Night Music

by Jenn Marie Thorne

  “I’m . . .” I winced. “Not sure what you mean? Oscar’s someone in my life, but I wouldn’t say I’m living for him.”

  Her face fell. Then she smiled. “Okay. Well. That’s ideal. Text me after your stalking session!”

  She blew me a kiss and trotted down the block and up the steps to her apartment, and I stood on the sidewalk, mulling.

  No, I decided. This is ridiculous. I’m going to give him space. And myself. Why rush to define the relationship? If it even is a relationship—we’re hanging out, seeing where it goes, right?

  I texted Jules at 4:02. What’s the right outfit to stalk somebody?

  The reply came instantly: Earth tones or grays, classic lines, soft soled flats, ponytail.

  “Okay then,” I said out loud. “I guess I’m doing this.”

  22.

  bad idea. I hit West Sixty-sixth Street. So many levels. Sixty-fifth.

  When I stepped onto the plaza, I expected to feel the same controlled panic as last time—an astronaut bracing for reentry—but the place seemed to have lost some of its turbulence.

  Maybe because I had a singular purpose this time. It wasn’t stalking—it was truth-seeking. Totally honorable.

  I seemed to remember Amberley’s rehearsal schedule being fairly regular. Mornings for class, afternoons for sectionals, evenings for full orchestra rehearsals. I “seemed to remember” it because I used to sit in the back of Lilly Hall and watch them, sure I’d be among their ranks one day. It was easy to be sure when you were nine.

  I stepped into the ice-cold lobby—empty, good start—and listened. There was no sound in the auditorium except someone talking, too far to hear. I stepped forward, tentative, and then—

  The orchestra erupted.

  It was familiar, stone and color and wind. I squinted, listening, trying to identify the composer . . .

  “Oh my God,” I mouthed. “Oh my God!”

  Soundlessly screaming, I opened the door to the auditorium, sliding inside to crouch in the last row. All the house lights were up, but there were a lot of lookie-loos, and not one head turned to see who had popped in. They were all staring forward.

  Watching Oscar Bell conduct his own symphony.

  It was the theme he’d played me, but hearing it on my piano had been like watching that single light shoot up in the sky before the fireworks go off. Now they had exploded, unexpected colors, a million new directions, and I was stunned. I didn’t know where this chair, this floor, this hall ended and I began.

  I only knew, with absolutely certainty, how I felt about the composer.

  The second theme came in. The Romantic theme, Dad had called it. I held my breath, listening to it tease and hide and caress the first theme, heal it like balm on a livid burn. It felt like a whispered message meant only for me.

  But then, from my hiding spot behind a row of seats, I saw who was playing it. First violin. She was standing up, watching Oscar as she drew out the notes with her bow, piercing in their beauty and longing. It was gorgeous enough to make you believe she was feeling it. That he was too.

  The orchestra swelled with a syncopated march beat that I picked out as the sound of the subway, the swoosh and stop and sway and stop. But my eyes kept darting between Oscar, his broad back, hair bobbing, arms flying, and that violinist, playing so beautifully. She was astonishing.

  She was impaling my heart with every note.

  The strings rose for a bar, then Oscar waved his hands and dropped them and everybody stopped.

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Oscar shouted. “That was great, but if you can get to that fire, that”—he made a loose fist—“oomph by bar twenty, it’ll make that pizzicato more jarring. Does that make sense?”

  The string section laughed and nodded. A man—Reinhardt, the regular orchestra director—tapped his watch from the side of the stage with an indulgent smile, and Oscar straightened as if startled.

  “Ah crap, that’s it! That’s all we have time for tonight, thank you guys so much, this has been amazing. Will be amazing.”

  He put down his baton and the orchestra settled, starting to chat. I shrunk into a seat, wondering whether to escape now or continue my recon. The violinist beelined for Oscar as he stepped away from the podium and that made the decision for me.

