SEBASTIAN
“What time is it?” I get up from my seat for the fifth time in the last two minutes.
“Add about thirty-six seconds to what I told you the last time you asked.” Brad answers from his spot on the beanbag, arms and legs spread out like an octopus, his violin bow see-sawing up and down, balancing on top of his forehead.
“I wasn’t listening.” I tell him honestly. I turn to the greenroom door and wrench it open, peering down the hallway at the crew rushing around, doing their jobs. Which includes ignoring me.
“Ask me again in thirty seconds.” Brad offers.
“Gah, just fucking tell me already.” I slam the door shut and sit back down on the couch, pushing Jez’s hand away when he puts in on my knee to stop the incessant jiggling.
“Chill, man, it’s 6:30, we’re on in an hour.” Brad relents.
I don’t think I can last an hour. My adrenaline’s peaked and it needs to act now. My fingers are twitching, they’ve played every chord progression of the first few songs over and over against my leg and they were itching to wrap around my cello.
“Can’t we just go on now?” I ask them seriously, my leg jiggling so much the water in the jug on the coffee table builds up momentum and threatens to spill over the rim.
“No. Not if you want anyone to be there to listen, man.” Jez answers, his voice trying to stay calm but ending up somewhere between amused and over it.
“Since when did we care if anyone was listening?” I’m getting desperate now. I stand back up and start to pace, drumming my fingers against my leg and biting the fingers on my left hand.
“Since we started charging them seventy dollars a pop to show up and listen.” Marius calls out from his yoga stance in the corner. I feel like pushing him over and shoving his bow somewhere downward on his dog.
I can feel their eyes on me as I pace the room. Walking back and forth, corner to corner, around the chaises with no pattern in mind, muttering to myself, reminding myself of the set list, of opening and closing comments, crowd pleasers.
“Man, he hasn’t been this bad in a long time.” I vaguely hear Marius say.
“Maybe since Amsterdam.” Jez chuckles.
“Yeah?”
“Well, remember what happened in Amsterdam.”
“No, I don’t, dear Jeremy. Why don’t you remind me?” Brad says to Jez, calling him by his full name.
“Why, Bradley, one might remember that one Mr. Sebastian had a visitor one night there in Amsterdam.”
“Oh yes, one does remember. A rather loud visitor, if one does remember correctly.”
“Oh yes, one does remember correctly indeed.”
“It seems one’s visitor helped wonders with Mr. Sebastian’s preperformance jitters. Perhaps it is time one Mr. Sebastian has another visitor?”
“Isn’t that Dennis’ job?” Marius agrees.
“It bloody hell isn’t.” The voice comes booming through the intercom interrupting the banter.
“Aw fuck, who turned that on?” Jez growls at the baby monitor Dennis uses as an intercom to spy on us.
“Well, it wasn’t me.” Brad says defensively.
“No one’s thinking it was you, Brad. When’s the last time you turned anything on?” Marius quips, grinning at Jez and high fiving him.
“Hey!”
“I turned it on before you dickheads went in there.” Dennis’ voice booms through the tiny speaker. “Now shut the fuck up and leave Sebastian alone. And Sebastian, stop fucking pacing, sit down and chill the fuck out. Remember the breathing lessons Hailey gave you.”
I press myself against the door and close my eyes, counting my breaths. Deep breath in two, three, four, five. Hold. Out two, three, four, five. I feel my ribcage expand and stretch from the air. My hands feel the urge to scratch at my skin and I shove them in my pockets.
My right hand digs deep and closes around a cube object. It’s the box of rosin. The rosin I stole from that girl. The girl in the store. Cadence. My mouth twitches a little as I remember the way her eyes rounded into large, perfect circles, the pupils like a Belgium chocolate truffle, soft brown and velvety, when I brushed her cheek with my lips. Her mouth shaped into a seductive ‘O’, in both sound and structure. Sending my body and mind into hormonal overdrive as I imagine her lips making that same shape while she experienced an ‘O’ of my making.
“Fuck.” I shake my head to reset my brain’s thoughts. What is wrong with me? Why has she taken such a hold of me?
“What?” Jez looks up in response to my curse.
“Nothing.”
“He’s thinking of a ‘visitor’.”
I wasn’t. But I am now. Thinking of opening the door to my dressing room and finding Cadence standing there. Even if just to yell at me for being a damn jerk again. I’d take it. I’d promised her I’d make it up to her. And I can’t wait for the night to be over so I can fulfill that promise.
Just got. To get through. The night.
“Hey, what time is it now?” I ask the boys and they groan in synchrony.
“What?!?”
CADENCE
“You’re not wearing that.” Sarah greets me as soon as I open the door.
“What? Why? I think I look fine.” I look down at my floor-length floral maxi dress and pink cardigan.
“You do, babe. You look fine. For church. Not a concert.”
“A classical music concert!” I remind her.
“Mashed with ROCK!”
“Ugh, stop reminding me.”
“Come on.” She grabs my hand and pulls me into my bedroom.
“Where are we going?”
“Into the deepest corners of your closet to find something appropriate for you to wear.”
