Plan Overboard (Toronto Series #14)

by Wardell, Heather

  He swings himself around to lie on the couch then drops his head onto my thigh. "All that's fine. What's not fine is..."

  I look down at him. He's closed his eyes but his face is full of sadness. My heart squeezes in my chest with love for him, and I slide my hand over his sleep-rumpled hair. "Austin, you can tell me anything."

  "I don't know how to be that guy," he says softly without opening his eyes. "The guy who stays. The partner. I want to, with you, and I think I'm starting to get how to do it, but I've never done it and I didn't grow up seeing anyone do it. I hate knowing I might hurt you some day, but I don't want to leave now either. But if I'm going to hurt you then I should leave now. But I don't want to. I've been trying to do everything Nicky does for Mel because she seems happy with him. I even asked him what to do, and he said stuff about helping you learn things you care about and making you feel pretty and buying you pretty things and chocolate and sharing your interests. It all made sense to me, but you aren't Mel so it doesn't always work and I get stuck on what to do instead. I just don't know how."

  Some of the odd gifts he's given me, like the clarinet book I could have written myself, suddenly make more sense, and the pale pink silk scarf he gave me, so like the one Melissa wore on the cruise which she said made her feel gorgeous, immediately becomes my favorite possession. I touch his cheek, my heart so full it hurts. "Austin?"

  He opens his eyes, and the hope and worry in them are so sweet.

  "I love you, and I know you're trying. And you're succeeding! In fact, I like it better when you're you than when you try to be Nicholas. He's nice but he's not the one I love. You are. There isn't only one way to be a partner, and your way is amazing."

  He sits up and turns to face me. "Really?"

  I lean in and kiss him. "Definitely. You're great with Jenna, you're so helpful with everything else, you've been amazing when I get upset about the orchestra, you actually made my tea exactly right today..." I grin at him. "And you're not bad in bed either."

  He laughs. "I remember it being a little better than 'not bad', but I guess I'll try harder."

  We hug, and I say into his shoulder, "I'm not sure I'd survive you being any better, but I'm willing to find out."

  "Nope," he says. "I won't risk losing you. You'll just have to suffer through my current level of performance."

  I heave a huge mock sigh. "If I have to, I will."

  He chuckles, then eases me back far enough that he can kiss me slow and sweet. When we part, though, his eyes are troubled again. "Corinne, I love you. I do."

  "I know," I say, running my hand over his hair, hoping he can see my sincerity in my eyes. "I can tell. I love you too. And I trust you. You're not going to run away."

  "Everyone else thinks I will," he says, shaking his head. "I hope you know me better than they do."

  "They just see the old you," I say firmly. "I didn't know him, but I know this 'you' and I love him. And he's ready to be with me and to be Jenna's daddy. Just be you, and it'll all work out. We will make it work out. One day at a time, as they say. As you said, on the cruise. Got it?"

  He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and smiles at me. "Yes, Miss Corinne. Got it."

  "Good. I have faith in you."

  We cuddle up together and he says, "When did you realize you love me? Do you know?"

  I can picture the exact moment. "The night we had that fight and then Mom came over. When you apologized to me, I knew it right then."

  "But you didn't tell me for days after that."

  "Didn't want to scare you off."

  He chuckles. "Smart girl. But you wouldn't have. I knew already."

  I sit up, surprised. "You did? When?"

  "When I came home after that night out with the guys. I saw you and something inside me just said, 'You love her,' and I realized it was right."

  I snuggle back into him. "Mine wasn't a voice like that. I felt like... like I lit up everywhere. And I knew it was because I loved you."

  "So I got there first," he says, laughter in his voice. "I guess I have changed. The guy who'd never even had a real girlfriend fell in love first. Before you, in fact."

  "I'm never going to live this down, am I?"

  He kisses me. "Not a chance."

  I roll my eyes, then say, "I'll put up with it. And yeah, you've changed. You're still you, but you've changed. You're being who you want to be now."

