Stories from New York #3 (17 page)

“I think Tally’s dog might have just eaten their dessert,” I said, laughing.

“Bummer!” Kevin yelled. “We’re having two pies, pumpkin and apple, and I’m having both!”

“Speaking of Thanksgiving meals, I should probably get going,” Ivy said.

“Oh, okay,” I said, standing up with Ivy. “I’m so glad we got to watch the parade together. Do you think Quincy was really winking at the four of us?”

“I think nobody can prove she wasn’t,” Ivy replied with a smile. “And it makes a great story. So are you still on with Benny tonight?”

I felt a slight flush come over my face.

“Yep,” I said. “We’re going to meet down at Strange Brew for some hot spiced cider.”

“That is very romantic,” Ivy said.

Kevin immediately began staggering around making throwing-up noises. I led Ivy out of the room and down the hallway toward the front door.

“So?” I asked my friend as we reached the door.

“So what?” she asked.

I nudged her. “So what about you? Have you heard from Whit?”

“You mean other than since we spoke on the phone last night and after he sent a good-night text, both of which I told you about?”

I nodded. “Yeah, other than that.”

Ivy gave me a slow smile. “He did send a really short text this morning asking if I might be able to Skype after dinner.”

I clapped my hands. “I knew it!” I exclaimed.

“You don’t know anything, and neither do I,” Ivy said. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I mean, it could go either way. Like with Miko.”

“So you’re leaving me with this cliff-hanger?” I teased. I mustered my best Dramatic Movie Announcer voice. “Will Miko Suzuki be the city’s next design wizard or will she take the music world by storm? Will Ivy Scanlon and Whit Clayton finally start dating after meeting in kindergarten seven years
ago, or will she leave him to Dakota’s evil devices?”

“Will Paulina Barbosa be found locked in her own bedroom with a piece of duct tape over her mouth?” Ivy finished. “Coming to a theater near you soon: In a world where anything can happen, and usually does, travel to the crazy and the comic, the triumphant and the tragic, with a group of four girls thrown together in an innocent bid to publish a magazine. Little did they know they would end up…Forever Four! Cue sound track!”

“Perfect,” I said, laughing. “Our own movie. I’d go see it.”

“So would I,” Ivy said. “I’m dying to find out how it’s all going to turn out.”

“Me too,” I agreed. “Me too.”

But for that, we were just going to have to be patient and wait for things to unfold.

And if the last few months were any indication, things would happen at lightning speed and bring a load of surprises along the way.

I couldn’t wait to see what they were.

coming soon:

forever

FOUR

• staying in tune •

I felt a ripple of excitement as the auditorium lights dimmed and Miko Suzuki walked confidently onto the stage, her violin in one hand. In the seat next to me, Tally Janeway was nervously wiggling her foot. At the sight of our friend, Tally’s foot wiggling doubled in speed and intensity. On my other side, my best friend, Ivy Scanlon, was watching Miko intently, her pale-blue eyes shining with anticipation. I took a deep breath as a white-haired woman followed Miko onstage and sat down at a grand piano. The audience fell completely silent.

I felt as excited as Ivy looked and as nervous as Tally’s jiggling foot indicated she was. The four of us had been spending a lot of time with each other since coming together to create
4 Girls
magazine back in September. Though I’d always known Miko was superserious about playing the violin, I’d never
actually heard her play. That was all about to change.

Miko looked gorgeous in a red velvet dress with a black flower sewn on the left shoulder. Her glossy black hair was pulled back from her face with shiny silver clips. Miko always looked great, but tonight there was something different. Something WONDERFUL. She seemed to fill the entire stage with her presence.
Maybe that’s what confidence looks like
, I thought.

Tucking her violin under her chin, Miko raised the bow over the strings, her eyes trained on the pianist. The woman at the piano gave a small nod and played a few notes on the keys. Then it was all Miko.