  I froze, watching. She touched his arm to whisper in his ear. He threw his head back to laugh, exposing the elegant length of his neck like he was inviting her to kiss it. She curved her body into that telltale S shape that meant “I’m into you.” And then he leaned forward . . . and whispered back.

  See, this—this made sense! So much more sense than me and Oscar, whatever we were. They could have such a future together. Midnight music sessions, a joint concert tour, a dozen brilliant prodigy children, who was I to stand in the way? And I’d find someone else. A Joey. Joey was great! Nice, friendly, above-average at math, an easy keel through a normal life . . . it was lovely, inevitable. I would get used to the feeling of my heart hemorrhaging with every beat. Totally fine.

  I slid from the aisle the exact moment Oscar turned.

  He saw me. And he did not smile. He looked stricken.

  He had something to hide. He cared enough to want it hidden.

  I started away, but Oscar raced up the aisle, hand outstretched to intercept me.

  “You heard.”

  “I did.” My voice shook even on those two little words.

  “It’s not anywhere close to ready, but they want me to start working it with the orchestra so that I can move on to the second movement . . .”

  I had to sit against the stiff back of a velvet seat, I was so thrown. Was he not hooking up with that girl?

  “If I’d known you’d be listening, I don’t think I could have gone through with it.”

  “The rehearsal? I . . . why?”

  He took my hand and ran his rough thumb over it. “Because I want you to think I’m brilliant.”

  “You are brilliant.” That’s the problem. That’s the whole stupid problem. “This . . . symphony is . . . it’s true, you know? It has breath in it. A soul. I . . .”

  My eyes welled up. I was such a lunatic.

  Oscar’s eyes were glistening too. “You like it?”

  I could only nod—overcome with relief, with wild affection, with recognition of how much I’d missed this.

  “It wasn’t—?” he started.

  “It was incredible, Oscar.” I finally let myself smile. “It’s going to be—”

  He stopped me with a kiss so fervent, the ground, the chandeliers, the entire hall disappeared around us until all of existence consisted of our two bodies, floating in space. When he pulled away, smoothing my hair, Lilly Hall crept back in, detail by detail, blurry with unreality.

  I glanced back at the orchestra and saw the violinist’s head darting quickly away, like she’d been watching. She did have a crush. I no longer blamed her.

  “Do you need to get back?” I nodded to the stage.

  “No, I’m done. They’re rehearsing Ralph Vaughan Williams next. He couldn’t make it out tonight to conduct.”

  “Being dead and all?”

  “Unprofessional, but what can you do?” He pulled a frown and I laughed. “Shall we?”

  We stepped into the plaza, our shadows stretching endlessly along the flagstones.

  “So I haven’t—” I said, as he blurted, “I’m sorry I haven’t—” He chuckled, uneasy. “Go on.”

  “I was going to say something along the lines of long time no see.”

  “And I was going to say something along the lines of sorry I’m such a hermit asshole stereotype of a musician.”

  “Oh, that old expression.” I nudged him with my shoulder while I listened hard for the real answer.

  “I’ve been in a fever, all this music coming out since we went to the Clois
ters. Since we . . .” He drew a breath and seemed to hold it. I held mine too, remembering a few nights ago. “I needed to orchestrate the first movement and all the pieces seemed to come together.”

  “You did all the orchestrations in the past two days? How—?”

  “I haven’t really been sleeping?”

  Now that I was looking more closely, Oscar seemed thin. His hands were trembling. He caught me looking and shoved them in the pockets of his pants.

  Thunder rolled somewhere to the east, the light shifting orange.

  “So have you been home this whole time?” I asked. “I would have helped you, you know. I could have brought you food or—”

  “I didn’t want to bother you. You’ve got your own life.”

  His words were an echo of what he’d said before I went to Nora’s. An echo of Jules’s words too. They heartened and worried me.

  We stopped at a crosswalk. A drop of rain hit my head. Oscar looked up as if he could identify the source.

