Sophie's Encore (12 page)

A million remembered moments flooded my brain and drowned out rational thought. That night in the Royal, when we had that bath together and then I had fallen asleep before we could compromise ourselves. The morning after, when Dan had explored every inch of my body and we had sex without having sex. My heart rate ramped up several thousand beats and my loin danced at the recollection of his fingers on me, inside me. I swooned ever so slightly. Instinctively, I leaned into Dan and his arms closed more tightly around me, holding me close, so very close, making me feel safe and wanted.

And still his mouth was on mine, seductive, insistent, exploring. His nose touched my cheek, his ragged breath was hot against my face. I noticed and relished the feel of his hardness through his jeans, pressed hard against my abdomen, and the memories kept coming. The first time we made love…
What goes on tour, stays on tour
. The delicious, heady sex we had had back then. The feel of him on top of me, inside me… I grew hot and dizzy, and there was a longing in my tummy that could only be lust.

For the briefest of instants, I responded to Dan’s kiss with wanton abandon, lips tasting lips, tongue caressing tongue, our hearts beating as one. It was fantastic. It was more than fantastic. It was meant to be. Wild. Dangerous. Forbidden.

Forbidden
. In a lightning flash, the arousing memories of our love-making morphed into memories of other men in my life…of Tim…and of Steve.
Steve.

My heart caught in my throat, and I could no longer breathe. I choked on my tongue, Dan’s tongue, my guilt. I had caught myself in the act of betraying my deceased husband, and it was an awful feeling. It hurt.
I
hurt. I had crossed a line. The shame was like a physical thing, a thick layer of sand on my tongue and grit in my eyes, a clamp around my heart, a red-hot pain. Pulling back abruptly, I broke my connection with Dan and took a shuddering breath. Confusion and guilt wrestled for supremacy, but guilt won.

Apparently oblivious to my conflicting emotions, Dan inclined his head, taking a gentle step backwards with his eyes fixed on mine. He bumped into the console and put out a steadying hand, accidentally pressing buttons as he did so. “Turn Your Corner” started all over again, and the sudden volume startled both of us. For a second we froze, then Dan turned the music off and silence enveloped us once more.

“Totally awesome,” Dan repeated, somewhat breathless, but it was unclear whether he meant the song or the kiss he had stolen from me. His eyes danced with desire and something else, something deeper, but I refused to acknowledge it.

“Thank you,” I replied instead, trying to hide my turmoil and inadvertently maintaining the ambiguity.

Dan sent me a goofy smile. “Maybe we should have—”

I never found out what the ‘should have’ entailed as there was a sharp knock on the door, and someone entered without waiting for a response. Dan held out a hand in greeting, whereas I lowered my bottom into my chair, my knees momentarily ceasing to function in the aftermath of the emotion.

The new arrival looked vaguely familiar. Of tall build, with dark hair and dark eyes, he smiled widely as he took in my presence within Dan’s sanctum. “Hiya, Sophie,” he opened without preamble.

I shot Dan a curious glance.

“Sophie, you remember Richard, our sound man. Right?” Dan flapped his hands about in a no-introduction-needed gesture.

The sound man. That made sense. I knew I had seen this face before, but it had been a long time.

Richard stepped forward and gave me a friendly peck on the cheek. “How’yer doin’, Sophie?” he drawled. “I hear you’ve been doin’ great things with them buttons!”

Dan didn’t give me an opportunity to respond. “Wow, wait until you hear her latest production,” he announced. “It’ll knock your socks off. You ready?”

Richard nodded, and without warning or consulting me, Dan played “Turn Your Corner” all over again. It seemed he couldn’t get enough of it. Inwardly, I hugged myself with glee, although a thin sliver of uncertainty permeated my heart with icy spicules.
Why was Richard here?

The sound man listened with his eyes closed, completely intent on the music. Dan flicked his eyes between one of his oldest friends and long-time workmate, and me, back and forth, back and forth. I became so nervous I stared at a spot a little above Dan’s head, mesmerized by an ancient little stain on the ceiling. The song ended, and the DAW clicked off. Silence filled the studio until Richard spoke.

“I’ll have her,” he said.

Chapter Twenty

Dan let go of a long breath of relief. “I am so pleased,” he announced. “Congratulations, Sophie. This is high praise from a tough critic.”

