The look in her eyes reminds me of kindergarten, when kids ask each other, Will you be my friend? It’s funny how, at some point, we know we’re not supposed to ask that question directly. And it’s funny that this girl, who looks like she would be instantly popular at school, is giving me that hopeful look now. I’m not someone that other kids flock to. I don’t really see very many kids outside of school, and I never know what to talk about, yet Sarah’s looking at me like she’ll be disappointed if I don’t want to be her friend. “Jeanette’s told me all about you,” she says. “Did you bring your violin?”
I flinch. I’m not surprised my aunt has told Sarah about me, but did she have to mention the violin? It’s one of those instruments that isn’t very cool, unless you’re some sort of child prodigy, which I’m definitely not. “I left it at home,” I say. “I’m taking a few months off from practicing.”
“Too bad,” Sarah says, brushing her perfect hair from her forehead. “I was hoping we could get a duet going.
Did Jeanette tell you I play the piano? Jazz mostly, but I’m sure we could work out some kind of violin-piano duet. My uncle has a fiddle you could borrow.”
“Cool,” I say. I’m trying hard not to gush too much, in case she changes her mind about me, but I can already feel myself hoping we’ll be friends. Sarah looks like she lives in a magazine, but anyone who spends her days feeding donkeys and her spare time playing jazz piano would be fun to hang out with.
I smile, and she grins back.
A blast of saxophone and fiddle music makes me jump. One of the full-skirted, hoop-earringed women is herding the others into a circle. Sarah grabs my hand and pulls me into the ring, and soon we’re galloping around, bellowing the words to Hava Nagila and laughing with all the others.
THREE
“Sarah’s fantastic!”
The night after Israeli dancing, Jeanette’s sitting in the rocking chair on the back porch, staring off into the garden. I’ve just come back from Sarah’s, and I plunk down in the deck chair next to my aunt. “She plays like a professional, and she’s got an entire shelf full of sheet music. None of it’s classical. All jazz and blues and honky-tonk. I wish Alison could have met her.”
Alison loved music. She listened to stuff from all over the world, and I wouldn’t know half as much about music if it hadn’t been for her. Last summer she discovered the accordion. She immediately went out and got twenty CDs of accordion music, and when she played them for me, she acted like a kid who had just won first prize at a talent show. She even took Jeanette and me to a tango festival, where dancers and musicians talked about the instruments. I didn’t expect to be interested, but I loved it all, and I learned that tango isn’t just background music for a certain kind of dance. It’s a whole kind of music on its own, and you don’t need dancers to enjoy it. I’ve been listening to tango ever since.
Sarah’s the only other person I’ve met who gets that excited about music. Tonight she told me all about Billie Holiday and Fats Waller, and I told her about two of my tango heroes: Ástor Piazzolla and Carlos Gardel. “She’s going to lend me a bunch of CDs,” I tell Jeanette. “I can hardly wait!”
Jeanette smiles and nods, but she doesn’t say anything. I suddenly wonder if I interrupted something, if she came out here to be alone. “How was your afternoon?” I ask.
“Good,” she says. “I did a bit of weeding, made a few phone calls, and then came out here to sit for a bit. I was missing Alison.”
I wince, wishing I hadn’t barged in and started talking, especially about the music Alison adored. I’ve been missing Alison too, but how can my grief possibly compare to Jeanette’s? I’ve been thinking about Alison ever since I got here, but until now, I haven’t mentioned her unless Jeanette does first. I don’t want to make my aunt feel worse than she already does. This time, though, I got so excited about the music that I slipped. I place my hand on Jeanette’s. “You must miss her a lot,” I say, then kick myself for being so obvious and unhelpful. According to Mom, I’m here to support my aunt this summer. Fat lot of good I’m doing her so far.
She doesn’t look at me like I’m an idiot though. In fact, she doesn’t look at me at all; she just wraps her hand around mine and gazes out into the garden. There are no tears in her eyes, and her voice doesn’t catch in her throat when she speaks. “It’s when I do our favorite things—picking raspberries or walking by the ocean or sitting here—that I miss her most, but that’s when I feel closest to her too. Funny, isn’t it?”