In Harmony (Fenbrook Academy #2)(47)
Author: Helena Newbury

The answer, when I figured it out, surprised me. What I wanted was to join the New York Phil. Not for my father. Not because it was what was expected of me. Because they were the best, and I wanted to be the best, too. That chubby-fingered six year-old who’d first fallen in love with the cello was still inside me, and it had taken losing my dream to remember what had started it. I’d come full circle, wanting the same thing I’d wanted that day I’d nearly fallen down the steps of Fenbrook, but for completely different reasons. I wasn’t driven by fear any more—fear that if I failed to get into the orchestra, I’d be nothing. I knew now what it was like to lose the dream, and it didn’t scare me anymore because I’d discovered something better. I’d found that as long as you have someone who loves you, who’d do anything in the world to save you…well, the rest of the world can go hang.

I called my father the next morning and told him when the recital was, that I’d be performing with Connor and that he could come if he wanted to. But that, no matter what, I was living my own life from now on.

Connor listened in. When I hung up, he hugged me. “I’m proud of you,” he told me. “That took guts.”

I looked at the floor. “That was his voicemail,” I said. “That’s still sort of brave, right?”

He hugged me again.

***

Between rehearsals and practicing improv, the days passed in a blur. If we weren’t showering or grabbing a bite to eat, we were working…and when we couldn’t work any more, we slept. We didn’t leave the apartment, except to go up onto the roof, the entire week, sending out for groceries when Clarissa’s food ran out. We were holed up in a room not much bigger than a prison cell, and yet the proximity didn’t grate…it made us closer.

And hornier.

After months of lusting after each other and not being able to do anything about it, having the freedom to just lunge for each other was intoxicating. The apartment was tiny, but we got creative. On the roof, under the stars, an old blanket thrown down on the concrete. In what we laughably called the kitchen, the hard back of a wooden kitchen chair pressed against my thighs as he bent me over it. And in his bed, my arms stretched out over my head and clutching at the pillows as I moaned and kicked and gasped, his head between my thighs.

***

The night before the recital, the nerves started to hit me. We were as ready as we could be—the recital was slick and polished and when we improvised we were doing the musical equivalent of finishing each other’s sentences. But I was still scared as hell. When Connor was asleep, I slid out of bed and stood by the window with a sheet wrapped around me, gazing out at the city.

A few months before, my biggest worry had been whether I’d make it into the New York Phil. Now, even after all our efforts, my entire college career hung on one ten minute performance and one half hour test. If we messed up tomorrow—or if the panel decided our crazy mash-up between classical and rock was garbage—

Just as I felt my shoulders start to tense up, large warm hands stroked down them. His body pressed up against me from behind, the heat of him soaking through the thin sheet to soothe me.

“You’re scared.” Not a question.

“How can it be fair that everything comes down to one morning. Less than a morning. Less than an hour! Four years at Fenbrook and if we’re ill tomorrow or we have an off day or we just mess up or—”

He kissed the back of my neck. “Or if you don’t get enough sleep….”

“You’re not helping.”

He kissed me again, right in my secret spot just behind my collarbone, and I went weak.

“Come to bed,” he told me.

“You go. I’ll just toss and turn and keep you awake.”

“Karen Montfort, get that sweet arse of yours in my bed this instant!”

I felt a sudden rush of heat push away my nerves…and just a hint of what Clarissa must feel, when Neil spoke to her like that.

“I don’t think I can sleep,” I told him.

His lips twisted into one of those filthy smiles. “I know a way to tire you out.”

Chapter 34

Backstage, with five minutes to go. I was perched on the edge of the same chaise-longue I’d been put on after I fainted, listening to the quartet who were on before us while I waited for Connor to change.

He’d gone out early that morning to pick up his outfit and had been very mysterious about it, hiding it in a suit carrier and insisting on only changing into it at the very last second. I’d gone for my normal, reliable black dress, the same thing I’d worn for every recital since I’d started at Fenbrook. Except this time I’d added the Killer Heels, and hold ups. It wasn’t a big change—I doubted anyone else would even notice. But it was important to me.

I stood there nervously fingering my cello, slowly turning it around and around in my hands. Then I almost dropped it and a hot flash of panic surged through me as I grabbed it to stop it crashing to the floor. Okay. No more playing with it.

Then Connor emerged from the toilets.

I’d had a vague idea in my head that he might have traded his usual jeans and t-shirt for a shirt and pants, but he was in a suit! A charcoal gray suit, just one shade off black, with a crisp white shirt left open at the collar to reveal tantalizing glimpses of his chest. I gaped. I mean, my mouth actually dropped open. Some men don’t clean up well—put them in a suit and they look imprisoned and uncomfortable. Connor looked like an Irish billionaire.

“Where on earth did you get that?” I asked, fingering the fabric.

“I stole it.”

My eyes went wide.

