"Look, mister," CJ drawled, propping up the tree with one hand. "We busted out yer headlight. h.e.l.l, the least I can do is give ya the tree."

The woman tilted her head and shot out a hand to touch my arm. She had a horrified look in her wide eyes that I could see even through her dripping mascara. "You ain't already got one do ya, mister?"

I glanced at my watch and tried to weasel out of it. I'd already nixed the idea of a Christmas tree--told my family (meaning my daughter, Jenny) we weren't having one that year, and that was final. They just shed all over the carpets and had to be tossed out at precisely the right moment in January or the city garbage folks wouldn't pick them up. We'd had a tree one year that sat around well into February because we missed the magic pick-up date. I finally chopped it into little bits and threw it out a piece at a time over the next six weeks.

I had no use whatever for a Christmas tree.

In the end, I didn't want to argue with them--it was cold, exceedingly wet, and I was already going to be late for the concert. So CJ helped me load the mortally wounded conifer into my trunk. We groped around for the twine, but couldn't find it, so he battened down the lid with his girlfriend's belt. She had high-tailed it back into the Jeep to wait for him out of the rain. He whispered into my ear while he cinched up the belt. "She don't really need her belt," he said. "I'd have it off her in another couple o' miles anyways." He gave me a wink and wished me a Merry Christmas.

By the time I arrived at the hall, the concert had long since begun and it was almost intermission. I detest arriving late for these things, and I had to wait around the lobby until the first part was over. I was thankful I'd not been any later. Jenny would have been sorely disappointed if I'd missed her big debut: about twenty minutes from the time I arrived in the lobby, she was scheduled to begin her first public performance as a featured soloist--playing "Harold in Italy".

If you don't know it, it's a fine piece of music, but it's not in the frequently-performed repertoire, because it's sort of a half-fledged concerto for viola. Not the violin or the cello--the viola: underdog of all orchestral instruments.

My daughter Jenny wasn't always a violist. We started her out right on the violin--something I considered a respectable instrument for a young lady. My ex-wife and I had faint hopes that someday she'd be a concert violinist--Jenny was that good from the time she picked up her first quarter-sized fiddle. We spent a fortune on expensive teachers, and as soon as she was ready, we started her on the long track: youth symphony. But just after her fourteenth birthday, something happened to her brain. I don't mean a pre-mature stroke or some kind of lesion.

She came home one day with this hideous dreamy look in her eyes, and she puttered around the kitchen nervously helping me cook. She wasn't talking very much.

I didn't want to probe, figuring she'd tell me what was on her mind when she was ready. "I have to go to Milan next month," I said, trying to be cheerful.

She was tearing lettuce leaves into microscopic fragments, and she looked up. "Will you see Grandma?"

Jenny meant my mother--fountainhead of all family quirks. As a bright-eyed Italian girl of seventeen she married her American sweetheart and came to the States. It turned out to be a terrible marriage, and years later, after dutifully raising four kids, she divorced my father, American style, and went home to the Old Country.

Jenny had only met her a few times, but when they did meet you couldn't pry them apart.

"Uh-huh. I thought I might take you along, if you can stand it," I teased. I pulled the salad bowl away from her and tossed in the tomato I had been cutting. "We'll leave the day before spring-break."

She brightened a bit at that, and with a very limp wrist, laid a whole leaf of lettuce on top of the chopped tomato. "Can we stop in Vienna?"

"Oh, I don't know, Jenny... Maybe for a day or two."

She put on a weak smile. "Can we go to the opera?" she asked softly.

Jenny's enthusiasm for opera was phenomenal. She must have inherited that from my mother, too--I always thought half the reason she went back to Milan was because they did too many German operas in San Francisco.

"Only if you can drag Grandma along." I picked up the salad and two bowls, then waltzed away toward the dining room.

Over dinner she made her momentous announcement. I had just put a big bite of steak into my mouth and was chewing thoughtfully. I even recall we were listening to something by Prokofiev.

"Daddy, I'm going to switch," she said quickly with an air of non-chalance.

I paused, finished chewing, and then fell right into the pit. "That's fine, honey..." Another pause. She wasn't looking right at me, and I leaned over to try to catch her eye. "You're going to switch what?"

She stabbed at her steak, fork delicately held in her left hand just like we'd taught her all her life. "To viola." She slid a small piece of steak into her mouth and started chewing.

I gagged, and put down my fork, but she kept on chattering with her mouth full, trying to convince me before I could even voice the beginning of an objection. Finally she appealed to my conceit. "You want me to be a great musician, right Daddy?"

I tried to agree that had been our hope, but I was still trying to catch my breath.

"Well, I'm sitting third-desk right now. Do you know what that _means_?" she whined. "I'll never get anywhere in a concert career.

You have to sit first-desk--or be the concert mistress."

I coughed a couple more times. "But you're doing fine," I insisted.

"You're the best."

She gave me her old half-frown, pulling down one side of her mouth and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her eyes, then rolling them away toward the ceiling.

"Daddy," she said, "I'm not the best. Mary is the best." She pushed another piece of steak onto her fork. "I'm sitting third desk with Deadpan w.a.n.g." She got that dreamy look again, and balanced her fork on two fingers. "But if I switch to viola--they're always in greater demand you know, because fewer people play viola, Daddy--I could be sitting first desk."

"Look," I told her, "you've already won a couple of compet.i.tions, are you going to throw all that effort away, and take up... the _viola_?"

I actually gulped.

"_You_ might call it winning," she shot back, "but I've never taken better than second place."

