The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt (10 page)

“You
are
coming to dinner tonight, aren't you?” asked Twig. “Do you want a ride?”

“No ride,” said Minna quickly. “Thank you. We'll let you take the instruments. We'll walk.”

The flutist packs up her flute and leaves. Willie takes out his violin and tunes, listening intently over his strings. Twig sits on the sidewalk under a small tree. Dog falls into her lap in a heap of love. Minna and Lucas walk slowly down the street, past the concert hall with its great arches. Soon Brahms overtakes them.

At Lucas's house Mrs. Ellerby greets them at the door.

“Melinda! How nice.”

Mrs. Ellerby wears a dress of many-colored explosions.

“We'll eat shortly.”

Mr. Ellerby appears in gray.

“We are,” he says formally, “very much looking forward to hearing you play. Our first invitation.”

They disappear into the living room and Minna looks closely at Lucas.

“First invitation?” she asks. “You said they never came to hear you play. Ever.”

Lucas sighed.

“What I didn't tell you was that I never invited them,” he said softly. “You remember you once told me you didn't want your parents to come to hear you play because they'd make a fuss?”

Minna nodded.

“Well, I never invited them because . . . because I was afraid they
wouldn't
make a fuss,” says Lucas, looking at the floor.

Minna puts her hand on his arm.

“They will,” she whispers to Lucas. “I just know they'll make a fuss.” After a moment Minna says it again. “They
will
!” she exclaims, making Lucas smile.

Minna dreams through another dinner at Lucas's, a dinner that has begun quietly but will soon erupt into a fuss that comes sooner than either of them has expected. Today the talk is of rugs: oriental versus wall-to-wall, with a small scuffle—so slight that Minna hardly notices—over something called a runner.

Flowered, do you think? asks Mrs. Ellerby.

Pale, perhaps, says Mr. Ellerby. So as not to overcome the portraits.

Minna looks across the table at Lucas, who rolls his eyes at her so that only the whites show. Minna smiles.

Twig, her cheeks pink, slips the salad plates on the table. As she leans over, Minna catches a scent of perfume. Lilac?

Minna eats the boneless chicken with sauce l'apricot and asparagus hollandaise as talk of fabric and rugs winds about her. Then, suddenly, in the midst of all the peace there is something wrong. The talk has changed.

“I'll just go up to the attic and fetch the fabric,” says Mrs. Ellerby, standing. “I'm sure that's where Twig has put it.”

“No,” says Lucas. He stands, too.

Mr. Ellerby, his fork poised between plate and mouth, looks up, confused.

And it is then that Minna knows why Lucas's face is pale. The attic door is next to Lucas's room.
The frogs
.

“I'll go,” says Lucas, moving toward the stairs.

“Sit, sit, sit,” says Mrs. Ellerby, disappearing out the door. “I'll be back in but a moment.”

Twig swings through the doors and stops, staring at Minna and Lucas, standing.

“Ready for dessert?” she asks in an uncertain voice, looking from one to the other.

“Yes,” says Lucas unsteadily, sitting.

Minna sits, too, but Mr. Ellerby has stood, so there is a moment of bobbing about the table. Minna feels a sudden surge of laughter rising, but she cannot laugh because of the stricken look on Lucas's face.

They will never have dessert. There will be no more comforting talk at the table, for after a moment Mrs. Ellerby stands in her explosive dress at the dining room door, her face dark.

“There are alien creatures up there,” she says in a low voice. “Creatures!” Her voice fades to a whisper.

Mr. and Mrs. Ellerby will not allow arguments at the table so the “dialogue,” as Mrs. Ellerby calls it, is moved to the hall. Minna follows them, disappointed. Her family often has arguments over dinner. They are full of energy and loud words. Once, Minna suddenly remembers, her mother threw a yam at her father and they both laughed.

“This cannot be allowed,” says Mrs. Ellerby. “Go look, Frederick,” she commands Mr. Ellerby.

“They are not alien creatures,” protests Lucas. “They are frogs, plain and simple. Mother, frogs were probably on this earth before humans, in one shape or another.”

