The Lucy Variations

  Lucy’s black pencil skirt with a plum sweater would work. The high neckline of the sweater complemented the shorter hair. Her mother would choose heels, or maybe a low wedge, with this outfit, but Lucy put on textured tights and her flat brown boots. And earrings, dangly silver ones.

  She was a different person than she’d been when her mom left the week before. Now she looked it.

  It would still be a little while before they all returned from the airport. Lucy sat at her desk and put some finishing touches on her paper, including a short note of apology to Mr. Charles for being lazy with her research. About what you said, she added at first, I wouldn’t call them feelings, at least I wouldn’t say

  She backspaced over it all. The thing with trying to say you didn’t care was that saying it meant you did care. The appropriate weapon of not caring was silence. She kept the note formal, student to teacher.

  A knock on her door. “Come in.”

  Her heart leaped to see Gus. His eyes went wide when he saw her hair. “That’s short.”

  “It’s not short. It’

  s medium-length.”

  He got closer, right up to her chair. He circled her slowly, and she could feel his breath on her cheek and then on her newly exposed neck.

  “It’s kind of medium-short.”

  Lucy fought off a smile, because she didn’t know why this should make her smile, then didn’t know why she was fighting it, and grabbed Gus around the waist while she had him near. She hugged him rough and tight, the kind of hug he claimed to hate and always struggled against. Not this time, not much. He held on to her for a second.

  Then he said, “They’re home.”

  They went downstairs to greet their mother and grandfather. Lucy, suddenly sure her mother would hate her hair, wished she’d at least waited to change her whole look until after they’d had a chance to talk. Her voicemail apology was a start, but there was a lot left to say.

  She clutched Gus’s hand, then let go. When they got to the last flight of stairs, Grandpa looked up. His face brightened.

  He’s happy to see us, Lucy realized with some wonder. Why it should surprise her, she wasn’t certain. But his happiness worked on her, and she found herself smiling back at him. In his smile she caught a glimpse of a gentler reality of him, a person whose major crimes against her were based on something good: pride in the accomplishments of his offspring. Maybe pride gone extreme and overfed with money and status, and damaged along the way because of those things, but still: pride that she was his granddaughter.

  He, Lucy’s parents, and Martin were all crowded into the hallway with luggage and other bags and what looked like a case of wine. Lucy and Gus stopped on the bottom step and each accepted a hug from their grandfather, and Lucy also got a kiss on the cheek. “You look lovely,” he said to her.

  That made her mother, who’d seemed to be aggressively fussing with luggage in a specific effort to not look, finally do so. She studied Lucy as if trying to figure out what was different.

  “Lucy,” she finally said, “that’s…very you. I wonder why we didn’t do that sooner.”

  Lucy chose to ignore the “we” and went to her mother to hug her. She smelled different. Plane upholstery and some new perfume. “Welcome home,” Lucy said.

  Her mother let go and indicated a couple of bags to Martin. “That’s all food. Special ingredients you can only get in Germany, Grandma always claimed. The wine comes from a family vineyard in Lössnitz.”

  “Let’s open a bottle,” Grandpa Beck said, “and eat.”

  Lucy sensed her mother’s eyes on her throughout dinner. She resisted touching her hair but felt it brushing against her neck in different ways as she ate. Martin had put out some of the preserved sausages with dark German bread that had been in one of the food bags. There was also potato-and-leek soup and rocket salad.

  “I can feel winter coming,” Grandpa Beck said. “There’s an edge in the air.”

  “We could make a fire later,” Lucy’s father said.

  Her mother interrupted their visions of a cosy evening. “And how did your studies go, Gustav?”

  “Fine.” He sounded disinterested, occupied by trying to discreetly eat around his leeks.

  “Fine?” Grandpa Beck asked. “Better than that, I hope. How is the preparation for the showcase coming?”

  Lucy’s dad chimed in. “He worked hard. You’d be proud.”

