My Dearest Friend (7 page)

Cynthia played “Für Elise” and part of the Moonlight Sonata. The old favorites, the old standbys. Unless absolutely butchered, these pieces were crowd-pleasers. As Cynthia began to play, Daphne stopped breathing. If Cynthia faltered or hit a dissonant chord, Daphne knew she would die on the spot with embarrassment for her child. Her hands were sweating so terribly she had to keep wiping them on her skirt. David, sensing Daphne’s nervousness (how could he not?—she was practically bleeping with anxiety), put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a small reassuring hug.

And after a while, it was obvious that Cynthia was not going to make any mistakes. She had these pieces down pat. Daphne knew this—she had heard Cynthia practice probably
billions
of times by now—but still … Still, it was such a relief to hear the music rippling, waterlike, fluid, sparkling, from her child’s hands.

It was worth it. All those years of lessons. All the things Daphne had forfeited in order to pay for the lessons, all the grueling moments she had reminded—forced—Cynthia to practice. Now Cynthia was playing the Moonlight Sonata, and the music swelled and opened like the color lavender deepening on a dusky summer night. Now, no matter what else happened, in times of sadness or pain, Cynthia would be able to sit at the piano and play these eternal Beethoven pieces, which with their amaranthine melodies would lift her from the present into a pure and peaceful space.

Daphne’s cheeks were wet when her daughter finished. The applause was
spontaneous, enthusiastic, deafening. My God, sometimes life really was worth living, sometimes it really gave you something back!

Other teenagers played, none as well as Cynthia, and Daphne listened halfheartedly, actually resting from the euphoria to which she had been lifted. Then Tammy Benton sat down to play the final selection, the first movement of Beethoven’s
Pathétique
Sonata, the longest and most complicated piece to be performed that evening.

Daphne was impressed simply that the girl, at Cynthia’s age, was attempting it. Secretly she hoped the girl would do terribly, that she would foul up and hit clunkers and even end up sobbing with humiliation onstage in front of everyone. (Cynthia and Tammy were rivals. Tammy really was a horrible little bitch—she had been trained well by her mother, who was poisonous and nasty and snobbish and who had reduced Daphne to secret fits of rage and weeping many times.)

But in spite of all the ill will Daphne could summon up and send out into the air, Tammy played beautifully. Masterfully. She was splendid.

“Wow,” David said to Daphne when the girl had finished (he didn’t know how Daphne and Cynthia felt about Tammy and her mother). And the applause was stunning; some people even rose to give the girl a standing ovation.

Then the applause fell down to a pattering, and the concert was over. Mothers and fathers and teachers carried long tables out into the hall and set out punch, paper cups, brownies, and cookies. Little girls who had played piano with huge pink bows in their hair raced around the room pursuing little boys, while the older children sauntered around the room looking desperately bored.

“I need a drink,” David whispered.

“You deserve one after this,” Daphne replied. But they waited until Cynthia had received all the praise it seemed she could get that evening and the hall was emptying of people. Then Daphne and David crossed the room to collect her. But just before they reached her, horrid simpering Tammy slid up in front of Daphne.

“Hello, Mrs. Miller,” she said with cloying sweetness.

“Hello, Tammy,” Daphne said. “You played beautifully tonight.”

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Miller,” Tammy said.

The girl would have stood there smirking and twittering, but Daphne said, “We’re late for something else, must go, good-bye,” and swept around Tammy, devoted darling David following in her wake. “Ready?” she asked Cynthia, who was now staring at her
with a face like the plague.

David drove (he had the loveliest Mercedes, gray-blue and as deep and smooth as a good dream), Cynthia slid silently into the back seat, and Daphne turned from the front passenger seat to talk to her daughter.

“Oh, Cyn, my angel, I am so proud of you, do you know that?” she said. “You played so beautifully tonight!”

“Yeah, that’s what you told Tammy too,” Cynthia said.

At once Daphne knew that her daughter was about to treat her to something from
The Exorcist.
Of her many roles, this was the worst. Actually, in a way it was her best, for she played it with a power that would have put Linda Blair to shame, but it was the hardest for Daphne to deal with.

“Oh, honey …” Daphne began.

“You didn’t have to tell her that,” Cynthia said. “You know how I feel about her!”

