Earl’s big moment had finally arrived. Around him the 60 members of the Ambleside Community Orchestra filled the high school gymnasium with the sounds of The Planets, a majestic symphony familiar from a dozen movie soundtracks.
They had rehearsed for months and at last, here they were, in the first public performance of their season, approaching the part where Venus rises majestically to prominence against the galactic background. The moment was to be heralded by the clear call of Earl’s brand new French horn.
Earl quivered like a race horse as he waited for the deft tick from the baton of Conductor Ralph, accompanied by that warm, conspiratorial look that said, “your turn, pal.”
He wouldn’t admit it, but Earl fell in love with Ralph every time their eyes locked across the field of violins and wind instruments. He longed to be worthy of the maestro’s attention. So every day for weeks he had retreated to his garage to focus on his lonely goal: building his embouchure into a muscular purse of vibrating lips that would bring forth the mythical, soaring voice he heard in his mind.
A French horn is a treacherous instrument. Its spaghetti tangle of pipes and valves resembles the human digestive tract and its output can be disconcertingly similar. Even professionals have produced fart noises at climactic moments. Earl lived in fear of fart noises. He would have sacrificed his beloved goldfish to ward them off. But Earl was a modern man and his superstitions were different: he polished the brassy surface of his horn to a subdued glow and lubricated its valves and slides with the finest oils. The fingers of his right hand touched the instrument only at the ivory inlaid keys. His other hand was wrapped in a silk cloth so that his skin would not contaminate the lustrous surface. Before the concert he had carefully breathed into the instrument, blowing long, lubricious chords and scales for more than an hour.
And now he was ready: his horn glowed with warmth, his lips formed their rictus grin and his lungs were full to bursting. At last the baton made its momentary dip and the eyes of Ralph fell upon his willing servant.
Earl blew.
The audience gasped. Earl, wriggling with pleasure, knew he had produced that profound, elusive sound that is the holy grail of French horn players everywhere.
But nobody heard it. Earl’s worthy toot had been drowned out by a crash of wood and metal from behind. Borne aloft by his success Earl kept blowing, shaping his sounds into a sonic portrait of Venus’ stately progress. But Conductor Ralph had stopped moving. He remained frozen in place, arms outstretched. All the musicians had stopped playing but Earl. For a long, lonely moment his sound was the only musical voice in the gym.
There was no doubt the woman was dead. The chalk white form of Bessie Anderson, cellist emeritus and the orchestra’s longest serving member, lay among the wreckage of her hand-built cello and a theatre spotlight, oddly gigantic on the stage floor. A pool of blood had formed around Bessie’s white hair. Earl could not comprehend such dissonance.Glenn, second clarinetist and retired physician, crouched over Bessie’s still form. He held one hand on her wrist, the other at her throat as players formed a protective huddle around her, some looking fearfully up from where the spotlight had presumably come. After a moment Glenn rose to his feet and stood, head bowed, hands folded in front, as if to pay homage to Bessie’s half-century of service.
Then the voice of authority: “don’t touch anything! Move away from her folks, in case anything else falls. Anybody got a cell phone? This is a crime scene. Call the cops.” Bob, the tuba player, worked as a security guard for extra money and liked nothing more than taking control and swaggering around feeling important. Other members, egos less involved in the incident, humbly gave way.
They were not a sentimental lot. After their initial shock, they were angry and annoyed at the perfidious spotlight for ending their concert. Bessie had been respected, if not liked. Who could replace her? Eyes fell upon young Stephen, the student cellist, who nervously fluttered his hands, fingering his tie. He avoided their eyes, looking at the rafters above. Was that a face he saw peering over a catwalk? The light was dim but there seemed to be a young woman wearing horn rim glasses glaring back at him. He squinted in concentration but the phantom thing, pale as a ghost, moved away.
It was Ralph who sent the audience home as paramedics loaded the body, wrapped in blood-soaked blankets, onto a stretcher and cops circled the scene with yellow crime scene tape. He mounted the podium. “We’re sorry.” He paused to still the quavering that welled into his throat. “Bessie … was with us … for a long time. We can’t continue.” He was cut short by a police officer who towered over Ralph as he took the microphone and spoke briskly into it: “If anyone here has seen anything of interest, please contact the police as soon as you can. My name’s Captain Joe Parker. Just ask for me or ask the clerk to take a message and we’ll get back to you. I’d also like to ask the members of the orchestra plus any stagehands or staff not to leave until we have your contact information. Thank you.”
In a rehearsal room off stage, musicians put away their instruments and music, talking in subdued tones, wary of the two nosy constables looming over one after another, watching every move. Then they lined up and waited, instruments and music in hand, while another constable, squished into a child-sized school desk, wrote down their names and contact information, licking the point of his little yellow pencil as he began each entry.
In the main auditorium all the house lights were on bathing the seats in a factory glare. Most seats were empty, the few remaining occupied by people with disabilities who were waiting for the passageways to clear. Near the front sat a small well-groomed man in a three-piece suit. David Anderson had just watched his mother die and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. He sat in his chair staring at the chaos on stage just behind the crime scene tape. "Take as long as you need, sir," said the police constable assigned to watch over the area after verifying his name and writing it down in notebook.
