The Girl from the Bus
Chapter Two
The music piece accompanying this chapter is Kerry Muzzey - Architect of the Mind (youtube com (slash) watch?v=R-cp5Jka9UE )
Grant was more nervous about meeting this famous Melinda May than he anticipated. He had made a mistake last night and typed her name into a browser. What he saw was a petite woman of Chinese origin, who wielded a double bass like it was a spear. In a musical sense; she wasn't doing spear dance with it. Still, her playing style was impressive and the way she managed to draw melody from a rhythmic instrument was something else entirely. On top of that she was a women rights activist, a very vocal and respected one at that.
At least Grant slept like a baby, after a double dose of sleeping pills. Better safe than sorry and he needed to be rested for such a life-altering event, despite Maria suddenly backtracking and assuring him that it was all not such a big deal. He didn't even remember waking up at night but the glass on the kitchen counter was proof enough that he hadn't neglected his four a.m. routine.
Of course, Grant blackmailed Maria to drive him to Melinda May's house, where the mysterious musician held her auditions.
If you make me take the bus, I'm gonna have a panic attack and I'm not gonna go, he'd written.
"Fine," Maria had snarled in response, "but I'm not getting in with you. We park, a block away, and you're on your own."
Grant only furrowed his eyebrows in a 'why?' expression but Maria completely ignored him.
The house Maria directed him to, was located at the end of the street, on a hill. Its modern architecture, surrounded by lush green trees, gave off the impression of modest luxury. The side of the building that faced the street was off-white and windowless but as Grant approached the three steps before the entrance, the view to the garden-side of the building opened and he saw tall windows and part of the interior through them. At a black grand piano sat a black haired woman dressed in white long dress. He saw her hands move lightly over the keys and heard a faint melody. It was sweet and somehow angry, sad and at the same time strangely defiant. It brought to mind wind and open fields and bright blue skies. Grant took a moment to listen, before ringing the bell.
It was almost four p.m. and he didn't like to be late.
He counted his heartbeats, while he waited for the door to open. Eleven, twelve, thirteen. On the fourteen the lock clicked and then, there she was. Melinda May was two heads shorter than him, she didn't look more than thirty, but she carried herself like a mature woman well aware of her benefits and shortcomings and he knew from all the info he found on the internet that she was a... few years older. The white thing she was wearing, that he thought was a dress, turned out to be a light-gray blouse and sport pants.
"Hello?" she half greeted him, half asked and he nodded, handing her the note he had prepared beforehand.
Hi, it said, I'm Grant Ward and we had an appointment at four p.m.
Oh, and I don't speak, think Maria forgot to mention that.
"No, she didn't say anything." Melinda looked up at him, scrutinizing, as if she tried to assess how dangerous this mute man could be. Grant tried to look friendly and he apparently succeeded, because Melinda opened the door a crack wider and gestured for him to enter.
It sometimes amused him how people who learned about his muteness, initially resorted to gestures as well. It was a phase, of course. They quickly realized they didn't have enough waves and shrugs in their repertoire to express everything they wanted to convey.
Melinda walked to the room he saw from the outside. It was mostly empty, vast expanse of polished wooden floor and white walls with a few black-and-white photographs of the owner with her prime instrument. The actual double bass stood in the corner between the wall and the modern-style floor-to-ceiling window that took up two sides of the room. The window opened to the slanted meadow and a barrier made of trees, a few yards away. The black grand piano occupied the center of the room, with a note-stand and a chair next to it. The whole first floor of the house was open, the sterile white and red and black kitchen at the back and open staircase leading to the second floor clung to the outside, windowless wall.
Grant stopped next to the recliner that seemed to mark the boundary between the entrance area and the living- the music room. Melinda turned to him and spread her hands.
"So," she said. He could tell she was tense but she managed to hide her discomfort with skill that Grant found admirable. "Do you need anything to drink, a moment to get acquainted with this space maybe, or shall we go straight to playing some music?"
