Page 59 of Crescendo

Natália and I got inside, while Melinda went to grab food, and the sight of my own house felt strange, alien, even though my feet still instinctively knew the way around.

Was this supposed to be how home felt? I didn’t concentrate on it—just led Natália up to the music room, where we wasted no time in opening Logic and diving into the main theme.

Natália’s work was brilliant, a mastery of rhythm and storytelling via timing, but we dug into the backing track on the DAW and brought in a drum sampler, breaking down out of the main line and into a heavily effected post-rock style, a modern beat building up from it.

It gave me chills listening to it come together, that sensation where I knew we had something incredible in our hands and all we had to do was not mess it up.

So it was a little inconvenient that my mind was everywhere else. Every time I sat at the piano keyboard, my mind shot off back to London, wondering if Ella was at the piano right now, too. I could feel her pressed up against my side, playing the melody on top of my chords.

Melinda kept us supplied with food, getting back with takeout. Noodles, as if I needed another reminder of everyone back in London, and the talk about everyone visiting me here for noodles. Dammit. Was everything going to remind me of Ella?

Apparently so, because it was hours in and the sun was setting outside when Natália looked up from the piano keyboard, her gaze softening at me.

“You’re thinking of her, huh?” she said, and I shrugged, looking away.

“Melinda? I’m actually compartmentalizing so I can think about fighting her in a parking lot another time.”

“Lydia. You know that’s not what I mean.”

I sighed, looking back at the computer. “I’m not thinking about any of that right now.”

“You know, you should at least try to make it work. You really care about her, right?”

“Just caring about her isn’t enough. She’s in London. And she’s not planning on giving up her life there. She’s a doctor, for crying out loud. She doesn’t exactly have a lot of time to take off and fly around the world to visit me either.”

“You can go visit London, though, can’t you? You love it there. Why not just live there part-time? You could both spend half your time in London and half your time here and you could be a cool celebrity living a transcontinental life with your pretty girlfriend.”

“Natália, it’s—”

“And she is very pretty. It would be a shame to let that go to waste!”

“You think I don’t know that?” I huffed, turning back to the computer. “I’m not going to steal her away from her life for a certain number of months each year like I’m Hades.”

She scowled. “Malibu isn’t exactly the underworld.”

“Look, I know. You’re a very good friend of mine and it hurts to see me sad.

But this was something we both knew would happen going into this, and…

well, it had to happen. She’ll get over me.

I’ll probably get over her. I just hope…

” I hung my head, pushing my chair away from the computer, looking out the window at the lights of the houses across the street, dimmed through the tree branches outside the window.

Ella would be asleep right now. It was weird that we weren’t on the same time anymore.

Felt symbolic. “I just hope she keeps making music,” I said quietly.

“If she keeps going, I think even I’ve got some stiff competition.

And it would be a really… terrible shame if she gave that up.

God, but I hope she can play the clarinet again at some point. ”

“This doesn’t sound like you’re going to get over her.”

“Natália, I love you, but shush.”

She beamed, rolling her chair up next to mine. “She’s the one to beat for this competition to get played at the Royal Albert Hall, right? Maybe you can get them to play one of your songs, too. Like a love letter.”

“I don’t think they take requests.”

“Or maybe you can conduct for the orchestra! Lydia Howard Fox conducting a piece from the great new composer Ella Hendrickson. How romantic is that?”

I put a hand over my eyes. “Natália, if we keep talking about her and romance in the same breath, I’m going to start crying on you, and I’m a very ugly crier. Let’s not do that.”

Natália quieted, looking down. “Um… sorry.” She sat up taller, shaking off the expression. “Okay! Back to the music. We have to make it big and bombastic enough that it even reaches… um… nobody. Nobody nowhere. I mean, everybody.”

The door to the music room swung open, and I looked at where Melinda stuck her head in. “You two have been working for hours,” she said. “I’ve had four meetings and reviewed so much footage that you two should definitely be done for the night.”

Natália spun her chair around. “Melindaaa,” she sang. “Can we have coxinhas for dinner?”

“Babe, we had coxinhas yesterday,” she said, and realized a little too late she’d called Natália babe in front of me.

She winced, a quick look my way, but I just shrugged.

Honestly… they seemed happy. I at least wanted someone to be happy here, dammit.

And I never thought I’d find Melinda being serious about someone. Maybe it was nicer this way.

Natália pouted. “I know. And now I want them again today.”

Melinda hung her head, looking at me. “Lydia, you want coxinhas?”

She was even saying Portuguese words pretty well. I guess she was serious. “Ah… I’ve kind of lost my taste for meat.”

Melinda raised her eyebrows. “Shit, you are down bad.”

“I’ll just have a sandwich or something. Natália, if you want to take a break to make dinner, I’ll be up here working.”

Melinda scowled at me. “Dude, you have got to chill out. The world won’t stop turning if you take a break.”

She had no idea how much the world would stop turning if I took a break. How much the ground would give way underneath me and I’d disappear, fade away, if I stopped moving for just a moment.

But I turned back to the computer. “I just don’t want to be in the kitchen when Natália is climbing on the counters getting excited about food.”

Melinda and Natália exchanged a look, before Natália stood up, hugging herself. “Just don’t stay up here too long!”

I was probably going to. “I won’t,” I said.