Nocturne

by Andrea Randall

  “Tired, Gregory?” Madeline set her now-empty mug on the coffee table, eyeing me teasingly.

  I was tired. But, I wanted to listen to Savannah tell more of her story. Her history. Truth be told? I wanted to sit and listen to her voice until sunrise. It was as melodic as the notes that came from her flute.

  “I know I am.” Savannah yawned and stood. “Thank you both for dinner, it was lovely.” Her eyes lingered on mine and I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to.

  James held out his hand for Madeline. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “Thank you,” Madeline whispered.

  As they walked through the door, Savannah stepped forward and around the coffee table. As she slid past me I caught a whiff of her perfume. She still smelled like lilies. Clearing my throat, I caught up to her as she reached the door.

  “Savannah, I enjoyed chatting with you this evening.” My voice shook with an unsteadiness foreign to me.

  Her tender smile calmed the buzzing through my body. “I did, too, Gregory. Thank you.”

  As she turned for the door again, I found myself not wanting her to leave. But I had no reason for her to stay. Maybe just a few more seconds. “Savannah, you didn’t touch your coffee, was something wrong with it?”

  She said she’d like some coffee, I’m sure of it. I’d asked if they wanted to stay for coffee, and she said, I’d like that. With her back to me, I watched the tops of her ears lift a bit as she smiled.

  Looking back over her shoulder, she spoke quietly. “I don’t drink coffee.” Biting her lip, her eyelashes brushed the apples of her cheeks as she looked down and away and headed toward Madeline’s car.

  My heart raced as I watched them pull out of the driveway and down the street.

  I don’t drink coffee, either.

  Savannah

  It had been a few days since Madeline and I had dinner with James and Gregory, and here the four of us were, sitting in the faculty ensemble together near the end of the first week of orchestra camp. While most of the staff played together in the BSO or other ensembles, I felt like I didn’t belong. At all. Sure, they were all nice and welcoming when I sat down. But, as James handed out a few sheets of music he wanted us all to play, my nerves started firing.

  I can’t blame it all on the music though. Gregory was only a few seats down from me, sitting behind his cello. I knew that was the one. I couldn’t remember the maker, or how old it was, but I’d read in Music Trades that he’d taken out a mortgage on his family home on Beacon Hill to purchase it.

  The man had more interaction with his cello than with any human. Realistically, I knew this to be more the rule than the exception with musicians and other performers. Most musicians are married to their craft. Except maybe my father, who walked away from his life in the orchestra pit to raise me as normally as possible. He had shared his wife with the opera for over twenty years. Now I often wondered how their relationship would look once they resumed life in the States.

  As Gregory warmed up, the muscles in his shoulders and forearms flexed and relaxed with each note. It bothered me that his stomach-clenching eyes were closed, but it also gave me an excuse to study the rest of his face. I often had to remind myself how young he was. He was barely thirty-one, even though his attitude, manner of speech, and general outlook on life suggested he was much older.

  “Don’t be nervous, Savannah.” Madeline playfully nudged me with her elbow. “I wouldn’t have asked you to join us if I didn’t think you could handle it. You’re going to do just fine. This is supposed to be fun.”

  “Fun?” I chuckled. “Fun is playing on a city street corner or in the grass somewhere. Fun is not sitting in a room full of musicians you’ve admired your whole life, preparing to play with them. It’s exciting … I’ll get back to you on the fun.” I arched my eyebrow and took a deep breath as James commanded our attention. I thumbed through our music as he spoke.

  “First of all, I want to thank you all for a great first week with the students. I know it’s not over yet, but I think we can all agree that the students get more talented each year. While that makes some parts of our job easier, the challenge lies in continuously pushing them to do better. We have a great staff on hand to accomplish just that.” James nodded once to Gregory, who nodded back.

  The cellists on campus were all thrilled to be working with Gregory, by the sounds of things, while all the other girls swooned every time he walked by. Watching him roll his tight shoulders back and stretch his neck side to side caused my mind to drift to what it would feel like to be pressed up against his muscles.

  For three weeks I’d watched the high school students part as he walked down the hallway ... whispering behind their hands, eyes wide. I wondered if I would have giggled along with them if I was a student.

  Yes.

  His quiet command, even when doing something as common as eating a sandwich, left me staring. The way his jaw worked, how his eyes scanned the room as he took a drink … every little thing about him pulled me in.

  Viewing him as a colleague over the last few weeks, and the casual environment of James’s house for dinner, I was intrigued to see another side of him. While he was still reserved, it no longer looked pretentious. He looked focused, passionate, and intense. I found myself anxious to know what was going through his head most of the time.

  I’d caught the tail end of some of his private sessions, as I was walking through the halls. While he was stern with his students, he taught them to let the instrument tell the song’s story. Such a beautiful statement that he never once shared in class. I wondered why. He was certainly expressive whenever he played; it was his rigid ideas of what music could be that I found … frustrating. Why not bend the rules and create something new when he had such command over everything else?

  “This year,” James continued, “we want to have more fun and play around with duets and smaller groups apart from larger pieces. It’s not often some of us get to play together one on one …” He continued his introduction as I turned more pages of sheet music.

