You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she says, swearing in Hebrew under her breath. Aba and Tovah pick glass shards out of her long skirt. Other concertgoers are crowding around, asking if she is okay. Ima’s face turns tomato.

I grind my own heels deep into the carpet, making sure I am steady.

“Can I get you anything?” Arjun asks my mother. “Water, a chair? Do you need to sit down?”

“No, thank you. I’m just . . . clumsy.”

Arjun signals one of the ushers to help clean up the glass. Still strangers are staring. Some shake their heads, embarrassed maybe.

The horrible truth is that I’m embarrassed too.

The penthouse party is like something I’ve only seen in old movies. Someone is playing a jazz tune on the piano, twinkling lights shine down on us, and a chocolate fountain bubbles in the kitchen. Everyone here is so much older than I am; even their laughs sound more sophisticated than the laughs I hear at school. I pinch a bacon-wrapped scallop off a tray and eat it in one bite. It is small but decadent. I take another.

As soon as we arrived, some of Arjun’s musician friends swept him away, leaving me alone to mingle with the appetizers. I assume he’ll return to my side at some point, but he’s spoken to at least a dozen people so far, and while I haven’t let him out of my sight, he hasn’t once glanced my way or attempted to find me. I suppose these are his people, and he is obligated to make the rounds. Still, it’s hard not to feel envious when I see him clink his glass with a group of friends in cheers, or wildly shake a woman’s hand, or laugh when a man claps him on the shoulder and then reels him in for a hug.

A couple professors, music writers, and Seattle Symphony members introduce themselves to me, eager to talk about their schools or the future of classical music. Once the last one ambles toward the chocolate fountain, someone squeezes my arm.

“I loved playing for you,” Laurel says. “You got over that stage fright after all. You were a different person up there. So much energy!”

“Thank you for the accompaniment,” I say, but my eyes are still on Arjun, who’s in the middle of telling an animated story to a group of symphony members. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but he waves his hands like he’s conducting an orchestra.

She sips from her glass of wine, and I curse my childish sparkling cider. “I hear you’re applying to conservatory.”

“Yes,” I say, and list the schools I applied to.

“That’s fabulous. I went to Berklee, and I loved it.” As she talks about her college experience, I only half listen. On the other side of the room, Arjun is finally alone.

A man taps a fork against a glass to get everyone to quiet down, and a pianist begins “Auld Lang Syne.” A few people start singing along.

“Excuse me,” I say to Laurel. With everyone distracted, I manage to pull Arjun inside the bedroom people have used to stash their coats and bags and scarves.

“What are you doing?” he asks when I lock the door behind us. The room has a king bed and a large window with a view of the Space Needle, where fireworks have already started to glitter the night sky.

“You’ve barely glanced at me all night. You said we’d have a chance to be alone.”

“There were a lot of people here I had to talk to.” He glances at his watch. “It’s almost midnight. Everyone’s going to be up on the roof.”

“Exactly.” I pull his face down and slant my mouth against his. His stubble tickles. I run my lips back and forth across it a few times. My skin might be red in the morning, but I won’t care; at least it will remind me of him. He is a man and not a boy, not like the children tearing through the halls at school.

I need to show him he’s mine. Even surrounded by so many people who want to talk to me about my “future in music,” I am his, too. I hold my palm against the front of his suit pants, feeling his erection. He groans deep in his throat. I love that sound. Lowering myself onto my knees, I unbuckle his thin black belt and unzip his pants.

“Adi,” he growls as I take him into my mouth. We have had sex, and he has put his mouth on every part of me, but we have not yet done this. It’s always felt so intimate to me. His fingers grab at my coiled hair, the slight pain telling me he wants this so desperately that he cannot control himself.

He is mine. I am his. None of those people out there can change that.

Outside they are counting down. Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .

But I can barely hear them. I focus on Arjun’s breathing. I’m using my hands now too, my hands and my mouth, my knees pressed hard into the carpet.

Finally, he lets himself go, his hands flying up to brace himself against the wall. I swallow and get to my feet, continuing to watch him. It takes a few more moments for his breathing to return to normal, and once it does, he zips his pants and hugs me close.

“Happy New Year,” I whisper.

“Happy New Year, Adina. That was . . . a surprise.”

“A good one?”

He gives me a strange look. “Yes. Of course.”