The melody in our hearts (11 page)

His voice was beautiful; she had heard him sing a few times back at the club when he would join her, singing songs like “
I won’t dance
” or “
Something stupid
” by Sinatra, or other songs that called for a male and a female singing together. She had always thought he had a great voice, deep and soft, and that if he ever tried to pursue a musical career for real, it would be a success.

The song soon went to number one in the iTunes charts, and she had downloaded it the day after it had been released and would play it over and over again on her iPod while studying. He laughed when she said that it helped her concentrate, but it was the truth: Listening to Ryan playing the piano had always helped her relax. If CDs were perishable goods, the CD he had given her for her twenty-first birthday would have been long gone, given the amount of times she had listened to it.

She was happy for him, especially because he had achieved such an important goal and had proven his father wrong. Now he would actually be able to pursue a musical career and not necessarily end up playing in an old, moldy downtown club.

If only their grandfathers were still alive, she knew this would have made their day. They had always had great faith in Ryan, and had always said he would become a famous pianist. Now he was going to become a famous artist, with his song playing on every radio station, and MTV talking about him already.

When the album was released, Ryan gave Valerie the very first copy, which he had been given by the record company. He had gone to her place, and they were sitting on her bed when he took the CD out of his jacket and handed it to her. She looked at it wide-eyed and took it with trembling hands.

“It’s the very first copy. I thought you should have it, since you’re the one person who’s always supported me all through these years.”

She felt tears filling up her eyes and sniffed, trying to look at the cover through the tears.

“Go on, open it. There’s something I want you to read.”

She looked up with a bewildered expression, then quickly opened it and removed the booklet. He took it from her hands and flipped through the pages to get to the last one before giving it back to her.

She looked down and started reading all the thank yous, where most of the names belonged to people she knew, and then, when she reached the final paragraph, she understood what he had meant.

“
And last but not least, I would like to thank my very best friend for having faith in me and for all the rainy afternoons we spent together at the Music Club in Dublin, listening to Frank and Dean, while the other kids our age were chilling out in the city and made fun of us because we didn’t know any songs from the pop idols. I haven’t forgotten my promise, my friend. I keep you with me always, together with the good old memories of our teenage years, safely in the bottom of my heart.
”

She stared at him, but she couldn’t really see him because her eyes were growing dim due to the tears that had welled up and that she tried to fight back, without succeeding.

“I don’t know what to say....” she said, her voice cracking, and then the first tears started to roll down her cheeks.

He smiled and wiped them away with his hand.

“I promised I would never forget you, didn’t I? And I always keep my promises; you should know that by now!”

She nodded and smiled at him, looking at the booklet again.

“Thank you. You don’t know what this means to me.”

He put an arm around her shoulder and kissed her cheek.

“You’re very welcome, miss,” he whispered, and they remained silent, hugging each other, until Karen came back.

Needless to say, when the album was released, it went straight to number one, and he almost had a heart attack when they told him.

He was with Valerie, strolling in Back Bay Fens park and eating ice cream, when his phone rang, and he had to stop and sit on a nearby bench to avoid collapsing on the floor.

She had seen him go pale and, just like a good doctor, she helped him sit down and instinctively grabbed his wrist to check his pulse.

When he hung up, he turned to look at her with the broadest grin she had ever seen on his face, but she didn’t have time to ask anything because he wrapped his arms around her in one of his bear hugs and almost choked on the words when he told her that his album was number one.

She screamed with joy and hugged him back, dropping half of her ice cream on the ground.

“I knew you would become a star – I’ve always known,” she said when he finally released her from his hug and she could start breathing normally again. “Your grandfather would be so proud of you, Ryan.” She wiped a tear from her cheek and saw that his eyes were damp, too.

“I’m sure he’s behind all this,” he whispered, his voice cracking, and she nodded, smiling and holding his hand.

“C’mon. We’ve gotta celebrate!” he said then, cheering up, and got back on his feet, pulling her up.

She nodded and followed him, feeling something inside her head warning her that all this would soon mark the end of life as they knew it.

~
Sixteen
~

“Grand. So I came all the way to Boston to be with you, and you’re ditching me again!”

She sighed and slumped down on his bed. He had been so excited telling her that he was going to tour the States to promote the album, and she wished she could share his excitement and be happy for her friend, but she couldn’t. She had had a bad day: The shifts at the surgical school were long and when she finally managed to go home, she had to study; since she had decided to specialize in surgery, studying and working in a surgical residency was all her life was about.

The group of doctors training with her was okay; nevertheless, there was a girl, Rachel, who was always showing off, hoping the chief surgeon would choose her as his assistant in his next operation, so Valerie had to struggle twice as much just to keep up with her and make sure the chief would notice her too.

And now this. Ryan leaving, no, ditching her like that, without notice. It was too much to bear, and it was impossible to hide her resentment.

He looked at her, scrutinizing her face, and saw she was mad.

“I’m not ditching you. I’ll be back.”

“You will all right. In a year or two, maybe.”

She sulked and he slid closer to her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

“What’s going on?” he whispered, using the tone he knew would make her open up. It had always worked whenever she was mad, sad, or otherwise upset.

