Nocturne

by Andrea Randall

  “But you said love you when you hung up.”

  “Because I love him, Gregory. He’s my friend.” She shrugged, brought her flute to her lips, and ran through a scale, seeming to study my reaction the entire time. “What?” she asked when she finished.

  “You two were awfully … close in my class last semester. And all around town, if I remember correctly.”

  “I told you he’s not my boyfriend.” She chuckled and shifted the music on her stand once more. “Are you ready? The first twelve notes are all you.”

  But she loved him? This woman made no sense.

  “Does he tell you he loves you, too?”

  She swallowed hard. “Yes. We’ve been friends since we were, like, ten, Gregory. We grew up together. He … can we play, please?” Bemused, she shook her head again.

  “Certainly, let’s tune. C?” She nodded and I had just set my bow across the strings when she stopped me.

  “And, what do you care if he’s my boyfriend anyway? What was it you said? Your instructions ... it can’t happen again.” She said the words in a stentorian tone, mocking me.

  I’d foolishly hoped we could make it through one practice without discussing the night we’d spent together.

  “Sav—”

  “Don’t.” She put up her hand and straightened her posture. “Let’s just play, okay? You start.”

  I set my bow across the strings once again and took a measured breath. She took one too, in time with mine. I couldn’t possibly start without discussing this with her further. This was the precise reason I never mixed life with music. Things got messy. I didn’t want to turn down the opportunity to play with her, though, so I had to figure it out. Fast.

  My breath turned into a heavy sigh as I leaned my cello against its stand and set the bow down. Savannah rolled her eyes and put her flute on its upright stand, clasping her hands on her lap.

  “Is there a problem?”

  My proximity to her was maddening.

  The last time I was this close to her we were in bed … I couldn’t stand to be this close to her without touching her, and that was going to be a massive problem if we were to continue working together. I didn’t want it to be … I just wanted to touch her. Just one more time.

  So I did.

  I reached across the restless space between our bodies and gently set my hand on her thigh. The muscles up and down her thigh tensed in response.

  “W-what are you doing?” Her voice staggered a bit as her eyes fell to my hand and made their way up my arm before resting on mine. Her brown eyes were nearly black as her large pupils took me in, and her chest was moving faster as her breathing became softly more erratic.

  My mind froze. I had no clue what I was doing. I had no rational explanation for why I was sitting in a practice room at the conservatory with a student, helping her prepare for her senior recital on an instrument I knew little about. Or why my hand was on her thigh.

  My lips barely opened. “I don’t know.”

  She swallowed hard, never blinking or flicking her gaze elsewhere. “Don’t stop.”

  I leaned forward, watching the hue of her cheeks turn from sun-kissed pink to breathless red as I got closer. Never once did she look away from me. She shifted in her seat, turning her knees toward me. My hand trembled as I slid it from her thigh, over the curve of her hip and up her side until it came to rest at the base of her neck where I cradled her chin in my hand. Her eyebrows pulled in a little and she leaned her head into my hand, sucking in a long, deep breath. Her lips looked fuller, begging to be kissed.

  I considered pulling back, stopping this right then and there, but all the reasons I shouldn’t have been doing what I was doing vanished as her tongue tentatively slid across her lips, then disappeared back into her beautiful mouth. I brought my other hand to the opposite side of her face and pulled her face to mine. The tips of our noses touched as our mouths stood in a standoff, millimeters from each other.

  Exactly enough distance to make a fatal error.

  Nothing about her mouth was wrong. Nothing about the smell of lilies coming from somewhere between her neck and her hair was immoral. Nothing about my absolute desire for her was deniable.

  In the span of the blink of an eye, our lips were pressed together as if by a force outside either one of us. Her hands clenched the sides of my torso as a high-pitched sigh found its way from her throat into my mouth. Needing to feel her hair between my fingers, I slid one of my hands around the back of her neck and through her long, wild, impossibly soft hair. I was lost to her in that moment, and I never wanted to find my way out of that hole.