Mr. Ellerby appears at the top of the stairs looking grim.

“Those must go, Lucas,” he says ominously.

“They are my pets,” says Lucas as Mr. Ellerby descends the stairs. “I feed them. They are family!”

“They are
not
family,” says Mrs. Ellerby firmly.

“They are family to me,” says Lucas. “They feel like family. Look at Uncle Morton's portrait in the hallway. He even looks like a frog.”

This is taken by Mr. and Mrs. Ellerby as an insult. Their faces close up tight.

“We are trying very hard,” says Mr. Ellerby in a soft voice, “not to lose our tempers. The frogs must go.”

There are no angry words, no raised voices, no tears. It is the worst argument Minna has ever heard.

Lucas bounds up the stairs, leaving Minna and Twig standing silently in the hallway.

“I am truly sorry for this disturbance,” says Mrs. Ellerby to Minna. “You should have told us about the frogs,” she tells Twig.

“We have a meeting, Melinda,” says Mr. Ellerby. He shakes her hand. “So lovely to have had you for dinner.”

The door opens. The door closes.
A disturbance?

Minna and Twig stare at each other.

“What now?” says Twig. “The pond, I suppose.” She looks up the stairway. “Poor Lucas,” she murmurs. “I tried to keep the frogs a secret. I knew how it would be.”

Dear Mrs. Pratt
, Minna begins automatically. She stops, her hand on her cheek.

“Minna?” asks Twig.

Minna smiles.
Dear Mrs. Pratt
.

“I know what to do,” she says. “Not the pond. Not today, anyway. I know Lucas doesn't want to let them go yet. Could Willie help carry the tanks?”

“Of course,” says Twig. “Where are the frogs going?”

Minna takes a deep breath and begins walking up the stairs.

“We'll see,” says Minna without turning around.

Lucas is in his room staring at the frogs.

“Don't worry,” says Minna in the doorway. “I have thought of something.”

She picks up the phone.

“What something?” asks Lucas. “What?”

Minna shakes her head and dials.

“You'll see.”

Minna waits.

“Hello,” says her mother.

“Mother, I need your help. Without questions.”

Minna hears the small clicking sound of her mother turning off her electric typewriter.

“Yes?”

“Lucas has to move his frogs. Tonight. Can we keep them for a while? Until he can find the right ponds for them?”

Silence. Lucas peers at Minna.

“May I ask one question?” says her mother.

“What?”

“How many frogs?”

Minna takes the phone away from her ear. How many frogs, she mouths. Lucas shrugs his shoulders.

“A great many,” Minna says into the phone. “Mother?” she adds suddenly.

“Yes?”

“I wrote you a letter.”

“I know,” says her mother. “Eliza Moon, what a fine name. No matter. Bring the frogs.”

M
inna sleeps a dream-filled sleep. Scenes crowd in on her: Willie arriving at Lucas's house to help carry the tanks, eight in all, filled with frogs. “Why are we doing this?” asks Willie, whose practice has been interrupted. He pauses on the stairway. “And who's the man here in the picture who looks something like this big one?” Willie points his chin at the largest frog. “Who told him?” says Lucas, laughing. “I didn't,” says Twig. “Honestly!” The taxi driver, wide-eyed, as they load four tanks in with Minna. Lucas goes with Twig and Willie and the rest of the tanks in the big car, Minna laughing out loud at the look of terror on Willie's face as Twig speeds out into traffic. “She's something, isn't she?” says the taxi driver admiringly, whistling between his teeth, one hand on a glass tank beside him. The moon is up, a large yellow globe above Minna's house, when they reach there. Minna's mother and father, McGrew, and Emily Parmalee help carry in the tanks. Willie exclaims over her father's record collection; the taxi driver fixes the drip in her mother's kitchen faucet and shows her how to make coffee with a pinch of cinnamon added to the grounds. Lucas puts his hand on the back of Minna's neck as they watch the frogs in her mother's writing room. “I like the frogs,” announces Minna's mother. “Each has a different character. You see, that one's morose, and that one has a sly look.
Morose and Sly
, a good title.” McGrew tapes an old headline he's been saving over a tank:
SCIENTIST SAYS MADNESS PASSED BY VIRUS.
All of them crowd into the dining room. There is a smell of cinnamon in the air. “Thank you,” says Minna to her mother, who, like Willie, returns the gift. “Thank
you
,” says her mother.

