Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez

a scalpel digging around in her throat for polyps. As if her scratchy voice isn’t reminder enough.
    Heidi has matching scars—glossy, pink patches over each elbow—from being chased by a dog on roller skates. She was the one on roller skates. Not the dog.
    “I don’t know why you are so obsessed with them,” she said, as I examined the permanently damaged skin on her elbows, not for the first time.
    It’s simple though. I like the scars because I like the stories. Bravery, stupidity, pain—none of them come free.
    “Is it weird that I don’t have any scars?” I asked Diana once over a bowl of Raisin Bran.
    “No, it’s not weird. You don’t have scars because you’re graceful and spatially aware.” She took a sip of coffee and added, “Not to mention young and lucky.”
    “But not a single one?”
    Clark looked up from his newspaper. “It’s because you’re a slow eater,” he said, lifting his four-and-a-halffingeredright hand and wiggling the stump. “Get over here and pinky swear to never enter a hot dog eating contest.”
    I laughed. Diana rolled her eyes. Clark shrugged and grinned, mission accomplished.
    Operation Inderal detox was worse than I thought it would be.
    I threw up twice. The first time was in the bathroom of my dressing room. Luckily, my hair was already up and hairsprayed into place so it didn’t get splattered. Also luckily, Diana wasn’t there to see it. If she had been, she might have guessed why I was puking and made me take a pill. I’d intentionally left my pillbox at home in case I chickened out, but I knew she kept an emergency stash in her purse.
    I hadn’t seen her all day. She’d left me to marinate in my shame, or whatever it was I was supposed to be feeling, while she ran errands. That was fine. I didn’t want to talk to her either.
    Clark dropped me off at Symphony Center two hours early, and drove off with his signature double-honk for good luck. He’d be in the audience later. Probably checking the score of the White Sox game on his phone every five minutes, but he’d be there.
    And so would the Glenns. Apparently my grandparents had called last night and announced that theywere in Chicago and would be attending the concert.
    I made my way to the dressing room, the same one Jeremy had used, and tried to ignore the trembling in my hand as I reached for the knob. My fingers slid off twice before I managed to grip and twist. This was usually the peaceful part, arriving before the other musicians, feeling the quiet of the auditorium before a million melodic fragments clouded the air. My heart was already pumping too fast, aching behind my rib cage.
    I just had to remind myself of what Dr. Wright had said: Inderal was not physically addictive. But if that was true, then this feeling that my body was about to explode or collapse or both was all in my head. If it was true, this pain in my gut was just neurosis.
    Dr. Wright was full of crap.
    Diana was supposed to meet me backstage with my dress an hour before call time.
    My resolve was weakening. By the time she arrived, I was afraid I’d be begging her for Inderal.
    Picking up my dress from Mei-Ling’s, Diana’s seam-stress in Chinatown, was somewhere on her to-do list between buying pantyhose and going to Northwestern to drop off my music for the judges. (Ten days to go—original scores for all the Guarneri semifinalists were due.)
    I’d performed in the dress only once before, but thatwas over a year ago. It had needed letting out in the bust, a discovery we’d made thanks to Diana’s fixation with seeing me in performing dresses three weeks early, just in case lipstick stains had to be removed or hems re-stitched. Both she and Heidi had insisted it was too tight, which Heidi reinforced by referring to me as Dolly Parton for several days. So we’d all gone to Mei-Ling’s for a fitting. Heidi had come along so we could work on physics in the car, but spent most of the time writing haikus on the edges of my