Silent Song (Ghostly Rhapsody) (18 page)

Then again, he’d not played again.

This rehearsal, a bit like a grand general where we’d go over the whole play before going live in a couple of weeks, would be like an experiment. Both Keith and I hoped that the results said that playing guitar was not a health hazard, and I prayed to whoever was willing to listen that he’d not have a seizure while performing. Rationally, of course, we had nothing to fear, but… Things hadn’t been very rational that Monday night at his place. 

Besides, theater class was a microclimate, like a small family. Everyone cared about the recent rift affecting us seniors. While the school was split between people who listened and people who didn’t give a rat’s ass, theater definitely fell in the first category. Not because it was gossip, or it affected our reputations, but because it affected our performance. They kept glancing at me and then to Keith, as if expecting us to explode in epic Romeo and Juliet proportions to Lena’s Machiavellian laughter.

Go figure. All my life worrying about what the rest of the students thought, worried about the façade I’d present in school… and the masses can’t be bothered to care.

On the bright side, since my fall from grace with the golden crowd didn’t concern them, they didn’t feel the need to go out of their way to make me miserable.

However, they all walked on eggshells, aware of the hostility and scared that they might be caught in the crossfire. They acted skittish, picking up on my distress and believing that I was worried, not because of Keith’s issues, but because I was to face off against my nemesis during the play.

She seemed to be as oblivious to my real concerns as everyone else. She acted aloof and was clearly ecstatic. The only fraction of normalcy resided within my own team, Anna and Dave. Both of them were nonchalant enough to keep her at bay, to calm the class, and to keep Mr. Hedford blissfully ignorant of the whole drama going on in the sidelines.

Bless them.

“Well, class,” Professor Hedford clapped his hands, breaking my train of thought. “Let’s begin. All the way from Act I till break. No comments, no prompts. Act as if it was the real thing. Is everyone in place?”

Dave and I opened the play with our dramatic scene, so we hurried to the stage turned into a drawing room. Keith flipped a couple of switches and gave a thumbs up, signaling that the mics were ready. The seats were slowly immersed in darkness, and the spotlights turned the stage into its own secluded world.

There was no music for this part, but I could remember every note Keith had played during the early stages of the rehearsal. I could bring forth every single emotion, and suddenly
Lady Windermere’s Fan
was going full blast, a roller coaster of twists and mistrust and love amidst the fake pleasantries of the upper class of nineteenth century England. We glided into Act II without a hitch. The curtain fell and rose, this time with Keith’s plaintive guitar building up in the background and blasting us all the way back to a Season ball. The theme was the right one, the nocturne he had composed, and I allowed myself to breathe in relief when the piece kept falling from his fingers with its usual grace. I thought there was more technique than soul this time, but if I was right, I was the only one who noticed.

Stealing a glance to the pit when Act II was coming to an end, though, I almost faltered. He was frowning in concentration, shoulders tense, and sweat pearled upon his brow, as if it took a physical effort to move his fingers in the right pattern.

As if it hurt.

I concealed my moment of weakness with the entrance of my rival, though, and the curtain fell again. The last few notes wailed out and then it was break time.

The professor clapped. The support cast, the group members who didn’t have an active role but were still vital to the production, erupted in an uproar. The mics went dead, while we rushed around changing a few items, and then live again as the curtain rose once more for the conflict to truly explode in Act III. Practice made the process fast and smooth, perfect.

So why did it feel so very wrong?

I wanted to jump off the stage and into the pit, to cling to Keith until he stopped shaking, to take the fear away from his eyes when he looked at his guitar, now harmless and disconnected.

I couldn’t. I had to keep up with the play. The show must go on, as they say, and Lady Windermere kept reciting her lines, sharing her desperation and her pain and her last-resort resolution with the audience, however reduced it might be.

It was the worst hour and a half of my life, and, for the first time since I joined the theatre group, I wanted it to just end.

Somehow, though, it worked. The play was, essentially, ready.

When it was over and people left the auditorium, I took the side exit from the stage and jumped the two steps that led into the pit. Keith was bent over, elbows resting on his knees, and he heaved ragged breaths.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Liar.”

“Yeah.” He tried to smile and I sat down with him, looking around to make sure we were alone.

“So, what happened?”

“You know the feeling you get when you’re dragging your nails down a blackboard and it’s the worst screech possible and you just need to stop?” I nodded and he went on. “That’s what it felt like. Every note grated on my nerves, not just out of place, but wrong in every possible way.”

“But it sounded just fine. A bit less passion than usual, but as beautiful as always.”

He gave a mirthless laugh. “I know. Theory said that the melody was perfectly harmonic, so I played with my theory. It just didn’t keep my guts from twisting worse and worse with every bar.”

“You did wonderfully,” I said, feeling a bit stupid, because I didn’t know what else to say. “You don’t have to worry about the opening.”

“That’s not it at all, Alice,” he sighed.

“Are you nervous?”

“Frankly? No.” Confusion must have shown in my face, because he straightened up and went on with his explanation. “I know you love theater, that it’s important for you to stand in front of people and do a good job, taking them back to
Lady Windermere’s Fan.
But you’ve done a dozen openings since you joined the group. Besides, would you be worried about it if you knew that no matter what happens, you won’t be on stage again?”

I sat back, perplexed. “It’s our last year, but there’s always associations and stuff, even if I go to college and then start working in something else entirely. This won’t be my last play.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m not following.”

“This could be my last song. Who cares about doing it right?”

