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“Jules meant well, but Jesus, she rarely fucks up this bad. We haven’t had a punishment session in a while. I’m sure Ella’s also feeling Devin’s wrath right about now.”
“Which she deserves.”
He chuckled at my irritated response. “Look, this is life, man. Try not to be too torn up about it all.”
I thought a moment before I spoke. “I would have preferred to keep that part of my life away from her, but if she knows, she knows. At least she understands now. I guess that’s what Juliet and Ella were aiming for. Anyway, I’d better go.” I looked down at the violin I was making for Alice. “Give your naughty sub a hug when she’s done with her corner time. Tell her I forgive her.”
“Will do. Talk to you soon.”
We hung up, and I was left with silence and spiraling thoughts. Would it have been better to tell her on my own, rather than having her learn about The Gallery from someone else? Too late to do anything about that now.
I’d have to see Alice soon, to make final adjustments to her violin before I assembled it for good. Stronger glue, more varnish, and tighter strings so she could make any tone she wanted. I traced the small heart I’d hidden in this instrument’s wood grain. Still in the same place on the back, but less obvious this time, because I was better at hiding things than I’d been when I was a younger man.
Maybe I could catch her after one of her Met Orchestra concerts, and make her play a few notes so I could see how my earlier measurements had fared. I wasn’t looking forward to the awkwardness, but I still loved her, and I was making her a violin with my heart on it and in it, whether she wanted the damn thing or not.
*
I bought aticket to her Met concert the following night, and worked myself up all day to see her. So she knew about me and The Gallery, and whatever else Jules and Ella had told her in some effort to “fix things” between us. Okay. There was no way to go back.
But we were still longtime friends, and fellow musicians. My mind wandered as I watched her play. I tried to read the set of her shoulders and the way she pursed her lips. Her hair looked braided to the point of painful tightness, and she wasn’t happy with the violin she was playing. I could tell by the way she overplayed notes that ought to have been light and carefree. They were doing Mozart tonight. Poor thing.
After the show, it was easy to get backstage. The Fierro name counted for a lot in the music world, especially when I was carrying a violin case under my arm. I asked around until I found Alice in a mostly deserted corridor, chatting with a couple other violinists. One of the two men wanted to sleep with her, or had already slept with her, based on his body language. I gritted my teeth and leaned against the wall where she would see me and the violin case. I didn’t want to join her conversation, but I also wouldn’t let her leave without talking to me. When she tried to slip away, pretending not to see me, I called out her name.
“Lilly-Alice!”
Then I wondered why I’d used her full name. To show her I meant business? To remind her that I’d known her during her Lala years?
“Hi,” she said, turning to me. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to watch you play.”
She couldn’t hold my gaze. “I didn’t think you liked Mozart.”
“I don’t. Not my favorite. But I wanted to see you, and I wanted to bring you this.”
She stared at the violin case like I was holding out a tarantula.
“It’s assembled and stringed,” I said. “I’d like you to play it so I can see if any adjustments need to be made.”
She cast an annoyed look around the corridor, then led me into one of the soundproof warmup rooms behind the stage. The room wasn’t that big, so we were suddenly alone, and close.
“I told you, you didn’t have to do this.” She took the case, but didn’t open it.
“I did have to do it. By the way, the instrument you’re playing now is a piece of shit. You didn’t buy that, did you?”
“I’m borrowing it,” she said through tight lips.
“Good. Give it back. I’ll have the Pressenda delivered to your apartment tomorrow.”
“Stop.” Her voice was sharp, even if she looked at the floor instead of me. “Stop trying to shove your kindness shit in my face.”
“This isn’t ‘kindness shit,’” I said, my own temper sparking. “This is a nice fucking violin that I spent many hours making for you, because you deserve to have the best fucking violin in the world. Now I need you to play it for me, so I can finish the goddamned thing.”
Her stubborn features crumpled, and she burst into tears, hugging the case against her chest. “I miss you,” she said.
“I miss you too. Come here.”
I took her in my arms, the violin case wedged between us.