Anderson was a professional musician, a cellist on call with symphony orchestras in Victoria and Vancouver. But his real love was jazz and that had caused a rift in the relationship with his mother that couldn’t be repaired. He loved his mother but hated her pretentious pursuit of status in small town Ambleside. She the only amateur musician he knew who never tapped her feet to a dance tune. She had forbidden him to join jam sessions and rock bands in high school. “Nothing but dope-addled dreamers,” she’d say. “Classical musicians — now there’s the best of humanity.
Anderson knew his mother had been fiercely proud of her son and attended all his public appearances. At least the ones he told her about. But she hadn't known about his most recent public appearance in a large shopping centre. He had started a group of five like-minded musicians dedicated to playing jazz versions of popular classical tunes. Mother had blundered into the show by accident and seen them filling the air with a jazz version of Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5. It was a classic, crowd-pleasing tune and they’d attracted a happy gathering. He’d danced and twirled to the music, kicking his feet high in the air while he played. Cell phones had popped up everywhere and the crowd was cheering and clapping along and suddenly he saw his mother, her face chalk white.
"What on earth do you think you're doing?" she said on the phone to him later. "You will not play jazz if I can help it. If I ever catch you playing like that again I'll cut you out of my will."
Her words were devastating to Anderson. He had hoped to convince his mother to support his plans for a summer tour of his group. A proper business would need a van, an office and a publicist to bring such a group to life to say nothing of practice space, salaries and hotels. Now they’d have to find another way unless, he thought, his mother died before she could change her will.
After a few minutes he rose from his seat and nodded at the constable. He threaded his way along the row of seats and headed for the exit.
The news had travelled fast, first via social media, then radio. By the time Earl got home his mother knew better than to ask how the concert had gone. She made him tea and left him alone at the kitchen table. Earl added sugar and slurped. He didn’t want to think about Bessie. He wanted to mourn his beautiful unheard solo. He was a mediocre horn player confronted with a part that was beyond him. He’d worked furiously, turning himself into a machine hoping rote learning and muscle memory could substitute for years of training. When the moment finally came he had stretched himself to the limit and achieved a form of greatness. His thoughts were selfish and bleak: “When will I ever play like that again?”
Earl gulped the last half cup and headed outside the little bungalow where he’d grown up, crossed through the mist to the garage and sat in his practice chair. He placed his music on his practice stand and breathed into the instrument to warm it up. But the horn was cold and glum, refusing to cooperate. After a few wavering tones, he lowered the instrument and held it in his lap. He stared into space and thought, as he had every day when he’d held his cherished horn in this private space, of the young girl he’d played with in junior high just over a year ago. Nellie.
Earl had met Nellie when he was just 16, a shy and skinny kid dubbed Frog Face by his classmates because of his bulging eyes and wide mouth. The school band was his only social activity. He had joined it because his guidance counsellor, wise to the hormonal treachery of high school, had insisted on it.
The music teacher, Mrs. Anderson, eager to fill out the brass section of his band, had handed him a fingering chart for an instrument called a mellophone plus sheet music for the band’s current tune: Hot Cross Buns. Then she’d disappeared into the room behind and come back with an oddly-shaped black case. She unbuckled the straps and opened the top. Earl peered inside at a tangle of pipes and valves that looked impossible to play. Mrs. Anderson rumaged inside the case, pulled out a mouthpiece and put it to her lips. She drew her lips into a hard, compressed line and blew. It made a buzzing sound. “Can you do that?” she asked, handing the mouthpiece to Earl.
Earl blew, compressing his lips as the teacher had showed him and produced a wavering buzz.
“Good. Now try it with the horn,” she said, pulling the conraption out of its case and twisting the mouthpiece into place. It’s called a mellophone. Same as the French horn, but a bit easier to play.
Earl blew, and his heart swelled as he heard a haunting, mournful sound as if someone was calling from very far away.
“Very good. That’s the sound of a real French horn,” said Mrs. Anderson. “It’s called the hunter’s horn. They used to use it to call each other over the mountains.” Earl imagined a tall archer in Robin Hood tights walking alone, deep in the forest, hooting with his horn to let everyone now where he was.
“Let’s play some music,” she said. And for 15 minutes she sat beside him clapping and singing and pointing at the notes, teaching him enough about musical notation to read and finger his way through that simple tune. Earl’s heart rose in his chest as he learned his new skill, but his tremulous joy was interrupted by Mrs Anderson’s pencil tapping his fingers: “stop! What note is that?”
Something in Mrs. Anderson’s voice had changed.
“Um… F?”
“No!” She shouted. “It’s F sharp! F sharp! F sharp! See that little tic tac toe symbol? What does that mean? It means sharp! I told you that! Whenever you see that symbol you play the note half a tone higher. What’s the fingering for F sharp?”
Earl’s treacherous memory refused to cooperate.
“I … don’t … know.”
He felt a sharp pain as Mrs Anderson’s pencil smacked his middle finger. “That’s F sharp right there! See it on the fingering chart! That’s F sharp you stupid, stupid boy!” Pow! The pencil smacked his finger again. Earl’s hand withdrew itself from the horn.
