It was Savannah Marshall. She had bright spots of color in her cheeks, and her right fist was clenched at her side, her left gripping a paper that was now slightly crumpled. An angry line ran down the center of her forehead where her eyebrows pushed together.
I cleared my throat, unwilling to show her just how ruffled I was by her entrance. Or her appearance, which was shockingly fetching with that dark rose color highlighting her cheeks, a tight blue sweater over faded jeans that emphasized every single curve of her body.
“Miss Marshall. Perhaps you forgot to knock?”
She held up the paper. “I came here to discuss this.”
I raised my eyebrows. This wasn’t likely to go well, given her inclination to argue everything to death, so I took a sip of my tea in an effort to maintain my equilibrium. Then I mustered the coldest voice I could manage. “There’s not really anything to discuss.”
“An F? This paper did not warrant an F.” Her cheeks were still flushed as she spoke, and I found it difficult to take my eyes off of them.
“Miss Marshall, your paper most certainly did. I took a considerable amount of time justifying your grade before putting it on the paper. I don’t intend to justify it further. You are capable of much better work than this.”
She smacked the paper on the desk—the large “F” scrawled across the top half.
“Mr. Fitzgerald.” She took a deep breath. I suppose to calm herself, which seemed to be necessary. “Number one. You gave exactly no feedback. There is not a single mark in this paper. Nothing to indicate what is right or wrong. Simply a grade. Number two,” she took another breath and her voice was much more even, “I very carefully met every single requirement of the assignment. You required a comparison of Debussy’s compositions from early in his career and late. You required an analysis of the technical aspects of at least two of those compositions. You required that I address the differences in tempo, meter, pitch, harmony. I addressed each of those.”
I frowned. Her tone rang with unattractive self-importance. She’d done the things I’d asked, true. But she’d also included nearly five pages of completely irrelevant material. “Hardly. Miss Marshall, the assignment was a comparison of the music and its elements. Not a biography. You have more than three pages in this paper about his wife. What possible relevance does she have to the assignment?”
Savannah shouted, her brown eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. “She shot herself in the chest days after he announced he was divorcing her! How could that not be relevant? How could that not affect his music?” The color in her cheeks deepened the louder her voice got.
I sat forward in my chair and against my better judgment, found myself arguing back, “It’s completely irrelevant! The assignment was to compare the musical composition, not delve into the composer’s personal life!”
She flipped the pages of the report and stabbed it with her index finger, leaning over my desk as she did so. “I did do that, if you’d actually bothered to read the paper. Yes, the music was changed, and I illustrated that in the paper. But his music was changed by his life. His music was changed by his experiences. But, this isn’t about me at all, is it? This is about my mother! Are you simply punishing me because of her?”
At that, I stood. Her chain of logic made no sense at all. What did her mother have to do with anything? Of course, Savannah came from good musical stock, and that had to be respected on some level. But punishing her? No, I was pushing her. Pushing her to do better than the paper she’d turned in.
I did something I have never done in my entire career as an instructor. I shouted at a student, leaning forward over my desk, which had the effect of bringing us nearly face to face. “Miss Marshall, I don’t care if your mother is a harlot selling herself in the street! This isn’t about that. It’s about you and your talent. You are too good for this!”
Her face went slack, reflecting shock at my words. I continued, inching closer to her face until we were almost nose-to-nose. “You have the ability to be one of the premier musicians this school has ever graduated. And yet you waste it. You waste it on your pointless musical experiments. You waste it on your weekends spent … dancing ... and drinking ... when you should be perfecting your craft. You waste it on the time you spend with that boyfriend of yours.”
Her face scrunched up, a mixture of confusion and amusement on her face, and an oddly formed laugh forced itself out. “Who are you talking about? Nathan? Not that it’s any of your business, Mr. Fitzgerald, but Nathan is not my boyfriend.”
We maintained our stance inches from each other’s faces. Inches from each other’s lips. With only my desk separating us.
