Fucking. I remembered the days when I would have thought of it as him taking me. A lot of things about me had changed.
***
Midway through the week, Clarissa and Neil stopped by. I didn’t even have to ask how it was going—I could see by the way Neil stood next to her in the corridor. There was a new ease about them, a new level of intimacy beyond the sexual.
“We figured you could use these,” said Clarissa, handing me a stack of Tupperware containers. “Home cooked food. No doubt you’ve been living on pizza while you’ve been hunkered down in there.”
“Of course not,” I told her, pushing the stack of pizza boxes behind the door with my foot. I opened the top box and the lemon chicken inside didn’t just look edible—it looked amazing. “I didn’t know you cooked.”
Clarissa glanced over her shoulder at Neil. “I don’t,” she said. She leaned in and hugged me. “I don’t know what you did,” she whispered, “But thank you.”
“Are you two…okay?” I asked.
She smiled. “Early days. But I think we’re going to be.”
***
Lying in bed one night, we got to talking about our dreams. A million miles from the money of Boston and the lofty academia of Fenbrook, I finally had room to ask myself what I wanted.
The answer, when I figured it out, surprised me. What I wanted was to join the New York Phil. Not for my father. Not because it was what was expected of me. Because they were the best, and I wanted to be the best, too. That chubby-fingered six year-old who’d first fallen in love with the cello was still inside me, and it had taken losing my dream to remember what had started it. I’d come full circle, wanting the same thing I’d wanted that day I’d nearly fallen down the steps of Fenbrook, but for completely different reasons. I wasn’t driven by fear any more—fear that if I failed to get into the orchestra, I’d be nothing. I knew now what it was like to lose the dream, and it didn’t scare me anymore because I’d discovered something better. I’d found that as long as you have someone who loves you, who’d do anything in the world to save you…well, the rest of the world can go hang.
I called my father the next morning and told him when the recital was, that I’d be performing with Connor and that he could come if he wanted to. But that, no matter what, I was living my own life from now on.
Connor listened in. When I hung up, he hugged me. “I’m proud of you,” he told me. “That took guts.”
I looked at the floor. “That was his voicemail,” I said. “That’s still sort of brave, right?”
He hugged me again.
***
Between rehearsals and practicing improv, the days passed in a blur. If we weren’t showering or grabbing a bite to eat, we were working…and when we couldn’t work any more, we slept. We didn’t leave the apartment, except to go up onto the roof, the entire week, sending out for groceries when Clarissa’s food ran out. We were holed up in a room not much bigger than a prison cell, and yet the proximity didn’t grate…it made us closer.
And hornier.
After months of lusting after each other and not being able to do anything about it, having the freedom to just lunge for each other was intoxicating. The apartment was tiny, but we got creative. On the roof, under the stars, an old blanket thrown down on the concrete. In what we laughably called the kitchen, the hard back of a wooden kitchen chair pressed against my thighs as he bent me over it. And in his bed, my arms stretched out over my head and clutching at the pillows as I moaned and kicked and gasped, his head between my thighs.
***
The night before the recital, the nerves started to hit me. We were as ready as we could be—the recital was slick and polished and when we improvised we were doing the musical equivalent of finishing each other’s sentences. But I was still scared as hell. When Connor was asleep, I slid out of bed and stood by the window with a sheet wrapped around me, gazing out at the city.
A few months before, my biggest worry had been whether I’d make it into the New York Phil. Now, even after all our efforts, my entire college career hung on one ten minute performance and one half hour test. If we messed up tomorrow—or if the panel decided our crazy mash-up between classical and rock was garbage—
Just as I felt my shoulders start to tense up, large warm hands stroked down them. His body pressed up against me from behind, the heat of him soaking through the thin sheet to soothe me.
“You’re scared.” Not a question.
“How can it be fair that everything comes down to one morning. Less than a morning. Less than an hour! Four years at Fenbrook and if we’re ill tomorrow or we have an off day or we just mess up or—”
He kissed the back of my neck. “Or if you don’t get enough sleep….”
“You’re not helping.”
He kissed me again, right in my secret spot just behind my collarbone, and I went weak.
“Come to bed,” he told me.
“You go. I’ll just toss and turn and keep you awake.”
“Karen Montfort, get that sweet arse of yours in my bed this instant!”
I felt a sudden rush of heat push away my nerves…and just a hint of what Clarissa must feel, when Neil spoke to her like that.
“I don’t think I can sleep,” I told him.
His lips twisted into one of those filthy smiles. “I know a way to tire you out.”
Chapter 34
Backstage, with five minutes to go. I was perched on the edge of the same chaise-longue I’d been put on after I fainted, listening to the quartet who were on before us while I waited for Connor to change.
He’d gone out early that morning to pick up his outfit and had been very mysterious about it, hiding it in a suit carrier and insisting on only changing into it at the very last second. I’d gone for my normal, reliable black dress, the same thing I’d worn for every recital since I’d started at Fenbrook. Except this time I’d added the Killer Heels, and hold ups. It wasn’t a big change—I doubted anyone else would even notice. But it was important to me.
