He snorted. And in that instant I really did want to punch him. “Okay, Fitzgerald. Until the end of the tour you can think what you want. Then, that’s it.” He shrugged.
What did he know about the end of the tour? Savannah hadn’t told him about our … agreement. Had she?
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Nathan grinned almost menacingly. “You can play your game with her for another week. Then she’ll be in Chicago and far away from your bullshit.” My pulse raced and Nathan must have seen the change on my face. “Oh, she didn’t tell you? There’s a flute opening that Tim and I told her about. Come September you’ll have to find someone else to mindfuck. You and I both know she’ll get in.” With one more mocking grin, the pretentious little shit shook his head and left me alone in the dark.
Where I’d been spending far too much time.
I’d left Savannah alone at the bar that afternoon, as she asked. That didn’t stop me from leaning against the entryway for several minutes, staring at her back. She was drinking a glass of white wine. Sipping slowly for more than a half hour, she randomly ran a finger around the rim of the glass every few minutes. She never checked her cell phone, and she didn’t talk to anyone else around her, save for the passing hello when someone tapped her on the shoulder. I couldn’t see her face, but her slumped posture told me enough.
I didn’t want to make her sad.
I kicked myself for even suggesting that she continue the affair with me. There was nothing I could do to take it back now that I’d spoken the words. Nothing except hope that maybe she would actually wait for me while I got my life sorted out. Still, Chicago. She was slipping away and I’d started to panic. Panic makes people do desperate things, so I slipped away to my hotel room before I did something that would make things worse for both of us.
She deserved so much damn better than this. Shit. I asked her to wait for me. For an undetermined amount of time, I asked her to sit back and wait for things that I could only promise her. Nothing I could show her.
As we stepped on stage that night, though, she exuded professionalism. I waited for a tell, for a moment within the notes that she’d look at me like I was hers, and she was mine. That she was considering it. She stuck to the script, though, and maintained our secrecy. Even on stage.
Just as I’d asked of her.
As we took our seats after our duet, I searched for her eyes. Finally, at the last second before we started our final piece of the night with the orchestra, she looked back. A smile flickered across her lips but never made it all the way to her eyes. Nathan was watching me, too, and I could only wonder what conversations they’d had in my absence. Conversations that might lead her to discuss everything. That might lead her to say no.
I was uncharacteristically slow at getting everything put away after the show that night. Thankfully, she was, too. In hushed, but harsh tones I heard her tell Nathan to leave her alone. That she was fine and could handle it. Shortly after he sulked away, shaking his head in apparent disappointment, she mouthed nine thirteen. Her room number.
I waited for her to get on the elevator, then for another carload of people to go, before I got on. There were moments over the past few weeks that we could sneak an elevator ride together, alone. Moments when the door closed that I could take her hand and press into her for a kiss before the ding separated us. That wasn’t often enough, though. Too many eyes. Too many mouths.
“Hey,” she smiled and backed up so I could enter her room. “You never use your key. Why?” She always gave me a copy of her room key when she had a room to herself. I always knocked, though.
I shrugged. “Just being polite, I guess.” I grinned and pulled her into a deep kiss. “Are you okay? You’ve seemed off since this afternoon.”
“Oh, you mean since you and my only friend on this tour almost got into a fistfight? Yeah, I’m fine. I just … needed a minute.” She walked over to the bed and sat up by the headboard, patting the space next to her.
“So, tomorrow night is it, huh?” I decided against asking her about Chicago, unsure if she was considering that over Moscow. I couldn’t be sure Nathan was ever telling the truth when it came to Savannah, and I wasn’t in a place where I was prepared to lose her to either city.
“Yep. That’s it,” she whispered.
I was aching with the need to ask her if she’d thought more about waiting for me. Or if she’d thought of it at all.
“Savannah,” I started.
But, she stopped me. Wordlessly. Extending her hand palm up and resting her head on my shoulder, she said all she needed to. Swallowing back tears I didn’t know I had, I wove my fingers between hers and closed my eyes, leaning my head back against the headboard.
She was saying goodbye.
Savannah
No matter how many times I’d either played it or heard it performed, Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 in F gave me chills. The melancholy crescendos and diminuendos were punctuated with an airy dance that left a smile on my face and a longing in my heart.
Irony is one of music’s cruelest weapons.
I couldn’t look at him. Not knowing if we were about to play on stage together for the last time. I had to keep it together because I knew my mother was in the audience. Despite how I felt about her or her personal life at the moment, I still wanted to make her proud. To make myself proud.
As the nearly fourteen-minute piece came to an end, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, reaching for my sheet music. Tonight we were playing Clair De Lune. No one knew. We’d spent a couple of weeks with the pianist to work on turning the piano accompaniment into a flute harmony to compliment the cello. By the time we were through, we no longer needed the piano.
It was just us. And it would be beautiful.