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“I THOUGHT YOU SAID you’d just play melody during the chorus.” Greg rested his forearm against the side of his guitar.
Katrina tried to meet his glare. Over the past half an hour in the sanctuary, she had practiced her exit speech a dozen times. This wasn’t working. She couldn’t do it. He had to realize that. Instead, she just mumbled, “Sorry.”
He placed his pick on the music stand. “Look, if you don’t want to do this, just say so. It’ll go faster if I practice by myself anyway.”
She knew he didn’t mean what he said. He was offering her an out, but if she took it, he’d make her regret it. A subtle jab, a sideways glance, somehow she’d have to pay. She closed her eyes. Felt the bow between her fingers. Could she ever find that balance she was looking for?
“So are you doing melody or what?”
She didn’t know how to answer him. She was a second violinist. Harmonies made her music rich and vibrant. How was there any room for creative expression in plunking out the notes to a simple worship chorus? Besides, the congregation would be singing the melody. Why did they need her playing the exact same tune?
Why did they need her playing at all?
She wiped her hands on her pants legs. Nothing Dmitry hated more than a sweaty fingerboard.
“All right,” Greg said, “should we go from the bridge?”
Katrina raised her violin to her shoulder. Why did these modern songwriters insist on throwing in bridges? It was ridiculous, the musical equivalent of filling up an entire chapter of a novel with the same monotonous sentence over and over and over, maybe switching around the words every third or fourth line. But she was just whining now. She gave Greg a nod. She was ready.
Her playing was rusty. Twice she had missed a run she could hear perfectly in her head but her fingers couldn’t keep up with her brain. She should have never taken those two months off practicing.
Then again, she should have never agreed to play with Greg in the first place.
“What’s wrong now?” Greg asked when she tucked her violin under her arm in the middle of the piece.
“That’s supposed to be a D7,” she said. “You’ve been playing a D.”
Greg pouted and bent over his music stand. “Ok, you’re right. Not that it’s a huge difference.”
“Yeah, it is huge. That’s why it always sounds so awkward when we lead into the chorus.”
He penciled something onto his sheet of music. “Sounded all right to me.”
“I’m sure it did,” she mumbled.
“What?”
“Never mind.” She brought her violin up to her shoulder again. “Can we just start over, go through the whole thing, and be done with it?”
He threw his pencil onto the music stand. It bounced off the metal lip and landed on the floor. “Great.” He crouched down, still balancing his guitar on his lap. “Did you see where it went?” His tone was brusque. Accusatory.
“How should I know?”
“I never said you should know. I just asked if you did know.”
She frowned. During her engagement, she had daydreamed about this very thing, playing her violin while Greg piddled around on his guitar. It wasn’t a symphonic arrangement, but at least they could make music together. But whenever they tried in reality, she could barely stand the sound of his tinny, made-in-China hunk of wood with strings. He wasn’t even in sync with his instrument enough to know when he went flat.
“Here it is.” Greg picked up the pencil and replaced it on its stand. “All right. You ready to play now?”
“Fine.”
He strummed the intro. She had known even before they began dating he couldn’t maintain a steady tempo, so she didn’t bother to correct him when he sped up halfway into the first verse.
Majestic love, come fill me with your songs.
Almighty God, forgive me all my wrongs.
The music was supposed to make her feel repentant. Not that she needed that reminder. She knew how many times she had blown it. How many times she had let her temper flare up and get between her and Greg. But she wasn’t the only one. Their first night in the parsonage, he had yelled at her for taking too long to wash her hair. As if an extra three or four minutes running the hot water would blow the church budget.
A week later, he asked her why the flower beds in the front yard were covered in weeds. Here she was, with half their belongings still packed in boxes, and he was worried about flowers she hadn’t even planted? “They expect us to keep up the house and yard.” It was a phrase she had already grown sick of after seven long days in the parsonage. Sometimes she daydreamed about getting her own job so they could afford to rent a place of their own.
Burning fire, your love consumes my soul.
Savior God, your mercy makes me whole.
She had been so naïve to think Greg could ever complete her. They weren’t partners, working in harmony like a violin and a bow. They were more like a snare drum without a stick and a single cymbal. Technically they could make sound, but it certainly wasn’t music.
Gracious Father, cover all my sin.
Perfect love, revive my heart again.
A simple verse. A pretty enough melody if you were into modern worship songs. The problem was that the members of Orchard Grove Bible Church had grown up on hymns, gotten married with hymns, raised their children with hymns, and buried their beloved departed to the tune of even more hymns. No one knew what to do with a young youth pastor from southern California rushing in and assaulting the status quo with his guitar and pick.
Katrina was sick of the bickering. There wasn’t a single business meeting yet where the music issue hadn’t been thoroughly argued. Did it really matter what year a song was written if it glorified God? She had to admit she liked a lot of hymns for their musical and aesthetic qualities, but the words could be so convoluted or even flat-out ridiculous.
On the other hand, lyrics from the modern stuff could be just as awkward and immature. And if the songwriter didn’t have anything else to add, he just tacked on a bridge or repeated the last line of the chorus a dozen times or so to make sure the words sank in.
Heavenly peace, flood me.
Heavenly peace, flood me.
Your face is all I seek.
Heavenly peace, flood me.
Greg stopped strumming halfway through the drawn-out repetition. “Mouse, you look like you hate the world. Do you want to be done?”
She played one more line before she stopped. “Whatever.”
“No, it’s not whatever. I’m really worried about you. If you don’t want to be here, why don’t you go home?”
She gritted her teeth. “I’m fine.” She hated this song more than a lot of the others Greg chose. It felt as if she had been working on it with him for hours. Why couldn’t they wrap up rehearsal, lock up the church, and call it a night?
Greg set his pick down. “You definitely don’t look fine.”
What did he want? For her to admit how miserable she was?
“Can we just get to the end and then go home?” She kept her violin against her chin.
“No. I want to know what’s going on. Are you mad because I asked you to play?”
Her palms were sweaty again. “It’s not that.”
“I think it is. You’ve been angry with me ever since I asked you to fill in. If you didn’t want to do it, why didn’t you say so last week when it first came up?”
She poised her bow on the string. “I just want to finish this song.”
“Not until you tell me why you’re mad.”
“I’m not mad!” Why wouldn’t he ever believe her?
“Anything you say.” He stepped down from the stage. “I don’t feel like practicing anymore. I’m going home.” He paused to look over his shoulder when he was halfway out of the sanctuary. “You coming?”
“Pretty soon.” She made a show of flipping through her pages on the music stand even though she could play all of Greg’s little church ditties without the aid of song sheets.
“Whatever,” he mumbled. “Turn the lights out when you’re done.”
As if she could have forgotten.