The Violin Conspiracy(69)

“Yeah, I saw it, too,” he said. “No, wait, I was there.” Smooth, Ray. “Glad you liked it.” He looked for something to lean against, but it was just him, this woman, and the sidewalk.

“Look,” she said, “you want to grab dinner?”

“Me?” he said. Sometimes he honestly could not believe the stupidity that poured from his mouth. “Um, yeah. I’d love to.”

“Good,” she said, and confidently headed a few blocks over to a tiny Indian place, on the second floor of a building, above a wig shop. It was cheap, and some of the best food Ray had ever had in his life.

They talked about music and orchestras, about her growing up in a middle-class family that didn’t quite understand her love of music but didn’t actively try to thwart it the way Ray’s mother had.

“The worst thing is that it always felt like there was that one kid who always played better than me, you know?” she said. “The one who always got the private lessons and always got the solo at the end-of-year concert?”

“I know exactly what you mean. For me it was this one guy. Mark Jennings. Racist asshole, but he had seriously fast fingers,” Ray said. He hadn’t thought about Mark Jennings for years. Did he still play?

“Kyle Rasmussen. I hated Kyle Rasmussen.” She laughed.

Her experiences mirrored his own. She could understand him. She was a performer, like him. She was a musician. Even without her figure and her great laugh, he would have picked her out of a crowd. How could he make this into something more than just dinner, more than just—maybe—a one-nighter? He toyed with his vegetable tikka masala and wondered if he could move to Erie. It had an airport, right? He didn’t need to be in Charlotte.

But it didn’t seem like she’d be in Erie for long, anyway. Erie was her first gig out of college, but she was ambitious. She’d been doing some substitute viola work in the Cleveland Orchestra, for starters, and that might lead to something more permanent. She really liked Cleveland—it had a vibrant musical scene. “I’ve also been volunteering there,” she confided, as if it were a secret.

“Doing what?”

“There’s a program where we play music in soup kitchens. First you serve the guests, and then you serenade them. It’s pretty awesome. I’m way better with the viola than I am with the mashed potatoes, though.”

“Wow,” he said. “That sounds really awesome. I’d love to do that sometime.”

“You should come,” she said casually.

“I’d love to,” he said. “We just have to figure out when. Let me know when you’re there and I’ll rearrange my schedule.” Yes! He had an excuse to see her again. He’d impress her with how well he could ladle out the gravy to pour over her mashed potatoes.



* * *



—

Two hours flew by. Nicole glanced at her watch. “Oh, man, I’ve got to get going. The Metro-North train leaves in, like, twenty-five minutes.”

There is a desolation like none other when a beautiful woman sitting across from you has to catch a train in twenty-five minutes. This was a far cry from eating alone in a hotel restaurant or picking up some fast-food takeout and gulping it down in his room. “Isn’t there a later train?”

“Not for the twenty-three dollars I found,” she said. She pulled out her phone, thumbed through a couple apps. “There’s another at six thirty-two a.m. for thirty-two dollars, but I don’t want to sit in the Poughkeepsie train station for three hours.”

“Oh,” he said.

“Plus where would I hang out for the night?” she said.

The energy pulsed between them.

“I guess I could take the train at twelve thirty-two,” she said. “It costs forty-six dollars, though.”

“I think you should. We can grab a nightcap.”

“Yeah, sure. If you want.”

They headed back to the Saint Jacques. Mike held the door for them. “How did the concert go?”

“Pretty good,” Ray said.

Nicole said, “He was terrific.”

“Sorry I missed it.”

“Thanks, Mike,” Ray said.

Nicole smiled, grabbed Ray’s arm, and led him to the hotel bar.

Three beers later, it was almost 11:45 p.m. and time for Nicole to head to Grand Central for the train. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” he said.

“I don’t,” she said. Before he could mess up the situation, she leaned over the table, bumping into one of the beer glasses, and kissed him.

The kiss lasted a very long moment.

He stood, reflexively swinging the violin case onto his back. “How would you feel if I asked you to come up to my room?” he said.

“I would feel like what took you so long to ask me,” she said.

He led her to the elevator.



* * *



—

At 5:00 a.m. he woke up to an empty bed, turned on the light. Her clothes were gone. He sat up, pressed his back against the padded ivory headboard. He knew it was too good to be true. She was gone. There’s no way a pretty girl like that could be interested in him.

He dove back under the covers just as the room door clicked open. She was back, carrying two coffee cups and a brown paper bag.