bad idea. I hit West Sixty-sixth Street. So many levels. Sixty-fifth.
When I stepped onto the plaza, I expected to feel the same controlled panic as last time—an astronaut bracing for reentry—but the place seemed to have lost some of its turbulence.
Maybe because I had a singular purpose this time. It wasn’t stalking—it was truth-seeking. Totally honorable.
I seemed to remember Amberley’s rehearsal schedule being fairly regular. Mornings for class, afternoons for sectionals, evenings for full orchestra rehearsals. I “seemed to remember” it because I used to sit in the back of Lilly Hall and watch them, sure I’d be among their ranks one day. It was easy to be sure when you were nine.
I stepped into the ice-cold lobby—empty, good start—and listened. There was no sound in the auditorium except someone talking, too far to hear. I stepped forward, tentative, and then—
The orchestra erupted.
It was familiar, stone and color and wind. I squinted, listening, trying to identify the composer . . .
“Oh my God,” I mouthed. “Oh my God!”
Soundlessly screaming, I opened the door to the auditorium, sliding inside to crouch in the last row. All the house lights were up, but there were a lot of lookie-loos, and not one head turned to see who had popped in. They were all staring forward.
Watching Oscar Bell conduct his own symphony.
It was the theme he’d played me, but hearing it on my piano had been like watching that single light shoot up in the sky before the fireworks go off. Now they had exploded, unexpected colors, a million new directions, and I was stunned. I didn’t know where this chair, this floor, this hall ended and I began.
I only knew, with absolutely certainty, how I felt about the composer.
The second theme came in. The Romantic theme, Dad had called it. I held my breath, listening to it tease and hide and caress the first theme, heal it like balm on a livid burn. It felt like a whispered message meant only for me.
But then, from my hiding spot behind a row of seats, I saw who was playing it. First violin. She was standing up, watching Oscar as she drew out the notes with her bow, piercing in their beauty and longing. It was gorgeous enough to make you believe she was feeling it. That he was too.
The orchestra swelled with a syncopated march beat that I picked out as the sound of the subway, the swoosh and stop and sway and stop. But my eyes kept darting between Oscar, his broad back, hair bobbing, arms flying, and that violinist, playing so beautifully. She was astonishing.
She was impaling my heart with every note.
The strings rose for a bar, then Oscar waved his hands and dropped them and everybody stopped.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Oscar shouted. “That was great, but if you can get to that fire, that”—he made a loose fist—“oomph by bar twenty, it’ll make that pizzicato more jarring. Does that make sense?”
The string section laughed and nodded. A man—Reinhardt, the regular orchestra director—tapped his watch from the side of the stage with an indulgent smile, and Oscar straightened as if startled.
“Ah crap, that’s it! That’s all we have time for tonight, thank you guys so much, this has been amazing. Will be amazing.”
He put down his baton and the orchestra settled, starting to chat. I shrunk into a seat, wondering whether to escape now or continue my recon. The violinist beelined for Oscar as he stepped away from the podium and that made the decision for me.
I froze, watching. She touched his arm to whisper in his ear. He threw his head back to laugh, exposing the elegant length of his neck like he was inviting her to kiss it. She curved her body into that telltale S shape that meant “I’m into you.” And then he leaned forward . . . and whispered back.
See, this—this made sense! So much more sense than me and Oscar, whatever we were. They could have such a future together. Midnight music sessions, a joint concert tour, a dozen brilliant prodigy children, who was I to stand in the way? And I’d find someone else. A Joey. Joey was great! Nice, friendly, above-average at math, an easy keel through a normal life . . . it was lovely, inevitable. I would get used to the feeling of my heart hemorrhaging with every beat. Totally fine.
I slid from the aisle the exact moment Oscar turned.
He saw me. And he did not smile. He looked stricken.
He had something to hide. He cared enough to want it hidden.
I started away, but Oscar raced up the aisle, hand outstretched to intercept me.
“You heard.”
“I did.” My voice shook even on those two little words.
“It’s not anywhere close to ready, but they want me to start working it with the orchestra so that I can move on to the second movement . . .”
I had to sit against the stiff back of a velvet seat, I was so thrown. Was he not hooking up with that girl?
“If I’d known you’d be listening, I don’t think I could have gone through with it.”
