Oscar leaned over the table. “I got hit in the head a couple times. Still didn’t catch the ball.”

“I am . . . agog,” I said, picturing him wearing a baseball mitt.

“You ever done a sport?” Oscar nudged me. “Apart from running?”

Alice let out a snort on my behalf. “Running? What?”

Right on cue, the music on the stage amped up several notches, making conversation nearly impossible.

Oscar lit up, his feet keeping time under the table.

“You like jazz?” I yell-whispered.

“It’s pretty physical,” Oscar answered. “I’m more . . .” He gestured to his heart. “But I like it.”

I nodded. “Jazz probably makes more sense if you’ve been drinking!”

Alice slid her glass away from me.

Daniel turned to Oscar. “You ever think about doing a school visit? Mine’s an experimental charter, so we run through the summer.”

“He never gets a break,” Alice said, making it sound like a compliment.

Daniel held her hand as he went on. “I gotta tell you, the kids are fantastic and music is a big focus for them. I think they’d love to hear from somebody who—you know, looks like them, who’s on his way up . . .”

I glanced at Oscar, worried at that echo of Nancy’s words, but his expression was thoughtful. Open. Maybe because this offer was coming from Danny, a teacher, last name Ruiz—not some clueless white guy.

“Things are hectic right this second,” Oscar said. “But that’d be amazing. Yeah. What dates are you thinking?”

They started talking details.

I turned to whisper into Alice’s ear. “So you’re out and about.”

“Yes? And?” Her face remained placid, locked on the stage.

“Did you bring your viola? So you could practice in the ladies’ room?”

She whapped me. “No, I did not. In fact . . .” She glanced around like there were spies everywhere, then leaned in to whisper. “I’m considering a break.”

“A tropical vacation?”

“No.” She paused, then sipped her bourbon—Alice was drinking bourbon!—and said, “Longer.”

The piano took the solo line and my mind drifted with it, reeling.

Alice. Planning a break from music. Drinking bourbon. Dating teachers. Looking happier than I’d ever seen her.

Oscar. Tapping the table along with the music. Crackling and alive. Back to himself.

The world was wild and chaotic and bursting with possibility, for Alice and for Oscar, and maybe even for me?

The musicians on stage pulsed on, playing notes that sounded like yes, yes, yes.

30.

odile Michaud lived across the park in an Upper East Side luxury apartment building, as befit a legendary opera doyenne in repose. I’d met her a few times over the years, but checking in with her doorman and riding the mirror-paneled elevator up to her suite made my skin go prickly.