  Gus let his spoon go and gave Grandpa the attention he demanded and the answer he wanted. “Will says I’m ready. That it’s already great. We’ll make it perfect.”

  Grandpa smiled. “Good. Then we have to start thinking about the Swanner. Let’s get Will over for dinner soon. I want to talk to him about that.”

  “Aruna too?” Gus asked.

  “Of course.”

  They finished eating, and Lucy waited for them to mention Grandma’s family and whatever kind of ceremony there’d been when they’d spread the ashes. It hadn’t even been a week since Lucy’s own little ceremony, if you could call it that, at Seal Rock. A week. Eight months of what felt like virtual sameness had flown by, then suddenly there’d been this eternal week-long stretch in which nothing remained untouched and unchanged.

  Except Mom and Grandpa. Exactly the same, discussing Gus, schedules, upcoming holiday obligations. Lucy looked around the table at her family.

  Life couldn’t be all about achievement. Proving some indefinable thing to unnamable people on arbitrary timelines.

  She wanted more for herself, for them.

  She set down her spoon to ask about the details of their trip, then lost her nerve when Grandpa Beck looked at her, still gentle, still happy they were all together.

  Tonight was good. Tonight, she wouldn’t make waves.

  After everyone was in bed, she put on some Matt Haimovitz cello suites – not too loud – and pulle

  d every article of clothing sof clothhe owned out of her closet and drawers. With her entire wardrobe piled on the bed and floor, she sorted. Aside from her school khakis and polos and sweaters, she tried on every piece and asked her reflection, Is it me?

  The answer, usually: No.

  It was like what Reyna had done with her post-divorce closet purge, though that had been about ridding her life of evidence of her dad.

  For Lucy, it was more like what Will had said, about discovering what you want and care about by knowing what you don’t.

  She wanted to chip away at everything that made up her life now and see what was left. She’d find the real life beneath, the one waiting for her.

  Lucy had put her phone as far away from her bed as possible so that she couldn’t snooze. Alone in her room in the quiet of the morning, starting again with her mother seemed simple: a face-to-face apology to add to the voicemail one, and she wouldn’t be defensive no matter what her mom said. Then she’d make a choice to get along. People in a family who cared about each other should be able to work this kind of stuff out. Plus, the holidays were a natural time for reconciliation. Maybe they could go Christmas shopping together.

  Lack of cooperation from her hair almost made her late despite waking on time. When it was long, the weight of it helped it hang right no matter what she did or didn’t do. Now the shaggy layers were a mess, and not in a good way.

  There wasn’t time for vanity. Products and hairpins and a little more make-up than usual, and she was out the door and down the stairs, ready to meet her mother with a smile.

  But it was only her dad and Gus getting ready to go and signalling to Lucy to be quieter on the steps. “Mom’s asleep,” her dad said. “She’ll probably be catching up with that all day. Ready?”

  Lucy nodded, disappointed in herself to feel relief.

  She placed her Munro draft in the in tray on Mr. Charles’s desk, a few minutes early to class, CC’s coffee in hand. He nodded at her. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” he said, then did a double take. “Did you change your hair?”

  “Yeah.” Did he like it? Hate it? ?
??I’m sorry about yesterday.”

  “I know.” He picked up her paper, and she watched his pale eyelashes as he scanned the pages. “That was fast work.”

  “I wanted time to get your notes before doing the final draft.”

  “I’ll look at it while you guys work in your groups.”

  Lucy couldn’t concentrate or contribute, knowing Mr. Charles was reading her paper. She could see him up there at his desk, flipping through it, his face showing nothing. She imagined the moment he’d come across her note and partly wished she’d included that more personal thing after all.

  At the end of the period, as students left the room, Mr. Charles stopped her. They stood in the doorway together. “Good work, Lucy.” He handed her the paper. “I made a few notes on one of your central hypotheses, but you’re on the right track.”

  And despite the embarrassing mess that had gone on between them yesterday, those words still meant so much, and Lucy found herself smiling at him, if not quite m'eeting his eyes.

