where have all the good men gone?
(But they did, eventually, have to perform.)
"Carys."
"Flora," said Carys, ready to get antic all at once.
"We have to switch parts."
"What, now? It's two weeks to the concert!"
"I know!" Flora hated to hear insecurity whistle through the long-closed echo of a gap between her teeth. "No better time for last-minute changes than the last minute, right?"
Carys, who exceeded her usual traits of shy and retiring only when she was playing literal second horn (well, not literal - clarinet) to Flora, bit down on her own lip.
"Are you suddenly sick, then? Too sick for Scheherazade?"
If Carys wasn't sick now, she was going to be, when she tried to wrap her fingers around the part-melisma, part-roulade that wove its way through the second movement over a bed of insistent dominant-chord pizzicato. Flora had already addressed the guilt within herself, and found that Carys should be exposed to fresh challenges, or she'd never get the chance!
That was the rationale, anyway. And Carys, unlike her devilish little sister, didn't have the prescience to color her accusation wicked as she clawed desperately at understanding of Flora's sudden change of heart.
"We have to switch parts," she said slowly. Probably folders, too. Whatever was necessary. "Are you sure you don't mean...switching seats?"
"Well, of course I mean seats, too," said Flora agreeably. "Maestro Tikkaram would be all kinds of confused if he looked at the principal chair and didn't hear the part being played."
"As if he doesn't know what you look like, Flora." This, of course, was the lay of it: Flora's familiar brown-freckled face, surrounded by two pale heads of gray hair. One held a clarinet, and the other...
"Oh." Carys said it softly, scarcely. "You don't want to sit next to Addam anymore."
Flora gave nothing, to this admission.
"Did you break up?"
"We're not together."
"Well, of course. You're not together, if you've broken up."
"I mean, we never were."
And did Flora sound even the slightest bit sad about it? Indeed, not - she was much more concerned with establishing correctness and communicating her point to poor Carys.
"Okay," said Carys. "So, what's he done?"
"Nothing. That's not the point."
Rather than argue, Carys reached over and took Flora's hands, which were fidgeting as though to run through her usual scales, bridge keys and all.
"This isn't like you. And I know that's something people love to say, when their friends have great grand confessions, because they're scared to hear about them, and they don't want the responsibility. But the Flora I know...she really doesn't run from anything so harmless as a man."
Carys, almost infinitely intelligent, was also so dearly innocent. She had the good fortune not to have any secrets to hide from, no trouble with the wrong kind of people or associated moral dilemmas. Nia? Oh, Nia struggled. But Carys didn't, never had, and had as such a fairly limited portfolio of empathy.
The canned feminism grated at Flora. Maybe it was true - maybe she was being cowardly. Really, what would it kill her to last out two more weeks? That was only four more meetings of the ensemble, one of which had already nearly begun.
The problem was, she supposed, that Maestro Tikkaram was hardly the most efficient of conductors. He had a noble way about him, and he knew how to let the players choose their own musicality, but on the odd occasion that he really did need to make his own interpretation speak out over all the rest, he took a long and florid time in saying so.
At such times, Flora would keep one figurative eye trained on him and his mustache, the other free to rove about the room.
She watched Jin's head, deadly serious but for the occasional twitch as he nodded and made his mental notes. She watched for the blank expression on Zettar's face, as his half-brother gave him nothing to chew on whatsoever in terms of soloist praise. She even peered into the bass section, to see Gorg compulsively checking his tuning for the recitative.
She looked, desperately, anywhere but to her left. Because, of course, to her left sat Addam Origo, the persistently upbeat bachelor bassoonist who'd been growing a beard, these past few weeks, in a sort of mid-fall feint toward the colder months.
Flora, who had exclusively dated her fellow young women throughout high school and college, found herself more than mildly perplexed at the notion that she could be so painfully attracted to someone who looked like...well, a grandfather. Yes, bisexual this, bisexual that, but how could she be such a sterling sapphic wonder and then turn around and--
Oh, lord. She shouldn't have turned. Because, as she'd recently learned, the thing about handsome men that made her weakest of all was when they'd wink - and when they, like Addam, meant no arrogance by it.
It confused her to no end. Really, it did. For one thing, she'd thought Addam the kind of sappy aromantic that was unpartnered on purpose. Yet at times like this, when they sat so close week in and week out, she started to wonder if in fact she was being flirted with. By the most clueless man she'd ever met, or one of, granted, but still. Flirted?
Flora loved flirting with women. It was delightful. You could tease and be teased, learn charming things about them, take a risk and have only a pretty girl there to catch you...
There. That was the crux of it. Flora liked liking women because she knew that she was good at it, and she couldn't be caught out. She knew what was getting into; the parts she didn't know were the parts she was searching for.
Here, with Addam, week to week, she was always learning something new out of hand, or else floating clueless (just as clueless as he was, except that then and there he seemed, suddenly, to know more).
Something so harmless as a man. Ha. Carys was right, and yet she was also so very wrong.
