Page 72 of Crescendo

Even when the night was dwindling and Ella started to droop like she couldn’t stay standing much longer, Melinda was still alternating between flirting with Natália via eye contact and just gazing at her, and I sighed pointedly when I caught her in a quiet corner of the living room staring at Natália.

“Just ask her to marry you,” I said. “I can’t take any more of this dragging it out.”

She shot me a wild-eyed look. “Dude, you’ve been hovering over me for years like you still want to kill me for dating her, and now you want me to propose?”

“You’ve been thinking about it.”

“Ugh, c’mon, dude. Yes, I’ve been thinking about it. I’m happy for you and your wife, but I’m a little jealous, too.”

I laughed drily, leaning against the couch, shaking my head. “She’s going to say yes, you know,” I said. “She’s waiting for you to marry her and have kids together so that she can teach them ridiculous amounts of music and introduce me to them as their grandmother.”

“If we get married and you start referring to me as your daughter-in-law, I’m gonna kill you.”

“Then I’m all the more tempted to do it,” I said, giving her a playful shove.

“She’s like a daughter to me because I love her and I want to make sure the world is good to her.

And you’re good to her. So for god’s sake, just marry her already so I don’t have to worry about her moving on and finding somebody who’s not going to treat her as well as you do. ”

She laughed, missing my gaze and looking down at the floor. “I, uh,” she said. “I’m not gonna do it while you’re having a wedding. You know, just to be considerate. But… I mean, damn, I’ve really fucking thought about it.”

“You know? I owe you one,” I said, letting my gaze drift to the window, out to the quiet of the back street at night. “Wouldn’t have ever gone to Crescendo without your help. Wouldn’t have married a beautiful woman and led a big, illustrious career together with her.”

“You’ve always had a hell of a career.”

“And greater giants have fallen harder,” I said. “I’m never going to take it for granted that I get to keep doing what I do. Either way, I’m giving you my daughter’s hand in marriage.”

“She literally isn’t your daughter, dude. You don’t even look anything alike.”

“Do you want to marry her, or not?”

“Okay! She’s your daughter. You literally gave birth to her. I’ll ask her to marry me so I can be your daughter-in-law. Jesus Christ, dude, you’re so weird.”

I really was, though. But it wasn’t like that was news.

∞∞∞

Ella and I had picked the biggest, most beautiful venue in the UK for a huge wedding that drew celebrities as well as friends and family, and no doubt—it had been the most incredible experience of my life.

Getting to stand under the sunshine in the beautiful countryside setting, holding Ella’s hands, looking into those eyes that had done such a number on me over the years, and swearing to take her as my wife till death did us part, it was one of those moments that felt like it was writ large over the canon of the world.

But when we had a small-scale, cozy beach wedding here on LA’s sunny shores, I had to face the fact that it was really the presence of Ella Hendrickson that made it mean something.

That made it mean everything. I’d marry her in a parking lot, dressed in thrift-store bargains, with just the two of us and love, love, love.

That said, I was kind of glad I wasn’t. And not just because she looked hot in her beach wedding dress, a slimmer and shorter, more modern dress.

“Are you supposed,” Eliza’s voice said from behind me, and I turned away from gazing at my wife to look at where she and Hannah walked across the sand towards the boardwalk where Ella and I had been talking with the facilitators and organizers—they were a cute couple, Eliza a full head taller with a glamorous dress and Hannah in a suit standing close at her side.

“ Supposed to be seeing the bride in her wedding dress before the ceremony?” Eliza said, and Ella folded her arms, pouting at her pointedly enough it was about audible.

“We’re already married. It’s fine.”

“I’m a rulebreaker,” I said lightly. “Thousands of years of patriarchal tradition treating a bride like a Christmas present to be given away as property aren’t going to dictate what I do. Besides, she looks hot in the dress, so I’m looking.”

“You have your preferred ways of objectifying her, then,” Eliza said flatly. I smiled.

“I’m awfully glad you two have finally deigned to show up.”

Hannah laughed. “It isn’t our fault you had a ceremony in the UK while we were over here. Besides, it looked… big. And loud.”

“As it should have been,” I said. “Frankly, if I’m getting to marry her, the whole world should be tuning in to see that.”

“Besides,” Ella said, probably knowing how Eliza was going to try criticizing me for having a big head or something else equally unbelievable, “you and your fiancée have been doing your own big, loud things.”

They shared a knowing look, the same dry snort coming from both of them at the same time. They were a little eerie in the way they always moved in sync, but I guess to each their own.

Of course, I couldn’t fault them too much—their involvement in the score for The Quiet Ones, which had racked up every kind of award there was to rack up, had catapulted them to recognition, and they’d been alternately writing scores and playing for crowds ever since, Hannah’s rock angle getting her and Eliza solid footing.

Dodge had also been a part of it and could have followed along, but Clara quoted him as having made a face and said, “Can’t be doing with that.” He seemed infinitely happier playing in pubs with his dodgy mates.

Eliza’s goal had come true, too, as much as she was livid about it—she and Hannah had played I Only Meant Well alongside an orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall as part of a program of iconic film scores, and Eliza had called me to yell at me when she got the news over how pissed off she was that her dream was finally coming true via my score.

