Virtuosity (8 page)

Jeremy didn’t notice, or ignored it. The look on his face said the possibility of it not working out hadn’t occurred to him.

The conductor sniffed and raised his eyebrows at Jeremy, who took that as his cue to finally speak.

“I guess I’m feeling dramatic tonight,” he said. The audience laughed, more at the accent than what he said. What was it that made British English so charming?

“So dramatic,” he continued, “I’d like to play something from my favorite opera. This is Pablo de Sarasate’s take on a little Bizet opera you might be familiar with.” He paused long enough to put his violin under his chin, angle his jaw straight at Box B, and stare right into my eyes.

My stomach fell and fell and fell.

“
Carmen Fantasy
,” he announced, and lifted his bow.

For the first time since the Beethoven had ended he wasn’t smiling. His face held all the aggression of a matador staring into the eyes of a bull. He might as well have been waving a red flag at me as the cellos began playing the sultry gypsy theme.

I wanted to put my head in my hands and die, but I couldn’t break away from his stare. Eventually, he looked away, at his violin, and dove into the music without looking back.

He played
Carmen
perfectly. I think. I only half heard
him. Instead, my brain went over the rocky ledge of trauma and panic, where I held on by my fingernails.
Dear God, please let the earth crack open, suck me in, and swallow me whole.

Chapter 8

I
ran my fingers over the embossed letters.
JEREMY KING
. The exaggerated italics reminded me of his accent. Pretentious. Lilting to the point of nearly falling over. I fought the urge to tear the placard off the dressing room door and stuff it into my jacket pocket. It would need to be taken down soon anyway. This was supposed to be my dressing room tomorrow night, which meant there was an identical card with
Carmen Bianchi
in the same flowery script just waiting to go up. I would be doing them a favor, and besides, it was nice to think of him so easily removed and replaced.

I smoothed the lap wrinkles from my dress. I’d been
thinking about blending in with the other cocktail dresses when I’d put this little black dress on, but now I felt too, too … glammed up. The last thing I wanted was for Jeremy to think I was trying to make that kind of impression on him. Of course, going backstage to talk to him had not been part the plan before he’d forced me into it. Maybe I was overthinking things.

I lifted my hand, not sure whether I was going to rip off the card or knock. I’d have already left if it weren’t for Yuri’s voice in my head. It was there from time to time, usually nagging and always out of context. “Stop being baby,” was the advice I was currently ruminating on.

And now—standing outside of Jeremy’s dressing room, holding my red coat, chewing my lower lip raw, and staring at the
Jeremy King
card—I knew the advice applied. Being a baby had gotten me into this mess, and if I took off now, he’d think I was too scared to meet him. The encore was a dare.

I stopped thinking and knocked.

I only had a few seconds to regret it before the door swung open. There stood Jeremy King, one hand on the knob, the other holding a can of Dr Pepper up to his mouth. His tuxedo shirt was open at the neck, his jacket and bow tie were behind him, strewn over the armchair.

It took me a moment to find words. Offstage and up close, he was a magnified version of what he’d been from
the audience—taller, and sharper featured, with an angular jaw and blue eyes.

He raised his eyebrows, probably because I was just standing there like a mute idiot. I extended my hand. “Carmen Bianchi.”

“I know.” He shook it.

His hand was huge. It seemed unfair. Violin would be so much easier with hands like that.

“I’m surprised,” he said and stepped back, motioning for me to come in. “I was starting to think you didn’t want to meet me.” The signature grin was gone, and his tone was guarded.

I glanced around the dressing room. It was the same as last time I’d seen it, spacious and decorated with lavish-but-dated furniture: a worn velvet couch, a baby grand piano, lightbulb-bordered mirrors, and generic paintings of the Hudson River and the Chicago skyline. His violin was already packed up, and a dress bag rested beside it on the couch.

I looked around the room again, this time for a parent or a manager or a teacher. He was alone.

“Looking for someone?”

“No. I just assumed you’d have an entourage back here.”

“No entourage.”

“You always tour alone?”

He shrugged. “My dad couldn’t be off work for that long, and my mom stays home with my brother.”