  “The new hair is cute,” he added, giving her a little bump on the shoulder with his knuckles.

  “Thanks.” She got out of there before she said anything else.

  In her next class she looked through the paper, skimming only for his handwriting, especially at the end where she’d written her apology. He’d written just beneath it: Life is long. A lot happens. We learn.

  Lucy had texted Reyna earlier to see if she’d be at school today – she would – but didn’t warn her about the cut. She wanted her unedited reaction. Carson saw it first. They ran into each other on the stairs to the second floor at lunch. “You chopped it off! Holy…” He jumped up a couple of stairs above her, then down a couple of stairs below her, to get all the angles. “You chopped it off.”

  “It needs professional help.” She felt nervous all of a sudden about what Reyna would think.

  “You did it yourself?”

  “Kind of on impulse.”

  “Not baaaad.” Carson held up his hand for a high five.

  She slapped it and laughed. “I think that’s my first high five for a haircut.”

  They sat at their table, and Lucy assessed her food situation. She had only an apple and half of an old protein bar, misshapen from being at the bottom of her bag for too long. She was starving, but when she thought about the options on campus, nothing sounded good. “I want a burrito,” she announced. “Not a school one, a real one.”

  Reyna’s unmistakable shriek interrupted Carson’s response. Lucy turned in time to see her rushing over with her hands out. “Your hair!” Reyna sank her fingers into Lucy’s choppy layers.

  “We’re gonna go get burritos to celebrate,” Carson said.

  “Celebrate what?”

  “Lucy’s hair, obviously.”

  Reyna went around to the other side of the table and squinted at Lucy, as if deciding whether the haircut was something to celebrate or mourn. “We can’t. There’s no way we’d make it back by fifth, and I can’t miss again. Plus my stomach is still weird.”

  The apple and warped, linty protein bar would have to suffice. Lucy knew she shouldn’t miss class again, either, after faking sick the day before.

  “Seriously, though, Lucy, why did you do that?” Reyna sat down and studied Lucy’s head.

  “Is it bad?”

  “Nnnoo. It’s kinda…”

  Carson sliced his hand through the air between Reyna and Lucy. “Now I have burrito on the brain. School burrito better than no burrito. I’ll leave you ladies alone to discuss hair.”

  “Bye, Carson.” Lucy lifted her apple to him. When he’d gone, she told Reyna, “I know. I didn’t plan it. I’m going to get it fixed.”

  “I think it’ll look good.”

  Lucy could see that Reyna was tired, still, from being sick. “I think it’s part of what we were talking about on Saturday. Change. All of that.”

  “Well, it’s hair. It’s not supposed to stay the same.”

  “The other to;The othing we were talking about,” Lucy said. “Piano? I never got to finish.”

  Reyna folded her elbows on the table and rested her chin on them. “Tell me.”

  Lucy went backwards, starting with how she was thinking about music school. She told Reyna in more detail about playing on Thanksgiving after she and Abigail had gone home, and then went all the way back to Prague – Reyna already knew what happened, of course, but they hadn’t discussed it in depth because, at the time, Lucy didn’t want to.

  “In the moment, I never thought that would be the last time I played,” she said. “I hadn’t felt like playing since my grandma died. Now I do, and it’s amazing to have that again. But it’s also a little scary, because of how intense my family is about it, you know? So I haven’t told my mom or grandpa yet.”

  “Don’t you think…I mean, wouldn’t they be kind of happy?”

  “My grandpa basically told me I quit for ever. He’s not over it.” She wished she could get that Pier 39 feeling back, when the idea of Grandpa’s power seemed actually funny.

  Reyna lifted her head. “Don’t take this the wrong way.”

  “What?”

  “Do you think it’s possible, a tiny bit, that maybe you’re the one who’s not over it?”

