On this rainy day in November, AKA the month of NaNoWriMo, I thought I’d give you the gift of fiction. The following story first appeared in 2007 in St Anthony Messenger. I had written the first draft as a creative writing assignment in my local community college and was thrilled when the finished product was accepted for the pages of this national family magazine that, at the time, was one of the few magazines I could find that regularly included fiction. Like many stories, this sweet tale started with a question. What would it be like, I wondered one night during a romantic dinner out with my husband, to make one’s living as a restaurant violinist?

***************************************************************************************************************************

The Music

Often a cataclysmic event will uncover the deepest truths about ourselves, the kind of event that makes newspaper headlines. A car accident, say, or the house burns down. Or maybe some woman finds her husband in bed with her best friend. These are the things that reveal what we are made of, who we truly are.

For me, though, it started at my parents’ house on a Wednesday night.

Who can say why that Wednesday was different? Maybe it was because the night before at Tasha’s, the steakhouse where I play violin, I got five requests for “My Heart Will Go On.” Five! I played it, of course. Every time. I play any request, as long as I’ve heard the song. Sometimes, if customers can hum them well enough, I’ll even play songs I haven’t heard before.

As a girl, I astonished my music teachers with this ability to play by ear. I can still picture poor Mrs. Ross when she finally realized I didn’t have the technique or discipline to back up her hopes of a prodigy. She had that bewildered expression you get when you take a sip of what was supposed to be milk, only it’s lemonade.

Anyway, it was a Wednesday night dinner. My brother Mac was there with his wife and all seven of their boys. I know. Who, in 21st century America, has seven children? But if you knew Mac and Hortense, you’d understand. Hortense was made to be a mother. She’s warm and funny and firm, and so likable you can forgive her the name. Bestowing the name Hortense upon the firstborn daughter is an unfortunate tradition stretching back eight generations in her family. I’ve often wondered if my sister-in-law gave birth to seven boys as a creative dénouement to what she calls the family curse.

The topic for discussion that Wednesday night was, as usual, Madeleine’s wasted life. This is not my favorite discussion topic. Probably because I am the Madeleine in question.

My family—The Garlingtons—has a block when it comes to comprehending why an MIT grad would opt for a nightly gig paying violin or, in my dad’s words, second fiddle, at the local steakhouse. When I started four years ago, they figured it was a reasonable way to pay the bills while I chose the best career path. The first six months were understandable, or, at least, tolerable. But the last three and a half years have generated an increasing concern.

My mother tenaciously holds out hope that I am merely going through a stage. She continues to handle the whole thing with the main calm assurance they carried her through my bed wedding and thumb-sucking years.

My dad and my brother, however, subscribe to the belief that intense and continual lectures will stir and restore me to the life of engineering achievement for which I was created.

Hortense, who has her own family battles, is silently neutral.

My protests and explanations are generally ignored, so I’ve learned the art of redirection. I’ll ask about little Barry’s science-fair project or comment on Mom’s latest Degas or Manet and they’ll be off in a new direction. But on the Wednesday in question, my tactics failed.

“Vince Bartlett’s going to Italy for a six-month project,” Dad opened.

“Oh, where in Italy?” asked Mom. “Is it Florence? I love Florence. It’s so romantic.”

“I don’t think he’ll be sightseeing, Ellen. It’s a rather important project.”

“Didn’t Vince get his master’s a couple of years after you, Madeline?” (This from Mac, possessor of many fine qualities. Subtlety, sadly, is not numbered among them.)

“Vince Bartlett. I’m not sure. Didn’t his wife just get a Monet?” I countered.

“Yes! Joyce was telling me that–”

Dad cut in. “Ellen, we are not talking about Grace Bartlett’s art collection. We’re talking about Madeleine’s future.”

“We are?” asked Mom, bewildered.

“Of course we are, I said. “What else do we talk about?”

“Don’t take that tone, Madeline,” said Dad. “You’re almost 30, my dear, and you don’t have any plan or direction. You know I love you, Princess, but it’s time to put up your fiddle and join the adult world.”

“Violin,” I corrected.

“What? Oh, yes, your instrument.” Dad wiped his mouth and tossed the napkin on the table. “The point is, Madeline, this project is a wonderful opportunity, but they aren’t doing interviews after this week. You better get in there while you can.”

“Oh, Maddie, won’t Italy be fun?” Mom said in the voice once used to convince me of the joys of toilet training. “And you might meet your special someone.”

This last remark produced a silence broken only by little Teddy’s hiccup. Everyone knew I hadn’t had a date since Ian Schinkle bought me lunch three days in a row at the high school cafeteria.

After the customary Wednesday night grilling, I usually return to my apartment for a diet grapefruit soda and When Harry Met Sally or My Big Fat Greek Wedding. On a particularly abusive night, I go for Holiday Inn. Nothing takes the sting out like a good old Bing Crosby musical.

But on that night I stared at my romantic movie collection and came up dry.

Almost 30.

Dad had a point.

Henry was doing figure eights around my feet, and my furry roommate triggered thoughts of the neighborhood cat lady from when I was a kid. She had twenty-seven cats when she died. Twenty-seven!

For the first time it occurred to me she must have started out with just one. Maybe sometime in her late 20s. Not a thought I wanted to dwell on.

I grabbed The Princess Bride and Henry and I fell asleep sometime during Wesley and Inigo’s sword fight. My feline companion snoring majestically on my lap.

