The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt Read online

  There is, at that moment, a squeal of brakes outside, a sound of scraping metal. Lucas and Minna sit silently.

  McGrew pushes the door open.

  “I think Twig might be here,” he whispers. “What’s funny?” he asks as they burst into laughter. Minna drops her bow and leans, breathless, over her cello.

  “Mozart?” asks McGrew, mystified. He moves quickly into the room to peer at their music. “Mozart’s funny?!”

  TWELVE

  On Wednesday three bad things happen. At school Miss Barbizon praises Minna’s vocabulary story and puts it up on the bulletin board. Minna hates seeing her homework on the bulletin board, her name and thoughts there for everyone to know. Miss Barbizon assigns new words for next week: cachinnate, nettlesome, bogus, sibling, ozone. Furious, Minna silently vows to use them all in one sentence for vengeance.

  “And remember,” cries Miss Barbizon, “a beginning, a middle, and . . .” The dismissal bell drowns out Miss Barbizon.

  After school Minna’s mother meets her at the front door with a letter in her hand. Minna’s heart races. She has almost forgotten mailing the letter to her mother with the signature of Eliza Moon. But it is not that letter. It is something worse: an invitation from Porch to the competition at the concert hall.

  “Why?” asks her mother angrily. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Minna is silent. Her mind whirls with explanations. I forgot. Didn’t I tell you? I did, but you were too busy writing. You didn’t hear. I wasn’t sure of the date. I don’t want you there. At last Minna decides on the truth.

  “I don’t really understand it,” she says simply. “I’m not sure.”

  She waits, and then, to her amazement, her mother smiles.

  “Well, then,” she says.

  Her mother turns and walks inside. Minna follows her. Well then?

  “I can understand that, Min,” says her mother. She sighs a small sigh and looks at Minna. “Do you mind if we’re there, Dad and I? We’d like to hear you. We won’t come if you don’t want us to.”

  Minna takes a breath.

  “I think I would like you to be there,” says Minna, realizing to her great surprise that it is the second truth she has spoken in a few moments to her mother.

  In the afternoon the worst thing happens. Minna has thought about this happening. She has thought about it every day, and when it happens it is just as bad as she could have imagined. Imelda comes to chamber group with a vibrato. Minna’s heart sinks as she listens to Imelda’s elaborate explanation. Imelda speaks in scattered italics.

  “My aunt Fiona had just finished telling me how a gypsy, actually a fortune teller, had once read her palm and told her exactly when she’d meet the love of her life. When she left the fortune teller’s shop she just knew she’d meet him . . .”

  Orson yawns. Lucas shifts a bit in his chair. Porch smiles at Minna.

  “. . . and she did. At that moment, that very moment that she’s telling me the story I just know that my vibrato will come to me if I practice. I practice. And it does!” Imelda beams.

  “Very nice,” says Porch, unconsciously continuing the italics. “One must, however,” he cautions her, “be careful not to let a vibrato mask playing in tune.”

  Good Old Back Porch, thinks Minna.

  “A sapient word,” says Orson. “Wise,” he pronounces to the Mozart on his stand.

  “And speaking of playing in tune,” says Porch, “let’s begin today with scales. C, then F, then G.”

  “Scales!” cries Imelda. “But I’ve got a vibrato!”

  “Give me an A now,” says Porch rather sharply. “Scales first, then some Haydn before we cause Mozart great anguish.”

  “He died, you know, at thirty-five,” states Imelda darkly.

  “And I,” says Porch with a sigh, “know exactly how he felt before it happened.”

  Minna loves scales. When played in tune they are simple and predictable, like facts. Even the slightest bit out of tune they are horrid and uncertain. Playing them, thinks Minna, is a little like walking a tightrope: there are no safe spaces on each side if you wobble over. And Imelda is wobbling. Porch gives her a cross look, pointing a finger at her. Orson, not paying attention, begins to play faster than the rest. Porch steps on his foot and Orson looks up surprised. Haydn is better, though not in tune at times. At last Porch explodes.

