Solo (Symphony Hall)

by Lauren E. Rico

  “What? A winter coat? What the hell are you talking about?”

  I can’t follow his line of thinking, so he fills me in.

  “Yeah, well, look at you. It’s thirty degrees out and you’re wearing a hoodie. And, before you feed me some bullshit about leaving your coat at home, I haven’t seen one on you in the last six months.”

  Wait, wait, wait…

  “Y-you’ve been watching me for six months?” I ask, sounding a bit shakier now because I am a bit shakier now. I see, with growing dismay, that this guy isn’t your garden-variety journalist out for a quick pic and a sound bite. He’s one of a very specific, very tenacious breed known as a stalkerazzi. And that makes him more than a nuisance. It makes him dangerous.

  He shrugs, as if reading my thoughts. “It hasn’t been that hard, you know. I mean, all you do is go to class and work. No dates. No friends. Why is that, Katie? I’d have thought a pretty girl like you would have some hot trumpet player in your bed by now. And judging by the way you’ve been drooling over me for the last twenty minutes, I’m guessing it’s been awhile since you’ve had anyone in your bed.”

  That’s it. I reach for the handle of the door so I can get as far away from this guy and this car as fast as I can. But the handle doesn’t budge. I poke at the button, but he must have some child safety feature so it can’t be unlocked from this side.

  “Open the door,” I say flatly.

  “Oh, now, Katie, don’t be like that. You know your dad’s bill is gaining momentum, right? He’s in the spotlight now, and all signs point to a presidential run. I’m just wondering why you aren’t a part of his campaign? Come to think of it, why aren’t you a part of his life? I mean, his only daughter, and him being a widower and all. You’re his only family. And yet, you’re never anywhere to be seen. You refuse to give interviews. You’re never quoted in the press. He doesn’t mention you. Ever. Why is that, Katie?”

  If he calls me Katie one more time, I’m going to wrap my hands around his neck until his eyes pop out onto the dashboard.

  “Open. The. Door,” I say in the most menacing tone I can muster. But he just prattles on, hoping, I’m sure, that I’ll give him something that he can use against my father. Against me.

  “Near as I can tell, you haven’t been home to Virginia in years. You spend the holidays by yourself up in that dumpy little apartment of yours. I mean, I don’t know how you do it. What is it, like two hundred square feet? You’ve got a nice view of the mountains, but still. Put a little color on the walls or something, it’s depressing as hell in there.”

  I can only stare at him, my mouth hanging open. Oh. My. God. He’s been inside my apartment!

  “What are you going to do when he comes here in a few weeks?” he’s asking even as I’m trying to sort through this mess in my head.

  Whoa! Wait just a minute. Did he just say my father is coming here? Since when? Seeing my shock and confusion, the son of a bitch starts to chuckle.

  “Surprised by that, are you? He’s part of the panel at a bipartisan town hall that the Poli-Sci department is sponsoring. Word is, he might even announce his intention to run for president.”

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. It’s time to put on my big girl panties and take back the power in this situation. I pull the phone out of my pocket and snap a picture of him.

  “Hey!” he objects. “I didn’t say you could do that.” He stops himself and breaks out the obnoxious grin again. “Okay, okay, I’ll give you that one, considering I’ve done the same thing to you about a thousand times.”

  The smile fades as he watches my expression darken. Like I said, I’ve never had a good poker face, so I’m quite sure he’s getting the full effect as my emotions pass across my features. Shock, followed by indignation, finally settling on rage. And I must be telegraphing loud and clear because he pulls back a fraction of an inch.

  “Listen up, you James Bond wannabe,” I hiss. “You’re going to let me out of this car and I will never see you anywhere near me again. Because, if I do, Kevin, I’ll call the Washington Post and give them an exclusive, including how I was stalked by a rival paper. You don’t think they’d just love to discredit you? To paint you as a lame little gossiping tabloid? And after the Courier has worked so hard to shake that image. Your editor won’t be happy. And what would that do for your reputation, Kevin?”

