Fearless

Fearless

By Shira Glassman

Copyright 2016 by Shira Glassman

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents either are the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or
the publisher.

Torquere Press Publishers

P.O. Box 37, Waldo, AR 71770.

Fearless by Shira Glassman Copyright 2016

Cover illustration by Kris Norris

Published with permission

www.torquerepress.com

All rights reserved, which includes the right
to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever
except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information
address Torquere Press. LLC, P.O. Box 37, Waldo, AR 71770

First Torquere Press Printing: January
2016

Fearless

by Shira Glassman

Thanks for being at all my All-State rehearsals, Mom,
and for constantly exposing me to both classical music and fiddle
tunes throughout my life.

A newly out-of-the-closet band mom falls for a cute
butch orchestra teacher while snowed in at All-State.

***

Robin’s clarinet solo was
startlingly beautiful as it drizzled through the hotel ballroom
like maple syrup on pancakes. Anyone who had a few bars rest or
whole notes turned to look at the skinny brunette—the other teens
were clearly impressed. Even the Ricardo Montalb
á
n look-alike conductor lifted his
eyebrow to her and smiled.

From the glow on her face, Robin knew she’d
knocked it out of the park. When the flute finally took the melody
from her, she collapsed back into the folding chair and beamed
toward the far side of the room.

Lana swelled with pride and
gave her daughter a double thumbs-up in response, then held up her
phone to mean
I got it on video!
A few more keystrokes and it was up on
Facebook—
At
All-State orchestra rehearsal, check out Robin’s solo! So
proud of my amazing kid.

She was
damn
good. The rest of these kids
were good too, of course—the best in the state. The last time Lana
had played her violin was the mid-’90s, but she still had an ear
for pitch, and it was a pleasure to be around high schoolers who
knew where the notes were.

Robin and her friends had more solos coming
up, so Lana flung her phone back into her purse and sat back to
listen. Hey, the oboe player was pretty good, too!

The conductor stopped the
group with a swipe of his left hand. “This is very good, I just
would like a little more,
look
at me, so I can play with tempo, okay? Yaaa daaa
da daaaa daaaa
daaaaa…
”

He let them finish the movement before
calling a ten-minute break. Robin was ensconced in the middle of
her band friends, talking animatedly, so Lana took her phone back
out to check if anyone had said anything nice about the video yet.
She wanted the whole world to be as dazzled by her kid as she
was.

“Hey, you’re Robin Novak’s mother,
right?”

Lana looked up and saw a familiar-looking
woman wearing flannel and well-fitting jeans. She was a youthful
fortyish with cropped black hair and heavy-rimmed glasses, and she
was smiling invitingly.

Lana, out of the closet less than a year,
fumbled the phone so hard that it flipped like a gymnast before
landing on the floor between them. “Shit,” she giggled, feeling
fifteen instead of forty-three. Sure, there were plenty of straight
women with short hair, but she was fairly sure this wasn’t one of
them.

The woman bent down to pick up Lana’s phone
just as Lana did, and their hands brushed. “It’s not broken, is
it?”

“Nah, these rubber cases… Yes, I’m Robin’s
mom; I’m Lana. I’m sorry, you look familiar but I can’t…?”

“Melanie Feinberg,” said the woman. “Call me
Mel. I conduct the string orchestra and chorus at Tulip Tree
High.”

“Oh! Okay, yeah.”

“She’s really got it,” said
Mel. “Rafael said she’s looking at going professional, right?”
Rafael
Vargas
was
the band director at Tulip Tree, and Robin’s favorite
teacher.

“Yeah, we’ve got audition trips planned for
Julliard, Eastman, and Curtis,” said Lana.

“I just can’t get over that mature tone,”
Mel continued. “But, of course, all these kids are great. That’s
how they got into the top group.”

“You have students here, too, right?”

“Yup!” Mel’s face crinkled into a big grin
as she pointed to two kids Lana recognized from the violin section.
“They’re mine, and so’s the assistant principal cellist.”

“That’s great! Congratulations!”

“I also have a violinist and a violist in
the ninth- and tenth-grade group,” said Mel proudly. “We had a good
year.”

“I’m really enjoying these rehearsals,” said
Lana. “It’s so nice to be around violins again. I go to all Robin’s
concerts, but the way they split up band and orchestra in the
public schools mean I miss out on the entire string section.” She
ran her hand through her limp but abundant chestnut brown hair. “I
used to play violin.”

“What happened?”

Lana shrugged. “Job… kids…”

“Oh, you have other kids?”

Lana picked up her phone, taking care not to
do any more circus tricks with it since she was still a little
giggly and nervous around Mel. She showed her the home screen with
Robin and Nick wearing reindeer antlers on their heads hugging in
front of the Christmas tree. “He’s at his dad’s place while I’m
here.”

“That picture is
adorable
,” said Mel.
“Wow. Isn’t that basically everybody’s dream Christmas
card?”

“Right? I could sell it and put all the
money toward Robin’s college.”

“They should offer her real money,
though.”

“You think?”

