Page 21 of Passion’s Song

“It’s not a real date,” April reminded herself.

But they were pretending that it was a real date, so it was starting to feel that way. She didn’t need her silly little mind going places that it absolutely should not go.

She could handle this. She and Damien had made a fair bargain. She was going to uphold her end of it, because she sure wanted him to uphold his end.

April texted back: See you at seven.

She added her address because in the two years since she’d been in her house, Damien had never once come over. Of course, she had not been to his home, either. They really sucked at this friendship thing.

It was disappointing, because at one time they’d been so close that it was nothing to have Damien come over to her parents’ place for dinner, or vice versa. They should both feel ashamed for allowing their friendship to grow apart as much as it had.

April put away the instruments and locked them in the storage closet. On her way out, she asked the janitor to pay special attention to the floors behind the counter in the new coffee shop. The kids were responsible for keeping their workplace clean, but it was apparent to April that their version of clean was vastly different from hers.

She slipped behind the wheel of her Nissan Altima and headed down St. Claude Avenue.

When she’d returned to New Orleans a couple of years ago, April decided to move to the Bywater neighborhood. The area, which was just west of the Lower Ninth Ward and within walking distance of the French Quarter, had seen a complete overhaul following Hurricane Katrina.

April had been living out of state for a few years before Katrina hit, but all of her family had still lived in New Orleans, with two of her brothers in the Lower Ninth Ward at the time. The breach of the Industrial Canal took care of that. Her childhood home was completely destroyed, along with the homes her older brothers Nicholas and Savion had both bought. The eldest, Jason, had moved to another part of the city, which was also inundated with floodwater. At one point they were all living in different parts of the country.

Her three brothers eventually returned to the New Orleans area, but her parents had decided they were done with hurricanes. They moved to Albuquerque, finding the heat easier to deal with than killer storms.

There were a number of neighborhoods that had come back stronger than ever following Katrina, which made April even more disheartened when she thought about the Ninth Ward. It had been one of the hardest hit and its recovery had been one of the slowest.

But longtime residents were looking to change that. After government agencies proved to be unreliable, the people here had taken matters into their own hands. Slowly but surely, they were rebuilding their community. More and more projects were launching every month. Soon, the Ninth Ward would be among those post-Katrina success stories.

When April arrived home, she immediately pulled out the leftover Italian food she had from last night and nuked it in the microwave. She’d skipped lunch, and she wasn’t sure what kind of food would be available at this street fair they were going to.

After kicking off her shoes and throwing on a robe, she picked up her iPad and finally checked her emails, something else she hadn’t had a chance to do yet. The first email to catch her eye was one from her agent, Carlos, with the subject line “BOSTON and PHILLY.”

If April didn’t know better she would have thought the instant, erratic pounding of her heart signaled an impending heart attack. But she ate right and exercised regularly; she knew her heart was in pristine condition. To a philharmonic musician, the words Boston and Philly had a particular meaning.

But this couldn’t mean that, could it?

After years of traveling the globe with various music companies, April was perfectly content with the type of work she did now. The only time she traveled was to perform the occasional movie score, but that required no more than a week or two away from home. She’d told Carlos that she was not interested in playing with any live orchestras.

Unless it was in Boston or Philadelphia.

But these two companies were two of the hardest to get on with, even for someone with a résumé like the one April boasted.

She opened Carlos’s email and her breathing escalated. He had indeed been in talks with the conductors of the Boston Pops and Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra. Of course, “in talks” didn’t equate to an actual audition, but it was enough to get April’s blood racing.

However, the excitement soon dissipated, and a boatload of anxiety settled in its place.

What about her kids at A Fresh Start?

If she left to join another orchestra, would the music program die? Would all those kids who were blossoming more and more every day lose their passion for it, and instead turn to more unsavory activities?

When LaDonna first approached her about volunteering at A Fresh Start, April had warned her that it would only be temporary. She’d just moved back to New Orleans, and was planning to use her newly purchased house solely as a home base. The nature of her work called for her to be flexible.

But as she’d started to do more work that could be done remotely, the idea of all those long hours on the road, sleeping in different hotels every night and eating packaged airport food had lost what little appeal it once held. And the more time she spent at A Fresh Start, seeing the actual difference she was making in the lives of kids from her old neighborhood, the more she wanted to stay and do even more to bring about change in the Ninth Ward.

But the Boston Pops?

There was not a cellist worth her salt who would ever turn down the chance to play with the Boston Pops.

But it wasn’t a done deal. Not by a long shot.

Goodness, it wasn’t even an audition. Who knew what, if anything, would come of these “talks” between Carlos and the conductors in Boston and Philly? She could be getting herself all worked up for nothing.