“And I agree!” Daphne said. “I think Tammy Benton is a piece of
slime.
But, darling, this is the world we’re living in, and she did come up to me. What could I do, spit in her face?”

“You didn’t have to tell her she played
beautifully.
You could have said she played
nicely.
You didn’t have to say
beautifully. God.
”

“Oh, Cyn, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, it just popped out,” Daphne began.

“Yeah, the way it popped out when you told me
I
played beautifully.” Cynthia’s voice was full of scorn.

“Cynthia,” Daphne said, injecting firmness and common sense into her voice, “there is no reason for you to ruin this wonderful night by fussing about that awful Tammy Benton. You were so wonderful, you should be so proud of yourself, I’m so proud of you, it would just be a waste of our lives to spend another second even thinking about that stupid little twit, let alone arguing about her.”

“Oh, now you’re trying to get out of it.”

“Out of what?” Daphne asked, baffled.

“Out of telling me the
truth.
Like you always do, evading the issue, trying to sneak away from telling me the truth.”

“Cynthia,” Daphne said, “the labyrinth of your mind is a thing of wonder to me.”

No response. Cynthia sat staring at her mother with righteous anger vibrating from her entire body.

“All right.” Daphne surrendered. “What is the truth that you think I’m trying to evade?”

“That you think Tammy played better than I did.”

Now Daphne was stumped. How was she going to get out of this one? For Tammy
had
played better than Cynthia. In her deepest,
deepest
heart of hearts, Daphne thought not only that Tammy’s piece was more difficult but also that she had played it with real feeling, with subtleties and nuances, whereas her own daughter had merely played with expertise.

“Cynthia,” she said, sighing, “I do think that Tammy’s piece was more
complicated
than yours. Of course I would be lying if I said otherwise. And it does seem that she is just a little more advanced than you are. Perhaps she’s been taking lessons longer. Perhaps she practices more. Perhaps she’s driven, perhaps she wants to be a concert pianist, I don’t know, how can I know, and I don’t even care. I don’t care about Tammy! I don’t think she played
better
than you. I don’t even want to consider this evening in those terms. I don’t want to think about that horrible girl. Oh, darling love, why can’t we forget her and just be so happy that you did so well? You know, I felt like my entire life was justified when I heard you play. I felt like you had just recompensed me for all those hours in labor.”

By this time they had reached home and David was sitting silently, keeping the engine running, unsure whether Daphne would invite him in or ask him to leave so the two of them could carry on with their fight in privacy. He had been around them long enough by now to know that while usually Cynthia and Daphne were compatible, companionable, like the best of friends, there were times when Cynthia went berserk like this; he and Daphne had decided it had to be teenage hormones running amok and taking Cynthia with them. Daphne looked back at her daughter. She was still angry, so angry her head would start spinning around in circles any minute while bile exploded all over the car. This is what it’s like having a teenager around, friends told her, and we just have to put up with it, because our own parents went through the very same thing and let us live.

“Come on in the house, Cynthia,” Daphne said. “David, why don’t I call you tomorrow? Thanks for coming, thanks for driving.”

As they entered the house, Dickens came groveling and wagging up to meet them, drooling with joy to see them again. Fred Smith, their ancient stupid black male cat, was sitting in the corner of the living room, staring at the wall. He did not acknowledge their
presence. Usually Cynthia bent to stroke and fondle Dickens, to smother him with baby talk, or at the least she would go over and stroke Fred Smith’s head and say, “Now, calm down, Fred, I’ll get you some Valium.” Usually after outings like this (which were getting fewer and fewer), when mother and daughter had been in a room with other people, they would collapse in chairs and gossip like friends, criticizing everything everyone wore, the way Mrs. Kasper’s teeth hung out—why didn’t she get braces!

But tonight Cynthia went stiff-backed, without a word, up the stairs and into her bedroom.

Daphne thought: I’m not sure I have the energy for this.

But she went up the stairs and stood in her daughter’s doorway—Cynthia hadn’t shut her door; that was something.

“Cyn,” she said, “Cyn, come on. Give me a break. I love you. I am so proud of you I could pop. I think you performed better than Tammy, and besides, you
looked
a million times more beautiful. You make her look like a
lump.
”

Cynthia’s back was to Daphne; she was fussing with books and papers on her desk. Suddenly she turned to face Daphne, and her face was shining with tears.

