Read Online The Mozart Season by Virginia Euwer Wolff - Free Book Online Page A

This is terrible.”
    I hunched up on my left elbow and bunched up the pillows. “Do you get nervous when you sing?” I asked her.
    â€œDo I get nervous?” She didn’t say anything for about a minute. “Allegra, I throw up before I go onstage.”
    â€œDeirdre, that’s awful,” I said.
    â€œI know. It is awful. The first thing I find when I’m singing anyplace new is the bathroom. That’s more important than where the stage is or who’s accompanying me or anything else. It’s ghastly.”
    â€œBut once you get started singing it’s all right?”
    â€œYes. It gets all right. I could take a beta blocker, but I don’t like drugs.”
    â€œWhat’s a beta blocker?”
    â€œIt’s a drug. It slows your heart, makes it less excitable. It helps keep you steady. Great for stage fright. Juilliard kids take them all the time. They walk in and play their hearts out. It’s crazy.”
    â€œIt doesn’t sound crazy to me.” I was thinking about the competition, of course. I didn’t know there was a drug for stage fright.
    â€œOh, I know somebody who hallucinated when she took it. Very good flutist. She won a prize and she saw donkeys in the auditorium. I don’t think it’s a very good trade-off.”
    She got up and walked over to the photograph of Einstein as an old man playing the violin. He has that white hair you always see in pictures of him. She hummed around the photographs of Fritz Kreisler, Pablo Casals, and the other musicians on the wall. She walked over to the French doors and looked out. “Your roses are wonderful. Do you know that?”
    â€œYep,” I said. I thought of the dancing man, without any roses. We probably have more than our share.
    She walked back to the chair and sat down. She almost didn’t make any noise when she moved. “What are the big things in your life these days, Allegra?” she said. “Now that school’s out and everything.”
    I moved a little bit and pushed the pillows around and sat up straighter. I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t told anybody in person, except my parents and Bro David, about the competition. I’d told Sarah and Jessica by postcard.
    She hit her forehead with her fist. “Oh—I completely forgot. This guy your mommy and I used to know is coming here. It’s a guy we knew at school. In fact, he’s already here. Teaching at some college. Or university. He’s a biologist. He’s got a son, a violinist. Older than you. I haven’t seen the kid since he was tiny. I heard about him in Aspen, though; he’s supposed to be very good. Somebody who knows somebody who knows him told me. I wrote it all down on an envelope. He’ll probably turn up in your orchestra—what’s it called?”
    â€œThe Portland Youth Orchestra,” I said.
    â€œHe’ll probably turn up here. Do you like playing in it?” she asked.
    â€œSure. I like it a lot.”
    â€œAre you the youngest?”
    â€œNo. There are a couple of really little kids.”
    â€œBut you’re one of the youngest?”
    â€œI guess so. Yep. I am. You know what somebody did once?”
    â€œWhat?” She took a big swig of milk.
    â€œThis guy, he’s a cellist, he had the repeat section memorized, and he didn’t turn the page back, so the girl playing on the outside just went ahead and didn’t play the repeat. It was only in rehearsal, but still.”
    Deirdre laughed, just a little bit. “That’s a very dirty trick, Allegra.”
    â€œI know it. He got in trouble for it.”
    â€œWhat kind of trouble?”
    â€œHe didn’t get to play the whole next concert. Not even rehearsals. He was kicked out for the whole time. Three months.”
    She was laughing again. “Good for him, he deserved it. I get the impression you really love the violin, Allegra. Am I