“I was a special child and I’d grow up to be a special person.”
“You are,” Faye says.
“Thanks. I’d be a special woman who would marry a special man and we’d have these great children. You know? I always thought that was going to be true. This was my destiny. Life was going to be comfortable. It was going to be great.”
“It will be,” Faye says. “All those things.”
“Yeah. I guess,” Margaret says. She smothers her cigarette in the soil. “But I don’t know what I want to do. With my life.”
“Me neither,” says Faye.
“Really? You?”
“Yeah. I have no idea.”
“I thought you were going to college.”
“Maybe. Probably not. My mom doesn’t want me to. Neither does Henry.”
“Oh,” says Margaret. “Oh, I see.”
“Maybe I’ll put it off a year or two. Wait for things to calm down.”
“That might be smart.”
“I might stay here a while longer.”
“I don’t know what I want,” says Margaret. “I guess I want Jules?”
“Of course.”
“Jules is great, I guess. I mean, he’s really really great.”
“He’s so great.”
“He is, isn’t he?”
“Yes!”
“Okay,” she says. “Okay, thanks.” And she stands, brushes off the dirt, and looks at Faye. “Hey, look, I’m sorry for being weird.”
“It’s fine,” Faye says.
“Please don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
“I don’t think other people would understand.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
And Margaret nods and begins to leave when suddenly she stops, turns back to Faye. “Would you like to come over this weekend?”
“Come over where?”
“My house, dummy. Come have dinner with us.”
“Your house?”
“Saturday night. It’s my father’s birthday. We’re having a surprise party for him. I want you to come!”
“Me?”
“Yeah. If you’re going to stay in town after graduation, don’t you think we should be friends?”
“Oh, okay, sure,” says Faye. “Sure. That’d be swell.”
“Great!” says Margaret. “Don’t tell anyone. It’s a surprise.” She smiles and struts away, rounds the corner, and disappears.
Faye leans back against the wall again and realizes the orchestra is going full tilt. She hadn’t noticed. A big torso of sound, a big crescendo. She is overcome by Margaret’s invitation. What a victory. What a shock. She listens to the orchestra and feels vast. She finds that music muffled through a wall makes her more aware of the physicality of it, that when she can’t hear the music exactly she can still sense it, the vibrations, like waves. That buzz. The wall she presses her face to makes it a different kind of experience. No longer music but a crossing over of the senses. She is aware of the friction needed for music, the striking and stroking of string, wood, leather. Near the end of the piece, especially. When, louder, she can feel the bigger notes. Not abstract, but a quaking, like a touch. And the feeling moves down her throat, a great pulse of noise now, a banging inside. It hums her.
Beyond everything else, she loves this: how swiftly things can strike her—music, people, life—how quickly they can surprise her, all of a sudden, like a punch.