Free The Mozart Season by Virginia Euwer Wolff Page B

door with her voice until they leave. That’s the way to get bees to go away, she says.
    â€œSure,” I said.
    â€œDo you think Deirdre had a right to get strange with Allegra?” Daddy said.
    She turned around. “The world is so full of a number of things…” She didn’t finish it. The rest of it says, We should be happy as kings. She kissed him on the neck and went out of the room.
    Daddy was trying to protect me. And Mommy was pretending everything was normal. Both of them were being kind of unrealistic.
    Daddy went over to the cello. “Allegra, lift the neck, will you? Let’s get this thing out and minimize the trauma around here.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. I climbed out from under the sleeping bag. My blue pajamas were really dull, compared to Deirdre’s nightgown. We shook the cello gently and in a few minutes the earring dropped out. Daddy spelled “trauma” for me and I wrote it on the clipboard. He said it means something terrible happening and getting whatever it happens to all upset. When people get in car accidents they have traumas. Being born is a trauma, he said. It takes you out of what you’re used to and puts you somewhere else, and you don’t understand anything that’s going on.
    Daddy put his cello in its case, “where it should’ve been, anyway,” as he said. “Peace of Mind requires eternal vigilance,” he said. We laughed. Daddy’s big on Peace of Mind, and that thing about eternal vigilance is sort of his slogan.
    It was past seven, and I hadn’t even picked up my violin yet. I took it out, put rosin on the bow, and did some nasty Kreutzer for a few minutes.
    Everybody except Bro David was at breakfast. He had to work early at Safeway; they kept changing his shifts. The breakfast conversation was about the concert, and old friends, and Deirdre was just fine. She spilled cream when she poured it on the peaches and cereal, and she just laughed. She was wearing shorts and a huge sweater. Her hair was up on her head, in a scarf, with some long, curly hairs hanging down out of it. She said she couldn’t get over the luxury of eating breakfast in an authentic dining room. “Breakfast in a dining room—can you imagine that in New York?” she said. “With trees and birds outside?” Mommy and Daddy laughed. I was thinking about her throwing up peaches and cereal that night before she sang.
    â€œWhat about that friend of yours, the one coming to Portland—with the son?” I asked her. “You were gonna tell Mommy.”
    Her eyes got big. “Fleur! Remember Sam Landauer?”
    Mommy laughed. “Sure. With his thick glasses. I wonder what he looks like now.”
    â€œYou’re about to find out. He’s got an appointment to do research here, I don’t know. He has wife number four now. His little tiny son is a great big son, plays violin.”
    â€œNumber four. Number four?” my mother said.
    Deirdre nodded her head and held up four fingers.
    â€œHow’d you find out?”
    â€œIn Aspen. Some people were talking about this kid who’d been studying there, and his name was Landauer, and I just asked. It turns out to be little Stevie Landauer who used to build towers with Lego blocks.”
    Mommy looked at the ceiling. “Little Stevie Landauer is … I think he’s—something like fifteen now? Seventeen?”
    â€œProbably. And I have a rehearsal.”
    â€œI’ll drive you. It’s only about ten minutes. We’ll leave at eight-thirty, do you want the practice room?” Mommy said.
    Nobody mentioned anything about the earring in the cello. Daddy was gathering his briefcase and things, getting ready to teach his class across the Willamette River from where we live, on the same side of the city with Pioneer Square. It’s a music theory class, even in the summer.
    Everybody left and I practiced. I was working on