The Tchaikovsky Affair (7 page)

It wasn’t until the following F
riday that Shannon realized how inextricably involved she’d become. Following a violin sectional, Shannon walked with Hayley Bowden, her stand partner and best friend of two years, to the café where the ensemble always got lunch. Having purchased their sandwiches, the two violinists looked around the large dining area to find some spare seats. As they did so, Shannon’s gaze landed squarely on Evan Bayer’s hand resting on Jackie’s back, his fingers rubbing circles over her shoulder blade. He whispered something in her ear and Jackie threw her head back, laughing raucously, as Stacey Keebler, Jackie’s stand partner, rolled her eyes and pretended to gag. She narrowed her eyes at the display as she felt an involuntary twinge in her heart.

“Let’s sit over there,”
Shannon said, while nodding to a table on the opposite side of the room.

“You don’t want to sit with your girlfriend?”
Hayley asked, noticing the conspicuously empty seats at Jackie’s table.

“She’s not my girlfriend,”
Shannon said a little harsher than she’d intended. “We’re just sleeping together.”

“
Ooookay,” Hayley replied in a sing-songy ‘whatever you say’ voice.

As the pair walked to their table, a voice rang out, “Hey, guys! Over here!”

Groaning, Shannon turned towards the voice and plastered a grin on her face. “Oh, we didn’t see you guys!” She led Hayley over the table, the taller blonde looking more and more amused by the second.

Shannon
glared at Evan and placed an exaggerated kiss on Jackie’s surprised lips, as if trying to mark her territory.

Stacey
once again gagged and rolled her eyes. “Get a room.”  Stacey was a surly, professional, cut-throat woman, who rarely made friends in the orchestra, but had taken an instant liking to Jackie.  She admired Jackie’s talent and respected her professionalism.  That didn’t mean that she wouldn’t have a little fun at Jackie’s expense every once in a while.

As lunch continued,
Shannon was either awkwardly quiet or making inappropriately negative comments in Evan’s general direction, Jackie furrowing her brow in consternation at every instance of the uncharacteristic behavior. Sensing the tension between the two women, Evan and Hayley unsubtly made up excuses to leave. As they stood up from the table, Stacey made no attempt to leave, as well. Evan tapped her on the shoulder and gestured to the door.

“What? I’m eating!” Evan
nodded his head towards the door, this time a little more forcefully. “Fine, I’m coming!” Looking towards Jackie, Stacey added, “Apparently I’m not allowed to eat, because you and your girlfriend are having ‘issues’.”

“So,
wanna tell me what that was all about?” Jackie asked, once the other three had left.

“What
what was about?”

“Oh, come on. You were passive aggressively exact
ing some sort of revenge on Evan. What the hell did he do?”

Shannon
grumbled something under breath.

“What? I couldn’t hear you.”

“I saw his hand rubbing your back and he was whispering in your ear. I just thought that maybe…maybe you were sleeping with him, too.”

“When the hell did you thi
nk I had time to sleep with Evan? In all the spare time I’ve had not in rehearsal and not in your bed?” Jackie raised her voice slightly, a bit insulted by the implication that she just falls into bed with everyone.

“Sorry,”
Shannon winced, realizing how her comment sounded.

“Were you…jealous?”
Jackie asked, her voice softer and laced with a touch of amusement.

“No. No! I just…you’re a
llowed to do whatever…or whoever…you want.”

“Excuse me?”

Realizing she may have overstepped, Shannon offered Jackie a small conciliatory smile.  “Am I your girlfriend?  We’ve never had the conversation, but Stacey said it, and I don’t want to keep wondering if I
should
be mad when other people flirt with you or rub your back or whatever,” Shannon rambled.

“Yeah!”
Jackie said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, her mouth widening into a brilliant smile.  “Evan and I are just friends, honey.”

“Okay. Good!
”

Jackie
grinned. “You’re such a dork,” she whispered affectionately, capturing Shannon’s lips in a languid kiss.

“S
o, admit it, you were jealous,” Jackie said, breaking away and leaning her forehead against Shannon’s.

“No, I just don’t like other people touching what’s mine,”
Shannon replied playfully.

“It’s okay. Jealousy is really sexy on you.”

Seven

Jackie
paced back and forth on the tile floor, muttering in Spanish and running her hands through matted curls.

“
Jackie…” Shannon attempted to get her attention. “Jackie!” she tried a little louder.

“
JACINTA ORTIZ.” Shannon finally shouted. She rose from her chair to stand in front of her panicked girlfriend.

“What?”
Jackie shot back, apparently upset that her irrational anxiety had been interrupted.

“Will you sit down and stop pacing, please? You’re making me dizzy just looking at you.”

It had been a month since they’d had the all-important “relationship talk”, a gloriously exploratory month. The urgency with which they felt the need to exhibit their passion had died down and they had discovered that they truly had an emotional connection as well as a physical one. That was not to say there wasn’t still passion in the relationship—no one could accuse them of having anything less than a voracious appetite for the other—but they had also found comfort in non-sexual intimacy and reveled in learning new information about each other. This was truly turning into a mature, adult relationship.

Of course, with any
mature, adult relationship came the occasional crisis or fight. This was one such crisis that Shannon had to figure out how to deal with.

“Why are you not worried?”
Jackie asked in disbelief, whirling around to face Shannon.

“Why are you worried?”
Shannon countered.

“Because! We have to talk to a room full of people while we’re being grilled by a scary journalist!”

“Whoa, I’m just going to stop you right there. Our ‘scary journalist’ is a mousey woman who wouldn’t kill a fly. The ‘room full of people’ will probably be said mousy journalist’s family and a few cameramen.”