  “I feel like I’m walking four dogs at the same time,” he says loudly. “One short-legged, one long-legged, one old and decrepit, and one just plain foolish!” He points at Orson. “You are not listening. Imelda, you are in love with your vibrato. Minna and Lucas, your minds are elsewhere. Up, up!” Porch waves his arms. They stand, and he moves their music stands and chairs so that they face different parts of the room. “Now sit. And play the music. The music! Not just what you see or don’t see in front of you!” They sit with their backs to each other. Lucas faces the window, Imelda the wall, Orson the closet. Minna plays to the hallway door.

  “Now,” says Porch, “Mozart.” He holds up his hand. “Two weeks,” he says softly.

  Poor Porch, thinks Minna, studying the panels of the door. He should be coaching a recording like my father does. In tune always. Perfect always. But Porch isn’t coaching a recording. It is, Minna remembers Imelda’s words, an imperfect world after all.

  Dear Mrs. Pratt, begins Minna in her head. She stops.

  “Ready,” says Porch in a low voice.

  Minna places her bow on the strings.

  Dear Mrs. Pratt? No, not Mrs. Pratt. It occurs to Minna, just before Porch says “play,” that she has no cross words left for Mrs. Pratt. She has already mailed her angry letter. It is done with, her anger, disappearing into the mailbox. It is gone like an old wart or hair too long, or an ugly pair of shoes Minna once quietly slipped far under the seat of the bus on her way home from a lesson.

  “Lost?” her mother had cried, incredulous. “How can you lose your shoes?”

  “Play,” says Porch.

  They begin. In tune. Minna smiles at her music. She has found someone else for complaints, someone close, someone more than close. Someone everywhere these days, like the wind.

  Dear WA Mozart, Minna begins, You probably don’t know me . . .

  “Aha!” exclaimed Porch when they had finished the presto. “I am a genius chamber music coach! It’s working, can you hear it? Yes, you do hear it. Mozart hears it, too, and I know for a fact that he loves it. We’ll practice this way all the time!”

  There was much grumbling as they packed up their instruments and walked to the elevator.

  “It’s boring facing the closet,” said Orson. “And eerie. I keep picturing Mozart sitting in there, crouched among leftover boots and bumbershoots—that’s umbrellas—holding his ears.”

  Imelda said nothing.

  “Porch is right,” said Lucas thoughtfully. “We sounded better.”

  Minna nodded as he pushed the elevator button and found the elevator was back in order. It was true. Perhaps it was more musical to play to the door, not catching sight of Orson rolling his eyes at her, not smiling at Lucas, not eyeing Imelda’s vibrato with envy.

  “I like it,” said Minna. “It’s private.” Just Mozart and Minna Pratt.

  “It’s unnatural,” announced Imelda, breaking her silence. “Can you imagine the Juilliard Quartet facing the wall? Or the Guarneri playing Schubert to a closet? Or,” her voice rose and her face reddened, “Itzhak Perlman performing for a radiator?!”

  “With or without a vibrato?” asked Orson with a smile.

  The elevator doors opened and Imelda marched out, ignoring them.

  “What a galoot,” said Orson, shaking his head. “That means . . .”

  “Silly,” said Lucas and Minna at the same time, looking at each other with surprise, linking little fingers.

  Outside Willie was playing a Beethoven minuet. Twig waved to them. Dog was busy nosing the picnic basket at her feet.

  “Dear Wolfgang,” says Minna out loud on the b
us, startling the woman next to her. Dear Wolfgang, she repeats silently.

  No offense, Wolfgang, but since you were a violinist as well as a pianist I am sure you had to worry about your vibrato. Please help me find mine. It does concern your music, after all. K. 157, if it makes a difference. You know that hard part. You wrote it. Please help me.

  Minna Pratt

  P.S. I already tried God.

  THIRTEEN

  One week. Do you hear that, Wolfgang? A full week of practice every day they’ve had, with the next week to be the same. All this time Minna has become well acquainted with the door to the rehearsal room: the moldings, the panels, the hinges, the dull brass doorknob. She knows each scratch and blemish as well as she knows her own. She has also become well acquainted with the music, drawing it around her like a cloak that is large enough to contain the person inside. Minna Booth Pratt hidden in the package of Mozart. No vibrato.

  Porch smiles almost every day. He has been nearly overcome with happiness. Minna tells her mother this and her mother smiles and writes down “nearly overcome.”

