I’m standing in the back of the Church by the Bay on Key Biscayne, where Sean works. After two weeks of rehearsing the group numbers and playing phone tag with Sean, I finally passed him a note Friday.
I know it’s a longshot, but do we ever get to sing in the same room?
That’s when he said maybe we could get together after his last church service. The choir’s singing some tuneless hymn. I can hear Sean’s voice over all the others. The minister says a final prayer, then invites everyone into the social hall for coffee and cake, sponsored by Mary Somebody in honor of Grandma Somebody’s ninety-fifth birthday.
Mom and I used to go to church. She started, I think, as a way of making connections for real estate or meeting guys, neither of which worked. But it did get my mind off the fact that I wasn’t visiting my father weekends, like every other divorced kid on the planet. Not that that bothered me or anything.
I see Sean gesturing from the choir area. Most people left for their refreshments, but Sean and one other guy stay back.
Sean introduces us. “Rudy, this is the girl I was telling you about—the singer.”
I start a little. Sean told someone about me? I didn’t think I was the slightest blip on his radar screen.
“Caitlin, this is Rudy Escobar. Rudy’s the baritone section leader here.”
“What’s a section leader?” I say.
“Basically,” Rudy says, “someone with a decent voice who sings loud enough to drown out all the old men in the choir.”
“Rudy, that’s not nice.” But Sean’s laughing.
“Sometimes the truth isn’t pretty.” Rudy touches my shoulder. “Oh, honey, before they hired Sean and me, the tenor and bass sections were to die from.” He looks around to see if anyone’s listening, even though he’s talking at the top of his voice, which is loud. Real loud. “Half the men were mumbling into their music. The rest were singing “Shall We Gather at the River” like it was The Flying Dutchman.”
Sean cracks up. The whole time Rudy’s talking, I can’t stop staring at him. He’s a total bronze statue—tall, built, with brown skin and one of those short beards like professional opera singers wear. I don’t usually go for the Latin lover type or guys with facial hair, but this guy’s … um, everyone’s type.
“Hello?” He passes a hand in front of my eyes. “Are you okay?”
Oh. Excuse me while I die.
I recover. “You know Wagner’s operas?” I ask, remembering The Flying Dutchman. A brilliant save.
“Who doesn’t?” He grins. “Baby, opera is my life. I was named Rudy—not after some abuelo but after Rodolfo in Bohème. My mama sung me to sleep with Mozart, and now—here I am—God’s gift to the operatic stage.”
“Which basically means he’s a sophomore music student at U of M,” Sean says.
“Only for now, Sean. In a few years, it’ll be…” He gestures with his hands like there’s a huge billboard behind us. “Rodolfo Escobar—live at the Met!”
I laugh. In my whole life I’ve never met a guy my age who knew anything about opera. Now, I’m in a room with two of them.
“Rudy said he’d play the piano for us,” Sean says.
We start warming up, with Rudy playing exercises on the piano. He starts low and runs me higher and higher. When I reach a high D (the last good note I possess), he asks, “Can you do one more?”
“Only if you like screaming,” I squeak.
“I bet you can. Want to try?”
I take a deep breath, think up like Rowena said, and go for E-flat.
Rudy stops playing. “Beautiful!”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Sean says. “She’s really something.”
Rudy nods. “You’re right. She’s like ‘La Stupenda’—the great Sutherland.”
Joan Sutherland was an opera singer before I was born. I can’t believe he knows about her.
“Only with better teeth,” Sean adds.
“Better everything,” Rudy says. “Like Joan Sutherland if she was a hottie. You know you’re a hottie, right?”
I actually giggle and forget that the scale said one hundred and sixteen this morning.
“Rudy, we’re in a house of worship,” Sean says.
Rudy claps his hand over his mouth. “Oops! Sister Mary Michael would so wash my mouth out with soap.” He crosses himself.
I giggle again. I have this great thought. “Is everyone in college like you?”
“Like me, how?” Rudy exchanges a look with Sean. “Gifted and incredibly modest about it?”
“Like, do they know about opera and stuff?”
“Well, not the frat boys with the beer bongs, or the football team,” Rudy says. “But the opera students are mostly like me. Only I’m the best, of course.”
“Of course,” Sean echoes.
“Wow,” I say. “People I know don’t know anything about art or music, and they think I’m weird because I do.”
“You’ll love college, girl,” Rudy agrees. “I was so over high school. Even the so-called artsy people weren’t into what I was. I’m trying to introduce Sean around, see about getting him some scholarship money for next year.”
“I’ll need it,” Sean says.
Which gets me thinking. Worrying, actually. I’ve always figured I’d go to a college with a good music program like Indiana University or Oberlin (no way would Mom let me go someplace in New York City, but Indiana sounds so … wholesome). But I wonder if I’ll need a scholarship too. We sure don’t have extra money lying around. Mom’s always said she’d make sure Dad pays, but I don’t think he’s actually required to pay for anything after I’m eighteen. So why would he? Because he loves me so much? Not likely. I push the thought back again.
