The Vanishing Violinist Read online

  “It’s good of you to include us. What can I bring?” In Oliver, such a picnic was sure to be a “pitch-in.”

  “Not a thing. We’ll see you there!” And Polly was gone.

  They took her at her word and set out about half past three with nothing but the casual clothes on their backs and an old photo album that Joan tucked into the car at the last minute, in case Bruce turned out to be interested in seeing Rebecca as a small child.

  “Mom, she’ll kill you for that,” said Andrew, who had showed up in time to go along.

  “She won’t know unless Bruce tells her. And if he tells her, it’ll be because he wanted to see them. She’ll like that.” Seeing a glance that seemed to say women pass from Andrew to Fred, Joan smiled to herself. Fred hadn’t needed to worry about Andrew.

  Indianapolis welcomed them on a large sign planted between fields of soybeans and dried cornstalks—Marion County’s Unigov system produced strange contrasts between the official city limits and the beginnings of anything even remotely suggesting a city. Soon, though, the tallest downtown buildings came into view, and then they were following the directions Joan had jotted down, through a section of rundown older houses, some of which were boarded up, to a near-northside neighborhood of restored Victorian elegance.

  Multicolored balloons floating over the wrought-iron railing marked the house they wanted, a two-story brick building with curved stone porches and tall windows. Fred parked his Chevy on the street a short way down the block. This little get-together was turning out to be considerably larger than Polly Osborne had made it sound. Joan checked the back of her hair for stragglers. Fred patted her knee and kissed her.

  “You look lovely,” he said. “Sexiest mother-in-law for miles around. Come on, let’s go meet the man.”

  Andrew hopped out of the back and held Joan’s door for her. They followed another family up the driveway and around the house toward the people in animated conversation in the backyard.

  Why didn’t I ask Rebecca what he looked like? Joan worried silently. She suddenly felt shy.

  A young man broke away from the crowd and came toward them. Taller and thinner than Fred, he sprouted a shock of hair as straight and red as Rebecca’s was dark and curly, and his eyes were the same startling blue as Fred’s. A few freckles dusted his fair skin, and a rough red mark below his left jaw labeled him a violinist. He wore jeans, an Oberlin T-shirt, and a wide smile.

  “You must be Andrew,” he said. “And you’re Rebecca’s mother.”

  “Bruce?” Joan said, and held out her hand. “I’m so happy to meet you.” Rebecca must have shown him our pictures, she thought. She introduced him to Fred and they shook hands all around.

  “How did you know us?” Andrew asked.

  “Easy.” Bruce grinned. “Rebecca told me to look for her face on a guy.”

  It’s true, Joan thought. Both Rebecca and Andrew are cut from the same pattern as their father. Bruce will certainly widen the gene pool. As would Fred, if I could face going back to night feedings and colic. If he could. Except that for him it wouldn’t be going back. Will mine be enough for him? Could I live through it all over again? Women past forty do have babies. But I’d be over sixty by the time that child was Andrew’s age. And Fred would be past retirement.

  She jerked her attention back to the moment.

  “I’ve been living that down for years,” Andrew was saying. “Everyone expected me to be just like my dad and sister.”

  “But you’re not?” Bruce’s eyebrows tilted upward.

  “Nope. It’s better now, though. Nobody in Oliver does that to me.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t, either. One Rebecca is enough!” The warmth of his laugh reassured Joan, who wanted this young man to be good to her daughter.

  They had stopped a little distance from the rest of the picnic crowd, but now a petite blonde in a denim skirt had left the others and was bearing down on them. Up close, her skin betrayed her as considerably older than Joan.

  “I’m Polly—are you Joan?”

  Bruce stepped forward to do the honors. “Polly Osborne, Joan and Andrew Spencer and Fred Lundquist.”

  “Thank you so much for having us,” Joan said.

  Polly’s handshake was quick and firm. Her eyes sparkled, and her face and bearing conveyed a boundless energy.

  “It’s our pleasure. Bruce is a fine young man. I know you’re just getting acquainted, but do come join the others. The steaks are on the grill.”

  “Steaks!” Andrew said. “Sounds great!”

