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“Good,” said Billie. “Now all the yellow ones.”
Jules did as she was told, paying more attention now that things seemed to be working out.
“Then the green ones,” instructed Billie.
“Huh,” said Jules, careful not to get her fingers tangled up as she went for the green notes. “This is working.”
“Now all you have to do is memorize the pattern. Get this set down and we can move on to the next set.” Billie leaned over, brushing against Jules’s arm. “Now if you look here at the music, you can see that I’ve written numbers on it. So you’re going to hold the red notes while I count to four, then the yellow notes while I count one, two, then the green notes while I count three, four, you see that?”
Jules’s arm appeared to be on fire.
She looked at her arm, then at Billie, then decided that she must be very much wrong and that her arm was perfectly alright. It looked normal.
“Come on,” said Billie impatiently. “Keep up.”
After another fifteen minutes, Jules found that she could play the entire first half of the first verse, albeit slowly. It helped that the song was repetitive and the initial three chords simply repeated themselves. She’d need to memorize where the colored dots went, but all in all, she thought she was getting somewhere.
Her wedding with Alea seemed to creep a little closer, and she grinned to herself as she sat back.
“Pleased?” asked Billie, noting the grin.
“Yep.” Jules paused for a second, then sniffed. “It’s not much of a song though, is it?”
Billie rolled her eyes. “You’re only playing the accompaniment.”
“What’s the rest sound like then?”
Jules followed Billie’s eyes as they lingered on the violin case on the cupboard by the piano for less than a second. She was about to get up and pass the instrument to Billie when Billie simply told her to play again.
With a shrug, Jules started out with the red notes, counting carefully in her head. Then, to her surprise, Billie began to sing.
She was no Alea. Her voice was rough and deeper than Alea’s, not trained much or even particularly beautiful. But she held the tune as Jules played until Jules could begin to hear the magic that was happening, until the song and the chords came together and she could feel what Alea meant.
It sent a shiver down her spine and made her skin tingle. When she played the last green chord for the third time, she found that she was blinking rapidly, her eyes feeling too full.
“You’re not much of a singer,” she said, not looking at Billie.
“You’re not much of a pianist,” Billie countered.
Jules was silent for a long minute. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“I have other students. Take the papers with you and memorize the positions you need. That’ll keep you busy.”
Jules did look at her now. “How am I supposed to practice without a piano? Let me come back tomorrow. Just for half an hour, just so that I don’t forget what we’ve done today.”
For a moment she thought that Billie was going to say no, but then the woman shook her head a little and said: “I’ll phone you. Let me check my schedule.”
“WELL, WELL, IF it isn’t our little Liberace,” Amelia said as Jules slipped behind the bar. “And not a moment too soon. I’ll take another half.”
“Very funny,” said Jules. “And there’s nothing wrong with learning a new skill. Speaking of which…” She looked conspicuously around the bar. “I don’t see anyone looking orange. How are those new skills of yours working out?”
Cass stuck her tongue out at Jules, who laughed in return.
“Very bloody funny,” said Amelia. “And while I’ve got you, what’s granddad up to?”
“What do you mean?” asked Jules, pulling out a half pint glass and beginning to draw her sister’s beer.
“I mean that Cass and I were up there this afternoon and he was sitting around like a Mafia Don surrounded by men with cigars looking shady as anything. What’s he up to?”