"You'll switch with me?"
"I won't." Her friend said it with the most strident sincerity.
Dreams took Flora only rarely, in her light temperament of sleep. Most of the images were more like briefly revisited memory. In fact, in more serious periods of stress, the dreams that would onslaught often ended up disturbing the solidity of what had actually occurred with phantasms of false events.
Maybe Addam hadn't winked at all. Maybe Flora had imagined it. Maybe she had imagined the plane of his cheek, dusted in silver, the determined set of his mouth usually placed around his reed now quirked upward at the very corner as he shared some private joke with her.
It wasn't that she didn't understand it, or him. It was more that she didn't understand it perfectly, which meant that she was set off balance, leached of her usual power.
Power. As if she wanted power! She only wanted to know, know, know.
In this dream, as she subconsciously pondered her fate, Flora saw Addam's cautious smile again, moving close to her and letting her occupy his personal space as if she owned it, was entitled to it, was the only person he'd ever dream - himself - of having this close.
Within so trivial of a distance, she could practically hear every shift of his facial muscles. Addam's presence transcended her senses and transported her to some world away, where it wasn't only a common interest and locality, not to mention demonstrated skill, that brought them together.
Flora had sat next to many dozens of idiosyncratic people, across her stints of academic and professional life. She'd learned from adorably waspish older women, young men with a chaotic affect they couldn't control, board room middle-managers and impossibly chill attendance secretaries.
Some people thought someday she'd be a principal herself, beloved by her house of grades and then the entire district, at once. All thought that she was chiefly admirable at her main pursuit of keeping her chin up through endless days of second grade.
But these were all just opinions and partnerships that happened because they...happened. Even the flirting was just a variation in happenstance.
Flora wanted somebody to choose her - as everyone was always, constantly, saying that they would, but as no one ever actually did, did, did.
The wink(s) made her think that Addam was, in fact, on the cusp of choosing her, desiring her, courting her home.
But then he'd stride the rest of the way up the hall to converse with some distant relative, aunt or uncle or cousin, who'd come to see him play, and Flora would abandon all hope of romantically centered attention once a-rotten gain.
"So he makes you nervous," Carys posed, in her best attempt at being sly, which wasn't very. "I get it."
Flora wanted to say, no you don't, but she supposed that nervousness was indeed part of it. She could fairly easily imagine her way to the end of the rainbow, where Addam was hers and she his, the ultimate of a successful proposition, but it was the dodgy work involved that scared her - and this was Flora we were speaking of. Work never scared her, not in the least.
She sighed. "I'm just not that gutsy. And apparently he's not either, because he won't say anything to me. Do I look uninviting, do you think?"
Had Carys had the unenviable fortune to be seated next to some recent retiree who fancied and fashioned himself a virtuoso clarinetist, she'd have left the ensemble some seasons ago. Since her standmate-in-spirit was Flora, she'd stayed, and stayed, and stayed.
So, in her estimation, Flora was quite inviting indeed.
She was, Carys thought, a sight too old to be worrying about whether or not things would become "awkward" once (if, when) one of them attempted to make a move, should the other reject them. That was kids' stuff.
But Carys was not the type of girl ever to be refused by anyone, boy or girl or otherwise. So she didn't know these things. And Flora didn't know them either.
"How old is he?" she wondered aloud.
"He could be twenty-five," said Flora. "He could be forty. I'm really not sure." And of course, the dashing stubble didn't help.
Carys looked doubtful. "Could he really? Wouldn't there be any way of knowing?"
How many years had she sat next to the man, anyway? In this group, as well as any others. And she was only just now noticing? How very unlike Flora, indeed.
"It's not like it matters, anyway," Flora dismissed the topic. "I hardly think we're going to get married."
"Obviously not, if you're afraid even to talk to him," Carys teased with a grin.
Don't dare me, Flora thought. I'm liable to go even farther - further? - afield of my characteristics and start chatting him up.
Overarching, what Flora told herself about Addam in a vexed self-tone: there was nothing whatsoever on this planet or any other to find unattractive about him.
He was timely, lively, many-splendored and had nice teeth (not that Flora would begrudge anyone who hadn't had the childhood privilege of braces, but they were white in the way that indicated attention to how his habits reflected upon him; maturity, indeed). His car was well-maintained. His equipment was well-managed. His personal grooming, of course, left nothing to be desired.
It was only Scheherazade that could bring out the worst in Addam, and Flora sat directly next to him to hear it. While she was off winding transverse cadenzas through sailing ships and princely manners, he was struggling with minor-chord grace notes. Usually so solidly in tune, he began with these solos to drift uncomfortably sharp.
He was a fine player, too. Flora had personally heard him improve by great leaps and bounds in the years that they'd known each other. He was musical - very pleasingly so.
But this...had he not the time to practice? Flora supposed he hadn't.
Oh, Addam, she thought, as she sat with her elbows locked to her sides, staring straight ahead for the conductor's wince, or encouragement, or blank stare in return. Aren't you better than this?