  Joan beamed thought waves at him. Andrew, if you say we never eat like that at home, I’ll throttle you.

  “I like a man with a healthy appetite,” Polly said. “Come on, Andrew.” Putting her arm through his, she led him toward the crowd. Bruce crooked his elbow for Joan, and Fred followed in their wake.

  Introductions to the other competitors followed thick and fast and left no question about the international nature of the competition. After exchanging greeting with violinists from Montreal, Budapest, and Osaka, Joan risked a few words of German with Uwe Frech, a cheerful, tall, blond violinist from Stuttgart, and was gratified when he praised her accent. His own soft consonants sounded like her Grandpa Zimmerman, who had brought his bride from the Black Forest to southern Indiana.

  “Do I say Hals- und Beinbruch to a violinist?” she asked.

  “No.” He grinned. “I think only actors worry about breaking their necks and legs. Violinists worry that we will break something more important, like a finger.”

  Bruce introduced them to Violet Schmalz, a neatly dressed woman on the dumpy side who was carrying a tray of cantaloupe and watermelon slices from her house out to the table, and to Dr. Bob Osborne, Polly’s husband, a handsome, graying man in a denim apron who waved a friendly fork in lieu of shaking hands. After accepting thick steaks from Bob and filling their plates from the ample buffet table, they sat together at one of half a dozen large redwood tables scattered on the lawn.

  “Dr. Osborne’s in family practice,” Bruce said, “like my dad. At first I thought that was a coincidence, but they put Nate Lloyd and his mom with the Inmans, the third family that’s hosting this picnic. They live a couple of houses down that way.” He pointed across the street. “Nate says Mrs. Lloyd’s a Realtor, like Gail Inman, so maybe they do it on purpose.”

  “Lloyds of London?” Andrew asked with a grin, and picked up a forkful of food.

  “No, Louisville.” Bruce grinned back. “Nate and I may be the only Midwesterners, but there are quite a few other Americans in the competition, and more than a few of the international competitors are already studying or working in the U.S.”

  “Did many of the violinists bring their folks along?” Joan asked. She wondered whether Bruce’s parents would come, but she didn’t want to pry.

  “Some did. There’s a Korean family, I know, and I think Hannah Weiss’s dad will be here—she’s from Israel.”

  “Will they stay with the host families?” Joan said, and took a bite of Bob Osborne’s perfect steak.

  “If they want to. Vivienne Rambeau says her parents will come down from Montreal if she survives to the semifinals, so they gave her a family that speaks French and had room for her parents, too.”

  “Sounds as if they’d done everything they could to make you all feel at home.”

  “They really have. It’s not like the Tchaikovsky in Moscow. We didn’t have families there, or much of any help in finding our way around. It’s plenty stressful in your own country, and even worse if you have a language barrier to boot, as most of us did there. It was especially bad in Moscow because they kept changing things suddenly. There’s enough tension without that kind of worry.”

  “How did you do there?”

  “I came in fifth. An also-ran.”

  Rebecca had said he was good, but it hadn’t sunk in that he might be that good. The Tchaikovsky was a world-class competition. “You’re too modest.”

  He shrugged. “First
or even second will help your career, but nobody cares or even knows who’s that far down the list.”

  “I’m impressed,” Fred said. “Why would you come to this one after that?”

  “Are you kidding? The prizes are great, and the competition is at least as stiff. We have medalists here from several of the big competitions.” He pointed to the Hungarian they’d met earlier. “Arpad over there was third at the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, and he thinks competing here is worth the risk of not winning this time.”

  “What happened, Bruce? You were going to save a seat for me.”

  Joan looked up and saw a tall, golden-skinned young woman with a perfect figure and warm brown hair waving down her back to just above her skimpy shorts. Only the violinist’s callus beneath her jaw marred her beauty. She played the fingers of one hand along the back of Bruce’s neck while balancing her plate and drink dangerously close to Joan’s left shoulder. Her voice had sounded wounded, but the smile on her lips and in her huge brown eyes suggested an altogether different emotion.

  “Camila!” Bruce scrambled to his feet. Fred and Andrew followed suit. “Please, join us. I want you to meet some special guests. Joan and Andrew Spencer, Fred Lundquist, meet Camila Pereira. Camila’s from Brazil.”