Not her boyfriend. What was he then? This boy who constantly had his hands on her, this boy who leaned over and whispered in her ear in class, who touched her intimately while dancing, who repeatedly made a fool of himself in my class. I’m not a sociologist, but if he wasn’t her boyfriend, he certainly wished he was. I started to reply, but then clammed up. This wasn’t about that anyway. I took a breath, attempting to calm myself.
Pulling back slightly, I spoke in calm, measured words that belied the tension roiling inside of me. “Miss Marshall, it matters to me not one bit whether or not the boy is your boyfriend. What matters to me is that you accomplish your best possible work.”
“No.” Her voice was low and bitter, if not a bit baiting. “This grade isn’t because the work isn’t good. This is because I disagree with you. You think music is this heartless engineering construct made of nothing but notes and rhythms pasted together by architects. It is not. Music is communication. It’s emotion. It’s passion and love and hate and expression.”
As she continued she leaned even closer to me, anchoring her hands on my desk as her hot breath invaded the space between us.
“Mr. Fitzgerald, music was around long before there were theorists to talk about rules. Music is what makes us alive, and I feel sorry for you for not understanding that. If all you care about is mechanics and theory, then you’re in the wrong field, no matter how talented you may be.”
I recoiled. Since I was sixteen years old, when I won my early admission to the New England Conservatory and a full scholarship, not a single person had ever suggested that I might be choosing the wrong field. That this appallingly arrogant twenty-one-year-old thought she could do such a thing was infuriating.
She stuck out her red polished index finger and poked it on my chest. The same finger I’d instinctively traced with my thumb just last week. “I’m formally appealing this grade. Please reconsider it on its merits, and not your knee jerk emotional reaction to the idea that musicians might feel something. And if you don’t change it, I intend to take it to the Dean.”
With that, she backed up and walked out of my office, leaving a gaping hole of fury in her wake.
Savannah
I tore out of Fitzgerald’s office door in a flurry, breezing past Nathan, who I’d honestly forgotten was waiting for me.
“That … sounded intense.” Nathan followed quickly behind me, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets as we neared the exit.
“You think?” I was still breathless from my face-to-face showdown. “Damn, he’s a prick. Did you hear what he said? He had the audacity to say that his treatment of me has nothing to do with my mother.”
Nathan shrugged and placed his hand on the exit door. “Maybe it doesn’t, Savannah. You know how Fitzgerald is. And, he didn’t even know who she was until a few weeks ago. He was on your case long before that.” His tone fell flat as he spoke.
“Whatever.” I pushed past him and out into the unseasonably warm late-March air. I was still worked up from my first-ever shouting match with a teacher, and I didn’t bother to put on my coat. Looking back, I saw Nathan lagging a few steps behind, looking at the ground. “What?” I stopped, waiting for him to catch up.
“He thought I was your boyfriend?” Nathan gave a slight nervous chuckle and brought his eyes to mine.
I laughed and rol
led my eyes. “No kidding, right?”
He shrugged, looking just past my shoulder for a second. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh come on!” I rolled my eyes. “Gregory Fitzgerald is so damn out of touch with reality that he can’t even decipher your sexual orientation? You don’t find that the least bit humorous?”
Nathan’s face paled for a split second before his nostrils flared and he pointed his eyes damn near through me. “ Wait, you think I’m gay? I’m not gay, Savannah.”
I jumped as he shouted the end of his sentence.
Looking around the vacant sidewalk, I was knocked dizzy by his words. “Wait. Wait. What? Nathan. Wait.” I was out of breath, my cheeks heating and feeling dizzier still. “Aren’t you?”
“No!” He took a step back, running both hands through his hair before turning to the right and storming off.
What the hell?
