In Harmony (Fenbrook Academy #2)(40)
Author: Helena Newbury

“I don’t want the deal,” I told him. “I’ll play the duet with Connor.”

There was a long silence.

“Your funeral,” he said at last. “When he breaks up with you and you realize you’ve thrown away your future, you know where to find me.”

The line went dead. I fell back on the bed, hot tears spilling down my cheeks to soak into my hair. Had I just done the right thing…or just ruined everything?

***

A half hour later, my phone rang. Connor. I took a few deep breaths and answered. He never has to know. “Hello?”

“Hi! I’ve been trying to reach you.” He sounded worried, and a cold, oily dread started to rise in my belly.

“What’s up?”

I heard him run a hand through his hair, and I could hear the forced nonchalance in his voice. “Probably nothing. Don’t panic. But they sprang an essay on us today.”

“What?! When does it have to be in?”

“Tomorrow. I had to go ahead and write it, ‘cos I couldn’t get hold of you.”

I wanted to say “By yourself?!” but that would have sounded bad. “Did it…go okay?” I asked instead.

“Ruth helped me,” he said, and I could hear the doubt in his voice.

I started to say something and immediately bit it back. I had to tread very carefully…Ruth was still his friend, and I couldn’t flat-out question her ability…or her motives. “Okay. Well, that was good of her.” I tried to sound relaxed and smiley, but I was terrified. Ruth didn’t have the knowledge I had…and would she have worked as hard as I would have done, to get the essay just right? From the sound of it, they’d already finished it—if it had been me helping him, we would have been up until the early hours…. And exactly how close were they getting? I could hear her moving around his apartment in the background, humming to herself. Had she sat next to him as I had, their arms brushing as they worked?

Or was I just being a bitchy girlfriend, distrustful of his ex? Ruth had been nothing but friendly towards me, and when I’d been out of contact she’d stepped in to help. I was being suspicious when I should have been grateful.

“Say something,” Connor said nervously.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said, trying to get a smile into my voice. It sounded good—I almost managed to convince myself.

Almost.

Chapter 26

The next day, I sat shivering on a windswept path. A particularly cold gust of wind lashed my hands and I had to flex my fingers on the bow to try to keep some feeling in them, without messing up Bach’s Cello Suite in D Minor.

It was still too cold to play in Central Park—not that it was too cold for us, because when you’re busking you expect to suffer, but it was too cold for there to be many passers-by. We’d only realized that after we arrived, though, and no one wanted to hump their instruments all the way home again, so we huddled under trees that dripped freezing water down our necks, put out the collection hat and played. We’d agreed we’d stop when we hit fifty bucks, or when our fingers were too numb to play—whichever came first.

Playing for charity in Central Park was a Fenbrook tradition I’d started back in freshman year—at the time people thought I was some sort of golden-hearted do-gooder, but the truth is I was just looking for a way to meet people. It’s how I met Dan, who usually played violin with us. I’d managed to get Paul, a junior, to fill in and he was doing his best despite barely knowing the music. Erika (Russian and intimidatingly gorgeous) and Greg (Scottish and intimidatingly bearded) rounded out our group on viola and second violin. Dan had come along for moral support, still sporting his cast.

“We need you to dance,” I told Natasha between pieces, looking at the measly collection of loose change in the hat. “Last time you danced, we doubled our take.”

“Too cooollld,” said Natasha sweetly. She didn’t look cold. She was snuggled in between Darrell’s legs as they sat on a blanket, both of them wrapped up in coats, hats and scarves and drinking steaming hot chocolates. I gave her a glower, even though they looked adorable.

“What about you?” I asked Clarissa. She was leaning against a tree, flanked by Neil and Connor and there was a very noticeable gap between her and Neil. The two hadn’t exchanged a word since they’d arrived. She shook her head mutely and pointed to her four-inch leather pumps.

“Fine.” I launched into some Vivaldi in the hope that thoughts of summer sun would thaw us out a little. The spring weather suited my mood pretty well—the row with my father, by far the biggest I’d ever had, had left me numb and frozen. I would have felt completely lost, if not for my friends. But looking at how happy Natasha and Darrell were, looking at Clarissa and Neil—even if they weren’t speaking to each other—looking at Dan and especially at Connor…I felt things starting to thaw, just a little. I’d lost contact with the only family I had, but I had my own little family right there.

Connor gave me a grin as he chatted away to Neil and I felt my heart swell to twice its size. I was cold and damp and my hands were aching, but everything was great.

And then Ruth showed up.

She sauntered down the path in her super-tight black jeans as if she’d just happened to come across us (I guessed that Connor had mentioned what we were doing). I watched as she touched Connor on the arm in greeting (I felt my hand clench on the bow) and then ruffled his hair as he made a joke (I missed two notes in a row). I saw Connor make the introductions and everyone nod pleasantly to her, although Clarissa and Natasha both gave me sympathetic looks.