“I don’t have time for this.” Mrs Anderson jabbed a finger into Earl’s shoulder. “You go home and practice this song. Get it right by next week or I’ll take the horn back. I don’t have time for students who won’t practice.”
Shaken, Earl took the bus home and did what he was told. The mellophone is an easy instrument to play and in a few minutes he not only mastered the tune but had begun to enjoy the sounds he made. His eyes widened as he blew into the horn and heard the hunter’s call. In his mind the tall hunter heard him play and sounded his horn in reply. Earl practiced every day, out of fear at but soon he found he enjoyed the sounds he made. Mrs Anderson never smacked his fingers again but Earl never forgot the pain and his right hand still tingled whenever he made a mistake.
After a few rehearsals with the band, Earl, sitting on the top row of the bleachers at the back of the band, had begun to fit in. He tongued each note of Hot Cross Buns with the fervour of a convert, proclaiming the glory of those delicious, steaming creations. Midway through the music Mrs. Anderson held up her hands to stop the band. A girl with a serious face and horn-rim glasses was standing next to her, holding a mellophone, a handful of sheet music and a stand. Earl recognized her from his biology class. She always sat up front and never said a word.
“We have a new member,” said Mrs. Anderson. “Nellie,” she said, gesturing towards the top row in the bleachers, “why don’t you sit up there with Earl? He can help you out.”
Nellie struggled up the stairs of the bleachers clutching her horn, sheet music and stand. She edged along the top row shuffling past the trombones towards Earl then, as she turned to find her place and knocked over the stand of a trumpet player, sending sheets of music through the bleachers to the floor below. Nellie clutched at the stand but dropped her own music, sending another cascade through the gaps in the bleachers. Her mellophone crashed to the seat behind her and teetered on the edge. Earl grabbed the instrument but knocked his own stand over and sent another shower of music to the floor. Other players crouched over their own stands and files of music to keep them safe. Nellie stood alone, hands over her face. “Sorry!” she cried. “Sorry! Sorry!” but was drowned out in a sea of derisive laughter.
Earl, untangling the stands before him, came down like an acrobat through the framework of the bleachers until he reached the floor below. Students hooted and bellowed:
“Hey Frog Face help your girlfriend Nasty Nellie!”
“Monkey man to the rescue!”
“I Monkey Man, you Nellie!”
More laughter. Earl kept his eyes on the floor and frantically gathered sheets of music. He was joined by Nellie, who had clumped down the stairs. She had lost her glasses and her face looked different — soft and vulnerable as if she was ready to cry. She clapped her hands over her eyes as if to hide from the world, then suddenly pulled them away and favoured Earl with a bright conspiratorial grin. Earl couldn’t help but smile back. He held her glasses in front of her. Nellie grasped them but hesitated, still beaming at him as if she had discovered a delightful new species of fish. Then she put her glasses on and the face of Nasty Nellie returned.
Earl was smitten. No girl had ever smiled at him like that.
They became a pair, meeting after school in the music room every Tuesday. They sat facing each other and Earl was proud to share his meagre expertise. Nellie was a quick study, learning the notes in a few minutes and playing Hot Cross Buns almost perfectly twice in a row by herself. Then she removed her glasses and played it again by ear. Earl liked watching her as she worked through the tune without her glasses. Not many people saw her this way, he thought. Nellie was much prettier without them.
She grinned foggily at him “It’s weird. It’s almost like there’s somebody there. Somebody playing with me.”
Earl hadn’t told her about the man in the forest.
“Can we play it together?” She said. Earl counted them in, setting a slow, easy pace. He still needed the music but felt Nellie gazing at him across their stands as they played. When they reached the last few measures he stopped blowing but kept the horn to his lips and watched his new friend. Nellie’s blue eyes were fastened on him and she was smiling, even with the horn to her lips. She held the last note as long as she could, the mischievous smile growing until she ran out of breath. She clapped her hands over her eyes and laughed.
“That was so much fun! Who else is playing? Is there somebody here? Hey! Where are you?” She pulled her hands away and looked around. “I’m sure there’s somebody else here. We were playing and you stopped and I could still hear them!” She lightly ran her fingers over their shared music stand, found her glasses and put them on. Her happy smile faded. Nasty Nellie again.
“Can you see anything now?” Said Earl.
“I can’t,” she scowled and placed a hand on Earl’s knee as she sprang from her seat to scuttle around the practice room. There was nowhere anyone could hide but that didn’t stop her from looking under a few of the child-size seats. She darted around the end-wall entrance to the cloak room where dozens of small coats were hanging. Earl heard her frantically patting one coat after another and even disturbing lunch boxes as she sought the the culprit.
Her face, pale and anxious, appeared as she leaned out from the cloakroom entrance. “I can’t find anything.”
“Try it without your glasses.”
“No.”
“You look different without your glasses, umm … nicer.”
“You think I look nicer without my glasses?”
“Umm … yeah.”
