Laura felt the need to ask, “Can you not find another teacher?”
“No one will take me on.” She puffed the cigarette. “Pechenikov was the best, so I went to the second best. Then the third. By the time I worked my way down to the junior high band directors, I realized that they were using the same code.” She held Laura’s gaze with a knowing expression. “When they said, ‘I don’t have time to take on a new student,’ what they meant was, ‘I’m not going to waste my talent and effort on a silly girl who’s going to give it all up once she falls in love.’”
“Ah,” Laura said, because that was really all she could say.
“It’s easier in some ways, I suppose. I’ve been devoting three or four hours a day, every day of my life, to practicing. Classical is so exact. You have to play every note as written. Your dynamics matter almost more than touch. With jazz, there’s a melodic expression you can bring to the piece. And rock—do you know The Doors?”
Laura had to shift her thinking in a different direction. “Jim Morrison?”
Jane tapped her fingers on the bar top. At first, Laura only heard a frantic rapping, but then, remarkably—
“‘Love Me Two Times.’” Laura laughed at the neat trick.
Jane said, “Manzarek played both the keyboard part and the bass part at the same time. It’s amazing how he pulled it off, as if each hand worked completely independent of the other. A split personality, almost, but people don’t concentrate on the technical aspects. They just love the sound.” She kept tapping out the song as she spoke. “If I can’t play music that people appreciate, then I want to play music that people love.”
“Good for you.” Laura let the beats play in the silence for a moment before asking, “You’ve been in Europe for the last three months, you said?”
“Berlin.” Jane’s hands finally wound down. “I was filling in as a session pianist at Hansa Tonstudio.”
Laura shook her head. She had never heard of it.
“It’s a recording studio by the Wall. They have a space, the Meistersaal, which has the most beautiful acoustics for every type of music—classical, chamber, pop, rock. Bowie recorded there. Iggy Pop. Depeche Mode.”
“Sounds like you’ve met some famous people.”
“Oh, no. My part’s done by the time they roll in. That’s the beauty of it. It’s just me and my performance in isolation. No one knows who’s behind the keyboard. No one cares if you’re a woman, or a man, or a French poodle. They just want you to feel the music, and that’s what I’m good at—feeling where the notes go.” A glow of excitement enhanced her natural beauty. “If you love music—really, truly, love music—then you play it for yourself.”
Laura felt herself nodding. She had no musical point of reference, but she understood that the pure love of something could not only give you strength but propel you forward.
Still, she said, “It’s a lot to give up.”
“Is it?” Jane seemed genuinely curious. “How can I give up something that was never really offered to me because of what’s between my legs?” She gave a hard laugh. “Or not between my legs, or what might come out from between my legs at some point in the future.”
“Men can always reinvent themselves,” Laura said. “For women, once you’re a mother, you’re always a mother.”
“That’s not terribly feminist of you, Dr. Maplecroft.”
“No, but you understand this because you’re a chameleon like me. If you can’t play the music people appreciate, then you play the music that they love.” Laura hoped that one day that might change. Then again, she hoped every morning when she woke up that she would hear Lila’s awful music on the radio, watch Peter run around the living room looking for his shoes, and find David talking low into the telephone because he did not want his mother to know that he had a girlfriend.
“You should go.” Jane pointed to the clock. The forty-five minutes were almost up.
Laura wanted to keep talking, but she knew she had no choice. She reached into her purse for her wallet.
“It’s on me,” Jane offered.
“I couldn’t—”
“I should say it’s on the Queller family tab.”
“All right,” Laura agreed. She slid from the stool, stifling a wince from the pain as she put weight back on her leg. Her cane was where she had left it. She gripped the silver knob in her hand. She looked at Jane and wondered if this was the last person she would have a normal conversation with. If that turned out to be the case, she was glad.
She told the girl, “It’s been a pleasure talking to you.”
“You, too.” Jane offered, “I’ll be on the front row if you need a friendly face.”
Laura felt enormously sad at the news. Uncharacteristically, she reached out and covered Jane’s hand with her own. She could feel the coolness of the girl’s skin. Laura wondered how long it had been since she had touched another human being for comfort.
She blurted out the words, “You are a magnificent person.”
“Gosh.” Jane blushed.
“It’s not because you’re talented, or beautiful, though you certainly are both. It’s because you’re so uniquely you.” Laura said the words that she wished she’d had time to tell her own daughter: “Everything about you is amazing.”
The blush reddened as Jane struggled for a pithy response.
“No.” Laura would not let the girl’s sarcasm ruin the moment. “You’ll find your way, Jane, and it will be the right way, no matter what, because it’s the path that you set out for yourself.” She squeezed the girl’s hand one last time. “That’s my advice.”
Laura felt Jane’s eyes follow her progress as she slowly walked across the room. She had sat at the bar too long. Her foot was numb. The bullet lodged inside of her back felt as if it was a living, breathing thing. She cursed the shard of metal, no larger than the nail on her pinky finger, that sat dangerously close to her spinal cord.
Just this once, this last time, she wanted to move quickly, to recapture some of her former agility, and complete the task before Jane could find her seat on the front row.
The lobby had emptied of important men, but their cigarette and pipe smoke lingered. Laura pushed open the door to the ladies room.
Empty, as Nick had predicted.
She walked to the last stall. She opened and closed the door. She struggled with the lock. The sliding bolt would not fit into the slot. She banged it twice, the metal singing against metal, then finally got it to stay closed.
Laura was overcome by a sudden dizziness. She pressed her hands to the walls. She took a few moments to stabilize. The two drinks on top of her jet lag had been a mistake, but she could be forgiven her fatalistic choices on today of all days.
The toilet was old-fashioned, the tank mounted high on the wall. She reached behind it. Her heart fluttered as she blindly searched. She felt the tape first. Her panic ebbed only slightly as her fingers traced their way up to the paper bag.
The door opened.
“Hej-hej?” a man said.
Laura froze, heart stopped.
“Hello?” The man was dragging something heavy across the floor. “Cleaner here. Hello?”
“Just a moment,” Laura called back, the words choking in her throat.
“Cleaner,” he repeated.
“Nej,” she said, more stridently. “Occupied.”
He gave a vexed sigh.
She waited.
Another sigh.
Another moment.
Finally, he dragged whatever he had brought into the toilets back across the floor. He closed the door so hard that the stall door slipped its flimsy lock and creaked open.
Laura felt the sliding bolt press its finger into the small of her back.
Improbably, a laugh tickled the back of her throat. She could only imagine what she looked like, skirt rucked up, standing with a leg on either side of the toilet bowl, her hand up the back of the tank.
All that was missing was the sound of a passing train and Michael Corleone.