And some, with quavering voices and watery eyes, wanted to talk about what they felt when Katrina played, the pain in their lives, and how they felt no one had spoken to them like that before.
Astrid placed her arm around Katrina and began to lead her away.
“Wait!”
Katrina walked to a girl who was now quietly waiting behind the stage.
“Thank you,” she said.
Tamiko turned, shrugged, and went back to her violin.
Ellen Seidel watched as Shizuka Satomi’s newest protégé waved once more to her student before being spirited away.
This was the girl who was having issues with double stops?
She looked at Tamiko, her star student, now fidgeting with her tuning pegs. There were times when a teacher should rally her student, encourage her, remind her to believe in her talent. This was one of those times.
But as she searched her years of experience, her finest speeches, her most powerful words, Ellen Seidel realized there was nothing she could say.
Katrina held on to Astrid’s arm until they found Miss Satomi. Katrina had so many things to say, she had no idea how to begin.
“I’m sorry, I screwed up at the beginning. The stage lights were shining in my eyes, and then I gave Astrid the wrong signal, and—”
“Come here,” her teacher said, because none of that was important.
Because, in that moment, Miss Satomi hugged her, placed her hands on either side of her head and looked into her eyes.
“Tonight, you get a star.”
Finally, the applause died down. But rather than preparing for the next performance, people milled about as if still entranced by whatever world Katrina’s music had taken them to.
Many were looking at their watches, rolling up their blankets, and folding up their lawn chairs.
And Musician #7, flutist Russell Kim, was nowhere to be seen.
“What’s happening? Where’s number seven?” Ellen asked. “Landon, do something!”
Landon Fung glanced around and shrugged. Apparently the Kim boy had left. But what could be done?
“I am going to play.”
“What?”
“I am going to play.”
Tamiko walked past her teacher, up the stairs. She looked to the sky. She looked to the empty place where Shizuka had been. Then she walked onto the stage.
Of course Russell Kim quit. Of course he’d been frightened. He’d probably had a proper piece ready, a wonderful piece.
That’s what all of them had tonight.
But now? Tamiko looked past the wall of dark into the audience. She smiled even at those who were ignoring her.
Russell Kim was weak. Tamiko was merely devastated. Russell Kim would wake up tomorrow, and it would be a new day.
But for Tamiko Grohl?
Paganini’s Caprice no. 5. Composed by Niccolò Paganini, the Devil’s Musician himself. Many of the era’s greatest virtuosi had thought Paganini caprices were too difficult for mortal hands, that his playing alone was proof of consort with the Devil.
Tamiko remembered the first time she had heard a Paganini caprice. Actually, it was not live; it was a video. And actually, she barely remembered the music. What she recalled was Kiana Choi, the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.
All Tamiko could do at the time was think about Kiana, being like her, playing like her. She practiced. She dreamed. She sparkled, floated, radiated. She won a competition. And the one after that.
Play without mercy. Play as if touched. Play with obsession. Eventually, Asian mothers would see her at the violin shop, stop their children, and point. When she finally did perform Paganini, judges whispered excitedly to her teacher. She was told that Paganini himself must be smiling.
From there, Tamiko Grohl assumed she would become more and more famous, more and more beautiful. She would outgrow her current teacher, then study with Shizuka Satomi, Kiana Choi’s mentor. From there, larger stages, airplanes, brighter and brighter lights.
But she had been wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.
She had sensed it even before tonight. Middle-school students were uploading videos of themselves playing Paganini on YouTube. Recently, someone posted one of a girl in Japan. She was eight.
The girl’s violin still had four fine tuners. Her violin wasn’t even full-sized.
Tamiko’s eyes were now adjusted to the lights. Somewhere out there, one of those kids would do everything she had done. Only she’d be prettier, faster, younger.
And it still would not be enough.
And yet tonight, Katrina Nguyen, someone who could not perform a proper ricochet—who could not even keep her gown from bunching up beneath her shoulder rest—had played some sort of video game music.