34. Harlowe
There were a few people in the practice rooms when I got there.
I heard my mystery cello player and a flute.
I always took the room at the very end. The cello player was usually near.
I tried to peep in the window, but she had the blinds drawn.
I didn’t want to interrupt, but I really wanted to introduce myself. I enjoyed playing with her.
Topher said her name was Meadow, but I couldn’t pick her out of the orchestra and she hadn’t introduced herself. The soloist in the orchestra wasn’t her, which I didn’t understand because she was a beautiful musician.
I sat on the piano bench and tuned my violin. Heat and cold could both destroy my violin and make it harder to tune, but I’d learned to adapt. It wasn’t too bad, and I got it done. I knew everyone liked to play scales to warm up, but I liked playing the theme song from Halloween.
I grinned when the person next to me started adding the piano chords.
I had a feeling it was Orion. Well, we were playing a game.
I started to improvise, and he followed along.
We launched into a very creepy tune. I chuckled when a cello joined in and someone made a shrieking noise with their trumpet.
“What is this noise?” someone shrieked.
I yanked my bow off my violin. Who got mad at a bunch of musicians horsing around?
I wasn’t in classes right now, but any arts program was stressful.
In undergrad, I got less credit hours than I was actually in class and then there was all the practice time.
If you didn’t take time to goof off, you got all burnt out.
It didn’t even have to be a full-blown hootenanny.
You could just be stupid for five minutes.
I poked my head out of the practice room and Isobel was standing there with a red face. I hadn’t been here long at all. Only a week, but I hadn’t seen her in the practice rooms the entire time and I spent a lot of time in here.
She drew in a deep breath and looked like she was about to complete unload on me. Topher and a short, skinny guy with glasses swooped in and directed her out the hall. I guess Isobel found out I was doing Leif’s ballet.
Everyone had poked their heads out to see what was going on except one room. I could see the blinds in the room where the cello would have been part, but when they noticed I was looking, they slammed shut.
“Bitch,” the tuba player muttered, slamming his door.
“Guess Isobel found out Leif found his composers,” Orion said. “You might want to stick close to us. She’s dangerous, but she’s scared of us. You too, Meadow!”
I grabbed his arm and hauled him into my practice room because I had a lot more questions now. I knew about her record, but how did Orion know about it? And what did it have to do with Meadow?
“Spill. I know Isobel has a record. Do you know about it? Because it seems like you do.”
“The question is how do you know about it? Daddy worked pretty hard to bury it.”
“Trade secrets. If I told you, I’d have to kill you. I know she has one, and it’s sealed. I could have it unsealed, but it would put someone I care about in danger if they got caught.”
“Perish putting your bestie in danger. Isobel and Meadow went to high school together. Meadow doesn’t even play the violin, but Isobel thought she was a threat.
Meadow ended up losing an eye. Isobel didn’t even have to go to juvie.
She had to do anger management classes for teens.
It didn’t help. She still terrorizes Meadow.
“Meadow looks like a sexy blonde pirate with her eye patch, but she’s self-conscious about it.
She mostly focuses on composition instead of performance now.
She’s a good composer, but you’ve heard her play the cello.
She makes it sing. I heard the two of you the first day when you started playing the Adagio from The Nutcracker and she joined in.
If the two of you were actually in the orchestra, it would be you playing it while Cullen and Rue danced. It would have brought the house down.”
I did love playing with her, even if it was muffled through the walls of the practice room.
“This is crazy! This is crazier than men who think the devil is real and he wants to buy my soul. Who maims someone’s eye over a high school music program?”
“It was over an audition for the state orchestra,” a voice said.
I whirled around. Yeah, Orion had it right. Meadow was pint-sized with golden hair, but the eye patch made her look like a total bad ass. In the right outfit, she’d look like a pirate queen or an assassin.
“Isobel was in the Youth Orchestra with me when we were fourteen.
The big city orchestra was offering a chance for us to perform, but they were only taking one from each group.
Like, not one violin and one cello, but one person from the strings section, one from winds, brass, keyboards, and percussion.
If you got picked, you got to play with them for the season.
“It was so stupid. We were fourteen, and it wasn’t like any of us were looking to get married.
Isobel liked one of the drummers, but he had a crush on my brother.
