Singing the note wasn’t something I decided consciously; it was something I did out of compulsion. I had to mimic it. Had to try it again. I couldn’t just let the vibrations hover in the air without matching them.

I put the bar to my ear and sang it low at first, listening for the wave oscillations I could pick out with stunning accuracy on the viola.

I heard nothing.

I tapped the fork again and committed to doing this stupid, pointless thing. I wasn’t trying to prove I could, or that I wasn’t as bad as she thought. I wasn’t trying to get it right even. I was trying to hear what she heard.

I sang louder. Maybe that was the issue. Maybe I just needed to sing louder to hear it.

Could have been I was screaming, or singing loud enough for Disney Hall. When the inner door snapped open, my sudden silence fell like an anvil over the room.

Mrs. Yuan stood in the doorway in a pale blue wrap. The chopsticks in her hair had little fans on them, and her mouth was a straight red slash. “Why do you come in here to torture my ears?”

She strode into the room, making the seven steps in the time it took me to put the tuning fork back in the box. I snapped it closed when she held out her hand.

“You got worse. I didn’t think it was possible. What did you do to your throat?”

Jonathan’s dick had been down it, but I didn’t say that. “Sorry.”

She took the box. I grabbed my sheet music and walked out. I noticed the molding on the door was red on the white wall, which didn’t matter one bit. Just a simple observation I hadn’t made last time. Why hadn’t I noticed?

Because the last time I walked out, I’d been looking at the floor. This time, I was looking up, and by the time my hand touched the doorknob, I knew why.

I turned before opening the door. She was halfway back to the white inner door.

“Wait,” I said brazenly.

She didn’t have to wait, of course, and if she didn’t respect me at all, she wouldn’t have.

But she did. She stopped and turned to me.

“I dreamed my whole life of singing Dodger Stadium,” I said. “I grew up in Echo Park, and I could hear everything. Sometimes I dreamed I’d be a seventh inning act, God Bless America and all, and sometimes it was a whole concert, when I was feeling really ambitious. But this? I heard someone sing the national anthem eighty days a year, and they were always bad. Always. Even when they were good, between the sound system and the octave changes, the national anthem always sounds bad in a stadium. It’s a capella, and it’s like I’m naked. Everything’s against the performer. And I can’t bear the thought of not being the best. Which is why I had such a hard time yesterday.”

She folded her hands in front of her, still holding the black box, tilted her head, and said nothing for too long. “Everyone is bad, then?”

“Whitney Houston,” I said. “She was great. But she used weird phrasing.”

“You are not Whitney Houston.”

“No, I’m not.”

More silence. It hung at the perfect key for a new start.

“Can I come back?” I said. “I have two weeks. It’s not enough time to find perfection, but maybe I can get closer?”

She stepped forward. “You have nothing to do for two weeks but tone your voice. Nothing. You will think in scales. You will be silent unless you are singing. You will repeat repeat repeat. At home and with me to the point where your voice is tired, but not over that line.”

“Yes.”

“For two weeks, I own you. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“Now.” She straightened herself when I thought she couldn’t get any straighter. “I have twenty-one minutes to spare. Would you like to start?”

In my gratitude and relief, I had no other answer but, “Yes.”

ten.

MONICA

I bounced into the house. Jonathan was in his running gear, finishing up a puke-colored protein shake. I kissed his cheek and rinsed out the blender pitcher.

“What took you so long?” he asked.

“She gave me homework, and we set up a schedule for the week.”

“So there’s hope for you?”

“Apparently not, but she’s martyring herself for my sake.”

He pressed himself to me, pinning my hands behind me. “I’ll make you sing.”

“We need to talk about this for a minute.”

He let me go, and I turned to him. He pressed himself against me.

“Okay,” he said, picking up my shirt. Jesus, he had such a one-track mind. I tried to pull it down, but he shooed my hands away and yanked my bra up over my breasts. “Talk.”

“I have to protect my throat for the next two weeks.”

“Wear a scarf.”

He bent down and kissed my breasts, licking the nipples until they were hard. I dug my fingers in his hair. God, he knew how to use his mouth.

“The inside,” I said. “Warm tea with honey. Soothing food.” He took a good, hard suck, and my back arched toward him. “Not dick.” I groaned it, because I wanted the dick. I wanted it a lot.

He knelt in front of me and unbuttoned my pants. “Two weeks, no oral. You’ll make it up to me.”

“I can’t scream either.”

“Happy to gag you if you want.” He wiggled down my pants.

“And crying. I can’t have too much gunk in my throat.”

He stopped trying to wedge me out of my clothes and looked up at me. “Anything else?”

“I see her when she has time. She owns me, she said.”

“She what?”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

He stood, putting his finger in my face as if about to make a point. Stopped. Raised it again. Pressed his lips into a line. Looked away.

“You’re not threatened by a voice coach, are you?”

That did it. Whatever indecision had been interrupting the flow of his thoughts was driven away by my pure snottiness.

“Bend over the sink. I’ll show you who owns what around here.”

eleven.

JONATHAN

I didn’t know if she said someone else owned her to annoy me or to prepare me for the coming weeks, because once I’d had her over the counter, she kissed me, cleaned herself off, and started.

Scales.

All fucking day and night.

Monica’s voice went straight from her throat to my higher self. Its vibrations were coded to the wavelengths of my heart.

But scales? All the fucking time? No words. No melody. Just up up up up and down down down down. Do re mi fa so la ti do without the cheerful little animals and sunshine. Or, more specifically, without a point.

“Monica?” I said, peeking into her studio.

She finished the scale. “Yeah.”

“I’m going to lunch with Eddie.”

“Okay.”

She didn’t just say okay though. She ran though half a scale to do two syllables.

I loved her. I’d give my life for her. And she looked like a queen just standing in the middle of the room with her mouth open and her hand clutching that stupid fucking fork. But, man, I would have preferred a smart-ass answer to the boring earnestness of those notes.

“There’s a thing in March,” I said. “In New York. It’s a contest for money for the Arts Foundation. It’s more for the prestige than anything. All the guys are going.”

She tapped her fork and put the handle to her ear, keying, then answered. “When is it in March?”

I gritted my teeth, because she didn’t ask the question. She sang “When” to do, “is” to ray, “it” to mi, “in” to fa, “Ma” to so, she took a second “Ma,” and added “rch” to la. It wasn’t lost on me that she would have normally asked “When in March?” but needed the extra syllables for the full scale.

“First weekend,” I replied, and she tapped the fork. It vibrated. She opened her mouth to answer, but I couldn’t bear it. “If you answer me in scales, I’m putting a collar on that pretty little throat.”

She stood there, straight as an arrow, fork at her chest as if in prayer. I felt half an ounce of regret and a gallon or more of desire. The throat. I hadn’t had my dick down it in too long. It had become a prized piece of real estate, and I was losing a bidding war.