You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

“I’m done,” she says crisply. I shut the door behind her. There’s nothing left to talk about. There’s only tomorrow.

Adina glances away as a nurse jabs needles into our veins, but I watch the glass vials fill with red. I’ve never been squeamish. It’ll make me an excellent surgeon.

I cling to the statistics. There’s a fifty percent chance each of us will test positive. A positive result means someone will develop Huntington’s. Fifty percent isn’t the worst probability, I try to convince myself. A fifty percent chance of rain in Seattle doesn’t always mean a downpour; sometimes it means gloom and gray skies. I pray for gloom and gray skies.

In three weeks, we’ll know if neither or both or one of us is going to die the same way our mother will.

Three

Adina

A FAMILY OF THREE LINGERS in the strings section of Muse and Music, where I work part-time. The parents murmur as they scan price tags. Their young daughter touches all the most expensive instruments.

“You look like you could use some help,” I say.

The parents look relieved. “Hailey’s always been musical,” the mother says, placing a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “She’s nine now, and we’d like to sign her up for music classes.”

“We told her she could pick any instrument,” the father says, “but I’m afraid neither of us knows how to play anything, so we’re a bit lost.”

“I want to play the violin.” Hailey points to a Windsor. “I like this one.”

“What do you know about this?” the mother asks me.

“Windsor is good quality. Solid choice for a beginner. But,” I say, bending down to Hailey’s level so we’re eye to eye, “everyone plays the violin. You’re going to be one of twenty violins in your school orchestra, I guarantee it.” Her hand drops from the Windsor. “Do you really want to be like everyone else, or do you want to be unique?”

She shakes her head. I have said the magic words. “I don’t want to be like everyone else.”

I grin like I am about to tell her a secret. “How about the viola?”

I show them a Stentor, a Mendini, a Cecilio. The makers’ Italian names waterfall off my tongue. Then I go over rental rates. “If she’s planning on playing it long-term—and you said she’s very musical—purchasing the viola outright will cost less than an entire year of renting.”

Hailey likely has a long life ahead of her to play viola. To become a soloist, even, if she truly devotes herself to the instrument. If I test positive, if I develop the disease one day, when will I have to stop playing? That’s what I haven’t been able to get out of my head since the blood draw a few days ago.

“You’ve made our decision very easy,” the father says.

I make commission on every sale, and I make a lot of sales.

The deal I struck with my parents when I turned sixteen was that if I wanted to continue taking private lessons and playing in the youth symphony, I had to pay half. Ima encouraged my music, but Aba wanted me to experience the “real world,” which did not revolve around long-dead nineteenth-century composers. But I’ve always been more comfortable with long-dead composers and string instruments than with anyone with a beating heart.

My manager, Oscar, swoops over once the family leaves. “Can you work your magic on that guy over in guitars? He’s been here for more than an hour.”

The guy is the stereotype of a moody acoustic guitarist. He hunches on a stool with an Ibanez in his lap, strumming a Bob Dylan song, shaggy black hair falling in his face.

“You know,” I say as I approach, “if you own it, you can play it any time you want.”

He plucks another few chords. “I’ve been in here awhile, huh?”

“I love Dylan.” I do not, but music tastes are sacred. There is no more immediate connection you can make with someone than learning they like the same composer, the same band, the same vocalist as you. “And that’s a great instrument.”

When he finally glances up at me, his eyes rove over my body. Up. Down. Up. From my hips to my chest to my reddest red lipstick, a shade called Siren. Men have been looking at me in ways they probably shouldn’t for a long time. Seniors leered at me in the halls even when I was a lowly freshman. I developed early, wore underwire when all the other girls were still in training bras, and I have never looked my age. The attention typically makes me feel important. Wanted. Like I can be a star onstage instead of an invisible piece of an orchestra. Usually, I adore being looked at, but today it irks me. Arjun’s rejection and the impending test results have stripped some of my confidence.

“Can’t afford it now, unfortunately.” He sets it back on the wall. “Do you play . . . Adina?” His gaze lingers on the name tag above my breast. Today I wish I could paste it to my forehead.

“I play viola.”

“Don’t tell me you’re into classical music.” He says classical music the way someone might say using pliers to pull off your fingernails one by one.

That sets me off, makes me wish I’d told him how overrated I find Dylan. He has probably never listened to a classical piece in its entirety. He probably equates it to elevator music. Music without a soul or a heartbeat.