Nocturne Read online

  “Let's talk about this later.”

  “Tell you what. Let's not talk about it at all.” Nathan brushed past me, fuming.

  “Nathan!” I called after him, but he didn’t turn around.

  For the first time in our friendship, he ignored me.

  Savannah

  I ’m not gay.

  Oh God, of course he isn’t gay. It was glaringly clear to me as I tossed and turned that night. Marcia was out late practicing again. Maybe I should do the same. I was awful to him, I thought as I sat up, running a hand through my hair. Honestly, though, who is in love with someone for ten years and says nothing? Resigned to a sleepless night, I threw on sweats and my coat before grabbing my flute and heading to the twenty-four hour practice rooms. I needed to think. To process. I called Nathan two or three times, but he didn’t answer

  Trying to sort out the largest can of worms anyone had ever dumped on me, I began to tear up again. I’d trusted Nathan with every secret, every insecurity, every emotion. Okay, fine, it wasn’t his fault that I thought he was gay. But … ugh. On top of not being gay, he was in love with me?

  Sighing as I clumsily put my flute together and ran through a few scales, I tried to think about the situation rationally. Fact: Nathan and I had been friends for more than ten years. Fact: I never actually got the feeling from him that he was coming onto me, or the feeling that he was trying to get me to tell him things for his benefit. Fact: Nathan Connors was my friend and I’d hurt him yesterday in more ways than one.

  As the threatening tears escaped, and rolled lazily down my cheeks, I had to look at some other facts, too. Nathan, who possessed more graceful confidence than most people I’d met, never bothered to mention in ten years that he had feelings for me, let alone that he loved me. Further, we had severely lax boundaries with each other. He always had his arm around me, sometimes we held hands, and for the love of God, his lips have been on my forehead and cheek more times than I could count. He wasn’t gay this whole time, knew damn well I wasn’t gay, and was pushing those boundaries with me. Where the hell did he think it would all lead? We would need to have a discussion about that … but not now.

  Then, there were the accusations Nathan made about Gregory Fitzgerald and me. I stopped playing, incensed at the idea, and sat down, setting my flute on its stand.

  I know you’re in love with Fitzgerald.

  I don’t know what was more infuriating—that Nathan thought that, or that I found myself wondering what it was he saw. Nathan knew me well. He’d known about nearly every boyfriend I’d ever had, and spent summer upon summer watching me flirt and be flirted with. He wiped my tears when a boy broke my heart, or, worse, never liked me in the first place.

  I huffed, placing my forehead in my hands. It was completely absurd that I was considering the possibility that I was in love with someone and I didn’t know it. Of course I wasn’t in love with Gregory. Mr. Fitzgerald. Not only was I not in love with him, I couldn’t stand him. If emotional ideology around music could be placed in a straight line—which I’m sure would please Fitzgerald to no end—we would be at opposite ends of that line. I saw music as sights, sounds, colors, scents, lives, births, deaths, all rolled into a breathing, living thing that could be passed down through generations. Music gave life beauty. Music spoke the language of the human spirit for all to hear and understand.

  Gregory, on the other hand? Not only did he appear to view music as a thing, he seemed to have little regard for the effect his own music had on people. The first day of class when he’d played that simple Bach suite, I was swallowed by goosebumps. Tears stung my eyes as I’d watched his forehead scrunch at certain parts and relax at others. His body swayed and his tight shoulders moved against his breathing.

  He was living music and didn’t even know it. Tragic.

  Lifting my head, I sat back with my arms crossed over my chest. I had no intentions of practicing at all. I just needed a change of scenery. What the hell was I supposed to do? About … everything? Nathan hadn’t answered my calls, and it was just as well. The kind of conversation I needed to have with him would indeed be a lengthy one, and it would need to be done in person. It would surely chase the sunrise and be filled with yelling and crying. I didn’t even know what I was going to say to him, or what I wanted to ask him. Certainly there would be things I didn’t want to know, but I needed a few days—or more—to figure that out. I knew I didn’t want to hurt him any further, no matter what it was I decided to say. He was my friend … right? Suddenly, I wasn’t sure. I could almost feel him slipping away.