“Oh, you don’t have to say all those things. You don’t have to lie like that.
I
know what the truth is.”

Daphne was dumbstruck. Her daughter was
riven
with misery, and where had it all come from? Why? What had she done?

Was it only a year ago, two years ago, that Cynthia, at eleven and twelve, had rushed in the door after school to hug her and tell her every detail of her day? They used to sit together on the living-room sofa watching TV, and all at once Cynthia would cuddle up to her, giving her a rib-breaking hug. “My Moochie,” she would say. “My Coochie,” Daphne would answer, and they would go on that way, cuddling, Daphne stroking her daughter’s shining hair, the two of them saying infantile, nonsensical favorite phrases that they would never have spoken in front of others.

“Cynthia,” Daphne said at last, going carefully. “You keep mentioning that you know the ‘truth.’ What is the ‘truth’? Would you please tell me?”

Cynthia raised her head and looked at her mother, pride and anger and scorn radiating from her face. “The truth is,” she said, “that I’m not good enough for you. I’ll
never
be good enough for you. That’s why you don’t
really
love me.”

“Cynthia,” Daphne said softly. “Honey. My Coochie. How can you say those
things? You know I love you. You
know
I love you. Darling child. What’s wrong? Why are you so upset?”

“You talked to Tammy before you talked to me, you told her she played beautifully before you said anything to me.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I’m sorry I didn’t speak to you first. I’m sorry I told Tammy she played beautifully. If it’s any comfort, I
did
walk away from her, I walked around and past her, I practically walked
over
her.” She looked at Cynthia’s face to see if it had lightened any. It hadn’t. “Oh, honey, you’ve got to know how proud I am of you. I love you. I adore you. You are the light of my life. Don’t you know all that?”

“No,” Cynthia said, and tears came flowing again. “I don’t know that. I know you used to love me. But now all you do is criticize me. And
I can’t stand it
! Don’t you think I know I’m not good enough for you, I’ll never be good enough, I’ll never be what you want me to be?”

“Cynthia, what are you talking about? What do you mean? What do I want you to be?”

Cynthia sprang up from the bed in one quick movement, all her layers of clothing frothing and flapping around her, as if she’d taken the bedsheets with her. She crossed the room to her desk to grab a handful of tissues. Her shoulders were shaking. “The best. That’s what you want me to be. The
best.
You’re always saying, ‘I want you to be the best you can be.’ Well, what if I can’t be the best? What if I’m not an A-plus person like you are, what if I’m just a B-minus person? Or even a C-minus person?”

“Cynthia, Cynthia, calm down. What are you saying? I don’t
grade
people.” (That wasn’t true, and Cynthia knew it; they often compared and “graded” people.) “I certainly don’t grade you. Or if I do, I always give you an A-plus.”

“No, you don’t! Or you shouldn’t! Because I’m
not
an A-plus. I don’t think I’m anything at all! Oh, Mommy, I know I can’t be a concert pianist. I’m not completely stupid. I have ears too. I hadn’t heard Tammy play before. She’s
really
good, she’s a trillion times better than me. No matter how hard I work, I’ll never be that good, and that’s the truth. And I can’t be a concert pianist, and I don’t think I’ll ever be anything! I
thought
maybe I could be a concert pianist, but now I know I can’t, and I don’t know what else to try to be.”

“Well, that doesn’t matter!” Daphne exclaimed, relieved to have her child talking, sorrowed by her words. How had Cynthia come to be so hard on herself? “Oh, sweetie,
that doesn’t matter. You can quit lessons if you want. I just wanted you to learn to play for pleasure. I never meant for you to be a concert pianist.”

“No, but you want me to be something. Something
special.
”

“No, no, no, I don’t care what you become. I think you already
are
something special.”

“That’s not true! That’s not true, and you know it.” Cynthia was shouting now, crying again, and her nose was running and she was wringing one of her long cotton shirts in her hands. “How many times in my life have I heard about how different your life would have been if you had finished graduate school and gotten your doctorate and taught instead of marrying Dad? How many times have you said to me, ‘Cynthia, you’ve got to
be
something … Cynthia, you’re special, you’re the sort of person who could star in this world … Cynthia, I want to help you so you don’t end up like me’?”