She kept her focus trained away when he finished, sometimes triumphantly and sometimes with a sad sag of his head, twisting the bocal as if that would fix it.
Blame Zettar, Flora wished they could - his limp and uninspiring solo surely had set the precedent for all embarrassing moments to follow. But then Brighid would pick up the next rehearsal letter's worth of phrase, and she'd know that this was all Addam, and his own anchor with which to sink or swim.
If she were bold, or if they were friends, she'd pin him up to it, and declare that they should do what no self-respecting adults ever did in the community orchestra sphere: get together and practice about it.
Usually, Flora was bold. Usually, she could count everyone her friend, or close enough. (Actually, she had some enemies, but even those were soft on her, because she showed herself to be so consistently nice.)
They were so close to the concert. Time truly was running out, now or never and all the rest.
Flora chanced a glance at Addam, trying not to point him out in his hour of humiliation. He didn't deserved to be pitied, surely.
But there he was, hiding his face behind the barrel, sneaking his own eyes over to glance back at her.
"Shall I show you how?" lightly asked Flora, the master of self-taught honors excellence.
"I'd rather you just take it," Addam whispered back. "Surely no one would know?"
She didn't even stop to debate that in her head.
"Thursday night - you're free?"
"That's tomorrow," said Addam. He was happy to let Azami pick up the long tones; either that, or talking during rehearsal, literally during the piece itself, had temporarily absolved itself of membership upon the list of orchestral sins, whether semi-professional or not.
"You're free?" Flora repeated. She didn't like to repeat herself, even to children.
"I'll make time." Addam still darted his eyes to her as he licked his lips, wet his reed.
"You're free," Flora pronounced for the third and final time. Internally, and staying her eyes from Carys's reach, she did admit that she squealed, or something.
What exciting news! ...and now to listen to the violins clunk their way through it.
The funny story about Addam was that he'd once taken a concert poster from Flora, who'd been minding the list, and since board members liked you to write down where you were posting it, so that they had a crude mock-up of data-driven strategic planning and whatnot, she'd hovered her pen over the location column.
"Oh, you know, an apartment complex in Alektos Park," he'd said. "That'll be good enough, right?"
And every time Flora drove by the strip of apartment complexes that lined the state route cutting straight through Alektos Park, she thought idly to herself, ah yes, that's where Addam lives. And of course, the first few times, she'd smiled.
The place he actually lived was not visible from the main road - the main drag, as they doubtless called it, from back in their ivory towers - but instead had a winding private road reaching into its spacious, yet sensical parking lot.
Flora saw Addam's car, which she had recently been politely cursing when she noticed it parked next to hers, and pulled in next to it. Not too close, but not too far; neither cozy with him nor egregious toward the rights of the driver-side door that could appear at any time next to hers.
Then in to the elevator, which didn't have an operator but did have a lobby attendant nearby. Goodness...and he lived here by choice?
This, of all things, reminded Flora to take a look at her wrinkled shirt, her untidy cardigan, her messy updo, her slouching loafers, and wish not for the first time that she had a less...unexpectedly physical job.
She couldn't be a music teacher, because she felt that much responsibility to be beyond her (meanwhile, everybody straggled along into learning to read without speaking aloud, sometime), but specials teachers did have that certain flair, that inimitable niche of personality.
Classroom teachers were just maternal and harried. They knew every child's name, but it didn't seem as superhuman as when the specials teachers did it, of course. They also were somewhat nebulous to the effort, even as they drove the mission of the entire school, one at a time.
They had so many little ways to succeed. They also had so many little ways to fail. These were things that Flora knew about herself, but didn't like to have brought to her attention.
She kept the cardigan on, still, because it was something to put on to signal that she was leaving. (That was a tool she usually used to tease her paramours. She'd not yet had to employ it in service of actual safety.) It was also something that, perhaps, Addam could gently take off.
Her clarinet, she awkwardly flashed to the lobby attendant to show its proud Conn-Selmer seal. Maybe that meant something. Maybe it didn't. Maybe oblong violin cases were the only ones worthy of any real suspicion.
Flora loved the idea of taking the stairs. When she was already preoccupied considering her plan of attack- say, entrance, she liked to save her remaining stores of effort for calm breaths and a calm mind. Hence, the elevator, to take her up only two floors - well, one, actually, since they hadn't started at G. Addam lived at the end of the hall, based on the letters that Flora saw immediately upon exiting the lift, but if there was a visitors' entrance at the far wing of this side of the building, Flora hadn't seen it.
Indeed, she was surprised she hadn't had to have a more rigorous security check, without a resident there to escort her. Perhaps condominiums instead, for whatever that meant. Not quite so cozy as townhouses, nor as kitschy with the grills in the ready-made backyards. Just where were they, in the throes of the almost-suburban city?
