by Rico, Lauren
“Hi, Gordon,” I say with a wave as I pass his desk.
“You’ve got company tonight,” he says, not bothering to take his eyes from his crossword puzzle.
I pause, and turn back to him.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not alone. There’s a French horn player up there right now,” he says with an absent gesture toward the back staircase.
“Which one?”
Now, why did I ask that? Does it really matter? There are five horn players altogether, three women plus Cal and Jeremy. It could be any one of them. Gordon finally looks up at me through his thick-framed glasses.
“The guy. The tall guy,” he says.
I smile and nod. There’s a little bit more spring in my step than there was thirty seconds ago, as the cello and I take the steps two at a time. When my feet hit the third floor landing, I’m greeted by the muted strains of Mozart. I pause for a second to slow my breathing and smooth my hair. When I’m confident that I don’t look too eager, I stroll slowly toward the source of the sound, the first practice room on the left. I can see the back of a dark head of hair through the small rectangular window in the door. Just before my knuckles make contact with it, the horn player turns to the side and turns out not to be Jeremy Corrigan at all, but rather Cal Burridge. I can’t help feeling a little disappointed as I head a few doors down and take my usual spot at the end of the hall.
Inside the tiny, dimly lit practice room, I set my case on the floor and rest my back against the closed door. What the hell was that? First excited, then disappointed? Is it possible I’m a little more attracted to him than I’d like to admit? I have to get real here. Jeremy Corrigan is a player and I’m not the kind of girl that players look for.
“Ugh…” I groan out loud and roll my eyes.
Time to stop acting like a lovesick teenager and put on the big girl pants. I have plenty of things that require my attention at the moment, and Jeremy isn’t one of them.
With that self-lecture out of the way, I get myself set up, and dive into the Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata. The faster movements go by in a blur that will surely impress the judges. The slow movement, though, that’s where the problem lies. I’ve got to find a way to wrap my head around it, so I start out with a little deconstruction. I take the melody apart, one measure at a time. When I’ve got that, I string several measures together. Nope, no good.
It sounds disjointed. Okay, maybe getting my eyes off the music will help me to loosen up. I close my eyes and try playing from memory. No go. I miss more notes than I hit. I’m about to try playing it while standing on my head when I hear a gentle rap on the practice room door. When I turn around, Cal’s smile fills the tiny window. He raises his eyebrows to ask if he can enter. I smile back and nod.
“Hey, Julia! I thought I might run across you here,” he says, seeming to be genuinely happy to see me.
“Yeah, Rachmaninoff and I are having a knock-down, drag-out fight right now,” I say with exasperation.
“Well, don’t feel too badly, I’ve just gone ten rounds with Mozart and I think he’s the winner.”
I laugh. Cal is such a pleasant change from the other devious little sharks that swim around in the McInnes waters. What you see is what you get. And what you see in Cal Burridge is an easy-going, affable guy who just wants to make music.
“So, I’m just about done here,” he says, “and I was thinking I’d head over to the diner for something to eat. I’ve never been, but I know you’re there all the time, and I thought I might give it a try. Feel like joining me?”
My first instinct is to say no and keep pounding my head against the wall with Rachmaninoff, but my stomach puts a stop to that thought immediately. Apparently, skipping that turkey sandwich was a mistake that I’m about to pay for. Well, it’s not like I’m making any progress here anyway.
“That sounds really great, Cal,” I say, and watch his face light up.
“Let me just pack up and drop my cello down in the locker room. Meet you out front in five minutes?”
“Great!” he says with a little too much enthusiasm. “Uh, great,” he repeats, sounding cooler the second time.
I’m not blind. I know that Cal has had a little crush on me since he was accepted into the graduate program last year. Thankfully, he’s never acted on it, so I haven’t had to endure the awkwardness of turning him down. He’s a great guy, a handsome guy, and a talented guy. But he’s definitely not my guy. That would just be too easy, wouldn’t it? No, instead, I have to obsess over my last late-night breakfast companion, the bad boy of the brass section himself. And right now, I’m about to return to the scene of the crime.
