Chapter 14: Two Notes

The cellist turned out to be a tall girl in paint-stained overalls.

She knocked on my door at seven the next morning, holding a mug in each hand.

"You were in the window last night," she said. "I saw your shadow. You were smiling at the boat."

"I was smiling at your cello."

"Oh, thank God." She handed me a mug. "I thought I was being creepy."

She tipped her head at the wall. "I'm in the sound design cohort too. Same floor, same ferry."

I looked at her hands. Her fingertips were hard and flat from strings.

"You got both notes right on the second try," I said.

"You heard that through plaster?"

"I hear most things through plaster."

She grinned. "Then we're going to be very good friends and I'm going to have to practice in the shower."

We walked to the conservatory together.

It was a brick building on a hill, with scaffolding on one wing.

A sign by the door said MIND THE CABLES.

The cohort was twelve people in a basement studio that smelled like warm electronics.

The director stood at the front in a green cardigan.

She caught my eye across the room and gave me a very small nod.

Nobody mentioned the video.

I noticed that nobody mentioned it so carefully that I knew a few of them had seen it.

A boy with a shaved head leaned across the table.

"I watched the full version," he said. "The thirteen-minute one Maggie Holt posted. You're a legend."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Told Me to Stay Away, So I Left and He Followed from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.