***
“I look ridiculous.” I tell her ten minutes later sitting in her car. My floral dress has been discarded and in its place is a short black mini I bought on a whim once but have never had the courage to wear. After some begging, Sarah relented and allowed me to pull on the pink cardigan though.
“Only because you keep fidgeting.” She reaches over and slaps my hands away from my cardigan’s collar.
“We’re going to stand right out.” I scrunch my face up at the thought.
“So what if we do?” She shrugs nonchalantly. “But trust me, we’re going to fit right it.”
“You’re crazy. We’re going to be the only ones dressed like this.”
She turns into the parking lot and waits for the crowd of people crossing to get to the concert hall. A startling array of leather and Mohawks and motorcycle boots greet me.
“Oh. Never mind.” I concede.
Sarah throws her head back and laughs. “I told you.”
“Curiouser and curiouser.”
She parks the car and we get out. I pull on the dress, making sure it covers top and bottom where it needs to. It does, just barely. The pink cardigan covers my arms but just barely buttons up over my chests, so I leave it open.
“Come on!” Sarah calls out to me, waving at me to catch up with her. “Let’s go see Beethoven roll over in his grave!”
***
“Aren’t these seats amazing?” Sarah squeals to me, turning in her seat to take in the sold-out crowd.
Despite myself, I have to agree with her. Somehow she’s scored front row seats and the atmosphere is electric. I have to admit, I have no idea what to expect, but I’m a little excited. As a lifelong lover of classical music this concept of mashing it with rock music sounds almost sacrilegious. The crowd is an eclectic mix at best – and there is an unprecedented number of young women here, more than I’ve ever seen at a classical music performance.
The stage setup tells me nothing. There isn’t any decor, just an empty stage with four chairs. Not even a music stand disrupts the otherwise bare landscape of the stage floor.
Who are these musicians?
With the building noise from the rowdy crowd, my curiosity grows, and by the time the lights dim and the 10,000 voices around me start chanting “No Strings Attached! No Strings Attached!” I find my lips twitching to join them. Nothing stops Sarah though, and she’s up and out of her chair, pumping her fists and adding her yells with the crowd’s as the hall completely fades into black.
I hold my breath as my eyes adjust to the darkness.
And then a single note plays pure and clear, fading in from the dark to fill the hall with sound. I close my eyes and feel the vibration of the cello string penetrate my body. My cells calibrating to the particular vibration of that one cello. And I wait.
The single note breaks and it’s silent again.
Then, as if ordained by God, the ceiling of the concert hall lights up with 100,000 white lights. Twinkling artificial stars dancing over the eaves and chandeliers, reflecting back onto the darkened walls and raised hands of the audience, reaching out to touch the radiance. And as each light grows brighter, and its diameter spreads so you can’t differentiate one from the next, the single string note plays once more, starting soft and then building louder and louder and louder as the light grows brighter and brighter until the ceiling is just one giant expanse of light, almost painfully blinding, bathing the entire audience in an almost heavenly pure glow. And just when I think the light can’t get brighter, it explodes like a hundred fireworks and then folds into darkness once more.
And then the music begins. Out of the darkness, while my eyes are still playing tricks on me and projecting dancing fairy lights against the black backdrop, the single note breaks into the opening strains of a tune so familiar, but I can’t pick it.
But I don’t care. It is divine.
Short notes on the violins dancing over the driving beat of the cellos.
I’m lost in the sound, with the lights completely out, my senses are all forced to shut down to focus just on the music coming out of the dark.
The notes cascade over each other, driving forward, forward, building towards a chorus that I can feel is about to break.
God, what is that tune...what is it?
I reach out next to me and Sarah’s hand gropes for mine, and we grip each other for a sense of reality in this surreal, beautiful experience. Her body bumps against mine as we give in to the sound wrapping itself around us.
And then, as the chords change in a familiar progression, I realize, it’s U2’s “It’s a Beautiful Day”.
I’m stunned. I’ve only ever heard the lyrical version, I am amazed at the absolute melodic beauty of this song now that I don’t have the words to focus on. It’s almost as if this piece of music was written to be played by these four string musicians, they’ve made it theirs.
But I don’t have time to muse over my revelation for too long.
Just as the chorus breaks, and the crowd raises their voices into a communal declaration of “It’s a Beautiful Day”, the stage lights up with the universe of dancing stars fallen from the ceiling.
The scream that projects from the crowd somehow is only just overtaken by the music, and I scan the stage, trying to make out the band amongst the white haze.
As the song pulls back into the second chorus, the lights slowly dissipate, and focus on a single spotlight, the lead cellist.
As my eyes blink away the excessive light, I can just start to see the musician’s form. It’s tall and slim, his head is down, hair over his face as he stands, lost in the music he is creating from his instrument. Or is it that it’s creating from him? It’s hard to tell, they look to be working in complete synchrony. In all my years of attending both classical and pop concerts, I’ve never experienced anything like it.
I can’t tear my eyes off the cellist, envious of his talent, of his connection to the music, maybe even jealous... of his commitment to the notes, his complete surrender to his passion.
And then, just as the song builds to its climax, he throws his head back, the hair falling from his eyes and he looks out into the crowd.
And my blood runs cold even as my body bursts into flame.
It’s him.