“Don’t go to Vermont,” he said.

“What?”

“You heard me. Don’t go.”

“Shuji, I need rest. Dammit, I deserve a break!”

“You need work.”

“I work all the time. I’ve been on the road for four months-”

“The real excitement of being a pianist is in the practice room, not on the concert stage. Juliana, you’ve been operating at a killing pace the past few years. I know that. And you know I support your cutting back from a hundred concerts a year. But I don’t support your going to Vermont, at least not right away. You need to experience the excitement of the practice room again, and as soon as possible.”

“Jesus Christ, Shuji, I’m only going to be gone a week!”

Shuji took a deep drag on his cigarette, held the smoke a moment, then exhaled. Juliana coughed and drank some of her café au lait, but he paid no attention. As usual, he was absorbed totally in his own thoughts. If we were married, she thought, we’d last two weeks.

“A pianist doesn’t look forward to a vacation where there is no piano,” he said.

You shit, she thought, but held back. She owned a small, antique Cape Cod house overlooking the Batten Kill River in southwestern Vermont; during the winter, she liked to keep a fire going in the center chimney fireplace. She would sit in front of the flames with an old quilt spread on her lap and read books, not thinking about music. It was true she didn’t have a piano in Vermont. She didn’t even have a stereo. What she had was silence.

“Shuji,” she said carefully, controlling her impatience. “I am not you. I need this time out, and I’m going to take it.”

“It would be a mistake.”

“Why all of a sudden would going to Vermont be a mistake? It’s not as if I’ve never done it before.”