Chapter 10: The Quartet

On Saturday morning at dawn there were four music stands on my dock, and none of them was mine.

I came down the ramp with a thermos and found a violinist, a violist, a cellist and Lydia, all in black, tuning in the half-dark.

The river was pink, and the air was cold enough to see.

"Don't say anything," Lydia said.

"You brought a quartet to my boathouse," I said.

"I asked you not to say anything," Lydia said.

"I said it in my head first," I said. "It was shorter."

My four rowers had stopped on the grass above the ramp, holding their oars.

"It's Gesture 26," Lydia said quickly.

She held out a hand to the cellist.

"It's called Dawn Serenade," she told me.

"We play the slow movement while the sun comes up," Lydia added.

"It's very romantic," she assured me.

"The sun is already up," I said.

"It's coming up," Lydia said.

"It's behind the bridge," I said.

"That's the rising part," Lydia said.

The cellist, a large man with a gentle face, planted his endpin in the dock and leaned back.

The endpin went straight through a gap between two planks.

Everyone looked down.

"Don't pull," Lydia said.

"I'm not pulling," said the cellist, pulling.

Nina came down the ramp then, in her orange jacket, with a paper bag.

She had found out from somebody and decided to witness.

She gave me a look that said I had told her nothing and she was proud of it.

Then she opened the bag and took out a clothespin.

She went along the line of music stands, pinning down the pages one pin to a corner.

She worked with the care of a woman hanging laundry in a gale.

"Wind," Nina told Lydia. "I read the forecast."

"Thank you," Lydia said, and her face went soft with gratitude.

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