The Metropolis Case_ A Novel - Matthew Gallaway [65]
Back downstairs, she found Kathy and burst into tears: she cried inconsolably, so that all who walked by the young teacher holding the hand of this girl and gently reassuring her must have thought the kid had really blown it. They walked all the way across Fifty-seventh Street to Madison Avenue, where Maria—now more composed—gasped at the prices of silk scarves and a gold pen, which she knew would amuse her father. She called home twice, but the line was busy both times, and then—because she still felt uncertain about her audition—decided it would be better anyway to wait until the next day so she could tell Gina about A Chorus Line, which she and Kathy planned to see later that night.
At dinner, they rehashed the audition and decided that it had probably gone better than Maria initially thought. Kathy ordered her red wine, and Maria loved the way it sat placidly in its enormous glass, which became cloudy and opaque as she ate. Slightly drunk, she floated through the cold night air to the theater, where she watched the crowd of people milling around in front of the box office with a sense of disbelief that anyone could be lucky enough to experience this more than once. But the intensity of the show made her nervous, and she had to resist the temptation to chew on the ends of her hair; watching professional performers, she could not help but envision herself among their ranks—given that this was now her aspiration—yet they were so polished and unguarded, as if they had not the least trepidation about revealing the darkest corners of their souls for everyone to see.
MARIA WAS STILL in bed when the harsh ring of the hotel phone abruptly awakened her, and she opened her eyes to the opalescent light of dawn. She felt a pang of guilt—she should have called home again—even before she saw Kathy reach from the adjacent bed to answer. Already hoping it was a dream and knowing from the brittle texture of the bedspread it was not, she heard a hushed gasp and two footsteps, followed by Kathy’s fingers, first touching the top of her head and then her shoulder.
Maria sat straight up, her stomach in knots even before she saw Kathy’s face, quivering as she wiped tears from her eyes and tried to mouth the words. “What?” she asked, her voice a round whisper absorbed by the upholstered headboard and the crumpled sheets and blankets.
Still unable to talk, Kathy looked away, shaking her head back and forth.
“Kathy?” Maria cried.
Sinking to her knees, Kathy leaned on the edge of Maria’s bed and looked up. Her lips moved, and even before a sound reached her ears, as if her nightmares had preordained it, Maria knew the word was fire.
19
Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical
PARIS, 1860. As Codruta did every December on St. Ignatius Day at the Georges, she hosted a fête des rêves, at which, per the custom in her native Romania, she served roasted pig and plied her guests with plum brandy and mulled wine. Lucien halfheartedly performed a selection of Christmas songs before helping himself to two glasses of each, which left him pleasantly drunk but still estranged from the festivities. He stood at the edge of the ballroom among the potted palms and banana trees as a couple drifted past on the dance floor—heads back and laughing, they were in perfect step—and he felt a twinge of sadness as he pictured himself the previous spring, enthralled by Wagner’s new opera and certain that falling in love was as imminent as the end of the piece.
He wasn’t sure exactly what the problem was; unlike many others, he was