The Violin Conspiracy(24)

“I don’t think I ever saw it,” Aunt Joyce said. “Not ever.”

“Hush, both of you,” Grandma Nora said.

Ray gave his grandmother a tight hug. She hugged him right back. “I’ll see you soon, baby.” And then, in a low voice right in his ear, “It’s gonna be okay. You just remember what we talked about, you hear me?”

“I know, Grandma,” Ray said. “Respect and be sweet.”

“That’s right,” she said. “You’re already working twice as hard.”

“I’ll remember,” Ray said.

Later, in the car, his mother asked, “What did Mama say to you as we were leaving?”

“Oh,” he said, “she just told me she loved me,” and went back to staring out the window.





Chapter 8


    Holiday Excavations


December

December, with its final exams, winter concert, and practicing for regional auditions, left Ray barely time to sleep. He showed up at school early to practice his violin, and then again at lunchtime and at study hall. His construction job had ended, but he hadn’t applied to bag groceries. He didn’t tell his mother.

The day after the winter concert, his orchestra teacher, Mr. Stinson, announced to the class, “If you’re auditioning for regionals, I’ll hear you today.”

Twelve students—including Aiden, Ray, and Mark Jennings—were trying out. One by one they played L’Inverno.

After the other students played, Mr. Stinson rose to return to his office. Ray called after him, “Mr. Stinson! Are you going to hear me?”

Mr. Stinson looked at him blankly. “Why?” he said. Just the one word, but it boomed in Ray’s ears. He vowed that he’d show Mr. Stinson what he could do: Ray would play twice as well as the others at regionals.

Ray stood motionless as the other students packed up to leave, as Mark bumped his shoulder, laughing, as Mr. Stinson disappeared into his office. Only when all the other students—even Aiden—had left did Ray bend down to place, so gently, his school violin in its battered case.

A Black kid with a school violin, no private teacher, no vast wellspring of talent. Why would Mr. Stinson waste his time on such a kid?

Why? Because the Black kid could play his ass off, that’s why.

Two days later, Aiden texted him the details of four gigs lined up over Christmas.

Rather than text, Ray called him. His lips had trouble forming the words. He sucked in a breath. “I can’t do it.”

“What? Why not?”

“I had to turn my instrument in, remember? It’s the school’s. I don’t have a violin. I’m gonna buy an instrument over break. A nice one. I’ve been saving up,” Ray said. “I should be getting some Christmas money.” He’d been saving up for Christmas break to go shopping—with what his mother hadn’t taken, and maybe some money from Grandma Nora and his relatives, he’d been planning on getting a step-up instrument. There was a good music store at the mall near Grandma Nora’s.



* * *



—

They returned to Georgia on December 23, and Grandma Nora was again waiting for them on the porch. He sprang from the car and into her arms. “It’s great to see you,” he said.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, baby. I’m so proud of your concert.” He’d called her after the winter concert, told her how well the evening had gone, how much he loved playing in front of an audience. She was the only one in his family who’d even asked. He’d also called her last week, when someone at the Crocodile Club had tipped him twenty dollars. Now she shuffled into the house where the adults were gathered in the living room, discussing plans for the next few days.

“The Eagles are playing the Cowboys tomorrow,” Uncle Larry was saying. “That’s gonna be a good game. Don’t come in there messing with me. The living room is a no-talking zone.”

Ray hovered behind Grandma Nora, who’d seated herself with a sigh in her huge paisley corduroy La-Z-Boy. It almost swallowed her up. He’d put one hand on her shoulder and now her hand fluttered up, patting his.

After a few minutes of listening to his uncles berating the Cowboys and Aunt Joyce and his mom arguing about a television show they both followed, Ray murmured to his grandmother, “Can I go up and look?”

She smiled up at him. She knew what he was looking for. “You sure can.”

“Thank you!” He kissed her cheek and slid out of the living room, up to the second floor hallway. He yanked the cord and the attic stairs tumbled down.

He started right where he’d left off a month ago.

If he was looking for old Stevie Wonder albums, he would have hit the jackpot. And how many clothes did one family need to keep? How many bags of stuffed animals?

That fiddle meant connection: if only he could find the instrument, he’d connect with his grandmother and her grandfather. This was his gift to her.

He never thought of owning the fiddle. It was his grandmother’s, and he would never take it from her. But finding it, holding it, having Grandma Nora tell him that he looked just like her PopPop, standing there playing his fiddle? That would be worth all the dust.

He was on the far side of the attic, sorting through a stack of boxes higher than his head, when he heard Aunt Joyce shouting his name. “Ray? Come on down! It’s dinnertime and you need to watch the kids.”