There’s Dolly in her coat of many colors, a poor, sweet girl about to make millions.
There’s Dolly singing “I Will Always Love You”—which you know because an angel-winged Whitney is smiling behind her.
There’s Dolly standing on a desk in a triumphant 9 to 5 pose. Her boss cowers, hog-tied below.
And finally, there’s Dolly arm-wrestling…someone.
“That’s Sylvester Stallone,” Johan explains in his charming woodwind voice. “From Rhinestone.”
Rhinestone.
I am nearly at a loss for words. “You’ve built Dollywood. In a violin case.”
“I like to think of it as a fiddle case. But yes. When you specified garish, I assumed you meant awesome.”
Parker gives me one of his oh, so this is what white people do in their free time looks, but I can tell he’s glad Subway Boy hasn’t proven to be the instant disappointment that most Subway Boys must be once you have them over for dinner. Ilsa looks annoyed—maybe because Parker’s within ejection range without a trapdoor in sight, or maybe because a stranger has just upped the garish ante, and she’s not sure how many chips she has left to place.
“Let me get you that beer,” she says, off to the kitchen before Johan can tell her the hair in the Dollys’ wigs was spun from unicorn tears.
“I’m going to go see if she needs help carrying that beer,” Parker says, following.
Johan moves to close the violin case, and I cry out, way too loud, “No! Don’t!” Then, as if to compound this manic burst of uncoolness, I walk over to the piano and clear a place for the case…by sweeping off all the sheet music with my arm, as if I’m in some retirement home’s production of Amadeus. As a result, the Goldberg Variations scatter through the air, Debussy ducks for cover under the bench, and Muhly mulishly meanders toward Czarina’s beloved lime green couch.
If Johan is alarmed, he doesn’t show it. He gives the Dolly clones their pride of place. He casually plays a few notes on the piano in honor of the installation. I hear the words in my head.
Islands in the stream.
That is what we are.
If Ilsa were here, she’d be on the piano, singing along.
I—
I—
I look away. I know a new person is supposed to mean a new start. But I’m still me, and eventually he will see that.
“Do you want something to drink?” I ask.
He looks at me like I’ve made a joke. Then he realizes maybe I haven’t.
Right. Pretty much the only fact I know about him is that he wants a beer.
“It’ll be any minute now,” I say, looking down. I am rolling over Beethoven. I want to apologize to him.
“I loved hearing you play,” Johan says.
“I loved the feeling of you standing right behind me as I played,” I don’t reply. “There was even a moment when I forgot to worry about impressing you and actually enjoyed myself.”
It had been so simple. He’d seen the piano. Asked me who played.
All I had to do was say, “I do.”
All I had to do was sit there and let the song happen.
No. Make the song happen.
“I gave it up,” I find myself saying to him now.
There are so many things I am saying underneath this. Mostly to myself. But beneath that. Something I am trying to give him. Some indication of who I am, of what this is.
“When?” he asks.
“A couple of years ago,” I tell him. Even though it was actually only seven months ago, after I sabotaged myself out of music school and vowed never to perform in public—never to be put on display like that, with all of the pressure—ever again.
“But clearly you didn’t give it up entirely?” He lifts some fallen notes from the floor.
“That was the weird thing. I gave up on it, but it didn’t give up on me.”
“Music is inescapable, isn’t it?”
The way he says it, I can tell there are things he already knows.
I nod. Even if I wasn’t playing in public anymore, it was still a part of my most private self.
He’s looking at me with such curiosity. I was Subway Boy to him, too, and now I am not. I have yet to be determined.
We have yet to be determined.
The doorbell marks the arrival of another guest. I pause, trying to sense some movement from the kitchen. When I don’t notice any, I make an excuse to Johan and head for the door.
I am sorry to leave him. Which seems prematurely foolish, but there it is.
When I get to the door, I open it and find Ilsa’s friend Li, who is usually a model of sense and sensibility.
But tonight she’s dressed in what can only be called a slutty French maid outfit. By which I mean: one of those Halloween costumes that’s supposed to look like a French maid, only sluttier.
She takes one look at my outfit and another at my face. Then she says, “It isn’t a costume party, is it?”
I shake my head.
“Why did I think it was a costume party?” she asks.
I have no answer for this.
“I live in Jackson Heights.”
Meaning: There is no turning around and going back home. This is what she’s wearing tonight.
“And I’ll never fit into your sister’s clothes.”
Meaning: No, really, this is what she’s wearing tonight.
“Well, it is garish,” I say. “I’m sure there were at least three guys at each of Liberace’s parties wearing the exact same thing.”
I can see her compartmentalize her embarrassment. I envy that.
She holds up a bag. “I brought the chocolate your sister loves.”
I gesture behind me. “She’s in the kitchen. Just make sure she shares.”
Li reaches behind her and pulls out a second bag.
“This is for the rest of us.”
Such a good guest.
She is wearing heels that I sense are a little higher than her usual elevation. So there’s a certain teeter as she angles toward the kitchen, bags in hand. I close the