  “But you don’t—”

  “I know, I don’t understand. I don’t live there, and I’m not a musician, and I don’t get that world or whatever.” Reyna smiled. “Buuut I’ve known you for ever. And you didn’t have a problem with your family being ‘intense’ until pretty recently. You were intense.”

  Reyna wasn’t wrong. She also wasn’t right. “Only because I didn’t know it could be any other way. I can see now, how Will is with Gus, that it—”

  “Oh, Will. Right.”

  “What now?”

  “Just what I said before.” Reyna widened her eyes. “About being careful.”

  The lunch period was almost over. Lucy hesitated a moment. If she wanted Reyna to understand the music stuff, and how Will was helping, she should attempt to show her what it all meant, up close. So: “Speaking of Will. He invited me to this thing this weekend. He said you could come. You should go out with me to this thing, and then you could sleep over at my house.”

  “What’s the thing?”

  “Sort of a party. With all these musicians and stuff. Will and Aruna’s friends,” Lucy said. “And you’ll see what I mean about—”

  “Adults?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Musicians?” Reyna said it with more than a hint of misgiving.

  “Mostly, I guess.” Lucy pleaded, “Come on. Please?”

  Reyna sighed. “Okay, yeah, we could check it out. I want to see Will and Aruna’s house.”

  “It’s…in Daly City.”

  “They live in Daly City?”

  “I know.”

  Her mother was still sleeping or sleeping again when Lucy got home ucy got from school. Her grandfather, though, was up and in his office, sorting through the mail that had come while they were gone. She watched him from the hall. Either the trip had aged him, or Lucy hadn’t taken an honest look at her grandfather in a long time.

  Sensing her there, he glanced up from his work. “Lucy.” He removed his glasses. “Come in.”

  He gestured to the chair across from his, on the other side of his desk, and she sat. “Are you…” She searched for something to say to him. “…unpacked already?”

  “Yes. I like to be settled.” He shuffled some mail. Picked up his glasses. Put them down again. The hair on his hands was white, the skin in wrinkled, spotted folds. “And Thanksgiving went well for you?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Fine. How was the memorial?”

  He set his fingertips on the desk and seemed to waver, his torso swaying slightly, head down.

  “Grandpa?” Lucy said.

  When he lifted his head, she could see that his eyes were watery.

  “It must have been sad,” she ventured.

  He straightened himself, made his
back rigid. “Oh.” He waved his hand, a gesture somewhere between disgust and impatience. “People with their sentimental memories and religious comforts. When I die, I hope—” He stopped abruptly.

  She couldn’t imagine it, even with his noticeable ageing. He was too stubborn, too busy, to die.

  He picked up his glasses once more and put them on, examining his mail with intense displeasure. “They all want my money.” He held up a piece of mail. “The Society of Lithuanian Oboists. Ha! They haven’t done their research.” He tossed the mail away, shaking his head. “Oboists.”

  Lucy smiled.

  She wouldn’t ask him about Grandma’s ashes or demand an apology for what happened in Prague or for anything else. And he’d be upset about her playing again, and upset if she didn’t, because either way it wouldn’t happen according to his plan, and it was too late for it to be his any more. Or Great-Uncle Kristoff’s. Or whoever’s. Yes, he was busy, and he was stubborn, but he wasn’t that strong. He’d leaned heavily, his whole life, on these things that weren’t his own.

  Lucy added that to the list of things she didn’t want for herself.

  And her grandfather to the love list, the one she made at the coffee shop for Will, even though, as he said, people were complicated.

  Wednesday came and went, and Lucy still didn’t talk to her mother. They exchanged words, about practical things and insignificant things, but they didn’t talk. There’d been chances. But when those chances presented themselves, the words Lucy had practised in her head wouldn’t come out of her mouth.

  Will didn’t come; he had some commitment he’d made before taking the job with Gus.

  Lucy and Will had an ongoing text conversation. They asked each other about their days, sent their status updates. Wednesday night he sent her a picture of a vegan cupcake he was about to eat, and she sent him back a picture of the page in her calculus book she was stuck on.