The pattern on the carpet was somehow simultaneously simple and ornate, shallow in palette but rich in harmonious blend of colors. It was one of those things, apparently, that silently signaled wealth via all the carefully-considered choices that composed a residential building. One imagined the engineers and construction crew sampling it, laying it, gluing it, stamping it down until nary an air bubble remained. It could have been cheap, like a college dorm hall, but it wasn't.
Steeling herself and digging in her heels, Flora rang the bell.
It had been a vulnerable enough conversation to have to inquire of Addam where he lived: where Flora could find him, on just such a free Thursday evening in the crispness of the air and the unrushed hour of the drive. Not dinner, of course, because that would be a different matter entirely. Nor had there been discussion of any other activity but the playing.
When Addam opened the door, he did not have his bassoon in hand, nor did he even wear his neck strap. Instead, he wore a soft sky-blue cardigan over a heather gray polo shirt, slacks, and house slippers.
It struck Flora then that she'd, of course, never seen Addam when he wasn't already intending to present himself for the experience of other people. The same could be said for her, except that on late back-to-school nights, which were always on Wednesdays, she did have to drive directly from school, and even on other days, she usually didn't change.
Addam, on the other hand, wore a rotating assortment of quarter-zips and track or varsity jackets that always concealed merely the suggestion of business casual wear underneath. He was an accountant, or something else official, for a firm of some kind somewhere at the edge of the city just a little farther in than they were, just here.
Flora looked at Addam's face, which was open and (thankfully) not yet clean-shaven, then to his chest (closer to her eye level), then back again.
"Hello," she said, trying to train herself out of her ready-made teacher voice. "Thank you for having me."
"Thank you for coming," replied Addam. Flora knew herself then and there to have gone weak in the knees.
"Shall we, um--" At this point, usually, she would have brushed past him. Usually, there would have been room. "Where shall I set up?"
"Oh, ah, anywhere." Addam gestured around the room at the apparent or else supposed plethora of places where one could open a clarinet case and screw together ligatures. There was a credenza here, a coffee table there - all needlessly ornate furniture that left Flora wondering if the apartment had come pre-furnished, or if whatever mysterious force had arrived Addam here had had the whimsical power to send him packing with baroque accents, too.
She laid her case on the dining table, which was in a room separate from the kitchen proper, and was about to unhook the latches when Addam finished shutting the door, complete with bolt, and came around the other side of the table to greet her more fully.
That is, he stood across from her, gated off by the bottom ornament of the chandelier, and began, somehow tenderly, to observe her.
Of course it would have gone this way. Of course she'd have intended some perfectly logical purpose for this ad-hoc, improvised house call.
Flora paused, with her fingers on the seam of the case, and gazed back up at Addam.
"I'm very glad you're here," he said, quietly. His voice was low, nothing like the tone he used when he was calling a quip across the ensemble or fessing up for an incorrect cue. And those, of course, Flora heard much more distinctly than anyone else did, because she was perpetually sat the closest to him of any (extra space was needed on the diagonally-held bassoon bell's side).
If the wink was saucy, except that it wasn't, then this statement was seductive, except that it wasn't. It was earnest and bare. It was as simple as a straightforward phrase.
"Well, because you're in need of help," Flora replied. "I'd hate to be here if you'd already made your mind up."
"Not that." Addam still looked directly at her. There'd been nary a blink. "I...I'd wanted to ask..."
Now his gaze wandered: to her cheeks, her shoulders, her chest, her hands. She could feel him taking her in, so keenly. It was almost as if the calluses of his hands (if he had those, but maybe he didn't, because he didn't play a stringed instrument and he lived in this mile-wide lap of luxury) were on her.
"You can't be nervous," came out of her with an astoundingly slow speed. It was half a edict and half a prayer. How could she possibly believe that? Him, with the winks, and the beard, and the strong arms whose impressions rippled in the expensive cotton t-shirts whose hems just barely peeked out of the track jackets or under the vests.
All of this talk of money - it wasn't money that Flora was entranced by. Actually, she'd think it disgusting, on an undecipherable moral level that she couldn't even manage to apply to herself, if Addam didn't appear to be so staunchly opposed to his wealth even as he didn't hardly appear conscious that he held it.
He would be offensively clueless if not for the fact that she thought him to have such a beautiful soul. And so maybe she was being offensively clueless.
But Addam thought she had a beautiful soul. Wasn't that proof enough?
The clarinet stayed in the case, unassembled. The bassoon lurked in some closet as yet unseen - maybe the coat closet by the door, which would be permissible, Flora supposed.
If Addam had had no illusions about the true purpose of her visit, their rendezvous (rather, only illusions and allusions and motives of some inexactible kind), then he would have been ready. Shouldn't he have been ready? He certainly displayed himself to be prepared at all their rehearsals, except the ones where it was his playing in specific that was to be put on display.
Grateful for any excuse to duck the staring contest for just a moment, Flora turned her attention to the floor - and yes, there, a rug just as plush as that which had ushered in from outside. This one, however, was full of footsteps. The parts of it that weren't well-trodden were frightfully scarce.
