I made a soft, happy sound, because that was a compliment. I didn’t tell him that they’d asked me a couple years ago, when I was embarking on a relationship with a moody Swede I thought might finally chase thoughts of Milo Fierro from my head. He hadn’t. None of the men I’d dated in the last ten or so years had come close.
And now I was in the car with the object of my fascination. Deep breaths. Seriously, don’t be weird.
“It was nice to get the call from Met Orchestra,” I said, picking up our conversation’s thread. “I’m surprised you don’t play for them, or for the Philharmonic.”
He shook his head. “I rarely perform anymore. I’m focused on making instruments.”
“That’s too bad.” I studied the lines of his jaw, remembered how handsome it looked with a violin tucked beneath it. “Well, it’s great that you’re making instruments, but I used to love the way you played.”
“I never said I didn’t play anymore.” He focused intently on the road. “I just can’t give up every night to the masses in order to take an orchestra job.”
“It’s not every night. We have breaks and vacations.”
He stayed silent. I wasn’t sure if the heightening tension in the car was emanating from him or from me.
“Thanks for driving me home,” I said. “I was so ready to leave that party. I mean, not that your parents aren’t wonderful.” It’s just that I mostly came there to see you.
“No problem. It’s cool that we live so close after all these years.”
We merged onto a second parkway and he sped up, his car’s engine humming with effortless power. Milo smelled good, like faint cologne, or the varnishes from his violin workshop. Now that I lived in the city, I could ask to visit Fierro Violin’s workshops, ask to learn about the process that had created my own beloved Fierro violin.
Of course, Milo hadn’t made mine. He was still in his apprenticeship then, working with his father and grandfather. I’d gotten the violin for my seventeenth birthday, which meant Milo had been twenty-three.
At that time, I was sure he was the height of masculinity. My teenage brain would have exploded if I could have seen him now, nearing forty, gruff, virile, accomplished, driving his purring Italian sports car, speaking with his faint Italian accent…
He turned on some music, perhaps to fill the nervous, silent space between us. Classical, of course.
“Prokofiev?” I guessed after a few bars. “Oh, his Violin Concerto in D.”
He rewarded me with a smile. “One of my favorites.”
“I love it, too.” I listened a moment, enjoying the concerto’s bright tones, as well as the quality of his car’s sound system. “Everyone thinks Stravinsky’s so great, with his noisy gimmicks, but give me Prokofiev’s playfulness any day.”
Milo laughed for the first time that night, really laughed. “Listen to you, Alice. Why aren’t you married yet?”
I grinned back at him, buoyed by the music. “Because I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Have you been talking to my mother?” He looked back at the road, shaking his head. “She’s been telling me to marry you ever since you turned legal. Crazy, I know. Just because we’re both from musical families.”
“And our parents are good friends.” And because I’ve loved you forever, Milo, since I knew what love was. It was painful for me to joke about us. Not that there was any “us.” I bit my lip, holding words inside so nothing ridiculous would burst out, but it didn’t work.
“I’ve always been a little fascinated by you,” I said, trying to sound light and airy. “I remember finding reasons to interrupt your lessons with my dad. I almost couldn’t stand it, the way you played. You were so much better than everyone else.”
“Bullshit. You play better than me. You always have.”
“That’s not true.”
We fell silent as the concerto entered the second movement. Sweeping, harmonious, jumpy, vibrant, the perfect soundtrack for how I felt as we drove south on the Saw Mill River Parkway.
“You always played with more emotion than his other students,” I said. “You played like you meant it, rather than playing like mom and dad were forcing you to be there for lessons.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Did I?”
Ridiculous modesty. Milo Fierro played like he could lure the angels down from heaven, and he knew it. Horrible, that he didn’t perform much anymore.
“I was always so proud of my technique when I was young,” I went on. “Until I heard you play, and then I thought my technique was crap, because my eyes didn’t burn with fire like yours when I played the hard notes.”
He made a low sound, a laugh or a scoff. “That was fear you saw. Nothing else.”
“Fear of what?”
