I was excited to return to the school on Monday. It seemed as though everything would be new. The nerves would be gone. I’d be fine.
We practiced for half an hour Monday morning, then took a break.
We’d nailed the Fugue. The Adagio remained unforgiving for Olivia and Jon—although, since Jon had brought me in on his little secret, I wondered if his ineptness was a ploy to make Olivia feel better about herself. After all, if he stumbled, it wouldn’t just be her screwing up.
“We can perform this no problem this afternoon,” Jon said. “Piece of cake.” He was staring at Olivia, who had just messed up again.
Whenever Olivia slipped up, Jon made a racket with his cello and put it aside, wiped fake sweat from his head and talked about how it was challenging or tricky.
After an hour of practice, everything had become a little too “tricky.”
Dani did fine with the second-violin part. I could sense her watching me. And though the cello is the driving force in the Adagio, it felt as though the rest of the group was looking to me for guidance. Waiting for my next move before committing to an action.
It was amazing playing the lead. I felt in control. The other parts swam around mine, and if I happened to play too loudly or with more energy than necessary, it was because I was enjoying it more than I thought I would.
“I need a break,” Olivia said, setting her viola down in its case.
“Me too,” Jon said, and even though Olivia went straight to her phone, he followed her out of the room, talking at her. I could tell he had some kind of plan for the day. A few points of interest he wanted to bring up. He’d probably researched some of the things he’d discovered Olivia liked and was waiting to innocently drop them into conversation. Hoping to catch her interest enough for her to put the phone down for a moment and talk to him.
“He totally likes her,” Dani said.
“Yeah,” I replied, feeling that I wasn’t giving away any of his secrets because I hadn’t brought it up.
“You think so too?” Dani said.
“Now that you mention it, yeah,” I said.
“I miss my boyfriend,” she said, either because it was true or because she didn’t want to give me the wrong idea.
“Where is he?”
“Montreal. Well, outside of Montreal, but still close. We’ve been together for eight months.”
“Does he play anything?”
“Music? No. Soccer, yes. It’s all he does. In fact, with the start of the summer season I doubt he’s even noticed I’m gone.”
“I’m sure he’s noticed.”
She’d stood and was looking out the window. “I’m just kidding,” she said. “We Skype every night.”
“It must suck to be away from him.”
“It’s only a couple of weeks, right?”
“I guess.”
“And anyway, I’m going to university in the fall, and he still doesn’t know what he wants to do. He says he’s going to follow me to Western, but I kind of don’t want that.”
“Okay,” I said. “Why?”
“Because it’s university, you know? I don’t exactly want to go out and be crazy or anything. But I need to experience everything I can.” She turned to me and scrunched her face. “We talked about getting an apartment together, but I just signed up for a room in the residence. So he can come visit and stuff, but the rooms are all for two people, so he won’t be able to stay the night.”
I decided not to say anything. It felt like she was mostly talking to herself anyway. Getting all the thoughts out to see how they looked in the light.
“I think being together eight months is too short a time anyway. Don’t you?”
“Too short for what?” I said.
“For us to move in together, I guess. For him to even come and stay the night and…for us.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She smiled at me. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
I almost laughed. “No.”
“You want one?”
“I haven’t really thought about it.” Which sounded crazy but was totally the truth. It wasn’t like I didn’t think about girls. It was just that I hadn’t ever noticed a specific girl and thought I would like to date her. Just like I had never thought about performing in front of people.
“Okay,” Dani said. “That’s kind of weird.”
“I know.”
“I don’t mean that you’re weird. Just that guys your age are normally girl crazy. Like we’re this new thing in the world that they never noticed before and then they suddenly do and it’s all they talk or think about.” She crossed the room and sat next to me.
“I like girls,” I said. “Just no one specific.”
Danielle put her hands on my knees. “Would you like to go on a pretend date with me?”
“What?” I said.
She sighed and looked at her feet. “I’ve only ever dated my boyfriend. His name’s Pierre, by the way, so I can stop calling him just ‘my boyfriend.’ Anyway, I’ve only ever dated him. And we’ve never really dated. Like, we go to the movies and stuff, but it’s always with a group, and then when we’re alone, well…I mean…” She blushed, shook her head quickly and waved a hand in front of her. “Anyway, it’d be fun for you to show me the city. Just the two of us, though, and we could pretend we were on a kind of date.” She nudged me with her elbow. “Does that sound totally weird?”
“No,” I lied. “I get it.”
“So, you want to do that? We can go Wednesday, before this is all over. You can show me the cool things in the city, and I’ll buy you dinner.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Olivia and Jon came back into the room. Jon was talking while Olivia tapped away on her phone.
“I asked you out,” Dani whispered. “So I pay for dinner. That’s how it works. Even if it is just pretend.”
I leaned into her. She smelled like tangerines. “Okay,” I said. “Sounds fun.”