  "When I told you all that on the cruise, about wanting to be a father and a family man and everything, I did mean it but I didn't think it was in me." He tightens his arms around me. "I'm glad it turned out to be. I guess it's like you and the orchestra. It's in you, so you have to go for it. Can't deny who you are. You have music in your soul."

  "Yeah," I say, wondering if I actually agree. I do have music in there, I think, since I've loved playing my clarinet with the improv group, but most of my work on the audition pieces has had about as much soul as an afternoon spent filing Travis's legal papers. I don't remember feeling that way last time, but this time everything seems different.

  Will the orchestra be the same, if I get in? Am I slaving for a dream I won't even enjoy if it comes true?

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Saturday, the night before the audition, Austin arranges to take Jenna to Melissa and Nicholas's house so I can have three hours of uninterrupted practice time. I kiss them goodbye, tell them I love them, and lock the door behind them, then waste a few minutes of my precious time sitting on the couch feeling miserable. I hate not having them around.

  I make myself shake that off, though, and start working through my orchestral excerpts. In the past I've liked these little snippets of famous pieces, especially since one of them is the "Peter and the Wolf" solo that so captivated my ten-year-old self, but tonight they feel disconnected and fragmented. They are, of course, and I've always known that, but somehow they don't feel right today because they're only bits of their pieces. I want to hear the whole piece, so I can feel where the bits fit in and why they matter.

  I don't have time for that, though, since I also need to work on both the Mozart and Weber concertos, so I play the first excerpt until I've done three perfect takes then move on to the next. There are twenty excerpts on the list and I know from last time that the auditioners will only ask me to play two or three of them, so I'm wasting my time on nearly all of them but of course I can't know which ones are worth practicing.

  Once I'm finished with them, I settle into the Mozart concerto. The entire thing takes half an hour so they won't make me play it all, but again I don't know where they'll stop me so I have to have every last note perfect. I play through the piece, recording it as I go, then listen to the recording for a few moments then fast-forward then listen again so it only takes five minutes to get through it all. Though I could of course have missed some important details of my playing that way, overall I'm fairly pleased with what I've done.

  It doesn't have the spark, though, that I heard in my recording the night I first made love with Austin, so I go through the concerto again and this time worry more about the feel of the music than its technical demands.

  A few minutes in, it hits me how many people have played this exact music over the centuries since Mozart composed it, and I feel a sudden bond with them all. I can almost feel them cheering me on, encouraging me to make the music my own just as they did. I make a few little errors, but I enjoy playing the piece far more than last time. This recording, even though I again listen to it in fragments, is far more alive, and I find myself getting caught up in what I'm hearing and forgetting to fast-forward.

  I wish I could sit and listen to it all, but I don't have time, so I run the piece a third time, exactly as I'll do the audition: standing up, in my low-heeled black shoes, with no music stand between me and the auditioners because I've got the piece memorized.

  All my hard work has paid off because I do have the piece memorized, but the little bit of my focus that has to go to remembering the notes makes it impossible
to get into the music to the same deep wonderful level.

  I go on to the Weber that I'll have to play if I get to the final audition, doing the same work and finding again that the music is far more alive when I can relax and let myself go with it, and I'm sitting on the couch listening to this final recording when Austin opens the front door and calls, "Are we too early?"

  "Nope, you're perfect."

  I pause the recording, and he brings Jenna in. I pick her out of the carrier and wrap my arms around her. "How'd it go?"

  He smiles. "She slept for most of it and Nolan actually went down for his nap without giving Mel what I understand is his usual hard time. So that was good. And Mel and Nicky are fine. Mel said to tell you she and Nicky talked and she feels better about everything. I assume you know what that means?"

  I nod, smiling, thrilled. Good for Melissa for admitting how she felt, and for Nicholas for understanding. "I do. And it's awesome."

  "But how did you do?"

