Still Life with Strings (18 page)

When I think about what
Shane’s asked of me, my entire body screams that it’s the worst idea in the
history of Jade Lennon. And believe me, there have been some bad ones. Every
part of me wants to be with him, but at the same time every part of me says
that I won’t be able to keep my emotions from getting involved.

At around lunchtime I
get a text from him politely asking how my morning went. Politely skirting the
real question. Even seeing his words on the screen of my phone makes me feel
all anxious, and I can’t bring myself to reply. Later on I arrive at work and
check the roster to find I’m on the front of house box office. This makes me
relax a little, because Shane won’t be able to come see me like he does at the
bar.

Midway through my
shift, Lara ventures over from her station in the merchandise shop to slide a
walnut whip through my window slot.

“What’s this for?” I
ask with a grin.

“You look a bit down in
the dumps today. I thought chocolate would be a good cure.”

Really, this girl has a
heart of gold.

“You had the right
idea. Thanks,” I say before she moves out of the way so I can deal with my next
customers. There’s a show about to start in fifteen minutes, so the lobby is
packed with people queuing to get to their seats. I’ve barely even noticed
what’s on since I’ve been in such a daze all day.

“We have tickets
reserved for collection,” comes a vaguely familiar voice as my next customer
steps up to the booth.  I slide the walnut whip under my seat and glance up to
find Mirin standing before me with a man I presume to be her husband beside
her. He’s got the same brandy-coloured eyes as Shane, but that’s the only
resemblance.

My heart pounds. God,
why did she have to come to this booth? I feel anxious enough right now as it
is, since last night her son had the good grace to proposition me with an
arrangement my brain refuses to work its way around.

“Oh, hello, Mrs Arthur.
Are the tickets under your name?”

“No, my husband’s.
Reginald Arthur.”

“Right,” I say as I
flick through the reserve drawer. Mirin doesn’t bother to introduce me to
Reginald, which leads me to believe she doesn’t want him to know me. Finding
the tickets, I slip them through to her. All the while she’s staring down at me
like I’m a slice of stale bread someone’s just put on her plate. She swipes the
tickets up into her talons, I mean, hands, and away they both go.

Thank fuck for that
being short and sweet.

Once the show starts, I
join Lara in the break room to enjoy my walnut whip with a cup of tea. Lara has
one, too, and we both chow down in contented silence. I always get a craving
for sugar after a long day. She tells me how pleased she is with April as her
child minder, and I’m pleasantly surprised that my sister’s actually taken to
the work. I’ve even seen a marked improvement in her mood, since she’s now got
a purpose and some regular money in her pocket. And there haven’t been any
older men calling to the house, which is a plus.

Now it seems I’ve just
got Project Pete to contend with.

Towards the end of our
break, my supervisor comes and asks me if I’ll prepare the refreshments for the
orchestra’s dressing room during the interval. The girl who’d been on duty
there had to go home sick. I tell him I’d be glad to, but all the while I’m
cursing him out in my head. Making my way to the bar, I find a rider of
requested beverages, mostly water, teas, and fruit juices.

The members of the
symphony have this great big dressing room with mirrors and bright lighting,
like backstage on a Broadway musical. It’s basically a giant room with long
lines of tables and mirrors, each one belonging to a different musician.

I know exactly which
one belongs to Shane because he probably got the seat of the concertmaster who
left. Checking the rider, I see all he asked for was a bottle of water. I
quickly place it on his table and move on. At the rate I’m going, I won’t be
done by the time the interval starts, given I have almost a hundred people to
cater to.

Normally there are two
workers to do this task, but we must be short-staffed tonight, which means I’m
all by my lonesome. I can hear the recognisable melody of the
William Tell
Overture coming to a close, and then the musicians are making their way to the
dressing room. I’ve still got about twenty tables to do, so I hurry up.

Water.

Coffee.

Ginger tea.

Water.

As I approach the next
table, I pause and glance up because somebody is standing in my way. Shane’s
deep eyes look into mine, and I swallow hard.

“You never answered my
texts,” he says as he studies me.

We’re nowhere near his
dressing table, so he obviously sought me out. I move by him and set another
water down on a table.

“Sorry, I’ve been busy
with work, and I left my phone in my bag in the staffroom. Was it anything
important?” I say, trying my best to be casual.

Shane sighs. “So this
is how you’re going to be, huh?”

I flinch as I transfer
more refreshments onto dressing tables. There are people moving by all around
us, which makes the situation even more stressful.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re acting
all flustered and pretending like you’ve forgotten what we talked about last
night.”

“I’m not pretending,” I
say.

I’ve just finished with
the last table, and a female cellist grins at me appreciatively, taking a sip
from her orange juice.

“And I haven’t
forgotten, Shane,” I continue quietly. “I’m still considering things.”

We reach the door
leading out of the dressing room, but he puts his arm in my way to stop me.
“Don’t freeze me out. I’m dying here,” he pleads, and the sound of his voice
makes my stomach clench with guilt for making him wait, despite the fact it
hasn’t even been twenty-four hours yet.

I set the wheelie tray
aside and give him my eyes, placing my hand on his arm in a gentle grip. “I’m
not going to do that. I just need more time.”

He stares at me
seriously, and he must see something that puts his mind at ease, because his
body loses some of its tension. I can feel eyes watching us through the
dressing room door, but I ignore them. I never read any rules about not being
allowed to have a personal relationship with a member of the orchestra. We work
in the same building, but you wouldn’t exactly call us co-workers, so I don’t
really care about people assuming things.

A long stretch of
silence elapses between us before I say, “By the way, Pete’s agreed to the
music lessons.”