  He feels something for you, too, Savannah. I can see it.

  What the hell was that supposed to mean? I knew for a fact that Nathan had precisely zero interaction with Gregory outside of the classroom. Nathan had put off his last theory class so he could take it with me, and I knew he needed the grade to be decent. He wasn’t in any ensembles that Gregory was involved with, so … what? What was it that he saw? Because, honestly, all I saw when I looked at Gregory Fitzgerald was a lonely, sad, angry man who lived alone with his cello. That was it.

  No. That wasn’t all.

  When he sat behind his cello it was like he transformed into a different person altogether. A human, even. Not the monotone robot that directed us in the ways of music theory. About five minutes after my first class with him ended, I found myself searching through the music library to find a flute transcription for that Bach cello suite. I had to learn it. Immediately. Because when he put his bow in hand and brought it to the strings, he transformed into something transcendent.

  I can’t explain what was going through my head as I’d thumbed through the files and files of transcriptions, not stopping until I found exactly what I was looking for. I guess … if that song, those notes, could pull emotion out of a man like Gregory and transfer it directly to the center of my gut … I wanted to feel it, too. The way he did. I wanted to get in his head, even if for only a minute, to feel what he felt from that side of the stand.

  But … why?

  “Ugh,” I groaned, deciding to just pack up my flute and head back to the dorm to try to sleep.

  “Savannah?” a voice from the other side of the door startled me. It was my roommate.

  “You scared the shit out of me, Marcia!”

  “Sorry. Girl, how many times do I have to tell you to shut these freaking doors? Lock them, too, when you’re here by yourself this late at night.” She shook a finger disapprovingly as I put my coat back on.

  I sighed. “Sorry, Mom.”

  “Plus, didn’t you say Gregory walked in on you practicing once? Do you really want to risk another run-in with him if you can avoid it?” She laughed, and I did, too.

  “I guess not.” I shrugged, but felt my heart rate pick up slightly when I realized the day he walked in on me was the day I stopped shutting the door all the way.

  I ran a finger over the knuckle of my index finger, tracing the path Gregory’s thumb had taken the week before. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to get a hold of reality. And fast. He was my professor. I was his student.

  But, reluctantly, I caught myself staring at my fingertips, and recalling how the muscles of his hands felt beneath them.

  Gregory

  Music is communication. It’s emotion. It’s passion and love and hate and expression.

  Savannah’s words rolled through my head all the way home, echoing, over and over again, as if she’d somehow punctured my very identity. If all you care about is mechanics and theory, then you’re in the wrong field.

  I was in a foul mood when I unlocked the door to my house and entered the living room. I marched into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, opening a bottle of water and gulping it back.

  How dare she. This was the reason I didn't want to teach. Right here. In my rage, I found myself repeating myself. How dare she.

  I paced back and forth. I needed to practice. I was supposed to be meeting Karin at eight for dinner. I needed to clear my head and ge
t something done. But my mind kept circling around that girl, and it wouldn’t stop. Not just her arguments, which had not only the ring of truth, but reflected very badly on me. My mind turned to her eyes. The graceful, almost ethereal way she moved. The sway of her body and the sound when she played the flute. The music.

  I closed my eyes. Because I had no choice. I needed to get a grip on myself. She was a student, for Christ’s sake. Incredibly gifted, yes. Passionate about her music. No question about that. But she was a student. A distraction.

  I was a cellist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I was at the beginning of what promised to be a remarkable career, a career rivaling those of Casals or Rostropovich, and the last thing I needed was distraction. What I needed was relentless focus. On my music. And nothing else. That was the reason I had no personal life. That was the reason I’d shuffled the blind boy off to a different teacher.

