“I haven’t heard the piece played through properly, but I think you’ll be pleased. She’s done some very painful work on this—examined the past in a way that many contemporary Israelis don’t want to.” Max looked at his watch. “I think I must have prepremiere butterflies as well, but I’d like to get an early start.”
I was driving. Max had lent his car to Michael and no sane person would let Lotty chauffeur them. Max graciously took the small backseat. The Trans Am offered. He leaned forward to talk to Lotty over the seatback, but once we were on Lake Shore Drive I couldn’t hear them above the engine. When I turned off at Monroe and stopped at the light between the Inner Drive and Congress, I could make out snatches of the conversation. Lotty was upset about something to do with Carol Alvarado, her nurse and right arm at the clinic. Max didn’t agree with her.
The light changed before I could make out what the problem was. I turned down Congress toward Louis Sullivan’s masterpiece. Lotty whipped her head away from Max to admonish me sharply on the speed at which I’d taken the corner. I looked at Max in the rearview mirror; his mouth was pinched into a line. I hoped the two weren’t planning a major quarrel in honor of the evening. And anyway, what possible disagreement could they have about Carol?
At the half-circle connecting Congress with Michigan Avenue we ran into a jam. Cars heading to the south underground garage were snarled with those trying to stop at the theater entrance. A couple of cops were frantically directing traffic, whistling people away as they tried pulling up to the curb in front of the Auditorium.
I pulled over to the side of the road. “I’ll let you two out here and go park—we’ll never be on time if I try to get across here.”
Max handed me my ticket before unwinding himself from the backseat. Although I’d put a blanket down to cover Peppy’s traces I could see red-gold hairs clinging to his dinner jacket as he climbed out. I made an embarrassed face and furtively looked at the skirt of Lotty’s tailored coral gown. It held a few hairs too. I could only hope her annoyance kept her mind off her clothes.
I made a sharp U, ignoring an outraged whistle, and zipped the Trans Am back up to Monroe and the north garage. It was only half a mile from there to the Auditorium, but I was wearing a long skirt and high heels, not the best garb for jogging. I slid in next to Lotty in the box Michael had given us just as the houselights went down.
Looking austere and remote in tails, Michael came onto the stage. He opened the evening with Strauss’s Don Quixote Variations. The theater was full—Chicago Settlement had become a trendy charity for some reason—but it wasn’t a music-loving crowd. Their whispered conversations created a background rumble and they kept applauding at the pauses between variations. Michael scowled at the breaks to his concentration. At one point he replayed the final thirteen bars of the previous section, only to find himself interrupted again. At that he made an angry gesture of dismissal and played the final two variations without stopping for air. The audience applauded politely, although not enthusiastically. Michael didn’t even bow, just walked quickly from the stage.
The next performance evoked greater response: the Chicago Settlement Children’s Choir performed a set of five folk songs. The choir held rigorous auditions and the children sang with a beautiful clarity, but it was their appearance that brought down the house. Some PR genius realized that native garb would sell better than choir robes, so bright dashiki and velvet Afghan jackets gleamed next to the embroidered white dresses of El Salvadoran girls. The audience roared for an encore and gave a standing ovation to the soloists, an Ethiopian boy and an Iranian girl.
During the intermission I left Max and Lotty in the box and strolled to the foyer to admire the costumes of the patrons—they were even more colorfully decked than the children. Perhaps left to themselves Lotty and Max would sort out their disagreement. Lotty’s ferocity creates periodic sparks in all her relationships. I didn’t want to be privy to whatever conflagration she had going with Carol.
On my way out of the box I caught my heel in the threads of my skirt. I wasn’t used to moving in evening clothes. I kept forgetting to shorten my stride; every few steps I’d have to stop to disengage my heel from the delicate threads.
I’d bought the skirt for my husband’s law firm’s Christmas party during my brief marriage thirteen years ago. The sheer black wool, heavily shot with silver, didn’t compare with Or’s custom-made gown, but it was my own most elegant outfit. With a black silk top and my mother’s diamond drops it made respectable concert attire, but it lacked the dramatic flair of most of the ensembles I saw in the foyer.