  The pieces were fairly standard, easy if you’d been playing for twenty years, I suppose. I liked that. Madeline might have been right, maybe they really did view this as fun. Playing pieces everyone knew well gave the opportunity to make them sound out of this world. And, maybe have a little fun with them? Glancing quickly at Gregory, I guessed there wouldn’t be much rule bending here. His eyes met mine and he gave a slight nod and a half-smile.

  Holy shit, a smile.

  Moving my eyes back to the music, I gasped when I turned to the last page.

  “What’s wrong?” Madeline leaned in to see what I was looking at.

  I whispered, as James was still rambling about something. Man, he was long winded. “This is the third movement of Assobio a Jato. I know this.”

  “What? Why don’t I know that you know this?” Madeline twisted her lips accusingly. She knew better than to think I’d stick solely with the music she assigned.

  “It’s nothing. I was thinking about playing this at my senior recital and asking Marcia to accompany me.”

  Madeline’s eyebrows shot sky-high. “Oh, you were just thinking of adding this to your recital program and are just mentioning it now?” Her playful tone caused me to roll my eyes.

  “Just … shh,” I teased, sitting back in my chair.

  “Okay,” James seemed to be finally wrapping up, “why don’t we let Gregory pick the first duet piece. We have lots of string opportunities since we have lots of strings hanging around this year.” James laughed a little as he headed to his seat, where his violin sat in wait.

  “Let’s try the Assobio a Jato.” Gregory stood and moved to the seat in front of the ensemble.

  What? This piece was not up Gregory’s alley—at all. Was he trying to branch out? For someone who seemed to be musically stuck in the nineteenth century, this was odd.

  “Have fun, Madeline,” I teased, grinning from ear-to-ear. Madeline and I were the only flutes in the
ensemble. Since she and Gregory had known each other for a lot of years, I figured she’d played with him at least once or twice. But, Madeline is a lot like me—free in her interpretation of sound. I was anxious to see how she would play with him in this piece.

  “Uh-uh.” Her grin mirrored mine and made me nervous. “You want to practice this piece for your senior recital without telling me? Get up there and prove it.”

  My pulse raced. She couldn’t be serious. “No way. Stop. Just … get up there.”

  “Madeline?” James raised an eyebrow in our direction from his seat.

  “Actually, Savannah should do this one. She’s been practicing this for her senior recital … evidently.”

  Gregory’s eyes shot to mine and my stomach plummeted through the floor. This wasn’t happening.

  “Really? Fantastic.” Damn James and his cheerful attitude.

  “I, uh,” I cleared my throat, shaking my head, “it’s … I shouldn’t …”

  Gregory’s eyebrows pulled in, and I watched him take a careful breath. “Nonsense, Savannah. Come on up.”

  Not wanting to make a further bumbling spectacle of myself, I took my own measured breath, stood somewhat shakily, and made my way to the other seat.

  “Do you mind if I stand? It sounds better when I stand,” I whispered.

  “By all means.” He gestured awkwardly with his hand.

  I couldn’t believe I was about to do this. I wasn’t nervous about the notes—I’d mastered those months ago. I wasn’t concerned with the other members watching me play—I’d played solos for most of them at one time or another during my years as a student here.

  It was him.

  Any time he played, either in the classroom or with the BSO, I was rendered speechless. He commanded my full physical attention with each note he drew from his strings. When he played, it was like it was the only time I was granted access inside his head. It was fascinating, and frightening, and heartbreaking. So much so that I often held my breath as he played, paralyzed by the sheer beauty of the music swallowing every negative assumption I had of him. Now, I was expected to play with him. God, I was about to play with Gregory Fitzgerald.

  Shake it off. You’ve played in front of him before.

  Once I adjusted my stand, I looked down at him and gave a nervous smile. His eyes smiled back, and he nodded once before starting the piece. He had twelve notes before I had to enter, and I spent all of them watching the way his body moved behind the cello.

  Gregory

  As always, Savannah’s posture was perfect, back straight, her feet spread hip width apart. For perhaps a fraction of a second she met my eyes, and I jerked my eyes away, down to the level of her hips. Then I set the bow to the strings, mentally preparing myself for the first notes. I knew this piece well, though it was an unusual one for me.

  Unusual because two months before, I’d walked by the practice rooms late in the evening at the conservatory. I’d heard her playing before I saw the door to one of the practice rooms cracked, just enough to let the music out. She’d been practicing it.

  I recognized the notes, of course, but it wasn’t one I’d played before. A flute-cello duet. Later that evening I’d gone home and practiced until the music became part of me.

  Now, she adjusted her music stand then looked at me with a quick smile, quickly gone. I nodded, encouraging her. Despite myself, I found myself take in a sharp breath as she raised the flute to her lips.

  Six notes, repeated twice, from the cello. Two measures, rising arpeggios, slightly dissonant, and as I played them she took a breath, her back straightening, arms riding slightly in the air, and then she began to play the melody as I continued the bass rhythm underneath. I’d played this part through a hundred times by now and knew it as intimately as any music I’d ever played. So, while I did not divert attention from my own playing ... I watched her, making slight adjustments to match her volume and pitch—which was impeccable—as she began to play the fanciful, almost playful melody.

