Chapter Ten
Chloe peeked her head into the building to make sure the coast was clear, before sneaking into the vestibule and soundlessly opening her mailbox. A stack of envelopes and a Free People catalog dropped into her hand and she quickly stuffed the mail into her purse, making a mental note to show them to Sig later. Just to make sure there wasn’t anything important, like a bill. He was always complaining about bills being paid late, but nothing ever really happened when they were late, as far as she could tell.
Except for the rent.
Now when that was late, her landlord let her know all about it. In fact, that was the only time she ever saw Angry Raymond. On the seventh or eighth of the month when the rent check hadn’t been dropped off yet, he seemed to sense when she entered the building and he would spring forth from his apartment like a haunted jack-in-the-box, shouting words like “late fees” and “grace period.”
Holding her breath, Chloe climbed the first few steps, wincing when the step let out a tiny whine—and like clockwork, Raymond shot out of his doorway like a demented whack-a-mole character in socks and sandals.
“Ms. Clifford—”
“I know. I know. I’ll drop it off tomorrow!”
“It was due last week.”
Chloe gasped. “It was?”
His withering sigh was mightier than the North Wind. “Why don’t you give me Mr. Sig’s number. I’ll sort it out with him.”
She was already shaking her head. “No, we cannot tell Mr. Sig. Mr. Sig does not need to know.”
Chloe knew the exact look Sig would give her if he found out the rent was overdue. She’d seen it before. Three times to be precise, which didn’t seem like a lot until you considered she’d only lived in Boston for six months. He’d tilt his head to the right and narrow his left eye. “What am I going to do with you, Chlo?” he’d ask, fondly exasperated.
A heavy weight settled on her chest. She hadn’t heard from him since yesterday, when she’d half kicked him out of her apartment, which was highly unusual. He usually sent her a good morning text, a filthy meme, or simply showed up with breakfast. Something. Yes, she was standing firm on what she’d said. The romantic nonromance that complicated their relationship was becoming too painful to bear. But that truth didn’t stop her from missing him in epic fashion, as she did now. Worrying she’d acted too impulsively and hurt their bond.
Please don’t let me have done that.
“I think Mr. Sig does need to know,” said her landlord. “He is the responsible one.”
“You wouldn’t really squeal on me, would you, Raymond?” Chloe didn’t even have to force a hitch into her voice. “I just used a teeny tiny bit of my rent money to buy eye creams—”
He threw up his hands. “ Eye creams? More than one?”
“Yes! You must test them out to know which one is right for you! But wait until you hear how I’m going to solve this.” She came down a step and attempted to engage her landlord with a conspiratorial smile, thanking God when he blushed at least a little. “I’m giving online harp lessons. I gave one just this morning, actually.”
Not that she’d run it past the university.
Had Chloe committed a crime by setting up her laptop in the practice room before anyone had arrived and gave a quick little one-hour lesson to Brandy in Duluth? No.
Although... probably.
“I’m giving another one tomorrow and then I’ll have enough in my account to cover the rent.” She wiggled her calloused fingers at him. “I’m working on it—I promise.”
Raymond hedged. And he harrumphed.
Almost there. I’m going to buy myself one more day.
The last thing she wanted was to bother Sig about her late rent. After all, he was already depositing enough money into her account every month to cover the payment. Expecting him to shell out even more cash wouldn’t be cute.
“You have until tomorrow. Then I’m calling Mr. Sig.”
“It won’t come to that, I promise! Have I ever broken a promise?”
“When you sign a lease, you promise to pay the rent on time , so technically—”
“Oh, Raymond!” Laughing, she reached down from her perch on the stairs to tickle his chin, watching a red flush spread up to the bald patch on the crown of his head. “You’re such a stickler for the rules. I love that about you.”
“You do?”
“Yes.” She pressed both hands to her heart. “We need more people like you in this world. There would be less chaos.”
“Meanwhile,” he mumbled, still blushing, “the chaos is coming from people like you.”
Considering his tone had lost a considerable amount of its bite, Chloe chose to laugh at that. “Well, somebody has to do it, right?”
A grudging smile from the landlord. “I guess so, Ms. Chloe.”