“You can’t live without music. I know that much about you; it’s your whole life!”

“Yes. That’s my point,” he said, with a tired sigh. Reaching out to his discarded guitar, he balanced it on his thigh and started absently plucking the strings, tuning them once again, even though he’d surely done it before the rehearsal.

“So don’t stop. You don’t have to.” I forced myself to be obtuse. I didn’t want to contemplate the other options. 

“Playing anything but that song is physically painful, Alice. It’s worse than it was the first time. In the beginning, I just wanted to experiment with it. Now, I feel nauseated after a ten-minute long performance, because my head was screaming with the need to get the minuet right. And if I give in and try, then I can’t stop repeating it again and again, to the point that nothing but the music exists.” He twiddled the cable in the guitar’s jack, twisted the volume knob, and started dancing his fingers to the dreadfully familiar notes of the minuet. “See?” he asked, with a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “There I go again.”

“Perhaps it’s just stress. Perhaps it’ll pass when the opening, or the school year, or whatever is over.”

“Maybe.”

“But you don’t believe it.”

He shook his head. We sunk into silence, one that was sad and yet comforting at the same time, and he wove the melody around us like a cocoon keeping the rest of the world at bay. If only it had been another tune, I might have counted myself in Heaven.

“It’s easier here,” he said at length, when he was well into the building up of tension and speed.

“In the auditorium?”

“Yeah. This is where I got the inspiration, if you can call it that.”

I tilted my head to the side and listened. He was right. The melody came more fluid, with new layers of depth added to its line. I didn’t like it. There was something about its richness that didn’t sit well with me.

Probably the fact that it was upsetting my boyfriend, to put it mildly.

“Keith, shouldn’t you stop?”

His left hand jerked away from the neck of the guitar and the right one hit a few discordant, open strings before he disconnected the sound again. I smiled while he started to pack his stuff.

“You didn’t get glued to it this time.”

“I’ve been thinking about it.” He hung his head, his back to me, as if he were ashamed or embarrassed. “I think it’s because of you.”

“What?” I froze. “You mean that this is my fault?”

He was by my side so fast that I started at his closeness. “Never say that. Whatever’s wrong with me, it’s not you. You’re the only good thing I have.”

I tried to swallow past his intense gaze. “Not true. You have your father and…” I was about to say, and your music, but bit my tongue in time. He was convinced that he had lost it, so rubbing salt in the wound was not the best thing.

“I love my father. He’s great; he’s always supported me as best as he’s been able to, and he understands me for the most part. But it’s you who can pull me back from the brink every time.”

“I didn’t…” I started to argue, but then I thought of the times he’d zoned off. His father had called me, and while I had removed his hand forcibly from the guitar, it suddenly occurred to me that Mr. Brannagh must have attempted something similar. Only, it had not worked then. He’d had to call me, terrified because his only family was unresponsive and…

And what about today? I had called him, and he had been able to stop himself. Not easily, granted, but he had done it on his own terms.

So instead of telling him that I most certainly had done absolutely nothing to help him, I hugged him and let the steady pounding of his heart against mine beat away the worries and the surrealism of it all.

The following two weeks, since our general rehearsal had been a success, Keith took to leaving his guitar behind. He left it inside its gig bag, which in turn had found a spot inside his wardrobe. If he had more urges to give into the music, he never mentioned them. We spent our free time together, talking about mundane stuff like classes and ice cream flavors and the upcoming Christmas holidays.

One evening, we even went to Dave’s place, Anna and him and me, and we played Super Mario for hours on end on the Wii. Keith won, and the rest of us refused point-blank to believe that he had never before played the game.

For as long as I could, I allowed myself to forget the freaky events and to just enjoy my time with Keith. Bliss found us the night before the grand opening of the play. It was probably the most unremarkable Thursday ever, with the four of us going to the movies and then to the café where everything began. We sat there drinking our mocha, Anna and I making grossed out noises while the guys discussed the merits of the endless amount of dynamite used in the SF of the particular film we’d seen. At that precise moment, I realized that this new life looked the same as the one before Keith. Except, back then, there had been something that didn’t quite work—a discordant note. Something that wasn’t what it was supposed to be.

Anna reached out and squeezed my hand under the table, giving me a huge smile, as if she could read my thoughts. She looked happier as well. She and Ray had been a hot couple, and I’d not be so callous as to say that it’d been built on looks alone, but she had gotten over him. Looking at her now, at the way she laughed and swatted Dave’s arm and flung crumbs of cupcake in his hair, I wondered how I had ever overlooked the fact that they were perfect for each other. They both had the same quiet charisma and self-assurance. They both were the kind of people you could look up to, not because of what they were, but because of who they were. They weren’t together, not yet, but it only was a matter of time and I was genuinely happy for them.

The real thing that swelled my heart, though, was the way the two of them had accepted Keith. Beyond just tolerating his presence as my whim, they had given him a chance. While I had a sneaking suspicion that they had stopped talking to the cool guys for their own reasons, namely Ray, the fact that they had stuck with me, with us, was only half as valuable to me as their friendship with Keith. He and Dave had sought interests in common, finding their classes of history a starting point and building from there into TV shows, videogames, and Greek food. Anna had become Keith’s unconditional supporter since
The Incident
, but they also found a shared sense of humor and a deeply entrenched hate for winter cold.

When Dave dropped Keith and me at my home and sped off to take Anna to hers, I had had the most normal evening in my life and I was beyond grateful for it.

I hugged Keith before he could think of returning to his own place, leaving me alone.