“Nathan, wait!” I ran, nearly falling on the still-slick sidewalk before I caught up to him. I grabbed the fabric of his coat and pulled as hard as I could until he was forced to stop and turn to face me. I almost wish he hadn’t. There were actual tears in his eyes. “What do you mean no?”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Savannah? We’ve been friends for ten years!” He couldn’t even look me in the eye.
“Yes, I know!” I shouted, matching his volume. “And in ten years I never saw you date anyone—”
“We only saw each other during the summers at camp!”
“Stop yelling!” I took a breath and felt tears rising in my own eyes. In a much softer voice, I continued, my mind racing a thousand miles a minute. “You never once talked about any girls, not even when we talked during the school year.”
“I never mentioned any other girls, Savannah.”
“And that time at camp when I was fifteen, when you punched Jared Reese after he grabbed my boobs?” I felt anger at the slimy little saxophonist all over again.
“What’d you think that was?” he asked condescendingly.
My eyes bugged out. “Uh, sticking the fuck up for me, not you being pissed that someone else copped a feel!”
I felt bile rising through my chest and my face flushed.
Nathan grabbed my shoulders as I staggered back a step. “What? Are you okay? You look pale.”
“I’ve told you everything, Nathan. Everything. Oh my god.” My knees gave out and I collapsed, cross-legged in the snow-covered grass. Squeezing my eyes shut, I placed my head in my hands.
“What?” Nathan sounded irritated as he stood in front of me. “Get up, Savannah, you’re going to get soaking wet.”
“We hold hands, you kiss my head, I kiss yours … we dance…” I breathed for a few more seconds until I felt Nathan sit next to me. Looking over, I found his knees bent, arms resting on them as he looked ahead.
“I’m sorry…” He shook his head and looked at me from the corner of his eye.
“You’re sorry? For not being gay? Wait. I’m confused. Why the hell didn’t you ever tell me you weren’t gay?”
Nathan scoffed. “I didn’t realize it was an issue.”
“You never talked about any girls, Nathan.”
And then he said it again, the words that made me feel like I’d been punched in the gut. “No. I never talked about any other girls, Savannah.”
Looking over at him, I found Nathan pinching the bridge of his nose. “What are you talking about?” My voice was barely a whisper.
When he finally opened his eyes to look at me, he didn’t say anything as he stared at me, apparently waiting for something to sink in.
It did.
I squeezed my eyebrows together, certain I was misinterpreting.
Nathan shrugged and cocked his head to the side as he took a deep breath.
All of my dizziness and guilt I felt for assuming my friend was gay for the last ten years was instantly replaced by anger.
“You’re a bastard,” I hissed as I stood up. Brushing snow from my jeans, I took off in the direction of my dorm.
“Excuse me?” Nathan shouted as he ran after me, catching up to me. “You’ve spent the last decade thinking I’m gay and I’m a bastard?”
“Jesus Christ, I’ve told you everything! You knew about my first kiss, when I got my fucking period, and … fuck! I told you about when I lost my virginity to that jackass of a trumpet player during our last summer at camp together! This whole time you liked me, or whatever, and you just let me spill my guts to you over and over again?” My mind played over every secret I’d told him, every tear I cried on his shoulder over every boy that had broken my heart.
“We’re friends, Savannah, that’s what friends do.”
“It’s different and you know it! Why didn’t you ever say anything?” I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly feeling exposed. “Were you hoping to learn all of my weaknesses, all of my insecurities, and play off of those in order to get me into bed, or something? Fuck, Nathan!” I covered my face with my hands as tears streamed down my cheeks.
“Do you honestly believe that about me, Savannah?” His tone turned about as vile as mine. “Why didn’t you ever ask me if I was gay?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Nathan, maybe because I have class? Damn it, you were my best friend at camp, I knew that if you wanted to tell me, you would. I figured you weren’t ready. Why didn’t you ever say anything to me if you’ve liked me this whole time.” I placed my hands on my hips and took a cleansing breath, waiting for his response.
“I didn’t like you.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, looking a bit like he might pass out.