  Savannah

  The first thing I noticed the morning after Gregory kissed me in the practice room was that my lips were swollen, and my muscles tense and aroused. But it wasn’t the physical impact ... it was the emotional. Everything had changed. Again. We’d broken all the rules … then set new ones, and then broke those. That afternoon we kissed ... then practiced... then kissed more. The feel of his lips against mine was unexpectedly intense, fraught with tension, and thinking about it the next morning made me moan a little.

  I’d gotten back to my room that night after practice, and Marcia immediately saw something was going on. So, in slow, hesitant sentences, every moment thinking I was going to be judged by her, I told Marcia the story.

  Instead of the condemnation I expected, I got a hug. And then a near whispered, urgent request for details. We sat on her bed, talking and laughing, and for the first time since all of this started with Gregory, I didn’t feel like I needed to hide. After all, no matter how close we were, Nathan would never understand or support my love for Gregory. He would never approve. Honestly, I didn’t know if I even approved. Of myself. The more we kissed, however, and the more we said we loved each other, the less I cared.

  The next day I arrived to practice early. He was already there, and the door was slightly open, so I heard him playing as I walked down the length of the practice hall, my heart thumping with each step. I stopped outside the room to watch and listen. He was playing Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, a haunting and melodic composition.

  His back was to the door. I stood watching, my eyes taking in the muscles of his shoulders and the slight sway of his head as he played. For a man who kept his emotions under such tight constraints, the passion in his music was heart stopping. I stood, watching, arrested, until he finished. As I watched him play, I realized I was incredibly unsure of myself. Unsure of what our strange make out session in the practice room meant.

  Nothing about our situation had changed. I was still a student. He was still a professor. Moreover, he was still an arrogant, obsessed man who claimed that personal relationships had no place in his life. No amount of kissing could cure that.

  My insecurity washed away in an instant when he turned around, his blue eyes meeting mine. I felt his gaze all the way down my spine, and his eyes barely left me throughout the practice session.

  When we were finished, he set his cello in its stand and approached me. He lifted his left hand, tenderly cupping my chin.

  “Savannah ...”

  I swallowed.

  “We can’t do this,” I whispered. “Not here.”

  “Monday. Practice at my house. Six o’clock.”

  I nodded. Monday. His thumb slowly ran along my jaw, and I closed my eyes, leaning my head back slightly, my breath sucking in slowly.

  The moment ended too quickly. His eyes darted to the narrow window in the practice room door. We’d taken a terrible risk the previous day. The kind of risk that could end his teaching career and destroy my reputation.

  I couldn’t help but ask myself if the risk ... the thrill of that risk ... had enhanced the moment.

  Then he was gone, leaving me confused and lonely and unsure.

  The following Monday, I tentatively walked up Pinckney Street in Beacon Hill, my flute case in my right hand. It was a beautiful day, the sky clear, everything crisp. The beginning breath of fall breathed the slight
est chill into the air. It calmed my nerves, reminding me that he had invited me here. He’d said, “I love you.”

  Of course, in the back of my head, his full sentence continued to play out in my mind, because the words he’d said weren’t simply, “I love you.” They were I am in love with you, but there’s nothing I can do about it, and I’m sorry for that.

  Who says that?

  Gregory fucking Fitzgerald says that. Leaving me wondering what he was looking for, what did he want? Was he just playing with me? Was he looking for some excitement? Was he planning to have his fun then toss me aside, did he even know what the hell he was doing? Did he even know what love was? Because you don’t tag any stipulations onto the end of I love you. You just don’t.

  My thoughts and emotions were completely tied up in knots by the time I knocked on the door of his townhouse on Beacon Hill. Through the door, I could faintly hear his cello ... he was practicing the Kol Nidrei again and didn’t stop. I knocked again a second time, but he obviously didn’t hear me, because he didn’t stop playing. I shifted on my feet, my emotions wavering between irritation that he wasn’t answering the door to ... what?