I wasn’t sure whether I was fully in the frame. “Thank you,” I mumbled, ever polite. “What do you mean, ‘you’ll
have
me’?”

Richard perched on the table next to the console. “I mean,” he explained slowly, “I’ll have yer as my apprentice. I don’t apprentice lightly, and it’s been a long time since I last took anyone on.”

“It’s true,” Dan explained, unhelpfully. “Last time Richard apprenticed someone, the chap left after three months. Couldn’t take the pressure.”

Richard smiled wryly. “He couldn’t take the criticism, and he simply didn’t have the
ear
. But you are in a league of your own, and it’d be my honor to take yer on. If yer like.”

Had my eyes actually been on stalks, they would have swiveled like a periscope on a submarine, left, right, left, right. I wasn’t quite following.

“Hang on a minute,” I begged the men. “I know Dan said something about training me, but I had no idea you guys had cooked up some kind of apprentice-scheme between you. How do you know that’s what I want?”

Both men regarded me incredulously.

“You’ve got the ear,” Richard repeated, being the first to recover. “It’d be a crime not to teach yer to make something of it.”

“Sophie, I thought that’s what you wanted; a new skill, a new project. I’m not a great teacher. I can’t take you much further. You need proper training from the ground up,” Dan gushed. I hadn’t often heard Dan gushing before. It was quite un-Dan-like, but very sweet. He leaned toward me and whispered conspiratorially. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, my sweet. Richard swore he would
never
take anyone else on after the last twerp. You’ve changed his mind. Go with it. You won’t regret it.”

“But—but—but—” I couldn’t get my thoughts organized. I probably looked like a stranded fish with my mouth opening and closing.

“But what?” Dan prompted, sensing
issues
.

“But… sound engineers, they work crazy hours. I can’t do crazy hours. I’ve got the kids to think of.”

Richard gave me a reassuring smile. “Dan’s told me all about yer nippers,” he assured me. “I know you can’t do late-night studio session at the moment. Tell me what you
can
do.”

I squirmed, feeling put on the spot. “Um, at this point, I can really only do mornings. You know, a couple of hours while Emily is at playschool. Late evenings, maybe I can manage one of those once a week if I find a sitter. Same for weekends, but not on a regular basis.”

My head swam as I tried to compute the logistical implications of all of this. Was I really ready to take this on? I had enthused about this new ‘career’ to Rachel and Mum and Dad, but suddenly I was facing a whole new ball game. I had vaguely considered the possibility of stepping up the training, but this was
serious
.

Dan grabbed my hand to calm me down. “Don’t worry,” he soothed. “Richard and I’ve already talked about this. He simply wanted to hear it from you. I think he was probing your commitment.” He shot Richard a defy-me-and-I’ll-eat-you kind of look.

Richard laughed. “I’m not really an ogre. I only want to know that yer serious. No point starting if yer gonna bail at the first sign of pressure.”

“I won’t,” I objected stubbornly.

“She won’t,” Dan concurred at the same time, sounding stubborn on my behalf.

“Cool yerselves,” Richard appeased. “We’ll do a couple of hours every morning. That’s plenty to be getting started with. Dan will bring you, and we’ll begin with the basics. In a few weeks, you can sit in on actual sessions. The rest, we’ll play by ear. No pun intended.” He chuckled at his own joke.

“That sounds good, if it’s really all right with you,” I exclaimed, excitement and joy surging through me in a giant wave. “
Are
you sure?” I added. “I wouldn’t want to be a burden.”

“Yer not a burden unless you start messin’ me about or not takin’ instruction properly. But it doesn’t look like that’ll be a problem.” Richard’s voice was dry and patient.

“Just do what you’ve been doing and Richard will simply love you. He’ll eat out of your hands,” Dan laughed. “I’m sure of it.”

I looked from one man to another, stood straight, and stepped toward Richard, extending a hand for a formal shake. “Okay. I’ll accept. I’d love to be your apprentice,” I enunciated carefully, sensing the gravity of my decision settle onto my shoulders like… like a lightweight, soft, feather boa. This was the right thing to do.

Richard took my hand and shook it. “Great,” he confirmed. “Starting tomorrow.”

