Page 47 of The Sound of Harmony

Emma flourished her hand around the neat, almost minimalist apartment. The furniture was beige, the walls gray, the windows covered in honeycomb blinds, softening the incoming light. The walls were decorated with colorful prints by up-and-coming artists who would inevitably hit it big in a few years.

Gwendolyn didn’t have room for a piano, but she had an electronic keyboard, which she used with headphones so as not to disturb the neighbors. She always threw a towel over it when Emma came over, even though Emma had told her a thousand times that it wasn’t necessary.

She couldn’t help but think about Kendrick’s piano, and the best place to put it in his house. Sitting room? Front parlor?

“You’re thinking about Kendrick, aren’t you?” Gwendolyn asked.

Emma stared at her sister. That was downright spooky. “How did you know?”

“Because you’re always thinking about him. I haven’t had a single conversation with you this week where his name hasn’t come up at least once.”

“I like him,” Emma said. “He’s interesting.”

Gwendolyn put her elbows on the table and leaned in. “There’s more than interesting going on here.”

Time seemed to slow, or perhaps collapse, and the past became the present. When Emma was married to Jonah, she hid things from Gwendolyn and from their parents. Everything was fine, she’d said. I’ll come visit for Thanksgiving, she’d said. Maybe Christmas, or in the new year. Spring is better for travel. No, you can’t come here. Jonah is very busy. We are very busy. Yes, of course everything is fine, why do you ask?

She wasn’t going to make that mistake again. She would tell her sister everything—the good, the bad, the interesting, the mundane. And if she had phone sex with a man so hot he made her sheets sizzle, that was up for discussion too.

But where to start? She hadn’t sorted out her own feelings yet. Besides, she already knew what Gwendolyn would say. She would say be careful and are you sure about this?

“He’s nice,” Emma hedged.

“Doesn’t it bother you that he makes music?”

“No,” Emma said. “Why should it?”

“Because you can’t stand music.”

“Not true. Turns out, it’s singing I can’t stand.” She’d figured it out last night. She didn’t like singing because singing was too much like screaming, especially when the voice was male.

“But—”

“Music without lyrics is different. Listen to this. There are no voices in this.” Emma scrambled for her phone and queued up Blaumachen, which she considered Kendrick’s best composition. The notes danced in the air between them. Emma bobbed her shoulders in time to the drums.

“Pause it, pause it,” Gwendolyn said.

“No wait, this is the best part.” The clarinets were about to pick up the violin’s melody and then the whole orchestra would soar into a new key.

Gwendolyn pushed back from the table, staring at the phone like it was a skunk. “This is trouble.”

Emma stopped the music. “How?”

“You swore off music, and then another musician waltzes into your life and—”

“Believe me, I’m as shocked as you are. But I didn’t hear a single note of Kendrick’s work until last week, and I loved it before I knew it was his.”

“How?” Gwendolyn practically screeched. “How did you hear his music? You didn’t just stumble across it.”

“It’s complicated,” Emma said. “I work alone. I mean, I subcontract out cleaning and repairs, but for the most part, it’s only me. My clients are all either families with little kids or senior citizens. You think teenagers gossip? No, it’s the old people who are passing my name around. That’s my demographic.”

“What’s the point here? Kendrick is young.”

“My point,” Emma said. “My point is that I liked how isolated my work was. I liked having the dating option completely off the table. There was no way I’d meet someone in the course of ordinary life. And I enjoyed having one less thing to worry about.”

“You needed that,” Gwendolyn said.

“I did. But I don’t. Not anymore. I never thought I’d develop feelings for a client. But I have them.”