of skin between his third and fourth fingers. “So now these fingers move independently.”
Everyone winces.
“That’s crazy,” Toby says, but he’s impressed.
The waitress brings a mountain of nachos and a platter of fried clams. Ever since he played in the semi, Toby’s been hungry in a way he recognizes as being adolescent. Lucy rises from her seat and heads off in search of the washroom.
“Did you check out that girl’s instrument?” Larry asks, sour cream oozing out the side of his mouth. He means Trace, daughter of a schoolteacher and a tugboat driver, too young to join them at the bar. “Perfect copy of a vintage Smallman, for fuck’s sake. I’d give my right testicle for one of those.”
Smallman is the Australian luthier favoured by John Williams and other top-flight players.
“Who’d she have to fuck to get that?” Armand asks, but his heart isn’t in it. Just thinking about the girl possibly going on to the final round makes him sick.
“I hate my instrument,” Larry says, his voice rising over the Irish music. “Piece of shit, late Hernandez.”
“What model?” Hiro asks.
Larry tells him.
“They are crap for thirty years,” says Hiro, his head bobbing out of an oversized collar. He plays an instrument fashioned by an obscure Belgian maker.
Larry looks glum. “You got an extra twenty grand?”
“If I win …” Toby says, grabbing a pint of ale from the cluster of glasses in the middle of the table. This after swearing off until the end of the competition. “I’ll track down a Fleta ’65, or maybe an early 1970s José Romanillos.”
“And for this you offer one testicle or two?” Armand asks.
Toby knocks back half the beer, and his body jolts. This is what counts, the camaraderie and guitar talk; this is what he lives for, what he’s been missing too damn long.
“You hear Trace play in semifinal?” Hiro asks.
“Missed it,” Toby confesses.
“She is dangerous, my friend.”
Toby keeps a game smile on his face. “She’s just a kid.”
So was he, back in the day.
“One fucking amazing kid,” Hiro adds. He’s picked up their way of talking.
“Who does she study with on her island?”
“Some guy no one’s heard of.”
They all stare into the table with its botched plates, worrying about this girl who is too young to drink with them. The poster of James Joyce with his bad eyes glares down: just when you think you’re safe again and happy, the old enemy, fear, creeps in.
Lucy returns from the washroom, wiping her hands on her slacks — the dryer was on the fritz. When she sits down, she inserts herself next to Toby, so that he has no choice but to slide over the banquette and press next to Hiro. He feels the young man stiffen. This is probably a social horror in his country, to mash next to someone you barely know.
Hiro fixes his eyes on the TV monitor, Yankees versus Red Sox.
“How’s the nail holding up?” Toby asks. He feels Lucy staring at him, searching for symptoms of delayed trauma.
Without changing the direction of his gaze, Hiro splays his mended hand on the tabletop. “You are excellent craftsman.” Before Toby has a chance to examine the perfectly glued seam, he lifts the hand and indicates the screen. “See that?” he cries, pointing. “Fantastic Japanese guy!”
The pinstriped player, Hideki Okuda, slides into third base, then rises, grabbing his batting helmet off the dirt. Yankee Stadium erupts as two men cross home plate.
Hiro is delighted. “Okuda is big star in Japan. My college is named after him. Every kid wants to be Okuda.”
“My ideal job?” Larry says from the other end of the table. “Grad students pop into my office two days a week, summers off for touring.”
“I teach part-time,” Armand says. “Frankfurt college, adult education. They promote me last year, for I am respected for pedagogical skills. So, my friends, you see that not always the most fantastic musician makes the best teacher.”
Hiro drops back into his seat. “I will not teach,” he says. “If I cannot make employment as solo performer, then I give up guitar forever.”
His statement silences the group, and Hiro never takes his eyes off the television monitor.
Seventeen
How many generations of students have worn down the furniture in the lobby of the Fine Arts Building? Trace heaves herself onto one of the sturdy tables, hitches her pants, and sits cross-legged, so lithe and flexible that one can only remember what it was like to have a body without joints. The box office is closed for the day — no performance tonight. The girl who runs the café is swabbing down the counter, switching off the espresso machine, all animation sucked from her face after an eight-hour shift. Trace thinks, I’ll never have to do a job like that. She watches the staircase at the north end of the lobby. She is waiting for someone and trying to look as if this isn’t so, running a hand over her bristly head. With her long neck and fine features, she manages to appear both street urchin and feminine.
There is the sound of a door shutting on the floor above, and she jerks to attention, hearing a pause followed by the clip-clop of shoes while a man hums to himself. She recognizes the tune: “Amor de mis amores” by Veracruz composer Agustín Lara. There’s the snap of a briefcase closing, then Manuel Juerta appears at the top of the staircase. He’s wearing a Cuban shirt, the kind you don’t tuck in, and he dances down the stairs.
Of course, Manuel sees her sitting there; he may be tired, but he isn’t blind. The empty foyer belongs to a world that will return to its clamour in a few hours, before there’s a chance for a proper airing out. He notes Trace, her naked head vulnerable as a newborn’s, her scruffy feet jammed into flip-flops.
“You,” Juerta says, pointing with a hand clutching a can of beer. He glides like a skater across the tile floor.
Trace pretends to look surprised.
“Where are your colleagues?” Juerta asks.
“At some bar.”
He nods sympathetically, then heads for the front door, hesitates, and turns around. “So you are alone.”
She doesn’t reply. He’s working it out.
“Come,” he beckons.
She dangles one foot.
“Come here.”
She slips off the table, shrugging, as if she might or might not obey, then traipses toward him, aggressively tomboy, so attractive in a natural beauty. He slings
