I surprised myself with my response. “That is neither here nor there.” Emma studied me when I’d said it. “I suggest you go find someone else to ask.” It had come out far more curtly than I had intended. Emma looked offended, turning away. I didn’t stop her, deciding it was better that we parted. We’d likely already called too much attention to ourselves.
Emma wandered to the other side of the room, busying herself with her classmates. I turned my attention back to the conversation between Emerson, Andrew and Charlotte.
“Is there something going on between you and Emma Harvey?” Emerson asked me out of the blue. He had a curious look to his face. I found myself stammering for words to speak.
“Absolutely not,” I replied. My voice came out more defensive than I’d expected it to. Andrew gave me a funny look, which I ignored. Emerson didn’t ask anything further, but I could tell he wasn’t satisfied with my response. “Nothing, Emerson. That’s the end of it.”
It had been a good ten minutes before I’d scanned the room for Emma once again. I’d lost her in the swarm of students and faculty mingling. She was across the room now, her attention on a tall brown-haired, and lanky gentlemen. Eric Yost, the graduate student flutist from my composition class. He’d always ended up running late. I’d had half a mind to fail him at times, but he was excellent in his lessons and on tests, so I’d refrained.
Emma followed him out onto the dance floor in the center of the room. Timothy and Miranda were still dancing together. I watched as she wrapped her hands around his shoulders and his around her waist. The image made me sick to my stomach. I found myself almost angry, wanting nothing more than to storm across the room and rip his hands off of her. My eyes didn’t move from her as I watched them dance. He was atrocious, swaying off the beat of the music and holding her in such an awkward way. Emma deserved to dance with someone who knew what they were doing.
Someone like me.
Halfway through the song, Emma had been turned enough she was staring straight at me. I didn’t look away, following her until they had swayed in a different direction. By that point, the song was drawing close to an end. I got to my feet, walking around the room to where the DJ was working. A fist full of cash made it from my wallet and into my hand as I made my approach. When I reached him, I held it out. He stared at me confused until I spoke. “I’ll give you all of this if you’ll play a song for me.”
Emma and Eric had separated when the song ended. Before she could make her way back, I’d wandered through the crowd. My hand wrapped around her arm, and she jerked.
“Jesus, you scared me.” Emma took in a sharp breath, trying to recover.
“Wait for a minute, and then follow me outside,” I replied, before I let her arm go.
“I was going to go dance some more,” Emma argued with me. I locked eyes with her.
Just listen, my face twisted, annoyed. Finally, Emma nodded.
My eyes scanned the room, checking to see if anyone had been watching. The coast seemed to be clear. I took a side door out of the building. It led out onto a patio in the back. Over the speakers near the door, I could hear Ella Fitzgerald’s “Dream a Little Dream of Me” start to play. Shortly after I’d made it outside, Emma appeared in the doorway, letting the door shut behind her. It was brisk outside, but not terrible.
Ella Fitzgerald? Emma signed. She must have saw the DJ say it before she trailed outside. There was a pleased look on her face.
One of my favorite artists, I admitted, extending my hand to her without explaining myself further. She studied me before she took my hand. I did my best to remain emotionless as one hand wrapped around the curve of her waist, the other intertwining with hers. I felt the fingers of her free hand wrap around my shoulder.
Emma let me lead us straight into dancing. Unlike Eric, I knew exactly what I was doing, and Emma flowed along with me. It surprised me how well she managed to follow me, even without hearing the song. Her entire attention was on engaging with me, feeling my every movement. I was careful not to look at her for a while, just feeling her alongside me as we moved. Grateful she was out of the clutches of that annoying boy.
“I thought you didn’t dance with students,” Emma said, her mouth turned towards the side of my face. I could feel the heat of her breath against my cheek.
“I decided to make an exception, just this once,” I replied, fighting off a smile as I looked at her. “Someone had to dance with you proper. That boy had no idea what he was doing.”
Emma’s fingers flexed against my shoulder, squeezing softly. Whether it had been on purpose or not was beyond me. She licked at her lips, her eyes still locked on mine. “Ella is one of my favorites too.”
