Chapter Seven
Acciaccato: broken down, crushed; the sounding of the notes of a chord not quite simultaneously but from bottom to top
Damian
Charlie’s front door closes behind me with a soft click, and I find myself alone in the cool air of a September evening. It’s stayed warm for longer than normal around here, the days full of sunshine, but the nights are as chilly as usual. The cold light from the stars highlights the fact that I’m now cut off from Charlie and her warmth.
I blink at the door a few times, debating whether to knock and apologize and taking her up on her offer of coffee. Trying again to ineptly explain myself.
But she shut down.
She ran away when I said no to sex, and when she came back out she was a different person. Armored with that cold, brittle exterior. If I wasn’t paying attention, I might’ve thought she was fine. Hell, if I hadn’t seen her before she went in the bathroom, been part of what sent her running, I would have thought she was fine.
She wasn’t, though.
I let out a heavy breath and head to my car. Going back inside, even if she let me in, wouldn’t return me to her warmth. No, I was firmly shut out even before the door closed. And no amount of explanation on my part right now will make a difference, even as my body still thrums with what I could’ve had.
But we barely know each other. And I know myself well enough to know I’m not wired for casual sex. That I want something far more than casual.
So I get in my car and drive around for a while, needing to calm down and figure out what to do next before I head home. But when I get home I realize that it doesn’t matter what I’ve planned. I can’t do anything. I never thought to get Charlie’s phone number.
A week passes before I see Charlie again. And when I do, it’s from the audience in the recital hall. She’s on stage, sitting primly beside Cheryl, the staff accompanist, to turn pages during Katherine’s senior recital, one of the vocal majors.
After the recital ends, I linger in the lobby, eating cake and chatting with my friends, all the while keeping an eye out for Charlie. But I never see her. Did she escape while I wasn’t paying attention? Or is she still in the greenroom?
Twenty minutes later, the only people left in the lobby are Katherine’s parents, cleaning up the remains of the refreshments, packing up the leftovers to take home. And me. I stand awkwardly for a moment, still hoping that Charlie might appear. But she doesn’t. Maybe she’s waited in the greenroom this whole time so she doesn’t have to see me.
Frustrated, I head to a practice room. I’ve already practiced today, but with contests to prepare for and my own junior recital coming up in a few months, extra practice time won’t hurt.
But my brain is buzzing with all the things I want to say to Charlie. The frustration of missing my chance tonight. Is she going to avoid me forever?
I asked Lauren for Charlie’s number after class on Wednesday. She just eyeballed me, and said, “Oh, did she not give it to you? Hmm.”
I gritted my teeth and said, “No. I forgot to ask for it. But I need to talk to her.”
She stroked her chin, like she sometimes does, and said, “I’ll tell her you want to talk and see what she says.”
But Lauren didn’t bring it up again, either yesterday or today. I don’t know if that means she never said anything to Charlie, or if Charlie’s answer was no. From the way Charlie avoided me after the recital, I’m inclined to think her answer was no.
My practice session sucks. I can’t focus past all the questions running through my head. My scales are terrible and out of tune. Not even the challenge of the Bach cello suites can distract me.
After about half an hour, I give up. Packing up my cello, I haul it back downstairs to my instrument locker. And I make one more pass through the lobby. I don’t know why. It’s after ten. The only people around this time of night, especially on a Friday night, are weirdos like me in the practice rooms.
But when I do, the faint sound of a piano reaches me. I try the main door to the recital hall, but it’s locked. Still curious, I head toward the entrance to the greenroom that leads to the stage.
It’s cracked.
When I open it, the sound of the piano is even louder, and I recognize the slow sliding chords. The melancholy tinged with sweetness that drew my attention the first time I heard it a couple of weeks ago.
Peeking through the stage door, I see Charlie at the piano. She has the big stick out, holding up the lid on the nine foot Steinway in the middle of the stage. The dark brown quilted piano cover sits in a crumpled heap between the piano and the edge of the stage.
I lean against the door frame, quietly watching her. She’s completely absorbed by her playing, her whole body involved in pulling the sound from the piano. As I stand listening, the sweet quality leaves her music, and it becomes darker, angrier. Fewer major chords are in the mix, and she pounds on the piano, each attack jarring through her small frame.
Eventually, the chords gentle. Now just melancholy. And then they drift off. She’s a frozen tableau, her fingers still pressing down the keys as the sound fades away to nothing.
When she lifts her hands, she gently closes the keyboard cover, puts her elbows on top of it, and covers her face with her hands.
I straighten, concern shooting through me, and speak without thinking. “Are you okay?”
She jerks around, one hand on her chest, which is now heaving. “Holy shit! Damian, you scared the crap out of me.” Her eyes scan down my body and back up again. “I thought I was alone. What are you doing here?”
