Virtuoso
June
The very essence of romance is uncertainty.
The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays, Oscar Wilde
"The hallway's too narrow," Jaden complained as the three perspiring men tried to get the baby grand down the second flight of stairs.
"How did you two ever get this thing in here?" Keth asked, even though he knew it was a useless effort. He had learned from their college days together that Zak and Jaden had a gift – or in his experience, a curse – for being able to get any piece of furniture into the house, but zero ability to move it out again.
Zak only smiled, blissfully happy despite the fact that the piano was dangerously close to crushing his very talented fingers.
He'd thought about himself, and about Eli. He had even thought about Marsella Cabrera and listened to one of her recordings, something he hadn't been able to bring himself to do before. He thought about Ami, often, but he also thought about all his other students, gifted and ungifted – their hopes and dreams, their successes and their tragedies, the pieces of their worlds that they had shared with him. And he knew he was ready, not to go back, but forward.
As they sat on the steps, guzzling water and letting the scant June breeze whisk away their perspiration, Zak filled them in on some of the details of the past year that he had left out in previous conversations.
"Ah hah! I knew there was a girl involved," Jaden said smugly.
"Well… I think it always would have come back to me. But she probably helped things along more quickly," he admitted.
"And now? Do we get to meet this miracle worker?"
Zak's smile turned wistful. "I don't think so, Jay."
"What? Why not?" Not once, in all their long acquaintance, had Jaden ever known Zak not to have succeeded with a woman he talked about that way. Of course, his vanity was such that it didn't allow him to speak of his failures, but still, they were rare enough.
He wouldn't answer, but he did say, "If anyone named Ami Mizuno ever buys a ticket to a concert, please ask her to wait for me."
