She gives me a cheeky grin. “I’m not sure if you’re trying to make me feel better or worse if I think it’s tough.”
With a laugh, I open my own sheet music and settle in my chair. “You’ll be fine. Fake your way through anything that’s hard. It’s just fun. I don’t care if you miss notes. I don’t even know how your part’s supposed to sound, really.”
From my place in my chair, all I can see is the top of her head as she flips the book open to the Vivaldi Sonata in E minor and softly plays through the opening. I sit up as straight as I can, trying to get a look at her, but she’s hunched into the sheet music. All I can see is the top of her head.
After a few seconds she stops and straightens, lifting up so she can look at me over the piano. “Sorry. Should we start?”
I give her a reassuring smile. “Can I get an A first?”
“Oh! Of course.”
She sits down and hesitates for a second. Then a resounding A in four octaves blasts from the piano. From the volume she gets like this, I’m glad the lid is closed.
She hammers the As the entire time I’m tuning, letting them die away when she realizes I’ve stopped. “Was that good?” She sounds so uncertain, it’s surprising. So far she’s been all sparkle and confidence.
“That was great. Thanks. Uh, normally just the A above middle C is fine, though. And you don’t have to play quite so loud. In here. Since I’m basically sitting inside the piano.”
She giggles, and the sound makes me smile. “I’m sorry. I’ve never really played with anyone like this. It’s always been just me before.”
I lift up so I can see her. Her eyes are gleaming with delight, and a wide smile stretches across her face. I think I’ve been smiling since I met her in the lobby before dinner. “We’ve all gotta start somewhere, right? It’s fine. At least I have no doubt where A is.”
She giggles again, an adorable snort coming out this time, making her cover her mouth with her hand and her cheeks turning pink. I start laughing too. God, she’s so cute.
After we calm down, she glances between me and the music in front of her. “So, uh, how do I know when to start?”
“Usually I’d give you a cue, but since you can’t see me when I’m in the chair, how about I just count us in?”
“Perfect. Ready when you are.”
We play through it together, and she does well. Especially since she’s never accompanied anyone before. She doesn’t get lost or rush ahead or anything. If she hadn’t mentioned that she was new to this, I’d have no idea. She’s a pro, and she blends with me almost effortlessly. Sitting in the curve of the piano in such a small space, I feel wrapped in her music.
When we get to the end, the piano stills as I lift my bow from the string. We sit in the relative quiet for a second before she says, “That was fun. Let’s do it again. But I want to try something different.”
I smile at the happiness in her voice. “Of course.”
We spend the next hour playing through the Suzuki book, goofing off, messing around with it. She insists on playing each piece a bunch of times, changing her part each time. First she strips out the chords, only playing the melodies with me. The second time, she substitutes different harmonies, just chunking in different chords. When something clashes horribly, we both stop, laughing. So hard I almost fall out of my chair. Except there isn’t room, so I catch myself on the piano.
“Okay, okay,” she says. “Let’s do that again. I’ll try something different.”
“No no no,” I insist. “Do it the same way. Go for it. Fortissimo. Keep doing what you were planning on. See how awful it sounds. It’ll be the next compositional craze. Quoting middle school-level songs and using avant garde harmonic backgrounds.”
She snorts again when she laughs, which only makes me laugh harder. But we compose ourselves enough to go again, even though she giggles pretty much the whole time.
“Okay, okay. We saw how awful that sounds. Let’s try again and see if my fix sounds better or worse.”
I don’t even need my music anymore by the time we’ve gone through it. It’s just a couple of pages, a simple piece that I almost had memorized before we started. I played it as a kid. And I’ve taken multiple students through this piece. I’ll never be able to hear it the same way again, though.
We do the same thing with several more pieces, eventually progressing to playing them in different keys at the same time. It’s awful and hilarious and more fun than I’ve had with music in a long time. And this was my idea.
Her voice drifts over the top of the piano, echoing my thoughts. “Oh my God, this is so much fun.”
I set my cello down on its side next to me and stand so I can look at her, leaning my arms on the top of the piano. “The only thing that would’ve made it better is if we could actually see each other. Next time let’s do it in the instrumental rehearsal room.”
One eyebrow arches high, but her grin doesn’t falter. “I thought you didn’t want nosy people wandering in.”
I shrug. “Let them listen and marvel at our awesomeness. Especially you. I’m impressed that you can transpose so easily on the fly like that.”
A tiny smile tilts the corners of her mouth upward at my compliment, but she drops her eyes to where her hands still move softly over the keyboard. She does that thing again where she plays a few chords, but these are more interesting than the group she played when she first sat down.
“Well,” she says, “I’ve had a fair amount of practice faking my way through pop songs. I’m good at playing chords under the melody and making it sound impressive. Once I know the basic chord progressions, it’s not hard to transpose them. Especially after getting a better handle on the way chords actually work in freshman theory. And like you said, this music is pretty simple. So it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Maybe not to you. But I can’t transpose like that.” I cock my head, listening more closely to what she’s playing. “What is that?”
