by J. L. White
I never did tell Chloe and Isabella my story. It wasn’t because I couldn’t. I knew I could tell them and they’d accept and support me just like Sam did. Maybe that’s exactly what made me feel like I didn’t need to say anything. It didn’t feel like I was hiding a dark secret. I simply didn’t tell them because talking to Sam unlocked something inside me, and I didn’t want to curse it. I was finally starting to get better and leave things in my past at last. Why mess with what was working?
After a time, I dated a bit. Eventually I figured it was time to move on, even though part of me would always have a soft spot for my first love.
That’s how it works for everybody, right?
There have been a few guys I’ve gotten deep in enough to be intimate with, but they’ve all fizzled out in the end. They never got that high off the ground to start with, in spite of them being good guys. But I’m okay with not having a serious relationship. My chosen career path isn’t exactly friendly to that kind of thing anyway, what with all the traveling concert pianists have to do. The toll on relationships is famous in my field. But I don’t need it. My music has taken over my soul in the big way it used to.
I’ve often thought there may not be room enough in my heart to love a man the way I know I can and love my music the way I do.
And then Erik shows up at that pre-audition for the competition, over five years after the last time I saw him, and it all comes back to me.
It was all in the past. Over. Sure, my heart still hurt if I thought about him too much, but the easy fix to that was just not to think about him too much. Everyone kind of aches for their first love from time to time anyway, don’t they? You can’t let stuff like that stop you from being happy.
And I haven’t. I’ve been happy. I have.
But now he’s here, on my turf, and I feel trapped.
Now I’m the one who wants to run.
THE HERE AND NOW
Chapter 11
I’m in the living room at Sam’s house, a little fixer-upper she bought a few months ago only a mile from Hartman College and a couple miles from her job where she works as a graphic designer. The house has a distinct seventies feel, but she has a fun vision for it. Until she gets around to actually making changes, though, the walls will remain what Sam refers to as “puke” green. Sam and I are sitting cross-legged on the pink shag carpet and video chatting with Chloe and Isabella.
Chloe’s just an hour and a half away, on the coast in Swan Pointe. She and her fiancé Grayson live there, but they come up from time to time to hang out with us. Isabella, on the other hand, is in her second year of grad school—like me—and is clear across the country at Harvard working on her masters in microbiology.
The four of us Firework Girls group text pretty regularly, but when I started telling them about a certain ghost from my past named Erik, it was easier to get Chloe and Isabella caught up on screen. Now that my past has reappeared in my present, I’m going to need all the support from my friends I can get. I wish I’d waited for Jack to get here too, because telling the story has worn me out and I don’t want to have to do it all over again.
“Wow...” Isabella says, once I’ve finished and we’re all sitting in silence, taking it all in. Isabella trails off, like she’s not sure what to say. I’m fidgeting with my hair, which I’ve only worn in a single braid for years now. Hell, I don’t know what to say either.
She leans heavily back in her chair. She’s sitting at her desk, I can tell. Her long, brown hair is pulled up into a bun and she has a pencil stuck in it. There’s an impressive stack of massive textbooks off to one side. She sighs, crosses her copper-colored arms, and tilts her head, considering me.
“So where are you with him?” she finally asks.
“Nowhere,” I say firmly. “I don’t want to be anywhere with him. I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want him anywhere near me.” I groan in frustration and toss my braid behind me. “I can’t believe he’s here!”
“Did he transfer here or something?” Chloe asks. She’s lying on her stomach on her bed, her auburn hair tucked around in front of one shoulder and her feet kicking up behind her. Even on screen, her ice-blue eyes are striking. “He definitely wasn’t there last year right?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Maybe he transferred here from somewhere else because he knew you’d be here,” Sam says next to me.
“I don’t know,” I say. “If anything, he probably thought I wouldn’t be. Even if he assumed I came here for my undergrad degree, he probably thought I’d be gone by now. Most people go somewhere different for their graduate work.”
“Why didn’t you?” Sam asks, cocking her head at me.
“Hartman has a great program,” I say. That was mostly the reason. I don’t need to add that I was scared to apply anywhere else. I barely admit that one to myself.
“Didn’t you say he looked shocked to see you?” Isabella asks, returning to the topic at hand.
I nod, reliving that moment when Erik met my eyes. He looked as mortified to see me as I’d felt about seeing him. I still feel the echoes of what it was like to pass him in the aisle, my body tuned into him like a beacon.
Then I remember what happened next, how I fumbled over my own fingers like I’d never played the piano before in my life. Sure, I pulled it around in the end, but I wasn’t happy with my performance, and clearly Professor Reinecht wasn’t either.
Erik, on the other hand, played like a god.
“Ugh,” I say. “I can’t believe he’s in the competition. I’m so screwed.”
“Oh, come on,” Isabella says, reassuringly, leaning forward in her chair. “You’re always nervous about this stuff.”
“And you never have any reason to be,” Chloe adds, kicking her feet slightly behind her.
