understood by Wall Street bankers in several-thousand-dollar suits? Can the madness of Lucia be properly understood
amid so many
fully occupied buildings?
”
“This is a great effort.”
“Trude is opera,” I said. “They should be coming here to study opera.”
“What if they just measure things differently?” she asked. “When people in Trude say my voice is beautiful, is it just because
they don’t know better?”
I was unsure how to reply. The more I said, the more likely it seemed that I would confess to praying for this very outcome.
From the very first mention of New York I had been terrified. Had I wanted her to fail? Because if those figures in the auditorium
had taken her, it would have been one more piece of writing on the wall, foretelling the ways that I would eventually lose
her completely.
We drank white wine and spread melted Brie over a baguette that we tore with our hands. As the sun lowered and blushed over
the composers’ sculpted heads, we felt, and our fellow Trudians must have felt, that there was nothing wrong with this place,
that things could have been a lot worse. Schubert’s Death and the Maiden was the centerpiece of the concert that night, and
it was sometime during the slow buildup of the rondo that I slid my hand into Molly’s suit and touched her with twofingers. She still smelled of chlorine. I moved my fingers in time with the music and Molly bit her lip.
“What do you think you’re doing, mister,” she gasped.
I wanted to be inside her. The way I wanted Molly made my desire for other women seem trivial, merely mechanical. When she
pushed my hand away it felt like a mild amputation.
I CONCLUDED THAT it might be better to make an early exit. I had long lost track of Mozart, and my legs were puffy with mosquito bites. My
shirtless neighbor watched me go, chip suspended on his lips, a look of rebuke almost visible behind his sunglasses. On my
way out I passed faces that were darkened and critical, not much different, I thought, from the faces of the auditioneers
who had waited below while Molly sang onstage, and who had called out abruptly “that’s enough.” We had left the pavilion early
that night as well. The quartet was only halfway through the fourth movement of Death and the Maiden when the skies opened,
going from zero to sixty as a Midwestern thunderstorm can. People who only moments before had been stretching comfortably
and feeling relatively blessed now ran for cover and their cars. Having walked, Molly and I were stranded, but we also had
our swimsuits, so we surrendered to the rain. I kissed her on the mouth. The quartet lingered faintly in the distance.
The white shirts of the musicians were like sails in the churning storm, which pushed napkins, wrappers, and takeout menus
through the air. The trash caught on the composers’ busts. In the distance the facades of the old fairground buildings swayed
in the wind, their bricks nacreous with rain. Gray waves sloshed over the pool’s rim. The thunder’s symphonic bombastdrowned out the quartet, and higher up the hillside, lightning struck a hubristic church spire. This was a storm to please
even the most opium-addled romantic, and I took my cue, escorting Molly into the foliage of a stout oak. We were not the first
to discover this bower; the tree’s trunk was scarred with the initials of our predecessors. I could have carved
M + S
there but I had no implement, only my hands, pruny from the weather.
Molly was pressed against the bark, flushed and breathing hard from the run. Her eyes glowed, bright and alien. I reached
for her slick thighs and lifted her. She always felt light to me.
“Listen,” I said. “If I don’t tell you this now, I’ll never say it.”
“You can say whatever you want.” She smiled. “It’s just you and me here.”
Her red hair blazed against the dark green leaves.
“When you were gone,” I said, “I was like a tourist in a
amid so many
fully occupied buildings?
”
“This is a great effort.”
“Trude is opera,” I said. “They should be coming here to study opera.”
“What if they just measure things differently?” she asked. “When people in Trude say my voice is beautiful, is it just because
they don’t know better?”
I was unsure how to reply. The more I said, the more likely it seemed that I would confess to praying for this very outcome.
From the very first mention of New York I had been terrified. Had I wanted her to fail? Because if those figures in the auditorium
had taken her, it would have been one more piece of writing on the wall, foretelling the ways that I would eventually lose
her completely.
We drank white wine and spread melted Brie over a baguette that we tore with our hands. As the sun lowered and blushed over
the composers’ sculpted heads, we felt, and our fellow Trudians must have felt, that there was nothing wrong with this place,
that things could have been a lot worse. Schubert’s Death and the Maiden was the centerpiece of the concert that night, and
it was sometime during the slow buildup of the rondo that I slid my hand into Molly’s suit and touched her with twofingers. She still smelled of chlorine. I moved my fingers in time with the music and Molly bit her lip.
“What do you think you’re doing, mister,” she gasped.
I wanted to be inside her. The way I wanted Molly made my desire for other women seem trivial, merely mechanical. When she
pushed my hand away it felt like a mild amputation.
I CONCLUDED THAT it might be better to make an early exit. I had long lost track of Mozart, and my legs were puffy with mosquito bites. My
shirtless neighbor watched me go, chip suspended on his lips, a look of rebuke almost visible behind his sunglasses. On my
way out I passed faces that were darkened and critical, not much different, I thought, from the faces of the auditioneers
who had waited below while Molly sang onstage, and who had called out abruptly “that’s enough.” We had left the pavilion early
that night as well. The quartet was only halfway through the fourth movement of Death and the Maiden when the skies opened,
going from zero to sixty as a Midwestern thunderstorm can. People who only moments before had been stretching comfortably
and feeling relatively blessed now ran for cover and their cars. Having walked, Molly and I were stranded, but we also had
our swimsuits, so we surrendered to the rain. I kissed her on the mouth. The quartet lingered faintly in the distance.
The white shirts of the musicians were like sails in the churning storm, which pushed napkins, wrappers, and takeout menus
through the air. The trash caught on the composers’ busts. In the distance the facades of the old fairground buildings swayed
in the wind, their bricks nacreous with rain. Gray waves sloshed over the pool’s rim. The thunder’s symphonic bombastdrowned out the quartet, and higher up the hillside, lightning struck a hubristic church spire. This was a storm to please
even the most opium-addled romantic, and I took my cue, escorting Molly into the foliage of a stout oak. We were not the first
to discover this bower; the tree’s trunk was scarred with the initials of our predecessors. I could have carved
M + S
there but I had no implement, only my hands, pruny from the weather.
Molly was pressed against the bark, flushed and breathing hard from the run. Her eyes glowed, bright and alien. I reached
for her slick thighs and lifted her. She always felt light to me.
“Listen,” I said. “If I don’t tell you this now, I’ll never say it.”
“You can say whatever you want.” She smiled. “It’s just you and me here.”
Her red hair blazed against the dark green leaves.
“When you were gone,” I said, “I was like a tourist in a
Similar Books