My mouth dropped open slightly as Miko pulled the bow back and forth across the strings, and the most AMAZING sound filled the auditorium. One part whine, one part soul, and a whole lot of emotion came through in just a few notes. I’d never listened to a violin solo before, but now I would try to pick that heartfelt sound out of every orchestral ensemble I heard for the rest of my life. Next to me, I heard Tally give a quiet sigh. The song was sweet and nostalgic. I’d listened to the short tune, called “Salut d’Amour,” on my iPod a few times after Miko had told me it was one of the pieces she would be playing. But as I watched my friend play the familiar notes with her own hands, I felt my breath catch in my
throat. There was a brief silence as Miko finished the song and lowered her violin.

Then the auditorium filled with the sound of applause.

“I knew she was good, but I had no idea she was
that
good,” Ivy exclaimed.

“Right?” I said, clapping loudly. “She played it perfectly. Now she plays the second piece—the one by Bach.”

Miko stood still, acknowledging the audience with a small smile. I stopped clapping and clasped my hands tightly in my lap. I had asked Miko incessantly about proper behavior at a classical music concert. I’d heard that there were certain times when you were supposed to clap politely and other times you were supposed to wait until the conductor or musician nodded slightly. Miko had explained that if you were listening to a long piece, like a sonata or symphony, you shouldn’t applaud during the brief pauses between movements, but it was okay to clap for a few moments after one piece ended and before a new one began.

When Miko raised the violin to her chin again, everyone fell silent. I knew this piece, called “Ave Maria.” I hummed along silently inside my head as Miko played the familiar tune. Her eyes were closed slightly, and her brow was furrowed in concentration.
Miko’s right hand, carefully holding her bow over the strings, looked both strong and graceful. The song ended with a long, low note.

Miko opened her eyes, lowered her violin again, and took a bow. I began to clap wildly.

“Bravo!” Tally was calling. “Encore!”

“Yes, encore!” I cried, echoing Tally, but the applause was so loud I’m sure Miko couldn’t hear us all the way up on the stage.

Miko gave another bow, then gestured toward the pianist, who stood and took a bow, too. Then Miko walked offstage, extremely graceful in heels so high I probably could not even stand still in them without tottering.

There were two other performers in the program. One was a boy around Miko’s age, and one was a girl several years older. They both played pieces by Mozart. If I had only come to hear the two of them, I would have been impressed that they could play at all. But following Miko’s performance, I could hear subtle mistakes in each of their songs when they weren’t quite in tune.
Miko has really got something special
, I thought as the lights came up in the auditorium. I followed Ivy and Tally to the lobby, superexcited to see our friend and applaud her performance in person.

“Can you guys believe how good she was?” I
exclaimed. “I’m a little nervous to see her right now.”

“Ivy, text her again!” Tally said impatiently. I took the small bouquet of flowers we’d all pitched in to get from Tally, afraid she’d crush them in her excited grip. “What if she goes out the stage door and we don’t see her?”

Ivy laughed. “Tal, this isn’t Carnegie Hall,” she said. “She’ll come out the same door as everyone else. Besides, her parents are standing right over there. You think she’s going to leave without them?”

“Ooh, guys, I see her!” I said.

Miko had come into the lobby and headed straight for her parents. Her mother gave her a big hug, and her father began talking and waving his hands around while Miko nodded.

“The transitions have to be crisper in Bach, Miko,” he was saying. “There’s a difference between holding back and just sounding like you don’t know the piece you are playing.”

Whoa. I wondered what performance Miko’s dad had seen, because I was pretty sure it wasn’t the same one
I’d
seen. Miko had sounded spectacular to me.

“And you have to make that legato smoother while still leaving a break between the two notes,” he continued. “We’ve talked about this before.”

Miko was looking at the floor, chewing her lower lip and nodding.

“But your bowing was perfect and you played with such sensitivity, Miko,” her mother said. “I love it when you play like that—so sophisticated, and I can hear the emotion in the piece. Smoothing out those transitions will be easy for you to fix.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Miko said.