Nellie folded her arms and leaned against the blackboard, fixed to the wall that separated the cloakroom from the main classroom. The chalk residue would stain her dress, Earl thought. She looked much older with that Nasty Nellie scowl. She reached up slowly and pulled the glasses away.
“Do I look nicer now?”
“Yeah … sure.”
“You look like a f*cking tadpole.”
“Heh. Yeah, well that’s why they call me Frogface, I guess.”
“You’re not a frog. You need to grow up.”
“Why? So I can be nasty like you?”
“Oh!”
Earl stared. He had wounded her with his stab-in-the-dark retaliation. “Sorry! I didn’t mean anything! I mean, I think you look nice without your glasses. Can’t you get contacts, or something?”
“Never. A proud heart is the lamp of the wicked.”
“Huh?”
“That’s from the Bible, Frogface. My mom isn’t going to pay for contacts. I’m not even supposed to play music. It’s not the Lord’s work.”
“Does that mean we can’t play together?”
“No. I want to play. I just won’t tell her.”
Nellie settled into her chair facing Earl so she could watch his blurry tadpole head bobbing to the beat. The next rendition of Hot Cross Buns would have drawn an ovation had there been a crowd. By the time they reached the end, Nellie was kicking her feet in the air in front of her and laughing hysterically. She had improvised all the way through, discovering harmonics and chord tones while Earl honked seriously away. The final measure sounded almost spiritual as Nellie climbed an arpeggio, soaring a full octave above the chord tone, which she held as long as she had the breath to blow.
“Oh, Earl! I’ve never had so much fun in my life! And quit trying to look up my skirt!”
A change came over the girl. Over the next few weeks she stopped wearing her glasses, navigating the blurry hallways, befuddled and adorable as she hummed the music to their songs.
Steering her in the halls with one hand on her elbow, Earl felt the feral stares as they passed gaggles of giggling girls or, worse, batches of bad boys hanging near the nearest exit to the school smoke hole.
“Maybe you should wear your glasses a bit more, Nellie.”
“No, I can see better than ever,” she said. “Or maybe I can perceive. That's the word. Perceive. See that girl? She’s gonna faint any time. She hasn’t eaten properly for three days.”
Earl steered her into their biology class along with the allegedly starving girl. Sure enough she slumped over her desk, about 30 minutes later, muttering and drooling. Finally Mr. Stanfield noticed: “Marcia, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t stand up,” she said.
“Let’s get you to the nurse,” said Mr. Stanfield, helping her to her feet and half hauling her along as the girl stumbled towards the door.
Nellie, wearing her glasses because she couldn’t read without them, turned in her front-row seat to cast a knowing glance at Earl.
“What else do you, umm, perceive?” said Earl as they walked together after class.
“See that boy?” she whispered. He’s worried that he’s gay. He has a crush on one of the boys on the football team.”
“I don’t believe it!” She had indicated a star football player with a broad-shouldered swagger, half a head taller than his companions. “I don’t dare ask what you can perceive in me!”
“Oh, Earl!” Nellie pressed her body playfully against him. “I know what you think about. You don't have to be so shy!”
"Hey!" came a voice like a whiplash, "girl!" and suddenly Nellie was gone. Someone had summoned her from across the hall. From the corner of his eye Earl could see Nellie sidling up to one of the boys in the shadows of an older crowd. He didn't turn around to see who it was.
Next Tuesday Earl was back in the music room, waiting for Nellie. He took out his horn and placed his stand and sheet music before him. He warmed up with long tones. At last she appeared, glasses properly in place, looking shy and serious.
“Hi. I took your advice about the glasses. I got a lot more attention without them. Sometimes a bit too much.”
Earl's frog-faced smile said more than enough.
Over the next few weeks they worked their way through Aura Lee, Scarborough Fair, Streets of Laredo and Kumbaya. They played well together though Nellie, even with her glasses in place, tended to embellish the melody with grace notes and a growing collection of jazz licks. Earl plodded along, wondering what Nellie would say if he asked her to the prom.
His chance came when Mrs Anderson coached the band on proper etiquette and what to wear for the inaugural concert: “dark pants and white shirt for the boys plus a tie. Girls, wear party dresses if they’re not too frilly. Basic makeup is okay, but not too much. After we’ve played our three numbers, you can stay for the senior band’s performance. You can dance if you have a partner in the band, but no girlfriends or boyfriends who are not in the band.”
Earl looked at Nellie, who was busy writing notes on her sheet music. He wished she’d take her glasses off at least this once. He missed her befuddled gaze. “So,” he said, “you wanna dance or anything after we play?”
She dismissed him without looking. “Can’t. Mom won’t let me.”
When the great day arrived Earl, choking in the collar and tie of his new white shirt, was shocked at how pretty Nellie looked in a new A-line midi dress that reached below the knee. Her slender neck was exposed with her hair drawn up in a high bun where a few playful strands came loose. She wore no makeup or jewelry but her eyes were bright behind those horn-rim glasses and her cheeks were flushed with excitement. Earl felt a hush come over the band as Nellie climbed the stairs to the top row of bleachers and edged her way along like a model. “Hi,” she whispered as she reached Earl’s side.
Earl merely nodded. He couldn't speak.