A smile splits his
lips, a real one, too. He genuinely wants to help my little brother. “That’s
great, Jade. I’ll let you know when I’ve figured out which day will be best. We’ve
got a lot of shows coming up, and I haven’t fallen into a proper routine yet.”

“That’s cool. Call me
when you know,” I say, moving to go by him. “I need to get back to work now,
okay?”

Reaching out, he tucks
a strand of hair behind my ear that’s fallen free of my bun. “Okay,” he
breathes, and then he goes back inside the dressing room. I hurry to restock my
tray, and then I return to see if any of the musicians need refills. I’m busy,
but I can feel Shane watching me from where he sits quietly sipping on his
water.

The other violinist,
Avery, has the dressing table right beside his, and she’s chatting away to him.
I wonder if he’s even listening because his eyes haven’t once left me. All of a
sudden my white blouse feels too tight, my black skirt too restricting. He has
this way of making me feel stripped bare even when I’m fully clothed.

It’s customary for me
to do the rounds of the entire room, and when I get to Shane he says yes to
another bottle of water. I know for a fact he has no intention of drinking it.
He’s just doing this so that we’ll have to interact. Avery doesn’t want
anything else and turns to fix her hair in a French twist.

When I hand Shane his
second water, his fingers purposely graze mine, his stare hot, and I
practically trip over my own feet to get moving on to my next stop. I can’t be
certain, but I think I see his lips curve in a smirk.

Soon the interval is
over, and it’s time for the performance to resume. I couldn’t be happier for
the reprieve.

When I’m helping with
closing up later on, I see Shane with his parents and a few other people in the
lobby, all chatting in a group. Everything about them screams money, from the
clothes they wear to the subtle gestures they make as they talk. Lara shoots me
a funny annoyed look from across the way, where she’s closing up on
merchandise. Clearly, she wants all the stragglers to push on so that we can
close up properly and get home to our much-needed beds.

I keep feeling my eyes
drifting shut due to my lack of sleep last night, so I have to continually
blink to stay focused. I cash out my till and then go to assist Lara in fixing
the merchandise shelves. Straining my ears, I try to hear what Shane and the
people he’s with are talking about, but they’re too far away.

When he catches me
looking, he says something to his dad before leaving the group and walking
toward me. Great. I brought this on myself by staring at him like a love-hungry
teenager and I know it. Still, I busy myself with the DVD shelf and try to
pretend I don’t know he’s standing right behind me.

“Busy night?” he asks,
one hand resting on the shelf above my head.

“No busier than usual.
Did you play well?”

“I did. You didn’t get
a chance to come see?”

I shake my head and
give him a little smile while continuing to stack DVDs. “I rarely do. I’m
hardly ever on duty in the auditorium. They mostly put me on the bar or the
ticket booths.”

Shane rubs his jaw.
“Yeah, I noticed it’s always the old matrons who usher.”

I grin now and whisper,
“They’ve got it all sewn up. They’re like the concert hall mafia. Ushering is
the easiest job. Oh, and don’t ever call them old matrons to their faces.
Otherwise, you’ll be sleeping with the fishes.”

Shane moves closer,
chuckling low. “I’ll remember that.”

His hand strokes my
neck. I gasp and step away. “You might be off duty, but I’m still working,” I
remind him, not meeting his eyes.

“It must have slipped
my mind,” he mutters, his eyes boring holes into the side of my head.

His mother calls him
back over, and he whispers goodbye before leaving me. I let out a long breath
and look to Lara, who’s standing several feet away and who obviously observed
everything just now.

“Ben’s right. He really
does want to stick his Channing in your Tatum,” she says on a giggle.

I feign throwing a DVD
at her head and laugh at how catastrophically badly she just messed up that
sentence.

***

“I want you out of this
house right now,” I demand, standing in the kitchen doorway in my nightgown.

It’s nine o’clock in
the morning and Patrick, the good-for-nothing father of my three younger
siblings is sitting at the table. There’s a half-empty bottle of whiskey in
front of him and a half-smoked cigarette dangling between his dirty fingers. I
hate it when all his other options have dried up, and he decides to come and
burden himself on us.

His dull eyes flick to
me as he takes a drag. “Greta kicked me out. I’ll need to stay here for a few
days.”

“This isn’t your house,
and you’re not welcome, Patrick.”

His fist slams hard
down into the table, and I jump in fright. “I’ll stay as long as I like.”

“You’ll get the fuck
out, or I’ll tell Alec to throw you out.”

“My son doesn’t take
orders from you. And you’d do well to behave,” he replies, the threat obvious.

I can’t stand him. A
couple of months before Pete was born, he and my mother broke up for good. I
can’t get my head around why she put up with him for as long as she did in the
first place. Mum was an intelligent woman, but she must have had a touch of low
self-esteem to ever think this fool was what she deserved. I had to put up with
him as a shoddy substitute father for way too long. The last time he came here,
he stole fifty euros out of my purse and went to the bookies.

Then he showed up at
three in the morning, shouting to get in because I’d locked all the windows and
doors. After about an hour of banging and yelling, and after he’d woken half
the neighbourhood, he finally gave up and left. This is the first I’ve seen of
him since.

I fold my arms. “I
suppose you’re here to pay me back that fifty?”

“What fifty?” he
answers casually, as though butter wouldn’t melt.

“That’s it. I’m getting
Alec.”

Strolling into the
hallway, I call for my brother, but then my stomach sinks when I remember he’s
working today. Patrick must know this already because I can hear him laughing.
Now all I’ve got is an empty house and a drunkard gambler in my kitchen.
Deciding to face the music alone, I march back in and lift the landline from
the receiver on the wall.