I nodded, processing this information. I imagined being in London without Diana, staying in a hotel by myself, eating alone, performing without anybody waiting for me backstage. It would either be incredible or sad. Maybe both.

I had been quiet too long. Jeremy was staring at me, waiting for me to speak.

“I want to apologize for the other day, at the café,” I stammered.

“Don’t,” he said. “I’m the one who should apologize. The salute was a bit much.”

“But I should have said hi. I just wasn’t expecting to see you. I was caught by surprise.”

It was a lie, but my only option if I didn’t want him to think I was an obsessed stalker. There was just no way I could admit to spying and come off sounding sane. Besides, the encounter
could
have been accidental.

He raised an eyebrow. “Surprise? I doubt it.”

“Excuse me?”

He squinted, probably trying to decide just how awkward he was willing to make this. “I think you were waiting for me.”

My brain stalled. Not believing me, or at least not pretending to, had not been part of the plan. “That’s a
little pretentious, don’t you think?” I managed. “Why would I be spying on you?”

“Spying?
I
never said spying,” he said. “I thought you were waiting to meet me and then chickened out. Spying…. Wow. Don’t you think that’s a little, I don’t know, juvenile?”

This was not going well. “I said I
wasn’t
spying.”

“Sure.” He nodded and gave me a look that said the opposite.

Crap. I had overestimated his social skills. He was a complete jackass. “Chickened out?” I repeated, angry now. “No offense, but you’re not exactly a rock star. If I’d wanted to meet you, I would have done that.”

He rolled his eyes. “Like you did tonight,” he said.

“Yes. Exactly.”

“But that’s not true. You came to introduce yourself because I practically forced you into it with the encore. Did you enjoy it, by the way?”

I stared at him, wishing I hadn’t already apologized. I wasn’t sorry for anything. I’d assumed the encore was his way of saying,
Hey loser—think I don’t see you up there?
It hadn’t occurred to me that he was goading me into coming backstage just for a confrontation. If that was the case, I’d done exactly what he’d bullied me into doing.

He grinned, obviously proud of himself, like it was nothing short of genius to taunt me with music from
the opera I was named after. “I almost didn’t recognize you without the Medusa hair you have on all your CD covers, but once I was sure it was you, I couldn’t help myself.”

I’d forgotten that my hair was up. I reached for the clip and yanked it out, then spun around to leave.

“Hey, simmer down,” he said as he reached out and gripped my upper arm with his hand, stopping me mid-spin. Clearly, he thought he owned the world and everybody in it.

It hurt. Not his grip, but the accusation that I was overreacting. He thought I was being dramatic, getting all riled up for no reason, that
I
was socially inept, when he was the one being a complete jerk.

I glared at him, feeling stupid even as I was doing it. His smile was different now. Not the grin I’d seen over and over, but something closer to sincere. If he was capable of that.

“I’ve offended you,” he said. His voice had lost a shade or two of the obnoxiousness along with the smirk, but there was still an irking confidence. “I didn’t mean to. Let me buy you dinner as an apology.”

I looked down at his hand, still holding my arm. He let go.

“Actually, I need to get home. I’m performing tomorrow night.”

“Oh, right.” He picked up a gray sweater from off the sofa. “We’ll eat quickly then.”

He pulled the sweater over his head and turned off the lights while I wondered what was going on and where my spine had disappeared to. In the dark I felt his hand on my arm again, this time turning me toward the door and pushing me out.

“What are you doing?” Jeremy asked.

“Eating.”

“No, I mean why are you doing that to your pizza?”

I looked down at my slice of thin-crust. I’d folded it down the middle, crust-side out.

“Because it tastes better this way.”

We sat side by side in a circle of yellow lamplight, a cold park bench beneath us, an open pizza box between us. I’d kicked off my heels and tucked my feet underneath me to keep them warm. Further down the path, another yellow circle lit an empty bench, and then another one and another one, in a glowing chain of empty yellow spotlights throughout Millennium Park.

“I doubt it,” he said.

“Trust me. It makes it a tasty pocket of pizza goodness.”

“I don’t think doing origami with my pizza is going to change the taste.”

“But my way you don’t get your hands dirty.”

