The heavy wooden door stands open, with just the screen door between me and the muted sounds beyond the entrance and down the hall. Judging by all the cars in the driveway and along the street, every one of Grady's students has shown up to meet this mystery guest he's been dangling in front of us like a carrot for the last couple of weeks. Guess I'm here to bite like everyone else.
I step inside and close and lock the door after me. Even in this neighborhood, you can never be too safe. And I doubt anyone will be coming after me considering how late I am. The living room, with its eclectic mixture of modern and antique, stands empty. The music, now that I'm inside, reaches me from the rear studio.
And what music. I stop, needing to stand still for a moment. Needing these notes to wash over and past me. I've never heard Grady's old baby grand sound like this. Like some magician is coaxing tricks from it, nimbly charming the keys to make miracles. I don't know classical music very well. Get much beyond "Chopsticks" and I can't name tunes, but even I know that whoever is playing is brilliant. Just moments before, I needed to stand still, but now my feet urge me forward. I have to see who's playing. I want to see them in the throes of this.
I stand in the doorway of the studio, ignoring all the other students standing along the walls and sitting on the hardwood floor. My eyes stick to the man I can see just head and shoulders of in the space between the lifted lid and the piano desk. His eyes are closed, and thank God for that, because it would be so awkward for him to catch me gaping at him. I instantly know him, of course. It's Rhyson Gray, one of the most gifted and well-known musicians in the world, but right now, I don't see the shiny layers of fame, wealth, and privilege I would typically associate with him. The piece he's playing holds him captive, sloughing away all those layers until only this raw yearning on his face remains. His eyes are closed tightly, his brows knitted with the passion of the music he seduces out of the piano.
His features are almost too much. His nose is strong, straight, and prominent. His brows are thick, dark, and slashing. His mouth is wide, sensual, and full. The hard angle of his jaw clenches, like this piece he's playing submerges him in the same emotion drowning me, but he disciplines his face against it. His shoulders are broader than I imagined they'd be, the muscles flexing beneath the white T-shirt covering them as he plays. I'm not even sure if he's handsome, but I know he's dangerously magnetic, like the center of a whirlpool. Something that would suck you in and down before you had time to pull away.
I don't know this piece, but it knows me. Each note slides in, occupying some corner of my soul that's been barren and empty. And the melody breezes in, scattering dust and cobwebs. Breathing in life. This music, with its rushing crescendos and heaving turns, refreshes me, and I have no idea why. Is it the music? Is it him? Are they separate or somehow inextricably entwined? I love music and know like I know my own name that it is what I'm meant to do, but I've never been moved this way by it. Not this deeply, this quickly, this thoroughly. Like those fingers touching those keys are actually touching me. And though I'm completely covered, I feel naked and exposed. I can only hope that no one sees. That he won't see.
And then the music ends. With a crash of keys, it's over, and thunderous applause presses into the awed silence that immediately follows. Those who were sitting, stand and clap and cheer. We all know we've brushed up against greatness. I'm grateful for the clamor, giving me time to compose myself. To reassemble all the pieces that music broke me into. And the culprit-the man who undid me so effortlessly-opens his eyes like he's coming to himself. Like he'd forgotten we were even there, voyeurs to this fantastic musical display. And then I see those layers wrapping back around him. It starts with the tightening of those full lips, pulled into a practiced smile. It moves to his shoulders, pressed back with pride. And it settles over his eyes, the naked passion of that music hidden in seconds behind the dark, guarded eyes that all of a sudden stare back at me.
Chapter Three - Rhyson
When I was eleven years old taking the stage at Royal Albert Hall in London for the first time, I told myself it was a sea of faces out there in the audience. I never allowed myself to focus on one particular person. In every venue since, whether before thousands or a group as small as Grady's vocal class, I always block out the faces. I smile. I may even bow, but I blur the faces to remain blissfully oblivious to their expressions of approval, pleasure, or disdain. It insulates me from the crowd and cocoons me inside the music, which is the safest place I have found so far.
Except today, I open my eyes at the end of the Chopin piece, prepared to blindly glance over the crowd in Grady's studio, when I see a face. A particular face in a sea of faces. Everyone around her claps, but she doesn't. Her hands hang at her sides, and her expression hovers somewhere between devastation and delight. When music truly affects me, I don't clap either. I don't stand to my feet. I absorb. I let the music change me, touch me, and possess me. That's what she's doing. I recognize it. Everyone around her appreciated my music, but I can see that she, this girl, communed with it.
She is looking at me. I am looking at her. Her face … I wish I had the right words. I write songs and create music for a living. I practically bleed my thoughts and feelings into everything I compose, into every lyric. But I can't find the words to adequately describe this girl. Maybe I've seen girls prettier than she is, but it's hard to tell, because even with the width of Grady's small music room separating us, it's like I've been hurled into an electrical storm. My brain is charged and my thoughts are icy water suspended and trapped inside my head. It's a face I can only inadequately describe as … extravagant. Like God spared no expense when He made this girl.
If I take her in parts, maybe I will do a better job of this. She has this wide mouth the color of fire-blasted rose petals. Her chin is slightly pointed, narrow, but her face widens and flares at her high cheekbones. Her eyes, the darkest, richest sable-glintless, fleckless, bottomless brown-carry a dramatic tilt, and I am sure a glance from her could seduce me. This, combined with her honeyed skin, make me wonder if she has Asian ancestry somewhere down the line. Her eyebrows are thick and smooth over an abundance of eyelashes. So thick and so long they look fake, but I know they are not. There is nothing fake about this girl. No artifice. Not even makeup. Her beauty is raw and unfiltered. Long, dark hair runs down her back. Of all things, she wears a Madonna T-shirt from the The Virgin Tour. Her skinny jeans mold her slim legs. Small feet in Toms. Simple silver musical notes in her pierced ears. She is this heady mixture of exotic and mundane, and just being in the same room is giving me a buzz. Imagine if I touched her. Imagine if I kissed her. Imagine if I fucked her. I'd be done for.
But I suspect she'd be worth it.
Grady's hand on my shoulder, his words of praise, and the students crowding around me pry my attention from the petite girl by the door. And when my eyes again seek out that particular face in the sea of faces, she's gone.