In the Rain (4 page)

I
smiled. In high school, there were nights we spent playing our violins for band
rehearsals until we could no longer read the sheet music, and even then,
we usually knew most of what we were playing by heart to play by memory alone.
But this wasn't high school, and it wasn't music. Aside from the t-shirt he'd
let me borrow, I couldn't say if he played anymore or not. And if he did, I
hadn't for years.

Nerves
aside, I sat on the other end of the sofa and accepted the warm mug when he passed
it to me. Then, after looking at the cocoa, I grinned. "Aww, you
remembered."

"Marshmallows?"
he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "It's the only way
I'll make it, even if
they do melt before it's cool enough to drink. Oh, and I put your things in the
dryer, so we have about half an hour to kill until they're ready."

"Thanks
for that.
And this." I lifted the mug to my lips and, very carefully, took the first
sip.  "I don't mean to pry but," I met his gaze and wet my lips, "what
were you doing at a bar anyway? I honestly didn't think you were the type."

Ever
since I'd known him, he'd never been much of a drinker. Maybe socially, but other
than that,
he was pretty tame the last I saw him.

"Just
having some drinks with a few guys from work."

"Oh..."
I guess that made
sense. If not, the suit he'd worn certainly did. They probably went right after
work. "You already know why I was there."

He
dipped his head, but didn't mock me. "Not as easy dating at our age
compared to the way things were in high school, huh?"

I
rolled my eyes and set my mug on the table. "Tell me about it. What the
hell is wrong with the thirties crowd anyway?"

He
cocked his head to one side. "What do you mean?"

"I
mean..." What did I mean? "Well..." I sighed.

"Relax.
I'm not interrogating you. I'm genuinely curious why you think our age group is
so bad."

"The
guy I left with tonight?" He nodded for me to continue. "He has a
wife."

"No
shit. Damn, I'm sorry, Moyra. But they all can't be that bad,
can they?"

I
shifted on the sofa. "Worse. I swear, a lot of them are either taking
lessons from the wrong women or none at all. Freaking clueless."

He
laughed.

"What?"

"You
still sensor yourself. It's okay to say fuck. I don't mind."

"I
didn't realize I was censoring."

"You
are."

"Well,
fuck."

"There
you go!"

Good
God, you have an amazing smile.
We might not have
talked much at all in the last twelve years, but I still felt comfortable
around him. In fact, I could fall into easy conversation with him more than
anyone else. After spending most of junior high and high school playing music
together, there was a lot I could work with, but where to start?

I
inspected the shirt he'd lent me and figured it was as good a conversation
starter as any. "Transcendence orchestra?"

His
face lit up and I could've sworn his smile reached from ear to ear. "My
pride and joy."

I
blinked. "You still play?"

"And
more." He straightened his posture and, oh my God, he puffed out his
chest. "I conduct it."

"Y-you
what? Seriously?"

His
smiled broadened. "Yup. I've been conducting for..." He frowned. "Eight
years now. You seem surprised."

I
shook my head. "No. I mean, I am, but..how the hell do you get into
something like that?"

"Purely
by chance, and maybe a bit of luck." He rolled his head from one side to
the other, likely trying to get rid of whatever kinks were in his neck. "During
my early years of college, I decided to work on a double major for music
performance and business. And when I wasn't studying, I was desperately trying
to find some way
locally
to play in a group—work my way up to the big
leagues, you know?" He sighed. "Anyway, all the groups back then were
purely orchestra related, and while it is called Transcendence orchestra, it's
more like rock
mixed with broadways and a pinch of the classics. So, when I could find what I
was looking for, I decided to start a small group on my own. Ended up
requesting some time in the old band room at West. One string quartet eventually
turned into two, and once word-of-mouth spread, I realized I was spending more
time awake writing music and scheduling rehearsals than doing homework. Been
doing this ever since."

"Did
you finish school?"

