by Tillie Cole
“You don’t play anything else? No actual instruments?” There was a questioning lilt to her tone. Like she was privy to something about me I didn’t want her to know. It unsettled me.
I shook my head, stretching my arms and putting them behind my head. I wanted to tell her that mixing electronic beats was playing an instrument, but I didn’t even open my mouth.
“I play piano and guitar. A little violin too, but I’m not that great at it.” Her eyes narrowed on me. Like she was studying me. Testing me. “You can read and write music though, yeah?”
I nodded, thanking God when the coffees turned up and she stopped bloody talking. I drank mine like it was a soda. Sam saw and indicated he’d be back with a refill.
“Lewis wants us to at least have an idea of a theme. What the piece will be about. What we’re trying to say.” She tipped her head to the side. “Any ideas?”
“Nope.”
“I thought something like the seasons? Maybe something to do with nature? The idea of time moving, us being useless to stop it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sounds like a riot. I can just hear the sounds of birds threading through my bass beat on my laptop.” I was being a dick again. At least more than usual. I couldn’t help it around her.
She rubbed her eyes tiredly. “Cromwell. We need to just get through this, okay? Neither of us has to enjoy it. But we can work together. Plenty of musicians do it, have done it, and have created something good.” She took a drink of her coffee. “I preferred the idea of the seasons changing. That way we can incorporate more instruments and tempos.”
“Fine,” I said as Sam came back to the table and refilled my cup.
Bonnie sat back in her seat, sipping on her coffee. She stared at me over her cup. “Like what you see?” I asked, smirking.
She ignored me. “Lewis told me you were top of all your classes in London.” I froze, my muscles locking.
“Someone should tell Lewis to shut his fucking mouth.”
“I’ll leave that to you.” She rested her chin on her hand. “So how did you come here anyway? Visa?”
“Dual citizenship. I was born here. In Charleston.”
“You’re American?” she said, shocked. “I didn’t know that.”
“No. I’m British.”
She huffed in frustration. “You know what I mean. You were born here?”
“Moved to England at seven weeks old. Never even visited here since. So I’m about as American as good old Liz.”
“Who?”
“The Queen.”
Bonnie ignored that. “So your parents are South Carolinian?”
“Mum is.”
“And your dad?”
“Are we done here?” I snapped. We weren’t going anywhere near my home life. I pointed at her scrawl on the notebook. “Seasons. Lots of instruments. Mixed tempos. Probably going to be a piece of utter shite, but it’s what we’ve got. We’re done.”
Bonnie sat back in her seat. Her mouth was open and her eyes were wide. I had a flash of regret on seeing her face turn pale, but I frosted over again, like always. I’d gotten good at it now.
“Yeah. Whatever, Cromwell,” she said warily, pulling herself together. “I can take it from here.” I got up and threw my ten-dollar bill on the table. My chair scraped on the wooden floor, I got up that fast. The whole coffee shop looked over. Before Bonnie could offer to drive me home, I got the hell out of Dodge.
I walked down an alley, which brought me to the park that led to the campus. My muscles were jumping. I pulled out my cigarettes and sparked up, ignoring the shitty looks from the mums out with their kids. By the time I arrived at a large field, I’d inhaled three of the things and was suitably nicotined up. I sat down beside a tree and looked at the guy doing some kind of Tai Chi in the distance.
He looked like he belonged in a postcard.
I glanced up at the sun. The wind was still, and I laughed with bugger all humor when I heard birds singing above me in the branches.
Birds.
“Seasons,” I muttered under my breath. What a crock of shit.
But even as I sat there, trying to push the lame and done-too-many-times concept from my brain, I pictured a flute in short sharp bursts introducing the piece. I saw a single violinist bringing in the main melody.
Spring.
Yellow. All the shades of yellow on the spectrum.
I opened my eyes and curled my hands so tightly into fists that my fingers ached. Turning my torso, I sent my fist into the tree trunk I’d been leaning against. I pulled back my hand to see blood seep from the cuts the rough bark had caused.
