Sway

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Tiny arms wrapped around my neck and I was the recipient of a very wet kiss. “Wow, she’s not shy at all.” Not that I was an expert, but I’d always thought two-year-olds hid behind their mother’s legs rather than running up to a complete stranger and holding their arms out for a hug.

I put little Elle down and she ran back to her mother. Lexi picked her up and she nestled into her mother’s lap. “Nope. She’s a little flirt.” Elle grabbed her mom’s long auburn hair and covered her face with it. Lexi laughed.

“She looks just like you.”

“Thankfully.” They shared the same wide-set eyes and pouty mouth. Not that I knew what the father looked like. Nor would I, from the sounds of it.

I sat across from Lexi in her tiny North Hollywood apartment, toys strewn around my feet and a doll digging into my back. Freshman year at Juilliard, Lexi had walked into Ethics class toting her violin in one hand and a stack of books in the other. She accidentally whacked me in the back of the head with her case as she was walked by. Before long, we were friends, roommates and confidantes.

I moved the toy, handing it to Elle when she stretched her arms out for it.

“I think you should tell me where he lives,” I said. “I’ve got words. Lots of words.” There was a ton I wanted to say to the guy who’d left Lexi pregnant and hadn’t been heard from since.

She burst out laughing. “You’re so intimidating.”

“What? You don’t think he’d be scared of me?”

“All five-foot-nothing of you? He’d slam the door in your face.” Her smile died. She hugged Elle closer, burying her nose in the little girl’s ginger hair.

I felt a painful tuba-blast of pity through my heart. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop looking at me like that,” Lexi said, her lips curling.

“I just can’t believe you have a daughter.” After Lexi got her Bachelor’s degree, she moved to LA, got a new job and a new boyfriend. My best friend had a whole new life and I hadn’t been around for any of it. Worst of all, I hadn’t been there when that life fell apart.

“I can’t believe you’re back in LA,” she said.

“Definitely wasn’t the plan.”

Lexi put Elle on the floor. “I’m sorry about Kaz. That really sucks.”

“It was mutual.” Just what I’d said to Aunt Rose. Lexi didn’t seem to buy it either.

She leaned forward, her brown eyes aimed at me. “Really?”

My mind went back to New York. I pictured myself sitting in my favorite leather chair by the window, working on my thesis while Kaz played Bach on his cello.

Kazuo Takahashi was quiet in everything he did. For some reason, I was drawn to it. His talent, vast yet unobtrusive. His soft, almost whispered words. He was the exact opposite of who, and what, I was used to. Our relationship had been easy and comfortable, full of cello suites and piano sonatas, quiet moments and uncomplicated love. After three years together, we came to the realization that quiet wasn’t enough for either for us.

“Yes, it was mutual.”

Lexi nodded. “What happened?”

One leg crossed over the other, my foot swung around and around. “It got too comfortable. Too…nothing. Like there was nothing there. I mean we loved each other but—”

“Not enough.”

“I guess.” I hadn’t stopped loving Kaz, and I don’t think he had fallen out of love with me either. Leaving him, leaving New York, had been one of the toughest decisions I’d ever made. At least this time, I was positive it was the right one.

Almost positive.

Lexi bit a fingernail as she studied me. “Are you sure it has nothing to do with—”

“Don’t even say it.” I pursed my lips. “Anyway, why would it? That’s long over.”

She gave me a knowing look. “I heard he’s just finishing up his second world tour.” She smiled around the nail in her mouth. “Think he’ll settle back in LA?”

“I have no idea. You know I haven’t heard from Eric in eight years.”

“I know. I just thought maybe you’d heard through his fan club or something. You are the president, right?”

I picked up a stuffed puppy from the floor and threw it, hitting Lexi square in the face.

Elle started to cry as if I’d struck her mom with a cinder block. “Sorry, sorry,” I said, cringing at her tears.

Lexi shrugged it off with a laugh, soothing her daughter until she stopped crying. “So you’re living at home,” she said. “How pathetic.”

