me pull four twenties, a ten, and two singles from the register.

  The guy had to have a problem, and with that much money you’d think he could hire a psychiatrist to solve it. ATMs didn’t spit out hundreds, so he must be getting these babies from a bank. But if he was at a bank, why not get twenties? I thought at first he was
counterfeiting, but the bills passed every test.

  A guy that ancient might remember when New Yorkers rebelled against rising tolls by paying with pennies, backing up the lanes for hours. Was this an aging hippie in his final civil protest?

  As I handed back his change, I noticed the security guy sauntering over. Was he curious as to the delay? Or bored and looking for some reason to keep his job?

  The Gentleman replaced the bills in his wallet with care that none should wrinkle, returned the wallet to his breast pocket, raised the window (another full fifteen seconds,) and idled beneath the toll arm.

  Walt watched him go. I showed him the hundred. “Could this be counterfeit?”

  He held it up to the street lights. “How should I know?” He handed it back.

  Thank God for our security force’s investigative prowess. I slept at night knowing Walt protected us.

  I needed to work on my press release, but as this was the most excitement he’d had all evening, Walt didn’t leave. With a glance at my Bach bobblehead, he said, “You still play that big violin?”

  Stifling a grin, I said, “Yeah.”

  He said, “Why?”

  Was his real question how I could cram more joy into a life so fulfilled by my full-time job?

  Walt went on, “I had to take piano as a kid, and I hated every minute.”

  Another car came through, so I did something unusual and performed my job. After it left, I said, “It’s like touching something bigger than you are. It’s making something. Haven’t you ever wanted to make something?”

  He leaned against the side of the booth, arms folded. “I like cooking.”

  “Did you ever draw? Or build with Legos?” Josh and I spent a hundred hours with his brother’s bucket of Legos. “Haven’t you ever wanted to make something that would last?”

  He shrugged. “Music doesn’t last. You stop playing and it’s done.”

  I got the next car’s fare, then took my time slipping it into the register. “We made a CD, so that will last. You want to buy one?”

  He said “Maybe sometime” with a tone that meant Never. “I’m not a violin person.”

  I figured as much. “Well, if you know someone who wants players for a wedding, I’ll cut them a deal.”