I stood there nervously fingering my cello, slowly turning it around and around in my hands. Then I almost dropped it and a hot flash of panic surged through me as I grabbed it to stop it crashing to the floor. Okay. No more playing with it.
Then Connor emerged from the toilets.
I’d had a vague idea in my head that he might have traded his usual jeans and t-shirt for a shirt and pants, but he was in a suit! A charcoal gray suit, just one shade off black, with a crisp white shirt left open at the collar to reveal tantalizing glimpses of his chest. I gaped. I mean, my mouth actually dropped open. Some men don’t clean up well—put them in a suit and they look imprisoned and uncomfortable. Connor looked like an Irish billionaire.
“Where on earth did you get that?” I asked, fingering the fabric.
“I stole it.”
My eyes went wide.
“No, not really—Jesus, woman! I left the tags in. I’ll take it back this afternoon.”
I relaxed—a little. “But you still had to buy it! How did you afford it?”
He looked nonchalant.
“Connor, did you spend every penny we had on that suit? Do we, in fact, have no money until you take it back?”
“Put it this way,” he said. “Don’t spill anything on the suit.”
And I couldn’t help but laugh, because it was so him. This is what life would be like with him, I knew—living on a wing and a prayer, one paycheck from disaster. And as long as we were together, that suited me just fine.
A nervous sophomore, who’d been landed with the job of floor-managing the event, put his head around the curtain. “Karen Montfort and Connor Locke?” he asked.
I liked the way that sounded. We nodded.
“You’re on.”
Just as we walked through the curtain, I grabbed Connor’s hand and we walked out like that, hand in hand. Maybe I wanted to make a statement; maybe I was just terrified. But either way, it felt good.
The hall was packed
. Seniors who’d be performing later in the day, sitting there nervously fingering their instruments. Juniors who wanted to get a feel for the horror they’d be facing next year. Freshman and sophomores watching boredly, there only because they got the day off class to attend.
And parents. Row after row of proud moms and dads, watching and taking photos and applauding politely for everyone else and in a frenzy of hands for their darlings. And somewhere amongst them, my father, sitting silent and watchful, waiting to see whether his dreams for me would soar to the heavens, stand proudly or be crushed into the mud. Orchestra, graduate or fail.
Or more likely, he wasn’t there at all. He’d never returned my message.
As we approached, a couple of freshmen removed two of the chairs the quartet had used, leaving just the two we’d use in the spotlight. Everything was slick and professional…but then Fenbrook had been doing these recitals for fifty years.
The judging panel sat behind a desk at one end of the stage, out of the glare of the spotlight so that they didn’t distract the audience. It made them look like waiting monsters, ready to devour us.
Professor Harman was there, as he always was. They rotated the other music department representatives, and this year they were Doctor Geisler, who I knew well and Doctor Parks, a woman with frizzy blonde hair who taught some of the contemporary music classes and who couldn’t have been over 35—young, for Fenbrook’s staff.
Next to her was the person I’d been thinking about for four years, though I’d only glimpsed him three times. The scout from the New York Phil. Tall and almost gaunt looking, he had a tendency not to blink. He’d unnerved me even when I’d watched each year from the audience, but standing six feet from him on stage was absolutely terrifying. This was the man I’d needed to impress ever since I was a kid. To him, I was just one student among hundreds, barely a blip on his radar, but to me he was the final gatekeeper on a journey I’d begun when I was six years old. My destiny ended with him, either in an ascent to the clouds or in a plunge off a cliff.
There was one more person sitting behind the desk, someone I’d almost forgotten about. A fragile-looking woman with pale skin and straight brown hair, twirling a pencil around and around her fingers. She seemed a lot more interested in Connor than in me, and I realized she must be this year’s scout from the record label.
I cleared my throat, immediately horrified at how loud the sound was in the silent hall. I’d pleaded with Connor to do this part, but he’d convinced me that I needed to keep building on the success of my presentation, or I’d slip straight back into being scared.
Just play the part. Use the napkin.
Wait: there is no napkin.
I don’t need a napkin.
“Karen Montfort and Connor Locke,” I said, and I liked it even more, saying it myself. “We’ll be playing an original composition for cello and electric guitar.”
Harman glanced at Geisler and I saw the twitch of his eyebrows. He didn’t actually say “This should be interesting,” but I could tell he was thinking it and a hot stab of anger flashed down my spine. How dare he?!
We sat down. Every squeak of the chair, every bump of a foot echoed around the huge room. The smell of fresh floor polish hit my nostrils and I felt sick, panic closing in around me. I was going to run off stage and throw up, I was going to run and hide, I was going to—
And then Connor brushed my hand with his, and when I glanced up at him he was giving me a steady, tender gaze that said you can do this.
I glanced at the audience and immediately wished I hadn’t. I didn’t normally get nervous when performing, only speaking, but this was anything but a normal performance. There were so many faces, so many strangers…and then, on the front row, I saw them. Natasha and Darrell. Clarissa and Neil. Jasmine. Dan. Paul, Erika and Greg from the quartet.
I didn’t know if my father was out there somewhere. But my real family was.
I started to play.
