She shrugs. “So, no problem. Get new friends.”

  “It won’t be like home.”

  “You’re 12 years old. Almost. Not a child. But not an adult yet either. Now is the best time to start to get famous. So we must enter competitions. Win the big awards, get noticed in the music world. This is how you get invitations to perform. And recording contracts. How you get to work with many important conductors. How often do I have to tell you this Sam, You can’t get famous in sad little town no one has ever heard of!”

  I’ve heard of Seabright. I like it there. And it’s not sad. Not to me.

  It’s special and comfortable and home. That’s what I tell her.

  “Enough Sam! Of course Hawaii is more special than Seabright or even New York City. That’s the best reason to go. We’ll have a fabulous adventure!”

  But I don’t want an adventure. I want to be warm. And safe. I want the teachers and friends I have now. I want my own piano. I want Tippy and Margaret. I want my home.

  I want space to learn, to perform with the Youth Orchestra, to compose.

  I want to be with my family. Like Morley has. Like Jayden has. Like Tia Margaret has, in Mexico. Only I want to be with them all, in Seabright.

  That’s what I want. I just don’t know how to make it happen.

  A message pings from Jayden. With a silly picture of Tippy, wearing sunglasses.

  Hey we drove by your house and there was a moving truck there. What’s that about?

  Uh oh. I didn’t tell him.

  I didn’t tell Morley, either. It’s not because I forgot. I couldn’t stand to see the looks on their faces. After all, what do you say to your best friends? Hey, my mom feels like living somewhere else so, sorry, I’m outa here?

  But what else can I say but the truth?

  That’s what I tell Jayden. I’m so sorry. My mother wants to live somewhere else.

  He answers right away. Where? Here? You bought a new house and didn’t tell me???

  No, not there. I’m sorry.

  Not here? What does that mean?

  Not Seabright.

  Yeah? So, near here?

  Hawaii.

  HAWAII!!! Is this a stupid joke or something?

  What can I say? It’s my mother’s idea. Not mine. I don’t want to go. This isn’t my fault. I want to stay. Could I live with your family?

  There’s nothing I can say that is going to make things better.

  I wish. Don’t want to go. No choice.

  He doesn’t reply.

  The next message is from Morley.

  You’re LEAVING? And you didn’t even TELL ME???

  I thumb in: I’m so sorry. My mom says we have to. I just found out.

  She replies right away: Your found out WHEN, exactly?

  Right. When. I found out, or guessed most of it, a few weeks ago. I can’t say that.

  Today. From my mom. On way to airport. Total surprise!

  I can’t believe you’re my best friend and you didn’t even tell me. And Jayden says you didn’t tell him, either. Did you tell anyone? I’m so mad at you, I don’t even know what to say. And don’t tell me this was a surprise. You must have guessed or something. Margaret must have known and told you.

  I can’t blame her, because she’s right. I’d be mad, too, if she was doing the leaving and I was doing the staying.

  I try to think of some good answer, but my brain just can’t. I’ve got a headache, and my stomach hurts. I just want to crawl under my duvet and sleep and sleep and sleep. And maybe never have to wake up.

  Because this is the worst thing that’s ever happened, in my whole entire life.

  four

  But I do wake up.

  We’re in a hotel room, a suite that looks just like all the other places we’ve ever stayed. I go check on my mother. She looks small, a stick figure at the middle of a huge bed. She still has her sleep mask on. I close her door as quietly as possible.

  Then I shower, get dressed and phone room service for coffee, yogurt and fruit for my mother and pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries on top and orange juice for me.

  I sign for the breakfast, adding a tip to the bill. I eat, then find some note paper in the desk drawer and write my thank you notes.

  Every gift comes with a cost, Tia Margaret says. Even if the cost is as small and simple as having to create a gracious, written thank you.

  The first one is to Morley’s Aunt Eira. I thank her for everything she and her family did to make it a happy Christmas for all of us. I tell her how much it meant to me to be there, with them all; how fun it was, even if there was no electricity. I say I hope she keeps up playing the piano, because it looked like she was enjoying it.

  The second one is to Uncle Gus. I thank him for the beautiful jewellery box he made for me and for showing me the stride piano playing. I say I’d love to learn some more about playing jazz piano and that maybe some time I’ll get that chance.

  The third one is to my violin teacher, Anton. I thank him for working with me for so many years, but my mother is taking me on a vacation. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. But I’ll let him know when I find out. And maybe there is another student who needs my lesson time slot on Thursday evenings. I apologize for how sudden this is. I thank him again for lending me his ukulele.

  The fourth letter is like the third one, except to my piano teacher, Sonya Clementi. I tell her a little about the auditions and promise to let her know what happens.

  My final letter is to Mr. Cadeau, thanking him for letting me into his French class, and also for the Learning Plan he helped put together for me. But I don’t think I’ll be back to your class next week, I say. My mother wants us to travel and I’m not sure I’ll come home to Seabright or to Evangeline School.

  I find five envelopes in the desk drawer and address them. They’ll have stamps for sale down at the front desk.