The smile I’d been fending off spread across my face. I leaned into her, spinning her outward and then back into my arms. She laughed, her head rolling back, eyes closing.
“I haven’t danced like this in ages,” Emma said. My fingers gripped tighter against her waist, and I found myself pulling her closer. She sighed, her head falling down onto my shoulder.
My entire body tensed. I fought off the instinctive urge to yank myself away. Instead, I leaned my cheek into the top of her head. The overwhelming smell of lilies filled my nostrils. Her shampoo, I’d imagined. I took a long breath in, enjoying the pleasant aroma. We swayed to the slow jazz that played in the background, both lost in the moment. I didn’t dare move her from my shoulder.
I heard a sigh, her arms having wrapped around my neck. By that point, I had been so lost that I hardly cared. Another deep breath of the scent of her, and I’d given in.
“Trés belle,” I sighed when we pulled back from one another again, our eyes meeting. Beautiful girl. The world stood still for just a moment, and then we fell apart from one another. Emma jerked away so fast I hadn’t been aware of what had happened. Her brown eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them, and her mouth hung open in surprise. There were goosebumps down the length of her arms. If I hadn’t been so startled by her jerk reaction, I would have offered her my cardigan. Instead, I was transfixed by her frazzled state.
“What did you say?”
For the first time in a long time, I felt embarrassed. I fought off the burning in my cheeks, doing my best to remain composed. “Nothing,” I replied. “It was nothing.” Emma was shaking. I took a curious step towards her, confused of what could have been the matter. “Are you all right?”
“You said trés belle,” Emma said, gawking at me in the strangest way. “Where did you learn that?”
“I’ve been fluent in French for years,” I replied, still feeling embarrassed. “It was nothing, Ms. Harvey. Just a slip of the tongue.” It was a lie, but I’d have said anything to diffuse the situation. To smother my flaming cheeks.
“I have to go,” Emma said, turning away from me. I reached out to grasp her wrist before she managed to get to the door. The Ella Fitzgerald song was just about to end. Emma snapped back around to look at me. “Please let me go, Juliet.”
The sound of my name on her lips made my entire body swell. It had been the first time I’d ever heard her say it. We looked at each other. Whatever was wrong with Emma wasn’t going away. She’d wanted to be alone. I unraveled my fingers from her, and she slipped inside without another word.
By the time I had made it back to my colleagues, Emma was nowhere to be found. I fell into the circle of my friends. Andrew was giving me a curious look. “Where have you been?”
“For a walk,” I lied, saying the first thing that came to mind.
“You don’t know what got into Emma, do you?” Timothy spoke to my right. I turned to look at him, and he looked concerned. “She was freaking out on Miranda.”
“Where is she?” I asked, growing worried. Now I needed to know what was wrong. If she’d been that distraught by what I had said. I hadn’t been thinking. The last thing I had wanted was to upset her.
“They went outside to talk,” Timothy said, and I turned away from them, heading towards the door. I was goin
g to get to the bottom of it. Before I got but a few steps away, Timothy had his hand wrapped around my shoulder.
“What the hell is going on, Juliet?”
I jerked around, meeting eyes with him. “Nothing, Timothy.” My voice came out curt and defensive. I tried my best to remain stoic. “She’s my student. I’m just concerned.”
“You can’t get wrapped up in this girl,” Timothy said, his voice going quiet.
“I’m not wrapped up in anything,” I snapped, yanking my shoulder away from him.
“Bullshit,” Timothy replied, staring me down. “You’ve been crazy about her since the day she auditioned. You forget how long I’ve known you. I’ve never seen you care about anything outside your violin and your music, and yet somehow, I can’t stop hearing about you and Emma everywhere I go.”
I scowled at him. “I need to go make sure she’s all right.”