Sean picks up our sheet music. “Shall we start?”
I’m grateful to be able to concentrate on singing. We sing really well together, and Rudy shouts, “Brava!” when we finish.
“Hey, don’t you mean bravi?” Sean says. “For both of us?”
“Nope. I was just applauding her. Your head is swelled enough.”
“Whatever.” Sean looks at his watch. “Oh, gotta go. Family command performance.”
“What else is new?” Rudy says. “Cut the cord.”
“You’re so sensitive,” Sean says. We walk to the parking lot. I glance at my watch. We’ve been here over an hour, but it seems like ten minutes. I go for my bike.
“Need a ride?” Rudy asks.
I start to say I could use the exercise. Then I stop myself. Why not go with him? The guy’s completely nice, and he must be safe since he’s Sean’s friend. Not everyone’s a stalker. And I met him at church. Not to mention his complete hotness. “Sure.”
He loads my bike into the trunk of his old Camry and I give him directions. I want to ask him a million questions, about college, about opera. About Sean too. But I end up sitting there dead, stupid silent.
We’re almost at my house when he says, “You hang with Sean much at school?”
“Not really. I was actually surprised when we got assigned to do a duet together. At school, he’s always simulating sex with his girlfriend.”
Rudy raises an eyebrow. “You mean Madame Misty? She’s not his girlfriend.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Nah, she’s … not his type. He’s mentioned you a lot, actually.”
“Really?” This, together with the info that Sean isn’t dating Misty, is incredible.
“Yeah. He thinks you’re really talented.”
“Oh.”
I smile and try not to be disappointed. I mean, I want people to think I’m talented. Right?
“Do I have a college fund?”
Mom’s in the living room, watching QVC. She glances up from the fire opal pendant they’re displaying, but doesn’t reply. Okay. Let’s try something else.
“Is Dad going to pay for college?”
Still nothing. The screen switches to a Dooney & Bourke bag. Mom leans forward and takes down a notepad to write down the info.
“Oh, god. So we have no plan?”
Mom looks away from the television. “Well, of course I have a plan, Caitlin. That’s what I’ve been telling you. You think I don’t worry about this stuff?” She looks back at the bag. Two hundred dollars.
I walk between her and the television. She can’t buy two-hundred-dollar bags when I’m going to have to work as a singing waitress at Macaroni Grill after high school. “I missed the part where you told me.”
She actually takes the remote and clicks off the TV. “With Arnold, baby. When I marry him, it will be like a built-in life—the house, the cars…”
“The man.”
“Well, of course the man, Caitlin. But he’ll help with your future.”
“Do you love him?”
She doesn’t answer right away, and I wonder what I hope she’ll say. If she loves him, that’s pathetic because he’s using her. But if she doesn’t love him and is screwing with his marriage, that makes her … can’t say it.
“He’s a sweet man, Caitlin. We’ll have a good life with him.”
It makes her a … I think about asking the question again, but I decide I don’t want to know the answer.
“Who was that nice-looking young man I saw you with?” she says.
Typical. Let a hot guy drive me home and that she notices. “He’s just a friend.”
“Well, he was very … presentable. I was worried that everyone at that school was like that girl you brought home last week. The one with the … eyebrow ring.”
I remember how Gigi described Mom: “Stepford wife without the husband.”
“So I’m glad you’ve made some nice friends.”
Not that you know anything about him, except that he’s “presentable.”
“Yeah, I’m glad too.” I turn the TV back on, trading QVC for a way out of this conversation. She missed the purse—ha! I wait until she zombifies in front of the screen, then leave.
Opera_Grrrl’s Online Journal
Subject: Raised by Apes
Date: October 11
Time: 3:00 p.m.
Listening 2: La Traviata
Feeling: Happy
Weight: 116 lbs.
Remember in the movie Tarzan when he doesn’t think there are any other creatures like him ............ then he meets Jane. That’s how I feel today ....... there are whole *departments* in universities where people actually “get” opera & don’t think it’s weird .... won’t think *I’m* weird. I can’t wait for college ............ but I hope we can afford it w/out Arnold!!!
I’m on my mother’s computer. QVC’s still on in the living room, so I think it’s safe. Mom has this program she uses for real estate, where you can get information about different properties—like look up an address and get the owner’s name and how much they paid for it, or look up a person’s name and find out where they live.
I type in MIKLOSHEVSKY, ARNOLD.
Three addresses come up. One’s an office building near downtown. Another’s a condo—probably an investment property. I know Mom would say it’s good he has investments. The third is a house in Coral Gables, near where Dad lives.
I write that one down.