This time, when Leslie sets my breakfast plate down on the table, she shoots me an interested ‘hey, what gives?’ glance. I’ve been coming here either on my own or with Matthew for five years and now she’s seen me here with two different guys in less than a week. I give her a ‘for me to know and you to find out!’ brow raise in return and she scuffles away, shaking her head and smiling.
I pick up the bottle of syrup and turn it over in my hand.
“Something wrong?” Cal asks, noticing.
“Oh, nothing,” I say dismissively. “Just remembering something someone said to me recently.”
Something naughty.
Cal lets it go with a shrug of his broad shoulders. He’s a big guy. Not heavy, just big. So big, that as he sits across from me in the booth, he looks like a grown man sitting on tiny furniture at a child’s tea party. Now, he runs his large hands through his sandy blonde hair.
“You’ve got to have one of these pancakes, Cal,” I say, slathering them with the sexy syrup. “They’re amazing, but I’ll never finish them. Cranberry and walnuts. Here…” I offer, starting to offload a pancake from my plate but he waves his hand.
“No, thanks, Julia,” he says. “I wish I could, but I’m allergic to nuts.”
“Oh, Right! Sorry, I knew that! Is it a problem if I have them?” I ask with concern.
He shakes his head.
“No, not at all. So long as I don’t come into contact with them, I’m okay. I just have to be really careful.”
“So,” I say, between bites, “how did you know I like to come here?”
“You’re in My Orbit,” he says simply, as if I should know what he’s talking about.
“I’m sorry, did you say I’m in your orbit?”
His mouth is full of chicken salad but he nods and raises a finger, indicating I should hang on a second until he’s swallowed his sandwich.
“Yeah, the app. My Orbit.”
Why does it seem like he’s speaking a foreign language all of a sudden. App? What app? I haven’t bothered to put anything on my phone but music. I wouldn’t even text if Matthew didn’t insist.
“I don’t even know what that means…”
He gives me a teasing smile.
“Not as savvy with the phone as we are with the cello, then?”
“Not so much,” I mumble.
“Let me see your phone,” he says, holding out his hand.
I put it in his palm and watch as he scrolls, punches, pinches and types his way to an “Aha!”
“Aha?”
“Yup, aha,” he says, coming around the table to sit next to me in the booth. He points to a small icon in the top right corner of my screen. “See that teeny tiny little icon?”
I nod. “Yeah, it looks like Saturn.”
How come I never noticed that there before? Maybe because I rarely look at the damn thing.
“Exactly. That means the app is active in the background.”
“Cal, you keep talking about this app like I put it there or something. If it didn’t come with the phone, then I don’t know how it got there. I mean, what does it do, anyway?” I ask, frustration creeping into my tone.
“Okay,” he begins, “look….” he taps a few more times and suddenly, I’m looking at a street map of this block. There’s a dot on the diner. “That red dot is you. Now, i
f you had it set to notify you, the app would send you an alert every time someone in your contacts is nearby, or in your orbit. You get it?”
“Not really…”
“So, the way it works most of the time,” he continues, trying to dumb it down even more for me, “the app pulls all of your contacts’ information and is able to track their movements within a certain radius of your location. Any time one of them enters that radius, you should, theoretically, get an alert.”
“What kind of alert?”
“It would look like a text and it says something like ‘Cal Burridge is in Your Orbit!’ Then, if you’re interested in seeing where I am, you can tap on the message, and it’ll take you to this map. My location will be marked with a pin.”
“But I don’t see you on this map. And I don’t ever get messages like that. I think I’d have noticed...” I object.
