“Why aren’t the Juilliard people going to be here?” Olivia whined.
It was Wednesday, the third to last day of the workshop. I had spent the morning working on solo pieces. We’d all had lunch together, but otherwise it was a time to perfect our pieces alone.
Mr. Powell held his hands out. “They’re caught up with something else,” he said. “I am sorry.”
Olivia seemed on the verge of tears. “Is there no way we can perform later? Maybe they’ll show up eventually.”
“The representatives have said they can’t be here at all today,” he said. “Which is why we’ll be doing the solo performances tomorrow. But there simply isn’t enough time to do both the group and solo concerts at the same time.”
After Mr. Powell left, Olivia turned to the rest of us. “Why should we even bother?”
“He said we can just do the Fugue if we want,” Jon said. “That’s good.”
“For those people?” Olivia said, pointing at the other students. “I mean, honestly, who cares?”
“It’s a performance,” Jon said. “It shouldn’t matter who is listening. Let’s just go out and kill it.”
“We’ve practiced really hard,” Dani said.
It seemed to me Olivia did care but was completely deflated.
“I can’t come back here next year,” she said. “I’ll be nineteen.”
“Are you going to university for music?”
“Yeah, but just…” She sighed. “I really wanted to go to Juilliard. Not for undergrad, but once I graduate. I want to be in New York. I need out of here.”
“Mr. Powell said they’d record all the performances,” Jon said. “So that should work. You can still get your performance to the Juilliard people.”
“It’s not the same,” Olivia said.
I understood what she meant. It isn’t the same. As Mr. Powell said, a recording lacks poise and presence. At first, I was happy to not even think about going out onstage. I was almost ready to go along with Olivia and say forget it. But we had worked hard, and I could tell Dani really wanted to do the performance. It meant something to her, though I didn’t know what.
“Let’s do this,” I said.
“Really? Hulk-Aid, are you sure?”
“That has not caught on,” Dani said.
“Yes, I mean it,” I said.
“No freak-outs?”
“None.” I didn’t feel nervous. Well, not passing-out, falling-down, it’s-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it nervous. I felt my nerves. The anxiety there. But I was with these other three people. We were going to perform together.
“Fine,” Olivia said. “But I’m not going to like it.”
* * *
There was no great spectacle getting on the stage. We walked out, our instruments ready, sat in the chairs, turned to the first page of the Fugue and waited for everyone to be quiet.
It took a while.
I waited for the voice of doubt to creep in. But as I did, I watched Danielle. She inhaled deeply, then let the air out in a slow, steady stream. Almost two whole weeks of practices and lectures, workshops and group classes, for this.
I was doing it for her.
No one cared that we were on the stage. Well, maybe some of them did, but not enough to stop chatting.
Mr. Powell clapped his hands, and everyone came to attention.
“Hey, everyone, we’re DJ OW!” Jon said. “Check out this crazy tune.”
“Oh my god, what a loser.”
It was Cathy, standing directly in front of us. She brought her phone out and held it up in front of her. “Put on a good show, Will.”
“What are you doing?” Olivia whispered at Jon.
“Softening up the crowd,” Jon said. “Ready?”
I looked away from Cathy. Then I heard a little beep as she began recording on her phone.
We readied our instruments and played.
My head did not explode.
My insides did not fall out.
I didn’t pass out, drop my bow or in any way mess up. I just played. The whole time, I kept an eye on Danielle. Watching her as she enjoyed every second of it. How she lived in the moment.
Once, while I had a quick break in the piece, I looked at Mr. Powell, who was standing with Alisha. He had his eyes closed, his lips closed tight. Alisha was smiling as though she was pulling the music into her.
I glanced at Cathy; she scowled back. I considered giving her a wink, but I wasn’t that brave. And soon enough it was over.
“That kicked ass,” Jon said as we were putting our instruments away. The next group had already taken to the stage.
“It really worked,” Danielle said.
Jon punched me on the shoulder.
“And no Hulk-Aid,” he said. “How’d you do it?”
I didn’t tell him how I’d thought of Mr. Jorgensen being nervous every time he stepped on the stage. Or how I’d pretended we were in our practice room alone. I didn’t even tell him how I’d practiced the piece so many times that I likely could have been half comatose and still pulled it off.
And I didn’t tell him it was because I was playing for Danielle.
“It’s fun playing with you guys,” I said. “I guess that’s all.”
“Fun.” Jon shrugged. “Okay, whatever floats your boat.”
When we had our instruments put away, Danielle leaned over and whispered in my ear. “It’s time for our date.”
“What about the other performances?”
“I don’t think we’ll be missed. Come on, I need to get out of here.”
I looked to the stage. Cathy was there, glaring at one of her group members.
“Okay,” I said, as Cathy began to berate the cellist. “Let’s go.”