Read Online The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee - Free Book Online Page B

a spade? Dowbiggin is being ridiculous about it.”
    “Don’t be such a grump,” Trudy says. “Do your duty.”
    “I guess so,” he says. “Must fight the good fight, I suppose.” He thinks the organization is being handled in an absurd fashion.
    “Is there one for cricketers?” someone asks, as if to prove his point.
    “Why not? ” somebody else says. “You can make up one however you want.”
    “I hardly think that’s true,” Manley says. “But I’m joining one that’s training out here on the weekends, on the club grounds. Policemen, I think, although I’d think they’d be rather busy if there was an attack.”
    “Aren’t you too old, Manley? ” Trudy asks. “Old and decrepit? ”
    “That’s the wonderful thing, Trudy,” he says, with a forced smile.
    “You can’t fire a Volunteer. And at any rate, the one here at the club is convenient.”
    “I’m sending Melody to America,” Victor Chen says suddenly. “I don’t want her to be in any danger.”
    Melody smiles uneasily, doesn’t say anything.
    “The government is preparing,” says Jamie Biggs. “They are storing food in warehouses in Tin Hau and securing British property.”
    “Like the Crown Collection? ” Victor asks. “What are they going to do about that? That’s part of English heritage.”
    “I’m sure all the arrangements have been made already,” says Biggs.
    “The food will go bad before anyone gets it,” says another man.
    “Cynic,” says Trudy.
    She lifts up gracefully and goes toward the ocean. All this talk of war bores her. She thinks it will never happen. They all watch her, rapt, as she plunges into the sea and comes up sleek and dripping—her slim body a vertical rebuke to the flatness of the horizon between the sky and sea. She walks up and shakes her wet hair at Will. Drops of water fall and sparkle. Then someone asks where the tennis rackets are. The spell is broken.
    Over dinner, Trudy declares that she is going to be in charge of uniforms for the Volunteers. “And Will will be the fit model,” she says. “Because he’s a perfect male specimen.”
    John Thorpe, who heads up the American office of a large pharmaceutical company, looks doubtful. “Rather small and ugly, isn’t he? ” he says, although this is more a description of himself and not at all of Will.
    “Will! ” Trudy cries. “You’ve been insulted! Defend your honor! ”
    “I’ve better things to defend,” he says. And the table falls silent. He is always saying the wrong thing, popping the gaiety. “Er, sorry,” he says. But they are already on to the next thing.
    Trudy is describing the tailor who is going to make the uniforms.
    “He’s been our family tailor for ages and he can whip out a copy of a Paris dress in two days, one if you beg! ”
    “What’s his name? ”
    “Haven’t the slightest,” she says easily. “He’s The Tailor. But I know where the shop is, or my driver does, rather, and we’re the best of friends. Do you fellows prefer orange or a very bright pink as colors? ”
    They decide on olive green with orange stripes (“So boring,” the women sigh and orange is given as a concession) and Trudy asks who is to measure the men.
    They volunteer her.
    She accepts (“Isn’t there something about dressing left? ” she asks innocently), then says Will will measure in her stead. Trudy’s frivolity, Will has noticed, has boundaries.

    Sophie Biggs is trying to get everyone interested in moonlight picnics. “They’re ever so much fun,” she says. “We take a steamboat out, with rowboats, and when we reach the islands we row everyone ashore with the provisions and a guitar or an accordion or something.” Sophie is a large girl and Will wonders if she is a secret eater because she eats tiny portions when she is out. Right now, she is poking her spoon around the vichyssoise.
    Trudy sighs. “It sounds like so much labor,” she says. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to have a picnic at Repulse