I know what they’re talking about. If I’m forced to be honest with myself, I know I don’t have as much faith in my abilities as maybe I should. Sometimes I still can’t believe how far I’ve come as a musician. It doesn’t seem like a girl like me should have the kind of success I’ve had. That self-doubt is a recurring theme I can’t seem to shake. This would not be the first time my girls have had to give me encouragement before a competition or performance.
But this is different. This is Erik.
“You don’t understand,” I say soberly. “His music is like something from another planet. I can’t beat that. I know I can’t.”
Sam huffs next to me. “Well, not if you think like that you won’t. No one’s unbeatable. Especially when they’re playing against you, girl.”
Isabella and Chloe both nod in agreement. I don’t argue. I guess we’ll all find out soon enough.
“Thanks for your support,” I say glumly.
“Give it your best,” Isabella says.
I nod. I will. It probably won’t matter in the end, but I will.
“I still want to know what he’s doing here,” Sam says sternly. She sounds like she’s ready to hunt Erik down and hogtie him somewhere as punishment for hurting her friend. Knowing Sam, she’s probably thinking something along those lines. It’ll only get worse when Jack’s in the mix. They’ve been known for taking matters into their own hands before. After all, they were the ones to come up with the prank that earned us our name, the Firework Girls.
Of course, that was our freshman year in college. We’ve all grown up a lot since then. Sam and Jack are getting too old for those kinds of shenanigans.
I glance at the mischievous look on Sam’s face.
At least, I think they are.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk to him?” Chloe asks. “Even if only to find out what happened?”
“I know what happened,” I say firmly. “He abandoned me. I don’t give a shit why he did it.”
By the time I’m in my one-on-one session with Professor Reinecht the next day, I’m feeling a little better. After talking to my girls (and later Jack, when he showed up for a late-night raid on Sam’
s pantry), I feel like I have a kind of armor around me. I’m not here alone. I have my friends. And like Jack said, Hartman belongs to me more than it does to Erik. “Let him avoid you,” Jack had said.
That part is easier said than done, it turns out. I have been glancing around for Erik everywhere I go, especially in the music building. But I haven’t seen him. I’ve had at least one session of all my classes this semester, so I know we don’t share any, thank god. But lately I haven’t gone to the Gizmo—the college’s on-campus cafe I tend to haunt—and I took a different walking route this morning. I usually walk along the outskirts of campus, but didn’t want to risk seeing him.
In session, I can tell Professor Reinecht is a little miffed about my screw up on stage yesterday. “What happened with your audition, Ashley? That was pathetic.”
“Sorry,” I say, my cheeks flushing a bit. “It was something personal. I won’t let it happen again.”
He grunts and taps the sheet music for my competition piece, indicating the conversation is over and he wants me to play. I’m getting off easy. He’s a notoriously tough task-master. Some students complain about it, but given how brutal the music world is, he’d be doing no one any favors by treating us with kid gloves. I like that he’s blunt, because then when he praises me I know I’m really doing something right.
As I begin to play, he paces next to the piano with gusto, another habit students find annoying. Several measures in, he gives a sharp, “Ah!”
I stop obediently.
“Listen,” he says, tapping his ear. He plays the left-hand only of two bars. “This. Not this.” He plays it again, and I can hear the difference. “Understand?”
I nod. Professor Reinecht is a man of few words. He’s told me before he likes that I can hear his instruction without him having to waste a bunch of words on it. He’s unlike any professor at Hartman, that’s for sure, but he’s my favorite. He retired from his own successful career after playing in celebrated halls all over the world and he’s brilliant. He was one of the reasons I wanted to continue my graduate degree at Hartman.
“Again,” he orders, and resumes his pacing.
I start over. When I get through the measure he just corrected he keeps pacing instead of stopping me, a good sign. We continue on this way until we’ve gone all the way through the number together.
“How are your practice sessions?” he asks, stopping by the piano.
I give him a rundown of my current routine and he nods with approval. “Double your time on this,” he says, tapping the sheet music in front of me.
“Okay.”
“See you next week.”
I get up and gather the music together. “Do you think I’ll do all right in the competition?” I ask, trying not to sound nervous.
He nods, and I feel heartened. I expect him to say something encouraging. I can count on him for that almost as much as I can count on my Firework Girls. But what he says is this: “It’ll be a tough run this year.”
Feeling somewhat deflated, I pack my bag. I don’t want to ask why he thinks it’ll be a tough run.
I’d rather not hear him say it aloud.
After a few more days go by without running into Erik, I start to relax a bit. Whatever his schedule is, it doesn’t seem to overlap with mine. The fact that he’s at Hartman at all almost starts to fade into the background. The only time I really think about it is when I’m practicing for the competition, which I’ve been doing with gusto.
I added the Gizmo back into my routine yesterday, but today is the day I regret it. As I pick up my caramel macchiato from the barista, I turn to find Erik right behind me. I stop cold. He’s looking right at me, and God, he’s so close. Not invading-my-personal-space close, but yet again my body seems so in tune with his physical location, I feel like a moth being pulled to the flame.
I hold my ground though. He burned me once. That was more than enough.
