The Violin Conspiracy(27)

Aiden paused for a long while before saying, “You know what, fuck Chad. I’ll come up with something.”

The day after Christmas, Ray was downstairs waiting when the first adults staggered in for breakfast. He asked Aunt Rochelle if she would give him a ride to the mall as soon as it opened. Ray didn’t want to open a can of worms by asking his mother or his other relatives. Aunt Rochelle seemed indifferent about him receiving the fiddle, so she would be the least likely to give him any grief.

When they got to the mall just after ten, the parking lot was mostly empty. Aunt Rochelle stopped off at a department store that had a huge sale sign in the front window, and Ray went on alone, violin case tight under his arm, straight to the music store. Behind the counter was the same scrawny young man with thin blond hair and an even thinner mustache shadowing his lip who had been growling at him last time. His name tag—Hi! My name is Eric! Ask me about our holiday layaway plan!—glittered red and silver.

Ray laid the alligator-skin case on the counter. “I need to get some repairs done.”

The clerk glanced up, then back down at his computer screen, kept typing.

Ray waited a few moments. “Hi, excuse me. I need—”

“This ain’t a pawnshop. Get out.”

Ray stood there, confused.

“This is a music store,” the clerk said, as if to a five-year-old. “We sell instruments, we don’t buy them.” He never looked up.

“I need to have some repairs done on my violin.” Ray opened the case, showed him the violin as proof.

My-name-is-Eric-ask-me-about-our-holiday-layaway-plan stared at it like he’d never seen one before. “Why you want to get it fixed? That thing is disgusting.”

“It’s been in storage and nobody’s played it. I think the white is from all the rosin.”

“Looks like mold.” Leaning over to peer more closely, the clerk snickered. “Smells like mold, too. What did you do to this thing? Can’t be fixed. Anything else I can help you with?”

“It’s going to need—”

“You deaf, too? I said it can’t be fixed. We’re done here.” He turned away from the counter, as if to head to the back room.

A familiar feeling washed over Ray. He remembered what Grandma Nora said about respect. Maybe this guy didn’t know much about violins. “I need a new tailpiece, a set of strings, new pegs, the sound post set, the bow re-haired, and a new bridge.”

Eric gave an exaggerated sigh, then spoke with exaggerated slowness—everything overemphasized, as if to a child, or to someone deaf, or to someone profoundly stupid. “I told you, it can’t be fixed.”

Ray stood very tall. “It can’t be fixed, or you won’t fix it?”

“What did you say? What did you just say to me?”

Ray took a deep breath. “I need to have this violin repaired. This is a repair shop. I need you to fix it.”

“Is that piece of shit even yours?”

Ray straightened. “Sir, I would like to have my violin repaired. I need a new bridge and tailpiece, a bow re-hairing, and the strings and the sound post adjusted. Can you do the work?”

Eric went back to his computer, typed in some keys, but in a way that made Ray think he was tallying up numbers for the repair. “Three hundred thirty-seven dollars.”

“Okay. How long will it take?”

“A week. Maybe two.”

Ray recoiled. “A week? This isn’t a long job. Do you have a lot of repairs ahead of it?”

“Do you want this piece of shit repaired, or don’t you?”

“Could you do it today? While I wait?”

Eric thought about it. “It’ll cost you an extra hundred bucks.”

If only there were other music stores close by. If only Ray had a car. If only he were someone else. “Okay,” he said. “You’ll do it while I wait?”

“You have $437?”

“Yes I do.”

“I want to see the money.”

“Here’s my debit card,” Ray said. “You can take two hundred dollars out now. The rest when the repairs are done.”

“Two hours.” Eric slammed shut the case and took it to the back. When he returned, Ray was still waiting. “You need something else?”

“A receipt.”

Eric wrote out a yellow check-in slip, smacked it on the counter, disappeared into the back room. Hopefully to work on the violin’s repairs. It was 10:18 a.m. Two hours to go.

Ray retreated outside, took a seat on a bench twenty feet from the music shop, between a Sbarro and a Gymboree. He pulled out his phone and played video games, his eye on the shop, as if he expected Eric to slip out with the violin and disappear forever.

Aunt Rochelle found him there, still waiting. “Did you get it fixed?” she settled herself with a sigh next to him on the bench, with two bulky department-store bags at her feet. She was younger than his mother, with short-cropped hair and heavier features. She tended to keep to herself and didn’t engage with the family as much as the others, so he hadn’t spent a great deal of time with her.

“I had to drop it off, but he said he’d have it ready by twelve thirty.”

“You want to get some lunch?”

“It’s only eleven thirty.”