Page 15 of Nantucket Longing

“What’s up, Bean?”Diana asked, smiling.

“I don’t know.I’m ready.”Madeline shrugged.

“Are you?”Diana smiled, scooching her chair forward so that she and her daughter could hold hands.Together, they did a little patty-cake game, smacking each other’s palms and saying a rhyme.They giggled.Diana watched her daughter’s glinting eyes and said a small prayer of thanks and please.All she wanted was her daughter to go up on stage and show the judges what she was made of.

As it turned out, Diana had no need to be worried.Madeline played her piece perfectly and secured first place—far outpacing the kids aged six and seven.The judge who handed Madeline her trophy bent down, beaming, and said into the microphone, “Madeline, you are clearly a very special little girl.We wish you good luck in the future, and I’m sure we’ll see you again.”

Madeline beamed and raised her hand to wave at her mother in the audience.

“Who are you waving at?”the judge asked, following Madeline’s gaze.

“My mommy!”

The judge caught Diana’s eyes and smiled so sensationally that Diana’s heart skipped a beat.

Later, as Madeline and Diana were in the lobby and getting ready to go, that same judge caught up to them.He was maybe in his mid-thirties with thinning black hair and a long, slender body.“Hey!”he said, laughing at himself.“I’m glad I caught you.Madeline, you were sensational today.”

Madeline said, “We’re going home, and we’re going to get pizza!”

The judge laughed again.“I love pizza.”

Diana arched her eyebrow and steadied her own smile.She knew this judge was the sort of person she needed to suck up to, if only for the future of her daughter’s career.So she said, “Thanks a lot for today.”

“You don’t need to thank me.Madeline won in a landslide,” he said.

Diana tried to smile bigger but found that her cheeks ached.There was a strange silence.She didn’t know what to say.“Well, thank you.”

“Listen,” the judge said, “my name is, um, Adam, and I was wondering if you’d ever like to grab a drink with me.That is if you’re not, you know, with someone?”Adam made a big show of looking right to left to see if, by some miracle, Madeline’s father would appear through the crowd.

“Oh!”Diana was taken off guard.She hadn’t been asked out on a date in years, but when she had, she’d immediately said no, that she was too busy, that she was a single mother working multiple jobs.But Adam was a pianist, an important judge on Madeline’s route to stardom.Did that mean that Diana had to say yes?And what if she wanted to say yes?

“It’s no pressure,” Adam said.

Madeline was playing with her trophy, swinging it around, laughing to herself.Diana fought the urge to tear it out of Madeline’s hands and say act like an adult!She was five, for goodness’ sake.She cleared her throat and said, “That would be nice.”

What was she doing?But already, Adam was getting her number and saying that he was free on Friday night if she was.She heard herself agree.Madeline usually had five-hour piano lessons on Friday evenings, and Diana usually sat around at the piano teacher’s house, waiting and pretending to read a book.Maybe this was a better use of her time.

That Friday, Diana picked Madeline up from kindergarten and drove her to her piano teacher’s house, where the piano teacher greeted her with open arms and waved at Diana.“Not coming in today?”

“I have some things to do,” Diana said.

The piano teacher nodded.“Good.We have a lot of work to do!Can’t stop the momentum!”

Diana got back in her car and went home to shower, shave her legs, and figure out how to do her makeup before Adam picked her up.She’d told him that she needed to pick Madeline up by eight thirty, and he’d agreed to an early walk plus a dinner.He’d said, “I know what it’s like to take care of a prodigy.Everything comes down to what they need and when they need it.But I hope we can have a little fun while she’s away.”

It was the first time someone had suggested Diana wasn’t addressing her needs.It was the first time Diana had really thought about her own needs in years—probably ever since Madeline’s birth.She wondered about her own mother in Poland.Obviously, even after giving birth, Barbara Nowak had been thinking about her needs, her career, and everything that came with it.This was partially why Diana’s father had always said that Barbara didn’t want to be a mother.But what if mothers could have it all?What if they could marry a prince and pursue their dreams and help their children rise to the top?Was it even possible?

Adam and Diana walked along the Grand River.Adam was wearing a pair of jeans and a light green polo shirt that made him look clean and respectable and nothing like Madeline’s father, Allen.Adam told Diana that he’d studied piano at Juilliard but hadn’t had the chops to pursue “a professional career in the traditional sense.”Diana was shocked.

“But you got into Juilliard!”she said.“Doesn’t that mean something?”

“It did at first,” he admitted.“I was pleased to get in, and I worked very hard.But something happened when I hit twenty or twenty-one.People in my class started to advance further than me.My professors noticed it.They urged me to practice harder, to go deeper.I tried.I was putting eleven, twelve, sometimes thirteen hours per day into it.But it just wasn’t happening for me.When I graduated, most of my classmates had job offers in London, Athens, Paris, and even Buenos Aires.I had an offer in Cincinnati, so I went because it was all I had.I lasted six months!I wasn’t good enough!But when I was there, I met another failing musician, a flutist, whom I later married.She got a job up here in Grand Rapids, so we moved together.”

Adam laughed to himself and spread his hands out in front of him.“That’s my dirty laundry.I’m a failed musician and a failed husband.How about you?”

Diana chuckled.“Dirty laundry?Do I have to get it out so fast?”

Adam blushed.“Should I be embarrassed that I showed you so quickly?”

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