Read Playing With Fire for Free Online Page A

Balboni, who was Alberto’s colleague in the music department at Ca’ Foscari. With his finely tailored suits and his lion’s mane of blond hair, Balboni was both impressive and more than a little intimidating. While Alberto seemed to shrink with age every year, Balboni was still in his masculine prime, a man with big gestures and big appetites, who laughed loudly and often. During his frequent visits with Alberto, Balboni’s booming voice could be heard all the way up to Lorenzo’s bedroom on the third floor.
    “Your grandfather tells me you might enter the music competition at Ca’ Foscari this year,” said Balboni.
    “Yes, sir.” Lorenzo glanced at Alberto, who offered only an indulgent smile. “Last year, I couldn’t compete because I hurt my wrist.”
    “But it’s quite healed now?”
    “He sounds even better than before,” said Alberto. “And he’s learned not to run down those blasted stairs.”
    “What do you think are your chances of winning the prize?”
    Lorenzo shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. There are some fine musicians competing.”
    “Your grandfather says no one is better than you.”
    “He says that because he is my grandfather.”
    At this Professor Balboni laughed. “Yes, everyone sees genius under his own roof! But I’ve known Alberto for more than twenty years, and he’s never been one to exaggerate.” Balboni took a noisy slurp of coffee and set the cup down on the saucer. “You are, what? Eighteen years old?”
    “I turn nineteen in October.”
    “Perfect. My Laura is seventeen.”
    Lorenzo had never met the man’s daughter and he imagined she looked much like her father, big-boned and loud, with fleshy hands and thick fingers that would slam down hard as hammers against the cello fingerboard. He watched Professor Balboni pluck a sweet biscuit from the tray and bite into it, leaving his mustache coated with sugar. Balboni’s hands were large enough to reach an octave-plus-three on the piano, which was no doubt why it was his chosen instrument. On the violin, fingers as thick as his would simply collide with one another.
    “Here’s my proposal for you, Lorenzo,” said Balboni, wiping sugar from his mustache. “You would be doing a great favor to me, and I don’t think it would be such a terrible burden for you. The competition is still months away, so there’s plenty of time to prepare a duet.”
    “With your daughter.”
    “You were already planning to compete at Ca’ Foscari, so why not join Laura and enter the violin and cello duet category? For the performance piece, I was thinking perhaps Carlos Maria von Weber, Opus 65, or an arrangement of Beethoven’s Rondeau No. 2, Opus 51. Or you might prefer one of the sonatas by Campagnoli. At your advanced level, all of these would be possibilities. Of course it means Laura will have to apply herself, but this is precisely the motivation she needs.”
    “But I’ve never even heard her play,” said Lorenzo. “I don’t know how we’ll sound together.”
    “You have months to rehearse. I’m sure you’ll both be ready.”
    Lorenzo imagined hour after excruciating hour trapped in a stifling room with a clumsy cow of a girl. The agony of listening to her fumble through the notes. The indignity of sharing the stage with her as she mangled Beethoven or von Weber. Oh, he understood what this was all about. Professor Balboni wanted his daughter to be seen at the best possible advantage, and for that she needed a partner skillful enough to disguise her flaws. Surely his grandfather understood what was happening here, and would spare him this ordeal.
    But Alberto returned Lorenzo’s look with a maddeningly placid smile, as if this arrangement had already been discussed and agreed upon. Professor Balboni was Alberto’s best friend; of course Lorenzo must say yes.
    “Come to my house on Wednesday, around four o’clock,” said Balboni. “Laura will be expecting you.”
    “But I don’t have any of the sheet