“No, not really—Jesus, woman! I left the tags in. I’ll take it back this afternoon.”

I relaxed—a little. “But you still had to buy it! How did you afford it?”

He looked nonchalant.

“Connor, did you spend every penny we had on that suit? Do we, in fact, have no money until you take it back?”

“Put it this way,” he said. “Don’t spill anything on the suit.”

And I couldn’t help but laugh, because it was so him. This is what life would be like with him, I knew—living on a wing and a prayer, one paycheck from disaster. And as long as we were together, that suited me just fine.

A nervous sophomore, who’d been landed with the job of floor-managing the event, put his head around the curtain. “Karen Montfort and Connor Locke?” he asked.

I liked the way that sounded. We nodded.

“You’re on.”

Just as we walked through the curtain, I grabbed Connor’s hand and we walked out like that, hand in hand. Maybe I wanted to make a statement; maybe I was just terrified. But either way, it felt good.

The hall was packed. Seniors who’d be performing later in the day, sitting there nervously fingering their instruments. Juniors who wanted to get a feel for the horror they’d be facing next year. Freshman and sophomores watching boredly, there only because they got the day off class to attend.

And parents. Row after row of proud moms and dads, watching and taking photos and applauding politely for everyone else and in a frenzy of hands for their darlings. And somewhere amongst them, my father, sitting silent and watchful, waiting to see whether his dreams for me would soar to the heavens, stand proudly or be crushed into the mud. Orchestra, graduate or fail.

Or more likely, he wasn’t there at all. He’d never returned my message.

As we approached, a couple of freshmen removed two of the chairs the quartet had used, leaving just the two we’d use in the spotlight. Everything was slick and professional…but then Fenbrook had been doing these recitals for fifty years.

The judging panel sat behind a desk at one end of the stage, out of the glare of the spotlight so that they didn’t distract the audience. It made them look like waiting monsters, ready to devour us.

Professor Harman was there, as he always was. They rotated the other music department representatives, and this year they were Doctor Geisler, who I knew well and Doctor Parks, a woman with frizzy blonde hair who taught some of the contemporary music classes and who couldn’t have been over 35—young, for Fenbrook’s staff.

Next to her was the person I’d been thinking about for four years, though I’d only glimpsed him three times. The scout from the New York Phil. Tall and almost gaunt looking, he had a tendency not to blink. He’d unnerved me even when I’d watched each year from the audience, but standing six feet from him on stage was absolutely terrifying. This was the man I’d needed to impress ever since I was a kid. To him, I was just one student among hundreds, barely a blip on his radar, but to me he was the final gatekeeper on a journey I’d begun when I was six years old. My destiny ended with him, either in an ascent to the clouds or in a plunge off a cliff.

There was one more person sitting behind the desk, someone I’d almost forgotten about. A fragile-looking woman with pale skin and straight brown hair, twirling a pencil around and around her fingers. She seemed a lot more interested in Connor than in me, and I realized she must be this year’s scout from the record label.

I cleared my throat, immediately horrified at how loud the sound was in the silent hall. I’d pleaded with Connor to do this part, but he’d convinced me that I needed to keep building on the success of my presentation, or I’d slip straight back into being scared.

Just play the part. Use the napkin.

Wait: there is no napkin.

I don’t need a napkin.

“Karen Montfort and Connor Locke,” I said, and I liked it even more, saying it myself. “We’ll be playing an original composition for cello and electric guitar.”

Harman glanced at Geisler and I saw the twitch of his eyebrows. He didn’t actually say “This should be interesting,” but I could tell he was thinking it and a hot stab of anger flashed down my spine. How dare he?!

We sat down. Every squeak of the chair, every bump of a foot echoed around the huge room. The smell of fresh floor polish hit my nostrils and I felt sick, panic closing in around me. I was going to run off stage and throw up, I was going to run and hide, I was going to—

And then Connor brushed my hand with his, and when I glanced up at him he was giving me a steady, tender gaze that said you can do this.

I glanced at the audience and immediately wished I hadn’t. I didn’t normally get nervous when performing, only speaking, but this was anything but a normal performance. There were so many faces, so many strangers…and then, on the front row, I saw them. Natasha and Darrell. Clarissa and Neil. Jasmine. Dan. Paul, Erika and Greg from the quartet.

I didn’t know if my father was out there somewhere. But my real family was.

I started to play.

I’d composed the first section when I barely knew Connor, in those awkward first rehearsals when I thought I hated him. The guitar didn’t even come in until one third of the way through and, for a while, as the cello’s velvet tones filled the room, it was just like performing solo. I could have been back in my safe little world, before any of it started.

And then Connor’s guitar joined me, and my whole perception of the way the cello sounded shifted. When its smoothness combined with the guitar’s rough, brutal tones, it became something new…something better. Suddenly, it didn’t sound right without the guitar. Every time the guitar broke off, the cello wasn’t solo. It was alone.