I just congratulated her and told her how much I was happy for her, which succeeded in making her angrier.

Still, I’d gone to watch along with the rest of the Crescendo crowd, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen her look so electric, so alive, as she did on that stage.

She still gave me the stink eye when I saw her after the show. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“I’m envious of you, is what I am,” Eliza said. Ella smiled.

“What, getting to marry Lydia, twice?”

“Patently, no. That you’re going to get married and then relax to write scores. I’m already tired, and we’re still booked for the rest of the month…”

Hannah nudged her side. “And every time we’re actually getting a break, you’re going off working anyway.”

“Ah,” Ella said, a glance my way. “That sounds familiar.”

I put a hand to my chest. “Darling, is that a comparison to Lizzy? On our second wedding day?”

“I trust you might recover,” she said brightly.

“I won’t,” Eliza said.

“Oh, that makes me feel better,” I said. “Well, as good as it is to see you two, I need to do some more check-ins before I go to marry my wife some more. I look forward to harassing you at the reception.”

“If I didn’t like Ella quite so much, I’d be tempted to miss it,” Eliza said.

As if it was news to me that Ella— Ella Hendrickson —was the main attraction? How patently ridiculous.

It wasn’t long before the ceremony, standing together with Ella at the edge of the boardwalk, wood railing between us and the sunset starting to dip down over the ocean, that Clara pushed out through a crowd of people towards us, looking put together in her hair and makeup and the bridesmaid dress, and she gave Ella the kind of featherlight hug you gave the bride so as to not mess with a very, very carefully curated look.

“You look radiant,” she said sweetly. “Both of you. I’m so happy for you. Even if I’m not as keen on California sunshine as some people… I’m so glad to be here.”

“Well, won’t have to suffer the horrors of sunshine and warmth and beautiful beaches for too long,” I said brightly. “Off to teach your first classes. And more importantly, reporting on what kind of drama this cohort gets up to.”

She laughed dryly, adjusting her dress. “Yes, well. I have a feeling that if a Crescendo program went smoothly, the whole place would have to shut down. Olivia sends her regards as well.”

“As she should. She let me down by wearing normal, nice shoes to our London wedding. Make sure you keep me posted on her shoe developments. Ideally, your guest teaching spot will go well enough they’ll bring you on full time and you can keep reporting in.”

She laughed. “That would be ideal, wouldn’t it? I will say, though, I feel a little bit like a second choice, the amount they keep talking about wanting either of you two to come teach…”

“It’s not my first time being told to go teach there,” I said. “I am very spiteful.”

Ella rolled her eyes, smiling to herself. “Don’t listen to her. She’s considered it. If you do get to a full-time position there, we’ll have no choice but to try attending as guest teachers as well… be just like old times.”

“Dodge still showing up to crash the party at the pub down the street…” Clara laughed.

“It’s a plan. I’ll make sure to impress them enough to get offered the full-time position.

But I’ll stop talking to you two now. Apparently getting married once wasn’t enough and you’re itching to do it some more. ”

“I mean, look at her,” I said, gesturing to Ella. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Marry your wife? Not… readily, no.”

“Okay, actually, good.”

Although I wouldn’t have been able to blame her, as we got into position, everything in place and ready to go, and the ceremony started by sunset, surrounded by the flowers and the smiling faces of friends and family.

Wouldn’t blame anybody who wanted to marry this woman, this incredible human being who had turned my world upside-down, who had turned the whole world upside-down with her talent, her passion, her skill.

Her parents sat in the front row, just as they had in the UK, and just as they had in the UK, they’d set out an extra seat for Callum, his picture there on the seat next to them.

And just as she did in the UK, Ella managed, somehow, for the moment, not to cry as her Papa got up and walked her down the aisle—it had been her Dad back in London, the two of them delighted we’d had two weddings for each of them to take turns walking Ella down the aisle.

Didn’t know how she managed not to cry, though.

I cried like a baby all through the ceremony, getting to hold her hands on the beach by sunset, gazing into her eyes, and certifying my love for her before the world, and getting to kiss her to the cheers and applause of all the people we loved gathered around us.

Cried and laughed and danced all through the reception, deep into the night, and cried when the last song played for the night— Across the River, and the floor cleared for me and Ella to slow-dance to her own proclamation of love from years ago.

Cried like a baby all the way away from the reception and back home. Even cried like a baby seeing a cat in the street. I think I was just emotional. To be fair, it was a cute cat.

“And now here we are,” Ella said once we were back in the townhouse, just the two of us, already past midnight—her eyes shone, absolutely sparkling, exhausted but glowing all at once.

“I’d marry you a hundred more times,” I said. She laughed.

“Likewise, but… I’m glad we’re not doing that tonight.”

“Ella?” I said, taking off my shoes and walking across the living room floor to her, taking her hands. She blinked fast under the direct address.

“Yes, darling?”

“What about this one?”

“Hm?”

“What would this moment sound like?”

She stared at me for a second longer before she broke out into the most beautiful smile I’d seen in my life. “I think I have something in mind.”

And so, even past midnight, even on our wedding day, we wound up in the music room. Like we always did. Like the way we spoke so much more than words always could.

And as I sat at the piano, Ella stood at the side, clarinet up to her lips, and she nodded for me to start.

So, I started.