“You’re ditching me – you’re leaving me here again, after you promised you’d never leave me. That’s what’s going on!”

She freed herself from his embrace and stood up, moving toward the window. It was getting dark outside, and she knew she should go home and study, but she didn’t feel like it, not anymore. She would be on a day shift tomorrow, and she should get some rest, as it would be another long and exhausting day. Even so, she couldn’t make herself leave, afraid that he would leave the following day without even saying goodbye.

She hadn’t heard him stand up from the bed, so when he suddenly wrapped his arms around her, she winced but then relaxed, knowing it was exactly what she needed at that moment.

“I’m not ditching you, Val,” he whispered in her ear. “I promised we’d always be together, and I’m gonna keep my promise. I’ll be back soon, no matter what.”

She sighed, feeling the tears pricking her eyes, and she tried to fight them back.

“How do you know?” she asked, her voice cracking. “It might turn out better than they expected, and you’d have to stay longer. Maybe they’d even ask you to go to Europe or to the Far East, and then you’d be away for ages. How do you know?”

She shook her head, not wanting to think of that possibility, not just yet.

Ryan was great. His album had been number one for weeks, and she knew that, as soon as he started touring, he’d become even more successful.

And she would lose him.

Again.

After leaving her hometown and family behind just to be near him, she’d be alone again. Now that she needed him the most, now that she would need his friendship and his support, he’d be gone.

She had been having the weirdest shifts and, even now that they were living in the same city, they had to sometimes meet at night after she came home from the afternoon shift, or early in the morning after her night shift, when he’d wake up early so they could have breakfast together somewhere and catch up. It would be just impossible to be in touch with him getting on and off planes and in and out of radio stations and TV studios. He’d get sucked up in the whirl of show-biz, and their friendship would fade, like an old photograph left to fade in the sunlight.

“A promise is a promise,” he said. “You’re just as important to me as music. You don’t have to feel threatened by all this. I’d never let anything come between us.”

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat before speaking, to make sure he wouldn’t notice she had been just about to cry.

“I’m sorry for being such a spoiled child. I know it’s so selfish of me to behave like this.” She sighed. “Of course I’m happy for you – it’s your big chance to make it in the music business, and I’m sure you will. I’m just a bit cranky these days, what with the long shifts and all those things I have to study….”

“And Rachel getting on your nerves, right?”

She chuckled, knowing the tears had gone and wouldn’t come back now.

“Precisely. She’s been such an eejit today!”

When she started talking about Rachel and all that had happened that day, she momentarily forgot everything else, and the load on her mind temporarily shifted somewhere she couldn’t feel it. For the rest of the evening, everything was back to normal, as if nothing had happened at all.

~
Seventeen
~

Just as she had predicted, Ryan soon became a huge success throughout the country. He played in all the major venues, and all the shows were sold out. He had been interviewed in radio stations, and his songs were often on the radio, at least that was what he had told her when they had talked on the phone, since she didn’t have much free time to listen to the radio anymore.

The first time she realized that Ryan was a real celebrity was when she saw his face on the front cover of a magazine. She was on her lunch break, sitting at a table in the park at the hospital where she was working and training, and she looked absent-mindedly at a magazine that somebody had left on top of a table.

When she saw a small picture of him on the front cover, she gasped and grabbed the magazine with both hands, staring at the picture as if she was staring into Ryan’s eyes for real. That beautiful, familiar smile brought tears to her eyes, and she had to blink a couple of times to fight them back, lest they would start rolling down her cheeks.

The title read “
Ryan Wyler, the New Jazz Star
,” and for the first time since she had met him, she realized how beautiful he was. His dark brown hair looked even shinier than she remembered, and he had put on a sort of sexy look, which made her think of the I-swear-I-didn’t-do-it look he would put on when they were younger, whenever he wanted to be forgiven for something he had done or said.

She quickly flipped through the pages to find the article about him and, when she found it, she stopped to stare at the same picture from the front cover, only full-page size now.

Then, when she could finally tear her eyes away from that picture, she read the article.

“
Ryan Wyler, the twenty-nine-year-old artist who’s originally from Dublin, Ireland, is just about to end his first tour of the United States and Canada, where he has played in all the major venues. In a little more than a month, he has played in over twenty locations, performing in front of hundreds of fans the songs from his first CD and some of the most successful and famous songs from the big artists who inspired him, from Frank Sinatra to Louis Armstrong to Dean Martin. The ‘
New Jazz Star,’
as The New York Times recently described him, pursued an impeccable career at the Berklee College, graduating with a degree in Jazz Composition as well as one in Music Education. His last show will be in New York City on July 3, and it’s surely going to be another sold-out show.
”

She closed the magazine, her hands almost trembling in shock. Ryan was a celebrity, and she still couldn’t believe it. She just couldn’t picture him playing in sold-out theaters, surrounded by screaming fans, most of which, she was sure, were young girls who had been fascinated more by his physical appearance than by his jazz music. That part wasn’t too hard to picture, as it had always been like that. She had probably been the one girl who hadn’t been attracted by his magnetic charm, and they used to laugh about it.

She shook her head, smiling alone, then she took out a book from her bag and went back to the chapter she would need to know by heart by tomorrow.