  I turned to him, blood pumping. “Okay, so, I really don’t want to be ‘that girl’ and I know we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, so this might sound like it’s coming out of left field, but what—?”

  “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

  I blinked. “Do I . . . ?”

  “I feel like I’m eight. Check one for yes, two for no.” He bit his bottom lip, eyes alight.

  “You had girlfriends when you were eight?”

  “Elisa Meyers, lasted three days, what’s your answer.”

  “Yes.” My voice sounded like I was eight. “Yes, option two, I will be your girlfriend.”

  Oscar hugged me tight, his mouth pressed to my forehead, rocking me back and forth. Then he murmured into my ear, “Girlfriend was option one.”

  I poked him in the ribs. He laughed and dodged away. The rain started coming down hard. We ran across the street, holding hands, but were already drenched by the time we hit the opposite curb.

  “Ack!” I let out a mock-scream, head ducked to avoid the deluge.

  Oscar pulled me to a corner store, and I thought for a second he was leading me inside, but then he stopped us outside the flowers, under the awning where the scent was thickest, and kissed my wet face. My forehead, my cheeks, my chin.

  He glanced up at the flimsy awning. “Can’t have my girlfriend getting wet.”

  “How gallant.” I could barely think, I was smiling so much. “There’s this expression, ‘Don’t like the weather in New York? Wait five minutes.’ Hardy-har-har.”

  How was I still talking with his mouth tracing the curve of my neck?

  He straightened, staring into my eyes. “Every city has that expression.”

  “Not Phoenix.” I nodded, just as serious. “It’s sunny all the time.”

  “We should go there,” Oscar said, edging us back into the rain. “We should go everywhere.”

  I pulled him faster. “Let’s start with home.”

  23.

  my clothes were saturated, cool and clinging. I felt every inch of my own skin and I wanted it bare. I wanted to feel him peeling these stalker earth tones off me.

  Oscar’s pockets were so sodden, it took both of us to tug his keys out. I had my own, but I liked the feeling that this was his place, not mine, that I was being invited in.

  He danced me inside and the door swung shut, pushing a damper pedal on the rest of the world. His white button-down shirt was practically translucent. I started to unbutton it, neck to waist, airing one inch of beautiful brown skin at a time, and his breathing went funny. His head dipped low, watching me, then he ripped the shirt off like it was hurting him and reached for me.

  I kissed him like this was the only chance we’d ever get—it might have been, with Dad coming back in a matter of hours—but he touched me, languid and slow, making me move even faster.

  I started to tug my shirt up. Oscar hesitated—just a beat—then bunched the wet fabric in his own fingers and pulled it up over my head. I laughed, stumbling. This looked so much more graceful in the movies. But then his mouth was on my neck and his fingers were dipping gently below the line of my bra and I was all nerves, all want.

  Before it could overwhelm me, I pulled him to the bed. He lowered himself over me, eyes hazy and eager. But as I arched my back, lifting my mouth to his, he blinked hard, waking himself up from a spell.

  “Ruby . . .” He brushed my wet hair from my face. “We should slow down.”

  “Why?” I ran my fingers along his smooth back, thrilling at the shiver he responded with. I didn’t want to slow down. I wanted to charge ahead, know what I was missing. I reached for the button of his pants.

  He drew a sharp breath, then pulled my hand away.

  I felt my body freeze in a rolling tide from my toes to my face. He didn’t want to. I was his girlfriend as of tonight and we’d run through the city in the rain and we were all alone and it wasn’t going to get more romantic than this, so what could be . . .

  I sat up. “Do we need to get protection?”

  I wobbled on the word protection. I’d never said it in this context in my life.

  “Ah . . . I do have some condoms. After the other night . . .” Oscar motioned upward, indicating the spot where my piano bench sat. “I guess I was feeling optimistic.”

  He was smiling, but he was also shifting as far across the dorm bed as he could get.

  “Well, great. So . . .” I felt really naked now. And wet and cold, with Oscar’s window-unit AC aimed straight at me.

