“Ray, get in here.” His mother, voice sharp.
He placed the fiddle back in the faded green cushion of the alligator-skin case, returned to the living room.
“Baby,” said his grandmother, “PopPop’s fiddle and his fiddle case both belong to you now. No, I will not be taking them back and I better not find out that anybody tried to take them from you.”
His mother had taken a step toward him when she saw him, but now she turned and rolled her eyes at Grandma Nora. She sighed. “But, Mama—”
“You hush. You heard what I said. Now you play something beautiful for us,” she told him.
“It needs to be fixed,” he said. “I can’t play it till it’s fixed. But I can take it tomorrow to that music store in the mall.”
“Tomorrow’s Christmas,” someone said. “It’ll be closed.”
“The day after, then,” Ray said. He never looked away from his grandmother. It was starting to sink in. He had a violin of his own.
“Thank you,” he said, leaning down and squeezing her so tightly she gasped.
“You’re welcome, sweet Ray,” she said when he released her. “That’s how much I love you, baby.”
Later that night, after they’d all gone up to their rooms, Ray dialed Aiden’s number.
“Merry Christmas, bro! Good to hear from you, but your timing sucks. We’re—”
“So is that New Year’s gig still on?
“Yeah, but when you said you couldn’t do it, I asked around. Chad’s doing it.”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s a three-hundred-dollar gig. I had to find someone.”
“I have a violin now. I can do it.”
“I already asked Chad. Don’t get me wrong. I’d much rather play with you, but—”
“But nothing. Tell him he’s fired, tell him it’s canceled. Tell him something. Let me do it!”
“That is so messed up. Chad’s a flake, but I can’t yank the gig from him.”
“Chad doesn’t give two shits about you. We’re homies. You give me this gig, I’ll owe you for life.”
Aiden paused for a long while before saying, “You know what, fuck Chad. I’ll come up with something.”
The day after Christmas, Ray was downstairs waiting when the first adults staggered in for breakfast. He asked Aunt Rochelle if she would give him a ride to the mall as soon as it opened. Ray didn’t want to open a can of worms by asking his mother or his other relatives. Aunt Rochelle seemed indifferent about him receiving the fiddle, so she would be the least likely to give him any grief.
When they got to the mall just after ten, the parking lot was mostly empty. Aunt Rochelle stopped off at a department store that had a huge sale sign in the front window, and Ray went on alone, violin case tight under his arm, straight to the music store. Behind the counter was the same scrawny young man with thin blond hair and an even thinner mustache shadowing his lip who had been growling at him last time. His name tag—Hi! My name is Eric! Ask me about our holiday layaway plan!—glittered red and silver.
Ray laid the alligator-skin case on the counter. “I need to get some repairs done.”
The clerk glanced up, then back down at his computer screen, kept typing.
Ray waited a few moments. “Hi, excuse me. I need—”
“This ain’t a pawnshop. Get out.”
Ray stood there, confused.
“This is a music store,” the clerk said, as if to a five-year-old. “We sell instruments, we don’t buy them.” He never looked up.
“I need to have some repairs done on my violin.” Ray opened the case, showed him the violin as proof.
My-name-is-Eric-ask-me-about-our-holiday-layaway-plan stared at it like he’d never seen one before. “Why you want to get it fixed? That thing is disgusting.”
“It’s been in storage and nobody’s played it. I think the white is from all the rosin.”
“Looks like mold.” Leaning over to peer more closely, the clerk snickered. “Smells like mold, too. What did you do to this thing? Can’t be fixed. Anything else I can help you with?”
“It’s going to need—”
“You deaf, too? I said it can’t be fixed. We’re done here.” He turned away from the counter, as if to head to the back room.
A familiar feeling washed over Ray. He remembered what Grandma Nora said about respect. Maybe this guy didn’t know much about violins. “I need a new tailpiece, a set of strings, new pegs, the sound post set, the bow re-haired, and a new bridge.”