She stops abruptly, pulling her hands off the keys and clasping them together in her lap. “Oh, nothing.” She laughs, but this one sounds forced, not the easy laughter we’ve shared all evening. “Just messing around.”
Standing, I take a small step back. “Don’t let my curiosity stop you. I like it. It’s interesting.”
She looks at me, her eyes studying my face. One hand returns to the keys, her eyes never leaving mine. She presses down the notes, the sound drifting up from the piano. It’s a minor chord, soft and sad, and something about it—whether the notes themselves, the look on her face, or a combination of the two—something about the whole thing makes my heart twist. Like she’s showing me some part of herself that she can’t put into words. I hold my breath, freezing in place, afraid that any movement on my part will break this spell.
She blinks, dropping her gaze again, and the moment passes. Her left hand joins her right, and she plays like she did last night, one chord sliding into another.
“Play with me.”
The request startles me, her voice breaking me out of my reverie while listening to her play. I clear my throat. “Oh, uh, I’m not …”
She cuts me off with a shake of her head. “They’re just chords. Find a note that fits and play it. It’s not that hard.” She lifts her eyes to mine, the dark-rimmed irises cutting through me. “You’re the one who suggested this as a date. We’re supposed to be playing together, not me playing for you. I’ll give you tickets to my next show if you want to see me perform.”
I laugh at her last line, and she shoots me a cheeky grin. But I do what she says, sitting in my chair and picking my cello back up. I listen for another minute, trying to get a feel for what she’s doing. With no clear tonal center previously set up, I’m a little lost.
“Um, what chord are you playing?”
She chuckles again, the sound carrying over the soft strains of the piano. “F minor right now.” She’s using the pedal, because the sound continues to float even as she plunks each note individually.
/> Playing it safe, I go for the root of the chord and draw out a low F. But she doesn’t stay there long, changing chords, and now my F is dissonant. I hang onto it for a moment anyway, enjoying the tension a little before I resolve it to an E flat.
We continue this way for a while. Consonance, dissonance. Suspension, resolution. Moving slowly from chord to chord, note to note. And it’s a different experience, a different connection than what we were playing earlier. I have to listen, pay attention, feel, and be totally present in what we’re playing. All my focus is on the sounds filling our tiny space and what Charlie is going to do next.
It’s intimate. Not sexual. More like sleeping in the same bed is intimate in a way that just sex isn’t.
I don’t know how much time passes as we play like this, enjoying this form of musical communication. I feel like I know her better after this than I would’ve if we’d spent all evening talking. Maybe I don’t know details about her past. But I know her soul.
We stop by some unspoken agreement, trailing off at the same time, sitting in silence until the notes fade away. I’m once again afraid to move, afraid to breathe, not wanting the magic of this to end.
Charlie stays still for several beats as well before scooting the piano bench back and standing up. She quietly closes the keyboard cover, removes the sheet music from the stand, and folds it down, putting everything in order for the next person to use.
The spell now broken, I loosen my bow and retract the endpin before packing up. Something of that spell remains, though, as we both go through the motions of putting our things away in silence.
After I’ve packed up, Charlie moves to the door and clears her throat. “Should we put the chair and stand away?”
I glance at them a moment, not wanting to take the time to do it, but knowing I should. “Yeah. Hang on.”
Setting my cello back down, I grab the chair and lift it, intending to put it in the hallway and drag it to the practice room while I carry the stand, but Charlie’s behind me, stand in hand. The practice room I took them from is now occupied, so I stick them in the next open one.
“Come with me to put my cello away, and I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Okay.”
Something has changed between us. Or maybe it hasn’t. But talking seems excessive right now. Our words are quiet, barely louder than whispers, as though talking in full voice would ruin the connection we’ve forged tonight.
Charlie keeps pace beside me as we head downstairs. For once, I don’t even feel like Gregor Samsa as I walk with my cello on my back. Gregor never had a pretty pianist walking next to him after the best date he could remember.
Once my cello is safely stored in its locker, we turn toward the door. I stuff my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching for her hand. I’m not sure if she’d welcome that or not. And I don’t want to overstep.
When we reach her car, she turns and looks up at me, her eyes shining under the lights in the parking lot, the sun long since down. “Thank you. I had a lot of fun tonight.”
“Me too.” I study her face, suddenly wanting to say so much more than those two pathetic little words, but unsure where to start. “We should do it again sometime.” I guess that’s something. Maybe a little lame, but it could be worse.
She smiles, her genuine smile, not the forced one she sometimes gives me. “I’d like that.”
A breeze picks up, ruffling her hair, and she shivers.
Before I even realize what I’m doing, my hands are on her shoulders, rubbing her arms.
She sucks in a breath, but leans into my touch, her face still tilted up to mine, her expression soft, open. Inviting. Her lips are pink and shiny in the lamplight, slightly parted.
Acting on the same instincts I followed while we played, I bend my head to hers. Tilting my head slightly so that our lips fit together perfectly.
