Love at First Note (14 page)

Understanding flashed across Elliott’s face. “So your Mom thinks Asheville is your escape from the arms of a jilted lover?”

“It’s not entirely untrue. The timing was convenient.”

“But not a big enough reason to make you move.”

I shook my head. “I moved for Mom. I just can’t tell her as much.”

Elliott’s
cell phone rang from across the room, and he stood to retrieve it. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll just be a minute.”

When he glanced at the screen of his phone, his face darkened, and he retreated into his bedroom, closing the door softly behind him. His conversation was mostly muffled, but I still caught a few words here and there, enough to guess he was having an angry conversation with his agent. I pulled out my phone and opened a web browser, running a search for Elliott’s name. Sure enough, in the short period of time we’d been talking, the photo had been discovered,
and a few online tabloids had picked it up, fueling the fire of speculation about his supposed presence at the festival. One annoying headline read
Mormon Gone Wild?

Poor Elliott.

He emerged from his bedroom moments later, his jaw tight, his brow creased. “Sorry about that,” he said.

“No worries.” I glanced at my watch and stood, wishing I didn’t have a reason to leave. “I gotta get to my afternoon lessons. Is everything okay?”

He nodded
his head sadly. “Yeah, it’s just stupid public relations stuff.”

“Mormon gone wild?”

“You saw that one, huh? It didn’t take them long.”

“I’m sorry, Elliott.”

“Don’t worry about it. His voice hardly sounded encouraging. “It’s nothing I haven’t been through before.”

Yeah, but before it hadn’t been my fault.

“Lilly!” I pushed into the
apartment and dumped my stuff on the couch. “Are you home?”

“In the kitchen,” she called back. “Trav’s here too.”

“Hey, Em,” Trav called.

Huh. It was good he was around. It’d been almost a week since Elliott and I had rescued him from his drunkenness, and he’d been pretty scarce since then. He was embarrassed, probably, and likely trying to figure out a way to apologize to Lilly. By the looks of how wrapped up in each other they were—literally limbs wrapped up everywhere, arms, legs all tangled from one kitchen chair to the other—he must have figured it out.

“Um, should I come back later?”

“No, come sit down,” Lilly said, though she made no move to take her head off Trav’s shoulder. “We’re just talking.”

I pulled out a chair and sat across from them. “It’s nice to see you, Trav.” His eyes met mine, and he shifted, disentangling himself from his girlfriend. Once on his feet, he reached for my hand and pulled me up into an enormous hug. When he released me, he kept his hands on my shoulders and, with a glance back at Lilly, who was clearly enjoying his performance, cleared his throat. “Thank you, Emma, for helping Lilly see that maybe I wasn’t such a bad guy and shouldn’t be judged on one bad decision. Thank you for risking your safety by venturing into a festival full of drunken idiots to bring me home. And thank you for bringing Elliott with you. That dude’s the real deal.”

“Why is he the real deal?”

“One, because he saved you, and if anything had happened to you, I’m pretty sure Lilly would never have spoken to me again. But
also, he had some good stuff to say to me that night. Good stuff,
man.”

“What kind of stuff?” I looked to Lilly, but she only shrugged, her eyes bright against the pale blue of her scrubs.

“Naw, man. I can’t break the bro-code, but he’s legit. You really oughtta keep him around.”

I sank back into my chair. “I wish I had a reason to keep him around.”

“Are you serious? He’s into you, Em,”
Trav said. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Lilly brushed a crumb off the sleeve of Trav’s plaid shirt. “How
do you know this, and why haven’t you told me before now?”

“Yes, please,” I added. “More details.”

He shrugged. “I don’t have details. I can just tell. Plus, he talked about you Sunday night.”

My nerves jumped at the thought, but only for a moment. “You mean the Sunday night when you were totally wasted? Forgive me for not considering you a credible witness.”

“
Specifics, Trav,” Lilly said. “We need more than drunk-man intuition.”

He looked annoyed. “I already told you I’m not breaking the bro-code. But trust me. He likes you.”

I wanted to believe Trav was right. I’d felt something when Elliott had given me that hug, but he’d made it very clear he couldn’t even be a fake date to a wedding, much less a real one.

I turned my attention to Lilly. “So tell me what I’m supposed to do about this.” I pulled out my phone and scrolled to my voice mail. I hit the speaker button
, then put the phone in the middle of the table so Trav and Lil could both hear.

