He opens and holds it. He’s wearing flip-flops and jeans and a brown T-shirt with the logo of a white wineglass. “Hey, Rose. Come in.” He steps aside. “Excited?”

“Hi. Yeh … I am. Nervous, though.”

“No worries … you’ll be fine.”

Rose senses something about him is off but she continues, “I’m scared, actually, and feeling kinda hyper.”

“Your final master class can do that, but it’s the end of a great year, Rose. You’ve done well so far. Don’t be worried.” He looks at his cell phone. “Anyone in your family coming to hear you today?”

“No. There’s only my mother and she’s in Ireland. I told her it was next week. She gets too anxious for me. I’d be more worried for her being worried for me than I’d be nervous to play.”

As if he really wasn’t listening, he says, “Maybe next year.”

On the wall of his small office there is a poster of a surfer on a wave. Rose lays her case on a chair below it, unzips the cover, and undoes the clasps. Her violin lies open with a mottled layer of white just under the bridge. Crap. Light from the window overlooking Marylebone shines on the varnish as she takes her instrument up by the neck. Tiny specks of rosin run off the surface. As she bends slightly to position herself, the second pink petal falls from her hair onto the floor. Rose only notices the shower of rosin.

“That dust I’m seeing, Rose…” He pauses. His fingers are tented under his chin. He taps them lightly. He looks at her like she’s a child. And the look makes her feel like one. “Rosin won’t make you play better, you know. Here, give it to me.” He takes her instrument and wipes the excess with the cloth he keeps on his music stand.

Rose gets her sheet music and sets it up. The excitement of the morning is gone. Her head is a jumble. The sheet music trembles as she adjusts it on the stand.

“I was practicing last night. It was late.” She feels chastened, embarrassed. Her fingers have a clammy mind of their own as she takes up her bow and tightens it.

When Roger hands back her instrument he is not pleased. “Begin with a G-minor scale, please. Three octaves.”

Roger “the master” is preparing Rose for her first solo performance of Bach’s Sonata in G Minor. Serious stuff, she gets it, but this coolness increases her anxiety. What the hell? The student recital and master class is scheduled for the afternoon. Roger’s other students will be there. Some performing. Some not. Maybe he’s anxious, too. She lifts her violin with her left hand and brings it to her shoulder. Is he angry with her? It wasn’t that much rosin. Her chin senses for the familiar place on the rest and nestles into position like a cat finding a place in the sun. She bends her fingers and squares them, placing them in position for the scale. With her bow raised she takes a moment, counts to three, scans the room: the poster, the warm light that angles in from the window, Roger standing beside the door, his arms crossed over his chest. She begins. G A B flat, C D E flat, F G …

“Good,” he says. “Again.”

Again Rose plays. She relaxes and thinks, Okay, I’m feeling more confident now. Her old teacher, Andreas, appears for a moment in her mind.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Begin.”

With the top of the bow hovering just a whisper above the strings, she nods imperceptibly to the surfer and begins the adagio, the first movement of the sonata, with a sweeping run into an arpeggio starting with a slow bow.

Everything is good, Rose believes. She’s relaxed. She’s playing really well. Somewhere near the end of the second movement, the fugue, Roger’s cell phone rings.

It rings once.

She plays on. He’ll silence it in a second. She’s into the challenging ascent, and is careful not to lose the singing line, the melody line, but the damn phone is still ringing.

A fifth ring. A sixth. And then he answers it.

He opens the door and he goes out into the hall. He actually walks out. Worse, he gives a slight wave of his hand in her direction indicating she should continue playing. The door doesn’t quite shut. It hangs ajar and she can hear him in the hall.

“Ah. No. Don’t do that. We can meet later. I know. I know. Hey, why don’t you come, it’ll be fun. What? No? We can go for a … no. Please … Victoria?”

Silence.

Then, “Fuck!”

A sharp thud thunks against the door.

Rose plays on, by now just beginning the third movement, the Siciliana. She plays it slow, emphasizing the dotted rhythms like Roger has shown her. After a few minutes he opens the door and walks behind her to the window without a beat of acknowledgment. She keeps playing. This movement is melodic and Rose is swaying. But suddenly he stops her, puts up his hand, and says, “You’re not moving slowly enough into the strings. Approach it from underneath. And … re-lax … the tension in your left hand.” He checks his watch. “I’ve told you that before.”

Rose lowers her violin and bow. Her head is turned slightly, her small birthmark fully visible. She’s uncomfortable with him, with the way he’s looking at her. She’s suddenly very self-conscious. They stand facing each other but saying nothing. He turns back to the window. Sounds of buses rise into the stillness of the room.

“I can’t do this now,” he says, and walks past her. Out. It happens in a second. She hears his footsteps flipping and disappearing down the hall and down the stairs.

Rose stands, holding her violin and bow at her sides, closing in on herself like she’s a deflated party balloon. She stops breathing and listens. She expects he’ll be turning around, turning around any minute and coming back. Coming back to apologize, or something—to hear her finish the Siciliana at least.

She waits, waiting to be revived, but he doesn’t return. She stands at the window, bow in one hand, violin in the other. Roger has left the building. She sees him crossing the street and heading down Thayer.

“Feck!” she says. “Crap!” A wave of bewilderment quickly turns to something else. Part of her feels frozen, part of her feels fuming; her movement is jerky as she starts to pack up her bow and violin. She’s shaking between anger and humiliation.

Before closing her case she eyes the slip of paper taped to the inside velvet covering, the one Roger had given her the first day she started practicing the sonata with him.

Rose,

Practicing Bach for me is like a meditation, even a daily prayer. It connects me with a higher power. May it be the same for you.

As ever,

Roger

She pulls it off the velvet, crumples the note, and throws it down.

Still shaking, she stands in the corridor outside his office.

With a little over an hour to pass before the master class, she hopes she’ll run into someone, anyone she can vent to, but the hallway is empty. She thinks about finding the two friends she’s made at the RAM. Leonard and Freya. They’re studying musical theater, but they have their final projects this week, too. There are only the muted notes of string-playing instrumentalists she can hear behind the closed doors of the small practice rooms. Ysaÿe. Kreisler. More Bach. Rose slumps down against the wall. She feels like vomiting. Do they all play better than she does? Today was meant to be a celebration. She was looking forward to performing, to staking out her territory, to claiming her place alongside the other brilliant students in her class, and to ringing her mother with triumphant news. Now she feels cast out, inadequate. An amateur. A craftsperson at best. Not an artist. She makes no sound in the hallway although tears shine in her eyes.

A door opens and closes somewhere down the hall. What is she going to do now? Hang out here until Roger returns?

What the hell?

And who is Victoria?

In the ladies’, she sees her red face in the mirror. She stares while trying to control her breathing. She’s gulping for air.