Shattered Silence

by Ron C. Nieto

  In spite of her elegant appearance, her arms around my shoulders felt solid and strong. Protective. It was a feeling I had almost forgotten and a gasp nearly escaped me when her hand rubbed a soothing circle between my shoulder blades. I don't know how long the hug went on, but when she pulled back and I saw Alice's bewildered expression, I assumed that it had been too long.

  I wished I had reacted in time to hug her back.

  “Sit down, get comfortable. I'll bring something to drink. Alice, I know you want chocolate, but we also have coffee or tea if you prefer, Keith.”

  “Chocolate is fine, thanks,” I said, “if it's no trouble.”

  She cast me a look that warned me to take the manners down a notch and disappeared toward the kitchen. When she was out of sight, I turned to look at Alice. She giggled at me.

  “Don't look so helpless!” she chided.

  “I'm not... I just... Did I just fall down the rabbit hole or something?”

  She shifted in the couch to sit closer to me, our thighs touching, and gently pulled the strands of bangs that had escaped my ponytail. “You're still very much you, and very much here. Stop behaving as if you expect my parents to chase you out instead of being nice.”

  “But I do,” I muttered.

  “What do you do?” Alice's mother said, sitting down in front of us and placing a tray with three mugs of steaming chocolate on the low table.

  “He expects you to scream ‘Off with his head!' any moment now, Mom,” Alice said with a snicker.

  I grabbed my mug and tried desperately to hide behind it. As hot as it was, my face felt like it was burning a thousand degrees hotter.

  She didn't laugh, though. Her hands wrapped around her own drink, Lara watched me with a small sad smile and a thoughtful look in her eyes. It was eerily similar to her daughter's gaze.

  “Not everyone will react badly, Keith,” she said gently.

  “It still is a safer bet,” I replied without meaning to.

  It didn't seem like she agreed, but she let it slide and added a smooth layer of cheerfulness to her voice.

  “So, after the last success, are you going to play again in Alice's next play?”

  “Mom!” Alice groaned. I imagined she'd tried to make the whole soundtrack thing a taboo topic, and I could see why it was painful to bring it up, but it didn't bother me. Bad things had happened—I had nearly died—but the outcome? I'd not change a single thing if it meant I had her.

  “No, I don't think so. I don't even know what she's performing this time.”

  “That's because we don't know what it will be! I told you that, Mom!”

  “Well, what is Mr. Hedford waiting for? Exams aren't getting any further away,” Lara said.

  “Exams are still months away,” Alice huffed. “And I think he hasn't told us yet because he's having a crisis.”

  “I don't buy that,” I said.

  “It makes sense, though,” she explained. “After the success with Lady Windermere, he needs to find something equally surprising and moving, and he needs to make it even better. Artist's cold feet.”

  “If he couldn't tackle the challenge, he wouldn't be your director in the first place.”

  “Have you ever felt like that, Keith?” Lara broke in.

  Had I? There had been songs that had touched me, songs that had hurt me. The best pieces, though, those were like sharing fragments of your soul and there was always the fear that people would judge it and find it lacking. That had been the main reason I had stopped playing in public until Mr. Hedford had recruited me. The private nature of my compositions, the fact that they had a message and a person they were destined to made that fear of being insufficient understandable. But was there was a limit to what I could play? Had I ever felt that I couldn't trump one of my own songs?

  “I haven't felt that I've hit my limit yet,” I answered as honestly as I could.

  “It's kind of hard to imagine you away from music,” she said.

  “It's impossible.”

  I saw Alice smirk out of the corner of my eye. She knew where this was going. She approved... and that worried me.

  “So why are you giving it up?”

  “I'm not,” I said, sitting up a little straighter. So that's what this was about. “The fact I'm heading to college doesn't mean that I'm giving up my music.”

  She nodded. I knew she wasn't quitting—she was Alice's mom, after all—but she tried a different approach.

  “You've not hit a limit. Why did you stop playing until Lady Windermere then?”

