The Violin Conspiracy(34)

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

“I’m doing it,” he said.

She stood up suddenly, swift and sure, took two steps, leaned over him. “No, you ain’t. You’re gettin’ a job.”

He stood, too, taller than her. “So you’re telling me that you’d rather me stay here and work for the next ten years at Popeyes instead of going and getting a college degree? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Talk back one more time and I’ll slap the shit outta you.”

“This is unbelievable. I give you almost every cent I make. And why? So you can get a bigger TV? What’s after the TV? I’ve begged you for years for a violin, but you say you can’t afford it and then you get your hair done. All I’ve done is contribute.”

“You got a better chance of makin’ it in the NBA than you do makin’ a living playing music. It’s tough out there. You need to find somethin’ steady.”

“Like what? Popeyes? The hospital cafeteria?”

“Exactly. Something nice and steady that’s gonna pay the bills.”

“Pay your bills, you mean.”

She smacked him, palm wide open, and he staggered as the backs of his legs hit the armchair and he reached out to steady himself. His left cheekbone flamed.

“Let me tell you something,” she said. “You gon’ do what I say. I’m smarter than you, and you will never be able to get one over on me. Do you understand?”

He held the left side of his face. The burn crept into his left eye.

“You know that you can’t make a living playing a violin. That old fiddle Mama gave you is about to fall apart as it is. You think them white people are gonna let you play in a orchestra? No. You ever seen a Black man playin’ in a orchestra? No. There’s a reason for that. Now I’m tired of hearin’ about this shit.”

She sat down, stared at her phone again, snickered at it.

“You won’t have to hear about it anymore.” He stumbled around her, down the hall to his room. His face burned.

Moments later his mom went into her bedroom, talking on her phone loud enough for him to hear. “Then he said he was going to go to some college for violin. Yeah. Then he got smart. I slapped the shit outta him, that’s what I did.”

She went into her room, closed the door. He could hear her muttering, then a cackle, long and drawn out.

He pulled out his own phone, dialed.

After the third ring came a voice—shaky, frail: “Hello?” The sound of a throat clearing, and then, stronger, “Hello? Ray? That you?”

“Hey, Grandma,” he said.

“Ray? What’s wrong? You okay?”

“I’m fine—nothing’s wrong.” He cleared his own throat, blinked hard. His left eye still stung, as if sleet were stinging the side of his face. He sat up straighter. “I’m sorry to call so late, but I had to tell you the good news.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you called me. What is it, baby?”





Chapter 10


    Janice


14 Months Ago

He’d missed two calls from her already.

“Ray?” Dr. Stevens said. “We need to talk.”

“What’s going on?”

Her voice sounded thin, strained. “Where are you?”

“In my room. What’s going on?”

He stood up, the phone suddenly slick with his sweat. The textbook he was supposed to be reading slid to the floor. Outside the March sky lowered cold and gray, with darker clouds shadowing the trees on the horizon, but the sun shone in a distant patch of blue. He leaned his forehead against the window, concentrating on the cold circle above his eyebrows. She rarely called him, and she never sounded like this.

“Rayquan. I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to be honest with me.”

He swallowed. How would the accusation run? Someone’s instrument stolen (when it was left in a storage room), a too-high music history test score (so he must have cheated), a practice room vandalized (had to be the Black guy). He was so close to graduating. “Did I do something?”

“Can you meet me outside the music building?”

“Sure, but it’ll take me fifteen minutes to get there.”

“I’ll be waiting for you outside.”

“I’ll meet you in your office.”

“No. Just meet me outside.” She hung up without saying goodbye.

His pulse pounded in his temples, and the sweat was cold in his armpits and between his shoulder blades. He threw on his coat and pulled his Yellow Jackets ski cap down across his brow. He was almost out the door before he remembered his ID card on the desk. The cool plastic felt somehow alien—too cold, shaped wrong—as he stuffed it into his pocket. He headed out into the weak afternoon sunshine.

As promised, she was waiting for him, pacing back and forth on the steps of the music building, hands in her pockets. Above her loomed ancient brick, limestone lintels arching into a medallion with 1907 in its center. These walls had always been a refuge for him—he knew every office, every practice room, every hallway. The floors vibrated from far-off arpeggios and the faint buzz of distant pianos. For four years he had breathed in the aroma of cleaning solvent, the mustiness of old books, and the distant perfume from the vocal majors. That smell had become home to him.