Our Song (2 page)

Instead she clasped her hands in front of her chest and looked a bit misty-eyed as she said, “Thank you for that validation.
Really.
”

“Um, no problem,” I said. “By the way, I'm Nell.”

“No. Way,” Annabelle said, her dark eyes widening. I noticed that her lashes were as lush and curly as her hair.

“Yes, Nell,” I sighed. “I know it must sound like a hopelessly hillbilly name, especially to someone from New York. My family—”

“Nell,” Annabelle said with a frown. “First of all,
never
apologize for your name. Your name is an
essential
part of your identity. Second of all, if you're Nell Finlayson, you're my roommate!”

I blinked.

“Well, I am Nell Finlayson,” I said, “so I guess I am. Your roommate, I mean.”

As I said this, I felt a mixture of excitement and panic.
Annabelle clearly had what adults called a “strong personality.” The thing is, I'm pretty sure the adults hardly ever mean that as a compliment.

“So, Nell, how old are you?” Annabelle demanded bluntly.

“Fifteen,” I said.

“I'm two years older than you,” she replied. “Which means, I'm in a position to give you some advice.”

“More advice, you mean?” I said, before I could stop myself.

Annabelle didn't seem to notice. Instead she looped her arm through mine. We were about the same height, five foot seven, but next to her willowy goldenness, I felt washed-out and shriveled. Her clothes were a rippling rainbow of plum and teal, mustard and aqua. Meanwhile, my skinny capris were dark gray, and my tank top was the brooding color of an avocado peel. My hair—freshly blunt cut and flatironed to a crisp—was dyed black. Only my feet had a bit of brightness to them. I was wearing my favorite acid-yellow, pointy-toed flats.

“Check out
that
,” Annabelle ordered me. She pointed at the disembodied fiddle bow, which was still doing its little dance in the center of the crowd.

I glanced at it, then shrugged at Annabelle.

“I'm not talking about the instrument,” Annabelle insisted. She grabbed me by the shoulders and shuffled me sideways until we were able to peek through a break in the crowd. “I'm talking about the
player!
”

I followed her gaze to the musician.

And then I caught my breath.

The fiddler was a boy.

A boy who was clearly in high school. (His cutoff khakis, orange-and-green sneakers, and T-shirt that said
ASHWOOD HIGH SCHOOL CROSS-COUNTRY
were hints.)

I might have also noticed that the boy's eyes were a deep, beautiful blue. You could see the color even though he was wearing glasses with chunky black frames. His glossy, dark-brown hair flopped over his forehead in a particularly cute way. His nose had just a hint of a bump in the bridge, and I could tell that his torso was long and slim beneath his faded yellow T-shirt.

And, oh yeah, his playing was beautiful too. Maybe even a notch above boring. His style was studied, sure. His rhythms were too even and his transitions were too careful to be untrained. He was clearly one of those Practicers that Nanny had always wanted me to be (but that I never had been).

But he also had talent.

No, more than that—he had the Joy.

The Joy makes you play until your fingertips are worn with deep, painful grooves.

The Joy makes you listen to all 102 versions of “Hallelujah” until you can decide which interpretation you love the best, even if it drives the rest of your family crazy.

And the Joy makes your face contort into funny expressions as you play.

I couldn't help but notice that even while this boy was
grimacing and waggling his eyebrows during the climax of his song, he still looked pretty good.

And when he stopped playing? When his thick eyebrows settled into place, his forehead unscrunched, and his pursed lips widened into a smile while the crowd applauded for him?

Well, then he became ridiculously good-looking.

“See what I'm talking about?” Annabelle said.

I opened my mouth and closed it again. How could I tell Annabelle that even if he was really,
really
good-looking, I could never be interested in someone who'd so clearly drunk the Camden Kool-Aid?

If I said that, I'd basically be insulting everybody who was there, including her.

So I just shrugged and said, “Um, yeah, nice fiddling.”

“Nice?! That was
lovely
.” Nanny had appeared at our side. “That young man had
better
be in our class.”

“
Our
class?” Annabelle inquired, blinking inquisitively at my grandmother.

“Nanny, this is Annabelle,” I said. “We just figured out that we're roommates.”

I turned back to Annabelle. “My grandma is one of Camden's fiddle teachers.”

“And Nell is going to be my assistant,” Nanny said proudly.

“Uh, yeah,” I confirmed, trying not to sound morose.

Annabelle looked from me to Nanny, then back to me.

“
Interesting
,” she said.

Then she glanced at the dispersing circle of music lovers.

“And, hmm, I think it's about to get even more so.”

“Huh?” I said.

I followed her gaze to the fiddler. This time,
he
was the one staring—with wide eyes and a sudden mottled blush on his neck—at me!

Chapter
Two

A
fter a moment of hesitation,
the boy began coming my way.

I had no idea how I felt about this.

But the fact is, when a very good-looking boy walks toward you, looking all blotchy and thunderstruck, you can't help but give your hair a frantic pat and try to arrange your face into an aloof-yet-adorable expression. It's like a Darwinian imperative.

In this case, it also turned out to be completely unnecessary. Because after the boy reached me . . . he kept right on going! He only came to a nervous halt when he reached Nanny.

“Are you Annie Finlayson?” the boy asked. His voice—a tenor with a hint of a rasp to it—trembled a bit.

Nanny grinned and stuck out her hand.

“That I am,” she said. “And
you
better be taking my fiddle class.”

“That's the whole reason I'm here!” the boy blurted, still staring at Nanny (and still completely oblivious to me). “I mean, that's why I signed up for the June session instead of the July one. To study with you.”

