Solo (Symphony Hall)

by Lauren E. Rico

  Her turn to shrug.

  “Because usually the threat of police is enough to scare them off. But this guy, he’s more aggressive than most. The less-reputable guys often are, and they can get a little pushy. Physically, I mean. But I’ve never had any of them actually assault me physically like that before.”

  “Thank God for your neighbor.”

  “Yeah, thank God for crotchety old Clinton. And his baseball bat,” she says, sounding suddenly exhausted and it occurs to me just how much she’s been through today, good and bad.

  I flip her over so she’s underneath me, then place a chaste kiss on her forehead. “All right, Miss Brenner. To bed with you,” I say, getting to my feet and crossing the room to the closet for an extra blanket. “It can get a little chilly up here on the north side of the house,” I explain. “So keep this nearby, just in case…”

  When I turn back, Katherine’s eyes are closed and her chest is already rising and falling in a deep, steady rhythm. I put the blanket over her gently and press one more kiss to her cheek.

  “Sweet dreams, Katherine,” I whisper and leave the room silently, keeping the door open just an inch. Just in case.

  …

  Monday May 1st 11:32 a.m.

  K: OMG! Just heard from police. The attorney general is indicting Kevin K for assault. It’s actually going to go to court!

  D: That’s great!

  K: No, it’s not.

  D: What? Why not?

  K: Because it’s the last thing my father needs right now. As soon as my name is brought up they’ll be all over him.

  D: What are you supposed to do? Just let him get away with it?

  K: No. But you don’t understand…

  D: I do. This is about YOU not your father.

  K: Same difference. When I was in high school, I got busted with a fake ID at a bar.

  D: What?! YOU! Miss Goody Two-Shoes??? Drinking underage? I’m shocked!

  K: Yeah, well that was back when I had friends. Someone recognized me and took a pic. Was in the paper the next morning. His popularity took a 5% nosedive when they accused me of being a spoiled “wild child” and him of being an absentee father.

  D: And what’s all this got to do with now?

  K: He doesn’t need another dip in the polls. Not if he’s going to run for POTUS.

  D: You care too much, K.

  K: Yeah, it’s a bad habit of mine.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Kate

  “No, no, no!” Russell yells so loud that I jump, dropping my arms mid-Dvořák. I turn to face him.

  “What? What did I do?” I ask, palms facing skyward. This is the third time he’s stopped me in twenty minutes. I’ve seen him in a bad mood before, but this is the first time he’s ever taken it out on me.

  “That transition. You’re missing it by at least half a beat, Kate,” he calls out to me on the stage from where he’s sitting out in the house seats. His arms are crossed and his snowy-white brows are drawn down in irritation.

  I’m not missing anything. He knows it, and I know it. Time to figure out what the hell is going on once and for all. Still barefoot, I sit on the edge of the stage and slip off to the main floor three feet below. He doesn’t move as I approach the middle row where he’s seated. When I’m next to him, I sit down.

  “What’s up?” I ask quietly.

  He turns to me with as hard of a look as I’ve ever seen. It makes me wince.

  “You disappoint me, Kate.”

  My heart swells in my chest. I can’t believe how deeply those four words hurt. I take a deep breath and try not to succumb to the sickening feeling that’s suddenly taken over my gut.

  “What did I do?” I whisper.

  “You exercised incredibly poor judgment.”

  “On the Dvořák? I can change what I’m doing in that section…”

  “Him.”

  “What? Who?” I ask, my brows arching in confusion. But he doesn’t respond. And then I know. “Russell—” I begin but he cuts me off.

  “I saw him backstage at rehearsal the other night. I saw the way he looked at you, and the way you responded. And then that bullshit about Daniel Gillies coming up here to visit? Drew brought him here to see you conduct. Drew! Drew who, not one month ago, was telling a room full of professors that he couldn’t wait for you to graduate and get the hell out of here. And now he’s getting one of the hottest conductors in the country to come and scout you? Jesus Christ, Kate, he might as well be wearing a neon sign that says ‘I’m fucking my student!’”

