In Harmony(19)
I got slowly to my feet and started going through the timetable, trying to remember which classes Connor was in so I could track him down.
An hour later, I was pacing nervously outside the lecture theater. According to the timetable, Connor was inside, in the same music theory class I would have been in had I not been racing to Harman’s office when it started. Ironically, the first class I’d missed since I’d started at Fenbrook.
I started rehearsing what I’d say to him. Eager and happy? “Hi Connor! Can we go somewhere and talk?” No. Too light. Serious? “This is something that affects both of us.” No. People who overheard would think I was pregnant. Straight to the point? “I need you to team up with me for the recital. And rehearse really hard. Oh, and you have to graduate.” That would scare him off.
The doors banged open, almost hitting me in the face, and I stepped back and started searching the crowd for Connor, feeling my breathing getting faster and faster—
He wasn’t there.
I recognized the fuchsia-haired girl from Harper’s. “Hey! Do you know where Connor is?”
She frowned at me. “What’s your interest in him?” She looked me up and down. “You don’t look like his type. No offense.”
“It’s not—I just really need to talk to him.”
She shrugged. “I’m pretty sure he’s sleeping off a hangover.”
I had a flashback to him singing in Flicker. Knowing him, that had been just the start of his night. Great.
“Any idea where I could find him? It’s really important.”
She considered. “He’s playing The Final Curtain tonight. I guess you could catch him there, if it’s really important.”
***
“The Final Curtain?” asked Jasmine that evening. I’d called the girls together for a crisis meeting at my apartment.
“It’s a bar,” I said authoritatively. I only knew because I’d Googled it.
“You’re going to a bar?” she asked doubtfully.
“We’re going to a bar,” I told her. “I’m not going in by myself.”
“I thought you hated this guy?” said Natasha.
“I do! But if it means I graduate….” I looked around at the others. “I’m doing the right thing, aren’t I? I mean, I have to take whatever chance I have?”
They all looked uneasy. “What?” I asked.
It looked like no one wanted to speak. Clarissa finally took the plunge. “You’re right, it’s just…you’re very….”
I went cold inside. “Very what?”
“Exacting,” said Natasha.
“Intense,” said Clarissa.
“Occasionally a pain in the ass,” said Jasmine, and everyone gasped in shock. “About music,” she said quickly.
“I think we just mean…the two of you are so different. It’s difficult to imagine you and him working together.”
It went very quiet.
“Hey, maybe it’ll be good for you,” said Jasmine brightly. “You can…you know. Learn from each other.”
I nodded politely, but I had no idea what she was talking about. What on earth could I learn from Connor Locke?
***
Apart from Flicker, I didn’t go to many bars. OK, that’s an exaggeration. I didn’t go to any bars.
Now, standing in the bitterly chill air outside The Final Curtain and watching the gum-chewing guy on the door look us up and down, I was starting to feel a long way out of my comfort zone. This is not what I do!
Seeing me hesitate, Clarissa and Natasha pressed in on either side of me, and Jasmine skipped up to the doorman and gave him a winning smile. He gave us another cursory glance and then pushed the door wide. The sounds of wailing guitars smacked us in the face, together with a woman’s haunting, soaring voice. We were bathed in golden light and the heat of dancing bodies.
I stepped inside.
***
It was bigger than I expected, but packed with so many people that the walls were sweating despite the cold outside. It was a mixture of college kids and blue collar workers, getting drunk on shots and beer and bouncing to the band playing on stage. I looked around in shock—there must have been a few hundred people there. I hadn’t realized Connor was playing places that big.
There was enough of a mixture of fashion that Natasha, Clarissa and Jasmine just about blended in. I, in my jeans, boots and sweatshirt, looked decidedly underdressed. And hot. I shrugged off my thick, winter coat, debated, then took off my sweatshirt and hung the whole bundle over a bar stool. That left me in the strappy top I’d been wearing underneath, which showed more skin than I was used to.