The question hit me square in the chest. Because the answer was shockingly, stupidly, obviouslyno. I’d never asked because we never talked about what we wanted in my family. Hopes and dreams, aspirations and ambitions…they all belonged to the depths. We were never forced into our roles; we just accepted them because anything else was…
Rocking the boat.
I gave my head a shake. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going into the family business.”
“Ah, yes. Chemicals. Compounds.Household cleaning products.” Wolfe enunciated each syllable with derision. “Riveting. When I spill one of my many weekly glasses of wine on my carpet, I reach for a Mercer product to get it out.” He rolled his eyes. “Such a meaningful contribution to humanity.”
I shrugged. “If you’re trying to get a rise out of me again, it won’t work. I’m not one of those tortured artists, Professor Wolfe, secretly trying to break free from rigid family expectations, or whatever clichéd bullshit you may think.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Hm.” He tapped his chin again. “I doubt that.”
I scoffed. “You think I’m lying?”
“No. I think youbelieveyou’re telling the truth.”
A silence dropped heavy and hard between us. The professor met my gaze, unflinching, as if he were staring down into my soul.
I broke free. “Are we done here?”
“Almost. There is a spring music exhibition in April. I’m going tobe choosing ten of the most promising students from my classes this semester to perform in it. Spoiler alert, as the Americans like to say—you will be one of them.”
“Professor—”
“I will assign you a piece, and I want you and I to work on that piece together.” He mimicked a hammering motion. “Tap, tap, tap.”
I started to protest. To rebel. But apparently, I’d logged my one defiance for the decade.
Or maybe this is something you actually want.
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Anything else?”
“Have you heard of the O-1 visa?”
“No.”
“The O-1 visa is required for international students to remain abroad in order to attend certain universities such as, oh, I don’t know.” He waved his hand. “Juilliard? They require a mentor,” he said, barreling over my protests. “It just so happens—despite my many,manyaforementioned vices—I’m qualified to be one such mentor.”
“Professor Wolfe, I told you, at the end of this year, I’m going back to the UK. I’m attending Cambridge and then I’m going to work for my family’s company. End of story.”
“End of story. End ofthestory,” Wolfe mused. “Such a sad turn of phrase, don’t you think?”
And to my shock, he reached out and put a gentle hand on my shoulder, the first soft, tender gesture I’d seen from him—this same man, who, not minutes before, might have shattered my fingers.
“It doesn’t have to be.”
***
The door clicked shut behind me.
I felt drunk. Or as if I were on a ship being tossed at sea—the ground beneath my feet suddenly uneven, the path no longer straight and easy. My hands were shaking, and I shoved them into my pockets.
What the hell just happened?
I’d walked into class prepared to keep my head down, play the Chopin, endure Wolfe’s abuse, survive the day. But then the storm rose in me and I let it.I let it.Nothing had changed and everything had changed.