I opened and closed my mouth a few times, trying to find words to express the sheer confusion I was feeling, as ten years of assumptions just blew up in our faces. “You just said,” I managed, trailing off.
“I didn’t like you, Savannah. I don’t like you.” His nose crinkled as he strung out the word like. “I love you.”
“You … you what?” My throat started to close around my words.
Nathan grabbed my shoulders, took a breath, and bent down so we were nearly nose-to-nose. “I love you, Savannah. I have from the moment I first heard you play at camp that summer, and fell harder when I heard you laugh three minutes after that. I know I was only twelve then, but, still, I knew. I knew that someday … I just knew. Each summer it only got worse. And I got nervous. You were so gorgeous, so carefree, and so fucking nice to me. The nicer you were, the more nervous I got. Then, you told me about how Danny Perkins kissed you behind the tree that summer we were thirteen. The look in your eyes … I knew you thought I was just your friend.”
“You were fourteen, Nathan, what stopped you from saying something?” My chin quivered as I replayed even more memories over what I considered ten years of friendship.
He sighed. “I figured you’d get the hint eventually. I ignored all the other girls, and only hung around you.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, “you were fourteen, and one of two boys in the flute section, surrounded by gorgeous girls. You ignored all of them and you’re pissed that I thought you were gay?”
Nathan shook his head, trying to come up with something to say.
“What about the last three years, then?” I asked. “You’ve dated … right?” I rose my eyebrow, trying to scan through all of our conversations and all the parties we went to, trying to pinpoint a moment, any moment, where I might have seen him with a girl, or heard him talk about one at least.
“Yeah, but …” He clenched his jaw.
“You never said anything to me, Nathan. How was I supposed to know? God, when I broke up with Mark last semester, you let me cry on your lap until I fell asleep! You’ve just hung around waiting for me to figure it out? That’s total shit.”
“No … I mean … there’s never been anyone worth telling you about. You know how wrapped up I am in my coursework and practicing all the time. I’ve had dates and … whatever. But there was never anyone worth mentioning. And, by now I’ve resigned myself to being your friend. I l
ove you, and I care about you, and … I don’t fucking know anymore.”
I shook my head, trying to backtrack to where this conversation derailed. Unfortunately, that was at the beginning. “So why are you telling me this now? Because I thought you were gay? Sorry about that, by the way.”
“That, I guess … and it’s been driving me insane watching you fall in love with someone else.” His lips formed a straight line as I watched him swallow hard.
I looked around the empty space surrounding us, certain I was standing in the middle of a different conversation than the one I’d started in. “Is this about Mark? We broke up last year. You were there…”
“Oh come on, Savannah, I know you’re in love with Fitzgerald, and it’s fucking ridiculous!”
My mouth flew open as I tried to determine if he’d actually spoken those words. His face was stone cold serious, though.
Nathan continued before I could reply. “You blush every time he looks at you, and you spend more time watching him than the words he writes on the board. You challenge more things he says than you do in any of your other classes, and it’s obvious that’s so you can have more interaction with him.”
“Wow,” I spit out, “you’re awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Dropping my arms I continued my trek toward the dorm, not wanting to give Nathan the satisfaction of engaging in the most ridiculous conversation that I’ve ever had.
“It’s not just you, you know,” Nathan called after me, stopping me, once again. “He feels something for you, too, Savannah. I can see it.”
“You’re delusional,” I said as I walked back toward him, until we were standing toe-to-toe. “Just because I’m not with you, and just because you know my entire sexual history, doesn’t mean you know anything about who I’m in love with. And, I promise you, it’s not Gregory Fitzgerald.”
“Whatever,” he scoffed, looking quite self-righteous. “Keep telling yourself that. I tried that for ten years, Savannah. To tell myself I wasn’t in love with someone. Let me tell you, it’s fucking useless torture.” His dark brown eyes lowered to mine, and they looked empty. Furious.
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