Part 15 (2/2)

He says, ”What will I tell my students?”

”Whatever you want to.”

”I like some of them, you know. I don't want to leave them.”

”Then tell them to come with you.”

He finally sips his beer and says, ”What did you say to Hallie?”

I feel cold suddenly.

”I didn't tell her anything. She just . . . stopped coming.”

”Why?”

I shrug, trying to appear casual. ”Students stop coming. It's what they do.”

”But you really liked her. You thought she was good.”

”What was I supposed to do? Get a warrant for her arrest? She lost interest.”

Clive looks sad for a moment, then stands, sighs, and sits by me on the couch. I feel every nerve in my body shut down, then come back to life, then shut down again. He is wearing a long-sleeved surfer-type T-s.h.i.+rt and jeans. His hair is short beyond logic, and the goatee on his chin looks like orphaned lint. His six earrings glint under the harsh overhead light. He is younger than I imagined, and I feel nothing for him except that my heart is racing and I feel dizzy.

Leah said it was okay. She didn't say it was inevitable.

He says, ”Pearl, you're better than all of them put together. I've heard you play. Why do you put up with it? Why are you there?”

”I'm making a living. How else can I pay for my palatial estate?”

”You can start a band.”

I laugh. ”Violin players don't start bands.”

”Why not? You've got violin, you've got me on ba.s.s. Those are the hardest instruments to find.”

”I don't want to be in a band,” I tell him, and it's true. I never really wanted to be in Franklin's band, either. I just wanted to be near him. But he wants to be near someone else. I've played that tune before.

Clive says, ”Well, if you don't want to be in a band, what do you want to do?”

I shrug and admit the truth before I can stop myself. ”I try not to want things.”

He is taken aback by this because he is young and therefore he is all want.

”Well, that's just crazy. When you stop wanting things, you die,” he says.

”Maybe not. Maybe when you stop wanting things, you figure out how to live.”

I have no evidence of this, but I like the idea.

He is agitated. He s.h.i.+fts in his seat. He says, ”What takes the place of want?”

I shrug again. ”I don't know yet. I haven't been doing this for very long.”

He moves away from me slightly and starts twisting his bottom lip between his fingers. Then he says, ”You know what I read once?”

I sigh. I want to say, No, I don't give a s.h.i.+t what you read once. But I am polite and I have not given up on the idea of sleeping with him.

”What?” I say dutifully.

”That human beings are just mimics.”

”Mimics?”

”Yeah. That everything we do is just an imitation of what we've seen other people do. Like there's no original thought.”

”That can't be true.”

”Why not?” he asks, looking relieved. Because he doesn't want it to be true. Who would?

”Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler, to name a few. Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein. They broke the rules. They had original ideas.”

”But this book I read says that breaking the rules is just a form of mimicking. They broke the rules because they saw someone else do it.”

”I don't believe that,” I say. ”There has to be an original rule breaker.”

I'm not actually sure, but I want to keep the argument alive. I am adding wood chips to the fire.

Clive gets excited by my resistance. He sits up straighter and says, ”No, listen. In nature, there are all these organisms that imitate other things. There are bugs that look like sticks. Fish that look like rocks. Birds that look like leaves.”

I nod, stifling a yawn. Yawns, I read once, are evidence of being overwhelmed rather than bored or exhausted. ”Polar bears are white so that they blend into the snowy landscape. That's evolution. That's survival.”

Clive says, ”Mockingbirds mimic other birds. They don't have a song of their own.”

”Right, but the birds they mimic have songs of their own.”

He scratches his goatee. I can see all the pistons firing in his brain. Me, I'm casting glances at my watch. I need to get some sleep or I will be cranky in the morning.

”So it figures,” young Clive says, ”that people behave that way, too. There are people who are put on earth to mimic other people. But I don't want to do that. I want to be original.”

”The mystery of fingerprints and all that.”

”What does that prove?”

”Originality.”

”Oh, yeah,” he says.

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