At first I thought the sound of the violin was in my head. Then I noticed a girl standing on the corner of York and William Streets. I’d seen buskers in the ByWard Market before, but usually a guy with a beat-up guitar or one of those people who dress all in silver and only move, like, once an hour.
The girl with the violin was maybe eighteen or nineteen. She was good. The market was filled with music that night, yet people stopped to listen to her, dropping coins into her open case before going on their way. Beside us, through an open window in the Château Lafayette, we saw a TV showing a baseball game, men with fingers wrapped around bottles staring intensely at the screen. Someone bumped me as they passed, and Dani pulled me to the wall of a parking garage.
“She’s good,” Dani said.
“Yeah,” I replied. I was nodding my head to the music.
Occasionally the girl dipped her head toward the ground and added a little flourish to her bowing.
At first I thought she was showing off. But soon I saw that she was completely entranced by the music. She’d fallen into what she was playing. Coaxing each note out of her instrument. There were mistakes, of course, and the sound was a bit flat—though that could have been the violin itself. But for this crowd, these people wandering through the market on a hazy summer evening, she was playing something completely beautiful.
When she finished the piece, the small crowd that had gathered around her clapped. More money dropped into her case. Children ran up and thanked her.
Danielle and I walked through the market. I pointed out the places I knew. The statues and buskers. The restaurants I’d eaten in. I showed her where a great bookstore once stood. Most of the market area was now full of pubs and expensive restaurants.
“That was awesome,” Dani said out of nowhere. She grabbed my hand. We were standing in front of a store that seemed to sell only soap.
“What?” I said.
“Our performance. It was awesome. We totally nailed it.”
“It was great,” I said.
She squeezed my hand. “Thank you,” she said. Then she let go and pointed at a nearby store. “We need to go in there.”
“Why?”
“Because we totally rocked that concert and I want to celebrate with new shoes.”
I had never been in Top of the World—or in any of the trendy stores—and was amazed by all the shirts and skateboards and the sheer number of different decks and wheels available. It was like a different world. When Mr. Jorgensen and I came into the market, we always went to the same independent coffee shop. Sometimes he stopped in at the bike shop where his nephew worked, and other times we wandered up to the National Gallery.
Dani bought a pair of deep-blue etnies and a fat leather bracelet. As we were leaving the store, she wrapped the bracelet around my wrist.
It seemed strange there—I’d never worn any jewelry. “What’s this for?” I asked.
“For remembering me,” she said.
I wanted to tell her I wouldn’t forget her, but the words didn’t come out.
“Is this place good?” Dani asked. We’d worked our way back around to William Street, and ended up outside a restaurant named Vittoria Trattoria, where the violinist was busking.
“I have no idea.”
“Let’s try it.”
We went inside and were given a window seat.
Before taking our order, the waiter brought out a little basket of bread. We were both starved and grabbed pieces—but there was one hard little bun we both avoided.
Eventually, Dani picked it up. “What’s with this guy?” she said, knocking it on the table.
I took it and knocked it on the window, then set it in the middle of the table. “Is it supposed to be like this?”
Dani grabbed it from me. “Maybe.”
“Who would eat that?”
She looked at me, tilting her head to one side. “Truth or eat the bun,” she said.
“What?” I said.
“Truth or eat the bun,” she said again. “We’ll ask each other a question and whoever doesn’t answer their question has to eat this bun. And you have to be totally honest. If you’re not totally honest and the other person calls you out, you have to eat the bun.”
“Okay,” I said. “Like, the whole bun?”
“Yes, all of it. Who knows though—it could be really good.”
“I doubt that.”
“Same here,” she said. “You start.”
“How?” I said.
“Ask me a question. Anything. I’ll answer it honestly.”
“Do you love your boyfriend?”
She sat back in her seat, thinking. I didn’t even know why I’d asked that. It just seemed to be something she was struggling with. Something I could force her to be honest about, for better or worse.
“Right out of the gates, eh?” She took a sip of water and opened her eyes wide. “I don’t know.”
“Eat the bun.”
“No. That’s the honest truth. I’ve told him I love him. He said it back. So that was all taken care of. But right after I said it, I wasn’t sure if I believed it. I’m still not.”
“Okay,” I said. “You don’t have to eat the bun.”
She banged it on the table. “That makes me ridiculously happy.”
“Your go.”
“If you could be anything, what would you be?”
“Like, now? Or when I grow up?” I asked.
She laughed.
“What?”
“When you ‘grow up.’ That just sounds dumb.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s just that I’m about to go to university, and we’re supposed to feel all grown up and act differently and everything. But yeah, you’re fifteen. So…when you grow up.”
“A violinist,” I said.
“Honestly?”
“Absolutely. A soloist as well. Like James Ehnes.” As I said this, I realized it was true. But at the same time, the idea felt fresh and new.
Our dinners came. I’d ordered a plain-sounding pizza. Danielle had seafood lasagna. The table immediately smelled like the ocean.