"I
did, but only after
I got my Masters, then I took up classes on marketing, accounting and whatever
else I thought we'd need."

"Wow.
So, if you're a conductor, does that mean
you stopped playing your violin?"

"I
play as much as anyone else. The violin, cello, and just about
every other stringed instrument. It comes with the territory anyway. Or rather,
I think it does. It helps to know as many of the instruments as I can. That
way, if someone is out of tune, I can give them an idea of what I want and not
lose something important because of poor communication on my part."

"I
guess that means
playing for the Philadelphia Orchestra is out. It's all you talked about in
high school."

"Me?
What about you? I wasn't the only prodigy
in school you know? You promised to join me as their first violinist, remember?"

I
nodded and reached for my mug of hot chocolate, grimacing when I realized it
had gotten cold. I set it on the table and sat back. "Man, I'd almost forgotten—"

"Forgot?"
Thayre blurted out. "Christ, Moyra, what's happened to you? If memory
serves me well, we couldn't pry your fingers off your violin long enough for
you to eat lunch."

The
we
was Thayre and five of our other friends who played at the time.

"So,
do you still play at least?" Thayre asked a moment later. "Or did you
stop as soon as we got out of school like everyone
else?"

"Not
everyone," I said, giving him a pointed look.

"Okay,
but besides myself and Collin, everyone else either dropped out of the program
altogether or picked some other field because it was
easier.
"

I
bowed my head. "I did play."

"But
you don't anymore? What happened to your scholarships?"

I
couldn't bring myself to meet his gaze. All through school, it was like we
were neck-and-neck when it came to music. If I got stuck on transitions or
phases, I asked Thayre, and the same thing went for him. Hell, we'd been in a
youth group together and played a good part of the east coast during the
summer.

I
sighed. "I gave them up. The scholarships I mean."

Thayre
stared at me. "And your folks? There's no way they were happy about that."

"After
paying as much as they did for my lessons? I'd think not. As for when I last
played, it's been  over three years."

Bret
had always complained about the noise it made. At first, I played when he
wasn’t around, but after I was told time and again not to do it, and with my
passion pretty much gone, I...stopped.

"Such
a shame," Thayre said.

"How
so?"

"Not
for your folks but...Moyra, you used to keep me up with your music. Not
literally of course, but we wrote the most catching melodies. Think you still
have what it takes?" He cocked an eyebrow at me.

"Depends
on the emotion you’re after."

"Any,
so long as it’s raw."

"Anger
would work then? Because I don't think I can do happy. Not yet at least."

"Anger's
a great inspiration sometimes."

"I
take it you're talking from experience?"

He
scoffed and then smirked when I looked up at him again. "How else can I
write music?" He made a flippant gesture with his hand. "Come here. I
want to show you something."

I
took his hand and followed him to a door leading down into his basement. He went
first, and I followed, all the while wondering if I was already getting in too
deep with a guy I barely knew.
You hung out all the time during high school.
Yeah, twelve years ago.

Once
college came into the picture, we went our separate ways, and when I met Bret,
well...one can see how that ended
up.

"Here
it is," Thayre said, nodding to the room.

I
looked wide-eyed at what should’ve been his basement, but it was so much more
than that.
Sure, one side appeared to be used for storage along with a ping-pong table,
but on the other side was what could only be
described as a very large glass box. And inside the box?

"My
sound studio," Thayre said, walking toward it.

I
studied the various stringed instruments behind the glass. "You weren't
kidding about playing most of them, were you? This must've cost a fortune."

"A
small one, maybe. I suppose I could've rented them and taken lessons, but I'm
more of a play by ear and at my own pace kind of a
guy."

It
shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did anyway. Thayre had an amazing ear for
music. In fact, the few times I'd gotten stuck creating my own melodies, he'd
helped me figure where a scale was wrong or where I may have forgotten a few
beats. I never expected it to carry on well into his adult life. In our mid
thirties and, looking at him now, it was as though nothing had changed at all.