“Miranda has got it under control,” Timothy said, pulling me back towards the bar. Once I had a seat, he looked calmer. “Take a breath.” After he said it, I let a long roll of air fall out of me, trying to maintain my composure. My mind was drawing terrible conclusions as to what Emma might be telling Miranda in that moment. It was making me sick to my stomach. “You need to let her be, Juliet.”
A long sigh escaped me. I leaned my back into the bar. My eyes didn’t pry away from the front exit. Hating myself for the way I was feeling for Emma. The stupid things it was making me do. And praying that whatever it was she was telling Miranda wouldn’t come back to haunt me.
15
Emma
Elgar, Salut d'Amour
THERE WAS A BALMY BREEZE blowing that night in early summer. It rattled the leaves of the trees and bent the flowers and shrubbery in the gardens that filled the grounds. I’d been under a tent for hours, feeling very much like a caged animal with an audience, desperate for escape. When I found my exit, I’d wandered outside towards a large lake that spanned the backside of the property. I could smell the flowers and greenery, mixed with the misty air coming off the water.
A hint of light still filled the skies as I walked. Streaks of pinks and purple stretched across the horizon. It had been a beautiful day. The perfect day for a wedding for two of my favorite people in the entire world. Timothy and Miranda had always planned a simple wedding, but it had been filled with guests. They were loved by many who wanted to share their happy day with them, myself and my father included. I had wished it would have been under better circumstances. That I hadn’t been so lost in thought the entire time, unable to enjoy myself.
Those moments in the doctor’s office the previous week hadn’t escaped me. He’d been a nice man. I’d known him almost my entire life. Now that I was older, his once-chestnut locks had greyed. He’d developed wrinkles under his eyes and in his cheeks. But he was still sharp as a tack. There was no doubting him when he’d told me my time was coming. The moment I’d been dreading for almost two decades was rapidly approaching. Seven months after my eighteenth birthday, he’d said it. My world was silencing. For good. By the time I was out of my teens, I’d be deaf. Consumed by a syndrome that had plagued me my entire life.
That moment wasn’t what saddened me the most. I knew it had been coming as much as it had terrified me. It was the fact that only a few months prior, my father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, after I’d started to notice his memory deteriorating faster than I’d expected. By the time my hearing would go, he’d likely be gone too. Both of us losing pieces of ourselves that we’d never get back again. While my fate had been terrifying, his was even more so. I couldn’t imagine my life without him. It didn’t seem real.
The wedding had been beautiful. I’d just wished I was able to be there.
As I walked towards the lake, I enjoyed the music playing in the background behind me. Ever since I’d been told about my last few years with my hearing, my world had grown louder. The surrounding sounds had bellowed. Even the smallest ones. In a way, the news had been a cruel blessing in disguise. I’d appreciated every moment I could hear. Every subtle sound and music and noise. The reality was, it had changed me. It would change me for the rest of my life.
In the remaining light, I made out a figure sitting underneath the shade of a large willow tree that hung over the edge of the lake. A woman in a blue dress and a light grey cardigan. She had thick black hair that rippled in waves down her back. I couldn’t make out her face until she’d turned to watch my approach. Her skin was a beautiful olive color that complimented her piercing green eyes. The expression on her face was distant. Not intimidatingly so. I could tell that I wasn’t bothering her. She was only curious.
“Mind if I sit?” I asked, once I’d reached her. It looked as good of a place as any. Quiet. Away from the bustle of the wedding crowd. Something about her drew me in. She’d picked a nice place to sit. It offered a beautiful view of the lake and the surrounding gardens.
Instead of speaking, she nodded, and I found a soft patch of grass to sit on beside her. I tucked my legs underneath the purple dress I wore, adjusting the wrap that covered my shoulders. We got lost in the water for a while. It was hypnotic, rolling in and out in rhythmic waves, crashing against the bank.
I hadn’t remembered what started our conversation. Something about the music that had been playing in the distance. How nice the wedding had been. The details hadn’t mattered. Before I knew it, I was confiding in her. About my father. My diagnosis. I’d learned about her grandmother and how she’d just passed away a few days before. There had been so much sadness in her voice. She seemed as lost as I had felt. Even still, we’d managed to enjoy each other’s company. I must have talked to her for hours about details I hadn’t shared with anyone. We’d never spoken names. No personal things that would lead us to one another. Only bits and pieces had even stayed with me. It had all been in fragments. After far too many glasses of wine, my mind had been hazy.