  I gasp, totally taken aback by the ferocity in his tone and the disdain on his face.

  “Russell!” I object. “Please, you don’t understand—”

  “I’ve done my best to defend you—no, to protect you from Drew Markham,” he spits at me, his face growing more crimson by the second.

  “Russell, I know about Casey. Drew told me all about her. About the two of them. And you—”

  “Drew? Well that sounds very cozy now, doesn’t it! And did Drew tell you that he killed my daughter?”

  I feel my breath catch in my throat.

  “I…I thought she committed suicide,” I stammer in confusion.

  His normally placid expression twists into a sordid sneer.

  “Oh, make no mistake about it, Kate, he drove her to do what she did. It was all his fault. And now he’s after you.”

  “Russ, he’s not ‘after’ me. I—I think I love him…”

  The words are out of my mouth before I can blink. I slam a hand over my mouth, as if trying to prevent further declarations of love from slipping out.

  Russ throws his head back and laughs.

  “You love him? Then you’re a fool, Kate, because he doesn’t love you. He just wants to torment me!”

  I think my professor has gone off the deep end. I open my mouth to say something, but he cuts me off, shaking his head emphatically.

  “No. I absolutely forbid it.”

  He did not just say that.

  “I’m sorry? You forbid what, exactly?”

  “You. Him. This travesty that you think is love. I won’t stand by and watch another young woman fall victim to Drew Markham.”

  I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and hold out a hand in the universal gesture for “hold your fucking horses!”

  “Okay, Russ, let’s just walk this back now. You have no idea what he’s done for me in this last month. How he’s been there for me when I’ve needed him. And Russ, I do have feelings for him. No matter how much you’d like to, you can’t forbid it. It just…is.”

  “Oh, Kate, Kate, you don’t know what it is you’re feeling! How could you? He’s playing you.”

  “And what, Russell? You’re going to ground me if I continue seeing him?”

  His face is stone, his eyes are fire, and when he finally speaks again, his voice is ice.

  “Promise me you’ll end it.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or you’re on your own from here on out.”

  No. Surely I’ve misheard—or misunderstood what he’s just said to me. Because to even contemplate the possibility that Russell Atherton would “dump” me three weeks before my final conducting jury is inconceivable.

  “You don’t mean that,” I whisper, refusing to accept what I’m hearing.

  But his expression tells me otherwise. I could melt into a puddle on the floor and dissolve into tears. I could beg and plead, the way I did when my father did this to me all those years ago. But I am not the same girl I was back then. I stand up, straighten my shoulders, and take a deep breath, never taking my eyes off him.

  “Wow. And here I thought my father was the only one capable of breaking my heart. Thanks for that, Russell.”

  There’s an expression of disbelief on his face as I turn and walk out of the concert hall, but he doesn’t utter a single word.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Drew

  When she finally shows up on my doorstep after her lesson, she looks l
ike she’s been put through the wringer. Twice.

  “Katherine? What’s wrong? What happened?” I ask pulling her off the porch and into my arms. “You’re late and I was starting to get worried. Did something happen with Russell?”

  She shakes her head and I lead her into the den then down onto the couch, pulling her up against me. I hold her there, tight, until she’s finally ready to tell me what’s happened.

  “He left me,” comes her voice, small and muffled against my chest.

  I push her away slightly so I can see her grief-filled eyes.

  “Who left you?”

  “Russell.”

  “What do you mean, he ‘left’ you?” I ask, feeling myself stiffen with suspicion. I know what she’s going to say even before she says it.

  “He—he saw us, Drew,” she tells me shakily. “He says he won’t teach me anymore unless I break it off with you.”

  “Son of a bitch!” I hiss under my breath, pulling Katherine back to me.

  I rub her back gently and am reminded of that first night. The night she was so sick.

  “It’s okay, Katherine. I’ll talk to him.”

