Wildalone Read Free Page A

look at me, the scrutiny in her eyes softened up. “Tell me, dear, how has it been so far?”
    We started chatting about the trip from Bulgaria and my first impressions of life on campus. Wylie had excused himself to take a phone call.
    â€œTry not to be intimidated by Nate. His sense of humor is peculiar, but also quite refreshing once you get used to it.”
    â€œIt doesn’t bother me.”
    â€œGood. That’s the one ally you can’t afford to lose.”
    â€œBecause he is my adviser?”
    â€œThat too. But he also happens to be department chair. Which means he can align things for you, so long as—”
    The rest was lost. Wylie had come back and his face promised nothing but bad news. “They’ve postponed the Paderewski concert; Moravec is ill. Francis needs to fill the gap right away and asked for the usual: a showcase of students across the department. I told him no way. I’m sick of potpourri.”
    â€œOf course you are; so is everyone else. But the concert is this week. We’ll never find a replacement.”
    â€œThen we need to come up with an alternative by tomorrow morning.” He fixed me with his eyes, as if remembering only now that I was still there. “Actually, I think I just did. What if we opened the season with a shocker? Say, by showing off one of our newest students?”
    I had no idea how to react. Could he possibly mean me? There had been a mention, in a handout somewhere, about Princeton’s Paderewski Memorial Concert—an annual affair honoring the Polish pianist and politician. That year’s concert, by the famous Czech pianist Moravec, was supposed to be on Friday and I had planned on going. Now Wylie seemed to think I should be the one onstage.
    Donnelly’s reaction took a few seconds: “You aren’t serious, right?”
    â€œWhy not? We can afford a risk, for once.”
    â€œThis isn’t risky, Nate. It’s reckless. Thea is only a freshman; we can’t put her through a solo recital yet.”
    â€œA freshman who looks better on paper than many of our seniors combined. And you’ve heard her demo; you know what she can do.”
    The “demo” was a recording I had submitted as part of my college application; it was never meant to outlive the admission process. Practicing for it had taken months, and now they expected the same performance on less than a week’s notice. There was no way. A solo recital at Princeton. It was an unbelievable opportunity, a chance I wouldn’t have dreamed of. But it could also turn into a grand fiasco. Who cared how I looked on paper? So far,everything in America was proving much harder than I had imagined. Even my English—impeccable on transcript—was already failing me miserably. For years, I had been cramming my brain with rules of grammar, idioms, and Latin word roots; I had read Shakespeare in the original and scored higher on the SAT than Princeton’s admission average. But a chat with native speakers had nothing to do with the intricacies of linguistics. It felt like watching champions play table tennis while you stood on the side, forced to swallow Ping-Pong balls.
    Wylie, however, wasn’t giving up. “Come on, Sylvia, think about it. Everyone loves young talent, so people are bound to be curious. In fact, the younger she is, the better. Plus, we get to keep the Slavic spin of the evening, which means fewer ticket returns.”
    She nodded, just barely. Now they were both looking at me.
    â€œI promised to be the guy finding you gigs, didn’t I?” And there he was, joking again. “We got down to business a lot sooner than usual, but what the hell. So are we on?”
    On? My mind was spinning with fear and I only managed to say how grateful I was to be considered for this.
    â€œYou aren’t considered —Friday is yours if you want it. All I need is a yes or no. But you have to tell me