  Later, I’ll send them each a short email, saying pretty much what’s in the letters. The emails will get there a lot quicker. But it doesn’t replace a written thank you or explanation. A note you write makes the thank you or the news real and also shows consideration. Tia Margaret taught me that.

  By the time I’m done with the letters, I hear my mother moving around in her room. I’ve eaten the breakfast and the coffee is probably cold by now. It’s almost lunch time when Umma finally appears, saying she’s going out with some friends and she’ll be back in a few hours.

  I can watch a movie or practice or whatever I want to do, she says.

  I send a sorry message to Morley. And one to Jayden.

  I go down to the front desk and mail all my letters, then to the gift shop in the lobby to buy post cards and chips and a chocolate bar.

  Back in the room, I write the postcards. One is to Dom, because it has a giant gorilla on it on the top of the Empire State Building. I know he likes old horror movies.

  One is to Patrick, and it has some horses. Just to say again how much I loved the horse-riding lessons last summer.

  There’s one for Morley and another for Jayden, saying, “Sorry.”

  The last one is to Uncle Gus, thanking him again for showing me the stride piano playing. Now I know it’s a type of early jazz. I’m planning to get some jazz piano lessons, wherever we end up next.

  Then I have another look at my phone. And my email inbox.

  Nothing new there.

  I send a Miss-You message to Margaret.

  She answers right away.

  Miss you too, mi corazón. Must start new job Mrs. Tomlins-Cooper next week. She has three little boys. Good luck with lesson Madame.

  I write and tell her about the auditions. But I can’t say much. I don’t know much about this second audition that I have to do. I wish Margaret was here so we could talk. Or not. I need her. She could help me figure out so many things.

  One of them is what am I going to do about these auditions that I don’t want to pass? I could play really badly and totally blow the auditions. Say I was nervous or something.

  But if I do, it will dishonour my teachers. And my parents, who have paid for my music lessons, as Umma never allows me to forget.

  I could play my best. And maybe get into a school that at least isn’t as far from home as Hawaii. That would please my teachers. And Umma.

  But can I do that? My heart just isn’t in going away to school. Even if it’s a really good school that helps you get into Julliard or the Conservatoire, as their websites say many of their graduates do.

  I could play just sort of medium-OK. But what’s the point of doing that?

  I flick on the TV. It’s a giant screen. They’ve got a lot of movies on there, but not any I want to see. Or see again, like The Wizard of Oz or Toy Story 3.

  I pull some music scores up on my laptop. It helps to look at a piece and sort of think it through. Imagine playing it in your head and feeling it with your body. It’s something you don’t need a piano to be able to do.

  Then I practice my violin for a while.

  But it just isn’t sounding right today, or maybe I’m just not my usual playing self today. I don’t know. After an hour or so, my violin goes back into its case.

  I check my phone. No messages.

  Look at my laptop again. No emails.

  Look outside. Just lots of traffic and people walking on slushy streets.

  Pull up the score of the music I have been composing. I call it Concerto in D Major. Concerto just means a piece of music on the piano. It can be any length.

  D Major is the key signature with two sharps. It’s happy and bright. I just like it. And I think it fits what I want to say in my first concerto. It’s about what it felt like to be in Paris last summer and also what it felt like to be at Morley’s for Christmas.

  I’ve got the first movement pretty much the way I want it. But there’s sort of a hole in the second movement that I want to work on. And the third movement is just a couple of ideas right now that don’t quite fit together.

  A movement is just a chunk of the music. Like a chapter in a book. Or maybe more like one short story in a collection of short stories that are all related to each other. The whole book of stories is like the whole concerto. Words telling a story. Or sounds telling a story. Or several stories that belong together.

  Taking you to a place. Giving you an experience. Letting you see, through the composer’s eyes.

  Philip Glass said in this article I read about him that he composes in hotel rooms. He’s a famous American composer. I guess he travels so he can play his own music; he didn’t really say what takes him away from home. Just that he likes to compose in hotel rooms.

  If he can do it, I guess I can, too.

  Except I don’t have a piano. He’s probably got one of those keyboards that fold, or you plug into your laptop or something. Or maybe the hotel people always put a piano in his room.

  I could call down to the desk and ask if they have a piano somewhere they could send up here. Or if they have a ballroom with a piano I could use during the day to practice. My mom would probably be OK with that.

  I do have my laptop, with my composing software on it. I work on it, imagining I can hear the music, playing with my fingers on the edge of the table as if it has piano keys.

  I don’t even notice anything around me when I’m composing. It’s like I’m inside the music. In a whole music bubble where nothing else exists except a world of sounds, like great swirls of colours.

  Then the door opens, breaking the spell, and my mother is saying, “Sam, what about dinner?”

  “Um, dinner?” Is it that time, already?

  “Well, find your coat. We’ll go out. Get something. And the piano I ordered isn’t here yet?”

  She looks around, as if I might have hidden a piano somewhere.

  “No,” I say. “But it would be wonderful if I could have one.”

  Umma stops at the front desk to ask about a piano.

