Chapter 11 Marigold
Marigold
I’m coming over, Cessy texts me five days after Jamie moves in.
My dad is still off on tour; Jamie and I are in another dead battle for the limited number of piano-use hours in a day; the cat is standing on the kitchen counter, screeching for dinner even though it’s only two p.m.; and Cessy is—apparently—coming over.
Me: Right now?
Cessy: Right now. I just fucked up an audition and if I have to go back to Brooklyn rn I’m going to spend the rest of the weekend in bed eating honey-nut cheerios so yes I’m coming over
Cessy: If that’s ok
Cessy: ok I’ll see you in 5
I barely have time to warn Jamie before the buzzer goes and I have to ring Cessy in.
I know exactly how long it takes for the elevator to bring somebody up from the ground floor, and it’s precisely enough time to shove the packaging from me and Jamie’s lunch into the recycling, put on deodorant, force Jamie to do something with the socks he’d discarded next to the piano (I want to feel the pedal, he’d insisted when I complained), and finally be there to open the door when she knocks.
“Hey,” I say. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll live,” she says, which is Cessy code for Not really but stop asking.
She grabs onto my shoulder for balance while she toes off her sneakers and kicks them into a corner next to her discarded ballet duffel.
Then she rises onto her toes in relevé once, then again, stretching out the kinks.
“What about you? It’s crunch time now, isn’t it? Are you still mostly with-it?”
She’s already pushed past me, heading toward the living room, which is where we usually end up hanging out when at my dad’s place. And that would be fine if it weren’t for Jamie still sitting at the piano bench, ready and waiting to be an awkward third presence.
I don’t have enough time to think of a good explanation, or a good way to stop her, so I follow on her heels until she stops abruptly, and I know that she’s spotted him.
“Oh,” she says. “Hi there.”
Jamie waves from the piano bench. “Hi again. Been a minute.”
“More than a minute. Goldie told me you were staying here. Making yourself at home, too, apparently.”
I can already see the rest of this conversation unspooling like a ball of yarn and know exactly where it’s headed. But I let it run.
“Yeah, well. Decided hiding in my room all winter break wasn’t really my vibe.”
“So you and Goldie are…practicing together?”
It’s times like these that I really regret not giving Cessy more of a play-by-play of my life.
We’re constantly in each other’s phones as it is, but this whole thing with Jamie felt like a non sequitur, almost. Like, oh, how’s your relationship going with Shrishti, how are your auditions, cool cool cool, so remember Jamie, that guy I hate, well I still have a crush on him and now that he’s staying at my place he might be kind of okay? actually?
Now that I’m here, and they’re here, together, it occurs to me that I absolutely should have shoehorned that in at some point. Instead, Cessy is clearly operating under the assumption that me and Jamie are still mortal enemies, and she’s being…kind of a dick about it, frankly.
“Yeah,” I say, before Jamie can answer for himself. “He’s been really helpful, actually. He’s given me great advice on the Schumann piece.”
I don’t dare look at Jamie. I can imagine the expression he’s wearing perfectly well.
“Riiiight,” Cessy says. “Nice of you to let him practice here, though. On your only piano. Don’t you have a lot of work to do yourself?”
There’s a world in which explaining this to Cessy is potentially obnoxious as fuck.
A world where she goes, Well, can’t you play on a shitty electronic keyboard if you have to, and I explain that Yes, but also no, because we’re preparing for an international competition, and things like key weight and tuning and pedal resistance and so on actually matter.
It’s not just about hitting the right notes anymore.
It’s a conversation we’ve had before in other forms. Like why two people can be technically perfect and one can still be better than the other, or the importance of musicality and rubato.
In other words, explaining to Cessy the premise of me and Jamie’s entire rivalry.
“I can’t actually practice for eight hours straight, Cessy.”
She gives me a wry look, because she knows that I can—and have done it before.
And now that she’s brought it up, I think maybe it’s a bad idea letting Jamie be here after all, for that precise reason.
Not because I don’t want a fair fight in Stockholm, but because I’m missing out on practice hours while he’s using the piano.
And that won’t just make me lose to him; it might make me lose to anyone who was able to practice five hours instead of four. Six hours instead of five.
“Please don’t talk her out of this, Cessy,” Jamie says, saving me from myself. He pats the top of the piano. “I’m counting on this Bosendorfer here.”