“You ready? Last chance to get it right,” said Nellie. Then she removed her glasses and peered up at him. "Don’t be nervous, Earl. You’ll be great. And you look really cute with that shirt and tie.”
“Nellie? Are you coming back next year?”
“Of course! We’re the best horn section this band’s ever had!”
Earl glowed and gave himself over to the simple tunes they played. He thought of the man from the forest from time to time but mostly he thought of the girl beside him. She was playing without her glasses again, skating around the melody with little grace notes and chord tones. She was looking at him as always, but there was something different about her stare. It was as if she was taking a picture.
Cute. She had called him cute.
Earl spent the long, hot summer practicing in the garage, imagining how he’d impress Nellie with his improved technique. When school resumed next fall he rushed to their music class, climbed to the top row bleachers and waited. Mrs. Anderson arrived and handed out new music. Band members drifted in one after another, taking their seats but Earl remained alone in the top row. Dolefully he practiced long tones but his eyes were glued to the gym door. His heart skipped a beat each time it swing open.
"Earl, why don't you come down to the next row? We don't have as many members as last year," said Mrs Anderson.
"It's okay Mrs Anderson. I'll stay up here if you don't mind."
Nellie didn't appear during that rehearsal or the next. By the third rehearsal Earl had become familiar with the music and was used to his lonely perch in the top row. Mrs. Anderson never seemed to notice him, but he thought Nellie might. Maybe she could perceive him the way she perceived the anorexic girl and gay football player. He thought it would be helpful to sit in the same seat as last year so she could take her glasses off and pay him a quick visit. Once in a while he thought she was there with him, gazing up at him with her bewitching smile and skating playfully around the notes he played.
Nellie hadn’t forgotten Earl. She missed their practice sessions and the warm grip of his hand on her elbow as she peered through the hallways without glasses, trying to perceive reality, not just navigate through it. But her life had been turned upside down after one night with Todd, the sneering high school bad boy who had called imperiously out to her last term. She did not like to think of how eagerly she’d fluttered over to his side, so flattered at his attention.
She remembered the moment vividly. She had been walking without her glasses, Earl’s protective hand on her arm, focussing on the washes of bright Kodachrome colours and fuzzy shapes that seemed to swirl around the students she passed. She could tell Howard was anxious about his coming science test and Jen was gaining confidence in her artwork. Even Earl had lost his depressed aura and was captivated instead by the sound of a hunter’s horn. But Todd was a regular black hole. He had no aura at all.
He asked her to hang out with his friends, some of them in their twenties with jobs, cars and money. She was excited and terrified. Her high school status soared. She thought she was in love. And it must have been love, she told herself. She must have wanted to make love with Todd. Otherwise why would she have submitted so quickly? There was no other way to think of it. She was a deluded lovelorn girl, not a depraved horny slu*t as her mother seemed to think.
And now, like millions of young women before her, she was paying the price. She'd found a job at the local Mini Mart and fixed up her bedroom in the apartment she shared with her mother. She shopped for baby clothes, maternity outfits and read hundreds of magazines on how to prepare for the new arrival. She was excited to be having a baby. Even her mother warmed to the prospect of a grandchild. They were growing closer.
Nellie didn’t like to think of her coupling with Todd or the way his face looked. She gazed lovingly up at him as he thrusted and heaved inside her but his eyes were just holes in his face.
Remember what you are grateful for. That was the frequent advice of the Christian magazines of Nellie’s youth. She tried to be grateful to Bessie who hired her as a part time housekeeper and not the rage she felt under her frequent tongue-lashings. Bessie was an old-school teacher given to biting criticisms and slaps with a ruler or her baton. Nellie had fallen victim most recently for not putting pie forks in separate compartments in the silverware drawer. “You stupid, stupid girl!” she shouted, slapping her hands. In Nellie’s home all utensils were jammed into an old juice can.
As Nellie slunk towards the door that day, she saw an envelope on the floor near the mail slot. She scooped it up intending to put it on the hall table as usual but crumpled it in her hands instead and shoved it into her pocket. Back home she opened the letter. It was a bank statement, just like the ones they had studied in her high school business class. If she read it correctly Bessie was a millionaire several times over.
Earl kept to his lonely perch at the top of the bleachers all year. He played with the band but didn't take anyone to the prom. He drifted over the summer, eventually wandering into a job detailing cars at Belchfire Motors. His methodical nature made him good at the work and almost content as long as he was left alone. But even that peace of mind was shattered when he found himself working with Todd, the self-styled chick magnet who had been hired as a car salesman because of his professed connection to young rebellious men that Belchfire wanted to attract.
But Todd's connections never materialized and his sleazy style attracted complaints from regular customers. "You're off the lot!" his sales manager told him after getting a complaint from a favourite buyer. "You go help Earl until you can bring in some of young professionals you keep bragging about."
Todd wandered towards Earl later that day. "Boss told me you need some help. We can start with my car. This is how I want those hubcaps done. You take 'em off, see, soak 'em in window cleaner and scrub the wheel hubs with a wire brush. Then, you put 'em back on. Much nicer, eh?"