“How’s it going?” asked Ruth when we finished our next piece. Somehow she managed to sound friendly, concerned and incredibly patronizing at the same time.

“Not great,” I told her tightly. Then, because I felt like I should, “Thanks for helping Connor with the essay. Sorry I couldn’t be there.”

“Don’t you worry about that. I’ll always take care of him.” It sounded innocent enough, but in mind there were myriad undertones. I’ve known him much longer than you have. I had him before you. I’m from his country. His body bears my name.

“Great,” I said, feeling sick. “Thanks.” There was an awkward silence. “It’s normally better than this,” I said, nodding at the nearly-empty hat. For some reason, I felt I had to justify it. “But there aren’t enough people. What we really need is for Natasha and Clarissa to dance. People go nuts for that.”

Ruth beamed. “Oh, but I could dance. With Connor.”

I opened and closed my mouth a few times.

“That’s a brilliant idea, Karen,” she told me, as if I was a favored daughter. “Connor, come over here!” She turned to the rest of the quartet. “Can you play something we can dance to?”

Before I could say no, Greg said, “Yep.” I wanted to poke him in the eye with my bow.

Connor walked over and Ruth put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re going to dance. To help them raise money,” she told him.

Connor looked at me, worried, but Ruth put a hand on his cheek and turned him back to face her. “It was Karen’s idea,” she told him.

I wanted to say, No, it wasn’t! I wanted to tell her that I didn’t want her dancing with my boyfriend, but wouldn’t that make me look evil and possessive? It was all for charity, after all….

Nausea churning inside me, I started to play.

It started innocently enough, Ruth and Connor doing a slow, formal dance that had them barely touching fingertips. Ruth was annoyingly good—not anywhere near the standard of the dancers at Fenbrook, but she’d obviously had lessons. What amazed me, though, was Connor—he was surprisingly adept and it hit me far too late that they must have had lessons together. I’d probably reawakened a whole host of memories of happy evenings spent in some dance club. I gritted my teeth.

The dance become closer, the two of them turning and twisting together, and I didn’t miss the way Ruth molded her body to Connor’s, her br**sts—much bigger than mine—squashed against his chest. The worst part was that it worked—passers-by stopped and looked and we started to get more money in the hat. And so when the piece finally ended I had to look at the woman who’d just been writhing against my boyfriend and say, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Ruth told me, still wound around Connor. She made no obvious move to disentangle herself. And then she kissed him. Just a peck on the cheek, meant in fun and certainly nothing I could sensibly yell about. But it lasted just a fraction of a second too long, and the look she gave him as she moved her head back was anything but jokey.

***

Ruth left after a while but it didn’t do much to lift my mood. Was she really trying to get her claws back into him, or was I just being paranoid? The knowledge that she was still sleeping in Connor’s apartment didn’t make things any easier. I had complete faith in his word that he was sleeping on the floor…but in Connor’s tiny apartment that put him just a few feet from her bed.

We finally hit the fifty bucks—thanks, I had to admit, mainly to Ruth and Connor’s dancing—and were packing our instruments away when it happened.

“We can fly coach if it makes you feel better!” Clarissa’s voice. The tail end of a conversation that had been conducted in angry murmurs, rising in volume as she got angry.

“It’s not about how we fly,” said Neil, his voice almost a growl. “You’re not paying.”

All of us suddenly found very important things to do with our instruments. Seconds later, Clarissa stomped up to us; it’s difficult to stomp in four-inch heels, but she’d had a lot of practice. “Are we going, or what?” she asked.

I hefted my cello case onto my back and nodded, watching Neil stalk off in the other direction.

***

In a Starbucks, with my numb fingers wrapped around an Americano, I huddled close to the girls and Natasha and I gave Clarissa the same questioning look. Connor had wisely withdrawn to a separate table with Darrell.

Clarissa had gone for some complex creation that seemed to be at least eighty percent cream and syrup—not a good sign. She used a wooden stirrer as a spoon, taking bites between sentences.

“I want him to come with me when I visit my folks. He says it’s about the money—he can’t afford to fly and he doesn’t want me to pay for him. But I don’t think that’s it.”

“You think he doesn’t want to meet your folks?” I asked carefully.

“I think he doesn’t know how to do any of that…relationship stuff. He knows sex,”—her eyes glazed over for a moment—“God, does he know sex…but he never wants to talk about the future. He closes down or turns away. I mean, it’s stupid. He loves me.” She swallowed, and her voice caught a little. “I mean, he does love me, right?”

Natasha and I each put a hand on her arm. “Of course he does,” said Nat. “He’s just being a biker.”