“Cameramen! Exactly! This is being broadcast on live TV!”
Jackie exclaimed, exasperated by the fact that Shannon wasn’t the least bit concerned.

“You can play your cello to a sold-out crowd of over 2,000, but you can’t answer some damn questions about it?”

“I was born to play the cello! It’s like my security blanket. But I have no idea what that woman is going to ask me. What if I don’t know the answer and make a fool of myself in front of hundreds of people?”

“
Jacinta, this is a local, publically funded, fine arts TV channel. I’m pretty sure we could count on our fingers and toes the number of people who will be watching it.”

“Oh God, you think 40 people will watch this
?!”

Shannon
rolled her eyes. Jackie was clearly missing the point. Shannon decided to try a new tactic, since it was obvious that logic would not work. She took Jackie squarely by the shoulders and backed her into her seat, before taking the one next to hers. Taking Jackie’s sweaty hand into her own, she began to rub soothing circles over her knuckles. Shannon leaned in and kissed a line across Jackie’s set jaw.

“We’re in this together, okay?” she mumbled against
Jackie’s skin. “If it looks like you’re struggling to answer a question, I’ll just jump in.”

Jackie
took in Shannon’s words and light kisses and relaxed almost instantly. “My savior,” she intoned, a playful smile gracing her lips.

Shannon
could tell that Jackie was just trying to placate her and that Jackie’s raging pulse had very little to do with Shannon’s continued kisses. Pretending otherwise suited both of them just fine.

Shannon
decided to up the ante in an attempt to make Jackie feel anything but nervous. “When we’re done here,” she murmured in Jackie’s ear, “I plan on holding you hostage in my apartment and fucking you until…”

“Okay, ladies, we’re ready for you! Sorry the wait was so long,” the nervous intern interrupted them.

“Oh, no problem at all!” Shannon offered her a dimpled smile before releasing Jackie and sauntering after the intern. “Come on, Jacinta!” she called gleefully over her shoulder. Jackie jumped to follow Shannon, almost forgetting what she was there for in the first place. Entering the room, Jackie remembered, and caught up to Shannon, gripping her hand.

They sat down and while they briefly tested the lights and their mic
rophones, Shannon continued to soothe Jackie’s nerves.

Once they started the laidback interview,
Jackie had to admit that Shannon had been right about the interviewer being mousey. She had that typical monotone NPR voice and asked simple questions, with no judgment in her tone. When Jackie looked around at the cameras and the lights, however, she remembered the anonymous individuals who could be potentially watching her, watching her flub an answer to a question.

“Good evening. I’m Linda Walters, and you’re watching Time Warner 17, your local guide to all fine arts events in Manhattan. Today we have with us
Shannon McClintock, concertmaster and principle violinist with the New York Philharmonic and Jackie Ortiz, principal cellist, also with the New York Philharmonic. They’re here to tell us a bit more about the big concert coming up in April, which includes Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, featuring a never-before-heard adaptation to the classic solo.”

They made it through the introductory questions without incident,
Shannon fielding the majority of them.

“So,
Jackie, this is typically a violin solo. How did it work, adapting it to a cello?” Linda asked gently.

“Well, you’d probably have to ask
Michael Mulroney, our arranger about that,” Jackie answered with a nervous chortle.

“Unfortunately he was unable to make it to this interview, so why don’t you try to explain it to our viewers a bit?” There was no judging or patronizing quality in the woman’s voice, but the slightly pressing nature of the question reignited
Jackie’s fear. Shannon squeezed her hand under the table and smiled encouragingly.

“Well…the solo has two very distinct parts. There’s a slower, more languid part, which I play on the cello most of the time, though at the very end we play it together in octaves. The majority of it is played brilliantly by my…by
Shannon here. It’s kind of a ridiculous solo, I have no idea how she does it. I mean, it’s insanely fast and her fingers are just, like, flying all over the violin. It’s really incredible.” Jackie nudged Shannon’s shoulder and smiled at her. She found that talking about her girlfriend made her anxiety diminish quite a bit.

“You two seem quite fond of each other. I take it no egos were bruised during this process?”

The two laughed genuinely at the question. “I have to admit that I was a little put out to begin with, but working with Jackie has been a dream come true. She is a consummate professional and easily the most talented musician with whom I have ever worked,” Shannon answered sincerely.

“I was just lucky to be added to the part,”
Jackie added, feeling more and more comfortable with the interview. “I mean, it’s my first year with the New York Philharmonic, so this is quite unheard of. Getting to work with my girlfriend was just an added bonus.”

Oh God,
Jackie had no filter. Though the two had not been hiding their relationship, they also hadn’t been publicizing it freely, worried about the drama it could create within the ensemble.

Jackie
glanced at Shannon with apprehension etching her features, pleading silently with her not to be angry.

“Girlfriend?” To her credit, Linda was trying her damn
edest not to inflict her voice with any questionable tone.

“I…um…I meant that…”
Jackie struggled. Shannon frowned as she could feel Jackie’s palm clamming up.

“You did hear her correctly, Linda.
Jackie and I have been dating for almost two months now,” Shannon said, giving both Jackie and Linda a wide smile, while bringing their clenched hands above the table in view of the camera.

After the two answered a few more questions about the concert and how their relationship affected the duet, the interview was finally over.

Leaving the cable company’s building, Shannon gracefully hailed a cab to take them back to her apartment.

“I think I’ll just head back to my place,”
Jackie said, once they were settled in the back seat. She was worried that Shannon would be mad about her slip and wanted to avoid the angry blonde if possible.