  Something shifts in his features and it’s arresting. A cool hardness settles in his eyes and his mouth turns up into a sardonic smile. And just like that, the nice hot guy is gone. This is who he really is, right here. And it’s pretty damn scary. I work hard to keep the edge to my own glare. I know his type, and if he gets even a whiff of weakness, I’m toast.

  “Oh, Kate, Kate, Katie, Kate,” he taunts me in a singsong voice. “Do you really think you can scare me? You have no power and, it would appear, you can’t even make use of your father’s. So, why don’t you just give me something I can use and I promise not to bother you again? For a little while, anyway.” He chuckles.

  I don’t say another word; I just pick up my phone and press nine-one-one. He’s looking at me quizzically, thinking I’m bluffing, I’m sure. I put it on speakerphone so he knows I’m not.

  “Hello?” I say when the operator asks the nature of my emergency. “My name is Katherine Brenner and I’m being held in a car against my will. I’m on the campus of Shepherd University in a white BMW, Washington DC license plate LVJ 2214. It’s parked in the Arts Complex lot in the far northeast corner. Please hurry.”

  Before I can hang up the phone, the locks click open and he reaches over to unbuckle my seat belt.

  “How the hell did you know my plate number?” he asks incredulously. When I don’t answer, he decides he’s had enough of me. “You want out? Fine. Get the fuck out of my car, you bitch,” he says, giving my shoulder a rough shove.

  My turn to smile now.

  “Never mind,” I say into the phone. “I’m out. No need to send a car. I’ll come by the station later today. I have a picture of the guy and I think I know where he works.” I end the call and start to get out.

  He reaches for me again, but he stops short when I hold up a single finger and shake my head no. “Not unless you want an assault charge,” I threaten.

  “Oh, please.” He sneers. “You won’t do it. You won’t even follow up with the police. We both know how much you hate the publicity. I mean you’re already detested by your classmates and most of your professors. Isn’t that right, Katie?”

  I don’t respond. Instead, I open the door and pull myself up and out, snatching the microphone as I go. It unravels in a trail of black wire that leads to a small recorder in the pocket of the passenger door. He lunges forward to grab it, but the seat belt holds him back as I scoop it up and stick it into my pocket.

  “I’ll be taking this with me,” I say, slamming the door at the same instant that he erupts into a screaming tirade. I cross the parking lot at a jog, purposely dodging in and around other parked vehicles, just in case he gets any smart ideas about running me down. When I look over my shoulder again, he’s still glaring at me and I can see his mouth moving. Now his window rolls down, and he’s yelling something about freedom of the press. I flip him off and run into the building.

  My heart feels like it’s going to pound right out of my chest. Not because of the jackass I’ve just left outside, but because of the one who’s waiting for me inside. And, God help me, I’m not wrong.

  Chapter Two

  Drew

  It’s easy to hate her. Much easier than liking her. I know it’s wrong. I know I’m wrong. Katherine Brenner can’t help that she’s tall, with long, dark hair that falls around her shoulders in soft waves. It’s not her fault that her blue eyes are specked with gold and that she has delicate, pale skin. Or that her lips are the color of fucking rose petals. I mean, what’s not to hate?

  Katherine Brenner is a dead ringer for the woman who absolutely obliterated my heart.

  She doesn’t think
I know that she’s there. After all this time, she’s still under the mistaken belief that if she slips into the room quietly and takes a seat at the back, I won’t even notice she’s late. Oh, but I do notice, even with my back turned. I finish writing the details of the assignment on the whiteboard and turn around, my gaze scanning the back of the room until it lands on her.

  “You’re late, Miss Brenner,” I say flatly. “Again.”

  A blush spreads across her face. “I’m sorry, Dr. Markham,” she begins. “I was—”

  “Miss Brenner, please spare us the excuses, you’ve already taken up enough class time.”

  She responds to my chilly tone by clamping her lips into a straight line and locking her jaw. She doesn’t say a word. I cock an expectant eyebrow.