  "Overall, pretty good. I was just listening to the end of my last run-through."

  He drops down beside me. "Let's hear it."

  I start it up again and sit with my head resting on his shoulder and his arms around me and Jenna while my recorded self plays. When the piece reaches its triumphant ending, Austin squeezes me tighter and says, "It sounds great."

  "A bit out of tune on that last high note," I say, "I missed a sforzando, and I think I rushed the cadenza." The bigger problem, though, is that it sounds like I'm holding back, like I'm playing the notes instead of the music. Which I was, but I don't know how to fix it.

  He kisses my cheek. "I'm not cultured enough to get all that. But the peach and I will watch some TV if you need more time to work on it. Whatever you need."

  Last year I stayed up until midnight practicing over and over again, then tossed and turned in bed desperately trying to get to sleep while all of my errors replayed themselves in my head and I worried about making new and even worse ones. I can't face doing that again. "You know what I need?"

  He shakes his head.

  "I need to get a good night's sleep and relax. Get my mind off the music and then sleep." An idea of how I can do that, with his help, hits me, and I smile at him. "If only someone could do something to distract me. Something... pleasurable."

  Austin winks at me, then leans in and kisses me, his mouth increasingly urgent on mine. When we eventually part, he says, "Bassinet time for the peach out here while we retire to the bedroom?"

  We both know it's silly since Jenna is far too young to have any idea what we're doing but neither of us can face making love with her in the room. "You nailed it."

  "I haven't yet," he says, chuckling, and runs his hand up my thigh. "But I'd like to."

  He does, and it's wonderful, and then I fall asleep in his arms before we can gear up for a repeat.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I sit in the audition waiting room with my fellow candidates, taking deep breaths to try to relax myself and working away at the cute furry hat I'm crocheting for Jenna because it keeps me from thinking about what's to come.

  I slept well last night after Austin wore me out, and he kept me busy this morning by chatting away about what he and Jenna would be doing for the day, but now I'm on my own and all the fears and doubts are trying to swirl in me again. I remember being here last time, sitting in this very chair with my clarinet and my terrifying thoughts about how I'd finally gotten my chance to audition and had better not blow it. I'm a little more relaxed now, but only a little.

  The crocheting does help, though. The steady rhythm of the stitches calms me, and knowing I'm making something for my gorgeous daughter makes me think about her instead of the audition.

  After a few minutes, I look up from the hat to give my eyes a break from the fuzzy white yarn and realize the woman across from me is staring at me. She looks away at once, so I blink a few times to relax my eyes then return to my work.

  After a few seconds, the woman says, "You're brave," in a tone that suggests I should replace 'brave' with 'an idiot'.

  I look up, not sure she's talking to me. "Pardon?"

  She points at the yarn in my lap. "Doing that right before the audition? I wouldn't want to risk my fingers like that. There are some pretty fierce runs in the Mozart."

  "For sure," I say, surprised to be lectured by a stranger. "But I do a lot of crocheting so my fingers are used to it."

  "I suppose," she says doubtfully. "Still, I wouldn't want to take even a chance that I'd mess up my audition."

  I didn't think I was, and I don't want to discuss it any further. "It's all about balance," I say, lowering my eyes to the hat again, catching a glimpse of the pale pink silk scarf Austin gave me as I do, which I wound loosely around my neck to brighten up my black top and keep him with me. "Everything in moderation, as they say."

  She sniffs but doesn't say anything, and as I begin crocheting again I realize that there's no way I'd have been doing so at last year's audition. I do believe, now, that balance and moderation are the way to go. I still want to be in the orchestra, of course, want to achieve that long-held dream, but if I don't make it this time maybe I won't fall apart after all. I've got so many more things that matter to me now.

  *****

  It's true that I've got lots in my life now, but when I walk into the audition room and see the same auditioners lined up it's tough to keep that in mind.