  I couldn’t put my finger on it, until I saw a woman walking a dog the size of a pony down the street toward me. My eyes darted away from her, and I knocked again, harder. I swallowed as I avoided the woman’s gaze, trying to mute the confusion of my thoughts and feelings. Part of me was incredibly excited to be here, because I knew that while we’d practice, we’d likely be doing far more than that. But part of me was uncomfortable that I hadn’t demanded clarity from him, that I hadn’t insisted we explore exactly what those words meant when he said, I am in love with you, but there’s nothing I can do about it, and I’m sorry for that. Because I kept asking myself what my friends would think, what my parents would think.

  I shook my head as I finally raised a fist and slammed it into the door. I was almost ready to walk away. I felt like a stereotype—the young student with a crush on a professor—and it made me confused and ashamed and angry.

  After all that knocking, I was startled when he finally stopped playing and I heard the bolts slide back. Gregory opened the door and stood there for a second, his eyes glassy, his breathing heavy. He wore black jeans and a plain white t-shirt, and the faintest sheen of sweat made his forehead and neck reflect the sunlight.

  For the barest fraction of a second he stared right through me, as though he didn’t recognize me. Then his eyes darted to the woman across the street, then back to me. “You’re late for your lesson,” he said, loud enough for the woman to hear, then turned his back on me.

  I wanted to hit him.

  Instead, I followed him inside the house, closing the door behind me. All of my instincts were screaming at me to turn around and leave. He’d been hideously rude to me, and there was no reason for it. None at all. When his eyes darted to that woman and he’d spoken to me in the tone he had, he’d made it very clear. He was ashamed of me.

  He turned back toward me when he neared his cello. It was a beautiful instrument, not the workmanlike one he normally carried at the conservatory. He turned toward me, one of his hands moved over the curve of his cello the way a man touches a woman.

  I wanted to be touched that way.

  Wordless, I unsnapped the case for my flute and began assembling it, trying to still my confused thoughts.

  “Shall we begin where we left off Friday?” he asked, softly.

  I wanted to snort. Where did we leave off Friday? With his hand cupping my chin. With my entire body trembling in anticipation. With my emotions in tatters.

  It was better to take the question literally. “Yes.”

  And so we played. And no matter the chaos in my head, the music was anything but muddled or unclear. For the next ninety minutes we played without pause, and with barely a word spoken between us. It was intense, emotional, and brutal. As the melody passed back and forth between us, sometimes alternating, sometimes in unison, our eyes repeatedly met, and each time I felt raw, as if he were stroking the bow across my soul instead of the strings of his cello.

  For that hour and a half, I felt as connected to Gregory as I’d felt when we were making love. In truth, I felt as connected to him as I’d ever felt with anyone. What we created between the two of us was so much bigger than what either of us did alone. I literally felt the walls of my ego and isolation fall away, leaving me open, raw ... and vulnerable. I felt ecstatic. Beautiful. In love.

  Finally, he signaled enough. And as I placed my flute on its stand, he did the same with his cello and abruptly walked out of the room. I flinched, my emotions suddenly going into a tailspin.

  Not a word? Not a sign that he’d felt anything?

  Tentatively, I followed him into the kitchen. He stood facing the center island, his arms trembling from the continuous exertion of our practice, his back to me.

  I swallowed. I was afraid. I was afraid of what he might say right then. What was going through his mind? And so, slowly, I reached out and put my hand on his back, my fingers splayed out, feeling the tension in his shoulder and back muscles.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “What?” I said. Stupidly.

  “Savannah ... you’re a student. Can you imagine what it would do … my career... the conservatory ...”

  I stared at him. Unable to move. Unable to think. He invited me over here to say that? “I see. Well …” I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. “I’ll, uh, just be on my way then. I’ll see you later this week, right? Wednesday? Let’s go back to the practice rooms, though, if you don’t mind.”

  I hurried over to where my flute stood on its stand.