“Okay, okay!” Maestro Lopez clapped his
hands, ready to begin the rehearsal again.

Lana settled back into her seat, flushed and
over-aware of herself. “Hey,” Mel whispered with a hand on her
shoulder. “I’m going to go over to the junior orchestra. Nice to
finally talk to you!”

“Mm-hmm!” Lana smiled and watched her
go.

Okay, now what?

Not for the first time, she felt a pang of
resentful anger at the conservative culture in which she’d been
raised, for leaving her no better prepared to flirt with women than
a teenager was. When she and Steve got married, they “knew” they
were doing the Right Thing, except it turned out it was all kinds
of the Wrong Thing. Decades later, carried on the waves of the
burgeoning gay rights movement they managed to free themselves, but
now what?

Steve seemed to be getting along just fine.
He was a lawyer and he already had a nice little clique of gay
lawyers and realtors and a couple of small business owners.
Meanwhile, Lana didn’t even know where to start.

In the beginning, she thought she did, but
cycling through memories of the past few months proved
otherwise.

The lesbian meetups at the indie coffee
house—sure, there was relief at not being the only one in the room,
but she didn’t really have anything else in common with the women
who showed up.

The book club seemed like a great idea until
she got too swamped with band mom stuff to read on time and
chickened out of going back.

And the political group, campaigning for
equal rights legislation, was really fulfilling because it was much
easier to get to know strangers if you had a prearranged topic of
conversation, but it turned out to be a great place to make friends
with couples, widows, and energetic youngsters barely older than
Robin. Not a potential girlfriend.

Fortunately, a dead Italian composer named
Ottorino Rhespighi was all too ready to shake her out of her
fretting. As the orchestra grew louder and the sound of the brass
engulfed the room, she imagined the Roman army he’d been trying to
evoke stomping on her worries as they marched.

***

“Okay, we start with the Debussy when we get
back here tonight! Have a good dinner!”

The conductor dismissed the
eleventh- and twelfth-grade orchestra, and Lana was soon tackled by
a hug ’round the waist. “This is so fun!” Robin exclaimed.
“Everyone’s so
good
.”

“Did your friends have any plans for dinner?
I can take everyone to Steak and Shake if you want.”

“I dunno yet,” said Robin, looking around
and taking out her phone. “Lemme see if Blanca’s group is done
yet.”

“What about Alexis?”

“She’s still…” Robin drew closer and
continued in the tiniest voice possible. “She’s trying to get Tyler
to invite her.”

Lana grinned, spying Robin’s friend talking
to the second chair cello that Mel had bragged about. “Want me to
play matchmaker? Go over there and invite them both.”

Robin’s eyes widened. “That’s… almost
brilliant.”

“I’ll wait for you out in the hallway.” Lana
gathered her things and pushed open the door to leave the
ballroom.

She knew there would be a crowd of young
musicians, parents, and teachers milling around, but she hadn’t
expected the air of alarm and confusion. The hotel staff were deep
in discussion with furrowed brows, and some of the kids were just
sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by instrument cases
and folders, looking lost.

Lana waved at Mel, who was standing by the
free popcorn dispenser in the midst of a small flock of students.
“Hey, what’s going on?”

“The roads got snowed in during rehearsal,”
Mel explained.

“Greeeeat.” Lana made a face.

“So I guess our choices are: lobby
restaurant, or lobby restaurant.” Mel smirked. “And then, of
course, there’s lobby restaurant.”

“Don’t forget the free popcorn!” said
Lana.

“Nah, that’s for the percussion
section.”

Robin emerged from the ballroom with Alexis
and Tyler close behind. “Chicken fingeeeeeeers,” she moaned in a
zombie voice, her hands out in front of her still holding her
clarinet case and folder.

“Change of plans,” said Lana. “We’re snowed
in.”

“You guys are totally welcome to join us in
the hotel restaurant,” said Mel.

“Anything, as long as it’s made of food,”
Robin moaned. “Oh, and we have to wait for Blanca and her mom.”

“Blanca Martinez? Flute?” Mel asked.

“Yeah, she’s like, practically my sister,”
said Robin. “She got piccolo in the concert band this year. And she
and her mom are rooming with us.”

“Rooming with the piccolo player,” said Mel,
“that’ll wake you up in the morning.”

As soon as Blanca and her mom materialized
from another ballroom, the three women led the group of teenagers
over to the lobby restaurant. Naturally, by this point, there was a
line, but the restaurant did its best to seat everybody—even if
they were shoved off in a corner near the bathroom.

“Can you believe this weather?” said Mrs.
Martinez after they gave the server their drink orders.

“Makes me glad we’re stuck in here all day
for three days anyway,” said Robin. “It’s all cozy.”

“What about the concert?” asked Blanca.
“Isn’t that in the convention center?”

“They’re connected,” said Robin. “There’s,
like, a thing. Like a connecty-thing. You didn’t see it last
year?”

“The weather wasn’t this fucked up last
year,” Tyler pointed out. “Oh, shit, I didn’t mean to curse, Ms.
Feinberg.”

Robin burst out laughing. “Did you even hear
what you just said?”