Second Fiddle

No one looks at you twice if you play guitar. But I carry around a violin case, and it’s like I’m in “The Untouchables.” I’d like a dime for every time someone yells “Fran, don’t shoot!” Very funny.

I tried the guitar and the flute, but I’d rather play the violin. It just feels right, and it sounds the way I would if I could sing, which I can’t. I think everyone has one instrument, one voice, that’s right for them. It’s funny that Leslie and I have the same one.

Leslie’s the serious one. I goof off, watching TV or playing CDs instead of scales. Not Leslie. That’s partly why I did what I did, even though no one, Leslie included, could understand it.

I didn’t even know Leslie until the auditions. I had just played for Mr. Abruzzi and was feeling good about it until I noticed this look on his face.

“Sounds good,” he said. “By the way, we’re getting a new violinist this year. A Dreiwitz student.”

I put my bow down before I stabbed myself with it. You had to be one fantastic fiddler to study with Sergei Dreiwitz. I took lessons from Ms. Keller, who was more interested in my mom’s plants than in my bowing arm.

I checked the audition chart on the door and found one name I didn’t recognize: a Leslie Feder was scheduled to play at 12:30, and I was determined to hear her.

I don’t know where band uniforms go in the summer, but I’m betting they don’t get out much. There were about twenty of them in the closet next to the orchestra room, and they smelled like mothballs and mildew. Holding my nose, I squeezed past the coat rack and pressed my ear against the wall. For a longish time, there was nothing. But then I heard fifths—the sound of a violin tuning. There was a pause, and then . . . the Mendelssohn.

It was like something off of a CD—sweet and pure and sure. As I listened through the wall, I loved and hated it for what it was—a sound I couldn’t make, not now, maybe never.

I moved, and something fell to the floor with a jangly crash. A glockenspiel! I squeezed between the uniforms to hide. But the closet stayed dark. All I heard was the pounding of my heart.

On the first day of orchestra practice, I wasn’t looking forward to playing second fiddle to Leslie, no matter how good she was.

Leslie was already practicing by the time I got to the music room. She put down her violin and said, “Hi,” while I tuned up. Then Mr. Abruzzi tapped his stand, and we were off.

We were halfway through the first movement when I lost count. I stopped playing and stared at the notes, trying to find the measure everyone else was in.

“We’re at D,” Leslie whispered. “One measure after.” I jumped in two bars later. I’d have thanked her, but I didn’t want to get lost again.

Now it was late October, and already it smelled like snow. We were sitting by the duck pond, eating chocolate and throwing our sandwiches to the ducks. “So what’s Dreiwitz like, anyway?” I asked.

Leslie laughed. “He’s OK. He’s tall and skinny, like Ichabod Crane. But he’s secretly nice. He once told me he wished he’d spent less time playing scales and more time talking to people.”

“Right,” I said. “But then he probably would have been just another regular guy, and not the Sergei Dreiwitz. Hey, are you eating that candy bar or not?”

I didn’t know about the accident until someone told me he’d seen the gym teacher running Leslie to the nurse.

Leslie had been spotting Sue Connelly on the parallel bars. Sue got up fine, but then she slipped and fell, right on Leslie’s hand.

I ran to the nurse’s office, but Leslie had gone to the hospital. When I called her house that night, her mother answered. Leslie was asleep, she said; I’d probably see her tomorrow. But Leslie didn’t go to school the next day. Or the day after.

Sue’s fall hadn’t hurt Leslie’s hand after all, Mr. Abruzzi told me later. But when they X-rayed it, expecting to find a fracture, they found something else.

“It’s a tumor—probably benign, but they’re not taking chances,” he said. “They’re going to remove the bone from that finger and replace it with healthy bone from Leslie’s hip. She’ll be fine, Fran. But it’s going to take awhile for her to heal.”

Then he gave me the music for the concert in December, only two months away: Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins. I’d be playing the first part—Leslie’s part. Mr. Abruzzi would choose someone else to play my part.

I tracked her down by the duck pond a few weeks later. Most of the ducks had gone, but a few scruffy mallards were pecking at the crusts Leslie threw to them.

“Here,” I said.

She looked at me, mystified, and opened the envelope. “What’s this?”

“Your part,” I said. “I’m playing second.”

“Oh, sure.” She tried to hand the music back, but I wasn’t taking it. “As if I still play.”

“Whose fault is that?” I said. “You could at least work on your bowing until your finger’s ready for action.”

She didn’t answer. I shifted around in my boots and began to wonder what I was doing there.

“It’s not the same,” she said finally. “I tried to play, but I hate what I sound like. After not practicing for weeks, it’s like starting over again.”

“So start already.”

I picked up the bread and started pitching crumbs. The mallards went nuts.

My folks came to the concert, along with Ms. Keller. The orchestra wore black, but Leslie wore blue and I wore red—we were the soloists, after all. When we stood up to play, everything else faded away. All I heard was one big, gorgeous voice, and it was coming from both of us.