“Well, let’s see,” he says, poking and swiping and clicking in a blur of gestures across my screen. “Okay, here it is. You’re set to transmit your location to all of your contacts at all times, but you’ve turned off the setting that tracks your contacts.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I say, trying to process. I know there’s something really important about what he’s just said, I’m just not sure I’m understanding it clearly. “So… anyone who has this Orbit app and has me as one of their contacts and is set-up to receive notifications, will know whenever I’m somewhere close by?”
“Exactly!” he says with a smile, pleased that I am finally grasping this, but not grasping that I’m growing more concerned.
“And, if I wanted to, I could track my contacts, too.”
“That’s it! You’ve got it. See, I knew you could wrap your head around tech concepts. You don’t give yourself enough credit, Julia!” he says, giving me a friendly nudge.
“Cal?”
“Yeah?”
“So, if I didn’t put that app there, and it’s not configured to let me know it’s there,” I start slowly, “is it possible that someone else installed it with the sole purpose of tracking me?”
I see the smile slip from his face as he digests what I’m saying. Now he’s seeing what I’m seeing, that this could be something else, entirely. He clears his throat to buy himself a few seconds.
“Uh, well, yeah, I guess. If the thing isn’t set to let you know when people are around you, then you wouldn’t even know that it’s there in the background, broadcasting your whereabouts.”
I can’t believe this! My phone’s been acting as a double agent, alleging to keep me safe and in contact, while alerting anyone with an internet connection that I’m hobbling around town with several thousand dollars’ worth of cello strapped to my back and delivering a map to my whereabouts while it’s at it.
Cal slips back around to his side of the booth and gestures the waitress for more coffee.
“Hey! Don’t look so worried,” he says, after she’s topped us up. “I’m sure it’s an innocent mistake. It’s easy enough to uninstall. Besides,” he continues, “it’s not as if everyone doesn't already know that if you’re not home, or in the practice rooms, you’re here.”
My newly warmed coffee is almost to my lips when I stop cold and put it back down on the table.
“Am I really that predictable?” I ask, astonished by this revelation.
“Nothing wrong with a routine,” he says with a shrug.
“Yeah, well. I guess I’d better mix it up a little so I don’t get boring.”
“Oh, I think you’re just fine the way you are,” he says, trying to hide his smile in a sip of coffee.
“So, how’s it going with you and Jeremy?” I ask, wanting to divert his attention from complimenting me.
Now it’s his turn to set the coffee cup down on the table. His smile is gone.
“What do you mean?” he asks, suddenly serious.
“I- I don’t know…” I stumble, feeling as if I’ve hit a nerve that I didn’t intend to. “With the competition, I guess. Is there any friction between the two of you over it?”
Cal’s brows knit together and he looks down as if contemplating the sandwich in front of him.
“There’s always friction where Jeremy is concerned,” he says.
Huh.
“What do you mean?” I press, suddenly all ears.
“I mean he and I don’t exactly get along. Actually, very few people do get along with him.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I get along with him fine.”
My words come out sounding contrary, and he looks up to meet my gaze. Something in his mood has shifted. Suddenly the happy-go-lucky Cal has vanished.
“Julia, Jeremy’s a complicated guy. He’s really talented, and I know he can be very charming. I’m just not sure he’s the kind of guy you should be friendly with.”
Is that what I’m doing? Being friendly with Jeremy?
“What kind of guy is that, Cal?” I ask.
He takes a long second to choose his words.
“In my experience, he can be… well, let’s just say I’ve seen him when he’s not at his best. He can be difficult. Especially if he doesn’t get his way.”
Oh. Maybe this is a “guy thing.” Or even a “horn player thing.” I give him a gentle smile.
“You know, I don’t doubt that the two of you have had your run-ins. I mean, Mila and I, we’re always butting heads. It just goes with the territory around here. All the pressure to perform, all the competition…. and that’s just the everyday stuff at McInnes. Now you throw in the Kreisler Competition, and no wonder things are stressful back there in the horn section!”
He’s shaking his head before I’ve even finished speaking.
