Fearless (2 page)

Lana couldn’t help smile herself, and Mel
definitely didn’t seem to care about the language.

“You know what, though?” Mel pointed out,
frowning. “The middle schoolers are out in that Holiday Inn three
miles down the road. They’re the ones who’ll be in real trouble if
they can’t clear the snow.”

“Oh, my God…” said Blanca.
“I would
die
. I
literally had nightmares I’d oversleep and miss getting here on
time this morning.”

“Then she practiced in Lana’s van,” said
Mrs. Martinez.

“Oh, boy,” smirked Mel.

Mrs. Martinez grinned. “They don’t tell you
when your daughter picks up the flute it comes with that shrill
little torture device!”

“How does everybody like
playing
Pines of Rome
?” Mel asked the students.

“Whales!” squealed Alexis.

“It’s the whales
from
Fantasia
!”
said Blanca at the same time.

“I love the part at the end where the whales
fly,” said Robin, making flying-whale motions with her arms.

Mel met Lana’s glance with
amused eyes. “Before Disney did all that, it was supposed to be
about different places in Rome,” Mel explained. “When I hear you
guys playing I think about my trips there. It’s an amazing place,
with thousands of years of history, art, culture—all overlapping.
You could be standing between a building that’s two hundred years
old and columns that used to be part of another building that’s
two
thousand
.”

“So romantic!” Blanca’s eyes sparkled.

“Oh, man, that sounds awesome!” said Robin.
“That’s so cool that you’ve been there! The only part of Europe
I’ve been in is Serbia, where my grandparents came from.”

“Serbia has some Roman ruins, too,” Lana
pointed out. “There are some near Kladovo.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to go
to Rome to see Roman ruins,” Mel agreed. “Most of Europe has the
odd column here and there. There’s an incredible aqueduct about an
hour outside Madrid. In fact, some of the sites in a city
calle
d Nîmes in Provence—France—looked just
like some of the most amazing parts of Rome. A bridge, a temple, an
amphitheater like the Coliseum…”

An image of Mel showing her around Europe’s
ancient wonders flipped into Lana’s mind, and she smiled without
meaning to.

Drinks came, followed by food, and Robin
finally got her precious chicken fingers. Lana dug into her club
sandwich, trying to balance her hunger with her intense wish to
look graceful in front of Mel. Luckily, despite her heightened
awareness, she didn’t get mayonnaise on her nose.

Mrs. Martinez’s phone chimed, and she
chuckled when she looked at it. “Oh, boys. Men. No, boys.”

“Hm?” Lana asked from behind her
sandwich.

Mrs. Martinez looked toward the kids. They
were deep in conversation about some paranormal TV show that seemed
to attract teens like ants to spilled soda, and thus oblivious. “My
husband took the twins to his brother’s while we’re here. Look at
this.” She showed Lana her phone.

Lana found herself looking
at a picture of a snow… penis. Yup, that was the whole shebang…
sculpted out of snow like a snowman. She burst out laughing, almost
choking on her food. “Oh, my
God
, warn me first?”

“Do I want to know?” Mel asked. Mrs.
Martinez showed her, and Mel rolled her eyes and smirked. “Oh, boy.
Creative!”

“These men,” said Mrs. Martinez, putting her
phone back in her handbag. “What we gonna do with them, right?”

Lana, who had no need for such answers
anymore, sent Mel a conspiratorial grin—and Mel winked back! Lana’s
heartbeat raced as she realized that now Mel definitely knew she’d
been flirting.

As the food on everyone’s plates dwindled,
Lana realized she was craving chocolate. She’d been up since far
before dawn, driving the van from home so that Robin and Blanca
could get settled in before the first rehearsal, and now she felt
like a treat. “Does anyone want to split chocolate cake?”

“Ooh, you said my favorite magic word,” said
Mrs. Martinez.

“Can I have some?” asked Robin.

“Why don’t we get one for
the kids—
two
for
the kids,” Lana corrected herself, realizing how many of them there
were, “and one for the three of us?”

“You two go on without me, I’m stuffed!”
said Mel, ruling over her empty plate like the queen of full
bellies.

