The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

Frankie doesn’t speak for three years and plays his guitar in a Spanish monastery. Wynton Marsalis is in Spain for a show, and he stops at the monastery to admire its beauty. He hears Frankie playing and introduces himself. Since Frankie’s not talking, he writes that he knew Wynton’s father. The two communicate for a while, with Wynton talking and Frankie writing. When Frankie says that he doesn’t want to perform anymore, Wynton suggests that he should teach instead. This shifts something inside Frankie, and he speaks for the first time in three years, saying, “Can you help me get home?” (425). 

Frankie finds his way back to the island of Waiheke by working on various ships for five months. Back on the island, he sees Aurora waiting for him. She has been waiting here for him, every day until it gets dark, for the past three years. Music says that Alberto had been shot, but not by Frankie. 

Shortly after Frankie is back on the island, he gives Kai a brand-new guitar for her 12th birthday. He left his guitar in Spain and brought back a new one for his daughter instead. Aurora is concerned because she knows about the guitar’s magic strings, but he says that’s the reason he left it behind. 

Ingrid recalls how she met Frankie when he was working as a music teacher in a music shop; she had been his student, although she comes and goes on a whim. He never told her he was a rock star. 

When Kai gets accepted into Julliard’s music program in New York, Aurora and Frankie leave the island and rent a house on Staten Island, and “in his seven years on Staten Island, he lived a happily ordinary existence” (445) as a music teacher—he uses his former name of Rubio so that nobody knows he’s the former rock star. 

It’s 2005, and Frankie is almost 70. Frankie and Aurora have been living a simple life in New Orleans, and she has joined a local church. A hurricane is coming, and instead of evacuating, she wants to stay to help the pastor board up the church. While the windows are being boarded, Aurora gets hit in the head with a board. She and Frankie go to the hospital because she has a concussion. The hospital is overflowing with people and flood water, and Frank sings Aurora her favorite old song. Some of the people join in, and as the story ends, Frank realizes that Aurora is dead. 

Music says, “The fatal stroke, doctors explained, was most likely brought on by the trauma of her earlier blow. They could not be certain; Aurora was sixty-eight years old” (456). Frankie is devastated by her death.

Frankie travels anywhere he doesn’t have memories, teaching in Manila and at universities. One day Kai, who is part of an orchestra, visits her father and says that she’s been “selected for the prestigious International Francisco Táregga Guitar Competition in Spain” (460), and she wants to know if he will come with her. He is hesitant, not wanting to stir any more memories, but he finally agrees. 

Frankie and John’s dad were friends, and the last time John saw Frankie, he had asked him for a favor. He wanted to know if John could get him the original copy of The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto. Kai and Aurora were in the studio that day, and Frankie wanted the recordings of their conversations between songs as a happy reminder for Kai. 

Frankie and Kai go to Spain for the competition. Frankie visits the bronze sculpture of Táregga, and he finds his old guitar. He’s confused, but a voice whispers, “It’s your guitar, Francisco […] Take it” (470).

An old woman steps from the shadows and explains her story: She is Josefa, and her father was El Pelé, the gypsy man who had given Carmencita the magical strings. She says she is the nun who saved Frankie’s life, but under the weight of the responsibility, she had abandoned him in the river. She says, “I left you to die. The rest of my life, I have been forsaken” (471).

She explains that, as a penance for her actions, she has spent her entire life secretly watching over him from afar. Everything that had seemed like a divine coincidence was orchestrated by her. She also reveals that El Maestro was his real father. She asks Frankie for his forgiveness, but he says no. He says, “Leave me alone. Forever. Do you hear me? I don’t need you. I never needed you” (479). 

Frankie wanders around the city, trying to cope with everything he’s just learned. That evening, he sits backstage while Kai plays at the competition. She wins, and she asks him to come on stage with her while the crowd applauds. She hands him his old guitar and asks if he’ll play a song with her. They play together, and “It was a sweet and lively Táregga duet[.] […] Frankie’s strings intermingled with Kai’s, supporting, accenting, taking the lead” (485).

Frankie then plays “Lágrima,” and as he does, he sees the old woman in the balcony. He decides to forgive her: “Yes, she had once turned her back on him. But he had done the same to her, denying her even the decency of forgiveness” (486). Frankie thanks the nun for his life. Frankie’s last string turns blue, and he sees Aurora, Baffa, and El Maestro in the balcony. It’s implied that he dies at this moment, but Music clarifies: “Frankie’s body never rose. That was his soul. But so great was the desire of the world to hear his splendid music […] that his spirit was tugged, momentarily, between heaven and earth” (488).