A Song for Julia Read online

  “This is incredible,” I said. “Thank you so much. I haven’t had a home cooked meal in—I can’t remember when.”

  “I’d like to hear you play the piano,” Sean said, out of nowhere. Which was odd, because he hadn’t even been in the room when we had the conversation about it.

  Crank looked at me, and I looked at Sean, and Jack looked at me, and I found myself furiously blushing, which is something I don’t do. Ever. “I don’t know …” I said in a hesitant tone of voice.

  “Come on,” Jack said. “We’d love to hear it.”

  “Please?” Sean said. “No one has played it since Mom left. Dad has it tuned every six months, but no one plays it any more.”

  I swallowed, because both Crank and Jack froze. I swear it felt like a bomb was about to go off in that kitchen, the tension hit so suddenly. At the time Sean said the words, Crank was reaching for another handful of bacon, and he literally froze in place with his arm extended.

  A lot more was going on here than I knew about. And I didn’t want to say or do the wrong thing. But I didn’t know what the right thing was, and Jack and Crank, both frozen like terrified rabbits, were no help at all. It was obvious that both of them were so wound up around Sean that the whole situation could explode in a heartbeat. So, my voice sounding meager and unsure in my ears, I said, “Okay.”

  The end, not so much (Crank)

  When she said, “Okay,” in that hesitant voice, I think I let out a sigh of relief. Because Sean went back to eating. On the one hand, the last thing I wanted was Sean getting attached to Julia in any way. On the other hand, I really didn’t want to deal with a blowup this morning, and anything involving our mother risked a blowup from Sean.

  So Dad and I went back to eating as if nothing had happened, and Sean launched into a monologue. For the last six months, he’d been alternating between a huge set of medical textbooks I’d picked up at an estate sale and an equally huge set of manga comics he’d amassed over the last two years. So it didn’t surprise me when he started talking, seemingly randomly, about open heart surgery, but I could tell Julia was more than a little bit surprised.

  Once he got started, it would be impossible for anyone to get a word in edgewise, so at the first pause for breath, my dad jumped in. “Sean, this is fascinating, but I’m sure Julia might like to know more about you.”

  Sean didn’t respond for a second, so Julia asked, “Where do you go to school, Sean?”

  He answered in his usual loud monotone. “Excel High School. It’s a magnet for public safety studies.”

  “It used to be South Boston High,” my dad said. “I went there, and so did Dougal.”

  I winced. He’d said that name once in front of her, but I didn’t think she’d noticed. “Dad,” I said.

  “Oh, for the love of God, Dougal, we gave you a good Irish name when you were a baby!”

  “And that’s why I changed it!”

  The corner of Julia’s mouth quirked up. “Dougal?” she asked.

  “Isn’t it a nice name?” Dad asked. “Reminds me of the open fields of Ireland.”

  I muttered, “The only open fields you’ve ever seen are the basketball courts.”

  “In my day, kids weren’t so damn disrespectful of their elders.” Dad looked irritated, but only barely so.

  “In your day Whitey Bulger was running Southie like his personal kingdom and burying bodies in backyards.”

  Dad just let out a grunt and took a sip of his coffee. “You don’t know nothin’ about Southie in those days,” he said.

  I shrugged and turned to Julia. “What he’s not saying is that back then, things weren’t exactly on the up and up. And Dad was—straight as an arrow. Which is why he’s still driving a patrol car instead of sitting behind a desk somewhere.”

  Dad snorted. “Like I want to be behind a desk.” But behind the snort, I could see the pride in his eyes. Dad and I don’t get along, but don’t ever mistake that for me not having respect for him. He’s a hero—he’s my hero. But I’ve never quite been able to live up to him, so, at some point, I just stopped trying and went my own way.

  Julia’s eyes were going back and forth between my dad and me, and I could tell the wheels were turning, but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Maybe I’m just out of practice. I don’t make it a habit of wondering what girls are thinking—most of the time that’s the last thing I want to know.

  “Dougal, you take care of the dishes,” Dad said.

  “I’ll help,” Julia chimed in.

  “Oh, no! He’s not getting out of it! You just sit and enjoy your coffee.”

  I took her plate, and she said, “Thank you, Dougal,” with a wry expression on her face.

  I gave Dad a sharp look. “You’ll pay for that, Dad.”

  The old bastard just burst into a loud belly laugh.

  So I started washing the dishes, as my dad asked, “So you’re at Harvard? What are you studying?”

  “International business,” she said.

  Damn.

  “And when do you graduate? Do you have plans after?” My dad wasn’t exactly being subtle as he pumped her for information. I filled up the sink as they talked and began washing suds over the dishes.

  “Well,” she said, “I’ve applied to graduate school … at the Fletcher School, and Georgetown. I’m probably going to end up going into the Foreign Service. That’s what my dad wants anyway.”

  “Must have been fascinating, growing up in a bunch of different countries,” Dad said.

  She didn’t answer right away, and I couldn’t see her expression. I found myself straining to hear her next words.

  “I don’t know about all that,” she said. Her voice sounded sad. “It’s not a normal life, moving to a new country every three years. Kind of lonely sometimes. You leave behind everyone you know and start over, new schools and new teachers. I don’t know if I’ll ever get married, but if I did … not sure it’s the right life for kids. What about you? You grew up here?”