Earl didn't see any difference at all, but he didn't want to criticize anyone with so much self assurance. Todd was a year older than him and had been very popular in high school. Todd's detailing techniques were rudimentary: he used the same soap throughout the interiors and even polished windshields with cloths that had been used to clean dirty rocker panels. Worse, he hosed down engines without starting them first. Damp engines ran rough for days and windshields that looked clean in the shade showed streak marks. More infuriating for customers, their radios had been tuned to the rowdiest rock station. Business slowed. Earl worked steadily and Todd talked. He talked about his girlfriends, his buddies, the rock band they were starting, his cars and their endless tweaks in sound systems.
Fridays became a nightmare for Earl after Todd’s licence was suspended for drunk driving. "Don't say a word," hissed Todd. "If they find out I could lose this car! I need it to drum up business." Earl became Todd's unofficial chauffeur Earl driving Todd home after work via the liquor store and the seedy homes of his friends. The cab rides back to the shop to collect his own car were eating into his take-home pay.
But Todd was a friendly drunk. He buddied up to Earl, singing along with the tunes on his playlist and talking about his latest female conquests. He shared a tiny townhouse with a couple of Belchfire employees. It came with a drive-in garage which Todd appropriated because he drove a company car. Often they would end the ride parked in the garage, listening to music, Todd's head nodding sleepily.
"Tell ya about this chick I had once in high school? Thought she was an uptight bitch, then I saw her with her glasses off. f*ck me, she was hot! Called her over and asked her to the prom. Okay, she said, but we never got there. Went to my place and had a few beers. And then a few more, and a few more ... you know how it goes. Next thing you know she's telling everybody I knocked her up. Says she's gonna get a DNA test and sue for child support! Me! And I'm only 19! f*ck that bullsh*t. I'd quit this f*ckin' job first. Can't get blood out of a stone!"
Earl was almost afraid to ask: "what was her name?"
"You won't believe it. Nellie. Used to say Whoa! Nellie! you're goin' too fast! Man she wanted it though! I didn't force her. She was all over me! And, well ... hey, I had to oblige. First time for her. Real amateur hour, but smokin' hot she was."
Todd's head was nodding. Earl topped up his paper cup with scotch. Then he watched Todd's head nod and loll to the music. And loll to the music. To the music. And loll. And…
Slowly Earl opened the driver's door and put his feet on the cement floor. He leaned in, leaving the door open. "Gotta take a whiz." Todd's head lolled quietly, a string of drool forming from his lower lip.
Earl walked behind the car and gently pulled the garage door down. Was there anybody else in the house? He didn't think so but he had to look. He crossed the garage to the interior door leading inside the house. He climbed the stairs. The interior was dark and musty. The lights were out. He flipped a switch. No light. Had the power been shut off? The light from the kitchen window was enough. There was fast-food litter on the counters. On the living room side a sofa piled with used plates and beer bottles. He found another set of stairs and headed up. A bedroom, sheets tousled. A bathroom. Two more bedrooms, beds neatly made. No occupants. He heard a cat meow and saw the tiny animal coming towards him. He grabbed it gently but firmly under its belly. It yowled but didn't struggle. He came down the stairs and let himself out the front door. He paused by the garage door and listened. The engine was still running.
Earl walked two miles back to the dealership. He paused in a quiet residential area to put the cat on the ground. "Get lost," he said and smacked it hard on the nose. The cat ran under a nearby hedge.
"I'm calling a lawyer," said his mother after she heard Earl's story. "Don't you dare say a word to anybody."
The lawyer, Mike Murphy, a school friend of his mother's, gave the same advice. "Don't say a word. Not even your name. If the cops call, get hold of me and hand them this card." He gave Earl a printed card that told police he had nothing to say and that all questions should be directed to his lawyer.
Todd’s body had been discovered when one of his roommates got home. Earl saw the news on a Facebook post from the Eyes of Ambleside. It showed a picture of police cars around the townhouse. With his mother he watched a TV reporter do a standup outside the house, but learned very little except how much more exciting a video of flashing police lights was compared to a still picture.
He slept little that night, waiting for a heavy knock on the door. The police finally came at 11 a.m. and asked him to come down to the station. He called Murphy, who told Earl not to get into a police car. Murphy came down instead and the two drove to the police station a few hours later.
"Yeah, I drove him home, as always,” Earl told them. “He'd lost his licence. We sat in the garage listening to music. I'm afraid he had been drinking and didn't seem to want to talk so I just left. I had to use the bathroom so I went upstairs into his place and used his. Came down and walked out the front door. Must have forgot to turn the engine off. I’m really sorry.”
The lawyer ended the interview and no charges were laid. Earl used the same words a month later at the inquest, where it was established that Todd died of misadventure.
Earl's monotone life returned. He worked quietly and his cars sparkled. He got home on time each day and had more time to practice. In September he joined the orchestra and began to feel more confident in his playing. At the end of every practice session he thought of Nellie and how it might be time to pay her a visit.
He knew she lived with her mother in a two-bedroom apartment in a seedy part of town, worked in the mini mart nearby and kept house for Bessie.