Frankly, Grant wanted to hear her play that piece she had been practicing when he'd arrived. It was too complicated a request though, so he placed his violin on the recliner, pulled the writing pad and pen and wrote,
We may play. What did you have in mind?
He handed the pad to her and she read it intently.
"I thought about some Debussy, Schubert, Mozart maybe?"
Piano and violin duets, apparently. He extended his hand for the pad and she gave it back, somewhat abashed. Took position next to him, to better see what he was writing.
Debussy's Sonata? He asked and Melinda nodded.
"That and maybe something easier to warm up. Do you need the score?"
I haven't played it in a while. It took time to scribble full sentences like this, but Grant didn't want to take shortcuts on their first meeting. He added an explanatory: I may need to refresh my memory.
Melinda nodded and walked away to the bookstand, hidden cleverly between the main room and the kitchen.
"How about we begin with Mozart, Sonata in G Major, and maybe..." She flipped some sheets, then turned to him. "Shubert, Sonata in A Major, Opus 162? Do you know those?" Grant nodded. "Would you rather play standing or seated?" She asked, and because she was too far now to see his scribbling, Grant instinctively made a sign for chair. He corrected himself immediately, by pointing at the piece of furniture. Melinda nodded curtly.
"Come on, then."
She didn't smile. Melinda May's face was expressionless like that of a statue, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. In the way she moved, though, Grant sensed strength, firm core deep within. People like this, with their no-nonsense attitude and confidence, made him feel secure, grounded. He liked that.
He flipped the pages, tried some more difficult passages from each piece for a few minutes, while Melinda waited, her hands on her lap. Finally he decided he was ready and they begun with the Mozart Sonata. It was mostly an exercise in technique and Grant knew he passed that test with flying colors. Shubert required a little more emotional approach but they only played a part of allegro and then the beginning of the scherzo when Melinda decided she wanted to try Debussy.
"Do you want to take a break? Something to drink maybe?" she asked and Grand cast a brief glance at his writing pad, left abandoned at the recliner. He wasn't thirsty enough to warrant the effort it would take to communicate his needs, so he simply shook his head.
Debussy's Sonata for violin and piano was one of the finest compositions ever written for those two instruments. It was also difficult, especially for the pianist and Melinda May wasn't spectacular on this instrument. Grant could hear her missing notes in more complex accords. However, toward the end of Intermede he begun to feel like her piano and his violin were actually having a conversation. The Finale started delicate and erupted in passionate argument of accords and tertias and ricochetes, only to suddenly become something else entirely.
For a heartbeat Grant was startled but recovered quickly. It was the piece she had played before he'd come in. The angry and defiant one but it passed from the Debussy's heart‑wrenching sadness seamlessly. Breath caught in Grant's throat when he realized Melinda May expected him to improvise.
And improvise he would. He listened to her notes carefully and found an opening to let his instrument speak. He first repeated her chords and melody but soon begun to add his own interpretation. He closed his eyes and let imagination show him those open spaces and freedom and elation he imagined earlier. He felt like flying. Among the clouds, through the vast expanse of blue, warmed by the sun and soaked in the rain and occasionally struck by lightning that rolled and rolled and rolled away on the tumultuous low notes of the thunder.
When they finished, for a moment he couldn't breathe. He needed to blink the tears from his eyes, before he would look up and meet Melinda May's gaze.
He saw her smile. The tiniest lift of the corners of her lips but there it was. Her eyes sparkled too.
Grant couldn't hold himself back. He laid away his violin and strode for the writing pad.
What's this piece? he wrote. Title?
"Sky," Melinda said quietly and Grant, for the second time this day, couldn't catch his breath. He knew it! He felt it, he imagined it. His eyes stung and his chest ached but it was a good ache, like being pierced with a sun ray.
Melinda ran her finger on the edge of the piano as if removing invisible dust.
"I have this friend," she begun and Grant had to lean close to catch those words. "He's a writer. A famous writer, he has a few successful novels to his name, some awards. But the thing is, he hasn't published anything in five years." She glanced up, wary, guarded. "Five years ago..." hesitated, "well, something bad happened to him five years ago. And he just couldn't find his footing again, you know." She fell silent.