“Hi Ashley,” he says quietly. “I’ve been looking for you.”
I frown at him. “Really? I’ve been avoiding you.”
He nods, contrite. Or he appears that way anyway. Who the hell knows what he’s really thinking? “Do you think we could talk?” he asks.
Oh now he wants to talk? Fuck that. I walk around him and head for the door. “Leave me alone,” I say.
I leave the Gizmo and cross the patio to the campus grounds. He doesn’t follow me.
I’m disappointed that he doesn’t follow me.
I hate us both for that.
I don’t see him again until the competition that Friday. When they sent out the schedules, I knew I was bound to see him. They’ve grouped the pianists together and he plays immediately after I do. Of course.
There’s a lot of milling around the backstage of Kopp Hall. This competition doesn’t quite call for the formal gowns of many of the performances I’ve done, but nice dress is still required. I’m wearing a sapphire gown with a form-fitting bodice and calf-length flowing skirt. As I do for any public performance, I’ve taken the time to style my hair so it’s flowing to my waist in gentle curls.
We first see one another from a distance. Or rather, this is the moment I first see him. Judging by the way he’s taking me in, I gather he noticed me a few moments before. He has a stunned, appreciative look on his face. I’m flattered in spite of myself, but that only makes me more frustrated. That fact that he looks so scrumptious in his suit coat and red tie is not helping matters.
His eyes meet mine, but I look away. I head for the little table in the wings and check in with the assistant sitting there. She takes my name and gives me a number to hold up for the judges when I go on stage.
With this little bit of business done, I busy myself checking the program. A fellow second-year grad student is on stage, someone I’ve noticed has really improved since he’s been in the program. There are still four more players to get through before it’s my turn, and I can feel Erik right over there.
I glance at him. Our eyes meet for the briefest second before he looks away, like he’s been caught.
God, this is torture. My heart is racing, partly because I’m feeling trapped with nowhere to go and partly because he’s so damned handsome. Why is my body responding to him still? After all this time and after everything?
I’m an idiot.
I find a place to wait, as far away from him as I can reasonably get, and try to focus on why I’m here. Determinedly ignoring the pounding of my heart, I close my eyes and start to go through my pre-performance routine. Deep breaths. Mentally running through the piece. Finger stretches.
I glance at him again. He’s sitting in a chair, legs outstretched, arms crossed, head slightly down. He looks sad, and like he’s a million miles away.
I soften slightly. An old impulse in me wants to go over and comfort him. But I don’t. We aren’t who we were all those years ago. And if he feels badly, doesn’t he deserve it?
The performer before me finally takes his place at the piano.
As he begins his piece, I move closer so I can wait just off stage. Since I don’t have the end of my braid to play with, I keep running my thumb over the corner of my number placard.
As the performer before me finishes up and bows to the judges, I hear the footfalls of someone approaching from behind. By the way my skin is on alert, I know it has to be him. He settles to my right, waiting.
I look over at him. He’s looking at me too.
Why? I want to ask him. Why did you leave me like that?
Our eyes hold for a moment. The prior pianist leaves the stage, passing by us, and I hear my name called. “Good luck,” Erik says softly.
I don’t answer. I don’t know if he’s trying to trip me up or not, but I’m not going to have a repeat of last time. I hold up my number for the judges, sit at the bench, and do my best to forget everything while playing Beethoven’s sonata.
At the conclusion I stand, hold my number again, and wait.
The judges call out my score—the highest pianist
yet, I note—and dismiss me from the stage. My body hums as I draw closer to him. He’s waiting in the wings. I don’t look at him and I don’t wish him luck. I head straight back to the little table and turn in my number.
Then my old friend, the Pied Piper, begins to play. I hover at the table, listening. Slowly, I’m drawn closer to the stage, against my will. He is magic. His music ambrosia. I want to consume it.
I won’t get the judges’ comments until tomorrow, but if I were to describe my own performance, I would use words that have often been used to describe me in the past: “Flawless. Technically strong. A beautiful delivery.”
With a resigned sort of detachment, I know what I did and can call it as it was, without all the self-doubt that tends to hover over me like a black cloud. The fact that I did well doesn’t really matter though. Because if I were a judge describing Erik’s piece, I would say: “Stunning. Bold. Confident.”
He’s beyond technically proficient, and I already know I’ve been beat. If the judges don’t score him higher than me, they’re all morons.
The next pianist on the program comes up next to me. “Pretty fucking good for a first year grad student,” she says, envy dripping off her every word.
“A first year grad?” I ask, turning to her. Erik should be in his second year, like me. “Are you sure?”
She nods and we both listen as Erik receives his score.
A full twenty points above my own.
Chapter 12
Even though I’m in our favorite bar on 8th street with Sam and Jack, I’m in a dark place. I don’t think it’s just because of the competition today either, but I’m not prepared to fully admit that to myself.
Jack has one lanky arm thrown around my shoulder, in an attempt to comfort me. Like Sam, Jack’s hair has a mind of its own, but it works for him. He’s got that shaggy Benedict Cumberbatch look going on that the girls love.