One sunny Saturday morning he parked at the Mini Mart parking lot, his stomach in a knot. Would she remember him?
He sucked in his little pot belly and entered the store, blinking his eyes in the gloom. When his vision returned he saw Nellie, behind the cash counter, looking straight at him. “Earl?” she said, a tentative smile on her face. “How are you! It’s been too long!”
Earl’s heart turned over. He tried to remember the lines he’d rehearsed in the bathroom mirror. Instead he gasped “Nellie! Oh Nellie! Where were you?”
Nellie removed her glasses and Earl became a blurry tadpole bathed in Kodachrome. Again she saw his loneliness but something else. He was enjoying his quiet, productive live and he was beginning to hope that his musical dalliance would lead somewhere.
“I had to leave school, but I'm going to go back soon. There were some ... family matters.”
"I know. I worked with Todd. I'm sorry for your loss. I hear you have a little boy!"
Nellie fixed him with a level stare, no glasses. "You did the right thing." Earl knew what she meant.
“I want to show you something,” he said. He pulled a brochure from his pocket. “Look! Do you recognize this?”
She put her glasses on to look at the picture. “Of course, Earl!”
“I’m going to buy it! But I still have my old mellophone. You can play it if you want. We can play together! Will you play with me?”
“Oh! Earl!”
“I can teach you. Remember how I used to teach you? I’m in the orchestra! You could join! We had such a great time!”
Nellie’s calculating look had returned with the glasses. “I can’t. I gotta take care of Jake. There’s hardly enough money for food let alone a sitter. I'm going to have to think about daycare and even hockey gear in the next few years. And then college. I don't want to work here forever.” Nellie continued with a list of domestic wants and needs. Earl watched her face, his heart sinking as she spoke. She had the same dour expression his mother had when challenged by the family finances.
And she would do well, he saw, just like his mother. In ten years she’d have money in the bank, a college degree and a good job. She’d be making mortgage payments and dating a new man. A solid, confident man with a promising future.
“That’s alright. I understand.” He folded the brochure and put it back in his pocket.
“Good luck, nice to see you.”
“You too.” He walked to the door, feeling smaller with every step. What a dreamer! How could he have thought Nellie would be interested in him? And he'd already bought that French horn. It had cost $2,000. Damn it, Nellie!
At home in the evenings, Nellie loved to sketch on a drawing pad at the kitchen table after she’d put little Jake to bed and her mother had begun watching TV. She’d started with girlish cartoons but had become more serious. She’d heard that if you could draw your own hand, you were a good artist. She tried but it never looked right. She found a website with drawings by the old masters. She could sense how they’d solved the problems of knuckles and joints, not by copying but by understanding how they worked. She looked at her hands and threw her eyes out of focus as painters do to catch the general shape of their subject. She took off her glasses and watched her hands at work. She grabbed a spoon, held a coffee cup, typed on her laptop, signed her name.
Her hands were long and slender. She wondered about Earl’s hands. Would they be strong and skillful? She had humiliated him in the store, prattling on about her financial realities. At least he had a dream, and he had wanted to share it. She remembered the expression in Earl’s eyes when he’d played long tone exercises, how his hands looked large and capable over the valves of the horn. She’d loved to watch, pretending he was playing just for her.
She stopped to think. Earl had been her friend at school when she had no one. He was quiet and meek but he'd stood up to Todd. She needed to talk to him.
Back in the garage Earl was trying his new horn. His eyes widened as he slowly climbed the C Major scale, watching the electronic tuner, ears co*cked for the metronome. He loved the long breathing exercises. They helped him take his mind off work and Nellie. What did it matter if he messed up that solo in their performance next week? She wouldn’t be there and she was the main reason he practiced. Maybe he should tell Ralph he was sick, quit the band and go back to watching TV in the evenings with his mom. He reached the top of the scale and started back down. C, B, A… he shaped his sounds to the tuner and reached for that eloquent hollow echoing sound. No, he’d stay with it. Do his best and keep working. Despite his disappointment, he was enjoying himself.
His cell phone rang. "Earl? It's Nellie. Can you come to the store sometime tomorrow? I think there may be a way we can play together after all."
In the kitchen at home Nellie stared at the pool of blood she had drawn around Bessie’s white hair. She shouldn’t be thinking this way. It was almost like killing an effigy. An effigy with several million dollars in the bank. She took her glasses off again and stared at the walls.
She wondered about the other man who visited her in the mini-mart that day. Was he really Bessie’s son? How could she make sure he’d live up to his promise? She'd been thinking through her plan all day. Earl had readily agreed to help, so she was sure it would work.
The knock at the door came right on schedule. She turned on the recording app in her iPhone and put it in her purse. She had tested it and found it recorded conversation perfectly well in that environment. She headed for the door to meet Bessie’s son. They walked through the trailer park, talking for more than an hour.
Nellie asked her mother to babysit Jake the evening before the concert. “I’ll make Jake his favourite dinner and you can read his favourite story. I'll show you a cartoon on Netflix he likes. I’m going to dinner and a movie with the girls,” she said. “I’ll be back by about 10.”