I shot up from the grass and made my way back to the dorms, the blood dropping on the path back home. I needed my beats. I needed my mixes.
I needed to forget.
I threw the headphones that had been hanging around my neck over my ears and let the high volume drown out the colors and thoughts and images plaguing my head.
I pressed on a new playlist on my phone and lost myself in the heavy sound of garage and grime. It wasn’t the music I made. I didn’t even like it. I just needed to get my head away from Lewis, my parents, and Bonnie Farraday and her questions.
Easton was lying on his bed when I walked into our room. I took my headphones off. Easton stood and whistled low, shaking his head. “What have you done to piss off my sister, man?”
“I was just my usual charming self.” I moved to my laptop and started back up what Bonnie had interrupted. But I saw Bonnie’s shocked, hurt face in my head and it stopped me in my tracks.
Easton lay down on my bed. He was throwing an American football in the air and catching it again. “Yeah, well if your intent was to have her seeing red, good job.” He stopped throwing the ball. “So you’re having to work together?”
“Looks that way.” I added the faint sound of a violin over the tempo dip I’d been struggling with. A violin. The sound worked perfectly. I’d never opened my file of actual instruments. Never added them into my mixes before.
I took a deep breath.
Until now.
I forgot all about Easton beside me, too focused on the fact that I’d added in a bloody violin to my mix, until he said, “I get that she can be feisty, but take it easy on her, okay?” His words sank in, the warning clear in his tone. “Not sure she can handle your kind of crazy.” He shrugged. “Small-town girl and all that.”
He swung his legs off the bed. “We’re going to a bar tonight. And this time you’re not getting out of it. Jet lag’s gone. You’ve been miserable long enough. Now you’re just being an unsociable bastard. And I can’t have that. I have a reputation to protect.”
“If there are girls there, I’m in.” I couldn’t believe that I’d actually agreed. But I kept seeing Bonnie in my head, and I knew I needed her gone. I needed to get laid. That’s what all this was. Why she was getting to me so much.
“Finally!” Easton said and clapped me on the back. “I knew I liked you for a reason.” He threw the ball across the room into a basket. “Just bring your fake ID. You’ll be the perfect wingman.” He rubbed his hands together. “I’m gonna see the master at work. Been waiting for you to show me the way.”
“Not sure you need my help.”
Easton pretended to consider it. “Sure as hell don’t, but you and me, bro. We’re gonna be on another level with the chicks here.”
I moved to my closet, took out a clean t-shirt, and raked my hands through my unruly hair.
Tonight, I’d dip my wick, get plastered, and forget about the world.
It was too bad that, for the rest of the night, wide brown eyes and the sound of a single violin kept nagging at my brain.
Chapter Seven
Bonnie
“Bonnie, Cromwell, I need to see you after class.” My head lifted from my notes as Lewis spoke. I glanced back at Cromwell.
He hadn’t so much as looked at me since last week at the coffee shop. In fact, he seemed to be outright avoiding me. However, now, he eve
n avoided my stare. He leaned back on his chair, not even acknowledging that the professor had spoken.
Class was dismissed and I gathered my things. “You okay?” Bryce asked, casting an accusing glance back at Cromwell.
“Yeah.” I knew it must have been about the piece we had to compose. Even I knew when I submitted it that it was weak. I gave Bryce a tight smile and a hug. “I’ll see you later, okay?” He eyed Cromwell again. “I’ll be fine,” I insisted.
“Mr. McCarthy, this is a private chat,” Lewis said.
Bryce nodded at Lewis and left the room. I walked down to the professor’s table, where two seats waited. I sat down on one. I heard Cromwell’s heavy footsteps slowly walking down the stairs. A minute later, he slumped into the seat beside me. His cologne sailed into my nose.
It was deep, infused with a strong hint of spice.
