The Harp

Catherine Schoenfeld

Julie decided that this godforsaken harp was going to kill her. She watched as Jamie attempted to wrangle the monstrous instrument from the polished doorstep of Ricardo’s Handcrafted Strings to the corner of West 108 and Broadway and could only thank God that it wasn’t her behind the squeaky utility dolly.

Somewhere between the delayed flight from Madrid to Newark, the sweaty cab from the airport to the Upper West Side, and the three-hour process of watching Jamie test his newly finished instrument, Julie had developed a particular contempt for the thing. The harp was wrapped in a soft black case and mounted on a utility dolly (which had cost them extra, on top of the price of the harp itself and the new strings and the tuning fees). Nine hours on a plane (both ways) was not worth any amalgamation of wood and strings, no matter how world-renowned.

Jamie had not seen reason on this issue. Instead, the twins were suffering the August heat in New York, the harsh 11 AM sun beating down on them in between skyscrapers. Julie’s dark hair was already hot against her head, and she resisted the urge to tie it back—something that would completely ruin her ironing it this morning. She noticed, with distaste, that Jamie was starting to sweat through the armpits of his new top. She would have to take that to the dry cleaners for him once they made it back to Madrid.

“I don’t understand why we can’t try to call a big cab,” Jamie complained from behind the harp. He wheeled it forward a couple steps so that he was next to Julie. “One of the vans with the open trunks.”

Julie glared at him. “Do you want to sit through all the midtown traffic for a second time and miss our flight back?”

“But we can rebook…”

“If you want to figure out a hotel and the new tickets with this budget, you are certainly welcome to do so. But the subway is $3.00 and takes us directly to Penn Station.”

Jamie huffed at this. “Mom and Dad wouldn’t have given us a budget if someone could keep her card in her purse.”

“Well, we wouldn’t be here at all if someone didn’t need supervision to fly his harp back to Spain,” Julie responded with a sneer. “So, subway? Or would you rather walk?”

Jamie groaned from behind the harp and glared at her but adjusted his grip and began walking, presumably in search of the nearest station.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Julie asked, taking a few quick steps to catch up with him. Her polished heels clicked against the sidewalk.

“Yes,” Jamie replied. His voice was strained with the effort of keeping the harp moving in a straight path. “I can’t believe you don’t trust me to know where we’re supposed to go.”

Julie just crossed her arms and walked next to him in silence. They passed the signs for W 107, W 106, W 105… A couple of strangers watched them as they went, following them with their eyes as Jamie struggled with the giant instrument in his grip. His hair was slicked to his forehead with sweat, and Julie worried she didn’t look any better.

W 103 was salvation: a sign for the 1 train and a little set of stairs leading into the underground.

“We’re going to have to carry it down together,” Jamie said, grimacing at the look of the stairs.

Even Julie had to admit that it was the only way to get this thing on a train. She had to get out of Manhattan somehow, and Jamie wasn’t leaving without this unfortunate block of wood (and she wasn’t leaving without him).

Better to get it over with as soon as possible. She bent to grasp the instrument from the bottom at the front while Jamie brought his arms around the back. They lifted it off the ground together, Julie descending first and backward. She set each foot down cautiously, making sure her pointed shoes made contact before letting her toes take her weight. Her whole body felt hot with the anxiety of it.

The walls around them were dark and graffitied and mysteriously stained. The light above them flickered, bright white and buzzing faintly.  In her grip, the harp was warm from the heat of the sun, the hard seams of that padded case digging into her forearms.

“Turn!” Jamie yelled at her after she made it down the first set of stairs.

“I’m trying! I literally can’t see anything! Why don’t you walk down backwards and tell me how well that goes for you?”

Julie felt her foot miss the step behind her.

It slipped, only a few centimeters to the step below it, but enough that her whole body dropped before she was able to catch herself.

“Shit!” she and Jamie yelled at the same time. Somehow, he managed to keep his grip on the harp, and she managed to keep her arms between the instrument and the concrete. No harm done.

“Are you okay?” Jamie asked, hesitant.

“Fine,” Julie snapped. She was not about to admit that the fall had (very slightly) shaken her.

They made it down the rest of the stairs without incident.

The platform turnstile was another ordeal. They paid for another swipe for the harp and pushed it through between them. The whole time Jamie nagged Julie about being gentle with the strings.

“You’re not going to have any strings to worry about if you can’t get this out of New York,” Julie snapped.

The platform was crowded. People were sneaking glances at them, and Jamie was wiping the sweat off his forehead with his button-down. Julie closed her eyes and practiced deep breathing.

As they waited, a woman approached the harp. Despite the humid air and florescent lighting, she was completely put together, sporting a perfectly pressed and tailored suit and a slicked-back ponytail, not a hair out of place. She smiled at Jamie and rested her hand lightly on the side of the harp case. Ugh. The pretty ones always went for Jamie.

Jamie had the same straight black hair that Julie did, usually swept expertly over his forehead (this was her own styling work, of course). But right now, his entire face was damp, not to mention his shirt, now crumpled at the bottom. Jamie also had her sharp nose, high cheekbones, and perfectly tanned skin. They were, usually, a completely killer duo. Right now, Julie felt like she was continually on the verge of throwing up.

The woman did not seem to notice that Jamie was in a similar state.

She batted her eyelashes at him. “What is this?” she asked, looking between Jamie and the harp.