  “I don't think playing on street corners is socially acceptable.” I bit back the sarcasm. God, how I hate feeling cornered.

  “I mean classes, for example!” She laughed, finding my retort amusing. “Joining the school band wouldn't be very appropriate, but I'm sure you could've kept working on your foundations.”

  Alice's hand rubbed my forearm, her fingers stopping to lightly squeeze my wrist, and I sighed. “I couldn't go to classes anymore. There was nothing left to learn at school.”

  “You caught up to your teachers... Why not find someone with a higher level education in music? I'm sure there are some players in town.”

  “There are, I guess. But the ones who can actually teach me anything are either not interested or are ready to move to bigger towns.”

  “Working with different people in short periods must be very hard, and not good at all for your routine.”

  I smirked and caught Alice's hand in mine. “It was also very expensive.”

  Lara's eyes dropped for a moment and then focused on me again. She was carrying this whole conversation like she had planned for it... and like most of my answers were playing right into her script.

  “If I hadn't seen you, Keith, I'd think you an arrogant kid, you know? Just saying that there's nothing left to learn when we're learning all the time. But I've seen you play. I've heard what you can do... and Alice tells me that's not even the most impressive part of it. Do you even realize the kind of talent you have?”

  “I don't think he does,” Alice whispered beside me.

  “Okay,” I said. “You're clearly ganging up on me and there's clearly a reason so... what is it?”

  “How many songs have you composed, Keith?” Lara asked instead. “Good ones, the kind you could play in front of an audience, like the Windermere theme.”

  I tried to think. How many were there? Forty? “Thirty...?”

  “And you're eighteen! Do you know how many more songs you could write?”

  “No. No one knows that. I could lose the spark tomorrow or ten years from now or not until I die.”

  “But shouldn't you try to make a difference, no matter how much time there is?” Alice cut in.

  “People don't want to listen to what I play,” I tried to explain.

  “People want to be touched,” Lara said, leaning in. “They want music that resonates, that makes them feel real, that speaks to their heart. You have a gift for that. Do you know how many people I saw crying or grinning or clutching their seats when you were playing in that theater? They were moved. Doesn't that make you feel something?”

  “Yeah.” Some people's feelings mattered more than others, but I didn't say that aloud.

  “So why don't you want to try?”

  “Because it's difficult!” I snapped. “Because it means trying, trying and failing, and changing who I am to fit into the mold the industry believes it wants! Because it could take years before I break through, and even if I did and it sells, the next record might go completely unnoticed and that's not going to pay the bills! How the hell am I supposed to care for your daughter like that?”

  Alice's hand went cold in mine. Her mother stared at me in silence. I prayed for the rabbit hole to open up and swallow me.

  “That's actually very responsible of you. I'm not sure I've ever met a boy that levelheaded at your age. And I don't think you should give up on college, so let's reach a co
mpromise,” Lara said after a long moment. “All I ask is one chance, and if it doesn't work, if you still believe you're better off with accounting, then I won't bring it up again.”

  I didn't trust my words so I nodded. Frankly, I was so humiliated that I would have nodded to any suggestion she made.

  “I have a friend working for a label. I want you to go to his studio and play for him. Then, talk it over. See if he sees the same future for you that I think you have. If you're not convinced, that's fine. But don't give up a dream before trying just because you think it's safer that way.”

  My head spun, and I tried to comprehend what she had just offered. I had said I didn't want to play professionally, but that was because I understood—or thought I understood—the market. Breaking in was nearly impossible with hundreds of talented people every month trying to make it. What Lara had offered, a one-on-one with a label guy who actually had decision-making capabilities, that was what people struggled for years to attain.

  I managed to smile. “Shouldn't this conversation go the other way? With you trying to talk me into suits and ties and me defending rocker stardom?”

  She laughed. “I'll let Stuart know you're coming then. Alice will tell you when the meeting's scheduled. And no cheating allowed! Don't even try to play subpar.”

