Pickup Notes by Jane Lebak

Author:Jane Lebak [Lebak, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Philangelus Press
Published: 2016-07-04T22:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

We hunched against the cold while walking to the subway.

“Oh, not that this is a bad omen or anything.” Shreya handed me a CD wrapped in a plastic bag. “Enjoy.”

In his best school-teacher voice, Harrison said, “You have to bring enough to share.”

I peeked to confirm my guess. “It’s a garage band she told me about.”

Shreya’s laugh sounded strained.

“No one we’re going to cover?”

“Doubtful,” said Shreya.

She took the subway to Queens. Josh, Harrison and I took the R downtown, with Harrison getting off in lower Manhattan. As the doors closed, I straightened. “Oh, crap! I forgot to give him my viola!”

Josh’s eyes stood out in relief against the windblown red of his cheeks. “I’ll keep it tonight.”

Call me paranoid, but the last couple of days, I thought things had been moved. Usually if Viv had been through, my place was wrecked, but lately it was subtle. A drawer fully shut. The clothes huddled together on the closet bar.

“Thanks.” My shoulders slumped. “I hate having to ask.”

“I carried it for you in grammar school.” He shrugged. “Not a p-problem.”

Our voices varied in volume as the train slowed, sped up, stopped at a station. It was a New Yorker technique developed the day you realized you rubbed shoulders with millions, to be heard by each other but not everyone else.

I clenched the handle. I should ask about what he’d said, about women like me not being worth his time. A simple “I’m sorry” loomed like a brick wall I couldn’t scale. Instead I said, “I would change my locks, but all hell’s going to break loose if I do.”

He said, “Why would you care? You’d be on the inside.”

I snickered. “I’d need to leave eventually.”

The train stopped in the tunnel between Whitehall and Court Street. I checked my phone for the time. “Why are we sitting here?”

“No clue.”

We lurched forward three feet, and the lights blinked out.

A child shrieked. I turned, but I could see only shadows outlined by the yellow smudge of the tunnel lights.

An announcement: disabled train at the Court Street station.

“Terrific.” It could take half an hour to clear something like that. Longer. My uncle once spent an entire night in a subway car. “I’m going to be late for work.”

The sound of the crying child resolved into words: it’s dark, it’s dark, turn the lights back on. Her mother carried her to the door, but all the cars were unlighted, not just ours.

Josh said, “Ex-cuse me? Does she like mmm-music?”

The mother said, “What we need is a flashlight.”

“I’ve got a ch—cello.”

Josh opened his case. I had my viola set up in fifteen seconds, and I started “London Bridge” in my best impersonation of a first-year student. Beside me, Josh got the cello ready, and he joined me on the repeat.

The girl’s cry subsided to whimpers and sniffles, a shade in the dark. I said to Josh, “Do you remember ‘Freres Jacques’?”

I counted to start. Although we’d played like pros in the studio, while playing kids’ songs in unison we sounded stilted.

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