  To my surprise, I found that the longer we played together, the less I had to think about it. It became effortless. I knew this music by heart, and it seemed she did too, and her eyes moved as she played, focusing on me, then away, then back. They were liquid, huge, and as her body swayed slightly forward during a particularly difficult run, I caught my breath because it was as if she was speaking to me in a private language only we knew. The room had somehow narrowed, only the two of us, and the music between us.

  I don’t think I’d realized before just how beautiful Savannah Marshall was. It’s not that I’d never noticed her … I’d observed her dirty blonde hair which she usually left free and wild, her large brown eyes, the dimples that sometimes appeared on her cheeks when she smiled. Her free and loud laugh when she found something amusing. The curve of her hips, which swayed as she walked, the swell of her breasts. I’d seen all of these things. And felt a tiny scar on her bottom lip as my tongue swept slowly across it.

  I’d also seen her mind: quick witted, incredibly intelligent, opinionated, talented, brilliant. Her talent, her intellect, surpassed that of the vast majority of students or adults I’d known, and it was breathtakingly attractive.

  And then, there was the music. The beautiful sound of her flute drifting down the hall of the practice rooms was commonplace in the quiet moments of my mind. Even three years ago during her audition she’d shown poise, talent and practiced skill that surpassed virtually all of her peers.

  But here? Sitting across from her in the semicircle of our peers on the faculty, our eyes occasionally met, softening, bridging the distance of what had been a tempestuous relationship. Here, the tendrils of music emanated from us both for the first time, winding like a braid, the threads tightening together, faster, more in sync, beautifully wound up into something much bigger than the separate cello and flute parts that each of us played alone.

  As we reached the crescendo I looked into her eyes and found her looking right back. I sucked in a quick breath, trying to keep it quiet while my head felt light, my hands now playing the notes on the cello on instinct. Her face was flushed, eyes wide and watering, and I felt as if we had moved closer together in that room. Our bodies were the same distance apart as they were when we’d started, but something had changed between us. She hadn’t simply just become my musical peer. There was something more humming in the vibrato between our bodies.

  I almost stumbled when she shifted the melody, changing the rhythm and dynamics several times on the fly. My brows pulled together and I adjusted the baseline, watching her eyes closely. She met my eyes ... then had the nerve to wink at me. Against my will, I found myself grinning as I adjusted to her change. We continued from there, playing the song, but with playful adjustments that suited the light mood we’d created.

  As I drew out the final measure, the final note from my cello, I was momentarily at a loss. She took a deep breath, lowering her flute to her side. I looked at her red tinted cheeks, her full, passionate eyes, and I surrendered to it.

  The music.

  Her lips.

  I wanted her.

  Savannah

  My cell phone rang as I got ready for our second to last day with students. I nearly jumped out of my skin in excitement as I saw Nathan’s name pop up on my screen.

  “Hey you!” I shrieked into the phone.

  “Hey, doll. That’s quite a greeting. Summer’s going well, I take it?”

  I could tell he was wearing his best dimpled smile.

  “It’s been amazing, Nathan. So much more than I expected. The workshops were intense, but the students were great. I’ve missed you, though.”

  He sighed, long and heavy. “I know. I’ve missed you, too. It’s just been so—”

  “I get it. I really get it. No need to explain.”

  Nathan and I had spent most of the summer texting here and there, but hadn’t had much time to talk on the phone. I was busy with the Institute, and he was settling into his new Chicago apartment and starti
ng rehearsal with the symphony. He was practicing extremely long hours and, for Nathan, I was impressed. He knew as well as I did how rare it was for someone right out of school to get a seat with one of the Big Five, and he did. He was determined to keep it and developed an incredible work ethic seemingly overnight.

  That meant less time to talk, though. Or to have much of a life at all. I knew he was practicing extra hard to make an impression and really “earn his keep,” but it still had me wondering if the professional performance life was for me. At least at a major symphony like that. I hadn’t talked about it with anyone—my thoughts about doing something other than playing for a symphony once I graduated—because no one asked. As I excelled further and further in my skill at the flute, it seemed to be assumed by everyone—myself included—that this would be my life. Playing. Going as far as possible and staying there until I couldn’t do it anymore. Following in my mother’s footsteps. And my father’s, at least until he chose me over the orchestra pit.

  I didn’t know if I wanted to have an either/or life. Was that my only choice? Looking around at all the people I admired most, it seemed that was surely the case. My parents did the best they could with a compromise situation, but that resulted in some combination of us feeling lonely at one time or another. My mother asked me to Italy whenever she had the chance, and it got harder to go the older I got. And, while James and Madeline seemed to be engaging in some heavy-duty flirting—though I was too shy to ask her about it—they worked in the same place and played for the same orchestra. That could be easy for them. Not many people are lucky enough to find someone at work. Then, there was Gregory. Married to his craft. His only friends were Madeline and James, that I knew of. I hadn’t seen much of that woman from the campus offices—Karin, I think her name was—since the night I saw them out dancing. I often teased him internally for being broody and dramatic, but I had no idea if he was lonely.