  “I know what I'll play,” I said, daring to glance sideways to Alice. There was a grin tilting up her lips, but her head was bowed and I couldn't be sure of the look in her eyes.

  Lara looked between us and stood up. “Well! Mission accomplished. And it only took an hour and a half of cajoling! Dear me, I'd been warned of your stubbornness and was counting on this discussion lasting until midnight. I'm almost disappointed!”

  Alice laughed. Her eyes were bright.

  “Well, I'll leave you two to talk for a little while.” With that, her mother left the living room.

  “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have burst out like that,” I said when I heard the stairs to the second floor creaking.

  She cut me off with a kiss, soft and tender. “That was beautiful. It was almost like asking for my hand,” she snickered.

  “Yeah, well, I planned for that to be more romantic.” I didn't try to deny my meaning. She didn't make a fuss about it. We just sat curled up in the couch, drinking in each other's nearness until the smells from dinner started to float from the kitchen and I had to leave for the night.

  Chapter 8

  The next days at school were duller than average. The anticipation for my audition mixed oddly with the unease born of the incidents from the previous week, and time seemed to fly by in a daze. By the time Friday classes let out, I was willing to beg for a reprieve. Alice decided we'd go to the cinema right after school. We had some time to kill and chose to hang out on campus because it was an incredibly fair day for January, and we were beginning to be starved for some outdoor time.

  In retrospect, spending any unnecessary amount of time on school grounds would, of course, turn out to be a bad idea.

  “So, I heard Perkin's coming back to school on Monday,” Anna said just to pass the time.

  “Really?” Alice's head, nestled against the crook of my neck, barely perked up from her spot. “He was gone quite a bit for just a blow to the head.”

  “Did they ever find out why he jumped?” I asked, fighting a dual feeling of interest and despondency in light of the newest gossip. I didn't really want to get into detective mode, not when we were minutes away from our weekend and not after the complicated week we'd had, but I had to know.

  “Adam kept saying he didn't jump. That's why they kept him longer than usual in observation,” Dave said. For a guy, he was surprisingly well connected to the gossip network. “They also dumped him into a shrink's lap.”

  “So was he pushed?” Alice said, her voice vibrating against my skin.

  “No, everybody says he jumped,” Anna said, looking at us with a bemused expression that had nothing to do with the topic at hand. “Guys, how can you really be paying attention? You can't be listening and snuggle like that!”

  “Can, too,” said Alice. “It's called ‘multitasking.' You should try it.”

  “No, please,” Dave groaned. “I can't handle her being any more hyperactive than she already is.”

  “You're disgusting.” I stiffened when I heard the words, clearly spoken in Lena's most deprecating tone, even though the voice sounded a bit off for her. I could almost picture her lip curling with the words, though, as if her meaning needed reinforcing. My arm tightened around Alice, both out of a protective instinct and because I wanted to prevent her from going berserker... but she stayed relaxed.

  Turning my head sharply, I saw Lena marching past us, just a couple of steps away. Her face was turned away and she was deep in conversation with three girls I didn't know from the cheerleading squad.

  I blinked and turned my attention back to our table. They were still joking around.

  I tucked my head to kiss Alice's temple and honor the “cutesy” sounds Anna kept making to get a rise out of her. But, I whispered, “Did you hear Lena say something just now?”

  She abandoned her comfortable position to kiss me in front of everybody. From somewhere behind us, the cheerleaders snickered and Lena's voice taunted, “Get a room!” in the same hateful tone she always used when talking to either of us.

  “Other than that?” Alice said under Dave's groaning and Anna's catcall. “Nope.” She grinned, but I could see a spark of worry behind her smile.

  Hearing things was never good. Both of us had learned that the hard way.

  I shook my head, trying to let her know it was okay, and did my best to refocus on the banter and to join in the comments about the upcoming movie.

  I felt exactly how long it took Alice to relax once more.