  I could understand that. Even though I lived in Roxbury now and spent most of my free time in Somerville mixed up in the music scene, I felt grounded when I was in Southie. I knew every block, every park. I knew the neighbors and where they came from, and in most cases, I knew their parents and grandparents.

  My dad answered her question by launching into a story of growing up in Southie, trying to stay clear of the gangs. I knew this was going to take a while. The old man had a knack for story telling and tended to stretch the truth just a little to get some laughs.

  I discreetly turned and watched Julia’s reactions. She looked more relaxed than I’d ever seen her, curled up in her chair, elbow on the table, chin resting in her hand. She had a broad smile, which was remarkable, and her blue-green eyes were wide as my dad waved his hands around, trying to describe the antics of one of the gangs that had terrorized the neighborhood in the 1970s. At one point, she threw her head back in a full-throated laugh, her whole body shaking.

  Watching her like that, I thought she just might be one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.

  Not because of physical beauty, though she had plenty of that. It was in her bearing and in her eyes. This was no pill-popping, cocktail drinking college girl who’d never experienced anything in her life. Somewhere along the line, she’d been through something. There was grief and loneliness behind those eyes. And strength like I don’t think I’d ever seen before.

  I didn’t realize I was staring. But at one point, Dad paused in his story at the part where he was climbing in the back windows of South Boston High School, and looked at me. Then she looked at me and met my eyes, and I took a sharp breath. I realized I’d been standing there at least two or three minutes, a dripping dish in my hand, just watching her.

  Stumbling over my words, I said, “Don’t stop, Dad,” and went back to washing dishes like nothing had happened. I’m not the blushing beauty type, but I could feel a little bit of heat on the back of my neck, probably from their eyes bor
ing through me like laser beams.

  This was getting way too cozy, so as I finished drying the last dish, I interrupted Dad’s story to ask Julia, “So how do you want to work this thing about the car?”

  Dad gave me a seriously annoyed look, as if to say, ‘Where the hell did you learn your manners.’

  She shrugged. “Um … go get an estimate and let me know how much it is? I can give you a ride back over there when I go.”

  I nodded. “All right.”

  “How bad’s the damage?” my dad asked.

  “Not bad,” I said, “just dented,” right at the same time she said, “I think it’s probably totaled. Frame’s bent.”

  Now she was a car expert, too? What I knew about cars you could fit in the change pocket in my wallet.

  “That’s bad,” my dad said.

  “We’ll find out,” I said.

  “How much did you pay for the car?” Dad asked.

  “A thousand.”

  One thousand dollars. Which, after studio and recording fees, and the rent, and eating, and public transportation, had taken six months of cooking for me to save. Morbid Obesity wasn’t exactly making the charts, and right now we were very much in the red.

  She grimaced. “It’ll cost a lot more than that to fix it, if I’m right. Might be best to just buy you a new one.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t exactly have the money to buy a new car.”

  “I told you I’d take care of it. It’s my fault.”

  “Maybe we should get going, then,” I said.

  She nodded, her face suddenly looking sad again. I didn’t get it. Most of the time when I was here, I wanted nothing more than to run away. But here she was, suddenly making herself at home. Was her ‘I don’t get involved’ all some kind of game, and she was one of those clingy girls who would be calling and texting me in the middle of the damn night?

  “You promised,” Sean said, not even looking up from his book.

  “So I did,” she responded to him. “Let’s go check out that piano.”

  She stood, and my eyes followed every inch of her as she did so, from the curve of her butt, her breasts, to the slight hollow in the base of her neck. I’d had my share of beautiful girls. But Julia was something different.

  So, somehow the three of us, my dad, brother and I, ended up following her into our living room as if we were the guests.

  She approached the piano with extreme caution, her body turned just slightly away from it. “This is a beautiful piano,” she said.

  My dad said, “It’s my wife’s … it belonged to her grandmother.”

  “Does she play often?”

  “Not anymore,” dad replied, sadness in his voice. God, that killed me. The way he acted—like it was his fault she’d left. I’d never understand that. But both of my parents were a mystery to me. How they fell in love, how they split up, and especially how they manage to stand each other now, given what happened.

  She sat down and lifted the fallboard gently, then touched the keys, somehow reverently and expertly at the same time. She positioned her hands expertly. “I’m badly out of practice. I don’t get many opportunities to play these days.”

  Then she started playing, gently, and I recognized the piece instantly. It was the sad, almost menacing beginning of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20. Not an easy piece to play, under any circumstances, much less if you were badly out of practice. She was being almost falsely modest, because her execution was perfect. Better than perfect, it was haunting. And not the least of which was because my mother had once played it in this very room. I looked over at Sean, half expecting to see him blow up.

  He was sitting on the couch, nose stuck in his textbook. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t listening. In fact, this was normal behavior for him when faced with something overwhelming. He just scanned the words, down one column, then the next, then the next, and then he flipped the page.

  My dad, though … he stood in the doorway, leaning against it, and his eyes were watering. He saw me look at him, and an almost angry expression came over his face. He blinked his eyes, then roughly wiped them and looked away from me.