"What about the cello?"

"Daddy," she whined again, putting down her knife and picking up her milk. "The technique is too different--you should have started me on cello ten years ago."

"Does your mother know about this?"

She twirled her fork among her green beans and wouldn't meet my eyes.

"No." She looked up with knotted eyebrows. "She doesn't care."

"Jenny, she does too..." I let that trail off lamely and we ate in silence for a while.

Now, I had nothing particular against the viola, as an instrument.

Frankly speaking, I've known a couple of violists pretty intimately--and I've always found violists to be warm and tender people. Much less high-strung, so to speak, than violinists. Not quite as pa.s.sionate as cellists. But I would hardly have considered the viola to be a prestigious solo instrument. How many famous violists can you name? How many great viola concertos? "The repertoire is too limited," I said, speaking what was on my mind. This fact did not deter her determination.

"Mr. Rossi thinks I'd make a great violist," she replied. There was that look again, right in her light brown eyes. Just like her mother.

I had a sudden insight: my teenage daughter had a crush on the conductor. He needed a violist, and apparently he was astute enough to take advantage of a young girl's infatuation to get one. Maybe I'd have a word about cradle robbing with Mr. Rossi. Well, no that was a bit much, I decided. Jenny would have given me the silent treatment for a week. I'd have to stay calm. I told her to think about it for a while, and after a couple weeks, if she still wanted to descend to being a violist, we'd see.

Half an hour later, while I did the dishes, she was on the phone to someone, and jabbered away for a couple of hours to her friends while she dragged the phone all over the living room. I decided again I'd have to join the modern age and get a cordless phone. She probably was about ready for her own private line. I thought maybe I ought to make her pay for it, too.

Jenny worked her way up to first desk within a year of taking up her beloved viola, and despite myself I was beginning to be slightly proud of her. She really was in higher demand, and was constantly so involved with chamber ensembles, youth symphony, flitting here and there, that a lot of her schoolwork was suffering noticeably. Her grade-point average dropped until she was barely maintaining a "B". We had a little talk about that, and decided mutually (or at least I like to think it was mutual) that she needed to pull it up, or I'd pull the plug on all her extra-curricular activities.

So there I was, three years later, pacing the lobby, waiting. I heard applause in the auditorium, so I snuck in the door. The hall was packed solid. At least it seemed packed solid for a moment. I found a pretty lousy seat near the back and plopped myself down while I looked around for something closer. I spotted an aisle seat near the middle, so I moved down and slid into it. I need not have rushed--it was intermission, so I sat there for ten minutes contemplating. Soon, the orchestra filed back in and the audience bustled around to reclaim their seats. The conductor, the notorious Mr. Rossi, re-appeared on stage, and the orchestra stood for him. I waited through the next torturous work on the menu, hoping it would be over quickly. When it ended, I clapped a couple of times and hoped the rest of the audience didn't go wild.

When the applause died out, I found I was holding my breath. Then, Jenny appeared in the wings, and strolled forward, her instrument dangling easily from one hand. I could see her scan the crowd and smile--she was really just looking for me. I felt like waving, but that would have been gauche, so I kept my hands to myself. There she was, her black skirt billowing from a waist and hips that resembled her mother's gorgeous figure more each time I noticed it. Her starched white blouse almost crackled. She had spent half an hour fussing over it with the iron, then spent another half an hour getting every speck of lint off her silk skirt. I noticed that her shoe-laces were untied, as usual, and broke out in a smile. At that instant, she tripped over the foot of a music stand--an intense foreboding chill shot through my spine and flashed along every nerve in my body when I saw her sailing headlong toward the floor. A gasp went up from the crowd, and the applause stopped immediately.

Her reflexes, I must admit, were those of a well-bred cat, and her instinct for self-preservation must never have been stronger: her viola never hit the floor. The conductor, wheeling around when he heard the clattering sound, stepped from his podium to a.s.sist her in standing again. One of the violinists, whose improperly placed music stand had done the damage, put down his violin to pick up the debris.

The conductor had a few words with Jenny, and then he escorted her off the stage. She limped, and would put no weight on one leg. Rossi's arm seemed to be practically fondling her chest and I felt a surge of fatherly irritation. I was already on my feet when they started off, and was trotting down the aisle toward the front of the auditorium.

"I'm her father," I shouted at the old ladies who tried to stop me from ascending the side stairs. By then, some numbskull appeared from the wings to make an announcement that there would be a slight delay, and ask the audience to please wait a few moments. "Tell 'em a few jokes,"

I suggested as I dashed past. I didn't wait to hear what he said next, but ran into the back, looking for the green room. I was certain that's where she would have gone. I hoped they had a doctor handy.

In another minute or two, I was with Jenny and the infamous Mr. Rossi, who had his arm around her waist and was consoling her in oily whispers. She sat with her priceless viola set across her lap--well, it was priceless enough to me, as I couldn't afford to buy another one like it even if I sold both of my cars. Her bow had been snapped in two and was draped across the viola, two pieces of splintered wood dangling from white horsehair. She wept into the palm of one hand.

"Darling, are you OK?" I asked, rushing up to her. Mr. Rossi wisely removed his roaming hand and stood back a few steps.

"I think I just sprained my ankle," she replied, but that was not the uppermost thing on her mind. "Oh, Daddy--look at my bow!"

"Hey, we can get a new one," I told her, lifting it up. "I saw the way you saved your viola," I said, trying to sound cheerful. "It was a great maneuver!"

She didn't smile. "But... how am I going to _play_?"