As the lights come up, Rayne wipes the tears that have been streaming down her face. “Oh. My. God,” she says. “That was the most amazing love story.”
“It didn’t bother you that he was our age and she was eighty?” I ask, vaguely icked out by the romantic parts of the movie.
“No,” she says. “They were connected by so much more than mere age. They were destined to be together despite their ages. It was just beautiful.”
We walk out of the theater and into the buzz of nighttime in the Haight.
“Did you like it?” I ask Griffon. He’s been strangely silent since the movie ended.
“Yeah,” he says. “I did.” He leans down so that only I can hear. “I liked it the first time I saw it, too,” he whispers. “Back in 1971 when it had just come out.”
Feeling the warmth of his breath on my skin makes me shudder, and I have to pull away to get control of my emotions.
“Let’s go see if we can get a seat at Café Roma,” Rayne says. “I need to process some more.”
“I can’t,” Griffon says. “I have to get back.”
“Aw, come on,” Rayne says. “It’s only eight thirty. What in the world do you have to do?”
I freeze. He probably has a girlfriend. That would explain his no touching rule. The thought of him going back across the bridge to be with someone else makes me feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.
“I just have to go,” he says firmly. “Walk me to the corner?”
Rayne bumps me and glances at Griffon.
“I’ll be right back,” I say to her, and walk slowly up the street with him.
“You okay?” he asks.
“I guess,” I answer, feeling suddenly depressed and overwhelmed. A bus pulls up beside us and we stand back to let people off.
“Hey, when is that concert Kat was talking about? Isn’t it this week?” he asks.
“Yeah. Saturday.”
“Do I still have an invite?”
“If you want,” I say, trying to sound casual. Part of me is desperate to have him come, and part of me—a small part, but still—knows it would be better for both of us if he just got on the bus and didn’t come back. Took all of his talk about Akhet and reincarnation and just vanished into the night. “It starts at eight. But you don’t have to stay for the whole thing.”
“Don’t you have a solo?”
“Duet. I’m doing a Massenet piece with my friend Julie on piano.”
“Which one?”
I look at him sideways. Except for my conservatory friends, nobody I know has even heard of Massenet. “Meditation. From Thais. It’s no big deal. I think we’re last on the program.”
“Then I’ll definitely be there.” There’s an awkward silence where a kiss good-bye might happen under different circumstances. The part in the movie of my life where he bends down and brushes his lips lightly against my cheek and I reach up and run my fingers through his hair as I draw him to me. Instead, he gives me a little wave as he gets on the bus. “See you Saturday.”
Once he’s out of sight, I blink hard and take a deep breath, more convinced than ever that he has a girlfriend on the other side of the Bay. He isn’t interested in me that way. Why would he be? Apparently, I’m nothing more than his junior year charity project.
Rayne is buzzing with excitement when I get back to the theater. “So that is insane,” she says, bouncing up and down. “Amazing. Did he kiss you? What did he say? Are you going to see him this weekend?” She loops her arm through mine and steers me down the crowded sidewalk. “You have to tell me everything!”
I stop for a second, wishing I could. “It doesn’t matter anyway—we’re not going out, so don’t get all worked up. Griffon has some ideas that are not exactly … normal.”
“Ideas about what?” Rayne whispers, completely alert now. Ideas that aren’t exactly normal are totally her thing. “Like sex stuff?”
“No!” I say, a little too loudly. “Like…” I trail off here, unsure about how much I should say. There’s no way I’m going to tell her about everything Griffon said, but she is my best friend. Even sharing a tiny bit about what’s going on might make me feel not quite so bad. “Weird ideas about death. Reincarnation, past lives, things like that.”
Rayne looks at me like I’m the crazy one. “That’s it? So what? So does half of Berkeley,” she says. “My mom talks about that stuff all the time—indigo children, past life regression. Damn, in her eyes, that would make him even more perfect.”
“Perfect for you, maybe,” I say. “But not me.”
Rayne shakes her head. “We’ll see.”
Eight
I pace backstage, more nervous now than I’ve ever been before a performance. Telling Griffon about the concert was the single worst idea I’ve had in weeks. Stupid. And distracting. Hundreds of people in the audience never bothers me. Mom and Dad I can deal with. Even having Veronique here is okay. I think about the moment when I told him it was tonight and wish to God I’d shut my mouth. I don’t dare peek at the audience. Not only is it unprofessional—and Herr Steinberg would kill me if he knew I was even thinking about it—but knowing where he’s sitting will make things worse. Maybe he didn’t even come. It’s not like he owes me anything. Maybe he just stayed home on his side of the Bay and forgot about the whole thing. That thought alone makes me feel slightly better. Slightly.
Julie appears beside me, dressed in wide-leg black pants and a sleeveless top like I’m wearing, but on her they look elegant, instead of stumpy. The heels I have on help a little, but they also give me one more thing to worry about as I try to walk around without falling. You think that I’d have the heel thing figured out because I’m so short, but heels are one of the things that are in Kat’s domain, not mine.
“You ready?” Julie asks, standing up straighter and shaking out her hands.
“As I’ll ever be.” We step out onto the lit stage to enthusiastic applause. I say a silent prayer of thanks for the lights in the concert hall, because it’s pretty impossible to see who’s out there, and I can try to concentrate on not letting Julie—and everyone else—down.
As Julie’s piano leads into the piece, I pick up my bow and take a deep breath. I love the feeling of this music and don’t want to blow it. Meditation is from the part in the opera where the heroine is trying to decide whether to go with the monk who is in love with her and renounce her lustful ways or to listen to her heart and be who she is meant to be. In the tempo and the mood you can feel her conflict as the notes soar and fall on the scale, everything rising to a peak and then dropping back. At least, that’s the plan.
The first few notes are strong and clear as I draw the bow across the strings, my hands loose, each segment flowing into the next one. As the music gets faster and louder, my fingers become the voice of the instrument, pulling the emotion from the cello, and then slowing down, softer and softer until the notes are almost a whisper. Just a few bars into the piece I give up consciously thinking about what I’m doing and just let the notes flow on their own, knowing that my best performances are the ones where I stop thinking and just go with it. I have to surrender everything and trust that repetition and instinct will carry me through to the end.
Too soon, the last notes fade into the ornate ceiling of the hall, and I open my eyes to the audience’s applause. As the relief that always comes from a successful performance fades, I suddenly feel Griffon in the room, can almost hear his hands clapping over the sound of everyone else. Turning my head to the left, the lights aren’t as bright, and I spot him right away, sitting several rows from the back, smiling as our eyes meet and applauding even harder. I can feel my face getting hot, and this time it isn’t from the effort of playing Meditation.