Her lips are soft and pliant under mine. And even as some distant part of me cheers that I’m kissing her (Dude! You’re kissing her! You’re the man!) I begin to move back. Before I can, her hands grip my arms, her fingers curling into my skin, pulling me close as she kisses me back. Harder than the soft, tentative kiss I started. My brain reacts first (She’s kissing you back!), and my body is close behind. Stepping in even closer, I wrap an arm around her, keeping the kiss going.
Her hands slide up my arms, no longer digging her fingers into me, simply holding on like I’m holding on to her.
When she pulls back, there’s a soft smile on her lips. “Same thing tomorrow?”
With a low chuckle, I release her. “It’s a date.”
Chapter Six
Deceptive cadence: the most dramatic of any individual chord progression, where the chords move from dominant (V) to submediant (vi), rather than from dominant (V) to tonic (I) as expected.
Charlie
Damian and I have dinner together again on Thursday and spend a few hours in the instrumental rehearsal room playing through more music, which ends with more kissing. Friday is different, though. The university is hosting the Helios Quartet as a visiting artist, and Damian got us tickets.
I offered to pay for mine, feeling weird about letting him cover everything since I know I can afford it easier than he can, but he insisted.
We walk into the music building hand in hand after dinner at a fancy restaurant. He even made reservations. I’ve never had a guy go to this much trouble before. Usually our PR people would set up all the public appearances, including the restaurant reservations and organizing our activities. All we had to do was show up.
Nerves and excitement flutter through me every time I think about tonight and him and what all this means. This is our third date. And even in my string of fake and slightly-less-fake relationships, that’s a milestone. Damian’s been stepping up the touching with more kissing, even more tonight than last night. He kissed me hello, and before getting out of the car at the restaurant, and again after dinner. Plus hand holding, escorting me around with his hand on my low back, keeping me close to his side as we walk into the recital hall and get programs.
I shaved everything tonight in anticipation, and that seems to have been the right decision. Because I definitely think things will be moving to the next level tonight.
A grin comes to my face, and I squirm a little in my seat as we settle in. Damian glances over at me, and I beam a smile at him. He smiles back and reaches over the armrest to hold my hand, letting go so we can clap at the appropriate intervals.
I’m glad that he’s holding my hand, though, because apparently there are rules about clapping that I’m unfamiliar with. This is only my second recital—the first one was the faculty recital the first week of classes. That time we clapped after every performer.
The string quartet is playing multi-movement works, and I guess we don’t clap between movements. Someone started to after the first movement, and a few others joined in, but it quickly died out when the performers gave tight smiles of acknowledgment and kept their instruments up and ready to play.
At first I’m relieved that there are only a few pieces on the program, looking forward to the post-recital portion of the evening, but each piece seems to go on forever, making the recital last nearly two hours including the intermission.
After realizing that we’ll be here a while, I settle in to enjoy the music. It really is beautiful, and I especially love the last piece Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber. When it ends, the full recital hall gives the quartet a standing ovation. The performers’ faces beam at us as they stand and bow together.
After they leave the stage, the lights come up, and I start looking around for a professor, so I can get my program signed and we can decide where to go next—Damian’s place or mine. Damian’s fingers wrap around mine again, and he starts to tug me to the aisle. As if reading my mind, he bends his head close to my ear. “Since we have paid tickets, you don’t need to get a professor’s signature. You just staple your ticket stub to the program when you turn it in, and you’re good.
Come on. Let’s go see if we can talk to them for a few minutes when they come out.”
“Perfect.”
We mill around in the lobby while waiting for the quartet to come out. I keep looking around, hoping they’ll come out sooner than later. Just when I’m about to suggest that maybe we can go without talking to the performers, Zeke and Jason come over to say hi. Lauren waves and comes over too, Tamara and Madison, two of her friends that I’ve met before, following behind her. Once everyone is ensconced in conversation ranging from their opinions on the performance to their orchestra repertoire and a paper due soon in Music History, Lauren sidles closer to me. “Things are going well with you and Damian?”
Taking a tiny step back, I angle my body closer to her so that our conversation is less likely to be picked up on by the others, my giddy smile irrepressible. “It is.” I want to say a lot more than that, but not with everyone around.
Damian’s hand reaches out and wraps around my waist, pulling me closer to his side. Yeah, tonight is definitely a step up in where our relationship is heading.
Eyes dancing with mischief, Lauren leans in close enough to speak directly into my ear. “I’ll be in the practice room after this. Probably for an hour or two. Let me know when it’s safe to come home.”
“What’s all this girl talk going on over here?” Zeke’s booming voice cuts in. “Why’s Charlie blushing?” He points at Damian, Lauren, and me. “What’s going on?”
Lauren laughs, and gives him what I’m starting to realize is her signature eyebrow arch. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yeah, I would.” Zeke’s tone sounds like he’s talking to a preschooler. “That’s why I asked.”
But I’m saved from having to answer by the quartet coming out into the lobby. “Oh, look.” I point in the direction of the four string players who’re scanning the crowd. The department head approaches them and shakes their hands one by one. “Didn’t you want to talk to them, Damian?”
Broken Chords (Songs and Sonatas Book 4) Page 4