Jamie looked more upset at her hand on the case than anything else. He physically wheeled the harp out of her reach and glared at her.

“Nothing,” he said, curt. Idiot. The woman frowned and withdrew her hand from where it was now hanging in midair and walked away. Jamie looked pleased with himself. Julie elbowed him sharply in the side.

When the train came rattling up to the station, the crowd surged around them to crush aboard. Jamie was defending the harp by trying to encircle more of it with his body, and he was glaring at Julie like he expected her to do the same. The big stupid instrument seemed to mock her, taking up the space of several people in the middle of the station. She ignored Jamie.

Julie watched the stops go by. She tried not to inhale the body odor of the middle-aged dad in a polo shirt beside her. She tried not to fall over when the train lurched and stopped, keeping her eyes focused on the tunnels outside the windows.

Julie wasn’t sure how long they were on the train before there was a commotion at the other end of the car. Music started blasting from someone’s speaker, something electronic and tasteless. After a minute or so, the crowded car seemed to part for the man holding the speaker, who was dancing in the empty space of their wake. He drew closer and closer to Julie and the harp, and Jamie was once again glaring at her and impatiently motioning for her to get between the man and the instrument. Julie felt annoyance surge up. She glared right back. She hoped the man with the speaker would break the stupid harp.

The man continued his crusade for a couple of stops. Eventually, he landed in front of the harp and the twins.

“Woah!” he breathed out. He smelled like cigarette smoke and cheap cologne. “Is it a piano?”

Julie pointedly ignored him, looking intently at the floor. She was vaguely aware that the train was stopping again, and that the car was emptying out.

“It’s a harp,” Jamie yelled over whatever sound was coming out of the man’s speaker.

Julie elbowed him.

“What was that for?” Jamie asked.

The man didn’t seem particularly concerned with them. He danced off the train, taking his speaker with him.

“How long are we supposed to be on here?” Julie asked Jamie. The car was considerably quieter now.

“We didn’t miss our stop,” Jamie assured her, dismissive. Julie rolled her eyes and settled into a now vacant seat.

She didn’t say anything as more stops rolled by. She didn’t say anything as the train slowly began to empty, until practically no one was left besides her and Jamie. But when the train emerged from the tunnel and began going over a bridge, she knew something was wrong.

“Jamie, we are not supposed to be leaving Manhattan like this.”

Jamie looked faintly guilty.

“I think we missed the stop,” he said, seeming to lean against the harp for support instead of the other way around.

Julie snapped. “I can’t believe you. I asked you multiple times—”

Jamie cut her off. “You have been absolutely no help, you know that?”

“I’m sorry that this is your trip for your harp.”

“I’m sorry that your ridiculous spending habit has made my trip a thousand times harder!”

“Do you even know how much that thing costs, or did you just let Mom sign the check?”

“I think we can all agree a harp is a little more important than replacing all your clothes every season!”

Julie barely noticed that other people around them were moving away from their raised voices.

“You could at least pretend like you’re happy to be here with me,” Jamie said.

“I could do no such thing.”

“I don’t know what you want from me. You get mad at me for not talking to the woman at the train station and then you get mad at me for talking to the man on the train.”

“The woman at the station was attractive! Which is shocking, considering how you look right now.”

“I can’t believe you! It wouldn’t have hurt you to help me out a little bit.”

“Did you miss the part where I almost died on the stairs?”

“Because someone didn’t want to take a taxi.”

“Well, I had to go on this whole ridiculous quest just because Mom and Dad think that you need adult supervision!”

“You’re only here with me because Mom and Dad think you need to be supervised, not me! They told me that! I’m so sick of it.”

Julie was silent.

But Jamie was tumbling forward with more and more momentum. “And I don’t ever say shit like this because that’s mean.” He was gesturing broadly with his arms, stepping between Julie and the harp. “I happen to think that you don’t need to know everything everyone has ever thought bad about you. I know you think you need to tell me whenever you get your claws on something bad about me, but some of us don’t say mean shit just to hurt other people.”

Julie was shocked. Jamie exhaled sharply, throwing up his hands in exasperation.

He knocked into the harp.

The twins watched as the instrument tipped over in slow motion. The great soft black case hit the grimy floor of the subway car with a dull huff, masked almost entirely by the sharp crack of something inside, splitting. Even Julie could see through the case that the beams of the thing were not at the right angles anymore. She felt her heart drop to her stomach. The small utility dolly clattered to the side of the destruction with a weak clink.

Jamie’s eyes were fixed on the harp in horror.

The train reentered a tunnel, plunging the car back into darkness.

…

“You know I don’t mean—”

“Christ, Julie, of course I know you don’t mean it like that. It still hurts sometimes. I’m not your punching bag.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

Jamie paused. “I’m sorry too.”

“You have no reason—”

“No, I’m sorry Mom and Dad pay for my stuff and not for your stuff. That’s not fair. I know it isn’t.”

Julie was quiet. Jamie dropped into the seat beside her, leaning into her side and resting his head on her shoulder.

“Let’s just go home,” he said.

It was cold in the tunnel, the lights on the walls blinking as the train car rushed past them. Julie leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.

Hello, my name is Catherine Schoenfeld, and I am majoring in Comparative Literature and Italian and minoring in Creative Writing. I will graduate Rutgers Class of 2025. I’m from Basking Ridge, NJ, and I use up most of my free time playing piano, Dungeons & Dragons, and reading Young Adult fiction.