be looking for work. He told me to come back next Tuesday night to meet some people who could help me and I thanked him. When I turned around to Dina she was misty eyed, and got up slowly and took my hand and kissed me on the lips like I was her hero or her boyfriend or something. I may have kissed back a little but not as much as she was. She looked down at her watch and said she had to make a call and the shop owner overheard and asked me if I was planning on coming back on Tuesday night. Dina dialed and I did my best to sound enthusiastic about Tuesday night when, I was assured, a conductor who was looking for a second seat would be there. He could, if he liked me, arrange for a patron to help me purchase a violin worthy of my abilities. Dina was talking now.
"Yes. I know, I’m sorry. Okay. Okay. I said I was sorry. It was an accident. I didn’t think it would make a difference..."
Whoever was on the other end of the line hung up abruptly, but Dina said ‘goodbye,’ to the dead line.
Dina held my arm again on the way home and again I saw a girl that looked like Dori, and got another lump in my throat. It was only 4:30 when we got in but it seemed like it was already dark, and I was so hungry I could have eaten the block of rosin at the music store, and somehow the hunger and the few minutes that I played at the music store brought me back to myself somewhat and I started acting a little more normal. I put the table together and Dina produced the food, which was meant to impress Simon, but was now there for the two of us, and both of us were really hungry. I guess, sometimes, hunger is enough. I didn’t ask her about Simon, or why he didn’t show or why she wasn’t at his family’s house for Thanksgiving. I didn’t ask, because I didn’t care, and even if I did care, I knew that there was no reserve of compassion in me to hear even a single sad or depressing sentence.
I ate like a pig. Dina watched me mostly, taking a bite or two here and there. Could she tell that the depression was lifting? After I’d eaten, I felt enough of my old self again that I made her sit while I got the coffee started and washed dishes, and put the desert together. I brought the coffee and desert to the table and we sipped on the coffee and nibbled at the desert quietly. As we ate, I knew that I was feeling better, and I began to feel uncomfortable in Dina’s presence.
“You’re better now, aren’t you?"
"I guess I am."
"You would never take second seat, would you?" She was referring to the offer I got in the violin store.
"No, I wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t think so." She took in a last sip of coffee and, without a word or gesture went straight to her bedroom. The lock on the door had a distinct click to it, and I thought I might have heard her talking to herself, but in about a minute it opened again and Dina put her head out sideways, not looking at me, just enough so that I could hear her.
“I’m going to sleep. If the phone rings, you get it, okay?"
"Okay.”
And I heard that click again, and almost simultaneously to the click, the phone rang. I thought I might have heard soft crying from the bedroom, but it with the traffic I noise coming up from the street it was hard to tell, and the phone kept ringing.
"Hello"
"You’re a hard man to find"
"Dori?"
"You know, there’s a very lonely violin here in my closet, I think was trying on
one of my sweaters."
"Dori, I..”
"Well, are you going to come and get it?"
I didn’t know what to say. She was telling me to come over, that I was forgiven, wasn’t she? How did she find me?
"I’m in New York.” I trailed off realizing how stupid that must have sounded.
"Then you’d better get moving." And she hung up.
I looked at the door to Dina’s room and I suddenly and painfully remembered why I never fell in love with her in the first place. I looked around the her apartment for a few seconds. It was small, and the furnishings were cheap stuff. . I hadn’t noticed it before. The half eaten desert on the table already had a bug on it. I wanted to clean it up, but I had a sudden feeling of panic that was forcing me out of the room. The thought that I might waste even one second getting back to Dori threw me into a frenzy.
With the $86 from my bank account and the money from the watch I had enough to get on the train to Boston. I grabbed my pack and tried to close the door quietly as I left. I half-heartedly told myself that I would call Dina in the morning and thank her and send her a gift and tell her how she saved my life again, but I knew I never would. And I’m not the only one. Plenty of people get saved every day and never thank or repay the people that helped them. Nobody thinks about the life raft, after the storm has died down and they’re safe on the shore. As soon as you’re safe, you wonder why you ever worried about it in the first place. I walked the eight blocks west and north to Penn Station and in seven hours I was ringing Dori’s buzzer. I would behave this time. I wouldn’t act out, and have to be punished, and I wouldn’t have to go and see Dina again, though I knew that if I ever needed her again, that she’d probably be there for me.
I’d always admired her for that.
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