“The rehearsal? I . . . why?”
He took my hand and ran his rough thumb over it. “Because I want you to think I’m brilliant.”
“You are brilliant.” That’s the problem. That’s the whole stupid problem. “This . . . symphony is . . . it’s true, you know? It has breath in it. A soul. I . . .”
My eyes welled up. I was such a lunatic.
Oscar’s eyes were glistening too. “You like it?”
I could only nod—overcome with relief, with wild affection, with recognition of how much I’d missed this.
“It wasn’t—?” he started.
“It was incredible, Oscar.” I finally let myself smile. “It’s going to be—”
He stopped me with a kiss so fervent, the ground, the chandeliers, the entire hall disappeared around us until all of existence consisted of our two bodies, floating in space. When he pulled away, smoothing my hair, Lilly Hall crept back in, detail by detail, blurry with unreality.
I glanced back at the orchestra and saw the violinist’s head darting quickly away, like she’d been watching. She did have a crush. I no longer blamed her.
“Do you need to get back?” I nodded to the stage.
“No, I’m done. They’re rehearsing Ralph Vaughan Williams next. He couldn’t make it out tonight to conduct.”
“Being dead and all?”
“Unprofessional, but what can you do?” He pulled a frown and I laughed. “Shall we?”
We stepped into the plaza, our shadows stretching endlessly along the flagstones.
“So I haven’t—” I said, as he blurted, “I’m sorry I haven’t—” He chuckled, uneasy. “Go on.”
“I was going to say something along the lines of long time no see.”
“And I was going to say something along the lines of sorry I’m such a hermit asshole stereotype of a musician.”
“Oh, that old expression.” I nudged him with my shoulder while I listened hard for the real answer.
“I’ve been in a fever, all this music coming out since we went to the Cloisters. Since we . . .” He drew a breath and seemed to hold it. I held mine too, remembering a few nights ago. “I needed to orchestrate the first movement and all the pieces seemed to come together.”
“You did all the orchestrations in the past two days? How—?”
“I haven’t really been sleeping?”
Now that I was looking more closely, Oscar seemed thin. His hands were trembling. He caught me looking and shoved them in the pockets of his pants.
Thunder rolled somewhere to the east, the light shifting orange.
“So have you been home this whole time?” I asked. “I would have helped you, you know. I could have brought you food or—”
“I didn’t want to bother you. You’ve got your own life.”
His words were an echo of what he’d said before I went to Nora’s. An echo of Jules’s words too. They heartened and worried me.
We stopped at a crosswalk. A drop of rain hit my head. Oscar looked up as if he could identify the source.
I turned to him, blood pumping. “Okay, so, I really don’t want to be ‘that girl’ and I know we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, so this might sound like it’s coming out of left field, but what—?”
“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
I blinked. “Do I . . . ?”
“I feel like I’m eight. Check one for yes, two for no.” He bit his bottom lip, eyes alight.
“You had girlfriends when you were eight?”
“Elisa Meyers, lasted three days, what’s your answer.”
“Yes.” My voice sounded like I was eight. “Yes, option two, I will be your girlfriend.”
Oscar hugged me tight, his mouth pressed to my forehead, rocking me back and forth. Then he murmured into my ear, “Girlfriend was option one.”
I poked him in the ribs. He laughed and dodged away. The rain started coming down hard. We ran across the street, holding hands, but were already drenched by the time we hit the opposite curb.
“Ack!” I let out a mock-scream, head ducked to avoid the deluge.
Oscar pulled me to a corner store, and I thought for a second he was leading me inside, but then he stopped us outside the flowers, under the awning where the scent was thickest, and kissed my wet face. My forehead, my cheeks, my chin.
He glanced up at the flimsy awning. “Can’t have my girlfriend getting wet.”
“How gallant.” I could barely think, I was smiling so much. “There’s this expression, ‘Don’t like the weather in New York? Wait five minutes.’ Hardy-har-har.”
How was I still talking with his mouth tracing the curve of my neck?
He straightened, staring into my eyes. “Every city has that expression.”
“Not Phoenix.” I nodded, just as serious. “It’s sunny all the time.”
“We should go there,” Oscar said, edging us back into the rain. “We should go everywhere.”
I pulled him faster. “Let’s start with home.”