  “Oh, crap, let me get you a towel,” Oscar said, hopping off the bed. As he walked away, my skin went goose-bumpy. I crossed my arms over myself, weirdly ashamed, like I’d thrown myself at him instead of reciprocating.

  He draped a striped beach towel over my shoulders like a queen’s mantle. “I think this is a little fast. I mean, I’m gonna sound like you now, but it feels like we just met. Do we know each other well enough for . . . this?”

  My mind raced back to the museum, his rebuttal. “I know you better than you think.”

  “Really?” His eyes lit, playful.

  “I know your favorite composer, whether you’ll admit it or not.”

  “Who?”

  I whapped him. “Come on. ‘The man’?”

  He almost smiled. “What else?”

  “Um.” I bit my knuckle. “The way you write, the way your fingers move when you’re composing in your head . . .”

  I demonstrated, a tiny spell.

  A grin flashed over his face. “Fair enough. But . . . there are key things we haven’t even . . .”

  “Oh.” I waited for him to admit it—the cause of the tension I could still see whirring underneath his smile. Was it what he’d started telling me that night at Wing Club, the feeling he had of being on parade?

  But he shrugged. “Your non-summer life. My life back home. My friends, my school, your friends, your school. Whether I have pets. I realize this sounds stupid—”

  “You have a beagle.” I tucked my knees under the towel, the fever of a few minutes ago feeling more like an illness now. “Sorry, go ahead.”

  Oscar let out a frustrated groan. “I don’t want to be some fling for you.”

  I closed my eyes, reliving that shock of emotion I’d felt tonight listening to his symphony. Not fling. Catapult.

  “Anybody else, not you. I don’t want to wind up some story you tell your friends, about that time you were seventeen and . . .” He cleared his throat, nervous. “This feels more important than that. To me.”

  I started to reply, turning the word fling over in my head one more time, but then he blurted, “I haven’t done this before, is the thing. I’ve done . . . other things. There are girls I’ve gone out with, but I haven’t had sex.” He watched for my reaction. “So that’s why I’m, ah, jittery?”

  “
I haven’t had sex either. I . . . haven’t done anything? I haven’t been with anyone at all, I’ve kissed two guys before you, one at a middle school party and another at Wildwood, but neither of them were anything like this. So.”

  Silence filled the room. I hoisted up the beach towel and tried to bury myself under it.

  He tugged it below my face so he could cup my cheeks.

  “This is good. This is what I want to know. I think I . . . I had the wrong take on you. I’ve been catching myself trying to, like, woo you with my musical prowess—”

  I almost cackled. “What?”

  “I know. I’m gonna dial it back, I promise.”

  “There’s nothing to dial back. Wait, what was your take on me?”

  “Ahhhh.” He nestled next to me, playing with my hair. “I think your friend Jules threw me. All the, like, society stuff you do with Ms. Visser. And the way your family joked about you never having a serious boyfriend. I figured you were, you know, on the scene, different guy every week . . .”

  “If by guy you mean Ben and Jerry’s flavor, then maybe.” I blinked hard, rebooting. “Yeah, no. That girl, out at the club, it was a life I was trying on. A different one from my own. And . . . ditto the philanthropy stuff. Society. Whatever.”

  “So what is your own life?” His voice was quiet.

  The only things that sprang to mind were choices I could eliminate: musician, socialite, Vogue editor, normal teenager. “I don’t know yet.”

  The corners of his eyes crinkled up. “Best possible answer.”

  “Really?” I relaxed into the pillow, turning to face him, our noses nearly touching. “It feels scary.”

  “Life should feel scary. It means you’re living it. I don’t know what my life is going to look like in ten years. I have no fucking clue.”

  “Oh good grief.” I grinned. “You’re going to be a star, Oscar.”

  “A star what?”

  “Composer, conductor, international ambassador to the classical music world. The toast of the cultural scene wherever you go. And whatever else you want to be.”