You can't be nervous. Now, a self-directed command. You cannot be nervous. You must jump for it, now.
"I thought we were going to play." Flora said it as straightforwardly as she could. "Our instruments, I mean. I brought mine..."
And I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours. No, damn it all, that wasn't half what she meant.
Where was the winking now, when she needed it most?
She'd found herself in a situation, capital S. When Carys had begged to know (without needling, because Carys never needled, only wheedled, when she wasn't feeling well) what the whispering had all been about, Flora had just shaken her head and murmured gravely, "I hope he'll get it together for the concert. I had hoped that he'd do so well."
Oh, and good heavens, to think of the concert - still far more important than giggling at each other and wondering what it would be like for them to hold you as gingerly yet confidently as they held their instrument.
Just one arm. Just one strong arm, that Addam could offer her and curl around her as if she were his trusty bassoon, beautiful auburn with smooth keys of silver.
Flora wore gold jewellry. A gold-plated bassoon would look tacky. But, well, it didn't all have to fit.
"Frankly," Addam began, and Flora's eyes shot up to him in recognition that finally, some real adult conversation was in the air, "I think I'm beyond hope, on that. You remember the early rehearsals, when Khanoro would stop and give me direction, and then I'd improve somewhat?"
Of course she remembered. She'd hung onto the sweetness of every sonorous note. She was sure everyone had. Maybe now, though, they all just bled their way through it.
"But, now I'm left to my own devices, and I just can't seem to get it."
"But rather than try," Flora intoned with pursed lips, "you'll just pretend, and throw up your hands, and say oh well?"
Recall, now, that bit about offensive cluelessness, and how it translated to learned helplessness, and abuse of privilege.
Addam smiled weakly. "I suppose you could see it that way."
She could, she would, and so would everyone else. Or else, he'd just look like a fool who couldn't rise to the occasion and truly showcase his talents. Come on, Addam, thought Flora, surely you can't stand to be shown up by Zettar, of all people?
"I don't know how to help you, if you don't want to be helped." She, who made a point never to be a fixer unless it was legitimately her job to address such concerns.
But Addam, despite all of his infinite comforts, seemed to be alone, somehow. And Flora did still like him so.
"Can we think about that later? Right now I'd just like to enjoy your company."
As ever, he said it pleasantly, without hardly a whisper of ill intent.
"No," replied Flora. "We'll fix it now. And then you can have your way." She stopped herself before adding the final prepositional tag: with me.
Addam could have his way with anyone, if he grew a pair and decided to actually take command of his personality. But he wanted Flora - wanted her so much that he was willing to look stupid, in full view of a sold-out auditorium, just to get to her faster.
He could wait. If he was really a man, he could wait, and would, and so would everyone and everything else.
Flora had never met a woman so eager and so unfailing. She looked at the beard, saw the conflicted youth panting its disappointment behind it, and knew that everything would soon be alright - if not more than.
Scratch any caveats and litotes about it being a long time since, et cetera - Flora had never taught a student so much bigger than her, and she'd done some stints subbing in eighth grade.
Addam knew he was imposing too, with the way he kept bending down to see her. Flora tutted and shook her head; absolutely no way to treat one's posture when one was attempting to sketch the contour of a lyrical line. There was enough snake charming to be done without putting a crook in your back.
And speaking of back pain...she still didn't know how old he was. Maybe enough sneaking peeks around the living space and she'd find a diploma for an MBA tacked (well, properly framed and hung) to the wall, one with a legible year affixed to it in some faux-cursive mass-production font. Or, if she was unlucky, the president of the university would have personally signed the diplomas for winter graduation, down to the date.
So many unflatteringly out-of-touch facts she could assume about Addam, but Flora only counted it fine in her column for critical thinking, and went back to transposing out of tenor clef for the solo.
Addam seemed to be spending an awful lot of time piddling around in the sink, filling up a pill bottle (ah, see there - some thriftiness emerged!) with water so that he could clip it to his stand and soak the reeds and shave the cane and so on. Only, one didn't shave wet reeds with any kind of knife. Why he'd suddenly become so committed to the rigor of the thing when they were only workshopping his featured bit, Flora couldn't say. It did give her time to watch him, at least.
Eventually, though, Addam padded back to his turned-out dining chair and lurched into his seat.
"I have to play it, now?"
Flora smiled. "You can warm up, I'm sure. No one would ever deprive you of that."
His warmups, Flora knew, were stellar and even sometimes superfluous, gliding through all ranges of the scale and then hopping between them with a lip-trill lean. He did all of that so confidently, so effortlessly, so musically.
And then he tried himself at an F-sharp and squeaked.
Flora schooled her expression into a visage of utmost patience. She mustn't laugh, mustn't cringe. She wasn't a mean-spirited listener, ever; she couldn't become one, now.
What was the issue? Why the balking, now?