“Of not being good enough. Your father was a terrifying teacher. He didn’t suffer fools, or lazy students.”
“It wasn’t fear,” I countered in a soft voice. “It was love for the music. You loved playing the violin. I saw it at every lesson, and heard it in every note.”
He pressed his lips together. Good. He wasn’t going to argue with that. We rode a little while more before he spoke again.
“I don’t know what was more important to me in the beginning, Alice. Learning to play the violin, or learning to make one that was good enough to play. Either way, it became an all-consuming relationship for me, learning that instrument frontwards and backwards and inside out. I couldn’t make a perfect violin if I couldn’t understand how the angles of its body created a sound.”
He took a hand off the wheel to sketch a curved shape in the air. Long, elegant fingers, and his deep, resonant voice as he talked about understanding. I pressed my legs together, scarily aroused.
“I kind of know what you mean,” I said. “About learning it inside out. Sometimes I think of the violin as a heart that’s beating.”
“Jesus.”
He exhaled the word with unexpected force. Had I upset him? I was too afraid to look at him. “What I mean is, I think of my violin as a living thing that I have to nurture and…”
My voice drifted off. I could see his profile reflected in the glass, staring at the road, his dark eyes so intense. I felt the weirdest impulse to burst into tears, thinking about him and his violin, and those Sundays so many years ago, when he’d meet with my father for lessons and sometimes stay for dinner. Those encounters had been so precious to me. Whenever he had to cancel a lesson, whenever he didn’t show up, I’d hide in my room and cry. Maybe that was why I felt on the verge of tears now.
“Does your father still teach?” he asked.
“The occasional student. If they’re special enough.”
Milo laughed. “You have to be special to withstand your father’s lessons. I remember him growling at me, pointing out every mistake. Posture. Tone. What is that grip, Mr. Fierro? Hold your bow with respect or play another instrument. I hear the triangle is nice.”
“Ha. He was always big on that. Play something else. Then there was the whole, Do you find this funny? The circus needs clowns.”
“I never heard that one. I was too scared to crack a smile in his presence.”
“He loved you, though.” I clasped my hands tight in my lap. “I remember that he looked forward to your lessons. He’ll be happy to hear that I saw you tonight.”
“When you talk to him, tell him I said hello.”
“I will.”
We stopped talking and listened to Prokofiev as the world whizzed by outside his tinted windows. I wished I’d drunk more champagne, so I could think of more light, fizzy things to say. Everything that came to mind was too stupid, or worshipful, or confessional. How are you so sexy? You’ve fascinated me for so long. Are you dating anyone? I assumed he wasn’t, or he would have brought her to the party. Right? Whenever our parents got together, I always listened for Milo gossip, and I’d never heard of him having a serious relationship with anyone.
“Are you doing anything for New Year’s?” I asked. If he had a
girlfriend, they’d spend New Year’s together, and kiss when the ball dropped. My stomach went squirrelly at the thought of him being in love with someone else. It would ruin one of my favorite fantasies, of Milo pulling me into his arms, gazing at me, kissing me until I couldn’t breathe.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I used to hang out with my friends on New Year’s Eve, but both of them have coupled up in the past year. Their girlfriends are great, but they only tolerate me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.” I laughed, partly because I couldn’t see any woman only tolerating Milo, and partly out of happiness that he sounded unattached. Unfortunately, the laugh that escaped sounded high-pitched and somewhat hysterical. Hopefully, he just assumed I was drunker than I was.
“There’s nothing worse than spending New Year’s with happy couples,” I said.
“Yeah. From now on, I’ll spend it at home with my dog.”
Invite me to come. We could pound champagne, get really drunk, and tumble into bed to bring in the New Year. I wished for an invitation really, really hard, but he didn’t extend one, and we were almost back to Manhattan.
“Are you playing on New Year’s Eve with the orchestra?” he asked.
“No, not this year.” I’m totally free that night. Please invite me. You could kiss me when the ball drops. You could do anything you wanted to me.
But no invitation came, not even a follow-up question about what I was planning to do that night, since I wasn’t playing with the orchestra.