  “A wonderful phrase, Minna. Sounds like love.”

  Minna knows this and she says so.

  “I know that.”

  “I am sure you do,” says her mother, for once not turning back to her typewriter. She stares at Minna for so long that it is Minna who finally turns away.

  In the middle of the week Porch invites a large serious woman with a long upper lip to sit in to listen. She is in charge of the competition. Her name is Mrs. Willoughby-Fiske with an e, Porch tells them. No one smiles. They play for her, and when they are finished she nods at them and applauds as they turn from their corners to look at her.

  “Smart, aren’t I?” says Porch excitedly. “Very, very, very smart. Very!” he adds as final punctuation. Minna makes a note to remember to use that many very’s when Miss Barbizon asks for a one hundred word essay, “no more, no less!”

  On Thursday, Minna writes her vocabulary words into one sentence. She has been working at it all week, thinking of it nearly as often as she thinks of Mozart and her vibrato. And Lucas. She shows it to him.

  Although often nettlesome in many ways, my bogus sibling always manages to cachinnate at the fresh smell of ozone after a midsummer storm.

  “I like it,” says Lucas. “It is very clever and smart. It almost succeeds at meaning nothing.”

  “Very clever and smart?” asks Minna.

  “Very, very, very clever and smart,” says Lucas, smiling.

  On Friday, Minna leaves the house to catch the bus. She stops, staring. Outside are Emily Parmalee, McGrew, and her father playing baseball. Her father has never spoken to her about helping McGrew. She had thought he didn’t hear her. Emily Parmalee hits a high pop-up. McGrew is covering first base. Minna’s father never reaches the ball. He stares upward at it for a long time, and when he decides to move he falls down. The ball drops beside him. McGrew and Emily Parmalee are kind.

  “Nice try,” says Emily.

  “Keep your eye on the ball,” calls McGrew, who has never, in Minna’s memory, ever watched the baseballs that were hit to him.

  “He is terrible at this,” McGrew whispers to Minna.

  “Very, very, very terrible,” Minna whispers back.

  One week, WA. I like your music, WA. Please, just the smallest hint, the tiniest wiggle of a vibrato, WA.

  “Lovely, lovely,” said Porch when they had finished. He grinned a grin that showed all his teeth. “Now, this week we will rehearse every day here, but once and only once at the hall next door.”

  The concert hall. Is that where you are, Wolfgang?

  “And I want you to know how splendid you are. You have been playing the music! Mozart applauds you wherever he is.”

  “He’s in the closet,” said Orson.

  “And,” said Porch, ignoring Orson, “I want to remind you that winning the competition is not the important thing. Doing as well as you can is the important thing. Enjoying it. Not the money.”

  “Money was not important to Mozart,” said Imelda, tapping one foot. “I read that Mozart and his wife danced once to keep warm when they had no heat and no money for fuel. Mozart himself was cheerful in his poverty.”

  “Go,” said Porch, beginning to laugh. “Go.” He waved them out.

  Downstairs Minna and Lucas heard the sounds of Suzuki, and they paused at the door. A crowd of young violinists bowed away on Perpetual Motion, then allegro.

  “Pizzicato!” called their teacher, her hair falling down from a bun. One child stopped bowing to scratch, another waved at Lucas, who waved back. The teacher frowned at them and closed the door. They stood quietly for a moment, Minna suddenly thinking of her small cello in the attic. The cello she would not play again.

  Outside it was overcast, with a light that softened them all. Willie was not playing on the corner. Instead, a girl was there, with long black hair, playing a flute. Her case was opened on the sidewalk, and in it was a hand-lettered sign that read FOR CAMP.

  Willie was leaning up against the long black car talking to Twig. Minna saw that the torn fender of the car had been mended. A breeze rippled the flute player’s hair. Dog lifted his leg over a white-walled tire to the clear notes of Ravel.

  “You are coming to dinner tonight, aren’t you?” asked Twig. “Do you want a ride?”

  “No ride,” said Minna quickly. “Thank you. We’ll let you take the instruments. We’ll walk.”

  The flutist packs up her flute and leaves. Willie takes out his violin and tunes, listening intently over his strings. Twig sits on the sidewalk under a small tree. Dog falls into her lap in a heap of love. Minna and Lucas walk slowly down the street, past the concert hall with its great arches. Soon Brahms overtakes them.