  “Well? Don’t you think you owe the rest of the students—the ones who bothered to get here on time—an apology as well?”

  “I’m sorry,” she mutters.

  “How about you try that one more time?”

  I can feel the resentment coming off her as she gets to her feet, her eyes never leaving mine. It’s a dance we’ve done before.

  “I’m sorry to have disrupted the class,” she says to no one in particular.

  “Fine. You may sit down,” I say as I turn back to the board, confident my point has been made.

  “Are you sure there isn’t anyone else you’d like me to prostrate myself before?” she says just loud enough for me to hear. There is a collective gasp across the classroom.

  With a sigh, I come around to the front of my desk and lean up against it, arms folded, head tilted. Her classmates fidget around us, torn between leaning closer to get a good look, and pulling back to avoid the impending explosion.

  “No, Miss Brenner,” I reply at last. “I can’t think of anyone right now, but I’m sure I will. I’ll get back to you when I do. In the meantime, why don’t you bring your things and have a seat right up here by me?” I nudge an empty desk in the first row with my foot.

  Someone snickers and a few others join in hesitantly, testing the waters to see if I’ll call them on it. I don’t. Without further comment, she picks up her backpack and wiggles her way through the rows of desks to take the seat that I have indicated. Once she’s seated and I have a good look at her, I notice immediately that she appears disheveled, as if she’s been in a tussle. And pale. Is that blood on her temple? Christ. I’m tempted to ask her what the hell she’s gone and done now, but I ignore the impulse, instead reaching for the box of tissues sitting behind me on my desk. I pull out a wad and hand them to her, leaning closer so no one will overhear us.

  “You have something on your forehead,” I murmur.

  “Oh. Thank you,” she says in barely a whisper, her cheeks coloring. I watch while she dabs at the cut. After a few seconds, she looks up again and I continue, just as softly.

  “I’d like to speak to you when class is over.”

  She gives me the slightest nod of her head.

  I’m not supposed to hate students. Or like them, for that matter. I’m just supposed to teach them to the best of my ability. Yeah. Right. Easier said than done.

  Temporarily satisfied, I stand up straight again and clap my hands together. “All right, please pass your homework forward to my desk and let’s talk about the midterm projects, shall we?” I brighten up and walk back around to the board on the far wall behind my desk. I write a date at the top in red then underline it for emphasis.

  “As you all know, they’re due at the end of the week. And I’ve decided to cancel class on Friday so you can take the time for any last-minute preparations.”

  A soft murmur of excitement ripples across the classroom.

  “You can have up until Friday to get your paper in. But,” I say with emphasis, “I think you all know by now that I leave early on Friday afternoons. So, if you plan to take advantage of that extension and turn it in on Friday, you must deliver it to my home by five p.m. There is a cylinder attached to the bottom of my mailbox, where the newspaper goes. You can leave them there. Please do not put them inside my mailbox, that’s against the law and I’d hate to have to sick the Postal Inspector on you.”

  A soft chuckle from around the room.

  “Please don’t ring my doorbell,” I continue. “Please don’t slide it under the door, or give it to my neighbor or tie it to a brick and throw it through the window.”

  Some snickering and a couple of amused faces. Yeah, I know at least one or two of them who’d happily deliver their papers that way.

  “I’m serious,” I warn, scanning the room and making eye contact with as many of them as possible. “I’m going to walk out of my house on Friday at 5:01 p.m. and if your project isn’t where it’s supposed to be, then too bad for you. In fact, I strongly encourage you to get it in before Friday so you don’t have to worry about that.”

  We spend the next half hour going over the details of the assignment until the clock strikes eight forty-five. I send them on their way. All, that is, except for Katherine Brenner. She’s sitting silently, staring down at her hands and waiting for me to finish making notes at my desk. Her hair hangs down on either side of her head like a dark-brown veil. Finally, I take my glasses off, rub the bridge of my nose, and sigh.

