The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [20]
“Sorry,” I said, feeling her breast warm against my arm as I warded her off. My desire was rising again. “And what about the kid? Boy prodigy or girl prodigy?”
“I could never decide. If it was a girl, I was afraid she’d be prettier than me. But if it was a boy, I wouldn’t have anyone to go to the bathroom with, and the idea of going by myself in a foreign country scared me.”
I managed a laugh, screwing up my courage as I nuzzled her neck.
“No one could be prettier than you. But you have a bigger problem now.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re dating a guy who’s never played anything except a kazoo.”
I held my breath as I waited for her reply. She kissed my face, hands roaming gently.
“Maybe a boy and a girl, then,” she sighed. “Both on the violin, so they can practice together. And a husband to applaud and throw flowers.”
“And teach them about baseball?” I asked, elated.
She nodded.
“I can do that,” I said, pulling her closer. “Nobody throws flowers like me.”
An uncomfortable tightness in my chest was just dissipating when the concerto finished. Claire struck a bittersweet Picardy third and then held the major chord with the right pedal as Kate and the boy drew their bows downward in unison, echoing her. I waited for the reverberations to die, took a measured breath, and then stood and clapped enthusiastically. Claire smiled discreetly in my direction before starting to tidy her music, but Kate tucked her violin beneath one arm and bowed low, sweeping her free hand up and out with an operatic flourish. Straightening with a grin, she tapped the boy on his shirtfront with her bow.
“This is Phil,” she said. “He goes to NYU.” She pointed the bow toward me. “And this is my dad.”
Phil winced and rubbed his chest before extending a hand to me, grimacing at Kate in mock reproach. She rolled her eyes and gave him a sidelong smirk that instantly tripped my father alarm. I hadn’t really had to deal with boys much yet—Kate wasn’t particularly social. I’d quietly been rooting for her to meet someone she liked, concerned that she might be keeping close to home because she thought Claire and I needed her, or because she was afraid of exposing herself to another loss. Shaking Phil’s hand, though, I realized I wasn’t entirely ready for the reality of a guy in my living room—particularly someone older than her.
“NYU’s a great school,” I said. “What year are you in?”
“Sophomore,” he answered. “Kind of.”
“Phil took a year off to travel,” Kate explained, “but he’ll be a junior next semester because he’s been taking a heavy course load and he had a bunch of AP credit.”
Which made him nineteen or twenty, two or three years Kate’s senior. I let the thought roll around in my head, trying to decide how I felt about it. He seemed like a nice enough kid—no visible tattoos or piercings, a decent violinist, and a hospital volunteer. I was wondering what his father did for a living when it occurred to me that I was getting ahead of myself.
“We’re done, right?” Kate asked, addressing her mother.
“Yes,” Claire answered. “The only thing you need to work on are the arpeggios in the first ritornello. The transitions could be a little crisper. Otherwise, bravissimo.”
“Bella signora,” Phil said, kissing his fingers. “Grazie molto.”
Kate flashed him another smile and then settled her violin in its case.
“I’m going out for a few minutes,” she said casually. “I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
“Going out where?” Claire asked, looking up from her music with a troubled expression.
“Java Joe. Phil’s laptop is acting kind of wonky, so I’m going to take a look at it for him. I think his registry’s messed up—maybe a bad cluster on the hard drive or something.”
Kate was a self-taught computer whiz who kept herself in pocket money by tending to our neighbors’ networks and hardware. And Java Joe was where all the neighborhood teens hung out. Still, there was a breathy undercurrent to her voice as she said Phil’s name that made the feeling I had before come back stronger.
“It’s a school night,” Claire said. “What do you think, Mark?”
Kate flushed, her expression