  She looks up, horror-stricken.

  “What? No, Drew, he hates you! He was talking crazy, accusing you of driving his daughter to suicide.”

  “Oh, that again?” I say with a chuckle as I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “He’s been saying that since the day she…well, since she’s been gone. He needs to blame someone and he can’t bring himself to blame Casey. So, I’m the next logical choice.”

  “But…”

  “No, ‘buts.’ Come on, let’s go upstairs. You don’t have to work in the morning, do you?”

  She shakes her head and I get to my feet, extending a hand to her. She accepts it and I hoist her up.

  “Good. I’m off in the morning, too. We’ll get you into a nice, hot bath and you can get some sleep. I promise I’ll square this with him, okay?”

  She nods but doesn’t look at all convinced. Come to think of it, I’m not convinced, either.

  …

  If Russ is surprised when I throw open the door to his studio without knocking, he doesn’t say.

  “What the fuck, Russell?” I spit at him once I’ve closed the door behind me. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He gets up from his desk, standing just a few feet in front of me.

  “This isn’t about what’s wrong with me. It’s about what’s wrong with you!”

  “No, actually, this isn’t about either of us, it’s about Katherine. You really think it’s fair to just drop her because she and I…because we…”

  I don’t know how to finish this sentence and I’m kicking myself for not thinking this through a little more before storming in here.

  “Seems to me, Drew, that there’s a provision in the handbook prohibiting relationships between students and professors. And, knowing my ex-wife the way I do, I suspect Maureen would have your goddamn head on a silver platter if she knew what was going on.”

  “But you’re not going to tell her,” I inform him.

  He gives me a disbelieving grin.

  “And why the hell wouldn’t I, Drew? I could finally get you out of my life once and for all. No tenure. In fact, no job for poor Dr. Markham! And a big, black X on your record for indecent behavior with a student.”

  I take a step closer and poke his chest with my finger.

  “You won’t tell anyone about this because it will destroy Katherine,” I say flatly.

  He sucks in his scrawny chest, eyes blazing.

  “Keep your goddamn hands off me, Drew. You know I’ll kick your ass from here into next Tuesday,” he hisses.

  The truth is that he probably could. Russell’s much stronger than he looks. I know this because we’ve tussled before, over Casey. But this time I stand my ground, folding my arms across my chest and raising a questioning eyebrow.

  After a very long, very heated minute, his face relaxes a fraction and I sigh with relief in my head.

  “What are you doing with her?” he asks in a low, gravelly voice. “Are you just using her to get to me? To torture me again?”

  Unbelievable.

  I sigh again, out loud this time, and take a step back from the man who was almost my father-in-law.

  “I was wrong, Russ. This isn’t about you or me or Katherine. It’s about Casey.”

  He doesn’t disagree, so I continue.

  “No. I swear to you, on her grave, that I am not doing this to get back at you. Or to torture you. I think I love her, Russ,” I mumble just loud enough so no one who might be lurking in the hallway might overhear us. “I didn’t think I could. I mean, not after Casey. And, Christ! I tried not to. And I was almost home free. Almost. But now…I just want to be with her. We’ve only got to keep it under wraps until she graduates.”

  I can’t tell what the hell is going through Russell’s head. He might be plotting my death. Or, he might be planning our engagement party. You never know what The Ghost is going to do.

  “All right.”

  “All right?”

  “All right,” he repeats.

  “All right, what, Russ?”

  “All right, I won’t say anything about you two.”

  Oh, thank Christ…

  “And Katherine?”

  He looks down at the floor, clearly ashamed of his earlier behavior with her.

  “I’ll apologize,” he says softly. And then, his head comes up and he meets my gaze squarely again. “Because I love her, too. Teaching Kate is what kept me sane after…after Casey.”

  I consider debating the meaning of the word “sane” as it pertains to him, but decide to keep my mouth shut.