  At Bruce’s right, Joan thought for a moment that Camila expected her to move over and make room beside him. But Camila nodded pleasantly enough and took the empty seat beyond Andrew, who was on Bruce’s left.

  “I didn’t see you at the governor’s reception,” she said, turning those liquid eyes on Andrew.

  “Where?” he asked, tearing his gaze from her formfitting top.

  “Andrew’s not in the competition,” Bruce told her.

  “No wonder,” she said to Andrew. “I didn’t see how I could have failed to notice you.” She laid her hand on his, and Andrew blushed through the remains of his summer tan.

  “The governor had a reception for all the violinists this morning,” Bruce explained. “They make a big fuss about us here.”

  “It’s a good thing I didn’t try to put you up,” Joan said, looking around. “It wouldn’t have compared to this.” The lawn, the food, the matched lawn tables and chairs, and the real china and silver for a crowd this size overwhelmed her.

  “Come to Heeoh, and we will take you to the beach.” Camila’s smile was aimed at the men.

  “Where?” Andrew said again. It was only a short step up from “uh.”

  “Rio de Janeiro. A very beautiful city.”

  “Heeoh,” he imitated. “I love the way you say it.”

  He’s a gone gosling, Joan thought, but she was more concerned about Bruce, who still hadn’t really told this fascinating creature who they were.

  “Tell me, Bruce,” she said. “How did you two meet?”

  “At the reception, I guess,” he said. “And Camila’s staying here, with the Schmalzes. The Osbornes live next door there.” He indicated a tree-shaded yard. “So that makes us neighbors.” He smiled at Camila, and got a flash of white teeth in return.

  “That must be convenient,” Joan said. She didn’t want to grill him, but she felt obliged to stake her daughter’s claim in the face of this marauder. “But I meant how did you meet Rebecca?”

  Fred smiled, but didn’t say anything.

  He knows exactly what I’m doing, she thought, but she didn’t care.

  “I went into the bank a time or two to cash a check, and there she was,” Bruce said. “I quit using the bank machine after that.”

  “Who is this Rebecca?” Camila asked him.

  “My girl in New York. She’s not here this week, but these folks are her family.”

  “Is she very beautiful? Do you have a picture of her?”

  “I wish I did. She looks a lot like Andrew.”

  “There’s your cue, Mom,” Andrew said. “Mom brought along a whole photo album, Bruce. Baby pictures and all. You want me to go get them?”

  “Do I!” The spark in Bruce’s eyes left little doubt about his affection for Rebecca, even if he hadn’t mentioned marriage in Camila’s presence.

  Fred tossed Andrew the car keys.

  “I’ll come with you, Andrew,” Camila said. “I want to see this girl who looks like you.” She clung to his arm as they threaded their way between the tables.

  Joan rolled her eyes at Fred, but she couldn’t tell Bruce what she was thinking. “This is quite a place, isn’t it?” she said, instead. “Who did you say lived here?”

  “The Schmalzes,” Bruce said. “Camila’s host family. I don’t know much about them, but they’ve been good to her. And here come Gail Inman and Nate and Cynthia Lloyd. I think I told you—the Inmans are hosting this picnic with the Schmalzes and the Osbornes.” He waved to a young man accompanied by two women old enough to be his mother. “Nate! Over here! We have room!”

  They brought their food over. Joan’s head was swimming with names by now, but she trusted there wouldn’t be a quiz. Still, she practiced them. Nate Lloyd was the violinist from Louisville. Gail Inman and Cynthia Lloyd had to be the two Realtors Bruce had mentioned earlier. Both were attractive middle-aged women who obviously spent more time on makeup than Joan did. Gail had salt-and-pepper hair, dimples, and a certain softness around the middle. Cynthia resembled her son; slender, dark, and gangly, Nate looked more than a little like the drawings Joan had seen of Paganini. He tossed his black hair as Paganini might have done, often enough to suggest a nervous mannerism. Hardly surprising, with the competition so close. The real wonder was that the other violinists they’d met so far seemed relatively relaxed.

  “This is Joan Spencer, who came up from Oliver,” Bruce told them.