"Want
to go inside?" He laughed as my mouth hung open a bit.

"You...you’d
let me?" My attention quickly settled on the violin closest to us. And
suddenly, all I wanted to do was play. To put bow to strings, close my eyes,
and let whatever happened happen. I hadn’t realized how much I missed my old
violin until Thayre had offered me the chance to play his own. "But, it’s
your baby."

It
was the truth. For as long as I could remember, he was as protective of his
violin as a mother was of her child. He didn’t even leave
it at the lunch table with friends while he went to get something out of the
café. The damn thing went everywhere with him, and now he was offering—no,
asking me to play it?

He
frowned and crossed his arms over his chest, and my God, if his arms were as
toned as his shirt made out—

"Moyra?"

I
shook myself awake.
You’re here as a guest, remember?
Not that I
needed another man in my life anyway, but the thought was tempting. "Hmm?"

"I
was asking if you wanted to gawk at it all night, or if you’d prefer going inside?"

I
managed a nod and stepped closer to the glass.

Thayre
opened the door and gestured for me to go inside. I'd been in a sound studio
once before, but it was never like this.
Along the far wall was a set of monitors, keyboards and two soundboards.

I
glanced at him, confused. "Okay, I get the keyboards and everything else,
but what's with the major sound system?"

"You
really have been out of the loop, haven't you?" He released an exaggerated
sigh. "Long story short, I decided to cut out the middle man and produce
the albums myself. It's helped pay for most of this, so I must be doing
something right."

I
stopped mid-sweep over the neck of a cello. "You're probably right. Problem
is, music hasn't been in my life very much since I got out of school."

"But
you do remember how to play." It wasn't a question.

"As
easy as riding
a bike, right?"

"We
can hope so." He nodded at the stool in the middle of the room. "Why
not have a seat so we can get you set up."

Doing
my best to ignore the nerves coiled in the pit of my stomach, I took a seat.
With Thayre so close to me, it was hard to concentrate on the note in front of
me instead of his near-silent breath. The dark ink on white paper blurred, and
I worked on removing the bit of dirt from under my fingernails. 

Surrounded by instruments and walls
of glass, I was in all intents and purposes, at the very center of Thayre's
world. I didn't have to look at him to see he was watching me. He'd been
extremely attentive when I played so many years ago, I could imagine his vision
drifting from my face to my hands and back again.

Come
on, Moyra, concentrate. You've played the violin a thousand times before. This
should be cake.
I wet my lips and tried to familiarize
myself with anything that didn't
include Thayre.

He
reached in front of me to grab the violin from its case, attached it to a cord,
then handed the instrument to me before stepping to the back of the room. Out
of site, but certainly not out of mind.
Far from it.

For
a moment, all I could do was breathe, feel the strings and soft wood under my
fingertips and try not to freak out under Thayre's gaze.
He's watching.
And
if he wasn't, he was
listening.
I swallowed hard as I traced the strings
on the violin, the curve of its neck, and finally, the bow which I held in my
hand. It had been so long since I'd touched my own violin that it
took me a few seconds to get comfortable with the weight of it.

I
knew I was incapable of playing one of my own pieces, so I glanced at the music
sheets in front of me. Then, very gently, I dragged the bow across the middle
of the strings, and froze as the sound reverberated off the surrounding walls.

"Jesus,
that’s
loud."

Thayre
came around to face me, and his grin from earlier widened. "It’s a sound
system, what did you expect?" He pointed at the wire connected to the base
of the violin.

"Won’t
your neighbors hear?"
Do they mind?

It
was past eleven by now. Surely they wouldn't appreciate getting woken up by
someone else’s music, no matter how beautiful the string of notes looked on the
page.

He
knocked on the glass. "Soundproof. Come on, Moyra, give me a little credit.
As many nights as I lie awake with something stuck in my head, I had to make it
soundproof."