Chapter 24: The First Lesson

"Joanna, you're on in five."

Marcy said it with her headset around her neck and a smile she couldn't hold flat.

I stood in the wings of the Bellhaven Harbor Hotel ballroom in a navy suit I had bought myself.

It wasn't beige, and it wasn't practical.

"Nobody is kissing anybody behind this curtain," Marcy said. "I checked. I had a guard check."

"Thank you."

"I also checked the doors. They're open, and they'll stay open."

"Marcy."

"Yes?"

"I love you. I've loved you for ten years."

She put her fist against her mouth for a moment and nodded.

"Go and teach, you terrible woman."

Through the gap in the curtain I could see the room.

It was full to the walls.

Two hundred women sat in rows with their notebooks open, and some had brought friends, and a few had brought daughters.

In the front row sat the silver-haired woman with her tote bag, and beside her the woman in the green coat.

At the end of the third row, a woman held her phone in both hands, and she hadn't taken her eyes off the stage.

In the very last row, in seat fourteen, a man in a charcoal suit sat with his hands on his knees.

He was looking at the curtain.

Miles walked out first.

He wore a black jacket I'd had to let out twice, and he carried his cello in one hand and the bow in the other.

He sat on the little stool at the edge of the stage, and he adjusted the endpin without looking up.

The room went quiet.

He drew the bow across the first note of the Bach suite, the same one he had played in the school auditorium.