But when the waitress came around to take
dessert orders—“Sorry, we ran out of chocolate cake.” She looked as
if she expected to be sent to the firing squad.

“Oh, man!” Robin’s shoulders slumped. “Can
we get the peanut butter thing?”

“Peanut Butter Paradise?” The waitress wrote
furiously, then looked expectantly at the adults.

“No, thanks,” said Lana.

“Nah, I’m all right.” Mrs. Martinez waved
one hand as she fished around in her purse for her wallet. She
pointed to Blanca. “Just the check. That one’s mine. Oh, and put
those two on my bill also.”

Lana exclaimed, “Oh, you don’t have to do
that!”

“Pssh,” said Mrs. Martinez. “You drove this
morning. That was a lot of work!”

“Thanks.”

“I hope they get the roads cleared soon,”
Mel commented, “before the hotel starts running out of more vital
ingredients.”

“Chocolate could be a vital ingredient,”
Lana quipped. “I’ve had a long day.”

After the checks were paid, and everyone
made quick detours to the ladies’ room, the students returned to
their respective ballrooms for the evening rehearsal. Lana curled
up on the same seat as before. She tried to stay focused, but the
music was too soothing this time and she’d done too much this
morning starting too early. She slipped into a sleep that almost
felt drugged, with the warm sounds of the string section washing
all around her like a bubble bath.

Lana didn’t know how long
she’d slept, roused by the orchestra reaching a less quiet part of
the piece. She noticed something in the seat beside her—it was a
chocolate bar, on top of a piece of hotel stationery marked
“—
M
.”

***

The next morning Lana rose
to the realization that she’d developed a full-blown crush on the
outgoing butch teacher. Excitement that she clicked with someone so
cosmopolitan, so competent, and so
cute
propelled her out of bed feeling
a little like she’d already drank some of the free in-room coffee
whose smell now filled the room.

Melanie was proof that pixies weren’t all
twenty-three, Lana considered as she lathered hotel soap over
herself in the shower. She remembered the playful look in her big
dark eyes, and grinned so much she was glad only the shower curtain
could see her.

She wasn’t as lucky once
she was dressed and admiring herself in the bathroom mirror. As she
fussed over her blouse and looked at her reflection
sideways—
my butt DOES look good in these
jeans!
—she noticed Robin watching her.
“This necklace goes, right? How do I look?”

Robin smirked. “Totally great. Hey,” she
added, drawing closer, “are you, like, interested in Ms.
Feinberg?”

Lana broke into a smile broad enough to make
her cheeks ache. “Hazards of having a genius kid.” She adjusted the
necklace. “How’d you know?”

Robin held up her phone. “I
literally
just
had
the exact same conversation with Alexis about Tyler. She’s been
texting me selfies since before I woke up, like should she wear
these earrings or those other ones. I’m pretty sure her phone
autocompletes the name ‘Tyler’ when she types a T at this
point.”

“Seems like a nice kid,” Lana mused. “Would
that… be okay with you, hon? If I went out with Ms. Feinberg?”

“Yeah, I think she’s neat!” said Robin. “She
knows a lot.”

A cloud dissipated in Lana’s subconscious.
“You don’t get too much trouble from the other kids from me and
your dad being out, do you?”

Robin made a face. “Please. I’m a band nerd.
Anyone like that’s already way off my radar.”

A breakfast bar and banana later, Lana
settled down in the rehearsal room ready for another day of
motherly pride. Mel was nowhere to be found, so while the kids were
getting their instruments out, Lana took out her phone and went
back on Facebook to read more of those yummy compliments that were
still pouring in on Robin’s video.

We are so proud of you! You know, Stefan
played in a rock band when he was your age.

That was Steve’s mom. Lana felt a mix of
awkwardness and relief, as she always did when interacting with her
former in-laws these days. Both sets of fairly traditional parents
were far more comfortable pretending the divorce had just been a
parting of ways, and Lana was fine with that. The biggest load off
her mind was that none of the four of them was taking it out on
Robin or Nick.