Crisis averted. “I have to run now, Raymond,” she called down to the landlord while jogging up the stairs. “I have an appointment with my new mentor in half an hour and I’m going to be late.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage to talk your way out of it!” he shouted up at her.
Chloe unlocked the door to her apartment and hip bumped it open, throwing her purse onto the kitchen table and running for the bedroom. She probably could have just remained downtown and killed time between conservatory and the first meeting with her mentor, but she wanted to come home, freshen up, and change, so she could put her best foot forward. Unfortunately, she was about as good with time management as she was with money management. In other words: stone-cold rotten.
“You can still make it on time. Just change and go,” she murmured to herself, already undressing on her way into the bedroom. Her line of sight was compromised by the shirt she pulled off over her head, but as soon as she lowered it, her footsteps came to an abrupt halt.
Laying on the bed was a blouse.
Not just any blouse, though. Her lucky blouse.
Slowly, her hands raised to cover her mouth, the air in the room turning heavy, the pulse in her temples beating faster. Louder. The muscles of her throat drew in on themselves and she couldn’t manage a swallow. There was only one explanation for the blouse being here, in her bedroom in Boston, but she took a giant sniff of the air to compound her theory, letting Sig’s pepper-and-clove scent coast down the walls of her lungs, electricity spreading to her fingertips.
Blindfold her and set her loose in a room with ten thousand people and she would find him every single time. Those were the signature aromas he’d left to signal he’d been there.
Sig had gone to Darien last night to retrieve her lucky blouse.
Six, maybe seven hours of driving. More if there was traffic. And all that after she’d told him they should start dating other people. Not to mention, he’d only finished competing in a little something called a professional hockey game.
Chloe’s heart pumped so fast, so furiously, she worried the tempo might be dangerous.
Why did he continue to give her reasons to be in love with him when it hurt so badly?
A lucky blouse was such a silly, superstitious thing, but he’d recognized it was important to her . Sig took her seriously. He listened to her. He delivered. Every single time. A rock-solid presence in her life that never failed her. Ever. Meanwhile, she continuously asked for advice, groceries, and extra rent money.
Chloe crept forward toward the blouse and picked it up, finding the front pocket slightly raised. She tucked her fingers inside of the silk and removed a folded note.
I’m sorry, dream girl.
Go knock them dead.
A wounded sound left her, accompanied by a whoosh of breath and she simply spun into motion, unbuttoning the black-and-white blouse, putting it on, and refastening the buttons at top speed. It was either move as fast as possible or stand stationary for the rest of her life, bleeding internally over what he’d done. The gesture, the note, his scent, the fact that he’d been in her bedroom while she wasn’t home. The fact that he’d called her dream girl, a nickname he’d started calling her the night they met.
If she didn’t move, move, move and get out of her apartment, she’d lie down and die, because love was meant to be a glorious thing, but sometimes she wondered if loving someone and not being able to acknowledge and act on it could suffocate her to death.
A few minutes later, Chloe was dressed. She tossed the mail out of her purse onto the table, shouldered her purse, and tapped down the stairs in a low pair of heels, all while calling an Uber. Any other afternoon, she would take public transportation, but she was already going to be late at this point and any delays would cause her to miss the meeting entirely.
Thankfully, she’d managed to beat the brutality of Boston’s rush hour and within ten minutes, she pulled up in front of a corner residential building in Beacon Hill. The awning read The Tudor . Um, what? Was she in the right place? She’d expected a music school or a Berklee-owned rehearsal space, but that’s not what this was.
Chloe triple-checked the address listed in the email from her conservatory instructor and climbed out of the Uber with a murmured thank you to the driver. A doorman asked for her name, verified she was on the visitor list, guided her to the elevator, and hit the button for the penthouse—and okay, even having only a fleeting concept of money, Chloe knew the top floor in this building had to be wildly expensive. Apart from being the first chair harpist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who was this mentor?
The elevator doors opened to reveal a pretty Chinese woman who appeared to be in her early forties kneeling in front of a grand piano. She was willowy and elegant—and she was slamming a high heel against the gleaming hardwood floor with enough force to summon a demon from the pits of hell.
