She was trembling by the time she got to the door, and the expression on her face got her startled glances as she hurried down the corridor past ugly blue doors to the entrance to Vivaldi’s. Half a dozen people were in line ahead of her, and that gave her time to calm down; still, her hands were shaking so hard there would have been coffee on the floor if she hadn’t popped a lid on the cup as soon as the gangly young man behind the counter handed it to her. A few moments later she was sitting at a table for two at the far end of the coffee shop, staring at the coffee. As the anger drained away from her, it left the usual wretched taste behind.
There was more to it than that familiar reaction, though. Jay, The Cave, Rose and Thorn, Partridgeville High, the whole tangled, troubled mess in which she’d floundered during the fall semester—it all felt oddly distant, as though she’d somehow moved toward its outer edges. As though, she thought, she was in it, but not really in it. As though the fears and frantic longings that had harried her all that time, and for years before then, had moved just slightly away from her, and left her a little space for her own, like the one she shared with Sho.
She sipped at the coffee, then set it down and stared at it again, trying to make sense of the strange new place where she’d somehow ended up.
ALL AT ONCE THE other chair at the table slid out with a squawk. Brecken glanced up, startled out of convoluted thoughts, and found Rosalie beaming down at her. “Hey, girl. Did you really just rip Jay a new one?”
“Well, kind of,” said Brecken, reddening.
Rosalie plopped into the chair. “Kind of?” she said. “That’s not what I heard in The Cave. Melissa Bukowski and Keith Platchett both said you told him to go die in a ditch.”
“Well—”
“Those exact words.”
“Yes,” Brecken admitted.
“Thank you Jesus,” said Rosalie.
Brecken drew her shoulders forward and stared at her coffee, and after a moment Rosalie said, “I’m sorry, girl. I know that whole thing’s still got to have you feeling all torn up inside. It’s just—well, he’s been telling everybody that he’s going to get you back and he’s going to get Rose and Thorn going again. I was worried that you’d go back to him.”
“Not a chance,” said Brecken.
“Thank you Jesus,” Rosalie repeated.
It wasn’t until then that Rosalie’s words sank in. “What do you mean, get Rose and Thorn going again?”
Rosalie’s mouth fell open. “You don’t know.” When Brecken shook her head: “Oh my God. Girl, where have you been?”
“I didn’t leave my apartment much,” Brecken admitted. “I just wanted to be alone.” The unspoken words with Sho hovered in the air between them, but Rosalie somehow didn’t notice.
“Oh my God,” said Rosalie again. She leaned forward. “Okay. You didn’t hang around at all when things happened at the practice, did you? You probably didn’t hear what I said to him.”
“All I heard was the first couple of words you said.” She managed a smile. “It sounded like you really tore into him.”
“Oh yeah. I told him exactly what kind of a goddamn sleazy lowlife douchebag he was for treating you like that, right out in front of everyone, and then he up and said some nasty things to me, stuff that was really out of line, so I quit Rose and Thorn then and there, and so did Donna. We packed up and walked out, and we tried to find you, but you’d already gone I don’t know where and we didn’t want to haul our instruments all over town when it was that cold, so I texted you, and then we went to my apartment and got good and drunk.” Brecken gave her a reproving look and she grinned, went on.
“Okay, so that leaves Jay, Walt, Jamal, and Barbara. Then all of a sudden, about three days later, it was Jay and Jamal, because Barbara dumped Jay, scooped up Walt, and quit.”
Brecken stared at her. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“I thought Walt would stick with Jay no matter what.”
Rosalie laughed. “Not when that little poptart was dragging him away by his dick.” Brecken choked and blushed, and Rosalie went on. “Which she was. So Jay had to try to replace everybody and get a group to play with again, and while he was doing that Barbara goes to all the gigs he lined up—she got the whole calendar from him the same way we did—and wiggles at the people in charge and tells them that Rose and Thorn just broke up but she and Walt can fill in for a third of the price. So she walks off with the gigs.”
