Chapter Thirty-One
Crescendo: to gradually grow louder
Charlie
The house lights are already down when I slip into the auditorium. The random sounds of the orchestra musicians warming up taper off, and I know the concertmaster is about to come on stage.
Keeping my head down and the little brim of my cute slouchy hat pulled low, I slip down the outside aisle. Carla has a seat saved for me next to her and Damian’s parents, Elisa and Hector. I listened to Damian’s recital from the greenroom at Marycliff, like I did with Lauren’s, but I’m damned if I’ll do that here.
He’s the last performer before intermission, so I’m slipping in at the last second before the concert starts, and I’m planning on darting out during the applause once Damian’s done. Hopefully that will minimize the likelihood of me being spotted.
For once, it’s not because I’m worried a pop-up show will be discovered in advance. In fact, if I get spotted in town at some point, it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever, because it would throw people off track, thinking I’ll do a show here when there’s not one planned. Because I just did one in March.
While it is convenient to plan shows at the same time I get to visit my friends, the point is to spread them out, so two shows in the same place only two months apart doesn’t fit that plan.
What I don’t want is for people to see me here. The point of tonight is to celebrate the concerto competition winners. For me, to celebrate Damian. When his mom found out I was planning on coming, she insisted that I sit with them. She was annoyed I didn’t sit with them at his recital, in fact. But there was no way for me to sneak in and out of the auditorium there. It’s too small, student recitals too sparsely attended, for my presence not to be noteworthy.
When I’d explained that, she’d sighed but seemed to accept it.
Here, though, there are more people, many from out of town, and it’s a community orchestra, so the audience is made up of people in the community, not just the insular music department of a university like at Marycliff.
Clapping starts around me as I settle into the seat next to Carla. Looking up, I see the concertmaster bow, then turn to the orchestra to start the tuning procedure. There’s a grand piano on stage as well.
Carla passes me a program and leans in close. “I’m so glad you made it. Do you think anyone noticed you?”
I give a tiny shake of my head, not wanting to answer verbally or do anything that will draw any attention. Elisa reaches across Carla and pats my knee. I turn and give her a smile. Then we all settle in for the concert. There are five performers in all—a pianist, a clarinet player, a violinist who won the high school division, a vocalist, and Damian.
The pianist plays a Rachmaninoff concerto—lush and beautiful. Listening to her play gives me a little pang in my chest. I had daydreamed about playing this kind of music for a short time. I love writing and collaborating on my next album, and the pop-up shows have been the most fun I’ve had performing in a long time, but I miss the weekly lessons, the constant striving to improve. Working with The Professor is a little like that. His nickname fits him to a T. He’s brilliant, but he also works closely with the artists, showing them different tricks and teaching them how to get the most out of their voices and instruments so that his job is just to take the song to the next level more than it is to fix problems in the process.
Applause at the end of the piece pulls me out of my thoughts, and I join in. Someone stands and brings a bouquet of flowers, which she crouches down to retrieve before taking another bow. She turns to indicate the conductor, cradling the flowers in her arm as she joins the applause for the orchestra. With one last bow, she sweeps off the stage.
Stagehands dressed in black push the piano off to the side behind the violin sections to make room for the next performer. Once again I lose myself in thoughts of what might have been had I been able to stay at Marycliff. Could I have competed in something like this? Would I have had a chance of winning, performing with an orchestra?
No.
That’s the only real answer. Even if I could’ve been good enough—which, given my lack of formal training for so many years is unlikely in the extreme—but even if I’d been able to overcome that hurdle, the fact that I’m Charlotte James makes competing on this stage, performing here in this way, impossible.
This is not Charlotte James’s music.
That thought makes me inexpressibly sad, because this music is beautiful.
Although …
If Metallica can perform with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, maybe I could come up with a similar project.
I shelve the idea, though. For now. I need to get through my current album and the subsequent tour and promotional period before I can start on something like that.
But if I could get Jonathan and Gabby’s help with the composing, and maybe Damian can weigh in too … well, that opens a whole new world of possibilities. I could even do it as a collaboration with Jonathan. I bet he’d love it.