My brother is only a year older than me and plays the French Horn.
I was spending a lot of time with Trent to help him get together with my brother and Isobel thought we were dating.
I don’t exactly remember what happened when she found us.
I woke up in the hospital with my eye missing and I never saw Trent again.
No one would tell me what happened to him. ”
Wonderful. Leif and I were never going to date either because Leif didn’t feel that way about anyone. Leif and I were both in danger.
“She can’t pull any of that on any of you here,” Orion growled. “She’s not a teenager anymore and her daddy’s sway will only go so far. She’d be prosecuted as an adult.”
“Does she know that?”
“Harlowe, stay with us. You too, Meadow. She can’t get to you if you’re around us.”
Orion started launching into this four-part plan about how they could protect us and I just zoned him out.
I didn’t sign up for this. I was cracking up.
Between hot men who thought they were angels and losing a damned eye because I got asked to score a ballet, this was getting a bit too much.
I was done. I was about to call JaToya to prepare the couch.
“Harlowe!” Orion yelled, grabbing my arm as I went to leave.
“No hablo Inglés,” I said.
He just chuckle and switched to perfect Spanish as he told me he’d judged me completely wrong if I was ready to quit over this.
What.the.fuck? I didn’t speak English at home until I was five.
I taught JaToya, and it was mostly how we talked when we didn’t want someone to know what we were saying unless Mom was around.
I instantly snapped out of it because I may have gone on a bit about how hot he was and how nice his ass was when I thought he didn’t speak Spanish. He was smirking at me because he apparently remembered. I just stood there with my mouth open.
“For what it’s worth, you have a nice arse too.”
“Kill me now,” I moaned.
“Listen, you’re both amazing musicians. Harlowe, you should be writing and Meadow, you should be playing. Neither of you should be terrorized by someone who can’t even tune her violin because her daddy is important. Azriel has a plan. Let him handle it.”
“Azriel isn’t exactly subtle.”
Smacking a ballet dancer with stilts in front of the entire orchestra and cast was the definition of not subtle. If we couldn’t report her, then assaulting her was off the table.
“Trust me when I say Azriel is perfectly capable of getting rid of her without being obvious. Stick with us and stick with each other. We’ll protect you, but protect each other.”
I looked at Meadow, who hadn’t said much during my freak out. I could do that. Safety in numbers. I didn’t know her well at all, but she had every reason not to give me the full story about Isobel and she did anyway to protect me.
“Want to come to a party with the dancers tonight?”
Her hand started to hover over her eye patch. Isobel never came to the practice rooms. I’d been in them most of the day for a week straight. I only ever left for meetings with my advisors and rehearsals. Meadow kept the blinds closed because she thought people were going to judge her.
“Stop. Look, without the eye patch, you’re pretty, but with it, you look like a Bond girl.
Own it. Get a black leather one and put some spikes on it.
Start smoking clove cigarettes and carrying a flask, even if it just has water in it.
Flirt with boys and destroy them because you can.
Adopt a hairless cat or a corn snake and carry it with you in public.
Embrace it because you can’t change it,” Orion said.
That was decent of him. I would have loved that pep talk, but I wasn’t sure if she would.
“He’s right. You’re still super hot. Own it.”
Meadow seemed to perk up more when I said it than when Orion did. Okay then. Her back straightened.
“Yeah, I’ll go to that party with you.”
“Did you want to get back to practicing or did you need to get to class?”
“I have a tonal harmonies class in fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll walk you. Harlowe, lock the practice room. Misha usually has a break right around now. I’ll send him to watch your back.”
“No need. I’m here,” Topher said.
“You stay away from her,” Orion snarled.
“No, it’s fine. He can stay.”
I didn’t miss Topher sticking in tongue out at Orion and wiping his eye with his middle finger.
“What dorm are you in? I’ll come get you and walk you over to Rue’s for the party.”
“Rue?” Meadow squeaked.
Did Meadow have a crush on Rue? Because Rue looked like she might be into JaToya. Were we about to have a love match? I was invested.
“Gerard hates tardiness, so we have to go. But leave her alone, Topher. Don’t fall for his bullshit, Harlowe. Whatever he promises you isn’t worth it.”
Interesting. I’d been planning on questioning Topher, but maybe I had new questions for him now.