Once the conversation had died down, and I’d started to realize how long I’d left my father, I got up to take my leave. As I did, she caught me by the arm. We stared at one another for a moment. A soft melody was playing from the tent in the distance. It was a traditional classical wedding song. Something I wasn’t surprised was playing at Miranda and Timothy’s wedding, given their history. Salut d’Amour. I’d got caught up in the song, missing when she’d asked me for the first time. When my attention turned to her again, she was holding out her hand.
“Dance with me,” she said, smiling. It was one of the first times she’d smiled since I’d met her. Without a thought, I placed my hand in her own, and she wrapped me in her arms and wisped me across the grass.
Everything I had been feeling that past week dissipated for those few minutes the song played. I was lost in her. Lost in the careful way she’d held me. The graceful movements we made as she twirled me and dipped me like we’d been dancing together our entire lives. When the song ended, my arms were still wrapped around her. Our eyes locked together. I remembered them so distinctly. Not the color, but just their intensity. Staring at me as if I was the only thing in the entire world in that moment.
“Trés belle,” she had whispered. I had no idea what she’d meant, but the alluring way she had said it pulled me in. I tilted my head and drew my face to hers, placing our lips together. I’d never kissed someone before, but it had felt like the perfect moment to. The sensual way her words had come from her lips. The captivating look in her eyes. The beautiful night that surrounded us. Everything had felt perfect.
Not as perfect as that kiss. Even after four years, I hadn’t forgotten that moment. The way the air from her nose tickled my skin. The way her lips had felt against mine, so soft and subtle. How our bodies had fell together. It had been such a simple kiss. Chaste, in a way. A fleeting moment, but a moment I wouldn’t have traded for anything.
Once she’d pulled back from me, I felt her hand grasp my own and squeeze it. Then I watched her walk away without another word. The mystery woman who I would never see a
gain.
Or so I had thought.
THE ENTIRE WALK OUTSIDE with Miranda, I was shaking. Even when we’d made it out of the brisk air and into the car, I couldn’t stop. Miranda’s hand wrapped around my hand. When I turned to look at her, she looked concerned. “Emma, what is going on?”
I still hadn’t worked up the courage to speak. My words were caught in my throat and it was all I could do to force myself to breathe. Finally, I managed to look back at her. “Did you invite Juliet to your wedding?” My question came out breathy and barely audible.
“We’ve known Juliet for a long time,” Miranda replied, a questionable look to her face. “She was there. Not happy about being there, I’m sure, but she came. Why?”
Instead of speaking, I laid my head against the window, feeling the cold glass against the side of my face. Trying to tame the rush of boiling heat raging through my body.
Miranda squeezed my arm, and I looked at her. “What’s going on, Emma?”
When I finished the story about that night by the lake, Miranda’s eyes were wide. I wondered if she’d even speak. My body was still shaking. Part of me was hoping this was just some strange dream I’d wake from at any moment.
“It could have just been a coincidence,” Miranda argued, staring at me.
“She said those words, Miranda. When we’d finished dancing. It was just like before.” I choked on the last few words of my sentence. “It was her. It was Juliet.”
I laid back in my seat. While Miranda and I were still facing one another, our eyes had wandered away. Both of us lost in thought. I didn’t know what to do. What to say. There was no way I would be able to face Juliet. I’d have to drop out of the program. Transfer to a different school. Disappear from Annandale-on-Hudson for good.
“Emma,” Miranda said, her face having grown serious. I waited in silence for her to continue. “This is serious. You two can’t be doing this. Juliet should know better. Students and professors aren’t supposed to be in relationships. Especially not when her father runs the whole school. It could kill her career. Yours.” Her voice faded. I couldn’t stand the way she was looking at me. Like she was scolding a child.
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