“Maid of Athens”
By
David Rambo,
AINSLEY
(Cuts her finger while preparing a meal.)
Crap! Oh…crap! I’m okay. I’ve got an ice cube on it…Come in ice cube. Make it numb. Ice…Kissing my
finger, making the pain go away. Glaciers. Snow…Leonard Bernstein’s hair. The summer I was eleven,
and Reuben took me to Tanglewood. They remembered him, all the older musicians did, from when he
played there. He told them he was just teaching now…but they knew. It was a hot day and when a
drinker sweats, you can just smell it on them. We all could. And then this…this wave of energy comes at
us, and it’s Leonard Bernstein. “Reuben! Reuben, God, where the hell have you been? Reuben, dear,
darling, Reuben.” And Leonard Bernstein’s hugging Reuben and kissing him. Kissing! Then, Reuben says,
“Lenny”—to Leonard Bernstein!—he says, “Lenny, this is Ainsley Belcher, my star pupil. She plays the
clarinet.” And then…Leonard Bernstein kisses my hand! Can’t look him in the eye, or I’ll sink like the
Titanic. So I’m looking at his hair, these waves of thick, soft, white hair. Like snow. Big, soft, Alaskan
glaciers.
They call rehearsal and “Lenny” looks up at me, and quotes Lord Byron, my favorite poet!
“Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh give me back my heart.”
And he left…
After that, when I practiced up in the cake room, if my cheeks hurt, or the muscles in my jaw got tired, I
couldn’t feel it. Leonard Bernstein was there. Conducting. Kissing my…
(Her hand.)
It doesn’t hurt anymore.