“Your go,” Danielle said.
“Why did you come to the workshop?”
She scrunched up her nose. “Honestly?”
I pointed at the bun.
“Okay. Because I had to prove to myself that I was good enough. Getting in was hard. Okay, actually—so I don’t have to eat that bun—I’m here because I had to prove to everyone else that I was good enough. And by everyone else I mean my friends and Pierre. Mostly just so they’ll leave me alone. You should have seen people when I told them I was coming. They were all, like, amazed that I had made it in. As though what I’m doing is some stupid hobby. So who cares? Because it’s classical music.”
She paused and took another drink of water. “That’s why I’m here, I guess. For them. Because when I told them about this program and how hard it was to get in, there was this little bit of recognition that maybe, just maybe, all the practice I did and everything else actually mattered. That it was as important as when Pierre scored a goal. Only when I get a piece down, there’s no applause. Right? But no one has any idea about these things. I mean, what is success in classical music?”
“What is success in anything?”
“People are famous for being famous these days. So, honestly, what does talent matter?”
“I think it does,” I said. “I mean, I think it’s important.”
“So do I. But that doesn’t make it a lot easier. Anyway, I’m going to university for business. It’s what my parents have always wanted and, in a way, what I want as well.”
“Not music?”
“No. I mean, I know how good I am. I don’t have a career in music waiting for me.”
“Will you keep playing?”
She shrugged again. “Who knows? That concert we just put on kind of felt like the end for me. A final thing so I can tell myself I did it, that I tried.”
“But you could teach or be in music some other way.”
“I might be able to do something, sure. Anything is possible, right?” She grabbed the bun and banged it on the table. “You’re hogging all the questions. It’s my turn.” She shook the bun at me. “Why do you get so nervous?”
I almost denied it. Instead, I set my fork down and looked at her. “Because I don’t want to fail,” I said. Which felt honest.
“You won’t. Why else?”
“Because I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”
“Not going to happen. You’re annoyingly amazing. Why else?” I didn’t say anything, so she bumped my nose with the bun. “Taste the bun. Feel its ridiculous staleness. Imagine biting the bun.” She bumped my nose again. “Why do you really get so nervous?”
“Because…” I looked at my pizza. Listened to the girl playing violin. Thought about what Jon had said. What Mr. Jorgensen had talked about. I even considered all the things I’d read on the Internet, and still I came up blank.
But the answer was there. I just didn’t want to admit it.
“Okay, eat the bun,” Danielle said.
“I don’t want to eat the bun,” I said.
“Then be honest. Why do you get so nervous?”
“Because it matters,” I finally said.
And it felt as if a weight had slid from my shoulders. The waiter was standing beside our table, asking if he could take anything away. Danielle looked at me.
I said it again. “Because it matters.”
She put the bun in the basket and handed it to the waiter.
“Of course it does,” she said.
* * *
We’d finished dinner, having discussed everything from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the differences between Back to the Future I, II and III, and were outside walking when Dani said, “That’s the way you have to think about it.”
“About what?” I said. We’d just been talking about the best strategy in a zombie apocalypse.
“Your nerves. Your worrying about it mattering. You have to ask yourself, Who does it matter to?”
“Me,” I said. “Before this, I’d assumed I’d always be playing violin. I’d never thought about the future. And now that I know I want to do this forever, it matters. It’s like all these people are suddenly involved in my life. They get to decide where I go. What I can do. It’s painful.”
“That’s because you’re thinking of it the wrong way. One mistake isn’t going to end your life.”
“Are you sure?” I said.
She stopped and turned to me. “Will, you are incredible. You are the best violinist I have ever heard. It seems entirely effortless for you. Honestly, you’re annoying as hell.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“You’re welcome. So here’s the thing. You need to play for yourself. It’s what you’ve been doing for years, right?”
“Sure,” I said. “And for Mr. Jorgensen.”
“Why did you play for him?”
I thought back to Mr. Jorgensen laughing and clapping while I played. Of the smile on his face.
Of the joy it seemed to bring him.
“Because he loves it,” I said.
“So don’t change anything, Will. Keep playing for yourself. And play for people who love it. Forget the judges. Forget what might or might not happen next. You need to play for yourself.”
The violin girl was playing some modern piece I’d never heard before.
“Look at her,” Dani said. “Look at the people listening to her. Do you think any of them care if one note is slightly off or if she forgets something halfway through?”
The crowd around the violinist seemed entranced by her playing.
“I guess not,” I said.
“I know not. She’s communicating with them. She’s telling them something important and they’re getting it. That’s what we do as musicians. We talk to one another through our instruments. But in the end, you also have to make sure you don’t take it all too seriously.”
“Don’t take it too seriously,” I repeated.
“Nothing is ever the end of the world,” she added.
“Except the zombie apocalypse,” I said.
“Yeah.” She shuddered. “That would be awful.”