“Yes, that aspect was excellent. But back to the issue of contrasts, Miko,” her father continued. Then he leaned in closer, and I couldn’t hear what he was saying any longer.

Miko caught my eye for a fraction of a second, still nodding as she listened to her father. When he paused to take a breath, Miko pointed. Her mother turned, and when she spotted us across the room, she waved and gave Miko a little nudge. Miko rushed over to where we were waiting.

“You guys are so great to come to my recital,” Miko said.

I laughed. “Of course we would come,” I told her. “You’ve been working toward this for so long. You blew us away up there!”

“That music was
sooo
romantic,” Tally declared. “Especially the first song. What was it again?”

“Elgar’s ‘Salut d’Amour,’” Miko said.

“It is actually a love song,” I said. “Elgar wrote it as an engagement present for his fiancée.”

“Wow, Paulie, you’ve really done your homework,” Miko said, looking impressed.

Tally drew in a deep breath and clasped her hands together in front of her heart. “Oh, wouldn’t you just die if someone wrote a song like that for you? I would cry every time I heard it for the rest of my life, no matter how old I got to be. And if I couldn’t hear the song, I would just say the name over and over again. Salut d’Amour. Salut d’Amour. Salut d’Amour.”

“These are for you—from all three of us,” I said, handing Miko the bouquet of bright red roses.

“They’re beautiful,” Miko said warmly. “I love them. Thank you so much!” She smiled at us, then glanced around the room for a moment, like she was looking for someone else.

“You deserve them, Miko, really. You sounded like a pro,” Ivy said.

Miko looked embarrassed. “Oh, guys. Come on. It’s not
that
hard of a piece. I did get through it with no mistakes, but my dad’s right, it was still far from perfect.”

“It sounded perfect to
me
,” I said. “Both pieces did. And you played them without reading the music! It must have taken you forever to learn them by heart.”

Miko laughed. “Oh, you’d be amazed,” she said. “Forever is more like three weeks. A professional violinist could learn those songs in a day or two,
though. Seriously, guys, I’m a long way from the big leagues, according to my dad.”

“Don’t be so humble,” I said, giving Miko a nudge. “We’ve personally witnessed you wowing the big leagues, remember?”

“Speaking of which, any news on the internship?” Ivy asked. “Have you talked to Garamond again?”

Ivy’s mother had arranged for us to go to New York City to do a special web edition of our magazine from inside one of the most famous magazines around:
City Nation
. Miko had impressed Garamond, the managing editor, and the entire design department with her keen eye for style. Garamond had encouraged her to apply for one of the coveted summer internships and even offered to help her get her application just right.

“It’s looking pretty impossible at this point,” Miko said. “My dad saw the application Garamond sent and kind of went ballistic. He said the city is too far to commute every day, and if I was staying there one of my parents would have to stay, too. I mean, I’d love to do it—it would be like a dream come true. But Dad is really pushing for the Music Conservatory program, which would be a different kind of amazing. I wish I could do them both. But since the Music Conservatory is much closer to home, I think I’m going to have to tell Garamond
that I just can’t apply for the
City Nation
internship.”

I looked at Miko carefully. Something didn’t seem right—Miko never backed down from a challenge. At least not before she had all the answers in front of her. If she didn’t
get
the
City Nation
internship, then she could still focus on the Music Conservatory. But to not even try? I was starting to wonder just how much Miko’s father was influencing her choices.

“Did you already get accepted to the conservatory?” Tally asked.

“Not yet,” Miko said. “I submitted the application. The music audition and written tests are in a couple weeks. I’m going to have to practice every spare minute I have from now until then, and my dad got me a music coach to study theory and prepare for the written exam. I was hoping to create another original cover for the next
4 Girls
issue, but I’m not going to have time. Again! I’m so sorry.”