“Hey, Emma. This is Blake Johnson. I hope you don’t mind
me calling. I’m going to be in Asheville in a few weeks, staying with
my aunt, Sharon Jensen, from church? Anyway, she suggested I
give you a call. I know. T
otally lame way to introduce myself, but
she’s convinced we’d have a good time, and . . . why not, right? So
yeah. Give me a call. I’d love to take you to dinner, your choice,
obviously, since I don’t know anything about Asheville. Okaayy, so
I’m rambling. Call me. Only if you want to though. Right. Okay. Bye.”

“Oh, he sounds cute!” Lilly said.

I grabbed my phone and pulled up the last page in my web history, turning it around for Lilly to see.

“Oh my word, is that him? He
is
cute.”

“I know, right? What should I do?”

“What do you mean what should you do? You should totally go,” Lilly said.

“But what about Elliott?” Trav
asked.

Yeah. What about Elliott?

“Elliott is a nonissue,” Lilly said. “It’s not like
he’s
asked you to dinner. But this guy has—a guy who’s cute and Mormon and clearly interested in taking you out. Go have some fun. You’re long overdue. If nothing else, maybe it’ll make Elliott jealous.”

I didn’t necessarily want to make Elliott jealous, but I was due for some fun. I’d been working like crazy lately, between symphony rehearsals and quartet gigs and teaching lessons. Not to mention all the time I was spending with my mom. I hadn’t had an actual for-real date since I’d moved. What could it hurt, really? “Okay, I’m gonna do it.”

“Good girl!” Lilly said.

I grabbed my phone off the table and a water bottle from the fridge before heading to my room. “Thanks for the apology,
Trav,” I said from the door. “I hope you meant it.”

“I’m a changed man, Em. I promise.”

I dropped another dress onto
my growing stack of not-even-possibles. I’d hoped I’d find something at least slightly wedding-
ish in Lilly’s closet, but most of her dresses were hardly bigger than a piece of sheet music. There wasn’t anything I could wear
for Grayson’s wedding.
Which meant I could wear the green dress already hanging in my closet. Or there was shopping in my future.
Dress
shopping. The thought made me queasy.
Stupid wedding
. It wasn’t that I didn’t like to shop. I was all about finding those classic pieces I could look great in for years. But I might wear a dress for a wedding like Grayson’s
once.
Unless maybe I went with something black . . .

A knock sounded on my front door. I glanced at my watch. Two hours until lessons started, which meant I probably needed to practice and wasn’t in the mood for a surprise drop-in from a few well-intentioned visiting teachers. I swung the door open anyway
—I’m nice like that—and was surprised to find my old Young Women leader, Laney Frampton, standing there.

“Emma! You’re home!” She sounded relieved. “I was sure you wouldn’t be here.”

I hadn’t seen Laney in years, since before college, even. We’d been really close when she’d served as my youth advisor
because she’d been only a few years older than I was, but then she’d had a baby and I’d gone to college and our lives had veered off in different directions. It was hard to stay in touch after that.

“I have a couple hours before lessons start. Do you want to come in?”

She looked off to the left, then back to me, then back to the left one more time. “Well,” she finally said, “I have Oscar with me.” She reached out her hand, motioning for someone to come closer.
A little boy, maybe five or six years old, moved into the doorway and reached for Laney’s hand. She looked back at me. “This is my son, Oscar. Oscar, this is my friend Emma. Can you say hello?”

“Hello,” Oscar whispered. He moved behind Laney so all I could see was his little arm wrapped around his mother’s leg, gripping her hand so hard his fingers were nearly purple.

“Come on in,” I told Laney.

“Actually I was sort of hoping . . .” She paused, then her words started tumbling out so fast I almost struggled to keep up.
“So I have this job interview at the Wells Fargo right around the corner. Obviously people don’t usually take their children to job interviews, but a water pipe burst in the cafeteria of his elementary school, and I had to go straight there to pick him up if I wanted to have any chance of making the interview on time, and there wasn’t time at all to think about trying to find a sitter, so I was going to try and just endure having him along with me.” She took a deep breath. “But then your mother called to check in—she’s my visiting teacher—and when I told her where I was, she told me how close you live to the bank. So it was her idea, really. She thought if you were home, Oscar could stay with you while I go to my interview. I know it’s last minute, but he gets so restless
, and I just . . .” She looked at me, her eyes pleading. “I really need to get this job.”