***

Thursday night at Tasha’s was mostly middle-aged couples who had bribed a teenager to stay home with the younger kids for mom and dad’s date night. Some retired folks, maybe. Nothing too exciting. Thursdays don’t inspire first dates or secret rendezvous.

“Could you play ‘Moon River?’”

“Of course, Mr. Johnston.” Don’t I always? I doubt the Johnstons have been to a movie theater since Breakfast at Tiffany’s was a new release.

I made the rounds playing other frequently-heard requests, too, such as “Scarborough Fair” and “Some Enchanted Evening.”

Mr. Gardner, trying to impress his much younger wife with his familiarity with classical music, asked for “Ode to Joy.”

Never heard of it, I wanted to say, but didn’t, of course.

That night hardly justified my refusal to make Dad happy and join the adult world. I had just about determined I’d call Vince Bartlett when a man at the far corner table caught my eye.

I don’t mean the way Meg Ryan caught Tom Hanks’s eye in the airport scene in Sleepless in Seattle. I could just tell this man had a song request.

I’d never seen him at Tasha’s before. He was kind of a nice looking man, maybe in his mid-50s.

“Would you happen to have any Vivaldi in your repertoire?” he asked. Whoever talked like that besides Cary Grant? But this guy pulled it off. He wasn’t named pretentious.

“Something from ‘The Four Seasons?’” I asked.

“Yes. ‘Winter,’ if you would be so kind.”

It surprised me. Not just that someone at Tasha’s would have actually heard of Vivaldi, but the man didn’t strike me as a “Winter” type.

The funny thing was, I had played “The Four Seasons” for Henry that very morning. Henry wasn’t especially impressed, but cats are known for their indifference toward classical music.

Playing at a restaurant is nothing like playing a concert hall. In a restaurant, people tend to give you a few politely attended looks. Between bites.

The mystery man at Table 7 was apparently uninitiated. His fork never left the table. Not that he was looking at me. It was more like he was looking beyond me. He was truly listening and, it appeared to me, remembering. When the first tear trailed down his cheek, he didn’t even blink.

I continued my rounds, playing “Candle in the Wind,” “The Theme From Love Story,” “The Theme From The Godfather,” and “A Whole New World.” (This last request from a 9-year-old.) I played my way back to Table 7.

“Might you favor me with “Meditation” from Thais?”

Was he kidding? This piece, more than any other, was responsible for my being at Tasha’s instead of sweating over a project somewhere. I first heard it flawlessly performed by a roundish 16-year-old boy with a bad case of acne and perfect pitch. At 12, my main form of entertainment was still of the beautiful-princess variety. I suppose that’s why I was so affected by “Meditation.” The pimple-faced teenager who had played that song gave me the same happily-ever-after hopeful feeling I got from Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. Or, rather, his violin playing did.

My rendition of “Meditation” drew more tears from Table 7. I stayed for a second request and a third, pretending not to see Mrs. Stonehill’s pudgy hand waving from Table 18.

“Would you play this song from that TV show?” she asked gratefully when I could no longer ignore her gesticulations.

I stood, poised to play. Mrs. Stonehill smiled expectantly.

“TV show?” I prompted.

“Oh, you know,” she said. “The one with the nice man. He’s got a Japanese maid, I think. He loves his little boy so.

Silently cursing my overdeveloped memory for trivia, I launched into the theme from The Courtship of Eddie’s Father with a growing fear that my friend at Table 7 would be driven from the restaurant. But my intrepid customer stayed on.

After work that night I ran, clutching the sheet of note paper left at Table 7 “for the violinist,” as if I were Scarlett O’Hara holding the piece of earth Ashley Wilkes had pressed into her hand in that dark moment when all hope was gone.

The following Wednesday, Dad made it to dessert before mentioning my failure to call Vince Bartlett.

“So I hear Vince Bartlett’s Italy project is fully staffed.” He said this just as Mom set down her maple pecan cheesecake.

“Better luck next time, Maddie,” said Mac.

I traced the swirl in my cheesecake with the tip of my dessert fork and kept quiet.

“Oh, honey. I don’t know what they could have been thinking not to choose you. There will be other opportunities, I’m sure,” said mom.

“She didn’t call,” Dad clarified.

“What?”

“She didn’t call, Ellen. Ask her. That’s why she wasn’t chosen.”

“You didn’t call, Madeline? Is that true?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, concentrating on my dessert.

I think even Mom’s optimism was challenged that night as Mac and Dad recounted the risks involved in allowing an engineering degree to stagnate. They kept at it well into the second round of decaf.

That’s when Hortons, removing a booger from baby Victor’s nose, looked at me and winked. My sister-in-law, her master’s in education gathering dust while she plays full-time mom to seven boys, is quite possibly the happiest person I know.

I kissed dad’s anger-flushed cheek before I left.

“It’s just that I care about your future, Princess,” he said. He always softens in the end.

“I know, Daddy. I love you, too.”

I’ve been resigned to a marginal life since my 17th birthday, the day I realized I wasn’t going to be a late blooming beauty. It was no traumatic revelation, just a slow acceptance that short, chubby, brainy girls with stick-straight straw-colored hair will always get their romance strictly from books and movies. I was an exceptional student and a fair violinist. That would have to do. But the night I played for the man at Table 7, I began to believe I could, perhaps, be something more.

I ignored my movie collection when I got home from Mom and Dad’s. In the chili Denver evening I opened the window and played “Meditation” to the night sky. Henry curled up next to my violin case, where the single sheet of neatly-creased notepaper from the man at Table 7 was pinned inside. On the paper, was just one word: Beautiful.

Sometimes, one word is all a person needs.