Sam and Ilsa's Last Hurrah. Rachel Cohn

Ilsa were here, she’d be on the piano, singing along.

      I –

      I –

      I look away. I know a new person is supposed to mean a new start. But I’m still me, and eventually he will see that.

      “Do you want something to drink?” I ask.

      He looks at me like I’ve made a joke. Then he realizes maybe I haven’t.

      Right. Pretty much the only fact I know about him is that he wants a beer.

      “It’ll be any minute now,” I say, looking down. I am rolling over Beethoven. I want to apologize to him.

      “I loved hearing you play,” Johan says.

      “I loved the feeling of you standing right behind me as I played,” I don’t reply. “There was even a moment when I forgot to worry about impressing you and actually enjoyed myself.”

      It had been so simple. He’d seen the piano. Asked me who played.

      All I had to do was say, “I do.”

      All I had to do was sit there and let the song happen.

      No. Make the song happen.

      “I gave it up,” I find myself saying to him now.

      There are so many things I am saying underneath this. Mostly to myself. But beneath that. Something I am trying to give him. Some indication of who I am, of what this is.

      “When?” he asks.

      “A couple of years ago,” I tell him. Even though it was actually only seven months ago, after I sabotaged myself out of music school and vowed never to perform in public – never to be put on display like that, with all of the pressure – ever again.

      “But clearly you didn’t give it up entirely?” He lifts some fallen notes from the floor.

      “That was the weird thing. I gave up on it, but it didn’t give up on me.”

      “Music is inescapable, isn’t it?”

      The way he says it, I can tell there are things he already knows.

      I nod. Even if I wasn’t playing in public anymore, it was still a part of my most private self.

      He’s looking at me with such curiosity. I was Subway Boy to him too, and now I am not. I have yet to be determined.

      We have yet to be determined.

      The doorbell marks the arrival of another guest. I pause, trying to sense some movement from the kitchen. When I don’t notice any, I make an excuse to Johan and head for the door.

      I am sorry to leave him. Which seems prematurely foolish, but there it is.

      When I get to the door, I open it and find Ilsa’s friend Li, who is usually a model of sense and sensibility.

      But tonight she’s dressed in what can only be called a slutty French-maid outfit. By which I mean: one of those Halloween costumes that’s supposed to look like a French maid, only sluttier.

      She takes one look at my outfit and another at my face. Then she says, “It isn’t a costume party, is it?”

      I shake my head.

      “Why did I think it was a costume party?” she asks.

      I have no answer for this.

      “I live in Jackson Heights.”

      Meaning: there is no turning around and going back home. This is what she’s wearing tonight.

      “And I’ll never fit into your sister’s clothes.”

      Meaning: no, really, this is what she’s wearing tonight.

      “Well, it is garish,” I say. “I’m sure there were at least three guys at each of Liberace’s parties wearing the exact same thing.”

      I can see her compartmentalize her embarrassment. I envy that.

      She holds up a bag. “I brought the chocolate your sister loves.”

      I gesture behind me. “She’s in the kitchen. Just make sure she shares.”

      Li reaches behind her and pulls out a second bag.

      “This is for the rest of us.”

      Such a good guest.

      She is wearing heels that I sense are a little higher than her usual elevation. So there’s a certain teeter as she angles toward the kitchen, bags in hand. I close the apartment door behind her.

      “Parker’s here too,” I tell her. As if to confirm this, there is a crash of breaking glass in the kitchen, and my sister shouting something that sounds demonstrably like ASSHOLE.

      “Maybe I’ll hold off,” Li says. “This chocolate is too good to be thrown at someone’s face.”

      “This way,” I tell her.

      When I get back into the piano room, the sheet music is all stacked in a neat column alongside Johan’s violin case, like an office tower built over the Guggenheim.

      “Johan, Li. Li, Johan,” I say.

      As Li is shaking his hand, she asks, “And how do you two know each other?”

      “Mass transit,” Johan replies, offering no further explanation.

      The noise from the kitchen has reached the decibel level known by musicologists as hollering. The doorbell takes this as its cue to ring again.

      I assume Ilsa will use this as her excuse to leave the kitchen.

      She does not.

      “I’ll get it,” I say. As if either Li or Johan could be viable candidates for the task.

      I figure it’s going to be Jason, but when I open the door, I find someone who is not even remotely Jason. On the hotness scale, Jason may have been a firecracker . . . but this guy’s the sun. He is wearing clothes, but my body reacts like he isn’t. My gaze rises from his strong shoulders to focus on his face.

      “Hello,” I say. And it sounds like hell, because the oh comes out so low.

      I see he has one of our invitations in his hand. This has to be one of Ilsa’s guests.

      Then his other hand gets my attention.

      Because –

      It has a sock on it.

      A white tube sock with green button eyes.

      And a red stitched mouth.

      And brown yarn hair.

      “I hope we’re in the right place,” the sock says.

      It has a disturbingly attractive voice. English as a second language . . . with Sexy Beast being the first.

      “Excuse me?” I say. Because nine out of ten times, when you’re confronted with a sock puppet, that is the only valid response.

      “This is Ilsa’s party, isn’t it?” the sock continues. I look up at the godlike guy, and his lips aren’t moving.

      “It is Ilsa’s party,” I say. I am not talking to the hand. I am talking to the hot guy who is looking at me like his hand isn’t talking to me. “I’m her brother, Sam.”

      “Nice to meet you,” the sock says. It holds out its hand. Which is his pinkie. Under a sock.

      I look at the guy, as if to say, You can’t be serious.

      He looks back at me, as if to say, This is my life choice and you must respect it.

      I shake the sock’s hand-pinkie.

      “I’m Caspian,” it says. “This is Frederyk. He met Ilsa when he was playing basketball.