Lana put away her phone, but Robin had a few
measures of rest, so her eyes drifted instead to the first violins
again. Watching their fingers dance around on the strips of black
wood, shifting effortlessly, reminded her of lost moments. The
smell of rosin, too, was bringing it all back.

“Biscotti for your thoughts?”

She turned to find Mel slipping into the
seat next to her, wearing a stunning black blazer pantsuit and
carrying one of those cheap totes that screamed “convention.” Heat
flushed Lana’s cheeks. “Hey, thanks!” she whispered back, taking
the cookie.

“It came from the convention center,” Mel
explained, taking utmost care to be as quiet as possible. “There’s
a café with pretty decent coffee right outside the exhibition hall.
By the way, I talked to the staff, and they’re used to this. During
the winter, they always stock up when they’re predicting a lot of
snow, so it’s not like we’re gonna starve in here. Unless you still
want that cake!”

Lana smiled so hard she felt like the points
of her mouth were going to cut her cheeks. “I loved that chocolate
bar last night, by the way. Thank you!”

“Good, that was the idea!”
Mel smirked, and Lana liked the impish twinkle in her eye so much
she had to remind herself that whipping out her phone to take a
picture would be exceedingly socially bizarre. But
damn
if she didn’t want
to capture it and keep it like a butterfly in a jar.

“So does that mean we’re still snowed
in?”

“Well, apparently they got things cleared up
in the early morning,” said Mel, “but then it started all over
again. So, yes. Sorry!”

“What about the kids at the other
hotel?”

Mel made a face and shrugged. “Hopefully
it’ll clear up tonight. Or at least, by tomorrow morning. That’s
really the only day they have to be at the convention center.” She
relaxed into her chair and folded her hands under her chin,
studying the musicians. The smile spreading across her face seemed
to envelop the rest of her as she moved sinuously to the rhythm. “I
love this piece.”

“Yeah, the whole program is really
fantastic,” Lana agreed.

“I wish I were playing it with them,” said
Mel. “You think if I, you know, threw on a snapback and kept
talking about vampires and werewolves on TV I could sneak in and
pass as a high schooler?”

Lana chuckled. “Do you get to play in a
symphony back home?”

Mel shook her head. “Not as much as I’d
like. I take church gigs when I can get them, but between the
orchestra and the chorus I pretty much don’t have the time. Plus, I
also have a chamber orchestra, about twenty of the county’s best
string players, that I’m also responsible for after hours.”

“Wow.”

“But I do get a chance to play
sometimes—it’s not a symphony, but I can usually find old-timey
jams here and there. Weekends, Monday nights, house parties on the
holidays, or people’s birthdays.”

“What’s old-timey?” asked Lana. Her throat
was getting dry from all the whispering, so she took another sip of
the English Breakfast at her feet.

“The predecessor of
bluegrass,” Mel explained. “Irish and Scottish fiddle met African
banjo traditions in the Appalachians, and hundreds of years
later,
voila
, you
have fifteen people on folding chairs in someone’s
backyard.”

Lana shivered. The initial rush of heat from
Mel’s arrival had succumbed to the hotel’s inability to completely
block out the winter outside. “I’m sorry; I have to go back to my
room to get my sweater.”

“I should head over to the junior group
anyway,” said Mel.

Dammit!
Lana tried not to frown, but she was sure her
disappointment was showing on her face. If only she hadn’t been so
determined to look her best for Mel, she wouldn’t have left the
frumpy cardigan up in the room in the first place.

“I can come with you if you want, so we can
keep chatting without having to whisper,” Mel continued. “When you
come back down, I’ll go over there.”

“Sure!”
Whew
.

They made their way out of the room as
quietly as possible and headed for the lobby elevators. “So, you
took today and yesterday off work?” asked Mel as they stepped
inside.

“Yeah, I work in the financial aid office at
the university,” said Lana.

“Oh, that’s cool; you have a pretty normal
schedule so you’re off when the kids are off.”

Lana nodded. “I actually like my job,
too—and there’s a pretty friendly atmosphere in the office. But
you’re right; not working in the evening means I can put the time
into all that band mom stuff. Sometimes, that’s almost like a
second job.”