  I picked up my phone and sent a text message to Karin, cancelling our date for the evening. I turned the phone off before she could reply, tossed my jacket over the couch, and then unlocked the fireproof case for the Montagnana. As always, I opened the case in reverent silence. I took out the bow, tightening it then applying a fresh layer of rosin. And I began to play.

  I began with Bach, the simple, yet beautiful piece which first brought me to my knees when I was a child. After I’d heard it, I’d begged the band director to let me try the cello. For two months, every day, I’d worked through lunch and after school, until I’d mastered just the beginning, using a cello I borrowed every day from the band room. I didn’t tell my parents, because I knew my father would consider it a frivolous pursuit. When he found out, he’d brushed it off as unimportant, but by that time, I was obsessed.

  But today. Today, when I played, the low mournful sound that defined the beginning, I saw her. Savannah. The first day of class, when she stood, eyes closed, mouth slightly open, her body swaying, responding to the music.

  Did I know even then? Did I know that I would become obsessed with her? That I would sometimes wake in the night and see her brown eyes, her waist, her lips on her flute as she formed magical, incredible music?

  Savannah was correct about one thing. I had been too harsh with her. I’d shut her down in class. I’d given her shockingly bad grades when her performance deserved far better. I’d dismissed her ideas, her passions, her talent. Not because they were wrong. But because they disturbed me. Because they were hers. Because she was so much more talented and brilliant than her peers. Because in her, I saw me as I could have been. Living a life that sometimes went beyond the music. Caring about other people. Having friends, dating, and loving.

  It was as I had told Robert; You must be willing to sacrifice everything for the music. This wasn’t a hobby. This wasn’t a nice job in an insurance company. This was an artistic calling that required the utmost passion, commitment and sacrifice.

  My mind refocused on the music. The smooth movement of the bow, the change of strings, the melody, which picked up and wrapped my mind in the nearest thing to ecstasy I’d ever experienced. My vibrato was just slightly off, and I corrected. This was the worst I’d played in a long time. The sound seemed to me choppy and forced. I frowned in frustration.

  Only once before had I allowed emotional and relationship considerations to affect my music. My sophomore year at the conservatory, I’d become involved with a young lady, a violinist. Mariana Passos. Brazilian. Her English was poor, but the music … that was something else entirely. She’d come to the United States on a student visa strictly to attend the New England Conservatory. Lithe, graceful, beautiful. In far too many ways, Savannah reminded me of her. But such things rarely work out. We had a tempestuous breakup, messy beyond measure. I was heartbroken and nearly failed two of my classes that semester.

  I’d promised myself I’d never let go again. Not like that. Not in a way that could endanger my career, my life.

  As I played, my arms and body unconsciously moved through the measures, and my mind continued down this course to the only clear conclusion. I’d been wrong about Savannah’s grade, and I would correct that. But I’d been right about something else. Savannah wasn’t just a gifted musician. She wasn’t just a beautiful girl. She wasn’t just a brilliant mind. For me, she represented much more than those things. She represented a distraction. If I forced myself to be honest, I was … fascinated with her. Attracted beyond measure.

  I wanted her.

  Savannah Marshall was dangerous.

  Savannah

  I was intentionally almost late to Music Theory on Wednesday, waiting until the last second, in hopes of avoiding an awkward discussion with either Nathan or Gregory. Mr. Fitzgerald. I couldn’t look at Nathan right now—the silence between us was cumbersome and I couldn’t stare it down just yet. And Gregory just …

  I was tired from tossing and turning two nights in a row. I was cranky. And the last thing I wanted was a run-in with either one of them. I needed time to think. I needed time to process. I needed to be left alone.

  Unfortunately, Tuesday I’d been full up. My academic classes are Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Tuesday and Thursday are reserved for one-on-one flute lessons, followed by hours of practice and rehearsals. On top of that, several of my professors, including Mr. Gregory Fitzgerald, had assigned a metric ton of crap on our first day back from Spring Break.