“Call me if you get your vibrato,” whispers Lucas as they leave.

The next few days pass quickly, blending into one another like the layers of Mrs. Pratt's trifle dessert. Miss Barbizon does not like Minna's sentence of vocabulary words. She passes it back with a tight mouth, raised eyebrows, and a low grade. Minna doesn't mind. Her head is filled with Mozart.

McGrew and Minna's father come to an agreement about baseball.

“I can't help you anymore,” says Minna's father, slowly, painfully lowering himself onto the couch in his study. He looks at McGrew. “It is not, after all, my chosen profession.”

“It is not mine either,” says McGrew happily.

“It may be mine,” says Emily Parmalee thoughtfully.

The frogs splash contentedly in her mother's writing room. When her mother types they are quiet, as if they wait for words to be strung together into a story. Once, when Minna looks in, her mother is reading out loud. Dozens of eyes watch her.

Minna practices. Though she knows the music well there are times when Mozart surprises her, moments when he creeps up with a phrase like a whispered secret that she has never before heard.
Aha, Wolfgang, you rascal
.

“How are you?” asks Lucas on the phone.

“No vibrato,” says Minna.

“What about the frogs?”

“They don't have vibratos either,” says Minna.

Two days
.

Silently they file into the concert hall for rehearsal, following Porch and Mrs. Willoughby-Fiske down the main aisle, through the stage door, and into the cavern behind.

“Here is the waiting room,” announces Mrs. Willoughby-Fiske in a ponderous tone. Serious business, this. “One hour,” she tells them, raising one finger in the air as if the word “one” is not sufficient.

They open their cases. Lucas takes out his rosin and tightens his bow. Imelda tunes nervously. Minna wipes her cello with a cloth. Orson fingers his strings.

“You're a bit flat,” says Porch to Imelda. “Up a little.”

Then they walk onstage.

The stage is lighted, but there is a vast blackness where there will be faces in two days. The chairs and music stands are arranged in a semicircle.

“I think it is time to meet each other again,” says Porch with a smile. “Though I'll admit,” he adds, “that you played great Mozart in your corners.”

They sit, looking at each other nervously, as if together for the first time. Minna places her music on the stand. She searches for a crack in the floor for her end pin.

“Now.” Porch stands in front of them. “I will not be here yelling at you, or stepping on your foot.” He looks sideways at Orson. “Imelda, you will begin them.”

Imelda looks up with a start.

“And remember,” warns Porch, “play no matter what. Someone may cough, or a child may cry. A string may break. Your music may fall off the stand. Play on!”

Silence.

Porch grins suddenly. Then he jumps off the stage, disappearing into the seats.

Minna looks out into the darkness. She sees only tiny lights above the exit doors. She looks up into the balcony and decides to make her peace with Mozart.

Imelda lifts her bow and looks at them.

“This is not cozy,” she says suddenly. “I now know why Paganini could only compose music with a blanket over his head.”

There is silence, then laughter.

“Play,” says Imelda softly.

It is startling to hear the music in this space. The sound does not bounce about as it does in the rehearsal room. It does not escape into the carpet and curtains of Minna's room as it does when she practices at home. Here it seems to lift and then disappear, the notes gone, one after another, into the dark.

An hour passes quickly. They play through once with Porch's voice calling from the dark, even though he has said he won't.

“Legato, there, Minna . . . Crescendo, remember! . . . Pianissimo for the last three bars of the coda, Orson. You're too loud.”

Then they play it through alone. When they are finished Porch's face appears below them over the edge of the stage.

“Splendid. You could play the presto with your eyes closed, I bet.”