  “Russell, I’ve said this before but I want you to hear me this time. If I’d had any idea what Casey was thinking… She was the love of my life, Russell.”

  His translucent blue-white eyes bore into mine and I think, for a split second, that he just might spit on me. But he doesn’t. Instead, this gruff, nasty, grumpy man starts to cry.

  I’m more at a loss than I was when Katherine started to cry that first night at my house.

  “Russ,” I begin, and before I can stop myself, I’ve wrapped my arms around him. He doesn’t fight me. Instead, he leans into my embrace, his hands balling the back of my shirt as he sobs inconsolably.

  “I just—I just miss her so goddamned much.”

  I feel my own eyes start to water.

  “I know,” I whisper. “Me, too. If you only knew how many times I’ve gone over it in my head. I should have known. I should have seen something.”

  I push him away from me slightly so he can get a good look at my face when I say this.

  “There was nothing, Russell. I swear. Nothing. She was too smart for all of us. She knew she couldn’t give any of us a single clue because we were all watching her too closely.”

  He nods.

  “I know that, Drew. I just—I wouldn’t listen. Maureen warned me so many times and I didn’t listen. Maybe if I’d listened…”

  I shake my head.

  “Man, there was nothing that could have stopped Casey when she set her mind to something. Not you, or me, or Maureen, or all of us combined. Maybe if we hadn’t lost the baby. Maybe. But I’m not even sure about that Russell. Christ, I’ve never said this to anyone else, but I sometimes wonder if that wouldn’t have made things worse. Postpartum depression and all that. Or maybe it would have saved her? I just don’t know.”

  The tears are flowing freely down my face now, too. This time, he’s the one to pull me into an embrace. And, for the first time in nearly six years, grief trumps blame.

  …

  Wednesday May 3rd 5:16 p.m.

  D: Come over.

  K: No.

  D: Why not?

  K: You know why not.

  D: What, you don’t think I can be trusted to keep my hands to myself?

  K: *SNORT*

  D: I’ve a steak on the grill and two potatoes in the oven
. There’s a bottle of riesling chilling and I’ve even got an apple pie for later. With coffee. Real coffee. Not that instant shit your Secret Senator sent you.

  K: LMAO! All right, all right. But I’m not staying over.

  D: Bring your toothbrush and clothes for tomorrow anyway. Just in case.

  K: Just in case what? Another rogue blizzard comes our way?

  D: Stranger things have happened.

  K: Fine. Fine. But I’ve got to work in the morning so it can’t be a late night. AND you know the rules about the other stuff.

  D: I do.

  K: And you plan to abide by them?

  K: D? You there?

  D: Just thinking.

  K: About what?

  D: Loopholes. For every rule there’s always a loophole…

  K: Not this time, buddy :)

  D: Are you leaving now?

  K: No.

  D: Come on, don’t back out!

  K: I’m not. I got in my car the second you mentioned steak. I’ll be there in ten minutes and I expect to be greeted with a kiss at the front door.

  D: Just try and stop me!

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Kate

  When the clock strikes midnight on the worst day of your life, no one is there to warn you. It’s not something you circle on your calendar. You don’t get a heads-up or a reminder phone call or a Save the Date! postcard in the mail. And it sure as hell isn’t as if you just wake up knowing.

  I’m sure some people would say that’s a good thing—that they’d rather not see it coming. I am not one of those people. I’d rather know. Because, the way I see it, the only thing worse than being blindsided, is looking up at the second of impact to see that someone you know is driving the car that’s about to flatten your ass. Then, instead of all those happy memories and faces of loved ones that should be passing before your eyes, the only thing you can think is ‘Dude! What the fuck?’

  “Have a good day,” Drew mumbles from somewhere under the covers of the bed.

  I bend over and kiss the back of his head.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” I whisper.

  He rolls over and gives me a sleepy smile.

  “Nah, I have to get up soon anyway. I have a meeting with Maureen this morning. She’s going to have a look at my final presentation for the tenure committee.”