Two-Part Inventions by Lynne Sharon Schwartz Page B

it, Dad. I’m tired.”
    â€œWhat’s this nonsense? You know you enjoy it once you get started. I can see it in your face. Comb your hair and come down. We’ll be waiting.”
    This, she vowed, would be the last time.
    She greeted the Woodsteins politely—it wasn’t their fault, after all. The couple from Philadelphia, introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Newman, were short and stout, so alike in their plump placidity that they might have been sister and brother. They were overdressed for a Sunday afternoon visit, Mr. Newman in a checked sports jacket and maroon slacks, and Mrs. Newman in a tight green wraparound dress from which her pudgy knees protruded, the nylon stockings straining over the flesh. Mr. Newman was bald except for a reddish-gray fringe, but Mrs. Newman had hair enough for both of them, a halo of
gold curls sprayed to a fine metallic finish. They sat docilely on the cream-colored couch that always reminded Suzanne of an angel food cake, their faces stiff with eager anticipation.
    â€œWe love music,” Mrs. Newman said. “We tune in to the classical station all the time. It would be such a treat to hear you. If you don’t mind, of course.”
    â€œI’m used to it by now,” Suzanne mumbled. Her father cast her a sour look as she slouched to the piano. Gerda was off in the kitchen, preparing the snacks that would follow the music. Suzanne imagined she must have left the room on purpose: Gerda knew how much she hated being displayed. If her brothers had still been at home, they might have managed to distract the guests—in the past they had saved Suzanne more than once. But they had moved out and gotten an apartment together in Park Slope after college, and she saw them rarely.
    â€œWell, what kind of music do you like? I mean, like what composers?” She wanted to find out if the Newmans knew anything at all or just cared for the novelty of the experience, like watching a dancing elephant. It didn’t really matter whether the elephant did a waltz or a tango. The Woodsteins, she had already ascertained, knew nothing.
    â€œOh, you choose. We love everything,” said Mrs. Newman, crossing her legs at the ankles and leaning back.
    Suzanne played a simple gavotte from one of the Bach English Suites, choosing it almost perversely as the least she could possibly offer and might get away with. But it was not enough of a showpiece; by the hesitant way the guests clapped and exclaimed yet remained sitting expectantly, she could tell it would not suffice. They considered it a species of appetizer.

    â€œWould you like to hear something I made up?” she asked.
    â€œOh, don’t tell me you compose music, too?” said Mrs. Newman. “That is so fabulous. Yes, please, let’s hear it.”
    She played the opening of a Rachmaninoff prelude. Mr. Cartelli had said she might be ready for a few of the preludes in Opus 23. She had just begun studying the eleventh, which was difficult, though Mr. Cartelli said the others were even harder. She played what she could remember of the opening, then began skipping the harder parts, interpolating passages, inventing transitions, then repeating the beginning. She was rather pleased with the collage she was constructing; Rachmaninoff himself might be amused. Every now and then she glanced in the guests’ direction, but clearly there was no danger. They sat rapt.
    â€œAmazing,” they said, when she finished with a barrage of chords. “What a gift!” And so on.
    â€œWhat did I tell you?” her father cried. “Is that something or is that something?”
    â€œThank you,” Suzanne said, and made off for the kitchen to get a glass of water. What a fool he was. He didn’t even recognize the piece she’d been practicing for weeks.
    â€œDid you tell them you made that up?” Gerda said in a low but tense voice. She was arranging pastries on a platter, and the kitchen smelled