The feeling is very much mutual.
“Looking forward to a nice, clean competition,” he says. “Technique versus musicality…We’ll see which wins out, won’t we? See you in class.”
And then the motherfucker salutes us—he freaking salutes us—and walks off like he thinks he’s already wearing a crown.
“He’s full of shit,” Cessy mutters as we filter out of the room at the tail end of the crowd. “That competition was ages ago. Didn’t you say it’s only the most recent one that counts as a qualifying comp?”
“That was the most recent competition,” I confirm grimly. I’ve already checked on my phone; I tilt the screen over to show her the list of qualifying competitions. “They skipped 2020 because of COVID.”
“Fuck!”
“Fuck,” I agree, and slide the phone back into my pocket instead of hurling it at the wall like I want to.
Cessy (full name Princess Lourdes Ramirez, although if you call her that, she’ll toast you) is my suite mate, and she’s my best friend. Just because she’s in the dance department and not music doesn’t stop her from showing up to stuff like this for what shecalls “moral support.” I already know she’s going to spend the next week ranting about what an idiot and an asshole Jamie Larson is—and I love her for it. But that’s not going to help me beat him at Stockholm.
And demolishing Jamie Larson in an international piano competition suddenly feels like the single most important thing I will ever do.
Because it is,a sly voice whispers in the back of my mind.Because this is your last chance. Your only chance.
Stockholm is an annual event, but I have no guarantee that I will be able to enter again next year, or any other year. I steal a glance down at my hands as Cessy and I head for our next class, trying to diagnose the slight tremor that shudders down my fingers.
I have to win this competition. I have to prove, once and for all, that I have what it takes.
Because in five years, maybe ten, I won’t be playing piano anymore.
Because my brain is a ticking time bomb, and the fuse is running out.
Two Months Ago
“Goldie,” my father said from the doorway. “It’s time for dinner.”
I finished the measure, then twisted around on the piano bench to face him. My father had lost weight since my mother died; his white starched dress shirt, once tailored to perfection, hung loose from his bony shoulders. His cheekbones had sharpened to blades. Sometimes I wondered, if I encountered him somewhere I didn’texpect—if I passed by him in the parking lot of the Walmart in Secaucus, or sitting in the corner booth at one of those dollar-slice pizza joints—would I even recognize him?
“Okay,” I said. “Let me finish the piece.”
Other parents might have shaken their heads and saidRight noworIt’s getting cold.But my father was a principal violinist. He understood the importance of practice. Four hours a day, even during the summer, until my fingertips had calluses and my wrists needed splints to stabilize my carpal tunnel.
I had just gotten through the qualifying round for the Stockholm competition. It still seemed like some giant scam, the idea that I would actually be in Sweden later this year performing on the world stage. I watched my fingers skim the notes on the keyboard as I played and tried to imagine myself playing a perfect concerto: every note precise, every pause hanging perfectly in midair.
I dared let myself imagine it, because I didn’t believe in jinxes. Playing down my hopes wouldn’t make a future failure hurt any less.
Besides: The universe owed me this, after everything.
Just one perfect performance.
I finished the piece.
“Goldie,” my father called again, before I could start anything new, and I sighed and pushed the bench back as I stood.
Dad was already sitting at the table when I made it to the dining room, our food already plated.
“Thanks, Tiff,” I said, and Tiff grinned back at me. She had started working here during my mother’s illness, one of many problems my father had thrown money at, like having an in-home chef would save Mom’s life. And then she just…never left. I’m not sure Dad could let her go, at that point. It would just be another of a thousand goodbyes.
Tonight was garlic-roasted chicken with potatoes and broccoli rabe. Comfort food—not the antioxidant smoothies and adaptogenic mushrooms she used to make while my mother was still alive. Every meal back then had been a careful algorithm of micronutrients: magnesium and choline and omega-3s. Anything the Internet said was a secret cure for lupus nephritis. Anything to buy her one more year, one more month, one more day.
But Miriam Gensler had died at the age of forty-three, her body slowly suffocating itself. We’d buried her with the flute she hadn’t been able to play in over a year, her arthritis-swollen hands finally gone still against its silver.
“Do you need anything else for school?” Dad asked as he cut into his chicken. “New scores? Notebooks? More clothes?”