This was the first time I’d had a close chat with the professor. Our private sessions wouldn’t start for another week. Lewis took out the outline I’d submitted and laid it on the table before us. “I just wanted to talk to you both about your potential composition.” I swallowed, nerves swarming in my stomach. “The premise is good. The outline is well written.” He looked at me, clearly knowing it was me who wrote it. “But the whole thing just lacked . . . for want of a better word, feeling.” I took in a long sharp breath as Lewis delivered that blow. I didn’t look at Cromwell. It was the same line I had delivered about his music in Brighton.
Lewis dragged a hand down his face and turned to Cromwell. He was staring at the floor. Anger built inside me. This boy never seemed to care about anything. How he was picked to come here, with his current attitude to music, and study under Lewis was beyond me.
“Vivaldi’s most famous work was The Four Seasons.” He read some of the proposal. “I want my students to be original. I want you to explore self-expression in your creations. I don’t want a recreation of another master’s work.” He leaned forward, and I could see the passion for the subject reflected in his eyes. “I want this to be your work. From your heart. Put into music what makes you tick. Trials and tribulations you’ve faced.” He sat back. “Tell me who you are. Put everything you are into the piece.”
“We’ll do better,” I said. “Right, Cromwell?” When he didn’t say anything in response, I felt like screaming in frustration.
Lewis got up from his seat. “Take the room. There’s no one in it until this afternoon. See if you can come up with anything else.”
Lewis left, and the room plunged into a deafening silence. I dropped my face into my hands and took a deep breath. It did nothing to calm me down. But when I looked up at Cromwell and his zero-shits attitude, my heart broke for the musician I’d thought he was. The one who apparently no longer lived within him. “Do you really not care?” I whispered.
He met my eyes. His seemed lifeless. Cold. “Not really, no.” His accent made his reply feel mocking and patronizing.
“Why are you even here?” I got up from my seat and had to rub my chest when my heart thudded and flipped around from the frustration that was building inside me. “You don’t play instruments. You don’t care about composition. I’ve seen you in our other classes, and you seem to enjoy them as much as you do this one.” Now I was on a roll I couldn’t stop. I paced, but I had to stop and put my hands on my hips when a sudden anger stole my breath. “I’ve asked you to meet me three times this week. You said you couldn’t do any of them. Yet I know you’ve been going out with my brother, getting trashed and screwing half the female student body.”
Cromwell’s eyebrow rose. His lip kicked up into a ghost of a smile. It was a big mistake. It broke me. “I’ve heard you spin, Cromwell. Don’t forget that.” I laughed. What else was there to do? I could see my dreams for this year slipping away like sand in an hourglass. “I took a train to Brighton to watch you, and all I got was disappointment.” I grabbed my bag. “From what I can tell you have no desire. No passion for music, and you’ve been squeezed onto an already full program for God knows what reason. I have no idea what Lewis sees in you, but whatever it is, he will be sorely disappointed when it fails to materialize.” I made sure he was looking right into my eyes. “I know I am.”
Calmer now I’d exorcised my anger, I stood in front of him and said, “Meet me tonight at Jefferson Coffee. We can try and fix this and make sure we both get a passing grade. Meet me there at seven.”
I didn’t even stop to get a response. Nobody had ever gotten under my skin the way he did. I burst out into the warm day; the summer’s blistering weather was starting to gradually cool. I propped my hand against the wall and made myself breathe, only moving when I heard voices coming from behind me. Slowly, trying to calm my racing heart, I walked to my dorm and lay down on the bed. I closed my eyes, but all my brain wanted me to see was Cromwell.
I thought of the video I had seen of him all those years ago. Where had that boy gone? What had happened to him to make him lose his passion? The boy I had seen on the many clips I’d sought out over the years had all but died. He’d once played with such meaning, such purpose and soul. Now, everything about him was cold. He played music that meant nothing. Made me feel nothing. Told the world nothing.
And my dream of doing well in this course was now firmly in his hands.