I picked up another toy, ready to throw but she raised an eyebrow, her eyes darting to Elle and back. I set the toy down.

“Actually, it’s worse.” I told Lexi how my dad had landed himself in financial cacophony. “Now my aunt is looking for renters. So it’s either find my own place, or end up in Malibu.”

“Ooh, please pick Malibu. Pleeease.” I shot her a dirty look. “I know you hate it there, but beach days! Every day beach days.”

I shook my head. “No way. Malibu is a last resort.”

“You could stay here. It would be like sophomore year all over again.”

I laughed, remembering how we used to stay up until four in the morning despite our early classes, talking and making smorgasbord smoothies.

“I couldn’t.” As much as I wanted to, there wasn’t room in Lexi’s apartment for me. Both bedrooms barely fit a bed and dresser, the living room was even smaller, and her kitchen was nothing more than a sliver.

She rolled her eyes. “I suppose it would be hard to live here after your gigantic mansion in the Hollywood Hills.”

“Come on, I’ve only been there one night. My apartment near school wasn’t much bigger than this.”

“You mean the brownstone on the Upper West Side?”

I sobered. Dad wouldn’t be able to help me this time. I had to find a way to make rent all on my own. But I wouldn’t make things harder for Lexi than they already were. “I need a job.”

She flashed me her teeth. “Lexi to the rescue.”

“Really?”

“Yep. I got you an audition with my orchestra.”

“The California Philharmonic?” Jumping from my seat, I planted myself beside her, wrapping her in a hug. Some of her hair caught in my mouth and I sputtered it out. “You’re the best.”

“It’s only five performances this summer,” she said. “But the Maestro seemed excited about you. I told him you got your Masters at Juilliard and TA’d for the great Vassili Fedorov. I think he hasn’t hired a pianist yet because he’s waiting to hear you play.”

I broke the hug but left my arm slung over her shoulder. “You start in a couple weeks though, don’t you?” That wasn’t much time to learn new pieces, assimilate into a new orchestra.

“No biggie for you. Just wow him at the audition.” She rested her head on my shoulder. I groaned. “Sure. No big deal.”

Elle climbed into Lexi’s lap and the three of us snuggled together on the cracked leather couch. “Play Rachmaninoff. He’s a sucker for Rachmaninoff.”

“I think I can handle that.” Kaz and I used to play Rachmaninoff ’s “Vocalise, Opus 34” together. Already the first few chords were running through my head, my fingers moving along to the imagined notes. I knew the piece well, but it didn’t exactly show off my talent—the cello took center stage in the arrangement we played. I’d have gone with “Piano Concerto No. 2” if it hadn’t been such an obvious pick.

“Do you have anything else lined up?” Lexi asked and my fingers stilled. The song in my head evaporated.

“Professor Fedorov set up an interview for me at USC Thornton.”

“Wow, really?” Lexi’s eyebrows had climbed to her hairline. “Aren’t you a little…”

“Young to teach? Probably.” Most musicians my age preferred to perform, join an orchestra, tour, get a crack at some form of fame. But while I loved to play, my aspirations had never been on the spotlight. “I’m also looking into an arts high school in LA.”

“High school?” The surprise in Lexi’s voice was evident. The truth was, I felt more suited teaching high school over a university. At Juilliard, I’d mentored once a week and taught piano lessons at a local junior high. Watching the kids learn to love classical music as much as they loved pop and hip-hop? It was magical.

“The USC interview isn’t until next month. I don’t know what I’m going to do until then.”

Lexi shifted a now-sleepy Elle on her lap. “Offer’s still open.” She stood up slowly, trying not to wake Elle, and then tiptoed out of the room.

I couldn’t accept. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Lexi—she was my best friend—but I would be in the way. She was overwhelmed already. She didn’t need a squatter taking up space in her apartment.

Unfortunately, my list of options was smaller than my bank account.