He’s smiling, like it’s all some joke.
But I know that it isn’t. Not for him. Not for either of us.
“Well, sounds like you two are enjoying your little pajama party,” she says, and enough is enough—I can’t stand the awkwardness anymore.
“I mean, you’re invited, if you want to stay the night,” I say, arching one brow.
Cessy stares at me for a long moment, almost considering—then softens. “Yeah. All right. I’m assuming you still have the fancy toiletry packs. And that I can borrow your pajamas.”
“Yes to the toiletries, but you’re gonna have to sleep naked, sorry.”
She throws her wallet at me, and just like that, everything’s forgotten.
We order pizza for dinner and set up right there in the living room, the largest box open on the coffee table and paper towels strewn around for use as ad hoc napkins. Cessy mines Jamie for Shrishti tips, basically digging for any tidbit that Cessy might be able to use to charm her.
I find myself listening maybe a little too closely.
“Flowers,” Jamie says. “Or, no. A houseplant, so it doesn’t die as fast.”
He tells us about a website where you can get the cheapest Broadway tickets.
Or surprise dinner dates, Shrishti assuming they’re going out for burgers, but Cessy takes her to a nice restaurant, the kind with candlelight and white tablecloths.
Not that I’ll ever get a chance to use any of these ideas. Not on Jamie, at least.
I’m not stupid enough to think a little flirting means anything. Our history weighs too heavy on the space between us.
Later that night, the pizza boxes now completely empty and dirty napkins shoved into corners of the sofa, the three of us huddled around Jamie’s laptop watching videos of dogs giving birth to sloppy little shut-eyed puppies, my phone buzzes. It’s my dad.
I slip out of the room and into the kitchen, gently closing the door behind myself before I pick up.
“Hey, Dad. What’s up?”
“Hi, sweetheart. How is everything going over there?”
It’s dark where he is, the only illumination coming from the amber glow of a bedside lamp and the harsh light of the phone reflecting off his face. I try to mentally do the math for what time it is in—Paris, I think he’s in Paris right now? Extremely goddamn late is the conclusion.
“Fine. Just practicing. You know.” One thing I love about talking with my dad is how I never need to explain to him why music matters to me so much, why I would spend hours and hours every day sitting on a cold piano bench playing until my fingers cramp.
“Trying not to suck when we fly to Stockholm next week.”
I’ll still have time to keep practicing after we get to Sweden—assuming I pass the early rounds, anyway—but that’s when it’ll actually feel real. And some stupid voice in my brain keeps telling me that if I don’t get my shit together before I get on that plane, I’m already doomed.
“Well,” he says, “why don’t you get out a bottle of red and pour yourself a glass? I recommend the 2008 cab franc.”
I give him a quizzical look. “Uh. I’d love to drink your fancy wine. But…why?”
“I didn’t want to tell you before it was confirmed,” he says, and there’s already a hint of a smile teasing at the corners of his mouth, “but congratulations—you’re officially the guest artist for next year’s June star soloists concert.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“Serious as I’ve ever been.”
It’s like my brain has shut down. I keep playing his words over in my head, but they don’t seem to process. Guest artist. Star soloist.
“Are you sure?” Oh my god. “Why? What?” A wild laugh tears itself out of my throat, bizarre and reflexive. “You didn’t…This isn’t fair, right? Just because you’re my dad, and, and, Mom was my mom? I shouldn’t. You should choose someone else. It isn’t fair.”
My father shakes his head, that smile still set on his face.
“It has nothing to do with that. You’re qualified, Goldie.
You’ve won multiple national and international competitions.
You’re going to Stockholm this winter. You’ve already guest starred with some of the best orchestras in the world.
What makes you think you don’t deserve this, too? ”
He’s factually correct. But I can’t escape the lingering stench of nepotism. It can’t be a coincidence that my name came up. Plenty of people are competition winners. There are other students at Parker, Juilliard, Manhattan, or even farther abroad who have my same qualifications. So why me?
A darker, more insidious voice whispers that it’s not just nepotism.
He doesn’t ask me how I’ve been feeling.
He never asks, like he’s afraid it might trigger something dark and horrible inside me.
Or—perhaps more likely—as if acknowledging my multiple sclerosis makes it real.
So there’s no way he knows about how things have gotten worse.
No way he knows how my body has already started to betray me, a constellation fading in the wake of so many tiny nebulae.
Still—