She put her fingers on the keys and started playing the melody again. Just a simple one-note one-handed melody. Grant stayed as silent as ever, unmoving, hypnotized, waiting. And she spoke again, still as quiet. "Then, one day, last year, he came to me and asked me to play something for him, on a piano. I did and, as I was playing, he started telling me this story." Her left hand joined the right one in low, deep sounds. "He would come every day, for about a month, I would play and he would talk. At first I was playing from sheets, but as his story progressed, my music changed. I found that other people's melodies didn't fit the tale. Before I knew it, I started composing. I do that, I write music, but this one is different. And here's the catch." Melinda stopped playing.
She turned her whole body toward Grant, hands folded on her lap, face lit up. "It turned out that he was writing down those tales of his as I was writing the music. He wrote a new novel. And in three months from now – it's coming out. He doesn't know about my composition, but I thought it would be amazing, if I could play it at the reception his agent plans to hold on the day of the publication. I already spoke to Steve, the agent, and he's all for it. All I need is to find the people who would play it with me. See, it's mostly for piano and I'm not a pianist, I'm a double bass player."
I know what you can do with double bass, Grant thought but he didn't want to interrupt her tale, so he didn't even reach for his writing pad.
Melinda continued. "Besides, since I am a double bass player, I can hear my instrument in the melody as well, and then, there's room for violin and viola, maybe a cello. Actually, what you did with the melody just now..." She looked up and her eyes glistened. She quickly turned her face away, ashamed but she needn't to. Melting a little was nothing to be ashamed of. "It's like you know it already. I regret I didn't record it, it was very... I'm sorry I'm usually not that teary." She wiped her face.
Grant lifted his hand, ready to touch her, to comfort her but hesitated and when she turned to look at him again, he withdrew it hastily. She didn't seem to notice.
"I wanted to have young people do this." She was calm and collected again and Grant wasn't sure if what she said was supposed to make him worry. Like, maybe she didn't want him, because he wasn't young enough? His heart sped up. "I have friends who could play it with me," she said, "but I wanted students, or people fresh out of the Conservatory. I thought you were younger, you know? When Maria told me about you." She shrugged. "I had this whole idea about finding talented young people, because that's who this novel is about, a girl who doesn't even realize how brilliant she is. But now that you're here, I want you." She gave him that hint of a smile again. A glimmer of hope in her shining eyes. "Will you do this with me? The pay isn't enormous and we have a tight schedule and I don't have anybody else lined up yet, Phil really surprised me with this announcement two weeks ago, but I need..." she stopped.
Grant wrote big, bold, I want to do this, and put it up in front of her face.
Her eyes jumped from the writing to his face a few times until she sighed, nodded and uttered, "Great."
Grant nodded with a smile.
"You're brilliant too, by the way," she added, standing up and gathering music sheets. "Do you know that? What are you doing here, playing in a damn community orchestra? You should be out there, in Boston or New York." She didn't walk away, didn't turn away, instead she waited for his response.
Grant shrugged and sighed. Then he used a speak sign with a headshake, hoping she would understand.
She did. At least the part where he said he didn't talk.
"I'm sure there are ways to go around that. Disability shouldn't deprive you of chances to pursue your dreams, your career."
She had no way of fully comprehending the complexity of his situation. Not without him disclosing more about himself. He took the writing pad and begun to scribble.
There's more to it. I've anxiety issues. Don't deal with stress well. Need stability and quiet. Now? I've taken a 2 dose of my happy pill just to come here. I'm a mess.
She moved to look over his arm while he wrote. He couldn't see whether she wanted to ask "why?" or "what happened?" In the end she didn't; instead she just gave his arm a light squeeze and sighed.
He wrote, You still want me for this?
"Of course!" Now she walked away, as if refusing him a chance to say he couldn't be a part of her plans. "After today, I can't imagine this project without you."
t.b.c.