“Muse?” I asked. Roddy had said that too. Was that what I was? It didn’t feel like that when I was with him. It didn’t feel temporary or fleeting. But what if that was how all muses felt?
“You know how artists are. He must have taken one look at you and felt inspired,” Dad said.
“Right,” I said focusing on the paisley pattern in the thick rug I squished my toes into.
“She attracts the wild ones, doesn’t she?”
“Oh, don’t you dare put the blame on her,” my mother said.
“You know I didn’t mean that, Meredith.”
“Well it’s not her fault people find her attractive, Lindsay. That added nothing to the value of this conversation.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way …”
Their voices faded away. I couldn’t take any more. I couldn’t hear any more. This. This was why I couldn’t be trusted. One moment’s bad choice, and everything got derailed. People got hurt.
I got up and left the room without another word. They had slid into a full-on debate and wouldn’t notice. I had to clear my head. I had to think. I climbed the stairs and locked myself in my room.
After I got back from camp, after Ariana’s suicide, I took on the blame for everything. I came home in search of freedom and distraction in the form of charming Jethro Winston. Juilliard turned into rehab instead. Returning to Green Valley, I was convinced that every person I passed in the street was gossiping about me. Every service-goer at church, every donut-eater at Daisy’s, all of them pointing at the girl who ruined lives, including her own. The girl who had been given everything and threw it away.
Changing my name to Christine Day and living primarily in Knoxville had stopped most of the gossip. I grayed out until I faded into the background. I toned down and tuned out. That was fine. I was fine. I was existing. Until now.
All that had changed with Devlin. While he wasn’t the charmer Jethro had been, he was definitely a distraction. And people were getting hurt.
* * *
I walked into rehearsal the week before the big Fourth of July show. My head hurt from all the thinking I’d been doing. No answers had come to me, but then I’d felt the silence and I knew. Like all the other times. All the whispering stopped when I walked in. All the eyes shot to me. Then to Devlin. Then they sucked their teeth or snuck glances to their neighbor with eyebrows raised, implying “the nerve.”
Somehow, they knew there was something going on between us. Or at the very least, they guessed. And the worst part was their guesses were probably close to the truth. He was another man I shouldn’t have.
Devlin was at the front of the room. He tapped the podium and the room silenced. “Chairs are posted.”
Energy burst around the room in a quiet wave. People were desperate to jump out of their seats to go look at the postings, but kept themselves locked down as he continued in his authoritative tone.
“You will go up to front one section at a time to avoid chaos. These will be your positions for the performance. The first chair cellist will have the opportunity to play a solo from my upcoming concerto,Smokey Mountain Suite, debuting in the fall.”
The room grew louder and people squirmed in their seats, arching their necks to try and read the papers posted at the front of the room. Carla lifted her chin and smirked at Barry. Maybe she knew something I didn’t. Maybe she had earned first chair after all.
Delvin held up his arms again. I couldn’t look directly at him. All the lascivious things I had said. All the things I’d admitted. The way he’d touched me. If I looked right at him, I worried explicit details might blurt out of me. I might beg him to tell me what I meant to him. I dug my nails into my palms. I sat stock still and kept my face neutral. I could feel Erin trying to get my attention, but my muddled emotions would be written all over my face.
“I did not choose these chairs alone. I worked with a committee, the same committee as we’ve discussed before. We came to an agreement together. I can do nothing without the committee’s approval. Once you see where you now sit, calmly go back to your chairs, and move as necessary. This is our last rehearsal before the performance. We will make it a good one.”
He cleared his throat. “You have all exceeded my expectations these last few months. I’m honored to play with all of you tonight. Your commitment to the SOOK has been noticed.” Faces of equal parts surprise and pride swept across the room. “Percussion, you’re up first. You have ten minutes until the next group will be called up.”
And so it went, for the next hour. One group at a time. Every time they went up, I swore after they checked their own name, they glanced to the cellos to see where Christine Day had been placed. I was the fourth chair who went from obscurity to being Devlin’s pet. I couldn’t keep the fear from my eyes when Erin passed. My lip bled where I’d been gnawing on it. She gave me a very quick and very subtle thumbs up as she passed. God, I wished I could text her, but no phones were allowed in rehearsal, ever. Of course. I kept trying to get her attention, but she was distracted as she moved her stuff up to first chair. I smiled so big. I had been so caught up in my own drama it hadn’t even occurred to me that she may be changing seats.
When she eventually looked my way, I gave her the biggest smile and double thumbs up despite the dread somersaulting through my gut.
Finally, it was our turn, the cellos. I let Carla and the others go first and kept myself firmly in the middle.
If Carla’s swearing under her breath was any indication, I knew what was coming.
“Third chair.Third? Are you kidding me?” she was growling at Barry. When I got close enough to look, she didn’t move. I had to bend around her to see.
It read: First chair - Christine Day.
My heart plummeted when it should have rejoiced. Now the rumors would have even more fuel.