I’d composed the first section when I barely knew Connor, in those awkward first rehearsals when I thought I hated him. The guitar didn’t even come in until one third of the way through and, for a while, as the cello’s velvet tones filled the room, it was just like performing solo. I could have been back in my safe little world, before any of it started.
And then Connor’s guitar joined me, and my whole perception of the way the cello sounded shifted. When its smoothness combined with the guitar’s rough, brutal tones, it became something new…something better. Suddenly, it didn’t sound right without the guitar. Every time the guitar broke off, the cello wasn’t solo. It was alone.
We moved into the second section, the one Connor had written when we’d first started, sad but with a thread of hope running through it. I hadn’t had any idea, back then, of what he’d been thinking about when he composed it. Now I had a pretty good idea—his own life, his lack of a future, the dyslexia…the only thing I didn’t understand was what the thread of hope represented.
Back then, we hadn’t made any attempt to change how our instruments sounded. We were combining what we knew, trying to join two things that didn’t quite fit. The cello was just a little too timid, too flighty, edgy and nervous as it climbed through the notes, chased by the guitar. The guitar was too confident, too loud, drowning out protest, chasing that slender thread of happiness but always breaking off at the last moment—
Just as we played the final note, it hit me. A sharp, arcing current that started in my brain and slammed straight into my heart.
The thread of hope was me.
I turned to look at him, open-mouthed, and he seemed to know what I was thinking. He gave me a slow nod.
Someone in the audience started clapping, even though it was only the end of the first pair of sections, and then stopped when they realized they were the only one. I looked round in time to catch Jasmine red-faced, being poked in the ribs by Clarissa and Natasha.
I risked a look at the judges. Harman was dour-faced, while Geisler looked uncertain. Parks was leaning forward as if interested. I didn’t have time to check the scouts because we were launching into the next section.
This was the one I’d written as I got to know Connor, the one that described him, or at least the Connor I knew at the time: angry and stubborn, intimidating…and deeply hot. As he played the harmonies with me, it hit me how much he’d changed. Not just the obvious stuff—rehearsing instead of goofing off, writing essays instead of getting drunk. But opening up to me, sharing how scared he was inside, how he doubted his own skill. The Connor I’d unwittingly described in the music, all swagger and attitude, had only ever existed as a shell—but it was the shell that everyone had seen the whole time he’d been at Fenbrook. Every girl he’d slept with, every guy he’d got drunk with…they’d never known the real Connor. Only I did.
We flowed smoothly into the fourth section, the one Connor had written—the one I’d eventually realized was about me. Just as I had, he’d based it on the person he thought he knew. Only he’d got a lot closer than I had, capturing not just my nerves and my shyness but what lay underneath…he’d portrayed it with a slow rhythm that built and built—the mousy librarian with powerful, hidden passions—and I flushed at the idea that he’d thought of me like that, even back then.
We stopped again, a brief pause before the final pair. When I glanced at the judges, Harman had sat back in his chair and Geisler was tapping his pencil on his teeth. I had no idea whether that was good or bad.
This was it, then. A handful of minutes that would decide our future. I looked down at the front row to see Natasha give me a reassuring nod.
I took a deep breath and touched my bow to my strings. There was absolute silence.
It was the section I’d composed after we’d first had sex, the one that was about sex, and I knew that I should be embarrassed to be sharing it with everyone…to be sharing us. The old Karen would have been, but sitting there on stage with Connor just a few feet from me, our music blending together…all I felt wa
s proud. Do they know? I wondered, do they know I can feel his hands on me, every time I play this part? Do they know this is him licking my breasts? That this, right here, is where he thrust into me for the very first time? We’d played it so many times that we didn’t need to look at the music. We could gaze into each other’s eyes as my hand moved, as his fingers worked the strings. Never let this end, I prayed. Even if we don’t graduate, I want to always be able to play like this with him.
We moved straight into the final section, the one he’d written. His version of sex, written up on the roof after our second time. Urgent and hard and building and building, those blue-gray eyes sparkling as he stared at me, coaxing me, dragging me with him, higher and higher until our rhythms locked together perfectly, the cello and the guitar becoming one, until there was no melody and no harmony, until we were two equals, playing together.
Forever.
The final flurry of notes came in a rush, the last few bars leaving me breathless. In the seconds of silence that followed, I could hear my own heartbeat very loudly, and then I couldn’t hear anything at all. I’d gone deaf.
I looked across at the judges and Harman was smiling. And then he stood up. Why was he standing up?
I looked around at the audience, and they were all rising to their feet, too. What the—
And then my brain got around to processing the sound, and I realized I hadn’t gone deaf. They were applauding.
A hand clasped mine, our fingers entwining, and Connor drew me to my feet. The applause was like a physical force, pressing in around us as my panic attacks used to. Only this felt nothing but good, like a warm wave you could bathe in. We bowed, and the applause got louder. And then, halfway back on the left-hand side, someone stepped out of their aisle seat so that I could see him better, his hands pounding together so hard they must have hurt.
My father.
Harman spoke briefly to the other judges and they all nodded. Then he said something to us and Connor pulled me close.
In Harmony Page 29