  “Miss Brenner,” I begin wearily, “you and I have a long history. And not a very good one. You don’t have much time left before you graduate. That is, assuming you do graduate.”

  She sits up straight, eyes widening. When I slip my glasses back on, I notice the nasty-looking gash on her forehead is bleeding again, a thin trail of sticky crimson wending its way from her hairline to down behind her ear. I hand her more tissues and she gets the idea.

  “Ugh,” she grunts in frustration.

  “You might need a few stitches,” I point out.

  “Yeah, I know,” she mutters in response.

  “I want you to be crystal clear on this point,” I say, poking the ink blotter on my desk with my index finger for effect. “I expect you to be on time every day between now and the end of the semester. No sneaking in after class has started. In fact, I want you in that seat for every class. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Dr. Markham, I understand,” she says, keeping her voice soft and even.

  I shuffle through the stack of papers on my desk—the assignment that they just turned in. When I come across the one with her name on it, I hand it to her. She looks perplexed.

  “I’m not accepting your homework assignment,” I explain and her eyes widen in disbelief.

  “But it’s done,” she protests, her calm exterior cracking all at once. “The assignment is done, Dr. Markham!”

  I shrug unsympathetically. “Then you should have made sure it was in on time.”

  I watch her take a deep breath, close her eyes for an instant, and start again. “Dr. Markham,” she grits, “I was three minutes late to class. You hadn’t even asked for the assignment yet,” she reminds me.

  I shake my head.

  “Miss Brenner, I’m done discussing this. You might as well take those papers and dump them in the trash can, because I won’t even consider them at this point. So, I strongly suggest you turn in a spectacular midterm project to help make up for the grade.”

  I can see the wheels turning. She’s furious. I’m sure she wants to tell me off, but she knows how close she is to failing my class. And if she wants to graduate on time, if she doesn’t want to spend another year waiting to take this class again, she doesn’t dare risk pissing me off any more than she already has. I’m surprised by what she does dare do, though. Katherine Brenner leans toward me and locks cold, blue eyes onto mine and, for one disconcerting instant, I feel like she can read my thoughts.

  “Why do you have to be like this? What’s the point?” she asks with more curiosity than animosity.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She shrugs.

  “I’m a human being, you know? I have a complicated life outside of this classroom. What are you? Four,
maybe five years older than me? You were in my shoes not so long ago and you know as well as I do that things happen, Dr. Markham. Things that are out of my control.”

  I feel a wave of irritation wash over me. I don’t care how close in age we are. I don’t like being lectured, especially not by one of my students. Especially not by this student.

  “Miss Brenner, you are on extremely thin ice here,” I say coolly. “I think you’d better go now before one of us says something we’ll regret.”

  She gets up without another word, abandoning her assignment on her desk and walking out the door without so much as a glance back.

  Chapter Three

  Kate

  People tend not to believe in things they can’t see. That is, until they see them. That’s how it was with The Ghost and me. Oh, I knew he existed. I just didn’t believe all the crazy rumors about him. How could I? There were ridiculous tales about freshmen who’d gone missing, evil-eyed curses, and bodies buried in the quad.

  His actual name is Russell Atherton and, once upon a time, he was the toast of the classical music world—the next great conductor. But, after the untimely death of his daughter, Russell wasn’t much interested in toasts, conducting, or anything else. He became a hermit in a small cabin, not far from Shepherd University. And he probably would have stayed hidden away from society, had it not been for Maureen Clevenger, Dean of Music at Shepherd, and his ex-wife.

  She convinced him to take a token position as Conductor-in-Residence. His worldwide reputation was enough for the university to sign off on the rather unorthodox employment offer. And that was the beginning of The Ghost. He’d walk the halls in the wee hours, startling the crap out of the music students who liked to practice late into the night. Like me.

  And, it should be said, Russell Atherton is a creepy looking guy. He’s tall and thin with skin so pale that it practically glows. He has long, silver hair that he wears in a ponytail down the middle of his back. And his pale-blue eyes are so light that they look creepily vacant.