Wild Awake

her part of the concerto.
    “It is incredible what you do with this piano,” says Petra. “I am wishing we had started Lukas when he was young.”
    Her approval is a gold star I use to hold up all the ones whose edges have started to curl.
    The metronome ticks. I lose track of days. My clothes start to smell like I just ran a marathon. Several nights pass where I don’t see my bed, don’t even go upstairs at all. Sergei Prokofiev starts talking to me, a constant internal chatter, critiquing my technique and making grim Russian noises whenever I miss a note. I can feel the music growing on me like a graft on a plum tree, the new leaves shooting out, becoming a part of my brain.
    At one point, my parents call long-distance from Brazil to give me a detailed update on the state of the lemur population at the Sao Rodrigo Wildlife Preserve, which they visited on a recent excursion from their cruise ship. My mom gives me a full report on the distinct habits, personalities, and dietary preferences of all six members of the lemur family showcased in the little pen at the visitor center. My dad’s contribution is a scathing condemnation of the boldness of the Brazilian homeless person. I pace around the kitchen while they talk, and eventually set the phone on top of the fridge and wander away.
    When Wednesday night rolls around, I’m ready. I’ve spent an entire week Focusing on My Art, and now not only am I a honed and dangerous pianist, I have also become Serious. I’m a finely focused laser beam. Forget burning the candle at both ends—I’ve dipped the candle in kerosene and torched that sucker. One hundred pages of music, all safely stored in my brain. You tell me if that isn’t Serious. You just try telling me that isn’t some Serious shit.

chapter twenty
    Not even ten minutes after I declare victory on the Prokofiev, the phone rings and it’s Lukas calling to see if I want to watch Zardoz . The timing is so uncanny it’s got to be a sign. I tell him to come over in an hour, by which I mean, Give me an hour to prepare my sex-dome .
    I hang up the phone and launch into preparation mode.
    First, I clean up the living room, fluffing pillows and draping the chenille blanket invitingly over the back of the couch. I load a good playlist onto my iPod, flick off lights and switch on lamps, gather up all the old newspapers and dump them into the recycling bin in the garage. Next, I tackle my bedroom, tossing dirty socks and underwear into the laundry bin and hanging up clothes. I spend five minutes debating whether to leave a black bra hanging casually over the closet door, then decide it looks too staged and move it to a dresser drawer. I crank open the window next to my bed so that the evening air slinks in luxuriously over the pillow.
    It’s not that I think all these preparations are necessary for romancing Lukas. He’s a simple person with simple likes and dislikes. It’s more to indulge my own sense of occasion that I whisk from room to room attending to these details. I feel like a theater director fussing over a set on opening night. I want the entrances and exits to be perfect. I want the trapdoors to swing open when they’re supposed to and the bed to swivel into place on cue. I run a sound check and test the lights. I stride around the house making sure that every prop is in place. I go down to the basement and select a bottle of red wine from the wooden rack, go to the kitchen and stick a frozen loaf of French bread in the oven.
    My heart fluttering, I go back to my bedroom and dig out the condom I’ve been saving ever since ninth-grade health class, the condom that has been hidden inside a Christmas sock stuffed inside an old running shoe wedged behind a box on the high shelf of my closet for three years and nevertheless seems to bleat its condomy presence to the world like a poorly muffled alarm clock whenever anyone comes into my room.
    I put it in an easy-to-reach spot in my drawer, then on second thought I put it back in the sock, because I don’t want it to seem like I just generally keep condoms casually accessible, then on third thought I take it back out of the sock, because what kind of creepy, desperate human owns a single, expired condom they’ve been keeping in a Christmas sock since ninth grade?
    Next, it’s time for Ultimate Physical Purification. I shower, shave every body part that isn’t directly attached to my skull, wash my hair, blow-dry it, clean under my toenails with one