“Starting tomorrow,” I repeated, and Dan gave me a thumbs-up.

Chapter Twenty-One

Richard revealed himself to be a tough-love kind of master. My official apprenticeship as a sound engineer began with the proverbial ice-cold shower, and it took several weeks before Richard and I, teacher and learner, master and apprentice, reached an easy, comfortable mode of being that enabled me to relax and see purpose in my torture.

The portents were all there on the first morning when Dan drove me across to the studio in Central London where Richard was based. I was full of beans and excited anticipation until Dan started making ominous noises.

“Um,” was his eloquent opening line. “Um. Richard doesn’t mince words. I’m fairly sure that your initiation will involve him taking your mix of “Turn Your Corner” apart.” He flashed me an apologetic smile.

“What do you mean, take my mix apart?” I had an odd sensation in my tummy, like I had swallowed a lead weight. “He was totally enthusiastic about it, as were you.”

Dan slowly nodded his head. “He was. I was. It is a great mix, for a rookie. It shows potential.”

“But?” I waited for a response, becoming increasingly agitated when none came. “But what?”

Still no reply. Dan rolled his head from side to side, as though hoping for inspiration on how to best break the news.

“For weeks, you’ve been telling me how great I’ve been doing, and now you’re telling me that wasn’t true? Is that where you’re headed?” I tried to anticipate the blow, aware that I sounded petulant.

“No, of course not,” Dan protested. “You are doing fantastically well. But you have a lot to learn still. Your mixing shows an instinctive awareness of common rookie mistakes, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t committed any sound-engineering crimes.”

“Crimes?” Sub-surface hysteria made my voice sound shrill and brittle. “What crimes? I thought it sounded cool!”

“It did, for where you are. I’m sure Richard will take it all apart and tell you,” Dan mumbled. “He’s the genius. I only hear so much. Just… Just listen to what he has to say. And don’t cry.”

I swallowed hard. That sounded even worse,
Don’t cry
.

Twenty minutes later, I was clinging to those words for dear life. My initiation had been brutal. Dan had delivered me and fled. “I’ll see you at half past eleven,” he shouted before dropping the briefest of good-luck kisses on my head.

Upon my arrival, Richard wasted no time in playing “Turn Your Corner” back to me, quite loudly. It sounded somewhat different in the studio. Alternately boomy and thin, bass-heavy in places, and too loud on the vocals in others. A week’s worth of hard work sounded misdirected and wasted in this different space. But not
totally bad
.

No,
total
annihilation came a little later. Richard handed me some printouts of frequencies that I had mixed, and the sheet looked like a child’s scribble.

“This is nuts,” was the laconic comment. “For this part of the song, it should be a nice, smooth, even distribution of lines across the frequencies, like waves coming on shore. This shows you how bad your mix really was.”

Gulp.

Richard was ruthless in destroying any kind of false confidence or self-esteem I might have mistakenly built while working on my mix. With swift manipulation of sliders and faders, he demonstrated how I had ruined the song, and how it needed to be done properly. My cheeks and ears were burning at the dressing-down, but when all was said and done, I had to admit, he was right.

Nonetheless, the inevitable tears were threatening, and my eyes were smarting from the effort of holding them back. I dug my fingernails into my palms and made myself breathe evenly and deeply, all the while forcing a fake smile to disguise my mortification.

“So…” Richard concluded the session, turning the sound off and relaxing into the ensuing silence. “Are you still happy to go ahead?”

I nodded, speaking not an option for the moment. A single tear escaped from my eye, and I swiped at it before it could roll down my cheek. “I-urgh…” I cleared my throat, trying to get words out after all.

“I’m happy to go ahead. I’m simply a little shocked, that’s all. I thought…”

“I know what you thought. And you have to understand that you did well with your mix overall. I wouldn’t have invited you here if you hadn’t. But I needed you to know that there’s a lot to learn. There’s
everything
to learn, in fact. We need to go right back to the beginning. You need to learn about set-up and equipment and placement before we can even start to talk about mixing. It’s a long and tedious road, but you’ll get there.
I’ll
get you there,” he added, not even remotely modest. “As long as you’re prepared for steep hills and rocky outcrops.”

“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay. I can do that. As long as…”

Richard raised an eyebrow. “Not your place to make demands.”