Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
T ris sat with Kyra and Sonny, her two friends that made up the string trio she played in occasionally for weddings and other special occasions.
Tonight, they were providing dinner music for the small group of people who would be attending Margo Ames’s wedding.
Margo was older than Tris, but they knew each other from school.
“Are we starting out with the Brahms piece?” Sonny asked as she pulled her violin out of the case.
“Yes. Since she specifically asked for no Beethoven for some reason,” Kyra said.
Tris sat on her chair, adjusting her cello until it fit comfortably between her legs, her hand feeling the familiar strings and fingerboard, and the physical contact eased her fears.
Sonny hit the tuning fork on her shoe and put it on her violin. They were quiet as they listened to the A.
Kyra and Tris waited while Sonny tuned. Once she had her violin perfect, Kyra put her viola underneath her chin and tuned her instrument. Tris typically went last .
“What are you doing tomorrow?” Sonny asked while they waited for Kyra to finish tuning.
“I’ll be at the B&B, then I have to pack Christmas boxes with the church. Are you helping?” she asked. She did a lot of things with Kyra and Sonny, but they were usually involved in different areas of the church. Since they did so much together with music, sometimes they deliberately went separate ways when they had the opportunity.
“I’ll be hoping to, and I’ve heard that they need more help. Usually there are tons of volunteers, but apparently there’s a hockey game that everyone is planning on going to and they’re coming up short.”
“That’s just going to make a longer day for us.” Her mom and she had talked about it, and her mom had said she would watch the B&B while Tris went. Since their dad left, it was their sole source of income, and they didn’t have any outside help. So they had to cover everything themselves. Normally it wasn’t hard, but it got complicated when they had other things going on. Tris tried to keep her schedule fairly open because of that.
Kyra had finished tuning, so Tris ran her bow over her strings, and the sound gave her the same feeling it had since she started taking lessons, even though she could get a much better sound out of her instrument now than she used to be able to. It was all about technique, and she had studied as hard as she could, even taking additional lessons for herself online, just because she wanted to do the best she could.
As she was thinking about that, the door opened across the room, a blast of cold air flowed around them, and Fisher walked in. Her heart did that crazy flippy thing that it had done earlier in the day, even though she tried to get it to stop.
He looked so handsome in his casual evening wear. He wasn’t wearing a tie, and the white shirt he had on was open at the collar.
He wore a belt and cowboy boots with his dress pants.
She had to look away. She could feel her cheeks heating. Cowboy boots .
“Are you guys ready?” she asked, trying to speak so that her words came out normally.
“Sure,” Kyra said, checking her watch, and Sonny, who was typically their leader, gave a three count, and then they started in.
They had some more modern pieces, fun pieces that Tris really enjoyed playing, but those were more if they ended up entertaining at a wedding reception. For something like this, where folks wanted music that would fall into the background, they played nothing that would stand out or that would bring attention to the musicians. It was their job to lend atmosphere, for the most part.
Usually the music would take her away, but all throughout the evening, her eyes were drawn to Fisher. She found her mind wandering to that fateful day in the school’s home ec room, when the two of them had the great cookie debacle.
Her mother had been furious, and his parents had not been happy either.
She hadn’t spoken to him again until earlier that day.
She would see him again, since she was providing music for the wedding, and she and her mom were catering the small reception. But aside from those two times, she should never have to see him again, since he worked in Richmond and had very seldom been back to Mistletoe Meadows, and the few times that she heard he’d been around, she hadn’t seen him at all.
Hopefully things would continue that way, since he was such a distraction to her.
“What’s going on with you?” Sonny asked as they took their ten-minute break.
“What do you mean?” she asked, knowing exactly what Sonny meant. She had almost started in on the wrong piece, grabbing the correct music at the last second, and she’d struggled to stay focused all evening.
Fisher had danced with his mother and his sister, and he was a great dancer.
“Where’s your head? Usually you’re the most serious among us, but you seem to be in la-la land today,” Kyra said, taking a sip of her water and flipping the cap closed.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I guess… It’s been a while since I’ve seen Fisher, and I was just remembering what happened in high school.”
“Oh my goodness. The fire company was involved.” Kyra shuddered. “You went in the Mistletoe Meadows High School Hall of Fame. No one else has ever done that in school.”
“I know,” she said. She’d heard that from her parents a million times, when she’d asked if she could just talk to him for a few minutes, to let him know that she wasn’t the one who was snubbing him. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings or cut him off.
He’d been a good kid and a Christian as well. Her parents had approved of him, they just didn’t approve of what happened. And Tris had to admit she was embarrassed by it.
“I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better. Be more focused. Maybe if you don’t mind, I can switch seats with you.” Kyra stood up immediately. “That way, my back is more toward him, and I won’t be able to see.”
She wasn’t sure if that would actually help or not, but she would make it work. She couldn’t be distracted by a man that she saw once every decade and a half.