Page 6 of Crescendo

“I really shouldn’t have said that to her.”

Lydia laughed. “You definitely should.”

“I’m not trying to sink to her level.”

“That wasn’t her level. You’d have to start digging to get all the way down there.” She gestured to the piano bench beside her. “Now. Come have your piano lesson.”

Right. A piano lesson. From Lydia Howard Fox. I could do that. I couldn’t see a single way that could lead to deep and lasting embarrassment.

“I’m not going to be good at this,” I warned.

“You’re going to be great. I’m a fantastic teacher.”

“Well, that I believe.”

“Good.” She looked at me, so very close beside me on the bench, and those blue eyes looked like swirling infinity pools shimmering in a distant, magical light.

The moment broke when her eyes shifted into narrowed slits. “You avoided the subject,” she accused.

My eyes bounced around the room, trying desperately to place what she meant. “Which subject?”

The closed clarinet case caught my eye. I hoped that wasn’t the subject.

“You live here.”

“Oh.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Right. I told you I live in Camden.”

“Yes, but you didn’t tell me why you were staying here.”

“Ah. Well, in my defense, you didn’t actually ask that.”

She scowled at me, her fingers running absently over the piano keys, finding chords like they were meant to be there and eliciting the lightest, tinkling sounds from the instrument.

Maybe that was the thing with truly great composers and musicians, their bodies needed the music, they found it without trying. Like everything was only right in the world if the music that was trapped inside of them was flowing out for all to hear.

Callum had felt like that every time he had a guitar in his hands.

“You can try to win on technicalities, but I’m not going to let you,” Lydia said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m not actually trying to.”

“Good. Because I want to know why you aren’t just staying at your own house—”

“Flat.”

She paused. “Whatever. Why are you paying all this money to stay here when you already live in London?”

I sighed. This wasn’t the clarinet conversation, but it wasn’t far off, not really.

“I just wanted… to be all in on this, to be away from my regular life. I’m trying…

” How much did I really want to tell this famous stranger I’d only just met?

“Something. I’m trying something different.

Taking a break from work, getting back into music.

Plus, you know, the programme is really packed, and I could afford to stay here, so I just wanted to be… part of it. Part of something.”

The wistful tone in my voice by the end of my little speech poked at the base of my spine, prickling like I’d given away too much.

Lydia, however, just watched me for a second, taking me in, before she shrugged, nodded, and turned to the piano again. “Fair enough. You couldn’t pass up your opportunity to live beside Eliza and Hannah. Got it.”

I laughed, grateful for the break in tension in my chest. “Somehow, they’re not the part I’m excited about.”

“Piano is.”

I hesitated. “Yeah.”

“Say it like you mean it,” she complained.

“Yes.”

“Better,” she laughed. “Which key did you compose your application piece in?”

Immediately the tension flashed back into my muscles. Of course that was a question she’d ask. Of course I’d have to admit to Lydia Howard Fox how woefully incompetent I was.

I chewed the inside of my cheek for a moment. “Um… The key of music.”

She froze, hands over the piano’s keys, staring at the empty music stand. “The key of music?”

“Yep. Music. Comma, the key of.”

“You don’t know what a key is?” she asked very carefully. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than her just laughing at me.

“I know what they are,” I insisted, feeling my face burn. “I just… I used to play the clarinet. And I just… read the notes.”

Lydia twisted as much as she could on the stool to look at me—it wasn’t much, pressed together as we already were.

I avoided her gaze, my eyes tracing the floral bird patterns on the wallpaper that adorned one wall in here.

“But you compose?” she asked, sounding suspicious.

“I try.”

“You do well enough to get into this programme.”

“I’m sure they take anyone who’s willing to pay for it.”

“Not true. There’s a baseline you have to meet.”

“So, let’s say I tiptoed over that and now I’m here with one of the world’s most famous composers, admitting I don’t know which key I’m composing in most of the time.”

“Most of the time?”

“I know C Major.”

“Great start.”

I shook my head. It really wasn’t. Was it an American thing to just sound so sincere and enthusiastic all the time? I couldn’t bear to think how this conversation would have gone if I’d been having it with Eliza. Although, that was probably more about Eliza than where she was from.

Lydia smiled wide enough for me to see it in my peripheral vision. “Was your application piece in C Major?”

“Nope.”

“How’d you know?”

“It had a… minor tonality.”

“But you don’t know which minor key?”

“Nope.” I winced.

“You have to let me listen to it. Immediately,” she said, getting up.

Heat flashed through my entire body. Lydia listening to my music would be horrifying at any time but especially now. Her friend had wanted her to be a teacher in this programme. She should have been a teacher in it. Hell, she could be the one who taught actual, career composers.

But, this whole thing was about getting back to music, getting better at it.

I was trying to be alive and real again.

What was more alive than letting myself fully experience all of the emotions my body could muster?

Embarrassment wouldn’t have been my first pick of where to start, but now that I was here…

“Ella,” Lydia said and the excitement in her voice was both terrifying and encouraging. “Let’s listen. I’m so excited.”

Who was I to deny Lydia Howard Fox what she wanted? I didn’t think even a bulldozer could move that woman when she set her mind on something.

And, hey, maybe that kind of energy would be good for me.