It reminded her, actually, of when she listened to the fifth graders (practically adults, at a full-grades elementary school) read off the lunch choices of the day on the morning announcements, then birthdays and special mentions. Their words, otherwise clear, became unintelligible when they completely dismissed the meaning of a period - you know, full stop - and just kept sallying forth, running straight into the next word.
There was no concept of cadence, no notion of rhythm. And Addam had these things, usually, but perhaps Khanoro's tempo was just ever so slightly too insistent, for his tastes. They couldn't change that, now (was it the risk of appearing too little too late?), but they could at least get the poor man acclimated to it.
"Try like this," Flora said, putting an unthinking hand out to pause Addam's playing before returning it to her own instrument and preparing to start. Well, whatever. No taking it back now.
Maybe a more insistent lean on the first note, the fifth of the scale, to start in reciprocation, and then a lean away to dancelike sixteenths illustrating the space of the tonality around it. Maybe just a little bit more adventurous, to take command and give himself time to get settled.
At the very least, if you made a point of contrasts, you'd done something with the phrase. And if not, no heuristic could think to save you.
Flora closed her eyes, imagining that it was Addam's glorious victory with silent stage-safe applause, sailing a deep and true color of mystery out over the whole ensemble and auditorium. She knew that her shoulders and eyebrows both were working overtime, but she didn't care. It had to be beautiful. It had to be daring. It had to be right.
When she opened them once more, instead of a director indicating approval or disapproval with a tempo-keeping nod, there was only Addam, gazing at her with some sort of barely-contained awe.
"That's how it should be," Flora said firmly. "Do it like that, and there's no way you can fail."
Children were fearless, and then again they were the ones most crucially kneecapped by apprehension and trepidation. Adults could shy away from greater opportunities, but children could miss the point entirely, if they weren't encouraged to grasp the brass ring, such as it was.
There was nothing for Flora to accompany him with, either, since the basses only held a B, then an A, then an E. Even if she did play along, she could only sit and stare.
She did like to sit and stare, though, for her own purposes. It was only for Addam's purposes that she thought it might be counterproductive.
So she turned away from him, held out an anacrusis hand, and began.
Half a beat later, Addam was in. It was still clunky, still awkward, still unsure. But there was something there, Flora swore. There was a mischief, a merriment and a melancholy, a gasping golden glint.
She'd never aspired to write program notes. She wouldn't start now.
Addam finished. Flora resisted the urge to glance back at him. She took another deep breath, and began again.
This time, he rushed. This time, he dragged. This time, he honked the G and dropped out entirely. This time, he swallowed up his notes, at the end.
Until it was perfect, Flora thought to herself. She'd played this piece long ago and had only had to dust off the solo, more or less, but Addam was coming into his own with it, so he had to get it right. There was no other time but now.
Whether she was listening for perfection or merely the promise of it, Flora didn't know. Oftentimes, the students showed her that the goal being set for them was achievable in some other, more nebulous way. Addam, bassoon in hand, was nothing more than a big kid trying to grow up (because Flora was forcing him to). He'd also do whatever she asked of him, without whining. That was an advantage the children never had.
She stared at the grandfather clock (thankfully, only half a wall tall, stood on a wooden chest of its own). Its face loomed ominously somewhere between half past seven and a clean-chiming eight. They could figure in a remarkable number of repetitions, should they need to. Flora herself hadn't faltered on the non-obligato once.
Probably, there was some rule she could follow about points of diminishing returns, and points at which one's tired lips (brass players called them chops; she didn't) would invariably falter. Oh, she never meant to torture the poor thing.
But eventually Addam's hand, flagging, went up in her own vision, and Flora laid down her instrument without another word.
"Are you ready?"
His mouth clearly worked around the shape of something like "as I'll ever be" or worse, but then he compromised: "Perhaps not yet, but I will be."
Satisfactory.
"If you'll come over again?"
Flora packed up her instrument with a silent sigh, carefully swabbing the inside of the barrel and gently patting the underside of the pads. Usually, by mere dint of the rehearsals taking place in the evening, when working adults were free, she enjoyed it only as much as she had leftover energy from encouraging herself until the time that it would be over.
This practice session had been both pleasant and unpleasant, rewarding and demoralizing. She'd wished for it to be over, tonight, because she'd thought that her final exercise of bravery and restraint was waiting for her on the other side.
But now, it seemed, Addam was duly prepared to send her home. She'd never even taken off her cardigan...
It was as she clicked the final latch, zipped up the protective cover, that she finally heard Addam's voice again.
"Wait," he said.
His bassoon was leant in its stand, which he'd set up as part of the cacophany of preparation, as if to suggest that as soon as she left, he'd start right in practicing again, until threat of noise complaints (unless, of course, these weren't the cheapest of flimsy walls).
So Flora waited, finding herself almost amused by the prospect. What, indeed, could possibly come next?
Addam cleared his throat. Now, perhaps, he'd speak in a full sentence.
"I'd thought you'd come over to see me, personally. Not just," he waved dismissively, "my bassoon."