“Oh dear God,” said Brecken.
“I think she was planning that the whole time.”
“I’m not sure that’s fair,” Brecken started to say, and stopped, remembering the cold implacable thing she’d seen in Barbara Cormyn’s eyes.
“Bet on it, girl.” Rosalie’s voice dropped. “Now this is where it gets ugly. Me and Donna decided to mess with Jay, and I had a friend in Trenton call him pretending to be planning an April wedding. We told Mike to tell Jay that the bride played viola in high school, and she really wanted to have Gossec’s gavotte played on the viola for her wedding.”
Brecken started laughing. “He hates that piece.”
“Oh, trust me, I know.” Rosalie looked smug. “And you know how weak his bowing is. He’d have to practice Gossec for hours to be good enough to solo, and of course Mike was going to cancel right before any money changed hands, so Jay was going to spend all that time sweating blood on Gossec and then get nothing. But Mike asked about money, of course, and Jay quoted her a price that was almost three times what he told us he was charging.”
Brecken’s laugh stopped short as that sank in. She gave Rosalie an appalled look, and Rosalie nodded. Brecken stared at her a moment longer, then slumped forward and put her face into her hands. Sho is wrong, she thought. I really am stupid. The wads of cash Jay always had in his pockets, the expensive books he was always buying for his studies—the whole time, he’d been giving the other musicians in the group as little as he thought he could get away with, and pocketing everything else for himself.
She realized then that Rosalie had just said something else, and lifted her face out of her hands. “I’m sorry, Ro,” she said. “What was that?”
“I said he’s been doing that all along,” Rosalie repeated. “I talked to Mom, and she taught me some tricks she learned from other people in the D.A.’s office for looking stuff up about people, and I did some snooping. When Jamal had to couch surf last summer because he didn’t have the money for a place, when Donna had to get her grandparents to cover her lessons, Jay had the money. He could have helped them out. So I’ve put the word out.”
Brecken’s gaze flicked up to Rosalie’s face, back down to the coffee.
“I didn’t need the money,” Rosalie said, leaning forward, her eyes narrowing and her voice little more than a hiss. “But Jamal did, and Donna did, and you did, and you do not mess with my friends like that.” She sat up and put on a bright smile. “So there won’t be a Rose and Thorn Ensemble any more. I’ve already talked to Jamal, and he’s talked to Donna and they’re putting together a string quartet with Jim Domenico and Susan Chu—have you heard her viola playing? She’s really good. I’ve talked to some other people, and I’m going to talk to a lot more. And now I’ve talked to you.” The smile broadened. “Are you up for doing gigs together?”
Brecken blinked again. “Sure. Just the two of us?”
“Just the two of us. Once wedding season gets here, folks’ll be falling all over each other to book a couple of cute girls doing harp and flute duets, right? And I bet we can get parties and stuff lined up before then, too.”
“You’re on.”
Rosalie beamed at her. “Girl, you just watch. We’ll have a great time. Let’s get some practice time in, and start working up some things.”
An unwilling smile tugged at one side of Brecken’s mouth. “I think I can find some free time Saturday afternoons.”
Rosalie burst out laughing. “Yeah, I bet. How about Wednesday afternoons too? Or is Intro to Music Ed II goin
g to eat a bunch of your weekday afternoons again?”
“I’m not taking that,” Brecken said.
“You’re—” Rosalie gave her a baffled look. “What do you mean, you’re not taking it?”
“I dropped it. I’m switching to composition track.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I thought we talked about that last semester.”
“I know.” With a little shrug: “I spent a lot of time thinking about it over winter break. I thought I wanted to teach music, but I don’t, not really. I never even thought about composing, but it makes me feel—I don’t know, complete, maybe. So I’m going with it. I’ve got orchestral arranging and counterpoint classes this semester. Next year, well, we’ll see.”