I’ve missed almost the entire clarinet performance, but I don’t care, because Damian’s next. I let out an ear-splitting whistle as he takes the stage dressed all in black, the sleeves of his shirt cuffed above his elbow, holding his cello at an angle so he can bow low, his scarlet tie dangling in front of it. He straightens and settles in the black chair the stage hands brought out for him after the clarinet player left the stage.
The oboe plays an A for him, and he draws his bow across his strings, checking his tuning. Satisfied, he nods to the conductor. The conductor raises his arms and the orchestra lifts their instruments, playing the opening beautifully. Damian sits still, lost in the music, waiting for his entrance.
It’s different from his recital, where he was accompanied by a piano and they shortened the introduction, playing only a few lines before Damian’s entrance.
When he sets his bow on the string, his passion comes through from the first note. I watch, spellbound.
I’ve heard him play—I’ve heard him play this piece, in fact—countless times. Not just through a closed practice room door or from behind the stage in the recital hall, either. He’s played it for me more than once. But nothing about those previous performances compares to this one, with him backed by an orchestra.
It’s breathtaking.
He’s breathtaking.
Everything about his performance, the way he moves with the music, with his cello, like it’s an extension of himself, like every movement, every note, is effortless.
I’ve never managed that with the piano, and I doubt I ever will.
Oh, I can perform. I can work a crowd and dance and sing and execute choreography and costume changes. I’m a good performer, a good entertainer. I know this, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do what I do.
But I am not this. I do not become this sublime creature who delivers art and beauty to earth. Communicating the heart of emotion without words. The oracle of artistry and truth.
When he reaches the end, all I can think is how glad I am to be in the audience instead of backstage or in the wings. That I get to experience this the way it’s intended, not as a stowaway hidden somewhere.
Damian stands and bows. And when his mother moves to take him the bouquet of flowers wrapped in cellophane that I just now notice she has, I hold out my hands for them. She hesitates, but when I wiggle my fingers, she hands them over.
With a giant grin on my face, I jog down the outside aisle and cross the front of the stage, picking my way past the people in the front row so I can get to Damian.
When he sees me coming, he stops and stares, waiting for me to get there so I can give him his flowers. He crouches down, one hand supporting his cello next to him where the neck joins the body, the bow pinched between two fingers. “What are you doing?” he hisses, but he’s smiling, even if his eyes are wide and surprised.
“Giving you your flowers.”
He takes them from me, glancing around at the people behind me. That’s when I notice the murmuring blending with the dwindling applause. Then there’s a flash. And another. Someone crowds in close on my right, the flash on their phone going off as they take another picture.
The applause has completely died, and now I can clearly make out people whispering my name. The whispers are turning into full-voiced comments, and then someone shouts, “Charlotte James, sing us a song!”
My mouth is still smiling, but it’s a frozen rictus now. Dammit. I was supposed to slip out before they turned on the house lights, not run down to the front with Damian’s bouquet. Blinking hard, I suck in a breath, prepared to turn around and offer to sign autographs at intermission and after the concert. And then make a donation to the symphony as an apology for interrupting everything.
But before I can do any of that, Damian’s mouth firms, his eyes refocusing on me after scanning the crowd behind me. He lays the bouquet on the stage next to him and offers me his hand.
When I don’t immediately take it, he whispers, “C’mon, Charlie. We can go out the back. Then you won’t get mobbed.”
That’s all the convincing I need. I place my hand in his, my fingers wrapped around the meaty base of his thumb. Planting my other hand on the stage, I use that in concert with Damian’s strong pull to get up on the stage.
We take a bow together as the tone of the crowd turns from wonder to confusion. A few people clap as we straighten and Damian places his hand on my lower back to hurry me off the stage.
As we get to the wings, the house lights come up. A glance over my shoulder shows the conductor heading our way, his face equal parts confused and annoyed.
“Come on.” Damian threads his fingers through mine and tugs me down a hall to a tiny dressing room. Once we’re inside, he closes and locks the door, his breath coming hard and fast as he turns to look at me.
But then he smiles, that wide, sexy smile of his, and I can’t help but smile back.