Page 62 of Crescendo

Lydia

I slept in.

My head was throbbing as I found myself squinting against harsh daylight pouring in through the windows.

The door through to the music room was open…

I groaned, reaching onto the nightstand for my phone.

Not there, of course. I’d left it in the music room, working until three in the morning when my body decided for me that I couldn’t go one second longer.

Well, today was a new day. Rests were for musical notation.

I dragged myself out of bed, feet hitting the floor and focusing on putting one in front of the other, stumbling through to the next room to pick up my phone, rubbing my eyes against the sunlight streaming in through the windows.

Eleven o’clock. A message from Natália saying she was meeting with one of the producers this morning and that she’d fill me in.

I felt like the whole world had been passing me by, which served me right for sleeping.

But none of that really mattered. What mattered, breaking through into my consciousness like the light through the blinds, was a message from Ella.

I should have sent this earlier. I hope it’s good to be home and composing is going well! And then below it, a couple minutes later, like an afterthought, I miss you.

A nice, polite tone. Like casual friends, coworkers, acquaintances, hope this email finds you well. Maybe it was for the best that way. If the only interaction Ella wanted with me was a cool, measured message sent days after the fact, that made it easier to step away.

I’d already heard her song a million times. She knew that full well, and I could only imagine that was why she was sending it as an afterthought now. Not that I could claim to be any better.

I’d never really gone around thinking I was outright incapable of healthy love before, but suddenly all of this felt like a million needles prickling me with everything I did, and with everything having fallen apart with Ella, I didn’t want to try anymore.

Me and my music. Melinda and Natália had found love happy with each other, and I had found love happy with my art.

But somehow, despite it all, despite knowing Ella was out there moving on, despite knowing that she’d listened to the song so many times already and that this finished one was just a formality—despite everything, I slipped on my headphones, and I sat in the corner of the couch, wearing rumpled day clothes from yesterday, and I hit play on the song.

And that was how I found out I hadn’t heard the damn song at all. I’d heard most of it, but she’d… she’d given it a little sweetening. A live recording of one instrument on top.

She’d played the clarinet.

I laughed, thickly, tears stinging at my eyes, as I listened to it once, and then a second time through. She… well, she wasn’t an audio engineer. She hadn’t set up the recording perfectly. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she’d just recorded it in the music room at the apartment.

But even with that, it was beautiful. Gave the piece a whole new dimension, making it hit like a punch to the gut, and I curled up on the couch, listening to it through, and then—dammit, I had things to do, but I played it back a third time too, hanging onto every note of the clarinet.

Her dads weren’t kidding. She really did know how to play that damn thing.

Was I that bad? She dealt with the grief and the trauma keeping her from touching it for four years, and the second I left, then she could play it. I left LA and two seconds later, Melinda finally got a girlfriend. I was some kind of good luck charm, just only when I was walking out of the room.

I wasn’t going to take it too personally.

Once the song finished, I hovered over the text chat, trying to figure out what to say. It’s beautiful wasn’t enough. I love you was too much. I guess there was no winning.

I hit the call button instead. I didn’t know what kind of monster called someone without texting first, but I guess I did. It almost rang out before Ella picked up, and my heart jumped at the sound of her voice, breathless down the line. “Lydia?” she said.

“As if it would be someone else?”

She paused. “I wouldn’t rule out Natália stealing your phone to call me.”

“Okay, you know? That’s actually a very good point.

” I curled up tighter into the corner of the sofa, hugging my knees into my chest, and I tried to piece together the haze of wild, chaotic thoughts in my head into words.

Eventually, what came out had all the elegance and lithe grace of a brick to the face. “You played the clarinet.”

Ella was quiet for the longest time down the line before, softly, “I gave it my best shot, at least.”

I laughed, a wet sound. “It certainly wasn’t the worst I’ve heard.”

“Lydia…”

“You’re a damn genius, you know that?” I said softly. “Here I thought I was good, but you?”

“Do not blow it out of proportion, now,” Ella laughed thickly.

“I’m wildly understating it. You know you could make it as a composer, right?

The work you do is transcendental.” I laughed, trying to push the thick knot of feelings down in my throat.