Her mother got home and settled into her usual TV spot on the couch. Nellie left the trailer and her heart stirred as she found Earl waiting outside. Together they walked towards their old high school and entered the back door by the gym. It was often open at this hour and some students were inside playing basketball. Students and teachers were working on stage to get it ready for the big weekend concert.
Seats for the orchestra members had already been set, with music stands and even microphones for some players. The conductor's podium and microphone were ready to go. Students were raising and lowering curtains, lamps and backdrops in preparation for the concert. "Let's find out how that works," said Nellie. They separated, scouting forward, trying to watch without arousing interest. The lights and curtains were hung from pipes held aloft by a system of pulleys balanced by counterweights so that anyone could raise and lower them without help. Nellie left, wedging the door open. Earl had volunteered to stay inside, sleeping on the catwalk until 4 a.m.
Nellie came back equipped with a crescent wrench, wire cutters, flashlight and a ball of yarn. Like burglars in a heist caper, they pulled on rubber dishwashing gloves. Nellie found the counterweight controlling the row of stage lights she needed to work on and lowered it to the stage floor. Earl located the light they needed and hefted it. "It must weigh 50 pounds!" he whispered. He moved Bessie's chair a few inches so it came directly under the lamp and carefully marked the position of the chair legs with a black felt pen.
Nellie loosened the C-clamp that held the spotlight to the rail cut through the safety cable and unplugged the light from its power source. Earl worked on the safety cable, trying to make it look frayed, as if it had broken by accident. Nellie tied the full ball of twine to the c-clamp and walked a few feet backwards to where she would stand on the catwalk when the rail was raised. Carefully she pulled the twine and the light crashed down onto Bessie's chair.
After their hearts stopped pounding Earl put the light back in place. Together they raised the rail to the top, letting the ball of twine unravel. Nellie grabbed the twine and climbed with it to the catwalk above.
That was all there was to it: when the big moment arrived Nellie only had to pull the twine to cause the light to fall on Bessie's head. Bessie would be a goner as long as she didn't move her chair. Earl's main job was to make sure she didn't.
In the funeral parlour Bessie looked like she was about to wake from a lovely nap. The mortician had been able to conceal the head wound with filler and makeup. She was wheeled in her coffin into visitation room.
Most members of the orchestra attended the memorial service at the funeral chapel. Nellie, arriving late, took a seat at the back. The funeral home supplied professional mourners and a non-denominational minister who talked about the preciousness of life and the obligation to celebrate and remember those who had passed on. “I am told Ms Andersen was a respected member of our local orchestra,” he said. “It is heartening to see several members of the orchestra in attendance.”
“We have among us a dear friend of Bessie who would like to play a memorial hymn.”
Heads turned as the small neatly-dressed man rose from the back row and carried a cello case to the altar. Without preamble, he began to play, drawing a single long note from his bow. He appeared to be improvising a portrait, angry, tearful, delicate and beautiful. It went on and on.
The man was obviously a professional. Earl was spellbound. He wondered if this man had a garage or some other place to escape from the real world. Maybe he a lousy day job and a crush on somebody who didn’t care. Maybe that’s why he got so good, because he had lots of time to practice and not think about her. The music went on an on and on. The light shone through the stained glass windows illuminating the cellist in bright Kodachrome. Earl felt a hand on his shoulder. Nellie!
Together they watched the cellist and listened to the sounds he made.
At last, he finished. He stood to address his audience: “it is always a pleasure to play in the company of amateurs. Do you know the meaning of the word? It comes from the Latin word 'amator', which means lover. And that you are!
“You may not have noticed but I over the last few days I've tried to talk with some with some of you to hear your honest thoughts about Bessie Anderson. It seemed to be a good way to get reacquainted with my mother. I’m sure she was grateful for your kindness.”
He put the cello back in its case, flicked a half salute at the audience and left.
Earl looked around. Nellie was gone.
The man was waiting for Nellie at the corner. They walked together. “Gotta say I was a bit worried about Bessie, old girl. I thought you’d never live up to your part of the bargain.”
“I keep my promises, you creep. And I’m going to make sure you keep yours. I’m gonna stick like to you like glue until the will’s probated and I get half like we bargained.”
“Don’t worry Nellie,” I’ll keep my promise. But the Philharmonic is going to Romania next week. Part of a European tour. Won’t be back for a few months.”
“Sorry, bigshot, you’re not going. You’re so upset at your mother’s death that you’re going to quit the philharmonic and play cello with your lovely amateurs right here. And I’m going to sit right next to you because Earl’s going to teach me French horn.”
“And how do you think you’re going to make me do that?”
“Listen to this,” says Nellie, pressing Play on the iPhone recording app. The man’s voice is clear and identifiable.
“So now what are you gonna do? Stay here until the will’s probated and give me half or do I send this recording to the cops?”
The next performance of the Ambleside Orchestra featured the star cellist and bereaved son of Bessie Andersen, playingon the same stage where she had died. The critics were kind— his performance was disappointing— but they had a better story in the stirring performances of two French horn players. They played beautifully, and took such joy in the melody that there was no doubt they were amateurs. Lovers, that is, in every sense of the word.
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