I tried hard not to roll my eyes. Then I glanced at Annabelle. She looked like she was trying hard not to laugh. This sealed the deal—I officially liked my new roommate. I leaned over to whisper in her ear.

“Want to help me haul my stuff to our room?” I pointed toward the parking lot.

But before we could sneak away, Nanny squeezed my arm and beamed at me.

“You know, my granddaughter Nell is a fiddler too,” she told the boy.

Finally,
finally
, he seemed to notice that the great Annie Finlayson had a sidekick.

“Nell Finlayson,” he stated. He looked at me for a beat too long. He smiled, a close-lipped, small, and unreadable smile. “You're not what I would have expected.”

“How could you expect anything,” I wondered, “when you didn't know I existed until five seconds ago?”

Because it's not like you noticed me or anything,
I thought.

“Well, I mean, I kind of did know of you,” the boy said. The blotches on his neck were starting to bloom again. “Your name is on most of the
Finlaysons
albums.”

I'd played backup fiddle on a lot of my family's recordings, mostly when a session musician failed to show, or they just needed another layer of sound in the background. So it was true, my name was on a lot of their albums, deeply embedded in the liner notes in tiny, tiny print.

It was kind of weird that this guy knew that.

“Okay,” the boy said, taking a deep, shuddering breath, “that sounded kind of creepy.”

“Gotta agree with you there,” I said, but I couldn't help but smile at him. How was it possible that his anxiety-flushed neck was so cute?

“I'm just—” He stared down at the fiddle in his arms, as if he was begging it for a bailout. “I like your family's music. And I swear I'm not a stalker in any way.”

“Other than stalking my grandmother all the way to the Camden School,” I teased, “from . . .”

“Connecticut,” the boy said miserably. “Which, yes, is very far away. Okay, I guess I am a creepy, long-distance stalker.”

“Aw, sweetheart,” Nanny assured him, “you're a
fan
. I'm flattered. Don't let Nell make you feel self-conscious. She thinks fiddling is about as everyday as making toast.”

“But it isn't!” the boy insisted to me. “Without your grandma and your parents, there're all these Appalachian songs that would have just disappeared! But they recorded them and even made sheet music for them so they're preserved for history.”

I didn't respond. What are you supposed to say when
somebody tells you something that, of course, you already knew?

Before my silence got too awkward, Nanny jumped in.

“Well, bless your heart,” she said to the boy. “That sounds like a speech you've made before.”

“To my dad,” he admitted. “He wanted me to stay up north this summer. You know, be a lifeguard and play baseball like my older brother. He's, um, not exactly a music guy.”

“Maybe you should try different music,” I murmured.

I heard another stifled snort come from Annabelle, who was standing just behind me.

“What was that, Nell, darlin'?” Nanny asked, smiling at me.

“Oh, nothing,” I said while Annabelle grinned.

“So what's the difference between a violin and a fiddle anyway?” she asked. “I've always wondered.”

“Oh, there's no difference, really,” Nanny said. “A violin is a fiddle and a fiddle is a violin, especially when you're feeling fancy.”

“But all violin-playing is
not
fiddling,” the boy pointed out. Fiddle music is so
alive
. And it's so connected to a place. To
this
place. I still can't believe I'm here.”

Then he turned to me.

“So,” he asked me, “are you taking your grandma's class too?”

“Not exactly.”

I glanced at Nanny.
You can explain this one,
I telegraphed to her.

Throughout this whole exchange, Nanny had been beaming, giddy to be at Camden with her granddaughter, even if her granddaughter was a bit on the sulky side.

But when I challenged her like that, her smile suddenly faded, and it was as dramatic as a dark cloud obscuring the sun.

My heart gave a guilty lurch.

Here's the thing about Nanny. She rarely misses an opportunity to tease me. She never lets me get away with being a brat or a drama queen (or as my parents like to call it, being fifteen).

But she also adores me. More than anything. Maybe even more than music. She would do just about anything for me.

And she could clearly see in my face what I wanted from her.

Or rather, what I
didn't
want.

I didn't want to be Anne of Green Gables anymore. I didn't really want to be Nell Finlayson of the liner notes either. And I
definitely
didn't want to spend my summer (okay,
half
my summer) helping fiddle students scratch out “Britches Full of Stitches” and “The Irish Washerwoman.”

I'd been saying as much for weeks. But for some reason,
this
was the moment that Nanny finally heard me; this moment when I hadn't said a word.

Shooting me a wistful look, Nanny told the boy, “Nell
was
going to assist me in my class. But . . .”

I held my breath.

“But I think there's been a change of plans,” Nanny finished.

I don't know why she did it.

Maybe she was taking pity on me because I was invisible to the opposite sex and looked like a raisin next to my glamorous new roommate.

Maybe she didn't want to hear me sulk all summer.

Or maybe she was finally starting to understand this fact about me: I may have played the fiddle since I was three. I may have played passable backup on the
Finlaysons
albums. I may even have had musical talent, or whatever.

But I didn't have the Joy.

I squeezed Nanny's hand, thanking her for finally getting this. Then I turned to the boy to explain.

“It's just that . . . music isn't really my thing.”

“Even though you're basically a professional?” he said with an incredulous laugh. “Even though you're a Finlayson?”

“Well, I don't have a choice about
that
stuff,” I replied. “Do I, Nanny?”

“I guess not,” she replied. “It's our family business. I don't think it would have occurred to us
not
to involve you kids in it. To us, that was as important as teaching you to read.”