Chapter 5, Scene 3

I tried on about twenty things before I decided on my softest jeans and a turquoise t-shirt layered over a white one.  A row of twelve Indian bracelets, each one as thin as a lock of hair, in white and turquoise and pink, went on my left wrist, where they wouldn’t interfere with bowing.

Mom dropped me off at the music store almost an hour early. Mr. Oliver was busy with another student, and Bartholomew was not yet around, so I left the cello behind the counter with Pinky and wandered around the shops, sheltered from the soft rain by a big black umbrella.

Something about the light or the smell of the streets made me suddenly, fiercely homesick for New York. For days like this when I’d gone into the city and wandered around with my friends, eating and shopping and messing around, for the long trek to school. Car tires swished by, and I peered into shop windows, my head filled with the sound of buses and horns and people walking by with cell phones.

Would I ever like this place?  I didn’t think so. And if I wanted the life I had imagined for myself, as a musician, I would need to be in the city anyway.

It was only a year until I could go back. That was the agreement I’d made with my mother. Come to Colorado and finish high school, then go back to college in New York.

At least I hoped that was what I could do. It depended on where I got in.

I found a used bookstore with a coffee shop and sat down with a chai and a book of poetry. The music was alternative, and decent, and I liked the crowd, which was what you might expect near a college—students and middle aged men with beards and glasses and women wearing bohemian fabrics leaning close to talk about important things. It was only after I’d been sitting there for ten minutes that  I realized a woman sitting by herself had that same long-limbed, large-eyed look of the immigrants in my neighborhood. Her cheekbones were high slashes across a thin face, and her hair was a snowy blond. She was older than Sebastian and Bartholomew, and very, very thin. She picked at a salad, eating a leaf only every few minutes, and her foot swung slowly.

She caught me staring and I looked away, embarrassed. When I glanced back up, she gave me a hard glance, then gathered up her things and stood up. Afraid she was coming over, I tried to decide what I should do if she called me Micayla.

She flung her stuff into a trash can and strode out with a haughty attitude, as if I had intruded on something.

Or, I thought, sipping sweet tea, I was letting my imagination run away with me. Highly likely.  I read poetry while I drank the tea and then hiked my bag over my shoulder and headed back toward the music store.

The park covered a city block, and it was empty in the gloomy afternoon.  A couple of skaters slumped in hoodies beneath the shelter of the bandstand, smoking cigarettes. The fountain ran through its cycle, but there were no kids splashing around in it.  I tucked between two parked cars to get ready to cross the street to the music store, and as I waited for traffic to pass, I saw the woman from the bookstore slip out of the store and hurry down the sidewalk, her boot heels clicking quickly on the pavement.  She clutched something tightly to her chest as she rushed away, then around the corner, out of sight.

Not a coincidence. I peered after her in the drizzle, wondering what I might be getting myself into.

Then I saw Bartholomew, waiting by the door, his hands in his pockets.  He caught sight of me at the same moment, and his serious face brightened in a way that made me forget about everything else.  I smiled and dashed across the street.

“Hi,” he said. “Have you been downtown for awhile? Pinky said you dropped off your cello.”

I explained the situation.

“My uncle had to—attend to some urgent business,” Bartholomew said. “He asked you to wait for him and he will be back shortly.”

“Okay.” I shook out my umbrella. “Maybe we can play now.”

He took a breath, looked away for a minute, then nodded. “Sure.”

“Is that old cello here? Are we allowed to play it?”

A light bloomed in his eyes. “Of course. Would you like the honors?”

My heart jumped.  “Really?”

“Come on.”

I trailed behind him. Today he wore a heathered blue sweater that clung to his broad shoulders in a very appealing way.  Dark hair fell over the neckline, shiny and clean.

One of the practice rooms faced the alley, with a high window overlooking a red brick wall.  It gave a cool light, so Bartholomew only turned on an old-fashioned looking floor lamp that cast light on the music stand.  We each drew a chair over and I shook off my jacket.  “I need to get my cello from Pinky.”

