In Harmony(7)

I wasn’t—and I’m pretty sure about this—suicidal. Seriously, the thought never entered my head. But I also couldn’t explain what I was doing up there, when they found me. I had no memory of going up there, or of wandering around six floors up. When they tracked the wailing fire alarm to the emergency door I’d opened and raced up to the roof to see what was going on, apparently I was standing quite close to the edge, just…looking.

A difficult couple of weeks followed. Everyone wanted to help. My dad thought I should go into therapy and then return to Boston. I convinced him that I needed a complete change, and to go somewhere that was less of a pressure cooker. When I found Fenbrook Academy in New York, he hated the idea of “distractions” like actors and dancers being around, and wasn’t happy about me living alone in New York, either. The thing that convinced him was the connection to the New York Phil.

Fenbrook didn’t have the cultural cachet of the college in Boston, but a combination of its location right in the heart of New York and some big name alumni musicians who’d wound up at the New York Phil had led the orchestra to scout there during the final year recitals. It was by no means a sure thing, but if I could pull off a great recital, I had a good shot.

The first few years went well. I liked Fenbrook. I was careful to make friends who were non-musicians, to get away from the pressure I’d felt in Boston, and it worked. I didn’t have time to socialize much, but hanging out with Natasha, Clarissa and Jasmine—an actress—reminded me that there was a world outside music. Being away from my dad helped, too, although he phoned more often than was healthy.

Fenbrook, as I’d hoped, was a less pressurized environment, but it was less performance-oriented than Boston. Credit for the course was divided into four quarters—I liked to think of them as slices of cake. Three of the slices were made up of things you did over the years: performances, essays and presentations, each worth 25%. The last slice—the final 25%—was awarded for your final year recital.

Missing a whole semester had shaved a chunk off each of the first three slices. But my performance slice was still thick and solid and coated with frosting—I’d aced every one of them. My essay slice was almost as good. Half of the cake was already in place.

Thanks to my fear of public speaking, though, there was an empty space where the performance slice should have been—a whole 25% was missing from my credits. Everything depended on the recital slice—if I got almost full marks, I’d graduate well. If, on the day, I froze or couldn’t perform or something, I’d be left with only half a cake and not graduate at all.

One performance to both get the credits I needed and to impress the New York Phil scout. Four years of hard work, and yet my whole future rested on just ten minutes.

No pressure, then.

The annoying thing was that, for the other musicians on the course, the recital wasn’t anything like as scary. By now, they’d amassed almost enough credit to graduate, and a reasonable performance was all they needed to take them the final distance. A few could even scrape through and graduate without it. For me, it was make or break.

I sat there stewing until my phone buzzed to remind me I had advanced theory class in five minutes. I had to have an alarm for everything, or I’d miss a class because I was too busy stressing about missing classes.

Why couldn’t I just be normal?



***



Dan, my duet partner, had saved me a seat in the lecture theater. It was the biggest room we musicians got to see, and after all the hours spent in tiny practice rooms we tended to sit there overwhelmed by the sense of space, like battery hens in a football stadium.

Dan was a cheerful, round-faced Canadian and the single most dependable person I knew. I’d chosen him as my duet partner without hesitation—he might not have been the best violinist at Fenbrook, but I knew he’d practice the Brahms until he had it polished, and wouldn’t fall to pieces on the day; with my whole future resting on the recital, I needed a guaranteed good performance, not the chance of a great one. He was friendly, generous, thoughtful…exactly what I’d want in a boyfriend, if he didn’t have a boyfriend of his own.

Doctor Geisler clapped his hands together, his booming Danish accent filling the room. “Okay! We’re starting today by looking at Schenkerian analysis—”

The door opened and Connor walked in. Halfway through the door, he stopped and frowned.

Geisler paused and stared at him. “Are you in this class?” he asked mildly.

Connor looked genuinely confused. “I don’t know. Am I in this class?”