  I disassembled it and put it away without drying out the inside first. I would do it later. Right now, I needed to get the hell out of Gregory Fitzgerald’s house without bursting into tears.

  “Savannah, where are you going? We haven’t finished.” I couldn’t decipher if his tone had changed to one of arrogance again, or if it had remained the same this whole time and I’d become deaf to it. Either way, it infuriated me.

  “We are finished. I’ll see you Wednesday.” Brushing past him and racing to the door and down the stairs, I mumbled, “I can’t believe I was so stupid …”

  I grinned just slightly, imagining how up in arms he must feel to have a pissed off woman fleeing his apartment, on the brink of causing a scene. Gregory doesn’t do scenes. The grin didn’t last long though, as the weight of what I was actually feeling pressed down on my shoulders.

  “Savannah, wait.” It wasn’t a yell, but his tone was commanding, sending chills down my spine.

  I didn’t stop. He didn’t get to give me commands. I couldn’t turn around and face him. Not like this. He’d just made it very clear that what we were doing was an inconvenience. Some sort of a fling. Nothing that matched what I felt for him. He’d told me in Lenox that he was in love with me. And I believed him. Shit. I believed him, when all he wanted was to fool around with me behind closed doors. How did I fall into the pathetic professor/student stereotype? God.

  Shit.

  After a few minutes, and rounding my second corner, his footsteps were no longer following me. Looking over my shoulder I found nothing but an empty sidewalk. I’d taken the back way around his block and was now at the end of Mt. Vernon St., taking a left onto West Cedar, the school in my sights.

  I would ask Marcia to just do the piece with me for my recital. She’d love it. She was a little disappointed when I told her Gregory had offered to play with me, but as a musician she understood that he’d be able to pull my best out of me. Except for now. All he was able to pull out of me today was tears and the feeling of being cheap. Used. Part of some lonely musician’s premature mid-life crisis.

  “Savannah! Stop!”

  I did. Because it took me by surprise to see Gregory Fitzgerald running toward me. Running. I’d never seen him run, because he’s too important for things like rushing around. The world waits for hi
m. Or, so he thinks.

  As soon as it registered it was him, I walked faster. Not quite running, because I didn’t want to cause a scene. He caught up to me as I was about to turn left and make a break for the school. Wrapping his long fingers firmly around my upper arm, he spun me around. The force of the physics jam-up of our differing directions of movement caused us to slam into each other. His other hand grabbed my other shoulder and we stood there, unmoving, apart from our ragged breathing.

  “What do you want?” I looked right into his eyes, not wanting to allow him respite from the hurt I knew would be washing through them.

  People passed by on either side of us, hurrying to their appointments, classes, work, wherever. They had no idea I was staring into the eyes of the person I’d fallen unwillingly in love with. The person who held my heart in their hands. The person who’d just broken it by dismissing me so easily. So coldly.

  “I’m sorry. That came out wrong back at my place. I didn’t … I didn’t want you to leave, Savannah. I just … this is new territory for me.”

  “For you? Ah, yes, so you assume I’ve been down this road before. That screwing professors is just something I do.” I pulled back, wanting to sink through the sidewalk.

  “Damn it, Savannah,” he huffed through clenched teeth, “that’s not what I meant.” His jaw beat against his cheek like a bass drum as he considered his next words. Carefully, and so only I could hear him, he said, “I’m madly in love with you, Savannah. Madly. I can’t remember when it started, or how we ended up here, but I love you. It makes no sense, it’s incredibly risky, and, for the life of me, I just don’t care. I froze up back at my place, and I’m sorry. I’ve just never felt like this before. About anyone.”

  I relaxed a little, exhaling as I rested my forehead on his chin. Tilting my head back up, I saw his eyes were soft as he looked over my face expectantly.

  “I love you, too, Gregory. And I don’t care, either.”

  And right there, in broad daylight, on the corner of West Cedar and Acorn St., Gregory Fitzgerald pulled me into a deep, knee-weakening kiss.