The man had more interaction with his cello than with any human. Realistically, I knew this to be more the rule than the exception with musicians and other performers. Most musicians are married to their craft. Except maybe my father, who walked away from his life in the orchestra pit to raise me as normally as possible. He had shared his wife with the opera for over twenty years. Now I often wondered how their relationship would look once they resumed life in the States.
As Gregory warmed up, the muscles in his shoulders and forearms flexed and relaxed with each note. It bothered me that his stomach-clenching eyes were closed, but it also gave me an excuse to study the rest of his face. I often had to remind myself how young he was. He was barely thirty-one, even though his attitude, manner of speech, and general outlook on life suggested he was much older.
“Don’t be nervous, Savannah.” Madeline playfully nudged me with her elbow. “I wouldn’t have asked you to join us if I didn’t think you could handle it. You’re going to do just fine. This is supposed to be fun.”
“Fun?” I chuckled. “Fun is playing on a city street corner or in the grass somewhere. Fun is not sitting in a room full of musicians you’ve admired your whole life, preparing to play with them. It’s exciting … I’ll get back to you on the fun.” I arched my eyebrow and took a deep breath as James commanded our attention. I thumbed through our music as he spoke.
“First of all, I want to thank you all for a great first week with the students. I know it’s not over yet, but I think we can all agree that the students get more talented each year. While that makes some parts of our job easier, the challenge lies in continuously pushing them to do better. We have a great staff on hand to accomplish just that.” James nodded once to Gregory, who nodded back.
The cellists on campus were all thrilled to be working with Gregory, by the sounds of things, while all the other girls swooned every time he walked by. Watching him roll his tight shoulders back and stretch his neck side to side caused my mind to drift to what it would feel like to be pressed up against his muscles.
For three weeks I’d watched the high school students part as he walked down the hallway ... whispering behind their hands, eyes wide. I wondered if I would have giggled along with them if I was a student.
Yes.
His quiet command, even when doing something as common as eating a sandwich, left me staring. The way his jaw worked, how his eyes scanned the room as he took a drink … every little thing about him pulled me in.
Viewing him as a colleague over the last few weeks, and the casual environment of James’s house for dinner, I was intrigued to see another side of him. While he was still reserved, it no longer looked pretentious. He looked focused, passionate, and intense. I found myself anxious to know what was going through his head most of the time.
I’d caught the tail end of some of his private sessions, as I was walking through the halls. While he was stern with his students, he taught them to let the instrument tell the song’s story. Such a beautiful statement that he never once shared in class. I wondered why. He was certainly expressive whenever he played; it was his rigid ideas of what music could be that I found … frustrating. Why not bend the rules and create something new when he had such command over everything else?
“This year,” James continued, “we want to have more fun and play around with duets and smaller groups apart from larger pieces. It’s not often some of us get to play together one on one …” He continued his introduction as I turned more pages of sheet music.
The pieces were fairly standard, easy if you’d been playing for twenty years, I suppose. I liked that. Madeline might have been right, maybe they really did view this as fun. Playing pieces everyone knew well gave the opportunity to make them sound out of this world. And, maybe have a little fun with them? Glancing quickly at Gregory, I guessed there wouldn’t be much rule bending here. His eyes met mine and he gave a slight nod and a half-smile.
Holy shit, a smile.
Moving my eyes back to the music, I gasped when I turned to the last page.
“What’s wrong?” Madeline leaned in to see what I was looking at.
I whispered, as James was still rambling about something. Man, he was long winded. “This is the third movement of Assobio a Jato. I know this.”
“What? Why don’t I know that you know this?” Madeline twisted her lips accusingly. She knew better than to think I’d stick solely with the music she assigned.
“It’s nothing. I was thinking about playing this at my senior recital and asking Marcia to accompany me.”
Madeline’s eyebrows shot sky-high. “Oh, you were just thinking of adding this to your recital program and are just mentioning it now?” Her playful tone caused me to roll my eyes.
“Just … shh,” I teased, sitting back in my chair.
“Okay,” James seemed to be finally wrapping up, “why don’t we let Gregory pick the first duet piece. We have lots of string opportunities since we have lots of strings hanging around this year.” James laughed a little as he headed to his seat, where his violin sat in wait.
“Let’s try the Assobio a Jato.” Gregory stood and moved to the seat in front of the ensemble.
What? This piece was not up Gregory’s alley—at all. Was he trying to branch out? For someone who seemed to be musically stuck in the nineteenth century, this was odd.
“Have fun, Madeline,” I teased, grinning from ear-to-ear. Madeline and I were the only flutes in the ensemble. Since she and Gregory had known each other for a lot of years, I figured she’d played with him at least once or twice. But, Madeline is a lot like me—free in her interpretation of sound. I was anxious to see how she would play with him in this piece.
“Uh-uh.” Her grin mirrored mine and made me nervous. “You want to practice this piece for your senior recital without telling me? Get up there and prove it.”
My pulse raced. She couldn’t be serious. “No way. Stop. Just … get up there.”
“Madeline?” James raised an eyebrow in our direction from his seat.
“Actually, Savannah should do this one. She’s been practicing this for her senior recital … evidently.”
Gregory’s eyes shot to mine and my stomach plummeted through the floor. This wasn’t happening.