"That's an innuendo," Flora remarked drily. "You'd better be careful."
"Oh, absolutely, absolutely!" Addam held his hands away in a show of deference. "I will do whatever you say. I truly mean it."
It was the proclamation of a cad who had no idea how to treat a lady. This was one of the things women did not do - and Flora rarely found herself in the care of a butch, but when she did, they hardly felt the need to posture, if her experience was to be believed.
"You'll let me go home?"
Addam paused, not to deliberate but to exhale. "If that's what you would like to do. I'd walk you out, in that case."
"But I don't want you to walk me out," Flora said, tone intentionally warm and agreeable. She turned her case on the long end so that the handle offered itself upright for holding at her side. If not the cardigan signal, then this.
"Ah," Addam said, and hung his head. "Well, alright then."
Then, Flora extended her hand, as if she wanted Addam to shake it in greeting, salutation, closing, goodbye.
"Would you make me a cup of tea?"
"Would you stay?" This time, Addam didn't inhale, didn't hardly breathe.
Flora smiled once more, gratified beyond hope. "I'd be honored."
The couch was generous, woven cloth with worn cushions. It was just the right depth, both up to down and front to back. Of course, Flora didn't so much care about how wide it might have happened to be, because she and Addam together only took up the width of one cushion.
The tea sat steaming on the coffee table, ignorant of its misnamed host. Flora, for her part, pretended to have no knowledge of its proper steeping time, the better to see how posh Addam truly was, and how he liked it prepared.
(A point for him, in fact, that he didn't ask her any questions about it. Somehow, he knew the fawning was past.)
There was a television on the wall across from the sofa, which Addam confessed that he only used to play elevator music when his brain was wanting of just the tiniest taste of classical, even if it couldn't fully focus.
He didn't care for sports. He used to be some kind of a half-rate swimmer. He played golf, but only when invited by a family friend - actually, he refused to own the clubs.
See, Flora thought to herself, he is sensible and down-to-earth, after all. He isn't out of touch, even though he's getting there.
Out of touch? Luckily, not out of reach to touch. Addam had offered no blanket to drape over the pair of them, instead sitting up straight but allowing Flora to cozy herself up as close as she wished, and no more (nor any less). Their cardigans pooled together in the space between their thighs, her loafers neatly placed at the end of one arm of the couch and her feet curled up to one side.
"You're lovely," Addam said softly. Even though he didn't whisper in her ear, his breath made the barest tickle, the suggestion of an audacious caress.
"Thank you," replied Flora, and then, to deal with the fact that it felt so stilted, "I think you're very handsome, too."
The beard. Back to the beard. How old?
"I have a question," she whispered.
"Anything," he whispered back.
Well, if he said so. "How old are you?"
Addam's middle fingertip made distracted dots, rhythmically, just above the knee of his slacks. "Thirty-five." He let that sit. "And I know I shouldn't ask, but...you?"
"Twenty-nine." Shouldn't ask, my foot. They both had a right to know.
"Ah." She felt Addam sigh, behind her (how had that happened?). "That's not so bad, then, is it?"
"No," Flora agreed, nearly preening. "Not so bad at all."
Flora hadn't only been being coy when she'd asked for the tea; she was thirsty, and also a little chilly, and dehydrated from the nonstop long tones.
When it was just cool enough to drink, she took it in both hands (it was an oversize mug, almost big enough to seem a gag) and sipped at it, humming between careful slurps.
"It's delicious, thank you," she said, and meant it; not too sweet, not too strong. Just like her, she supposed.
Since Addam hadn't made himself any, Flora was free to assume that he either didn't like tea, but knew how to make it, or was feeling too jittery to drink anything but something stronger. And considering how young he looked, Flora hypothesized that he probably didn't drink. Any liquor to be found in the cabinets could just as easily belong to the largesses of some of those apocryphal golfing relatives with the spare change handy to send bubble mailers, or whatever it was you used to mail alcohol. Could you mail alcohol?
Flora got approximately one-third of the way through her tea, then set it down, meticulously centering it on the trivet (nearby, there was a stack of cold-drink coasters; all the appearances of excess, with none of the behaviors).
"What kind of work do you do, Addam?"
Much too late in the evening to be making small talk, but she didn't really know what else to do. The great-uncle clock, somewhere out of view, was about to strike nine.
His eyebrows jumped a little, to be put on the spot, but he soon replied, "Accounting. I believe I mentioned."
His attempt to tidily tuck the topic away was no deterrent to the ever-fastidious Flora, however. "I believe you did - did I ever ask who for, though? What kind of industry, I mean."
Maybe it was government work. Maybe hoity-toity private sector. Maybe individual and small business tax - the sort of thing that made Flora despair of ever truly becoming a proper grown-up that her schoolchildren could openly admire, because it felt like something that was impossible to get right, and Flora so hated ever to get things wrong.
Addam eyed her. Flora eyed him back. Was there really such trouble a-brewing?