He shrugged. “That at least makes sense.” He chewed his own piece thoughtfully then asked, “Isn’t Chicago pizza supposed to be deep-dish?”

“That’s just what we tell the tourists. Plenty of decent thin-crust here too.”

Jeremy nodded, took another bite. Since we’d left Symphony Center, he’d been almost normal. It had been minutes since I remembered what a jerk he was. “Just fold it and see,” I said.

“So American,” he mumbled, disgust in his voice as he licked pizza sauce off his fingers.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Assuming there’s only one way to do something, like eating pizza, and insisting everyone else do it your way.”

Oh yeah, I did hate him.

“That’s so British,” I countered.

“What is?”

“Making sweeping generalizations about Americans because that makes you feel better about having a national inferiority complex the size of the Atlantic Ocean. I was just trying to be helpful, but if folded pizza threatens your sense of patriotism, you probably shouldn’t do it.”

He squinted at me. “Sheesh. American and crabby. Fine, I’ll fold the pizza.” He made a little ceremony
of folding it exactly down the center and taking a bite. “Mmm,” he said. “Now that
is
a tasty pocket of pizza goodness.”

“I’ll ignore the sarcasm and accept that as a victory.”

“Because everything is a contest?”

I didn’t answer. Of course it was.

The pizza had been my suggestion. Jeremy had requested authentic Chicago, so we’d hit Marco’s Italian, a hole-in-the-wall take-out window on Wabash around the corner from Symphony Center, and then headed across the street to Millennium Park. I was happy with the choice. There was something nice about the mix of dissimilar sensations—shivering on a cement bench, eating hot, salty pizza, and smelling lilac blossoms.

I glanced over at Jeremy. His thick blond bangs covered his eyes, soaking up the yellow lamplight.

“So you’re here by yourself until the Guarneri?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Doing what?”

“Practicing. Sightseeing. Whatever.”

I nodded. His voice still didn’t tell me whether he was happy with that or not. Again, I imagined myself in a strange city by myself for a few weeks, totally dependent on public transport, restaurants, hotel laundry.

“Where are you staying?”

“The Drake. Do you know it?”

“Sure.” At least he wasn’t roughing it. The Drake Hotel was the only place the Glenns would stay when they were in Chicago, not that it was ever just to visit me. Traditional, expensive, uppity—the same words I could use to describe them, actually. It was old but elegant, sitting on the far north edge of the Magnificent Mile with views of Lake Michigan and the high-end fashion district. Jeremy was living the good life.

“So, what am I looking at?” he asked. He gestured to the stone slab in front of us, engraved with a long list of names.

“The park’s founders.”

“Oprah Winfrey? Really? Bill and Hillary Clinton?”

“Uh, yeah.” I put my slice down, half eaten. “My grandparents are up there too. Thomas and Dorothy Glenn. Second column.”

“Wow,” he said, then glanced at me. “So you’re Chicago royalty.”

“Not really. And they’re New Yorkers actually, but they donate to a few projects here in Chicago too.”

“Like you.”

“What?”

“Like you.”

“I heard you the first time,” I said. “I just didn’t understand what you meant by it.”

“I thought I’d read they bought your Strad. Isn’t that true?”

It was true, but it wasn’t any of his business, and I wasn’t sure where he’d read about it.

“They did,” I said.

“Lucky girl.”

“That’s an interesting choice of words.”

“Oh, right. Lucky woman. Sorry.”

“No,” I said. “Lucky. There’s an implication there.”

“As the one who was supposedly doing the implicating, should I know what you’re talking about?” He picked up the last slice of pizza—
my
half-eaten slice, the one I’d just put down—and took a bite.

“I think you do. Lucky means undeserved.”

“It doesn’t have to.” He stifled a grin. Apparently, he found my temper hilarious.

“But it did when you said it,” I said. The realization that I was fighting an unwinnable argument made me mad. Mad enough to push him off the bench. Instead, I grabbed my piece of pizza out of his hand and chewed off an enormous bite. “And I wasn’t done with this.”

He stared at me, eyes wide.

I kept chewing and turned back to glare at the monument. Lots of musicians have instruments purchased for them by wealthy patrons. My patrons just happened to be related.