Page 113 of Serenade Me

Chapter Forty-three

Anca

I can smell the field of grass, even before I see it.

Or maybe I’m just imagining it as I walk down along this narrow road, that when I turn the corner, there it will be. A thick, decadent carpet of green laid out for me, ready for me to take my shoes off, and dance barefoot atop of its luscious leaves. But I can’t indulge for too long. The church bell will ring, and like Fraulein Maria, I’ll be gathering my things and running to class. Late, almost always late.

So, no dancing today, I tell myself. I have so much to do before the kids arrive, I want to give them a big surprise, something I’ve prepared for them over the weekend.

I’ve only been back in Romania, here in Busteni, the small mountain village I grew up in, for three weeks, but it feels like I haven’t been away at all.

The classroom I teach in now is the same class in which I learned my own scales. The field of green in front of the school I dance in, it’s the same I skinned my knees on so many years ago. How could I be away for so much of my life? And yet never feel like I ever left.

I was so lucky that my old school accepted my offer to teach a basic music program until the summer, just to see if it would be something the students and parents welcomed. No fee, of course. I just wanted to contribute something to the community.

It didn’t take long for the other teachers and students to fully support the program. It’s a small school with only just over 200 elementary aged students, but the region isn’t rich and it had been years since they had offered music as a subject. It pained me to see how much the children lacked music education. What a waste – all those years, starved of the pleasure of music.

But as busy as I was with preparing a lesson plan and getting to know the school and its limited resources, not a day goes by I don’t miss him. I don’t want to run to the nearest train station and buy a one-way ticket to Marius. Each day I’m here, I grow. I breathe out the bad, and heal. I was too hard on him. He can’t have really understood how hard it was living under Jez’s shadow and control. That every time he made a decision for me, I heard it in the Maestro’s voice.

It just wasn’t our time. It was too soon. I wasn’t ready.

But I am now.

And soon, soon, I will buy that ticket, and face him. And tell him, I’m living my dream now, too. Most of it. There’s just one part missing.

I reach the corner and then, just as it has played out in my mind, I turn the corner.

But there isn’t an empty field of grass.

Instead, there are two big black trucks, parked in the school parking lot.

“What is going on?” I wonder as I run towards the school, gripping my bag.

“Ms. Pestrescu, Ms. Pestruscu! Look!” One of my students comes running up to me, taking my hand and dragging me through the school doors.

“What is going on?”

“Come look, Ms. Pestrescu!” There’s a crowd of students all gathered around me as we run to the music room.

“Excuse me,” I say, pushing through the layers of teachers and students crowding around the door.

“Look!” the students scream.

I do. And I can’t believe what I see.

A classroom filled with instruments and music stands and amplifiers and music and everything a school could ever need to raise the next generation of musicians.

“Wha?” I say, stunned, taking it all in.

“Ms. Petrescu,” the principal says, pulling away from the crowd and walking towards me, “it seems we are the recipient of a donation from the Vanilie Music Foundation.”

“The what?”

“Vanilie. Romanian for Vanilla,” says a voice behind me.

I don’t need to turn to know it’s him.

But I do.