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AN HOUR LATER, WITH Miles still refusing to let her help clean up, Katrina sat at his small table while he put the leftovers away. She couldn’t believe how long she’d talked. It was a good thing they’d agreed to work on instrumentals next. Her voice had been strained even before they spent all of lunch break discussing her childhood, her music, and most of all her mother.
“She kind of sounds like a freak.” It didn’t take long for Miles to reach his conclusion.
When the table was clear, he gave her the smile that had grown so familiar. “You ready for round two?”
She nodded.
“Ok, and you just tell me when you’re tired and ready to call it a day, all right?”
“I will.” She had never been so ready to pull out her violin. Ready to give her vocal cords a break and let her instrument take over.
Let Dmitry sing.
“I can’t wait to hear how this turns out.” Miles grinned and held the door to his studio closet open for her. The room was so small she’d have to remind herself not to sway too much or she really might poke his eye out with her bow.
She went straight to her case, but Miles stopped her. “Wait a minute.”
She turned to him. She hoped her breath didn’t stink from all that salmon.
He stared down at her, and she did her best to catch her breath.
“I just want to tell you how thankful I am that you’re doing this for me. I said it before, but I’m not sure you understand. Before we met, I’d gone four years without composing anything. Four whole years.”
She tried imagining that long without Dmitry but couldn’t. The few months she’d taken off from her violin had been empty enough.
“You’re a gift from heaven,” he confessed, even though he’d never spoken about God in any personal way before. “My muse.” He stopped. “Am I making you uncomfortable by saying that?”
How was she supposed to respond when she couldn’t breathe? What was she supposed to say if all the air had fled the room?
“I don’t want to do anything that would make you uncomfortable.” He spoke the words softly, with a question tacked on to the end. An invitation.
One she found herself responding to implicitly the longer she stayed silent.
Something. She had to do something. Say something. But this same man who’d so recently helped her discover her voice had now stolen it away.
“I think we’re really similar.” His words were lulling. Hypnotic. “Two creative beings trapped in such a drab, colorless town with no art or beauty except what we create together.” He paused.
She was ready to pull out her violin, but she’d forgotten how to say so.
Or maybe she’d never known how to begin with.
“I have a story for you.”
She let out her breath as he eased himself into his swivel chair. Whatever it was that had just happened, whatever trance his words had pulled her into, the moment had passed. The air returned — normal, breathable, pure air.
She’d never take her own breath for granted again.
“Last year, I had two students,” he began, “both of them great musicians.” He picked at some lint on his pants leg. “Played the clarinet and flute, both first chair, both extremely talented. Best kids I’ve worked with in years.”
She nodded, uncertain why he was telling her some tale from his classroom but infinitely thankful he’d stopped talking about the way she’d become his muse and had inspired his music. Silly of her to get worked up over something that small. Silly to think that a harmless compliment was anything to leave her feeling so scared and weak and vulnerable.
“So when it came time for state Solo and Ensemble,” he went on, “I paired them up. Thought they’d make the perfect match. I mean, these are really committed kids we’re talking about here. Even had them coming over to the classroom two, three afternoons a week for extra practice. But you know what? Even though they were my two best students and on the surface it had made all the sense in the world to put them together, it turned out they just didn’t cut it as a duet.”
He glanced up from his pants and stole her breath once more with the intensity of his stare.
“Sometimes you get matched up with the wrong partner.”
Blink.
She wanted to ask what happened next. Wanted to tell him that was an interesting story and then move on to start unpacking her instrument, but he held her gaze steady.
Blink.
She reached to fidget with her wedding ring but clenched her fists instead.
“Sometimes you get matched up with the wrong partner. But if you’re lucky, you’ll find the opportunity to make adjustments as necessary.”
Blink.
The same gaze that held her captive also contained a thousand questions. A thousand ways for her to respond.
Blink.
“Do you get what I’m saying?”
She nodded, not because she wanted to agree with him but because she hoped that some response, any response, might free her from his stare.
He stood up again, his chest just inches away from hers. She stared at his shoulder, trying hard to resist the eyes that pulled her gaze toward his.
“Since that day we sang together, I’ve thanked God for bringing you here to Orchard Grove. You pulled me out of a four-year-long rut. I can never repay you for that.”
Her head was spinning, her entire field of vision swallowed up by his nearness. She tried to blink her sight into focus, but it was impossible.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” He’d asked her that once before. Why hadn’t she said something then? The longer she waited ...
But then again, why shouldn’t an adult be able to compliment another adult without it turning into some big, weird, awkward thing? Why couldn’t he tell her how thankful he was for the way she’d inspired him musically without her breath automatically escaping and her strength seeping out of every muscle in her body?
Why couldn’t he express his gratitude?
Why shouldn’t he?
It was silly for her to be so worked up. Silly and juvenile and vain, too. How full of herself did she have to be if she could honestly misconstrue one kind word to mean that he wanted to ...
His hands found her hips and pulled her close. His breath brushed softly against her temple when he whispered, “Tell me if you want me to stop.” The corner of his mouth found the spot right above her eyebrow.
Her heart leaped so high into her throat she wouldn’t have been able to speak even if she knew what to say. She doubted there was even a centimeter of space left separating her body from his, and yet he pulled her closer.
“I think we make a perfect duet,” he mumbled into her skin.
Her heart was pounding so hard and he had pulled her so tightly against his chest that she was certain each thud reverberated against him with the intensity of a mallet against a tympani drum.
She’d hesitated too long. If she were going to say something, it was too late now. Her silence had already made her complicit. She felt like the virgin at the end of Rite of Spring, about to meet her death in a gruesome pagan sacrifice.
A virgin who perhaps could have fought harder for her freedom than she did.
And all she could do was watch as if she were nothing more than a player in an orchestra, with the score set and predetermined long before she picked up her instrument.
There was nothing she could do.
Her body trembled against his, and he pulled her in closer, his lips now against her ear. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”
That was it. Her one last chance of escape. If she didn’t cling to it now, there would be no other way out.
She’d spent her entire lifetime being told that she was quiet. That she was demure. That she was nothing but a little voiceless mouse.
Except that wasn’t who she was.
Not anymore.
“Stop.” Her body still trembled, but her voice was firm. She pulled herself away and repeated that freeing word. “Stop.”
He let out a breath large enough to fill the entire room. So that’s where all the air had gone. “Kat, I’m sorry ...”
She grabbed her violin case, and he stepped aside.
“I didn’t want ... I didn’t mean ...” He threw up his hands in a hopeless gesture.
“I need to go.” She was prepared for a fight, but he let her walk by and didn’t follow her out of his studio.
“I hope one day you’ll forgive me,” he called after her in a voice that had now lost its confidence as well as its allure.