*****
“Another one, Bonn?” I looked up from staring out of the window to Sam, who was standing beside me with a nearly empty coffee carafe.
“No.” I gave him a tight smile. “I think I’ve been stood up . . . again.”
“Cromwell?”
“How did you guess?”
“Just a hunch.” Sam smiled. “At least you drink decaf. You’d be up all night if it was caffeinated.”
I smiled again, but I was sure he could see the sadness in my face. “I’ll just get my things and go. What time is it anyway?” A quick glance around the coffee shop showed me they were closing. Chairs were upside down on tables, and the floor was partially mopped. “I’m sorry, Sam. You should have told me sooner to go.”
“Not a problem. You seemed deep into your work. I didn’t wanna disturb you.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s eleven thirty, by the way. Just in case you were still wondering.”
I gave him another tight smile, then threw my bag over my shoulder. I pulled my sweater on. I was cold. And tired. I’d walked here from the dorm, needing the fresh air and exercise.
I made my way down Main Street and stopped when I passed Wood Knocks. It was the bar most people went to. They had a small club underneath when it hit midnight. If the Barn wasn’t on, then it was Wood Knocks that everyone went to. The dancing, cheap beer, and the casual attitude toward the mass of fake IDs were just a prelude to getting laid, really.
“Shots, motherfuckers!” I recognized my brother’s voice in an instant. I peered through the window and saw Easton standing on the table, his loud voice ricocheting off the walls. I couldn’t believe he was so drunk again. Just another thing that was worrying me. He was partying too much.
“Cromwell, get your ‘arse,’” he said in a terrible English accent, “here right now, boy!” He searched the crowd. “Where is he?”
A disbelieving laugh spilled from my lips. I walked away, leaving my brother searching the packed crowd, before I could see Cromwell’s face. If I did, I didn’t trust I wouldn’t make a fool of myself by storming in there and ripping into him for leaving me in that coffee shop for nearly five hours doing our joint work on my own.
I picked up my pace as I made my way back to campus, pushing myself more than was wise. I arrived at my dorm, but as my hand hovered above the doorknob, I changed my mind and headed for the music department instead. Even before Lewis had arrived at the college, the rooms were open to students around the clock. The faculty understood that the time of day wasn’t a factor when inspiration hit. Most artistic people were night people. At least the ones I knew.
I swiped my card and made my way down the hallway to a practice
room. I had just dropped my purse to the floor when I heard the sound of a piano drifting down the hall.
I stood near the door and closed my eyes, a smile etched on my lips. It was always the same. Whenever I heard music, something happened inside me. Music always seeped into me like damp drizzle on a cold day. I could feel it down to my bones.
Nothing in my life made me as happy as hearing an instrument being played as perfectly as the piano was now. I loved all kinds of instruments. But there was just something about a piano that simply made me feel more. Maybe it was because I would never play it as beautifully as the person playing it now. I didn’t know. All I knew was that the sound gripped hold of my heart and made it so I never wanted to let it go.
The piano stopped. I opened my eyes. I moved to go to the piano in my own room, but then the sound of a violin began. I stopped dead in my tracks and exhaled a short puff of air. It was perfect. Every movement of the bow. I listened harder, trying to place the piece, or even the composer. But I couldn’t . . .
And then somehow I knew—it was an original piece.
When the violin stopped, and the sound of a clarinet floated down the hallway, I realized that the sounds were coming from the largest room, where the loan instruments for the music education majors were stored. I closed my eyes and listened as whoever was in there played them all in turn.
I wasn’t sure how long I listened. But when a silence rang out, my ears mourning the absence of the most breathtaking music I had ever heard, I let out a deep exhale. It felt as though I hadn’t breathed through the tour of each instrument.
I stared at the closed door. The window panel was covered with a shutter. I stood, gathering my thoughts, and the piano played again. But unlike the other piece the musician had played, this one was different. It felt different. The slow notes were somber, the deeper tones the principal of the show. My throat clogged with the sadness the music evoked.