  One week. Do you hear that, Wolfgang? A bargain, maybe? I have, as you may know, taught Lucas Ellerby how to play hopscotch. I am, as you may also know, playing in tune. A vibrato would be fine.

  At Lucas’s house Mrs. Ellerby greets them at the door.

  “Melinda! How nice.”

  Mrs. Ellerby wears a dress of many-colored explosions.

  “We’ll eat shortly.”

  Mr. Ellerby appears in gray.

  “We are,” he says formally, “very much looking forward to hearing you play. Our first invitation.”

  They disappear into the living room and Minna looks closely at Lucas.

  “First invitation?” she asks. “You said they never came to hear you play. Ever.”

  Lucas sighed.

  “What I didn’t tell you was that I never invited them,” he said softly. “You remember you once told me you didn’t want your parents to come to hear you play because they’d make a fuss?”

  Minna nodded.

  “Well, I never invited them because . . . because I was afraid they wouldn’t make a fuss,” says Lucas, looking at the floor.

  Minna puts her hand on his arm.

  “They will,” she whispers to Lucas. “I just know they’ll make a fuss.” After a moment Minna says it again. “They will!” she exclaims, making Lucas smile.

  Minna dreams through another dinner at Lucas’s, a dinner that has begun quietly but will soon erupt into a fuss that comes sooner than either of them has expected. Today the talk is of rugs: oriental versus wall-to-wall, with a small scuffle—so slight that Minna hardly notices—over something called a runner.

  Flowered, do you think? asks Mrs. Ellerby.

  Pale, perhaps, says Mr. Ellerby. So as not to overcome the portraits.

  Minna looks across the table at Lucas, who rolls his eyes at her so that only the whites show. Minna smiles.

  Twig, her cheeks pink, slips the salad plates on the table. As she leans over, Minna catches a scent of perfume. Lilac?

  Minna eats the boneless chicken with sauce l’apricot and asparagus hollandaise as talk of fabric and rugs winds about her. Then, suddenly, in the midst of all the peace there is something wrong. The talk has changed.

  “I’ll
just go up to the attic and fetch the fabric,” says Mrs. Ellerby, standing. “I’m sure that’s where Twig has put it.”

  “No,” says Lucas. He stands, too.

  Mr. Ellerby, his fork poised between plate and mouth, looks up, confused.

  And it is then that Minna knows why Lucas’s face is pale. The attic door is next to Lucas’s room. The frogs.

  “I’ll go,” says Lucas, moving toward the stairs.

  “Sit, sit, sit,” says Mrs. Ellerby, disappearing out the door. “I’ll be back in but a moment.”

  Twig swings through the doors and stops, staring at Minna and Lucas, standing.

  “Ready for dessert?” she asks in an uncertain voice, looking from one to the other.

  “Yes,” says Lucas unsteadily, sitting.

  Minna sits, too, but Mr. Ellerby has stood, so there is a moment of bobbing about the table. Minna feels a sudden surge of laughter rising, but she cannot laugh because of the stricken look on Lucas’s face.

  They will never have dessert. There will be no more comforting talk at the table, for after a moment Mrs. Ellerby stands in her explosive dress at the dining room door, her face dark.

  “There are alien creatures up there,” she says in a low voice. “Creatures!” Her voice fades to a whisper.

  Mr. and Mrs. Ellerby will not allow arguments at the table so the “dialogue,” as Mrs. Ellerby calls it, is moved to the hall. Minna follows them, disappointed. Her family often has arguments over dinner. They are full of energy and loud words. Once, Minna suddenly remembers, her mother threw a yam at her father and they both laughed.

  “This cannot be allowed,” says Mrs. Ellerby. “Go look, Frederick,” she commands Mr. Ellerby.

  “They are not alien creatures,” protests Lucas. “They are frogs, plain and simple. Mother, frogs were probably on this earth before humans, in one shape or another.”

  Mr. Ellerby appears at the top of the stairs looking grim.

  “Those must go, Lucas,” he says ominously.

  “They are my pets,” says Lucas as Mr. Ellerby descends the stairs. “I feed them. They are family!”