Read Online Above The Thunder by Renee Manfredi - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Renee Manfredi
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everything Jack needed, giving into temptation was, if not wrong, then wasteful, like going into a grocery store and heaping a cart with things he wouldn’t use. But who didn’t need this comfort? Who didn’t want to believe there was plenty of everything in the world?
THREE
T HE C HILD OF F AITH I S M AGIC
A nna awoke before her alarm, set for six, and got up to make coffee. In the month since her birthday she hadn’t slept well or long enough. It was easier to stop fighting it, to simply get up and start her day at whatever hour she opened her eyes.
It was four-thirty now, well before even the summer dawn, plenty of time to get in a few hours of practice. The orchestra rehearsal was tomorrow, with the first performance of the summer in two weeks. Anna still hadn’t mastered the Rachmaninoff, the elusive fifth, which seemed as chaotic to her as any music ever written: the piece simply refused to be herded, the notes like small animals darting in and out of the corner of her brain, sliding down her arms into her hands before screeching off again, whippet-like eighth notes skittering away in wild terror.
Just short of an hour, she put her cello down and wandered to the window. Mike’s car was outside, a good sign since, this early, it probably meant he’d parked it there last night. Anna assumed he’d been coming home at decent hours, since Anna hadn’t had any late night calls from Greta in a week or so. She skimmed the newspaper, washed the dishes from the night before, glanced over some student quizzes on bacterial infections, and mopped the kitchen floor. At eight o’clock, when she finally picked up her cello again, the phone rang.
“It’s me,” Greta said.
“How’s tricks? What’s the news of the hour?” Anna looked at thepurple fingerprints on the sheet music, a casualty of the Wright’s stain used for medical slides that never seemed to completely wash off. She checked her cello to make sure none of it had marred the wood. Anna prized this cello, a gift from Hugh when she started playing again, right around the time she turned forty. It was Austrian, and its tone was lovely and somber and full, the golden whole notes of a lake loon.
“Are you terribly busy?” Greta said.
“I’m just sitting here about to spread my legs for Sergei, the sullen S.O.B.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Rachmaninoff. I’m about to start practicing.”
“Oh. Okay, then. I’ll let you get back to it.”
“No, wait. I’m also desperate for distraction. What’s up?”
“Mike needs to go into the office for a few hours, and I need to get to my rehearsal. My car is in the shop again.”
Greta’s group, the No-Tones, was opening the Boston symphony’s summer season. Anna couldn’t remember when the first performance was. “Can I borrow your car?”
“Sure. If you have it back by two.” Anna had selected one of her students to oversee the AIDS patients’ extra group time, and she had an appointment with the student and Nick Mosites later in the day. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll drive you into the city, then come pick you up later. I have to be at the hospital for a meeting anyway.”
“Are you sure?” Greta asked.
Anna said that she was.
Greta’s rehearsals were in Cambridge, in an old warehouse near Harvard Square. There were probably twenty or thirty children, Anna guessed, ranging from ages six to ten. She sat in one of the folding chairs—might as well stay for part of the rehearsal—with the parents off to the side, some of whom were wearing earplugs. When the music started she understood why: the bass was turned all the way up so the children could feel the vibrations. This was for rehearsal only; during the actual performance, Greta told her, the bass would be equalized and the children would rely on counting instead of the rhythm.
“Okay, parents,” Greta called across the room. “This is the first dressrehearsal, so I hope by now everyone has purchased a costume for his or her child.
THREE
T HE C HILD OF F AITH I S M AGIC
A nna awoke before her alarm, set for six, and got up to make coffee. In the month since her birthday she hadn’t slept well or long enough. It was easier to stop fighting it, to simply get up and start her day at whatever hour she opened her eyes.
It was four-thirty now, well before even the summer dawn, plenty of time to get in a few hours of practice. The orchestra rehearsal was tomorrow, with the first performance of the summer in two weeks. Anna still hadn’t mastered the Rachmaninoff, the elusive fifth, which seemed as chaotic to her as any music ever written: the piece simply refused to be herded, the notes like small animals darting in and out of the corner of her brain, sliding down her arms into her hands before screeching off again, whippet-like eighth notes skittering away in wild terror.
Just short of an hour, she put her cello down and wandered to the window. Mike’s car was outside, a good sign since, this early, it probably meant he’d parked it there last night. Anna assumed he’d been coming home at decent hours, since Anna hadn’t had any late night calls from Greta in a week or so. She skimmed the newspaper, washed the dishes from the night before, glanced over some student quizzes on bacterial infections, and mopped the kitchen floor. At eight o’clock, when she finally picked up her cello again, the phone rang.
“It’s me,” Greta said.
“How’s tricks? What’s the news of the hour?” Anna looked at thepurple fingerprints on the sheet music, a casualty of the Wright’s stain used for medical slides that never seemed to completely wash off. She checked her cello to make sure none of it had marred the wood. Anna prized this cello, a gift from Hugh when she started playing again, right around the time she turned forty. It was Austrian, and its tone was lovely and somber and full, the golden whole notes of a lake loon.
“Are you terribly busy?” Greta said.
“I’m just sitting here about to spread my legs for Sergei, the sullen S.O.B.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Rachmaninoff. I’m about to start practicing.”
“Oh. Okay, then. I’ll let you get back to it.”
“No, wait. I’m also desperate for distraction. What’s up?”
“Mike needs to go into the office for a few hours, and I need to get to my rehearsal. My car is in the shop again.”
Greta’s group, the No-Tones, was opening the Boston symphony’s summer season. Anna couldn’t remember when the first performance was. “Can I borrow your car?”
“Sure. If you have it back by two.” Anna had selected one of her students to oversee the AIDS patients’ extra group time, and she had an appointment with the student and Nick Mosites later in the day. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll drive you into the city, then come pick you up later. I have to be at the hospital for a meeting anyway.”
“Are you sure?” Greta asked.
Anna said that she was.
Greta’s rehearsals were in Cambridge, in an old warehouse near Harvard Square. There were probably twenty or thirty children, Anna guessed, ranging from ages six to ten. She sat in one of the folding chairs—might as well stay for part of the rehearsal—with the parents off to the side, some of whom were wearing earplugs. When the music started she understood why: the bass was turned all the way up so the children could feel the vibrations. This was for rehearsal only; during the actual performance, Greta told her, the bass would be equalized and the children would rely on counting instead of the rhythm.
“Okay, parents,” Greta called across the room. “This is the first dressrehearsal, so I hope by now everyone has purchased a costume for his or her child.
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