  I checked my watch. One minute for class to start. Then I looked both ways up and down the hall to make sure Nathan wasn’t lurking anywhere in order to avoid an awkward confrontation in front of our class. With any luck he was already in the classroom. I darted across the hall, through the door, and slammed right into Gregory, who was reaching for the door.

  He grunted, and I gasped, nearly dropping my bag. I backed away a foot, then said, “Sorry,” and darted around him, my eyes going to the floor.

  Not-Gay Nathan was in the usual spot where we normally sat. I made my way to the opposite side of the room and slid into an unused seat.

  Gregory slammed the door shut unnecessarily hard, then marched to the front of the room, immediately launching into the depths of a lecture on the mathematical relationship between different keys. Which was interesting if you were building a bridge, I guess, but only served to irritate me now. It’s not that I didn’t care about or love the fundamentals of music. It’s that I was tired of his implication that this was all there was to it.

  Usually I was fully engaged in this class. Combative even. But today my attention drifted. My eyes on Gregory Fitzgerald. My professor. I didn’t like his attitude. I didn’t like his haughty superiority, his snobbishness, or his insistence that music was nothing more than an engineering construct. I mean, sure, he was incredible with his cello. I could still close my eyes and hear him playing. I’d been to the symphony twice this semester. I’d told myself I was just soaking in more music. But I was disturbed, then and now, by just how much attention I’d paid during Gregory’s impassioned, tension-filled solos.

  What kind of man produced such incredibly emotional music, then denied that emotion had anything to do with it?

  It didn’t hurt that he was incredibly attractive.

  When he walked in front of the classroom, his motions were economical, but filled with an inner tension that arrested the eyes of everyone in the room. Watching him, I thought that whatever his protestations, inside there was tremendous passion and emotion. Locked away, hidden, only released through the contact of bow and string.

  I blinked when I realized, first, that I’d been staring at him, and second, that the entire class had gone silent.

  “Miss Marshall?”

  “Gregory?”

  I said the word. Then I froze. Oh, crap. He’d called on me. For something. And I had no idea what. And then I’d called him by his first name. What the hell was wrong with me? Casting a glance to the side, I noticed the wide-eyes of my classmates judging my error.

  “I’m sorry. Mr. Fitzgerald. I got lost in pondering all the wonders of mathematical relati
onships.” I was trying for sarcastic, but my words came out in a rush, one word stumbling over the next.

  His eyebrows moved close together, his face forming into a frown. But his gaze lingered over me for just a second, and for that second I felt like I was under a microscope.

  “Something on your mind, Miss Marshall? Is your personal life distracting you, perhaps?” Meaningfully, he looked between me in my new seat, and Nathan, across the room from me.

  In a tight voice, I said, “My personal life doesn’t really belong in this room.”

  He raised a finger. “Exactly my point. To all of you.” He turned his back to us, walking to the front of the room. Every eye in the room swiveled between Nathan, Mr. Fitzgerald, and me. Wondering. Questioning.

  Fitzgerald spun around, then pronounced, “If you wish to succeed as a musician. If you wish to be among the best. If you wish to count yourself as one of the greats, then there are sacrifices you must make. All of you. You’ve selected one of the most difficult, demanding career choices anyone can make. And if you want to find yourself seated amidst the Boston Symphony, or the New York, or London, or the other greats, then you’ll make great sacrifices. You’ll practice until your fingers are numb. You’ll turn down your dates and give up a private life. And even then, only a few of you have the capacity to succeed.”

  His eyes fell on me again. Examining me until I felt almost naked—as if he were staring into my soul, my courage, and seeing all the questions I had. The doubts I had that I even wanted to pursue music. Because that was the truth. Sometimes I thought I’d chosen this path only to please my mother. My mother, the world-renowned opera singer. My mother, who I rarely saw, except in between engagements.

  I looked away from him, swallowing back emotions I couldn’t even identify. I didn’t need his hassle right now. I didn’t need any of this.