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I made a soft, happy sound, because that was a compliment. I didn’t tell him that they’d asked me a couple years ago, when I was embarking on a relationship with a moody Swede I thought might finally chase thoughts of Milo Fierro from my head. He hadn’t. None of the men I’d dated in the last ten or so years had come close.
And now I was in the car with the object of my fascination.Deep breaths. Seriously, don’t be weird.
“It was nice to get the call from Met Orchestra,” I said, picking up our conversation’s thread. “I’m surprised you don’t play for them, or for the Philharmonic.”
He shook his head. “I rarely perform anymore. I’m focused on making instruments.”
“That’s too bad.” I studied the lines of his jaw, remembered how handsome it looked with a violin tucked beneath it. “Well, it’s great that you’re making instruments, but I used to love the way you played.”
“I never said I didn’t play anymore.” He focused intently on the road. “I just can’t give up every night to the masses in order to take an orchestra job.”
“It’s not every night. We have breaks and vacations.”
He stayed silent. I wasn’t sure if the heightening tension in the car was emanating from him or from me.
“Thanks for driving me home,” I said. “I was so ready to leave that party. I mean, not that your parents aren’t wonderful.”It’s just that I mostly came there to see you.
“No problem. It’s cool that we live so close after all these years.”
We merged onto a second parkway and he sped up, his car’s engine humming with effortless power. Milo smelled good, like faint cologne, or the varnishes from his violin workshop. Now that I lived in the city, I could ask to visit Fierro Violin’s workshops, ask to learn about the process that had created my own beloved Fierro violin.
Of course, Milo hadn’t made mine. He was still in his apprenticeship then, working with his father and grandfather. I’d gotten the violin for my seventeenth birthday, which meant Milo had been twenty-three.
At that time, I was sure he was the height of masculinity. My teenage brain would have exploded if I could have seen him now, nearing forty, gruff, virile, accomplished, driving his purring Italian sports car, speaking with his faint Italian accent…
He turned on some music, perhaps to fill the nervous, silent space between us. Classical, of course.
“Prokofiev?” I guessed after a few bars. “Oh, hisViolin Concerto in D.”
He rewarded me with a smile. “One of my favorites.”
“I love it, too.” I listened a moment, enjoying the concerto’s bright tones, as well as the quality of his car’s sound system. “Everyone thinks Stravinsky’s so great, with his noisy gimmicks, but give me Prokofiev’s playfulness any day.”
Milo laughed for the first time that night, really laughed. “Listen to you, Alice. Why aren’t you married yet?”
I grinned back at him, buoyed by the music. “Because I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Have you been talking to my mother?” He looked back at the road, shaking his head. “She’s been telling me to marry you ever since you turned legal. Crazy, I know. Just because we’re both from musical families.”
“And our parents are good friends.”And because I’ve loved you forever, Milo, since I knew what love was.It was painful for me to joke about us. Not that there was any “us.” I bit my lip, holding words inside so nothing ridiculous would burst out, but it didn’t work.
“I’ve always been a little fascinated by you,” I said, trying to sound light and airy. “I remember finding reasons to interrupt your lessons with my dad. I almost couldn’t stand it, the way you played. You were so much better than everyone else.”
“Bullshit. You play better than me. You always have.”
“That’s not true.”
We fell silent as the concerto entered the second movement. Sweeping, harmonious, jumpy, vibrant, the perfect soundtrack for how I felt as we drove south on the Saw Mill River Parkway.
“You always played with more emotion than his other students,” I said. “You played like you meant it, rather than playing like mom and dad were forcing you to be there for lessons.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Did I?”
Ridiculous modesty. Milo Fierro played like he could lure the angels down from heaven, and he knew it. Horrible, that he didn’t perform much anymore.
“I was always so proud of my technique when I was young,” I went on. “Until I heard you play, and then I thought my technique was crap, because my eyes didn’t burn with fire like yours when I played the hard notes.”
He made a low sound, a laugh or a scoff. “That was fear you saw. Nothing else.”
