Allegra

by Shelley Hrdlitschka

  “Legs!” He jumps up and grabs my arm, helping me down the stairs. He gently guides me over to the couch, and I sit down. He settles in beside me.

  “What were you just playing?” I whisper.

  His cheeks redden as he looks down at his hands, folded in his lap. “I’m sorry, Allegra. I know I shouldn’t have snooped, but I found your flash drive in your backpack and I listened to your composition.”

  My whole body clenches. “You shouldn’t have listened to it.” I hear my own voice, thick and raw. I don’t know why I’m so angry, but I am. Maybe because it’s all I have left of Noel…the music, so intimate, so private.

  “I know it was wrong.” Dad looks mortified. “But I listened to it over and over again. I’ve been so worried about you. I wanted to figure out how to help. The music…it is…” He stops, unable to find the words. “It is…simply breathtaking,” he says finally. Now he looks directly at me. “I think I understand…” His voice trails off.

  “Understand what?” I whisper. Can it be? Could he possibly understand? I feel the first trace of hope I’ve experienced in days.

  “I…I think I understand the power that this music has had over you, because it is so…so intense. I can imagine the rush you would have experienced while composing it, and how…well, how it would bring you very close to the person you are writing it with.”

  Something snaps inside my chest, possibly my heart. Relief floods through me. To know that, on some level, he gets it…it is exactly what I needed to hear. It is a flicker of light at the end of a very long, completely dark tunnel. I throw my arms around him and sob into his shoulder. It feels like a whole ocean of tears pours out of me, but the release feels overwhelmingly good.

  “I ruined his career,” I sniffle. “His life.”

  “No, honey. That’s not what happened.”

  “Then what did happen?”

  He just holds me close. After a long while he lets out a deep sigh, but he doesn’t say anything.

  Eventually I pull away. “You were playing it on the keyboard.”

  “Yes.” He wipes a tear off my cheek. “I’ve listened to it so many times now that I know it by heart. When I sat down at the keys…well, it just started playing itself.”

  We sit in silence for a while as a new realization begins to dawn. Part of me wants to climb back up those stairs, bury myself in my blankets and escape the pain, but a new part of me wants to stay right here, in this moment, with my dad, who understands. The pain is not so bad when someone else gets it. Part of me even wants to embrace the pain and remember those magical moments of composing, when the surge of music swept through us, intangible until the notes were on the page and then brought to life through the combination of instruments.

  “Do you think you’re ready to listen to it?” Dad asks gently.

  I nod.

  He gets up and inserts the flash drive into the computer. Then he sinks back down onto the couch and takes my hand. The beginning notes of the music fill the room, and I close my eyes and simply let it sweep me away.

  For six full minutes, the numbness of the past few weeks completely disappears as I soar with the music, feeling intensely all the moods it evokes. Feeling something other than remorse and shame. Feeling alive.

  And then it ends, abruptly, and my eyes snap open as I remember. We never finished the music.

  Dad’s gaze is already on me as I turn to look at him.

  I’m getting choked up again. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” I say.

  He pulls me into a hug. “Yes, Legs, it is.”

  “It really is,” says a voice at the top of the stairs.

  I look up. Mom is sitting on the top step. Her eyes are glassy with tears too. “Allegra, you’ve created an extraordinary piece of music.”

  “Not just me.” I feel a wail coming on. “Noel and I created it together.” Another onslaught of tears overcomes me, but in that moment I know what I have to do: I have to complete the music and hear it performed.

  Dad holds me close. Behind me, I feel my mom lower herself onto the couch and she, too, wraps her arms around me, enveloping me between them. I cry for a long time, but we sit in a quiet embrace for a much longer time.

  Nineteen

  “No, not a trumpet. Try the French horn,” Mom suggests.

  Dad finds the icon for the French horn, and we listen to the new track.

  “That’s perfect!” Mom says.

  Dad and I look at each other. “Well?” he asks.

  “I think so too,” I say. “Play it back again.”

  We sit together and listen to the section. “Good call, Cindy,” Dad says enthusiastically. “Clearly Allegra inherited her talent for composing from you.” He saves the new track.

  “Don’t be silly,” Mom says modestly, but I notice the look they exchange before Mom smiles, almost shyly, and looks away.

  It’s become a family project: Mom, Dad and me finishing Allegra, which is now the composition’s official name, despite my objections. We don’t have too many hours in a week to work on it because I’m finishing grade twelve through online education, Mom has her students and her performances, and Dad’s picking up a lot of gigs in town as a solo artist. But when we can, we meet in the studio and create. Unexpectedly, I’ve discovered that creative energy is unleashed when I’m working with my parents, just as it was when I wrote with Noel. Mom has her classical training to offer, Dad his beautiful songwriting experience, and I have the passion and commitment to see this thing through. It can be unwieldy with three of us brainstorming, but for the most part it works.

  Working on it is also a constant reminder of Noel, though I don’t need any help remembering him. But on the flip side, working on the music seems to be just the therapy my parents needed. Dad has moved from the studio back into the bedroom with Mom. It could be because the studio is a busy place these days and his makeshift bed is in the way, but whatever it is, I’m feeling hopeful for them.

  They’ve also purchased a second car, so there always seems to be one available for each of us when we need it. The expectations of online courses seem twice as high as regular school, and completing the assignments fills my days. I’m also back at Turning Pointe and putting in more hours there than ever. I take workshops from guest teachers who come from all over: New York, Los Angeles and even London, England. Like Ms. Dekker from Deer Lake High, these teachers push me to my edge. A well-known dancer/instructor from Seattle has suggested that I contact her when I finish high school. She thinks her own agent may be willing to represent me. That gives me the incentive to dance until I think I’ll literally drop. Physical pain seems to ease the mental pain I live with daily—the guilt of causing Noel to lose his job—although there are still days when it’s almost impossible to get out of bed, thinking about my role in that. And God, how I miss him.