Rosalie gave her a long sour look. “Yeah, whatever.” Then, pasting on a bright smile: “You can sort things out later when you’re feeling better.”
I’m feeling fine, Brecken thought, but decided to let it pass.
SOON ENOUGH THEY WERE riding the elevator to the top floor of Gurnard Hall, to the same awkwardly angled room, the same battered piano, and the same students. When Brecken came through the door, half a dozen conversations stopped cold. After a moment of dead silence, Julian Pinchbeck and his cronies looked pointedly away and started talking again, more loudly than before. Most of the others stared at her with expressions she couldn’t read at all.
She and Rosalie went to the same seats as before. Once Brecken set down her tote bag and shed her coat and hat, though, she said “Just a minute” to Rosalie, and went to the back of the room, where Darren Wegener sat.
He looked up from a hefty textbook that didn’t seem to have anything to do with music, gave her his ungainly smile. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she said. “I’m sorry I just ran out on you after that last class session.”
“Don’t worry about it. You were pretty stressed.”
“Well, yes—but I’m still sorry.”
He nodded. “Hey, when you get a chance, drop me an email. There’s something going on that you ought to know about.”
Brecken promised she would and went back to her seat. Rosalie gave her a long baffled look, then shook her head and looked somewhere else. Brecken busied herself fishing a notebook and pen out of her tote bag. She’d just gotten them out when Molly Wolejko came through the door. She’d changed the color of her hair from pink to traffic-cone orange, but the ripped jeans and the black t-shirt with a metal band logo on it hadn’t changed at all. She spotted Brecken, came over, sprawled in the chair next to hers. “That was a hell of a piece you played for us.”
Brecken, startled, managed to stammer out something more or less gracious, and Molly grinned. “You’re thinking, what the hell is a metalhead chick doing complimenting you on a Baroque concerto, right?” The grin broadened. “I play metal because it says what I want to say, but I listen to lots of different kinds of music.”
Julian, who was sitting within earshot, turned toward Molly and in a contemptuous tone said, “Not postspectralism, I bet.”
“Sure,” Molly said, meeting his gaze with a level glance. “When it’s any good.” He glared at her and turned away, and she grinned again and winked at Brecken, turned to face the podium as Toomey came through the door.
The class went smoothly from then on, and so did her counterpoint class, which started at 1:30. Professor Toomey taught that one as well, and gave Brecken the closest thing to a startled look she’d ever seen in those unreadable eyes when he spotted her sitting in the third row. She didn’t spend much time wondering about that, since even the simple examples of counterpoint he covered in that first lecture set her mind racing, as she glimpsed some of the ways two melodies could play against each other.
When class was over, though, and she stood up to leave, Toomey spoke her name, and she went up to the podium. “Email me some times when you’ve got a free half hour,” he said. “There are things we should talk about.”
“I’M GLAD YOU COULD come by today,” Professor Toomey said. “Go ahead and leave the door open.”
Brecken gave him an uncertain look, but the professor’s face betrayed nothing. She left the office door wide, settled on the rickety chair he indicated. His office was as cluttered as ever. Through the one window at the room’s far end, Mainwaring Hall rose gray and stark against a wintry sky. She’d emailed him right after class, gotten an answer back in minutes.
“You’re in two of my composition classes this quarter,” he went on. “You were on the education track, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was,” Brecken said. “Last semester I—I figured out I’m not really cut out to be a music teacher. I thought I was, but—” She made herself shrug.
“Understood. Composition track now?” When she nodded: “I’m going to assume you already know what the job prospects in music composition are like.”
“I know I’ll have to get a day job.”
Toomey nodded. “Fair enough. As long as you know what you’re getting into.” He sat back in his chair. “When we talked last semester, I said that your bourrée didn’t sound like fake anything, and that it might just sound like real Brecken Kendall.”
“I remember,” she said, venturing a smile.
“I was right. Are you planning on finishing the concerto?”
“I’m working on the second movement now.”
