The Rehearsal Read Free

think,” the saxophone teacher says absently. “I gather it’s quite hard work breaking wind.” She is
     rifling through a stack of sheet music. The bookcase behind her is stuffed with old manuscripts and bleeding stray leaves
     on to the floor.
    The saxophone teacher would never interrupt Isolde in such a dismissive fashion: that was one of Bridget’s reasons for wanting
     the role. Bridget remembers all over again that she is pale and stringy and rumpled and thoroughly secondary, and then flushes
     with a new determination to reclaim the scene.
    “So they shuffle in,” she says, “in their V formation or whatever, this gray polyester army all trying really hard not to
     look at anybody in particular, especially not the big gaping hole next to first alto which is where Victoria usually sits.”
    Bridget says “Victoria” with emphasis and evident satisfaction. She looks at the saxophone teacher for effect, but the saxophone
     teacher is busy shuffling papers with her big veined hands and doesn’t flicker.
    “The doors to the practice rooms have little windows of reinforced glass so you can see in,” Bridget says, trying harder this
     time. Her voice gets louder the harder she tries. “But Mr. Saladin pasted the booking sheet over his, so all you can see is
     the timetable and little slivers of white light all around the edge if the light’s on inside. When Victoria had her woodwind
     tutorial all the slivers would go out.”
    “Found it!” says the saxophone teacher, and she holds up a handful of sheet music. “ ‘The Old Castle’ from
Pictures at an Exhibition.
I think you’ll find this interesting, Bridget. We can talk about why the saxophone never really caught on as an orchestral
     instrument.”
    The saxophone teacher sometimes feels disgusted with herself for baiting Bridget in this way. “It’s just that she tries so
     desperately hard,” she said once to Bridget’s mother. “That’s what makes it so easy. If it wasn’t so obvious that she was
     trying, I might be tempted to respect her a little more.”
    Bridget’s mother nodded and nodded, and said, “Yes, we find that’s often the trouble.”
    Now the saxophone teacher just looks at Bridget, standing there all stringy and rumpled and trying so desperately hard, and
     raises her eyebrows.
    Bridget reddens with frustration and deliberately skips all the possible lines about Mussorgsky and
Pictures at an Exhibition
and Ravel and why the saxophone never really caught on as an orchestral instrument. She skips all that and goes straight
     for a line she likes.
    “They treat it like a dosage,” she says, even louder this time. “It’s like a vaccination where they give you a little slice
     of a disease so your body can get a defense ready for the real thing. They’re frightened because it’s a disease they haven’t
     tried on us before, and so they’re trying to vaccinate us without telling us what the disease really is. They want to inject
     us very secretly, without us noticing. It won’t work.”
    They are really looking at each other now. The saxophone teacher takes a moment to align the pile of papers with the edge
     of the rug before she says, “Why won’t it work, Bridget?”
    “Because we noticed,” says Bridget, breathing hard through her nose. “We were watching.”
Monday
    Julia’s feet are always scuffing, and she has a scab around her mouth.
    “They called an assembly for the whole form this morning,”she says, “and the counselor was there, all puffed up like he’d
     never felt so important in his life.”
    She talks over her shoulder while she unpacks her case. The saxophone teacher is sitting in a slice of cold sun by the window,
     watching the gulls wheel and shit. The clouds are low.
    “They started talking in these special quiet honey voices like we’d break if they spoke too loud. They go, You’re all aware
     of the rumors that have been circulating this past week. It’s important that we talk