  It’s not quite summer, but the weather is stifling hot. I can’t sleep, so I’m in the studio, tinkering with the music. We’ve finished it, but I’m still finding the odd rough patch. Mom has offered to get the score copyrighted, and she also has a meeting with the conductor of the Deer Lake Symphony Orchestra to see if he’d be willing to have the orchestra perform it sometime soon.

  The upstairs door creaks opens and Dad comes down the stairs.

  “You’re up late, Legs,” he says.

  “Too hot to sleep. How was your gig tonight?”

  “Fun, actually.”

  I look up at him. There’s an expression on his face that I can’t read. “That’s good.”

  He picks up a guitar, settles himself on the couch and plays a little tune. “I was playing at the legion, for an event.”

  “You were playing at the legion?” I remember Noel telling me he played for a function there. I can’t believe Dad agreed to it. He was a member of the Loose Ends, after all. He can do a lot better than that.

  “It was work. And very little stress. I enjoyed it.”

  “Huh.” What else can I say?

  He plays a few m
ore bars of a song. “I ran into a friend of yours tonight,” he says.

  A friend? I only have Angela. “I thought you had to be of legal drinking age to hang out at the legion.”

  “This friend is legal,” he says. “And a fine musician.”

  I go completely still as I comprehend what he is telling me. Dad waits for my reaction. I can only stare at him, dumbfounded.

  “I didn’t actually run into him,” he says. “I played with his band. I was filling in for an absent bass player.”

  I just continue to stare.

  “I didn’t know he was in the band when I accepted the gig,” he adds quietly.

  I still can’t think of anything to say.

  “He’s a nice guy, honey. I can see why you got on so well.”

  Got on. That’s an interesting way of putting it. “Is he okay?” I hear the quiver in my voice.

  “He seems fine.” He strums the guitar, and I wonder if he’s telling the truth. “He asked me for permission to contact you.”

  “What did you say?” Although I’ve wanted nothing more than to see him and speak with him, this makes me feel panicky.

  “I asked him what he wanted, why he wanted to get in touch with you.”

  “And?”

  “He said he just wanted you to know he was doing well, that leaving teaching was a blessing in disguise because writing and performing music was always his passion, but he didn’t have much time for it when he was going to university and then teaching. Now he’s managing to scrape by as a working musician, and he also has time to write.”

  I think about that. He’s finally following his dream. “Did you believe him?”

  “Absolutely. He looks very happy, and he’s an excellent musician.”

  “He was an excellent teacher too,” I tell him.

  Dad glances at me but doesn’t respond. I watch his face. He plays another riff on his guitar. I can tell he’s not finished telling me about Noel.

  “I told him I would pass on the message. I also told him that we finished the composition, you, me and your mom.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah.” He nods. “You should have seen his face.”

  “Was he mad?”

  “No, not mad. Surprised, and maybe a little sad.”

  “Oh.” I’m struggling to process this turn of events.

  “I actually began to feel badly, because he should be given credit for his part in the writing. Mom didn’t put his name on it when she applied for the copyright.”

  “Can we change that?”

  “I think we should.”

  I continue thinking about all this.

  “His band has asked me to play with them again, and I think I will. I also think Noel should sit in with the Loose Ends the next time they’re in town. They could use some young blood, and he has the talent to fill in if necessary.”

  Now I see what Dad is up to. He’s trying to set things right. I feel an overwhelming rush of gratitude. I get up and sit beside him on the couch. “Thank you, Dad.”

  “Oh, Legs, there’s nothing to thank me for. Just one musician helping out another.”

  “He’s not just any musician.”

  He thinks about that. “No, he’s the musician who helped my daughter discover her talent for composing music.”

  I rest my head on his arm. “I think I’m retiring from the music-writing business. I feel like it sucked the soul right out of me.”

  I can feel him nodding. “You certainly did put a lot of yourself into it, and perhaps lost yourself in it too, I’ll give you that. And being good at something doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the thing you should be doing. We should each choose the career that we want to pursue.”

  I think about Noel. He may be a good teacher, but he’s also a great musician, and writing and performing is what he really wanted to do. In a bizarre kind of way, I helped him realize that dream.

  “And the great thing is, Legs, the human spirit, or soul, as you called it, has a wonderful way of regenerating itself.”

  I smile, realizing how right he is. I close my eyes and listen to him play the opening notes of Allegra on his guitar.

  It makes me want to dance.

  Acknowledgments

  Once again I am grateful for the wise feedback from my “first readers” and cheering committee, Diane Tullson and Kim Denman. Huge thanks and hugs to my daughter Cara Lee Hrdlitschka for sharing her passion for dance, musician extraordinaire Geoffrey Kelly for advice on music composition, and my sister Heather Verrier for her continued enthusiasm and support. Finally, a special thank-you to all the wonderful people at Orca Book Publishers for keeping me in the pod.

  Shelley Hrdlitschka discovered her love for children’s literature as a teacher. This gave her the idea to try writing her own books, and she is now the author of nine novels for teens, all published by Orca Book Publishers. Shelley lives in North Vancouver, British Columbia. When she’s not writing she can be found hiking, snowshoeing, practicing yoga, Zumba dancing or volunteering at the Grouse Mountain Refuge for Endangered Wildlife.