“Wow. Um, sure.” I glanced at my watch. “I have to leave for my afternoon lessons at two forty-five. Do you think that’s enough time?”

“It should be. I can’t imagine the interview taking longer than
an hour. Are you sure, Emma? I appreciate you helping me out like
this.”

“It’s fine. I’m happy to help.”

Laney pulled a backpack off her shoulder and handed it over.

“Is
there anything I need to know about Oscar?” I asked. “Allergies? Aversions? Fears?”

She shook her head no. “I don’t think so. He’s shy and has some anxiety about new situations, so it might take him a little while to warm up to you. But that’s it. No allergies. Well wait, he doesn’t love dogs, but
if you don’t have one, he should be good to go.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“And there’s coloring books and a Nintendo DS in his backpack. That should keep him entertained for a little while.”

“Got it.”

“Are you sure?”

I tried to give her a reassuring smile. “We’ll be fine. Go be great at your interview.”

When Oscar realized his mother was leaving him behind, he wrapped both arms around her legs and started to cry.

“Mommy will be really quick,” Laney told him. “I promise. And Emma will take good care of you. Can you be strong for me? Like we practice at home?”

He slowly nodded his head. Laney pried Oscar’s little fingers off her hand one last time. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll hurry.”

Oscar watched her leave, then turned to me, his bottom lip still quivering.

“So.” I filled my voice with enthusiasm. “What would you like to do?”

He leaned onto the corner of the living room sofa and shrugged.

“Do you want to color?”

He shook his head.

“Do you want to show me a game on your DS? I bet you’re better than I am.”

Another shrug.

“Do you want to play a game? I think I have Uno cards somewhere.”

Through all of my questioning, he kept his eyes down, his eyebrows drawn close together.

When Elliott started to play next door,
Oscar finally looked up. “What’s that?” he asked.

“That’s a piano.” His eyes were suddenly bright, interested. I pointed to my piano in the corner. “That’s my piano over there in the corner. My neighbor Elliott has one too. Have you ever heard one before?”

He nodded. “At church. But it doesn’t sound like that.”

“That’s because Elliott is very good. Playing the piano is his job.”

“Like his everyday job? People pay him to do it?”

I smiled. “Pretty cool, huh?”

Oscar moved to the wall where the sound of Elliott’s playing was loudest, pressed his ear against it, and closed his eyes. His entire body leaned into the music, feeling it on a level I recognized as a musician but that I’d rarely seen in someone as tiny as Oscar. I had a couple of students who
felt music down to their core, who experienced it instead of just heard it, and I never grew tired of seeing the magic of learning a language that was spoken on such a personal, soul-deep level. Watching Oscar was particularly poignant because I was pretty sure he was experiencing that soul connection for the first time.

I crouched down beside him. “Oscar, do you want to go next door and watch Elliott play? We can go right now if you want.”

“Will he let us watch?”

I hesitated. I hadn’t seen Elliott outside of church in
over a week. He’d said he needed to focus, and he was staying true to his word. But I had to believe this was a reason good enough to break the rules. “I’m sure he will.”

“Do you think he’ll show me how?” Oscar sniffed and used one finger to push the glasses that were sliding down his nose back onto his face.

“How to play?”

He nodded, his eyes wide, his voice soft with reverence. “I want to be able to do that.”

I remembered the moment I’d heard a violin for the first time. I had been six years old at a folk music festival with my parents when an old man dressed as a civil war soldier
had played “Ashokan Farewell.” It was part of a dramatic reading; a woman stood beside the violinist, reading an old love letter from a Civil War soldier to his wife, the last she would ever receive before he was killed in battle. At first my mother thought my tears were from the letter, but I was too little to understand the soldier’s flowery sentiments. It was the music that I understood
. I couldn’t sleep that night until my mother promised she would find me a violin.

As I walked Oscar across the hallway, pausing outside Elliott’s door to knock, it felt like I was about to be a part of something big, like maybe this was going to be a moment Oscar would remember.

I knocked, and the playing stopped, and Elliott came to the door. “Hey.” Album-focusing or not, he still looked pleased to see me.