  When the sun started to sink and the meager semblance of warmth the clear winter sky had given us began to dissipate, we picked up out things and started to move toward the parking lot, where we would pile in Dave's care and head to the mall.

  “Girl stop,” Anna called before we took more than four strides.

  “I'll go too,” Alice said, extricating herself from my arm.

  Dave and I watched as they walked, skipped, and ran toward the building.

  “I hate it when they do that. It's like they're another species,” Dave groaned.

  I nodded. “It really is some kind of unspoken moral statement, isn't it?”

  “Like they need support to face the flush or some shit like that.”

  “That might be the keyword, though I wish you hadn't brought it up,” I said with a smirk.

  Dave chuckled.

  “Hey,” I said out of the blue, “remember when you told me Adam was a lucky bastard during Saturday's party?”

  “Sure.”

  “Who else has been lucky?”

  “I didn't know you had it in you!” Dave laughed. “We'll still make a decent gossip monger out of you yet.”

  “It's not exactly like that...” I tried to explain, even though I knew it was a lost cause.

  I didn't get to finish the sentence. Anna's voice shrieked over ours.

  Dave was tall and lean for a theater guy, but his usually mellow exterior hid the reflexes worthy of a professional sportsman. Without a second thought, he shot out across the field toward the building, where a small cluster of girls had gathered. I did my best to keep up.

  When we arrived, Anna was pulling the blond ponytail of one of the cheerleader girls. The cheerleader screeched and tried to claw Anna's eyes out, but the attempt only served to make Anna pull harder, the artificial curls clutched tight in her fists.

  I froze. I would've burst out laughing if Alice hadn't been on the ground at their feet.

  Shoving through the onlookers, I knelt beside her.

  “Alice? Hey? Are you hurt?” She was covering her face with her hands and I gently tried to pry them away by her wrists. “Let me look,” I whispered.

&
nbsp; She did, little by little. Her eyes were wide with shock and the right side of her face was reddening visibly.

  “She slapped me!” she cried, pointing at a red welt rising across her cheekbone.

  My eyes stayed glued to her face, my hands rubbing up and down her arms. I could feel Dave standing behind us, not quite knowing what to do—it takes a special branch of courage and madness to step into a catfight, and besides, his girl was winning, so why interrupt?

  I wanted to interrupt, though. I wanted to do something, anything, that would bring back the semblance of control we had had for the last couple of months. I wanted to make it so Alice was safe, not being almost run over by a car and then hit by one of Lena's cronies.

  Lena. Lena's insults, Lena and Perkins, Lena and the cheerleader. When did it become too much to be a coincidence?

  Wrenching my eyes from Alice's, I immediately found her gaze. She stood slightly back and to the side, as if it had nothing to do with her, but something in the cock of her hip and the tilt of her head, something about the sneer hidden in her eyes, crystalized a certainty in my chest. She was enjoying herself immensely.

  Pulling Alice up with me, without breaking eye contact with the infamous Queen Bitch, I called out, “Anna, go for the earrings.”

  I wasn't going to hit a girl, but I wasn't going to let my girl be hit either and I wasn't above fighting dirty when it was the only avenue left for me.

  Anna lunged almost as soon as the words left my mouth, a collective gasp leaving the crowd as she forsake her grasp of blond tresses, which was proving to be quite useless, and tried to yank free the small golden loops adorning the cheerleader's ears.

  I think she might've made a bloody mess of it if Dave hadn't chosen that moment to enter the fight and tow Anna out of it. He was the responsible one, I guess. If she had succeeded, there would've been repercussions for us all.

  “You did that on purpose!” Anna screamed while Dave extricated her from the group. “Try it again and I'll rip your ears out whole!”

  The girl looked dazed, her hair disheveled and her sports shirt askew. She didn't reply, and the crew surrounding us held their silence, but I noticed the lost, glassy look in her eyes while we retreated. The familiar stance of her slumped body sent a shiver of familiarity down my spine and I pushed it out of my mind, focusing on what was real and standing beside me instead.