“You could give me a serious run for my money. Our names together on programs everyone is lining up to listen to. Me in front of an orchestra conducting your piece…”

“You’re being patently ridiculous.”

“I’m not.”

She was quiet, a thousand unspoken words hanging there, before, softly, she said, “And maybe, if that happens, people would… know our names together.”

Something jumped in my chest, a nervous sensation racing. “Yeah?” I said, trying to sound casual, cool.

“Maybe then, we could… be… together.” The last word slipped out, just a ghost, and I gripped the phone tighter, closing my eyes, sinking back in the couch.

Maybe then. So that was it, huh? In some distant future where we were both great musicians, then we could be together. “I think I’d like that,” I said softly.

“Me too.”

I took a long breath. “I’m really damn proud of you, Ella.”

“It’s all because of you, you know,” she whispered. “You helped me find… music again. I won’t ever be able to express what that means.”

“You will be able to. In fact, you just did. You always did speak loud and clear in your songs.”

She laughed, a small sound thick with oncoming tears. I probably had to get a move on before I started crying too. “You have literally never stopped flattering me.”

“I’m only telling you the truth. Ella—I need to go. I have a lot—a lot —of work that needs doing. But… thank you. For sharing. The song. It’s… well. I’d tell you, but I think the world will tell you for you.”

“Lydia—wait.” Ella’s voice was suddenly anxious, tensing. “Is this… is this goodbye?”

I swallowed hard, hugging myself with one arm, clutching the phone to my ear for dear life with the other. “Of course not,” I said softly. “We’re going to be great musicians.”

“And… until then?”

“And until then, I’m going to let you know how my songs go. And I want to hear how yours go, too.”

It was a long, loaded silence before, in a thick voice, Ella said, “Thank you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Thank you. I always knew you’d be the spark to find my inspiration again.”

∞∞∞

The rest of the day went by in a long, streaky blur.

I met with Natália after her meeting with the producer, and we talked strategy, went over the talks we’d had with the studio, and we knuckled down and got back to work digging up the whole score.

It was a damn masterpiece, but it was a masterpiece that was killing me, drawing every last bit of my heart and soul out and plunging it into the scores.

Natália pretended she didn’t see when I shuddered at the piano, curling my fingers into the keys, and she made up an excuse about going to get more drinks to give me a minute to cry in solitude.

Natália called it quits eventually, at my request, when she was clearly flagging, trying a dozen times to play in the same sequence on the keys and making the same two mistakes each time. I shut the laptop in front of her, a hand on her shoulder.

“Melinda’s getting back from work soon,” I said. “And from the texts she was sending me when she was slacking off at lunchtime, she’s been dealing with some stressful coworkers today. She could use you there.”

Natália gave me puppy-dog eyes. “Are you sending me away so you can overwork yourself without anybody stopping you?”

“Yes, but also I want you and Melinda to be happy.”

She folded her hands in her lap, looking down. “Um… thank you. For being happy for us.”

Ah, dammit, I was going to cry. I could at least cry on her. I pulled her into a hug, burying my face in her shoulder, and I squeezed the life out of her while she returned the favor. After a minute, I laughed, and thinly, I managed to say, “I can’t believe Melinda finally got a partner.”

“Hey! Meli is amazing!”

“She even got a partner who thinks she’s amazing. What a world.”

She pouted—I was still buried in her shoulder, but I could hear the pout even before she spoke. “You should have something happy like that, too.”

“I do. I have music. And I have you two. I do love both of you, a lot.”

Natália gave me a dissatisfied hmm. “That’s not the same. I don’t want to make it a throuple with you, that would be weird.”

“Trust me that I don’t either. Okay, move along now. You’ve got a girlfriend to dote on.”

She gave me puppy-dog eyes when she stood up. “Don’t overwork yourself, okay?”

“I’ll just be in here a little longer.”

“If you don’t treat yourself right, then I’ll start withholding brigadeiros, and nobody wants that.”

Damn. Guess I’d have to figure out how to make my own.

“It’s just a bit longer,” I insisted, which was, of course, completely a lie—I kept going until two in the morning, until it felt like my body was collapsing, deep aches in all my muscles, my chest hurting like it had been crushed.

I at least managed to change out of my day clothes this time before I got to bed.