“Can I help you?”
The woman spoke quickly. “It’s so nice to meet you,” she was saying with a smile that creased the powder in her face. Her red lipstick was very red, and seemed to have been applied a little too thinly, not quite coating her lips. Her jowls, covered with fine colorless downy hair, shook slightly when she spoke.
“We are so happy to finally meet you in person,” said the man behind her, very heartily. He was bald and potbellied and had one hand on the woman’s elbow as if he needed to steer her.
“Can I help you?” Ray repeated. “Would you like an autograph?”
“Mr. McMillian, may I call you Rayquan?”
“Who are you? If this is for a booking, you’ll need to go through my website, please. Now if you will excuse me—” He started to close the door.
“We’re your biggest fans,” the woman said quickly, putting out one hand and taking another step forward. “We think you’re just the most talented musician playing these days, and we wanted to stop by and meet you for ourselves.”
“Music has always been so important to our whole family,” the man said, right at her heels. “When we were children, we all learned to play. Play and sing and make music, the language of the gods. That’s what our father called it. Language of the gods. It’s almost more important to us than food, it really is.”
He wanted to close the door, but now they were so close that it felt rude. So he just stood there, like an idiot, and they kept talking.
“Our niece Holly is a wonderful violinist,” the woman said. “When we told her we were going to see you, she wanted to come along.”
“She really did,” the man said, as if Ray had disputed it.
“Does she want lessons?” Ray asked. “Is that why you’re here?”
“Oh, she would be floored—floored!—if you’d be willing to teach her,” the man said. “Would you really?”
The woman said, leaning forward, practically inviting herself inside, “I just knew that you were the most generous young man. I just knew it. I could just tell.”
“She’s been playing since she was this high,” the man was saying. “Wonderful musician. Surely not as good as you, of course, but she’s very promising. We’re really here for her, you understand.”
The late-afternoon sky was gray and lowering; a chill wind blew from nowhere. The woman wore a thin pink sweater with little pearl buttons, and shivered delicately. “May we come in?”
Why didn’t he just close the door in their faces? Forever after, when Ray replayed the scene, he would ask himself this. In his mind he closed the door and turned the bolt.
The woman took a few steps forward, as if too weak to stand, and Ray found himself backing up a step to avoid her. She tottered past him and into the house, sat down gingerly in the frayed armchair near the front window.
“To think we got this chance to meet you in person. I can’t wait to tell Holly,” the man said, following the woman and lowering himself onto Ray’s threadbare couch. He was wearing a white seersucker suit, despite the raw September day. Weren’t seersucker suits only for summer?
He suddenly realized that they were both now inside, sitting in his house. He stared at the open front door accusingly, as if it were the door’s fault. “How can I help you? Do you want to set up lessons for your niece? I’m not sure—”
“Oh, she would be thrilled,” the man said. “I can’t wait to tell her,” he told the woman. “But actually,” he said to Ray, “we’re here more to talk about the violin.”
“What about my violin is there to talk about?” Ray said to the man.
“That’s just it,” the woman said. “It’s our violin, actually. That’s why we’re here.”
“Excuse me?” Ray said. “Who are you? I think you should leave.”
“Sorry, we should have introduced ourselves,” the man said. “What were we thinking? This truly is an honor. You know, we really do feel a kinship with you. Well, actually, our great-great-grandfather—no, one more great—owned your great-great-grandfather. I’m Dante, and this is my sister, Andrea. Marks.”
Ray felt himself start to tremble, a quiet vibration in his chest and fingertips. He’d never experienced anything like this. The Marks family. Our family violin. It couldn’t be them, here. It couldn’t be.
“Rayquan, we’re really dreadfully sorry to have ambushed you like this, but you haven’t responded to any of my letters.” She shrugged sweetly. Ray wanted to pop off her little pearl buttons. “We knew that if we met face-to-face we could come to an understanding.”