“Oh.” I scratch my cheek and adjust my glasses. “I heard you playing and stopped to listen.”
Her eyes narrow in a look that she must’ve picked up from Lauren. They could be twins. “You creep on girls practicing a lot? Or am I just lucky?”
I push my hands into my pockets, studying her. “Been hanging out with Lauren a lot lately?”
She blinks at my change of subject. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“She seems to be rubbing off on you. The narrowed eyes, sarcastic questions. Classic Lauren.”
“How do you know it’s not just me? You don’t know me that well.”
“No. I don’t,” I say softly. “That’s why I didn’t want to take things further last week.”
Her eyes widen at that, and she turns back to the piano, but not before I see the rise of pink in her cheeks. She runs her fingers over the lacquered wood of the piano. “So you don’t … You don’t know me well enough to want to have sex with me?”
She lifts her head, her blue eyes laser-like in their intensity.
It’s my turn to look away, glancing up at the ceiling of the recital hall, overwhelmed by her focus. “Sort of. It’s not that I didn’t want to, it’s more that I prefer it to mean something.” I lower my eyes to hers again. “I don’t do casual.”
She holds my eyes for a second, then nods, her attention returning to where her fingers rest on the keyboard cover. “I see.”
“I’d like to keep getting to know you,” I say into the silence. “I wanted to call you this week. But I don’t have your number.”
She nods, giving me a crooked smile. “Lauren mentioned something about you asking for my number.”
“But you didn’t tell her to give it to me.”
She shrugs. “I didn’t tell her not to. I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t know whether you wanted to call to try to let me down easy or for some other reason. And I …” She trails off and shakes her head.
“I wanted to talk to you. I’ve missed you this week.”
Her eyes find mine again, this time full of a kind of cautious hope. “I missed you too.”
“Do you want to go somewhere? Do something?”
She laughs. “Go somewhere and do something? So specific.”
I crack a grin in return. “Let’s go get dessert. Or coffee. Or pancakes. I don’t care. Just come with me.”
Swiveling around on the piano bench, she faces me completely for the first time. “Okay.” She stands and smooths down her black pencil skirt before closing the piano lid and crouching to retrieve the piano cover.
I step over to the other side of the piano, catching the shaped blanket and pulling it across, helping her smooth it into place, putting the piano to bed for the night. “Do we need to push it back?”
She shakes her head. “Glenda said I could leave it there when she let me stay here to play.”
As she comes around the piano to head for the door, I reach for her hand, threading our fingers together. She gives me a smile before reaching for the switches to turn off the stage lights. The house is already dark.
Hidden in the darkness, I ask the question that’s been plaguing me since I waited around eating cake. “Were you avoiding me after the recital?”
Her laugh is dry and humorless. “No. I actually didn’t even realize you were here.” She opens the door to the greenroom, the lamps from within sending a sliver of light shooting onto the dark stage. She takes a deep breath like she’s steeling herself as we walk through the greenroom and into the lobby, still hand in hand. “My mom called before the recital and left an … unpleasant voicemail. After Katherine and Cheryl left the greenroom for the reception, I took advantage of the privacy and called her back. It was … a frustrating conversation.”
I rub my thumb across her knuckles, trying to convey my sympathy. “What did she want?”
She bites her lip before shaking her head. “I really don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just say that my mom and I don’t see eye to eye on much of anything these days. We’ve basically been fighting since I got here. I’m seriously about to block her number.”
My head jerks back in surprise, and she gives me that crooked smile again. “I know. That sounds really harsh. But if you knew what she was like, you’d understand. You’d probably wonder why I haven’t blocked her sooner.”
I swallow. “Okay. I’ll take your word for it. Since you said you don’t want to talk about it.”
She nods. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” I stop, tugging on her hand to get her to face me, reaching up to brush a strand of hair away from her forehead and tuck it behind her ear. Her short haircut is growing out a little. “One day, when you feel like you can trust me enough, and when you’re up for talking about it, I’d like to hear about her. About what she disagrees with you about so strongly. And why you want to cut off contact with her.”
Her lips part on an indrawn breath, and she holds it in, frozen in anticipation of talking. She exhales on a rush, closing her eyes and nodding. “Okay.”
And that’s enough for me for now. I bring her hand up to my lips and give it a kiss. “Thank you. Now, you never said what you were agreeing to. Dessert? Coffee? Pancakes?”
A gleam of mischief comes into her eyes, and this time when she bites her lip it’s to cover a smile. “Would you think I’m crazy if I want a big pile of pancakes covered in berry syrup and whipped cream?”
I solemnly shake my head. “Not at all. Let’s go.”