Twenty-four

Intermission is over, and they are playing the Black Angels Quartet. All four musicians know it: they are playing extremely well, so well that the music holds them and not the other way around. The nearly full auditorium belongs to them, to the piece. They possess the audience. The air itself vibrates, electric with the loud music.

Anthony and Petra make their violins scream, sawing away during the section that represents insects swarming the Vietnamese jungle. Daniel plays with his eyes closed, his outsized score but a stage prop. His gestures are large and loud—music on high volume even for the hard of hearing. Suzanne’s heart beats wild and hard in her chest, and sweat drizzles down the back of her neck, between her breasts, along her slick waist. But her hands are steady even as the veins running down her forearms buzz. At the end she gasps audibly; they all do.

The applause falls hard, breaks into the exuberant. Suzanne sets her bow on her lap and pulls sweat-matted hair back from her forehead and temples. She is grinning. Petra is grinning, and Daniel, too. Anthony stands, bows, extends his right forearm for them to follow suit, which they do. Before she takes her bow, Suzanne looks up to the facets of the concave ceiling, the design that allows their music to find its ears at just the right angles. The manic pride and relief she feels remind her of that night in St. Louis, the night she played Harold in Italy, and Alex’s absence stabs her.

She wishes he had heard her play tonight, that he was watching now, that his hands contributed to the applause that continues. She closes her eyes and listens to that clapping, trying to discern particular people from the group of mostly strangers. Friends pepper the audience, and surely other people she sees around town. Ben is out there, she knows, with Adele and maybe, just possibly, her father. No, not her father. And not Alex. Suzanne opens her eyes and the applause again becomes communal, an audience clapping in unison. She searches for Ben and spies him in an aisle seat halfway back, looking right at her, his hands clasped but now still.

Jennifer has planned an extraordinary party at her parents’ stately Nassau Drive home. The sign-in sheet will be a glorified order form designed to secure advance sales of the CD before enthusiasm wanes and forgetting begins. It’s not long after the final curtain call that Anthony assures them the recording was a technical success and tells them about the guest book.

But that’s the only tacky aspect of the party. Everything else speaks class, from the good chocolates to the excellent pianist sliding lightly across Debussy and Chopin. Suzanne and Petra enter together, still in their black dresses, though Suzanne has brushed her sweaty hair and spun it into a chignon.

“Nice house,” Petra says, “but the people are going to be really annoying, aren’t they? Anthony told me I have to be on my best behavior, no fun at all.”

“Who was that pianist?” Suzanne asks. “He was hired to play at a party for the Vanderbilts or some family like that? And Mrs. Vanderbilt offered him a thousand dollars and told him that he was not, under any circumstance, to mingle with the guests.”

“Yeah.” Petra nods. “So did he tell her to go to hell?”

“He told her, ‘In that case, madam, you only have to pay me five hundred.’”

“That’s actually funny,” Petra says, dropping her arm around Suzanne’s shoulders as they move in and around the large downstairs rooms, which have been cleared of their usual furniture and set up for the party.

After she and Petra separate, Suzanne drinks a glass of champagne. She eats crab puffs and strawberries dipped in chocolate. She talks to small groups of people: Elizabeth and some of her friends, Jennifer’s parents, Anthony and a man who teaches at the Institute for Advanced Studies, people she does not know, Daniel and Linda.

“It’s soda water,” Daniel says, lifting his drink. “Proof positive that love changes people.”

“You guys are sickeningly sweet, and you look irritatingly good together,” Suzanne says. “I’m very happy for you.”

Linda continues looking up at Daniel’s face as she speaks to Suzanne. “I can’t believe I found him. What are the chances?”

It is just beginning to feel late when Suzanne steps into a conversation boiling over between Petra and Jennifer, who beckons her to join something she would prefer to avoid.

Jennifer wears what Petra calls “a big black dress” with a double strand of pearls. As Suzanne steps close enough to make the conversation a triangle, Jennifer is saying, “When someone cheats, they’re not just cheating on their spouse. They’re cheating on their children.”

“You’re so American.” Petra’s voice is sloppy and sharp all at once.

“If by ‘American’ you mean I know the different between right and wrong, then yes. Guilty as charged.”

“By ‘American’ I mean that sex is too important to you, so you have less of it. It just doesn’t mean as much to me, for instance. It’s not a big deal, just two bodies for a little while. No big deal.”

“If it’s not a big deal, then why do people bother to promise fidelity? Isn’t it a big deal for a man to know his children are actually his children? If it’s not a big deal, then why do so many couples break up over it?” Jennifer’s face glows with her certainty.

“Because they’re American!” Petra’s words are loud enough to attract attention from nearby conversations.

As if sensing trouble, the pianist launches into a suddenly louder piece: a Liszt transcription from Gounod. Suzanne remembers reading once, in a biography of Liszt, that at each performance he would toss his glove to his choice for that night’s pleasure, a different recipient every night.

“You and Liszt have similar appetites,” Suzanne says, losing patience with having to secure Petra when she drinks too much.

Petra strides away.

Suzanne shrugs at Jennifer. “Sorry about her. I think maybe she’s had a little too much champagne.”

“Nothing new, I suppose, but so vehement. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was seducing Anthony.” Jennifer laughs now, fingering the beads of her pearl strands, adding, “It’s not that I don’t trust him, necessarily—he is a man—just that I keep his leash very short. I read that the number-one predictor of infidelity is opportunity.”

Suzanne looks anew at Jennifer, seeing in her broad face a woman more self-aware than she’d noticed before. Jennifer is one more person, Suzanne thinks, whom she has misjudged or at least misunderstood.

“I’d better find Petra and get her out of here before she talks to a potential donor.”

Jennifer’s hair swings at her shoulders as she nods. She touches Suzanne’s shoulder. “Thank you for coming, and thank you for getting her out of here before she does any damage.”

Getting Petra into the car is easier than Suzanne expected. Petra has gone docile with a turn in mood, though now she is crying and her tears are fierce.

“Honey,” Suzanne whispers, “if it’s not such a big deal, why are you so upset?”

“She’s a stupid woman. Stupid and fat,” Petra exclaims before going submissive again. “I’m sorry. I just drank too much on an empty stomach. The performance and all. We were really good, weren’t we?”

“Yeah.” Suzanne grins. “We were really good. Really, really good.”

“We rocked!” Petra high-fives her. “We were awesome!” The American slang or the champagne exaggerates her ordinarily slight accent.

After Suzanne maneuvers the car through the narrow driveway and into its space, moving the gear to park, Petra slides herself out of the car and totters toward the back door. She points to her shoes. “I’m not actually drunk. I’m just tall.”

“You are definitely too far from the ground.” Suzanne slams shut both car doors and then follows her friend inside, where she assumes not only Adele but Ben is deep in sleep.