  I have worked so hard for this. For the last weeks, of course, but also for years, decades, before that. I can't screw it up. I can't.

  Nora Drucker, who'll be the first clarinet to my second if I get in, smiles at me and says, "Hello, Corinne. How are you?"

  'Terrified and ready to run' seems like the wrong answer, although it's suddenly all too true, so I give her a smile that I hope looks relaxed and say, "Great, thanks. You?"

  She smiles and nods and so do the other two on the audition panel, then she says, "Are you ready?"

  I have no idea. "Yes," I say, with another smile.

  She starts me off with an orchestral excerpt, one of the easiest. I take it at a slightly too fast tempo out of nerves but still hold it together well.

  "Thank you," she says, as she and her cronies scribble copious notes, then directs me through three more excerpts. None of them are the "Peter and the Wolf" one, which is too bad since I love it, but I keep them at the right tempo and they all sound good to me.

  "All right," Nora says when I've finished the last one, "and now for the Mozart. We'll have you start at the beginning of each movement, and we will cut you off in each movement so don't be surprised or worried when we do, okay?"

  I nod. She said the same thing last year, and I wonder if she remembers that I auditioned before. I wouldn't expect her to rave about how happy she is to see me again or anything like that, but she's given no sign that she recognizes me. I suppose she can't do that and remain objective, but a little hint of personality might be nice.

  I move, leaving the music stand and my orchestral excerpt pages behind, over to the piano. The accompanist plays me a B-flat and I check to make sure my clarinet's in tune with it. It reminds me of tuning to Chris's saxophone in the improv group, and the memory of all the fun I've had with those guys makes me relax a little.

  Once I'm all set, the accompanist launches into the introduction of the first movement. I come in at the right time, and keep myself focused on the technical demands of the piece, and when Nora cuts me off I think I've done it pretty much perfectly.

  After a pause for the auditioners to write more notes, Nora says, "Second?"

  For this one I actually begin at the same time as the accompanist, which is trickier, but she's a professional and it works out great. This is the movement that I found the hardest to memorize, and also the sad sweet one that touches me the most, and as I play I find myself having to resist getting swept up in the beauty of the music because I can't risk forgetting the notes.

  After about a minute I'm nearing what I've always f
ound to be the hardest run of notes in the whole concerto, and for one instant my mind flashes to the whole 'crocheting will ruin your runs' conversation from the waiting room. One instant, but a fatal one.

  My memory fails me.

  My memory fails me, but my newly developed improv skills do not. Even as I realize I'm lost, my fingers make up their own version of the piece. It's not perfect, but it does fit into what the accompanist is playing and it sounds like Mozart.

  But still, it's wrong.

  Shock hits me, but then so does the difficult run, and since I've practiced it so many times the notes fall from my fingers and bring me back to the right spot.

  I keep going, my knees shaking with the aftermath of how narrowly I've avoided disaster, and I'm just wondering if I might somehow have gotten away with it when Nora cuts me off and sits staring at me for a long moment.

  I don't speak, because I have no idea what to say.

  She doesn't seem to either, but the man beside her clears his throat and says, "What you played there doesn't match my edition," as he taps the music before him.

  I nod. "I... blanked for a second," I admit. "I'm sorry."

  "You.... improvised?" He sounds as if I'd admitted to digging up Mozart's grave.

  "Better than stopping," the other auditioner says, peering at me through his glasses. "And an excellent match to Mozart's style. Hardly noticeable as a change at all."

  "Unless you know the piece well," the other man responds, still sounding horrified.

  "Even so, better than stopping."

  They look at Nora as if they're expecting her to break their tie. I would love to know what she thinks, since I've clearly upset the one auditioner beyond recovery and if she's outraged too then I'm finished, but she doesn't say anything to them. To me, she says only, "Third movement, please."

  My hands are shaking now, a bad thing with all the fast notes ahead of me, but I say, "Of course," then turn to the accompanist to make sure she's ready.