The Game of Love and Death(41)

“Henry, wait,” she said, her voice roughed up.

She started down the steps. Henry wouldn’t wait. He put his bass and bow back in its case, snapping it shut. Then he turned, opened the back door of the Cadillac, eased his instrument inside, and closed the door. He did not look back as he stepped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and headed home.





HENRY’s bass sat untouched in the carport for three weeks. Having called a temporary cease-fire with calculus, he was lying on his mattress with his hands beneath his head, studying a hairline crack in the ceiling, when Ethan knocked. Henry didn’t bother replying; Ethan would walk in anyway.

“What do you think?” Henry asked. “Old man or bear’s ass?”

Ethan looked puzzled, so Henry pointed up.

“Bear’s ass, definitely.” Ethan closed Henry’s textbook and moved it aside so he could sit on the desk. “You’re going to have to get up someday.”

Henry grunted. Someday. That word had grown tainted. There was no such thing.

In the weeks since Flora had refused him, Helen had been kind. She’d taken to making him plates of food and keeping him company while he ate, and he found her interest in him and his life and his thoughts on important topics to be flattering. He had no complaints about her sandwiches. He didn’t feel like kissing her yet, but maybe that would come eventually.

He’d forced himself to go through the motions at school and baseball. He’d be lucky to pass his upcoming finals, and he’d already been moved off the starting lineup and onto the bench with the underclassmen. When he walked down the halls, rumpled and unfocused, students steered clear, as though heartbreak were catching.

The headmaster had pulled him aside the day before, just as he was leaving the chapel. “I’m hearing troubling things,” Dr. Sloane said, scratching at a few stray hairs on his chin with nicotine-tinged fingertips. “We’ve come to expect more out of you than we’re seeing in the classroom and on the field.”

Henry’s stomach twisted. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll do better.”

“ ‘How high a pitch his resolution soars.’ ” Dr. Sloane had a Shakespeare quotation for every situation. He coughed into his hand and clapped Henry on the arm. “You’ll let me know if something is amiss? If you need any assistance? A new razor, perhaps?”

“Of course.” Henry resolved to mow down his meager crop of whiskers.

“Not too much time left in this institution, Mr. Bishop. I know uncertainty can be hard to face, but let’s not lose focus before crossing the finish line.” D r. Sloane squared his shoulders and offered his hand.

Henry shook it. “I won’t, sir. Thank you, sir.” He couldn’t imagine asking Dr. Sloane for help with heartache. Well, you see … there’s this girl who sings in a jazz band and I wanted to be her bass player, but we are the wrong color for each other, and she said no, and it gave me a burned-out hole in the center of my chest that the rest of me is slowly being sucked into.

Dr. Sloane’s expertise was literature, not life. In any case, it was impossible to imagine an old person with a broken heart.

“Good to hear, Henry. Good to hear. Because the last thing we want is for you to lose your scholarship this close to graduation.”

The warning made Henry feel bad all over again. He was behind in school, perhaps hopelessly so. He’d managed to help Ethan with his written work, but his own was unfinished, doodled on, scattered in stacks and tucked into books.

Ethan crumpled an expensive sheet of onionskin paper and pitched it to Henry.

“See?” Ethan said when Henry grabbed it. “You’re fine. You might as well get up now. Besides … I heard of a new club. Jazz, even.”

Henry pulled his pillow over his face.

“Don’t tell me you’re giving up on music,” Ethan said. “Just because the raggedy old Domino is closed doesn’t mean you can’t hear jazz. James says this one’s just as good.” There was always a pause in Ethan’s voice when he mentioned his source in Hooverville.

Henry moved the pillow away from his face and pushed himself up on his elbow.

“So James says it?”

Ethan’s features shifted. Henry couldn’t make out what emotion his friend was hiding.

“The article has turned out to be more complicated than I thought. Father doesn’t want to give me any more extensions, but I want to get this one right. So I’ve interviewed him a few times, and we’ve gotten to know each other a bit. As people.” Ethan walked to the window and looked out. Henry could swear the edges of his friend’s ears were red.

Henry hadn’t much considered Ethan’s absences at night these past few weeks. He figured he’d gone to Guthrie’s, or some late-night diner like the Golden Coin. Ethan was clearly slaving away, and Henry felt even guiltier for the labor he’d shirked.

“I can’t go,” he said. “I’m so far behind.”

“Look.” Ethan faced Henry. “You haven’t told me what’s eating you, so I can’t help with that. But you haven’t played music or listened to it in weeks, and that’s like a plant going without water.”

“Fine,” Henry said. “I miss it. But what makes you interested in music now? I’ve had to drag you out to listen.”