Symphony in Blue
Page 25
“That’s quite noble of you.”
Gwen shook her head. “Not really.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear we won’t be losing you as well.” Rhode smiled and gave her shoulder a light squeeze. “Roland Yves came to the board last night to announce that he will be retiring after this season, and I’m quite looking forward to seeing you trounce anyone who dares challenge you for the principal cello position. He should make the formal announcement sometime in the next week or two, so if you could keep that to yourself…”
“Of course.” Gwen laughed softly. “Thank you.”
“All right,” he said, tipping his head at the stage door. “I’ve kept you long enough. I will relay what you told me to the board, but rest assured that it will go no further.”
“Thank you, Albert.”
“My pleasure, Gwen.” He offered her his hand. As they shook, he added, “Again, I apologize for putting you on the spot with this.”
“It’s fine.” Gwen smiled as she pulled her hand away. “I understand. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the Bowl. Have a good rest of the day.”
“You too,” Rhode said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts as they made their way across the stage to the stage door. Once they reached the backstage area, he gave her one last nod and then turned toward his office.
“So, what was that about?” Luke asked when Gwen got back to where they had left their cases. He had finished putting his instrument away while she had been talking with Rhode, and had opened the lid on hers to make things easier for her.
“Mallory,” Gwen murmured, keeping her voice low. “The board wanted to know what my plans were should she win the audition.”
“Damn. Really?”
Gwen shrugged. “I mean, come on, can you really blame them for wanting to know what’s going on and how many seats they’ll need to hold auditions for?”
“Not really. But still…what’d you say?”
Gwen leaned over her case as she laid her cello into the soft foam that protected it and said softly, “I told him I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. And he told me that Yves went to the board last night to tell them he’s stepping down after this season.”
“Dude! No way!” Luke cheered. He winced at the glare Gwen shot him and added in a much quieter tone, “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Gwen waved him off and began wiping down the body of her cello.
“They’re gonna keep that info on the DL though, right?” Luke asked.
“Yeah.” Gwen nodded as she slid the scrap of rosin dusted cloth into a small crease in the case. “He said they would.” She looked around the emptying backstage area and sighed. “It’ll just be nice when this whole thing is over.”
“You’re telling me,” Luke muttered.
Gwen laughed and rolled her eyes as she closed the lid of her case and began flipping the latches shut. “Okay, Luke.”
“Whatever,” Luke retorted. He held out a hand and pulled Gwen to her feet. “And, for the record,” he said as he waited for her to shoulder her case and gather her purse, “I meant that I can’t wait for you to be done with this clusterfuck. I don’t like seeing you so unhappy.”
“I’m getting better,” Gwen pointed out as they began making their way toward the elevator.
“You are,” he agreed quietly. “You’ve seemed much happier since you’ve started spending time with Dana.”
Gwen shook her head at what he was insinuating. “It’s not like that. We’re just friends.”
“Sure you are,” he agreed easily. “But the fact remains that you, my dear girl, are the happiest you’ve been in the last year and a half at least, and all I’m saying is that I think Dana Ryan is a big part of that.”
“We’re just friends,” Gwen repeated.
He nodded and punched the call button for the elevator. “For now, sure. But who knows what’ll happen.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen,” Gwen insisted as the doors in front of them slid open. She added in a quieter tone that held far more regret than she would ever admit to, “After everything that happened, she’d never…”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Luke countered as he stepped into the car beside her.
Gwen shrugged and pressed the button for the parking garage level where they always left their cars. “Still.” She swallowed thickly, recalling the awkwardness of the weekend before when Mallory’s name had come up. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”
Luke’s expression softened, his caramel-colored eyes gentling with understanding, and he sighed as he pulled her into a one-armed hug. “I love you.”
“Love you, too.” Gwen leaned her head on his shoulder and smiled when she felt his cheek press against the top of her head, only breaking apart when the elevator stopped and the doors slid open.
“I’ll be around later if you need anything or just want to chat,” Luke said as they stepped out of the elevator.
Gwen nodded and pulled her keys out of her purse. “Thanks.”
Luke smiled and blew her a kiss. “My pleasure, sweetie. Now, git. From what you’ve told me, I don’t think you want to keep her away from her food for too long.”
“You cannot say anything about that to her,” Gwen warned as she slid her cello across the backseat and buckled it into place.
Luke grinned. “Why? Worried she’d challenge me to an eating contest or something.”
Gwen laughed and shook her head. “You’d lose,” she told him as she slammed the car door shut. “But it’d be fun as hell to watch.”
“I’ll have to mention something about it to Regan, then,” Luke mused playfully. “She’d help.”
“God, she so totally would,” Gwen agreed. “Please don’t.”
“For now,” Luke allowed with a wink. He pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked his car. “Later, Harrison.”
“Bye, Benoist,” Gwen replied with a smile as she opened her car door. “Thanks.”
He tipped his head in a small bow. “Keep smiling, babe.”
“I’ll try my best,” Gwen promised.