“You’re late, Chloe Clifford.” She pointed the heel at Chloe. “You better hope you have the talent to make up for it.”
Chloe almost swallowed her chin. “I guess you’ll have to be the judge of that.”
“Oh, I will.” The woman stood up and, walking toward Chloe with an extended arm, realized she was still holding the high heel—a Louboutin, by the way—and dropped it so she could shake Chloe’s hand. “As of now, I’m your judge, jury, and executioner.”
“Oh dear.”
“‘Oh dear’ is right. I’m Grace Shen, and you’re mine now.” She ended the incredibly firm handshake, turned on a heel, and stalked past the grand piano. “The harp is this way.”
Chloe hustled after her. “What is your grievance with the Louboutin?”
“It belonged to my girlfriend. She sent me a WhatsApp message from Berlin just before you arrived. She decided to take a position with the Philharmonic.” Grace shot her a too-sweet smile over her shoulder. “And one beneath a cellist, as well. A cellist ,” she repeated with a groan. “Four strings? Not exactly brain surgery, is it?”
“Well...”
“Now, forty-seven strings and seven pedals?” Grace stopped on a dime, turned, and gestured to one of the most beautiful harps Chloe had ever seen in her life, made even more majestic due to its position in front of a panoramic view of Boston. “That’s a little more like it, right?”
“Yes,” Chloe breathed, dropping her purse, her fingers already beginning to tingle. “Holy Connecticut, this is an antique. You play this?”
“That is its purpose. To be played.”
“But—”
“Look at your fingers. They’re shaking with anticipation. If this were sitting in the Smithsonian, you still wouldn’t be able to walk past this instrument without playing it.”
“Yes, but I would fully expect to serve jail time.” Chloe ran the tip of her index finger down the gilded column of the world’s most beautiful harp, marveling over the leafy motif that appeared to be hand-painted. “It would be worth it.”
“Funny. Have you been to jail?”
“Not yet.”
A laugh shot out of Grace, followed by a long pause wherein, without even turning around, Chloe could feel her new mentor considering her closely. “I’d like to hear Handel. Passacaglia, please.”
There was only one other thing in this world that could make her heart speed at a relatively similar tempo to Sig—and it was the instrument sitting in front of her. The baroque piece rolled out in Chloe’s mind like a red carpet being kicked long, unfurling with a smooth whip, and her fingers lifted on their own, elbows pointing outward and firming. Confidence straightened her spine. This was her world.
Unlike her relationship with Sig, she knew how to navigate these strings, as if she’d been born nestled inside of them. When she’d been lonely as a child or an adult, isolated by the prodigy label, this is where she’d escaped. Into the notes. They were always there for Chloe and they were there for her now, her mental gymnastics stilling while her fingers gently plucked the opening notes, wind filling the sails inside her chest, the full, timeless sound of the antique wrapping her in melancholy and elation, all at once.
She lost time, vanishing into the romantic piece as she tried to communicate her love to the harp, to show it her appreciation for being so beautiful. For letting her play its strings.
When she finished, it took her several moments to open her eyes, her spine slowly losing some of its stiffness, her fingertips still buzzing from the experience.
“Fine, you’re worth my time, Clifford. But if you’re ever late again, I will beat you with my ex-girlfriend’s shoe.”
“Fair enough.”
Grace sighed.
A ribbon of smoke sailed over Chloe’s shoulder and she turned around to find her new mentor hitting a vape. “Save your judgment.”
“You won’t get any judgment from me. I spent seven hundred dollars on eye cream instead of paying my rent this month.”
Grace looked horrified. “You rent ?”
“Well.” Chloe turned partially on the stool. “I live there. Sig rents it for me.”
“What is a Sig?”
Chloe released a gusty sigh. “The most perfect human on earth.”
“Right.” Another hit of the vape. Before Grace could say anything else, a dog started barking somewhere in the back of the cavernous penthouse. “Goddamn it.”
“You have a dog,” Chloe breathed, rising to her feet. “What kind?”
