Fearless (4 page)

“You’re shitting me,” said
Tyler. “
Dammit
!”
He smacked his face.

Mel rolled her eyes and looked at him with
stern affection. “Tyler, I don’t care if you curse, as long as you
practice. You can swear every other word for all I care but you
better nail that Saint-Saëns.”

“You got it, Ms. Feinberg!”

“What happened with the baton?” asked
Blanca. “Was it on purpose?”

“Nope!” said Mel. “Back then, batons were
these big heavy—” She mimed banging a pole on the ground. “He hit
himself in the foot and died of gangrene.”

Robin’s eyes grew wide. “That’s so sad!”

“So nowadays, if my baton goes flying across
the room and lands in the violas, I just think, hey, it’s not as
bad as it could be.”

Mel’s amazing with
kids
, Lana observed. She wondered how Nick
would take to her. Toying with her straw, she knew she was getting
ahead of herself, but it was a safer train of thought than some of
the others she could have followed in front of all these people.
Mel looked like a dapper butch goddess in her crisp blazer, and the
hot-cider-hand-holding incident made Lana want more warm
touches.

She got her wish later on. The students had
the night off before their big concert, and several of them had
aggregated, with the moms, in one of the hotel rooms to watch a
movie. The young musicians were enraptured by the turbulent love
life of composer Franz Liszt; most of them had seen the movie at
least once if not more, and they kept a running commentary on their
favorite parts—which meant that Mel and Lana weren’t disturbing
anyone by chatting quietly.

“My neck aches a little from being out in
that mess out there,” said Lana. The window shade was drawn back on
one side, revealing a hazy pink glow past which faint snowflakes
flitted. Safe on the other side of the thick glass, they seemed
misleadingly gentle.

“C’mere. I’ll see what I can do.” Mel’s
fingertips and thumb sent happy ribbons of promise down Lana’s
body.

“Thanks! Oh, yeah, that really does help.”
Lana felt such relief at being able to enjoy moments like this,
finally, after decades of silence and stifling herself. She wasn’t
that religious, but a powerful gratitude rocked her soul and called
for silent prayer. “I loved that song you were playing earlier this
morning in the rehearsal room.”

“Oh, thanks!” said Mel. “It’s just a folk
tune. It’s called ‘Si Bheag Si Mhor.’”

Lana couldn’t place the unfamiliar
syllables. “Is that a Jewish thing?” she hazarded.

Mel chuckled. “No, it’s Irish. But you
guessed right on Feinberg.”

“Any idea what the name means?” Lana leaned
into the neck massage, savoring each moment.

“Something about two hills where two
warriors were buried, and their ghosts kept on fighting.”

“Really? It sounds so gentle and sweet.”

“Old-timey names are all over the place,”
said Mel. “People make jokes that the only reason we even have them
is to tell the tunes apart. That’s how we wind up with stuff like
‘Cluck, Old Hen’ and ‘Tater Patch’.”

“I’m sorry I had to leave
in the middle of She… of the Irish thing, but that’s when Alexis
was having her little emergency,” said Lana. “I’d love to hear it
again, really
listen
to it.”

“Yeah?” Mel looked around the room. “You
think there’s enough adults in here without us, if we left for a
few minutes?”

“What, you mean, now?” Besides Blanca’s mom,
Lana counted two other chaperones in the room. “I think we should
be able to pop out… You brought your violin to the conference?”

“Nope!”

“Then what are you gonna…”

“I’ll improvise!”

Lana blinked, but Mel seemed perpetually
unafraid, and being around her energized Lana. The feeling rising
in her chest reminded her of the swarm of bubbles flowing to the
top of a glass of club soda. “I can’t wait to see how you’re gonna
pull this off,” she said as she stood up.

“Hey, we’ll be right back, okay?” Mel told
the room. “You’ll be fine for a few moments if we duck out? We’re
gonna go stretch our legs.”

“Fine, fine,” said Mrs. Martinez with a
smile, before going back to her animated conversation with the
other two moms.

Lana followed through the hallway as Mel,
who seemed like Peter Pan in a blazer with her spontaneous energy,
led her to a room around the corner. She stood with her hands
resting on her hips as Mel knocked. “Student’s room,” the teacher
explained.

Lana smiled, but nobody answered the door.
“Oh, well!” said Mel. “Next stop!”

They took an elevator to another floor and
tried another room, but nobody was there, either. Back to the
elevator. Mel didn’t look disappointed by their striking out—her
face was lit up by the adventure.

“So, do you like Thai? There’s a new place
that opened up across the street from Tulip Tree and I haven’t had
anything bad there yet.”

“Sure, I’d love to try it!” said Lana as the
elevator doors opened.

At the next room, somebody
finally came to the door—but it was the other student in the room,
not the violinist, and Mel understood completely that she didn’t
want to lend out someone else’s instrument without their
permission. “These aren’t all
your
students, are they?” Lana furrowed her brow,
trying to remember what Mel said earlier about who was here
representing Tulip Tree strings.

“No, some of them are from that chamber
group.”

“Oh, right! I’d like to hear them play
sometime.”

Mel hurried down the
corridor. “Next month on the 8
^th
, Tchaikovsky Serenade
for Strings.”

Lana didn’t want to
ask
What if we don’t find a violin?
She was afraid that would somehow break the
spell.

The next room was another nobody
there—“Everyone’s probably at the convention center or eating
dinner,” Mel mused—but at the fifth room they struck gold.

“Sure, but you’ll bring it back in a few
minutes, right?” The gangly young man at the door handed his case
over to Mel.