  The clerk, the same friendly young guy that sold me the stamps earlier and said he’d mail all my letters and postcards, asks Umma if she wouldn’t mind waiting, just a moment. So sorry for the inconvenience. He turns and disappears behind a door, coming back a moment later with an older woman with very short hair that is the colour of Margaret’s favourite cooking pots.

  “Ms. Park and Miss Park, if you’d just step over to the side for a quiet word?”

  “Of course,” my mother says.

  There’s a problem. My mother’s charge card has been declined for something she signed for in the gift shop. That means, her card didn’t work. Whatever it was she got in the shop isn’t paid for.

  “Try this,” Umma tells the front desk manager, handing her a different card. The woman takes it, nodding, then returns it with a stiff smile.

  We walk out the front door of the hotel and I look around, wondering which way we should turn to find a restaurant. One she’d like, meaning they give you lots of little plates, each one with a tiny little bit of something and where maybe I can get what I want, which is a hamburger and chips.

  But instead of saying anything about dinner, my mother grabs the arm of my coat and hauls me along, down an alley and back into a side door of the hotel. It looks like the door that staff people use.

  “Quick!” she says. “Hurry up Sam. Stop dawdling!”

  I follow her up the stairs and back to our room, where she tosses clothes and shoes and makeup into her suitcase and tote bags, not bothering to fold things, like usual.

  But why?

  “We’re leaving now. Never coming back. They’re very rude people here. It’s shameful!”

  So, I guess we aren’t staying here. I do what she says. Then we have to run down the fire escape stairs and back outside in the cold, lugging all our stuff. The wheels of her suitcase skitter in the slush.

  We walk, as fast as we can, for a few blocks.

  She hails a taxi. This one takes us to another hotel. It’s smaller. It doesn’t look like a place that might have pianos they can send up to our room.

  There’s a dusty sign on the elevator that says, “Temporarily Out of Order.”

  I trudge up the stairs behind her, half carrying and half dragging both our suitcases.

  Every single thing in our new hotel room is beige or brown or black. It has a funny smell. There’s only one bed.

  “We won’t be here long,” Umma says. “Then,” she says with that dreamy happy look she gets a lot lately, “we’ll be in Hawaii.”

  We dump our stuff and go searching for a grocery store. The room has a microwave and a little refrigerator. We get rice bowls and coffee creamer and a bag of oranges and instant oatmeal. Dinner for tonight, Umma says. Also food for tomorrow.

  “After that, I’ll call your father.

  My father? But he’s in California, I say.

  “He’ll send us some money,” Umma says, settling back with the remote control. “Like always. No worries!”

  Then she settles down to do something on her computer. Work, she says. She’s careful not to let me get a glimpse of the screen.

  But I think I know what’s on it. And why we’re in this crummy room.

  five

  “Ah, non, Cherie,” Madame Boulanger says. “Non, this is not the way. Allow me to show you.” I pause, allowing my bowing arm to relax and my chin to release my violin.

  “Try, if you please, comme ça.” She raises her bow and demonstrates and yes, the way she shows me is both smoother and gives a richer, deeper tone. There is a singing quality to her playing that I am always trying to achieve.

  I try it.

  She shows me again.

  I try again.

  After several tries of just these two notes, she says, “Bon. This is improved. We move on.”

  I play the Gershwin Concerto in F, the violin part. “Oui,” she says at last. “This is good. Now, you go to the piano.”

  I do, repeating it twice. She stops me many times to suggest a different fingering, or that something should be a bit louder. Or softer. Or convey more emotion.

  And then, to my surprise, she joins me, not to criticize my playing but to play the violin part while I play the piano part. Playing together is always my favourite part of a master class with Madame, but it so rarely happens.

  “And now, I think, the Haydn,” she says.

  I play the Piano Trio No. 43. It also has a violin part, but I haven’t learnt it yet. She stops me a few times to make comments and corrections. I love these Haydn pieces, especially knowing he wrote them for young women like me to play. In his time, long ago, women couldn’t have a music career, but many did play, very well, at home for their families and friends. Haydn understood them and wrote songs for them to enjoy performing and showing off their skills.

  “And your encore piece is?”

  I play the largo from Keyboard Concerto No. 5 by J. S. Bach.

  “Tell me, what is it you are feeling when you play this?”

  Sadness, I think. Longing. “Ma maison,” I say. It means my home. “Missing it.”

  “Yes. Yes, I see this, truly. And, perhaps more?”

  “The third movement. It is fast, rushing, getting somewhere.”

  “And yet, you have not played this for me.”

  So I do. And feel, all the way through, that sense of running towards something I want, very much. But just can’t quite get to.

  “And the first movement, the Allegro moderato? You’ve learnt it also?”

  “Not well enough yet, Madame, to play for you.”

  “I see. But perhaps I can hear it next time, yes?” She glances at her watch and I know our time together is nearly over. We have gone through all of the pieces I have been working on. She has offered corrections along with encouragement.

  We’ve talked about the auditions, and what I might be asked to play there.

  Madame has praised my progress, which makes me happy and a bit less nervous about the audition coming up.

  “Do not worry yourself about the judges,” she says. “They listen for talent. For potential. For promise. And you, my dear, have all of these in great abundance, especially for one so young. You need only do your best.

 

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