Neville borrowed a van from work to drive the whole motley crew up to Abbey Road.
No one knewexactlywhat the plan was, not even Chloe, but something told her she would know once they got there. Walking into the reception, Chloe froze. Richard was there, curled up in a dog bed behind the front desk. She ducked behind her dad, letting him do the talking, but Richard leaped up, tail wagging, and bounded over to her.
“Sorry,” the receptionist said, trying to call him back. “I know some people don’t like dogs.”
“Don’t worry, I love them, especially this one,” Chloe said. The receptionist gave her a strange look, then Chloe remembered she was wearing a beard and wasn’t supposed to be talking. Crouching down, she gave Richard a stealthy hug, then whispered into his fur, “Shh, it’s a surprise,” before ushering him back to his bed.
A young man with a nose piercing came to collect them and showed them through to the session room. As they filed in to set up, Chloe’s eyes darted toward the glass of the control room. There he was, headphones around his neck, auburn hair in a ruffled mess—John.
She took a breath.Showtime.
He pressed a button on the console so they could hear him through the glass. “Hi, welcome, I’m John. Ready to do a sound check, when you are.”
He looked impossibly good, wearing a white linen shirt,two-day-old stubble, and wood-grain-framed glasses she hadn’t seen him in before. Chloe ached to knock on the glass, to let him know she was there. But that wasn’t the plan. And after all his thoughtful, meticulously planned romantic gestures, it felt only right she be the one to plan a grand gesture now. She wasn’t even sure if John would be able to see past what had happened at the reunion, past Rob. He hadn’t been in touch. But if there was even the tiniest chance, she had to do something bold, to cut through the mess, to say more than words could. She needed to show him that he mattered, that she saw him, heard him.
“Do you have a digital file of your music? A printout even?” John asked.
Chloe nudged her father.
“Er, no, it’s all in our heads,” her dad said slightly too confidently.
John frowned. “You’ve only got the studio for an hour. It will be easier for me to help if I have the music in front of me.”
“We’re pros, don’t worry,” said Chloe’s dad, striking a slightly duff chord on the piano. “We’ll only need one take.”
John shook his head but smiled. “Okay, it’s your hour.”
Once everyone was set, Hamish counted them in, and they started to play. Chloe hid at the back. John hadn’t written a part for the triangle and she didn’t want to ruin the piece with a misplacedting, so she mimed along, watching John’s face through the glass, waiting for him to recognize the music.
This is how the plan had unfolded in Chloe’s head: They would play the music; John would recognize his work, composed all those years ago. His eyes would well up, then he’d bang on the glass, like Dustin Hoffman at the end ofThe Graduate. “Chloe?” he’d shout, looking for her, knowing she had to be there. She would rip off the beanie and her fake beard, let hercurls—somehow not flattened by the hat—fall in slow motion around her shoulders. John would leap over the control deck, fling open the door to the recording room, pull her into his arms, and say, “My song.”
“Your song,” she’d say, with a coquettish smile.
“You kept the music, all this time?”
“I kept everything,” she’d whisper. Everyone else in the room would fade into darkness, so it was just the two of them beneath a perfect spotlight. She’d say, “I don’t expect anything from you, but—” He’d stop her with a kiss, and everyone would cheer. Okay, so it didn’t have to play outexactlylike that, but this was the rough plan, the fantasy.
The reality was less dramatic.
When they started to play, Chloe thought they sounded great. The red light was on, the session was being recorded, but John didn’t react. He put his headphones on, listened, adjusted levels. She could see him monitoring the deck, but there was no flicker of recognition, no sudden gasp, certainly no dramatic glass-banging. Were they playing it wrong? Was he distracted? Or did he simply not remember the music?
Chloe’s stomach clenched. Her bandmates started giving each other sideways glances; she could feel the moment slipping through her fingers. Then John leaned into the mic. Okay, here we go.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “It’s sounding good. But I’m not picking up any triangle.”
A pause. Chloe’s dad looked at her.
“Yeah, you, the lad on the triangle, I’m not picking you up on either mic,” John said, tapping his headset. “Do you want to stand closer to the guitar?”
Chloe followed his instructions, cheeks burning beneaththe scratchy beard. What else could she do? If she revealed herself now, before he’d even recognized the song, it wouldn’t have the same impact. If your grand gesture needed footnotes, you weren’t doing it right.
“What’s happening?” Hamish hissed. “He doesn’t know it?”
“Shall we go from the top?” her dad offered with a helpless shrug.
“Hold on,” John said, standing up, then walked through the door into the small studio. “I’m just going to reangle this mic. Balance out the piano with the strings.”
Chloe froze. He was right beside her, fiddling with the mic stand, blissfully unaware he was completely ruining this romantic ambush.