"My father's business," he said, after a beat. Which made sense enough - some distant relation, some full-adult son. "It's estate trading, or close enough. Boring stuff, really."
And Flora didn't disagree. "Do you like it?"
Addam sighed. "I get along with it. Is that good enough for you?"
Well, maybe she should be affronted. "It's not me it has to be good enough for. It's your life."
"Lots of us have lives," Addam said, sighing again. "We don't all only enjoy them."
"But you enjoy your music," Flora prodded. Our music, actually.
"Yes." Addam's tone was cold, but then it warmed. "Yes, yes I do. And all life has seasons. I try to keep myself open to change."
"Change like this?" Flora tried to keep her own voice light, noncommittal, but she couldn't help feeling delightfully hopeful. Oh, this silly change, of all winterly ways for the wind to blow!
Addam turned to look over and down at her, eyes steady. "It's a pretty good one, isn't it?"
"I like it," she said. "But I'd like it better if it felt a little more...real."
"Real, you say?" Addam's gaze shifted to the ceiling as he wrapped his arms around Flora's neck and shoulders and pulled her in, his cardigan loose but the chest beneath it open and yielding.
What would anyone think? What would Carys say?
She didn't have to tell anyone, of course - well, they didn't have to tell anyone, but now that Flora thought on it, she wasn't sure who Addam even had to tell, anyway.
"Are you close with anyone in the orchestra?" she wondered aloud.
As Addam's thumb stroked her bare shoulder where the cardigan had fallen in slow circles, he thought on it. So maybe not very close with any one, but close enough to consider that there might be some.
"Not really," he replied at length. "It's funny - I think of myself as a very gregarious sort of man, but then among so many people, I keep to myself. Of course, I'm in no thievery with Azami. And Khanoro least of all."
"Why?" Flora found that she liked to probe into Addam's ambling thoughts. "Doesn't he like you? Or do you think the Kalendar Prince has banished you from his good favors?"
"Oh, no, no." Addam reluctantly removed one hand from Flora's freckled shoulder to wave away the concern. "It's nothing to do with that. I've never been close with my father, though I'm sure he loves me."
What an odd analogy. "You think of the maestro as being like your father? I suppose I'm variously anxious to meet him, then."
Just then, Addam met her wandering gaze with a truly roguish twinkle in his eye. "You already have."
"I--" What, in the hallway? Oh, what would Carys think?
"Not being like," said Addam, gentle as anything now that his trick had been turned. "Simply is."
Which would explain why Addam had already given up the farm, to have shown himself incapable of mastering the Scheherezade solos. Flora faintly recalled that Zettar was the maestro's half-brother; now this, his apparently-estranged son.
"Good at keeping things quiet, aren't you?" Flora made a stifled motion to reach for her tea, which Addam correctly interpreted as his cue to step in and bring it to her. She sipped again. He traced circles on her shoulder, rubbed some intangible mix of pride and sorrow and affection over her back.
All this, over an awkward entrance. And she was still here having school to teach tomorrow, a raucous pre-holiday Friday.
"It allows me to fail in my own way," Addam mused, expression peculiar. "No one knows that he's my father, so no one can accuse him of nepotism. And it's not like I'm so horrible as to be kicked out, anyway."
"Certainly not," mused Flora in kind. "And we both know that Azami doesn't want the work of principal player anyway." Neither did she wish to compete with Janine for contra duties, at any time.
Ask me about me, why don't you, she almost wanted to say, because they were parodies of themselves if they had only the bandwidth to speak of the orchestra and the apparent oligarchy that permeated it, but knowing Addam better in the context of the place where they'd met was just as agreeable.
They'd be on every concert together, if they weren't woodwinds. Imagine, her being a consummate freelance violin. But she wasn't, because that wasn't her way.
She got, instead, to have Addam all to herself where no one could see but just the two of them.
"I can't sleep here," Flora said, only almost coyly, managing to remain matter-of-fact even though no one had mentioned the issue (and who was there to object, anyway?).
"You've got work tomorrow." Addam found this sensible. Addam appreciated this. Addam had made no specific comment upon her choice of career in elevated childcare, but Flora wondered if he, perhaps, found it admirable.
He seemed to like everything else she did, though he'd given no reasons.
"Yes," Flora replied. "I left my school things at home when I picked up my clarinet."
She'd seen those canny young substitute teachers who waltzed in with little more than a carabiner, maybe a water tumbler, sometimes without even a lanyard to signal their belonging. In action, those were the ones that declared to students, "I don't even work here, so it's not my place to say," but still cared with the best of their hearts.
Sometimes Flora envied that type of work, fly-by-night during the day. But she also liked having something to commit herself to, to challenge herself by. Actually, it was probably why she liked playing in a community orchestra. There was no yelling, only good sense.
"You'll come back tomorrow night, then," said Addam, in no shape of a question. Still, it was a polite enough proposition.
"Maybe I will." Maybe I will. Flora thrilled to consider it. "But hold me now, if you would?"