“It’s not about that. Not about competition. There’s always an angle with Jeremy,” he says. “I’m telling you Julia, you’re better off keeping clear of him.”
Poor Cal. I don’t know why he’s so jealous, it’s not as if I have a snowball’s chance in hell of having a relationship with Jeremy. I’m surprised it’s not Matthew who he has issues with. Maybe he’s smart enough not to go down that road.
I look down at my pancakes, half eaten and cold. I don’t much feel like eating anymore.
9
“No, No, No!”
I jump a little and stop bowing mid-note when Dr. Sam yells at me. He never yells at me. But today I’m testing his patience and, apparently, his nerves. I watch him silently as he takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. Oh, this is not a good sign.
Sam Michaels was a Kreisler Gold Medal winner at the age of twenty, and principal cello of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra less than a year later. Now, in his sixties, he’s one of the most sought-after teachers in the country and I’m one of a handful of students he’s willing to teach.
Finally, he puts the frames back on his face and considers me for a long moment.
“Julia,” he begins, voice lowered and hands steepled, “I don’t know what else I can say to you. You’re just not grasping this movement… and without this movement, there is no sonata.”
He’s telling me I can’t use this piece in the first round of the Kreislers. But, as far as I’m concerned, there is no other piece. He can see this in my eyes.
“It’s not the notes. You just fly through the tricky passages in the other movements but this one...it’s like you’re phoning it in.”
We’ve been having this discussion for the last three weeks; ever since we found out I made the first cut. But I’ve always wanted to perform the Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata and now, finally, I have the opportunity. I don’t know what to say to convince him. I drop my eyes to the floor and he keeps talking.
“Maybe we should take a look at some other possibilities. I mean we only have a couple of weeks left here, Julia. We can’t afford to waste time on something that you can’t… that you won’t…” his voice trails off.
“I can do this,” I say to the floor, my voice sounding smaller than I would like.
He doesn’t respond.
“I can do this,” I say more firmly this time, looking up again.
“Julia, you are a phenomenal cellist.”
I feel a “but” coming.
“And we both know that even more than professionally, I care about you personally. I have been teaching you since you were a little girl, and there is no student that I’m more proud of than you.”
Here it comes.
“But I care about you and your future too much to let you play a piece you’re not ready to play in front of thousands of people.”
“Give me a few more days,” I plead.
He holds his palms up and shakes his head.
“Julia, we do not have the luxury of waiting…”
“I will get it,” I insist.
If he says ‘no’, I’m done. You do not disobey Sam Michaels if you want to remain his student. That rule applies even to me.
“There’s a lot on the line here.”
“I know.”
“Honestly, in your heart of hearts, do you think a few more days will make any difference?”
I respect this man enough to give him my most honest answer.
“I don’t know. But I won’t be able to move on to another piece unless I give this one more try. I swear, if it’s not where it needs to be by my next lesson, I’ll let it go and I’ll commit myself to whatever you think I should do.”
He takes a deep breath, and I think he’s going to say no.
“Alright then,” he says, to my surprise. “But not a day longer.”
I beam at him and wish, not for the first time, that I could just throw my arms around him and give him a huge hug. I know he wouldn’t mind, but I also know that no one is safe from the McInnes rumor mill. On impulse, I set the cello on the floor, open the door of his studio and take a look down the hallway. It’s deserted. I close the door, scoot back in, and give him the quickest of kisses on the cheek.
“Thank you, Dr. Sam,” I whisper.
“You’re welcome, kiddo. Now get out of here before I change my mind.”
I do, because he might. In less than a minute, I’m packed up and taking the stairs two-at-a-time in an attempt to get to my Chamber Music Lit class on time. There are already three violins and a tuba propped up against the wall, and my cello joins them. I manage to slide into a seat on the aisle with a minute to spare as the professor gets her sound system setup. I feel a light tap on my shoulder and turn to find myself looking into the eyes of Jeremy Corrigan, which are more on the green side than the brown today.