  Of course, I knew why he gave me that look.

  I felt like I was holding my breath as she played. That piano hadn’t been played in six years, and it would have been six more if Sean hadn’t insisted on it. The music was overwhelming. When I was little—really small—my mother used to play all the time. With each year that went by, she looked older, sadder, more exhausted. And then one day she just stopped. And then she was gone. Now, she made appearances for some holidays, and that was it.

  Screw it. Time for some new memories.

  I walked over and slid onto the piano bench next to Julia and said quietly, “Know any four-hand pieces?”

  She didn’t hesitate. Without a smooth transition, she began the opening bars of Sonata for Piano, Four-Hands in D Major, K.381. It was if she’d taken my question as a personal challenge. It’s a beautiful piece, and also one that my mother taught me to play. I positioned my hands and joined in at the next measure. It starts out slow, measured, thoughtful, but by the third movement it’s a challenge for even two people to play. And I hadn’t heard it in years, much less played it. That’s okay—it didn’t have to be perfect. This was for fun. So we played, our hands moving together on the keyboard.

  I glanced over at her at one point, and she was smiling, a small, secret sort of smile. Her hair was coming loose from the careless bun she’d put it in, a few stray strands covering the right side of her face. They framed her eyes. I swallowed, looked back down at the keyboard. And the funny thing was, I was smiling too. I’m not big on smiling. I’m not big on happiness, to be honest. This was both uncomfortable and strange territory.

  But, before you think I’ve changed and become some preppy piano player in a monkey suit and bow tie, I was also very, very aware of her thigh in those black jeans, brushing against mine. It was hot, and let me tell you, I’ve never once in my life been aroused while playing the piano. That could be wicked embarrassing.

  We got to the third movement, with its aggressive and very fast fingering, and we both started to fall apart. She laughed and tried to get back on track, and I did the same. But that didn’t work so well, because now we were off kilter, ragged, and it sounded awful.

  “Oh, dear God,” she muttered, and that was all it took. I broke out into loud laughter, and so did she, and we fell together, for just an instant, laughing. She put an arm around me, for maybe a second, max, and then yanked it back.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ve got to try that again sometime.”

  “It’s a deal,” she replied, a wide grin on her face.

  “Tell you what … we’ve got a piano back at the studio. Want to stop by tonight?”

  She blinked her eyes, and a vulnerable, exposed expression flitted across her face. Her smile died, but she tried to bring it back, only it was that fake smile she sometimes got on her face, and then she said, “I can’t … um … I’ve got a date.”

  Aw, crap. Of course she has a date. She’s a beautiful, smart as hell girl—she’s probably out every weekend.

  On second thought—somehow I didn’t think so. I was sure she could if she wanted to. But something about her was remote, lonely, isolated. And for just a few minutes, while we played side by side, it felt like I’d broken through.

  “I’d love to do it some other time,” she said, sounding extremely uncomfortable. “Really, I would. I just … this was …”

  “Don’t worry about it!” I said, too fast. “Have fun on your date.”

  I didn’t want to say that. In fact, I wanted to find the guy and pound his face into the Southie pavement. Or the cobblestones or whatever the hell the Barnies have over at Harvard. But I couldn’t say any of that. She wasn’t mine … we weren’t even really friends. What the hell was wrong with me?

  My dad cleared his throat behind us. Both of us spun around, quickly. Jesus. I’d forgotten anyone else was in the r
oom.

  “That was beautiful,” he said. His voice cracked, “Thank you. That piano … it needed someone to play it. No one plays it any more. It was wonderful.”

  Julia laughed, a little uncomfortable. “The end, not so much.”

  Dad smirked. “Can’t win everything.”

  She looked at me, her fast downcast. “We should get going.”

  I nodded, strangely reluctant. “All right.”

  Dad looked off to the side for just a moment, as if he were debating something. Then he looked back at her. “Listen … next Saturday we’re having a little birthday party of sorts for Sean. I’d like you to come, Julia.”

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes wide. “I …”

  “Not taking no for an answer.”

  Her eyes darted to me and back to Dad. “I’d feel like I was imposing.”

  “I’m cooking,” my dad said. “You said you don’t get home cooked meals.”

  “Well …” She started to say, her defenses down.

  That’s when Sean chimed in. “Please?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Okay. I’d love to.”

  So we stood, and she ran off to use the restroom before we left. I started to head upstairs to change, but my dad grabbed my arm.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  “Listen … be nice to her. All right? She’s a good kid, and … I think she’s been through a world of hurt, somewhere along the line.”

  I took a breath. “Is that the best you can think of me?”

  He shrugged. “I never know what to expect of you, Dougal. Just … try not to hurt that girl.”

  I swallowed. “I won’t,” I said.

  He gave me a nod, his expression serious, and then let go of my arm.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  What happened to you? (Julia)

  The ride back to Somerville was tense and awkward. Something, I don’t know what—maybe the humidity or the wind direction or butterflies in China—had put Crank into a mood again. He wasn’t exactly hostile, but he wasn’t friendly either. He sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window, a frown on his face.