Our scene: a black-tie wedding at Manhattan’s University Club, a banquet hall with mile-high ceilings, two thousand pounds of crystal dangling over our heads, and sound-swallowing acoustics. Breathtaking, gorgeous, and home to the reception of many a blushing bride.
Tonight’s bride was blushing courtesy of the open bar.
“You have to play ‘Hotel California’!” She kept shouting her demand right into our first violinist’s face, and this time she added something that’s made me want to wrap a C string around my own neck too many times. “It’s my day!”
Her day. Well, her evening. Judging from the flush of her cheeks, tomorrow wasn’t going to be her morning, so she might as well live it up tonight.
Rational conversation hadn’t helped. Harrison had already protested four times that we couldn’t play it. That we hadn’t practiced it. That we had no sheet music for it. And had she failed to notice string quartets make classical music?
We’d stopped playing, but we were still entertaining the crowd. Gone were the clinks of silverware and the thrum of conversation. Who wouldn’t be fascinated by a three-sheets-to-the-wind bride and a baffled quartet with no guitars, no drums, and no singer? They probably thought it was the most outrageous thing that ever happened at a wedding, but they didn’t know about the time a chipmunk got into the church and hid beneath our client’s bridal gown.
Although come to think of it, the chipmunk wasn’t screaming that any high school garage band could have managed this very simple request. The chipmunk also hadn’t threatened to stop payment on the check.
I glanced at the cellist on my left, wearing a tuxedo now that he wasn’t driving a cab. Shock had replaced the mischief in his eyes.
The groom dragged over the emcee, shouting, “Make them do it!”
The emcee leaned closer to Harrison. “Can’t you try?”
Harrison hissed back, “Are you out of your mind?”
Ah, the permanent standoff. Harrison wasn’t going to play and the bride wasn’t going to back down and the emcee wasn’t going to stand up to her. That left us how many options? So I tucked my viola and bow against my side. Approaching the bride, I pitched my voice low like my instrument. “This is such a beautiful wedding. Let’s take a walk to the head table. You can show me the cake topper.”
The bride swung to glare at me, and her anger drew all the air out of the hall, leaving me unable to breathe. “Don’t you dare tell me what to do! If I want to hear about hotels and eagles, I’m going to have it!”
I stepped backward, only to have the bride grab the scroll of my viola. I yanked away, but she said, “Now play it!”
That’s when our second violinist took the floor. With her height enhanced by her floor-length sheath dress, Shreya raised her violin with authority.
Me? I authoritatively fled.
I had no idea what Shreya planned to do, but with her black hair loose to her waist, she would look pretty darned good doing it. And then, to my surprise, she played eight bars of the usually-done-on-guitar riff made famous by the Eagles.
Seeming too small for his tuxedo, Harrison whispered, “Oh, God.”
Hands clasped, the bride nodded: do it again.
Shreya laid bow to strings and repeated the riff, this time going all the way through. I detected subtle differences between the first and second attempts, but I didn’t think the bride could have, even if she’d been sober, nor that she’d have cared. Shreya was improvising, in other words. And just like that, we were flying without a net.
I caught Harrison’s eye. Did panic harmonize with horror? For all I knew, Harrison might have been the only one in America who’d never heard “Hotel California.” But we already had our heads in the guillotine, so I raised my viola. If Shreya could fashion a performance out of a drunken bride’s demand, surely I could pick up the key and fake it.
After all, the joke goes that in order to imitate a violist, you only need to hit a lot of wrong notes in the low register.
Once I started, Josh our cellist laid down rapid bass notes on my other side.
After Shreya ran through it a third time, she gave her head a good shake. Then clamping her violin between her chin and shoulder, she raised her left hand to yank off the black-haired wig, revealing a head of ultra-short blue hair.
The bride squealed as Shreya resumed playing, her hips never still, her violin so in motion that I couldn’t believe it stayed aloft. Partners, she and the violin fully inhabited the space of the music. Beneath the chandelier crystals were the bride all in white and Shreya all in black, the bride still and Shreya in motion, the bride alone but Shreya and her violin together.
God, she’s good. I scanned the guests to see if anyone else recognized the magic, but no. At setup, the events manager had said the bridal party arrived drunk to the ceremony, and most of the guests hadn’t taken long to follow suit.
The groom stood slack-jawed while several groomsmen cat-called, and that’s when the bride snatched the emcee’s mike so she could warble on about Califo-o-oornia. Rather than change key to follow her, Shreya kept repeating the riff. The videographer wore the world’s wickedest grin as he encouraged the bride to mug for the camera.
Ever our heroic leader, Harrison set his violin on the chair and laid his arm across the bride’s shoulders, guiding the mike toward himself. Finally. This was fun and all, but maybe he could stop this Titanic from sinking not only itself but our quartet’s career.
“Thank you very much!” He sounded enthusiastic rather than horrified, and it stopped her mid-lyric. He guided the mike free of her hands. “Let’s have some applause for our bride Melissa and her stunning performance!”
Stunning. Unintentional irony was not Harrison’s strong suit, but it got applause. Heaven help our reputation. Worse, if the bride woke up tomorrow and remembered any of this, that check would end up bouncing harder than a home run whacking the upper deck at Yankee Stadium.
Heart thrumming a staccato, I glanced sideways, and this time Josh caught my eye. He winked. I snickered.
Cocking her head, Shreya sauntered to her seat, flashing us a grin. It was as if she’d said, We’re a team. We might be a newish quartet, but it’d take more than one wasted bride to knock us to the ground.
Struggling to relax my shoulders enough to play, I looked to Harrison for our cue.
Only then did I see Harrison still standing with the mike, and what he held in his hand. Before I could react, he earned us the eternal enmity of Miss Manners and anyone else with good taste. “If anyone wants to buy a copy of our CD, it’s on sale tonight for fifteen dollars!”
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Footnotes for Upsie-Daisy, because we had to put them somewhere:
1 Note to scientists everywhere: just because you forget about your used-up donut after you’ve replaced a flat doesn’t mean the donut has forgotten; it’s going to ride around, dead, until the next time you need it, when you will abruptly remember that yes, there was something to do at the garage. [Go Back]
2 I’ve never actually eaten at a place like that, but I’m sure you could find one in Manhattan. [Go Back]