A/N: This chapter takes places just after Elphaba sings for the charmed circle.
"… but nobody would sing again, because she had done so well. Nessarose nodded to Nanny to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye.
'Elphabasays she's not religious but see how feelingly she sings of the afterlife,' said Nessarose, and for once no one was inclined to argue." (152)
And no one argued about much at all after that. It was apparent that their evening outing was winding down and the conversation dwindled somewhat awkwardly until Crope and Tibbett excused themselves in what they thought was a very sly manner, being met only with a general rolling of eyes and shaking of heads. After that, the rest of the party members excused themselves gradually until Glinda and Elphaba found themselves back in their room at last.
Glinda was flipping half-heartedly through her literature text and scribbling out the last of her homework for the following day while Elphaba went about her evening routine in the bathroom. She set down her quill and glanced toward the adjacent door, left slightly ajar.
Much to her chagrin, Glinda found she couldn't seem to get that final conversation out of her head. Elphaba's ghostly little tune was still carrying on in her mind's ear. The simple purity of Elphaba's voice coupled with her lack of formal training bespoke a natural talent that made her voice, to Glinda, much more pleasing than the operatic gymnastics on which she had been brought up. The tone was clear, with only the slightest wavering vibrato to break the transparency of Elphaba's voice.
In fact, Glinda had half a mind to ask for an encore, but anticipating the answer to such a request, she skirted around the subject. "It was a wonderful song you sang tonight, Elphie," she called to the adjoining room.
"Eh…" was the reply, a verbal shrug.
"I mean it, you know. I wouldn't just saysomething like that."
There was shuffling in the other room, and Elphaba poked her head out the door. "Yes you would," she said, and backed out again.
"Well, maybe to someone, but not to you."
"I'm sure," came the reply, in a tone that meant she wasn't.
They both let the silence hang for a moment, hoping the other would continue until Glinda gave in, as they both knew she would. "Why don't you sing more often? After all this time, I never even knew."
Elphaba emerged from the washroom and settled herself on her bed, facing her friend. "Oh, I don't know," she said, and left the phrase so open and vague that until she continued, Glinda wasn't sure if she meant it sarcastically or if she really didn't know. "Can you imagine if I actually went somewhere with it? 'The Traveling Green Bean' – I expect I'd sell more tickets for the sake of curious eyes than curious ears."
Glinda rolled her eyes and fixed her with a look. "Elphie, you knew what I meant. Not singing professionally, just… at all. Even around friends, just for fun?"
"But it's not fun.It's just something that I do." Almost as a way of declaring the conversation's end, Elphaba flipped through her book bag and turned her attention to the contents of her notebook.
Glinda, however, persisted. "But you do enjoy it. I can see that. You can't sing like that and not care."
Elphaba was still pretending to sort through her notes, casually ignoring the remark on the pretense that she hadn't heard. Glinda, for her part, found it rather childish. "You heard what Nessa said. She's right, you know. Organized religion aside, that kind of passion requires a kind of spirituality, a soulfulness, if you'll pardon such an implication."
Glinda had touched on a topic that could not be resisted, and she knew it. "Soulfulness requires a soul, my pretty," came the predictable reply, laced with barely suppressed annoyance.
"Don't even start with that old argument again," said Glinda, though she had counted on just that. "I don't believe a word of it."
"Alright, I won't start with it then," said Elphaba, clearly intent on being as contrary as possible.
Glinda hadn't counted on this. She huffed a little and closed her book, deciding she'd finish the rest in the morning or not at all.
She was fully prepared to formulate a rebuttal when Elphaba surprised them both by continuing, softy. "Music only exists insomuch as we have the ability to perceive it. When you think about it… it doesn't even really exist. It only exists because of the way our ears interpret the sound. And so any emotional response to it is just… artificial."
And because of Elphaba's extreme aversion to any artificiality of any kind, even on the most basic, instinctual level, music was a means to an end and nothing more.
Glinda thought for several moments in an effort to script an appropriate and convincing response. What came out was even simpler and cleverer than she'd intended. "You think too much."
"What?"
"You need to think, I think. You think for the rest of us who don't."
Elphaba shifted a little in agitation and nearly stammered in her earnestness. "I don't believe such a thing is even – A person can't really – "
"No. It's true. It seems to me sometimes that you would be much happier if you could just stop and let things happen."
"Things don't simply happen to a person. You have to make them happen."
"Of course they do. Things happen to me all the-"
"Well things don't happen to me,Glinda."
They both fell into an immediate and uneasy silence. Glinda felt, as she sometimes did, that she had breached Elphaba's privacy and entered into that realm of childhood hardship to which she was naïvely ignorant. It was an area in which their lives never overlapped and which was generally avoided by both whenever possible, hindered as they both were by stereotypical misunderstandings and assumptions, the product of contrastingly sheltered beginnings.