  “Just call me Cindy,” Cynthia Lloyd told her.

  “Oliver’s a lovely little college town,” Gail Inman said. “I have a new listing down there. Do you know the old Dayhuff house? It’s on Prospect, near the park.”

  Joan had noticed a real estate sign on Prospect, on her walk to work. “Is that a brick house, a lot like this one, only smaller?”

  “Yes. The old folks died, and the children live up here.”

  “That’s right. Some of my people at the Oliver Senior Citizens’ Center were speaking of them only the other day.” Actually, the old people had been complaining at how seldom the Dayhuff children had visited their elderly parents, especially considering how close Oliver was to Indianapolis, and how often the senior Dayhuffs had baby-sat their grandchildren while they were still able.

  “I’m about to marry Joan’s daughter, Rebecca,” Bruce said. “And this is Fred Lundquist, who’s about to marry Joan.”

  Joan had wondered whether they’d pussyfoot about what Bruce should call her before settling on some awkward name, but maybe world-class violinists were comfortable first-naming everyone. At least he didn’t pussyfoot about Rebecca this time.

  “Congratulations,” Gail said.

  “Thank you,” Fred said. “I’m a lucky fellow.” He reached over and gave Joan a sideways hug.

  “So am I,” Bruce said warmly. “Now if my luck can just hold for a week or two, I’ll clobber all these other fiddlers first.” He grinned at Nate. “I’d like to say present company excepted, but I can’t very well, can I?”

  “Don’t expect me to lie down and play dead for you,” Nate said with the beginnings of a twinkle.

  “Nathan’s an exceptional violinist,” Cindy Lloyd told them all as if he weren’t there.

  “Don’t jinx me, Mom,” he said. He was smiling, but the twinkle was gone, and he tossed his head again.

  “Don’t be silly, Nathan. I knew it when you first picked up that little violin.” She turned to Joan. “When Nathan was born I took one look at those long fingers, and I knew he’d either be a surgeon or play the violin. Can you believe it, he was only three when we got him a darling little sixteenth-size instrument.”

  Nate rolled his eyes and mimed playing a miniature violin with his thumbs and forefingers. The muscles at the corners of his jaws tensed.
/>   “You mean they wouldn’t trust you with a scalpel?” Fred said, and Nate laughed.

  “He never looked back, did you, son?” his mother said. “He made his debut with the Louisville Orchestra when he was only thirteen, and he’s gone on to bigger and better things every year since. He’ll win here, too.”

  “Mother!”

  Joan thought Nate Lloyd’s face would have stopped the average mother in her tracks, but it didn’t faze Cindy, if she even saw it.

  “When they hear you play, they’ll know I’m not exaggerating.”

  Andrew had returned to the table with the photo album. He was alone; Camila must have found someone else.

  They excused themselves, and thanked Gail Inman for the picnic.

  “It’s our pleasure,” Gail said, but her dimples were gone. Following her gaze, Joan saw Camila near the driveway with her arm around a middle-aged man, who was lifting tendrils of hair from her face. Gail strode off toward the driveway.

  Watch it, girl, Joan thought. This lady’s not going to give up her man without a fight.

  With Andrew still carrying the photo album, they circled around the other families.

  “Where’s a good place to look at this thing?” Joan asked Bruce. “I’d feel awkward about going into the house.”

  “I’m sure it’s okay,” he said. “The Schmalzes wouldn’t mind. I don’t see them right now, but they want us to make ourselves at home.”

  “You think they mean indoors?”

  “I’m sure they do. These three families are really close. They share house keys and run in and out of each other’s houses all the time. I’ve been doing it, too.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Joan said.

  They were approaching the stone porch that curved around the back of the house when a Frisbee sailed out the back door and narrowly missed Joan’s left ear. Andrew dropped the album on the ground and lunged for it.

  “Got it!” He flipped it back toward what looked like leaded glass windows.

  Joan cringed, but instead of the breaking glass she was dreading, she heard laughter. She looked up in time to see Uwe Frech, the German violinist she’d met earlier, run out the door and dive for the red disk. He held it up, even while his body continued to slide toward a stone planter at the top of the porch steps.