“No, it’s here,” he said.  I took it out of the case, plucked the strings and tuned them softly.  Across from me, close enough our knees nearly brushed, Bartholomew did the same with his uncle’s cello.  It seemed to almost cast a glow into the dim room, as if it was actually a living, breathing creature.  My heart caught, and I must have made some noise, because Bartholomew raised his head, smiling. “Not everyone appreciates her so well.”

He passed the cello over to me, and I almost felt a ripple through the body, as if it was as excited to be in my hands as I was to touch it again.  I pressed a palm against the front, and took in a breath.  Bartholomew gave me the bow.  “What would you like to play?”

“I would happily play Mary Had a Little Lamb on this beautiful instrument,” I said, nestling it closer to me. It reclined against my shoulder, the scroll close to my ear. As if it—no, she—could speak, I almost heard a whisper, a suggestion.  “Bach’s Air?”  I said.

He was very still for a long moment, then he riffled through a pile of music on the stand, and pulled out the selection.  “I have been working on it.”

We shifted, each of us bending into our instruments, finding our balance.  I mentally hummed through the first bars, sliding into the notes as if they were a suit.  He tuned the G string more finely.  Against me, the old cello vibrated very faintly.

I looked at Bartholomew, and he nodded, tapping his foot. I swayed into his lead and we began together, the long sweet notes pouring out,
 winding around each other. I found him in the music, and he fit himself into my playing, and we fell inside the piece, both of us.  It was melancholoy and romantic, and the profound beauty loaned by the cello took the notes to some wilder, deeper place.   It seemed to dance against me, the wood warming, glowing.  My cheeks grew hot and a trickle of sweat ran down my neck, and I closed my eyes, feeling an electric sense of tingling through my hands, up my arms, swirling through my neck, and somehow into me, into my chest and throat.

The music danced in my blood, dove into my joints, dripped through my hair.  At first, it was only the music that I played, then I could feel the music Bartholomew played, too, the notes twining, sliding through mine, taking on color and depth.  We played to the end, and I wanted to resist, to draw it out longer, but there we were, sliding to the final bar, and I opened my eyes, finding my breath coming faster.

Bartholomew said urgently, “Give your hand.” His voice was raw as he lifted his hand, palm out.

Dizzily, I reached out and sealed my hot palm to his, all our fingers pressing tightly.  A sensation unlike any I had ever felt began to swirl across the meeting places of our hands, and I looked up at him in wonder.  He almost seemed to blur, and he said gently, “Close your eyes.”

I did.  And suddenly I could see without my eyes.  A swirling moved over my arm, through my body, and it was as if the music was continuing, as if I could feel not only the music and the notes, but now a sense of Bartholomew himself, moving inside of me, the way the music had only seconds before. I had only a moment to think how odd it was before I could feel myself moving inside of him, too, as if I were in his body, and he in mine, both at the same time.  I could see his thoughts, and in his eyes I saw my own face, as if it were surrounded with light, with an iridescence, my mouth very red.  I could see his face, too, so closely, his long lashes and the angle of his mouth.

Our spirits or thoughts or whatever it was began to swirl in a movement like dancing, like kissing, like laughing, and yet it was none of those things.  My skin was on fire, and my—

He snatched his hand away, and I tumbled back into my chair, gripping the cello so that I wouldn’t fall completely out of the chair.  Bartholomew lowered his instrument and practically ran from the room.

My heart beat a thready, uneven rhythm, and my whole body was shaking with fine tremors.  Though my middle, beneath my skin, I could feel the ghostly impression of him, of the music, of something beyond all that.  I looked over my shoulder, but I was alone.

It was only then that I looked down at my hands.  My palms were covered with a sheen of iridescence, in places vivid blue, in others faint purple, and through the middle, a streak of red.  Without thinking, I raised them to my face and scented a fragrance like the darkest notes of my grandmother’s garden.