TWENTY-NINE
Gwen adjusted the shoulder straps of her cello case as she made her way down the sidewalk that ran along the side of the student recreation center, grateful for the shade the buildings on either side of the path provided. She would have brought the instrument with her regardless of the temperature just because she didn’t trust the security of the parking structure to guarantee that her cello would still be there when she returned, but she did feel somewhat justified in her paranoia since the thermostat in her car on the drive over had registered highs in the low three-digits despite the fact that it was still before noon.
She pulled her phone from her purse as she made her way down the stairs at the front of the recreation center and saw the brick arches that framed the main entrance to the Uytengsu Aquatics Center, and pulled up Dana’s number. The call was answered on the first ring, and she smiled as she said, “I’m here.”
“Excellent. I’m just finishing up on deck now, so I’ll run up and let you in.”
“Okay.” Gwen nodded to herself and dropped the phone back into her bag, her gaze sweeping over the familiar landscape of the campus as she made her way slowly along the sidewalk fronting McClintock Avenue. She’d never paid too much attention to her surroundings as she hurried from the parking structure to Thornton, and she was genuinely surprised to find that she had been teaching not even a quarter-mile from where Dana spent the majority of her days.
“Hey!” Dana waved from the gate she was holding open. She looked every bit the swim coach in her black shorts and USC Swim tee with her sunglasses shoved up on top of her head, and Gwen was struck by the pure joy sparkling in Dana’s bright blue eyes. “You find the pool okay?”
“Oh yeah.” Gwen chuckled and nodded as she walked through the gate. “I actually pass by here once a week on my way to Thornton for my class.”
“No way. Really?” Dana grinned and pulled her sunglasses
back into place as she fell into step beside Gwen and motioned toward the pool deck. There were a handful of divers milling about the smaller pool, some winding their way up the stairs to the various platforms while others bounced mightily on the diving boards, twisting and turning in the air before slicing into the water with barely a splash. “We’ll go this way. I need to get some stuff from my office. How did I never see you before?”
“I honestly have no idea how we’d never run into each other.” Gwen hooked her thumbs under the shoulder straps of her case as they strolled along the side of the larger pool that had cardinal and gold lane lines cutting across the width of the placid surface. “Where are your swimmers?”
“College kids are gone, but a few of my club swimmers are hanging out in the lounge.” Dana pointed at an open room about halfway down the pool on their right that was framed by a stack of accordion glass doors.
Gwen’s eyebrows lifted in shock when they got closer and she saw that the lounge had a sitting area with six leather chairs in front of a large flat-screen television that was mounted on the far wall and a foosball table in the far back corner of the room. A half-dozen bronze-skinned swimmers still in their suits were reclined in the chairs watching a movie Gwen didn’t recognize. “Wow.”
“Right?” Dana laughed. “They’re spoiled rotten,” she said loudly, and grinned when the movie was paused and six sets of eyes turned toward them. “Practice ended an hour ago. Don’t you guys have anything better to do?”
One of the swimmers, a shockingly beautiful woman with short black hair and piercing green eyes grinned and said, “Nope. Perk of being a sponsored athlete between games. We’ve got nothing better to do until weights this afternoon.”
“Must be nice,” Dana teased with a wink.
“Please, like you weren’t the same way when you were training full-time.” The woman laughed. She ran a hand through her hair and turned her attention to Gwen. “Hey there. I’m Haley.”
Gwen smiled and lifted her right hand in a little wave. “Gwen.”
“Hi, Gwen!” the rest of the group chorused, grinning up at her like a group of friendly schoolchildren.
Dana laughed and rolled her eyes. “You guys are ridiculous. Anyway, we’ll let you get back to your movie. I’ll see you in weight room later.”
“You going to lunch?” one of the guys asked.
“Nah, Gwen came down here just to meet all of you,” Dana sassed.
“Well, we are pretty awesome,” Haley drawled with smirk. “It was nice to meet you, Gwen.”
Gwen nodded. “You too.”
“My office is right up here, above the pool house,” Dana said as they started walking away from the lounge. She waved toward the two-story brick building at the end of the pool that had a wide span of glass accordion doors across the main level that had “Fight On” pasted across the panes with those see-through window decals and a balcony with what looked like four sets of windows above it. “Are you okay to climb the stairs, or would you rather take the elevator?”
“Either’s fine,” Gwen said as she followed Dana through a brick archway tucked to the right side of the glass doors of the pool house.
Dana nodded and turned up the stairs. “This is faster,” she said as she began to climb. When she reached the top she asked, “Would you want to leave your cello in my office while we go to lunch?”
Gwen had hung back a bit to follow so she didn’t bump Dana with her cello in the narrow stairwell, and she looked around interestedly when she stepped out onto the balcony. The dive tower at the far end of the complex was imposing even from this height and distance, and Gwen marveled at the courage the lone diver currently standing on the top-most platform must posses to launch themselves into the air to tumble into the clear blue-white water below. She didn’t know a lot about swimming competitively, but even she was able to tell that the facility was quite impressive. “If you don’t mind, that’d be great, thanks.”