“Definitely, safe and sound.”

Mel’s room was a warm and golden place under
the light of the single lamp she switched on when they entered. The
effect was enhanced by the unexpected fragrance of
pumpkin-spice-something. “Ooh, it smells good in here,” Lana
remarked, trying to look around without being too snoopy.

“It’s my little air freshener friend,” said
Mel, putting the violin case on the extra bed. She unzipped it from
both directions at once. “I like to put that scent in places that
become home. It’s sort of a mental health thing. Hope it’s
okay?”

“Oh, yeah! That’s a great smell.” Lana
caught the comment as the first mention of any vulnerability in
Mel’s superwoman image, and treasured the feeling of being trusted.
But then, wasn’t speaking so openly just yet another sign of Mel’s
confidence and poise? “If you like it, you’ll love what happens to
my house just before the band bake-sales.”

“Maybe I should come over and practice.” Mel
tightened the bow, then lifted the violin to her shoulder.

Sitting on the bed with her sock-clad feet
in front of her, Lana watched Mel admiringly. Once again, she began
to play the lilting dance from that morning. With clever finger
tricks, she made it sound what Lana started to think of as “extra
Irish”. It was almost as if Mel were flirting with some of the
notes instead of simply playing them.

When Mel stopped, Lana assumed she was going
to adjust her bow again or maybe change tunes. Instead, she walked
to the bed and nudged Lana’s thigh with her knee. “Move over.”

“Huh?”

Mel let her butt do the talking, and Lana
had no choice but to scoot. She felt delightfully cozy, sidled up
to Mel like this, but what was going on? Mel was still holding the
violin.

—No, she wasn’t.

Lana found herself holding the slim wooden
sculpture without realizing how it had happened. “I can’t—this
belongs to somebody else—”

“I’ve got you covered.” Mel’s voice was a
throaty, soothing caress. “I’m right here.” She pressed the bow
into Lana’s right hand.

Lana drew the bow across the strings. A
brilliant fifth rang out, D and A, and Lana vibrated along with
them. “Oh.”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t remember anything.”

“Try what I just played.”

Lana shook her head. “I only heard it
today!”

“Would it help if you had music? Do you
remember?”

“I think I might… from helping Robin, at the
piano.”

Mel then proceeded to blow Lana’s mind by
sliding open the drawer that usually only held Gideon Bibles and
suggestions for where to order pizza, if it wasn’t snowing its ass
off, and retrieving a sheet of paper. “Here.”

“You wrote it out?” Lana’s eyes bugged.
There it was—handwritten in neat blue pen.

“Helped me stay focused during that
seminar.” Mel placed the paper delicately over Lana’s thighs. “Can
you see, or do you want me to hold it?”

“I’d rather you keep spotting me,” Lana said
quickly. “This still isn’t my violin.”

Mel nodded.
“
La la laaaa la la laaaa la la la laaaa la
laaaa
,” she sang, pointing. Her clear voice
was a whole new pleasure. “Right here.”

Lana took a deep breath, placed her left
ring finger on the A string, lifted the bow, and landed.

D, E, F#—, E, D, D—, E, D, A, B—, A,
F#—…

The notes actually sounded like notes! The
violin sounded like a violin! Her sound was awkward, but it only
enhanced the rustic folk tune. It’s not like this was Mendelssohn
or something. Her fingers felt raw and naked, pressed up against
taut metal like that for the first time in decades, but it didn’t
hurt.

Lana knew she didn’t sound like Mel, or even
like Mel’s students, but she was making music. The song that had
wrapped itself around her heart like a ribbon ever since first
meeting Mel—no, before, ever since coming out and deciding to be
her own brave self—was finally escaping with each breath, confined
no longer.

She shot a glance at Mel, falling into those
big dark eyes, that welcoming smile. Mel nodded slowly and squeezed
Lana’s knee. Her head moved subtly in time with the music, and then
Lana realized she was humming along—in harmony.

Too much good. Tears began to blur the
music. Lana blinked them away and kept going.

After a few rounds, she put the violin down
and breathed deeply.

“So, yeah,” said Mel.

They looked at each other, grinning and
glowing.

Lana giggled from sheer emotion. “What else
you got?”

“Fiddle tunes, or do you want me to kiss
you?”

“Both. Everything.” Lana looked up at the
ceiling, almost as if seeing the black sky beyond it with the snow
cleared and the stars out.

“Let me move this.” Mel rescued the violin
from Lana’s reverent hands, placing it carefully on the nightstand
with the bow beside it. Then she turned back to Lana and brushed a
lock of hair back over her shoulder. “You’re more fearless than you
think you are.”

“Meeting you makes me stop feeling bad for
waiting so long.” And it was Lana who moved forward first, closing
her eyes and tilting her head as naturally as if this weren’t the
first time she was kissing in her native language.

Their hands held each other’s gently as they
kissed, the sense of peace and rightness flowing through the room
along with the baking spices. Maybe it was Lana’s imagination, but
she thought she heard the violin’s strings resonating in
harmony.

END

ABOUT
SHIRA
GLASSMAN

Shira Glassman is a bi Jewish violinist from
Florida. She eats, breathes, and sleeps violin, but what the hell
is “snow”?

Social Media Links:

Blog
: http://shiraglassman.wordpress.com

Facebook
:
http://www.facebook.com/shiraglassman

Twitter
:
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Other
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If you liked this book, you might like
:

If you want more fiction by Ms. Glassman focused on
music, musicians, and love between women,
A Harvest of Ripe
Figs
, about a stolen violin, is a full-length fantasy cozy.