“So this is my friend Oscar,” I said, my hands resting on the boy’s shoulders. “He’s hanging out with me for an hour and was literally pressed against the wall, trying to hear you play. Mind if we come in and listen for a while?”

Elliott crouched down in front of Oscar. “You like the piano?”

Oscar nodded, his face solemn. “Can you teach me?” His voice was so earnest there was no way his words didn’t punch Elliott in the gut just like they had me. The kid was every music teacher’s dream.

Elliott stood and reached out his hand. He looked up long enough to meet my gaze and smile. “Come on in,” he said to Oscar. “I’ll pull a chair right up to the piano so you can sit beside me.”

I settled on the couch in Elliott’s living room and watched as he played for Oscar. He was animated and engaging and funny and such an incredible teacher. By the end of half an hour, Oscar could play a simplified version of “
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” while Elliott played an accompaniment, making the song sound impressive even to my ears. By the look on Oscar’s face, he was completely blown away. As soon as they finished, he looked up at Elliott, all smiles, and said, “Again!”

Elliott laughed. “You practice through once without me, okay?”
He slid off the piano bench and crossed to where I sat on the couch. He sat beside me and leaned forward on his elbows. “Does Oscar have a piano at home?”

“I don’t know. I’m guessing probably not. This all seemed pretty new to him today.”

“He’s a talented kid. He’s got a great ear, and . . . he needs a piano. You don’t see kids like that every day.”

“Really? A little miniature Elliott, huh?”

“Don’t sell him short. I think this kid has serious talent.”

“Right. ’Cause you’re completely average, Elliott.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Okay,
he’s a lot like I was as a kid.”

“So teach him.”

“What? No. I’m not a teacher.”

“Yes, you are. I’ve been watching you the entire time. You’re incredible with him. You are a teacher.”

“Well . . . but . . . I have this album I have to finish . . .”

I wanted to ask him how it was going, but I bit back the words. Living next door, I’d heard enough of his efforts to recognize the only emotion shining through was frustration. “Are you sure holing up in your apartment is providing the inspiration you need? I mean, w
hat could be more inspiring than helping Oscar discover his love for music?”
Aside from me
, I thought to myself. I could be more inspiring. I could be
very
inspiring.

He leaned back on the couch. “I don’t know. If you knew the stuff the record label is saying to my agent—I’m on thin ice as it is.”

“I can’t tell you what to do here,” I said with a shrug. “I’m sure Laney will be able to find him a teacher regardless
, but maybe it’s supposed to be you.”

“Elliott, listen,” Oscar called from across the room. “I did it without making any mistakes.”

“Good job, Oscar. Can you do it one more time? I’ll come play it with you again in a second.” He turned back to me. “What’s his situation like at home? Will they be able to afford lessons? A piano?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. His mom went through a
divorce a couple years ago. She’s interviewing for a job right now, but from the way she talked when she dropped him off, I’m guessing it’s pretty tough.”

Elliott nodded his understanding, then stood and moved back to the piano.
“Okay, Oscar. You ready? Let’s do it again.”

As they played their song one last time, I couldn’t stop thinking
about Elliott teaching Oscar. If he wasn’t feeling connected to his
music or composing with any success, he needed to get outside of his own head. What better way to do that than by serving other people?
Especially if
people
meant a musically inclined little whiz kid.

* * *

Three days later,
I checked my phone after my afternoon lessons and had a voice mail from Laney.

“Emma, please call me,” her message said. “You’ll never believe what just happened.”

She answered her phone after one ring. In the background, I heard the distinct sound of little fingers working through the melody of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

“First of all,” Laney said. “You did not tell me Elliott Hart was your neighbor.”

“Oh, yeah. You know his music?”

“Not his recent stuff, but I remember watching him on
Talent Hunt.
I voted for him. You can imagine how surprised I was when
my doorbell rang and it was
him
standing on my front porch.”

I smiled. “He’s a nice guy, right?”

“Emma, he brought us a piano. A keyboard, really, but it’s full size, and it’s beautiful, and it’s so much more than I ever expected. He’s agreed to teach Oscar for free.”

I really wanted to listen to the rest of Laney’s explanation, but it was hard not to race home and find Elliott right that moment. He
gave
them a piano. I closed my eyes. Could the man be any more perfect?
“Oh, Laney, I’m so glad. I’ve never seen a kid like Oscar—the way he just lit up from the music. He’s special.”