“It’s also my ex-girlfriend’s. And do I look like a breeder? I have no clue what kind it is. It’s got fur and I have to take it for walks. Like, consistently .” Grace pushed Chloe back down onto the stool. “You can pet the damn thing in a second, but I’m going to read you the riot act first. I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not really the inspirational guru type. I’m doing a favor for a friend by giving you some guidance. They think you’re worth the effort. With your talent and Connecticut blue blooded-ness, they think you’re BSO material. But if I’m going to put my time into you, Clifford, I need to know that you want to be the best. Because I won’t accept any less than that.”
No one had ever spoken to her like this. Her first instinct was to apologize to Grace for wasting her time and ask politely to please, please pet the dog, but something stopped her. Maybe it was the need to play the golden instrument from heaven again. Or maybe... maybe it was months of watching Sig play hockey. Watching him sweat and bleed and sacrifice his body for a little black puck. For his teammates. For Boston.
What would it be like to apply herself with that degree of tenacity and succeed?
She’d sort of coasted on her God-given talent her whole life, but she could see, could feel that this dynamic woman would be the one to push her to the next level. If Chloe wanted it. If she worked hard enough.
“What does the best mean? What does it look like?”
“First chair, bitch. Principal harp. What else?”
“ You’re first chair for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.”
“Yeah, but I’m restless. I’m a nomad. I won’t be here forever. For instance, Berlin is calling my name pretty loud right now. I don’t lose easy, especially to a cellist.” Her smirk faded, leaving a serious expression behind. “If you want a shot at the spot, Clifford, you need to be above reproach. I can’t stress that enough. You show up on time, work your ass off. Do not shit where you eat. Do not give the powers that be a reason to doubt your character. Swift said it best, keep your side of the street clean. And when the situation calls for it, you schmooze with donors. The BSO prides themselves on a virtuous image. Is that you?”
“I don’t know about virtuous . I mean, I like to go out...”
“Of course. We all do. You just have to be quiet about it.”
This sounded quite arduous. She could keep things status quo, couldn’t she? Finish conservatory, find a nice position with the orchestra that wasn’t so front and center. No pressure, no one’s reputation riding on her back, continuing to coast on the prodigy status. When she’d decided to come to Boston, first chair hadn’t been her goal, anyway. It was too lofty. Too grueling for someone who could have an easy life, regardless of her job. Or was that her mother speaking?
Was this her sign to find out what she was really capable of?
“Can I have a day to think about it?”
“Actually, I’d rather you took a day.” Grace stowed her vape. “It proves you’re not going to take what I said lightly. We’d be working hard .”
Pressure built in Chloe’s chest, but she smiled through it. “How was the piece?”
“Decent. But you could be a bit more technical. I’m all for your weird, loopy dream state, but you dropped three notes. That won’t fly when you have an orchestra behind you. We’re going to need a higher level of concentration.”
Wow. Three notes?
Breathe. Breathe.
She didn’t have to do this. Her instructors at Berklee rarely pointed out errors.
“You don’t like hearing you made mistakes.”
“I’m just not used to it.”
“Can you get used to it?”
“If I can’t, what does that say about me?” Grace shrugged at her, paced to the window, and stared out at Boston, arms crossed. “Have you seen Whiplash ?” Chloe asked.
Grace cast her an exasperated, sideways look. “You don’t think I’m as scary as Terence Fletcher, do you? I’m not.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “Or am I?”
Chloe gulped. “I—”
The dog barked—and kept right on barking. “You wouldn’t happen to want a side gig as a dog sitter, would you?” Grace asked. “I can pay you in eye cream or cash, your choice.”
Dog sitter. Her?
In her mind’s eye, she could see Sig shaking his head. No way, Chlo. Absolutely not.
Was she responsible enough to care for an animal?
God no.
But maybe caring for a living, breathing creature would be a crash course on learning how to be a responsible adult. Maybe if she could keep a dog happy, walked, and fed, she’d feel more capable of being a mentee of this dynamic, motivated woman. Maybe she’d be able to envision herself as first chair for one of the country’s most illustrious orchestras.
Because right now, she couldn’t.
“Sure. I’ll take the pup.” Chloe forced a smile. “How hard can dog parenting be?”
Famous last words.