“Of course.” Dana waved the keycard that was attached to a lanyard she wore around her neck in front of a flat black box on the wall and then pulled open the door. “After you.”
Gwen smiled and tipped her head in a small bow as she passed Dana, and looked around interestedly as she stepped into the offices. The walls were a bright white and the carpet an industrial mid-tone gray, and there were the predictable accents of cardinal and gold throughout the space. Six offices with glass walls that left them open to the hallway faced the pool, and there were two meeting rooms and another four offices on the far side of the corridor that were equally public and overlooked the side of the parking garage where she had left her car and Dedeaux Stadium where the baseball team played. It was much more modern and bright than she had expected the offices for an athletic program to be given the condition of her own shared office in The Music Complex, and she whistled softly. “I think the music program is getting gypped.”
“Unfortunately, that’s probably true,” Dana agreed as she stopped beside Gwen and pointed down the hall. “My office is the last one on the left. How’d your rehearsal this morning go?”
“Fine.” Gwen shrugged. “Rhode—our conductor—is starting to ramp up for the season so it was a little more intense than we’ve been doing all summer, but it felt good to be pushed again.”
“What’s your season?”
“September through June.” Gwen slowed as they neared Dana’s office to allow her time to open the door.
“And how many times a week do you perform?” Dana unlocked the door and motioned Gwen inside as she pulled it open.
“It depends on the schedule, really.” Gwen looked interestedly at the pictures hung over a low black leather couch on the wall opposite Dana’s desk. “Besides the full symphony, I also play with a chamber music group, so some weeks it could be as many as five or six performances, and others might only have two or three.”
“You can just put your cello wherever. What’s chamber music?”
“It’s just a smaller ensemble. There are different groups depending on the instruments involved but, in my case, most of the time it’s a string quartet.” Gwen slipped her cello from her back as she leaned in closer to look at the pictures. There were a variety of shots, most of them of Dana with other swimmers laughing or posing and just having fun, and she pointed at picture of Dana with a crown of laurels on her head standing on a medal stand. “Where was this one taken?”
“That’s…” Dana moved closer to see which photograph had grabbed Gwen’s attention. “Athens. That’d be either for the 50 or 100 free, because I silvered in the medley and the 100 fly that year.”
Gwen bit her lip and tried to contain the shiver that rolled down her spine at the feeling of Dana’s breath against the back of her neck. “So you won two gold medals that year?”
“Individually, yeah. And then I picked up another couple in relays. Considering it was my first Games, I had a pretty good meet.” She leaned in closer to point at a picture of her hanging onto the side of the pool with an earsplitting grin. “That one was after my very last race in London. I ended up with a silver in that one, but it’d been a really rough meet for me so I was just so pumped to podium one last time.” She pointed at the picture just above it, which showed her and three other women huddled together in various warm ups and jackets. “And that one is me and the rest of our 400 Free relay team in the ready room in Beijing.”
“Damn,” Gwen muttered.
Dana laughed. “It was fun.”
“Where are your medals now?”
“Um, they're in a box in my closet at home.”
Gwen’s mouth fell open as she spun to look at Dana, who grinned at her obvious shock. “What? Why?”
“What else am I going to do with them? Have them mounted in shadowboxes or something and hang them on my wall like a grown-up version of the trophy shelf I had in my room when I was a kid?”
Gwen nodded, looking at Dana like she was insane because that was absolutely what she should do. “Yes.”
“No, that makes perfect sense,” Gwen murmured. She stared at Dana, feeling like she was, in a way, seeing her for the first time. “You're an Olympian.”
Dana chuckled. “Paralympian. But yes. And you knew that because I saw you watching my speech that night at the gala, so why…” Her voice trailed off, the slight arch of her right eyebrow finishing the question for her.
“I don't know.” Gwen shrugged. “I guess just seeing these”—she waved at the pictures—“and listening to you just now made it, I dunno, more real, or something. You’re just…” She shook her head and smiled, making no effort to try and mask the awe she felt. “You're incredible.”
The laughter in Dana’s expression gentled into something softer and so tender that it made Gwen’s breath catch. She bit her lip as her right shoulder twitched like she was going to reach for Gwen, and then sighed quietly as she instead took Gwen’s cello and leaned it against the corner of the office between the arm of the sofa and the windows overlooking the pool. Her hands hovered in the air above the case for a moment until she was sure it wouldn’t tip over, and she ran a hand through her hair as she turned back to Gwen with an almost pained half-smile quirking her lips. “Yes, well, now you know how I feel whenever I see you play,” she murmured. Her brow pinched for the briefest of moments, her gaze thoughtful, like she was debating saying something more, but she instead shook her head and made a move toward the door. “Anyway, you ready to go grab some lunch?”
“Sure.” Gwen nodded, unable to keep her confusion from showing on her face as Dana she reached for Dana’s arm. When troubled blue eyes that swirled with emotion landed on hers, she whispered, “Did I say something wrong?”