“That’s good to hear. You’ve still got things to learn, no question, but the first movement was really remarkably good. A little more polish, a little attention to some issues we haven’t yet covered in class, and that’s something that could end up being played on the concert stage.”
Brecken blinked and tried to fit her mind around the words. “I mean that quite seriously,” Toomey went on. “Now here’s my next question. The two pieces you did for me last semester were Baroque or, let’s say, neo-Baroque. I assume that’s not accidental.”
She looked down. “No.”
“You’ve checked out the more contemporary options, I imagine.”
“I tried.” Her gaze stayed fixed to the floor. “They just don’t work for me.”
“And you’re planning generally on composing in the older forms, working with tonality, that sort of thing?”
“Yes.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
“Then I’m going to make a suggestion I’d really rather not make,” Toomey said. “I think you should consider transferring to another college.”
She looked up at him then, uncertain.
“Partridgeville State has a good music program, but it’s mostly focused on the education and performance tracks, you know. Madeline and I—” Madeline, Brecken recalled after a moment, was Professor Kaufmann, the other composition teacher in the department. “—do our best, but this isn’t a strong composition school.”
Brecken gave him a startled look. “I didn’t know that,” she said. “Julian Pinchbeck talks all the time about how he came here because there’s such a good composition program.”
That got her a raised eyebrow. “He says that?” When she nodded: “That’s funny, in a bleak sort of way.” The professor shook his head. “He’s wrong. The thing is, you’d be in trouble if it was, because most of the schools that have a strong composition program are all about the latest cutting-edge stuff, and you can’t get the kind of musical education you need from one of those.” With a wry look: “As it is, Madeline’s pretty heavily committed to the latest trends, too. There’s been some talk about a neoclassical revival, but so far only a few schools have programs that focus on the kind of thing you’re interested in.”
Brecken stared at him for a long moment, processing this, then swallowed and said, “Can—can you tell me about some of them?”
“Of course. Binger State University out in Oklahoma has a composition program with a traditional focus, and so does Chequamegon College up in Wisconsin. I don’t know a great deal about them, but there’s also Miskatonic University up in Massachusetts, which I can tell you a little more about.” With a fractional sm
ile: “I’ve got inside information, so to speak. A good friend of mine, Dr. June Satterlee, teaches there.”
Brecken nodded uncertainly. Something about the way Toomey had said “good friend” hinted at old and possibly unfinished business between the two of them. “What does she teach?”
“Music history. Her research is mostly early twentieth century jazz and blues history—but she also plays a mean stride piano.”
“I hope I meet her someday, then,” Brecken said, smiling. “My grandfather used to play that same style.”
The unreadable eyes turned on her. “Given your last name, I’m going to wonder aloud if your grandfather’s somebody I might have heard of.”
Brecken swallowed, nodded again. “Aaron Kendall.”
“The jazz pianist.”
“Yes.”
“So Olive Kendall was your grandmother.”
“Yes.”
He considered her, then turned to the computer at his desk, clicked the mouse once, twice, a third time. A moment later Brecken’s face lit up as a sequence of piano chords came through the speakers, played in a way that woke fond memories. “That’s him, isn’t it?” she asked. “St. James Infirmary Blues. He used to play that all the time on his piano at home, and Grandma Olive would sing it with him.”
That earned her a fractional smile. “I still have some of their old LPs.” Then: “I’ll go ahead and send you information on all three of the places I mentioned, if you want.”
“Please,” Brecken said. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Easily done.” He considered her again, nodded once, as though that settled something.
The wind blew snow in Brecken’s face all the way up Danforth Street. She didn’t mind, since that and the uncertain footing gave her something to think about other than Professor Toomey’s words. The thought of leaving Partridgeville State for some other college frightened and tantalized her at the same time. Part of her wanted nothing to do with yet another sudden uprooting to a place she’d never been, part of her wanted just as badly to put as much distance as possible between herself and the bitter memories of autumn.
The Shoggoth Concerto Page 16