Isaac seemed to be barely listening. “You know, Tifah keeps screwing up her cadenza and Gene can’t seem to find the fifth, even if he’s sitting on it…” He kept talking.
Elly stared into his eyes, something that she always found easy, but had a hard time keeping up with his thoughts. It seemed that every minute or so, her mind wandered back to Aaron. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Lucia standing in a wedding dress, smirking, Aaron wrapped around her, gazing lovingly back at Elly as his hands splayed across Lucia’s chest.
Isaac’s voice cut through her illusions. “I told him to come in on the second beat, and what does he do? He says that I’m being pretentious and rigid and that I’m not allowing the music to flow through him. I told him that was just a commercial view of our music, and to really shoot us into the stratosphere, that we needed to embrace music tradition in order to free our creativity…”
Elly beamed up at him encouragingly, appearing as if she was listening. He looked so nervous that she just wanted to console him and take him in her arms until the whole thing was over. He was still in the middle of his rant when the lights dimmed.
The first band took the stage. Isaac leaned back in his seat, obviously agitated. The first band was an Irish fusion, according to Isaac. They were very good and finished their set to thunderous applause. The second band, led by a roguish looking trumpet player, took the stage and began a phenomenal jazz set. Elly kept glancing over at Isaac in the dark club. He was beautiful, as always, his curly brown hair falling over his eyes and his tan skin flushed with a thin layer of sweat. But what Elly saw tonight were his nerves. His leg was shaking under the table, and he had torn a napkin into a thousand shreds. It looked like maybe it was his turn to throw up today. She reached across the table, stroking his thumb with her finger.
He looked at her pleadingly and then blurted, “We aren’t as good as these people. They are going to laugh us off the stage. We aren’t that prepared.”
Elly felt her energy draining. The emotions of the last two days had taken a toll on her mind, and she didn’t know if she could handle the mental cartwheels that it would take to boost Isaac’s ego. She looked at his forlorn face and steeled herself. Circling the table, she knelt beside him, taking his gorgeous face in her hands. “You’re wonderful. Your band is wonderful. You are so talented and this is what you deserve. So go out there and take what’s yours. You can only control what you play, and what you do. Don’t worry about Tifah, don’t worry about Gene. Worry about you. And I can tell you,” she murmured, nurturing his ego, “That you are very talented.”
Elly saw a glimmer of relief cross Isaac’s face. “You mean it?” he asked adoringly.
“I do.” She kissed him softly and returned to her seat. He leaned back, still pale, but looking a bit more assured. Elly ordered another drink.
On the stage, the jazz band was winding down with a slow and pulsating song. Elly found her mind drifting back to Aaron, aided by the fading notes of the guitar on stage. She thought of the last time she saw him. The look on his face when he defended his lover and not his wife. The morning of that fateful day, the way they snuggled under the covers. His face as she walked up the aisle in her mother’s backyard. Elly felt tears brimming in her eyes. For goodness sakes, HOLD IT TOGETHER, she told herself. Push him out of your mind. Think of something else..think of…Elly tried desperately to think of something positive…Chinese food and cool pools! She let her mind linger on the drifting of a rubber raft in Kim’s pool and the taste of salty lo mein into her mouth.
The emcee took the stage, following thunderous applause for the jazz set. “We’re going to take a short break and then we will return to hear our newest band…Everest Oppressed!”
The crowd clapped politely. Elly looked at Isaac, and then down at his hands. They were shaking slightly, rattling the ice cubes in his half empty Scotch. He stood up, looking lost and terrified.
Elly looked at him, trying to radiate assurance and calm. “You are going to be fantastic. Just breathe.”
Isaac started to walk toward the stage. Elly sat back in her chair, relieved, and took a sip of wine. She was not in any state to be someone’s emotional rock. Not this weekend, anyway. She heard whispers in front of her. Elly pulled her gaze away from her empty glass and looked toward the stage. Isaac was walking back from the stage, right towards her. Hundreds of audience eyes and a spotlight followed him as he vaulted up the stairs and stood in front of Elly. There was something dangerous and dramatic in his eyes.
“Elly,” he declared loudly, “say that you love me.”