Accidental Notes: A Novel

Chapter 38

Heaven Can Wait

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Catch up on chapter 37 here.

Dad drops Grayson and me off at the church an hour and a half early. While I warm up my scales and arpeggios, Grayson gets my laptop ready for our call. “Everything’s working,” he says a few minutes later. “Do you want me to stay? I can go if you need me to.”

“Stay. In case something happens with the call,” I say. It’s not the real reason and I’m sure he knows it isn’t. He confirms this when he comes to the bench and places his hands on my shoulders and plants a single kiss on the crown of my head.

“Whether you get the role or not, you’re an amazing pianist.”

I lean back against his chest. “I might not be the kind of pianist he’s looking for. Mr. Gutierrez all but said so during my last audition. He complimented me and turned me down anyway.”

Grayson sighs and sits down beside me on the bench. “I know. You’ve told me. But if that’s all you’re thinking about, you won’t be the best that you can be.”

Our words don’t echo like they should in this sanctuary. They feel secret. Just for us. “When we were here for that competition, I sat backstage in one of the prayer rooms. All I could think about was how after five years of practicing, it was the first time it would really matter. I had to put on my best performance so I could justify all the hours I spent working on it. My stomach was a mess. There was the trophy, and the audience, and so much pressure to be perfect. Then I thought I was, but it turns out my perfect wasn’t better than your good.”

“Adaya.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know what I was thinking about that day before we performed?”

“I don’t know, lunch?”

He laughs, straight-up laughs. Not like he’s making fun of me, but laughing with me, for the ways in which I remain myself. “Absolutely not. I thought a little about how I would congratulate you on your win when it was all over, because I knew you would. But, mostly, my mind was in the music itself. Why I chose that song. What I could do with it. What I wanted to make people feel when I played. What did you want to make people feel then?”

It sounds stupid now. “I wanted to make them feel proud of me.”

Grayson takes a deep breath. “Please don’t hate me for what I’m about to say. Promise?”

I dig an elbow into his side. “I don’t know, I got pretty good at it for five years. I could probably find my way back again.”

“I’m serious.”

“Then I promise.” Our arms are touching, and I move enough that we can interlock our fingers. Eyes closed. Head on his shoulder. “You’re not going to scare me away from you. Not even if you make me mad. I’ll still be here.”

His fingers twitch against mine. “And it won’t affect the thinking about us you have scheduled in about an hour?”

Now it’s my turn to laugh because of the ways in which he is himself. “Just say it already.”

“If all you were trying to make people feel was proud of you, you weren’t using your music the right way. The song you played isn’t about pride. It was about how Debussy felt walking under the moonlight.”

“You… remember the song I played?”

“‘Clare de Lune’? Of course I do. We practiced every day at recess, remember? You were good at it, even without thinking about how the music felt. I always paid attention to you. You’ve always been worth noticing.”

I kiss his cheek, because there aren’t words for that.

“I never asked you what you decided to play.”

“Stand up. I put the music in the bench.”

He does and I hand over the stack of paper. It only takes one glance before he meets my eyes again. “Really?”

“It’s perfect, don’t you think?”

Grayson pulls me against him and kisses me. My sheet music gets wrinkled between us as his lips move against mine. But this boy is showing me exactly what it means to make someone feel. “You’re going to do amazing,” he says, breathless, when we pull away. “But can I hear it first?”

I smooth out the wrinkles the best I can, and I play.

A few minutes before the audition is set to start, I open Zoom on my laptop. Grayson nods at me then goes to sit in the first row of the church. I hope Mr. Gutierrez and my mom don’t notice how much Grayson affects me. They start the meeting side by side, close enough I think they’re holding hands.

“Hey, Mom. Mr. Gutierrez.” My mind is eager to race through all the ways I want to make them proud of me, but Grayson is right. I take a breath. I don’t need to show off. I need to use music to feel things, and hopefully to make Mom and Mr. Gutierrez feel them, too. “How are you?”

“Just fine. How are you, honey?” Mom says.

I sneak a glance at Grayson in the pews. He’s smiling at me. “I’m good. But I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. You’re ready for this?”

My cheeks flush, but it’s not nervousness: it’s an embarrassment that’s hard to explain. In a lot of ways, I think I’ve been hiding behind perfection. Playing this song the way I feel it is sharing parts of me that are weak and nervous and uncertain. I had wanted to hide behind Brennan’s feelings, but he isn’t here, and neither is his music. “I’m ready.”

I back away from the laptop and make sure the piano is on screen. Grayson already checked to make sure the noise wouldn’t overwhelm the poor-quality microphone on my laptop.

“At your leisure,” Mr. Gutierrez says once I’m seated. For an instant, I remember how I’ve only played classical pieces for him, and he has a choral role for me, and I’m about to play a rock ballad from the 1970s.

But it’s music that speaks to me, even when I insist it doesn’t. I don’t know what I want Mr. Gutierrez to feel when he hears it, because he won’t get it. But I want Mom to feel how sad I am that I never got to know Brennan. When the key changes back and forth, I want to feel uncertain what things will look like when our family switches keys. After all, we’ll be going from F to G, too. And I want to use this song to mourn my grandmother like I should have done at her funeral.

I fall into the notes as they cascade up and down this piano. I miss a few accidental notes. I miss the same notes that messed me up at the funeral, but I’m not thinking much about what I’m supposed to be playing. Grayson is right. Mr. Gutierrez is right. There are more important things.

When I finish, I let every last echo of the G chord resound before I face my laptop again. The acoustics are wonderful here. It takes time for the notes to fade, and I spend those moments breathing deeply, happy tears blurring my vision. No matter what happens, I’m glad I gave this audition a chance.

I sit down on the floor of the stage and bring my laptop with me. Mom’s face is scrunched up, and Mr. Gutierrez is paying more attention to Mom than to me. I can’t tell anything from his face except that he really loves her.

“So, that was my song,” I say, because it’s like they’ve forgotten I’m there. “I hope you don’t mind that I chose something so unconventional.”

“It was perfect,” he says.

“No, it wasn’t,” I say before realizing it’s probably a bad idea to critique my own audition. I remember the mistakes. He had to have heard them, too.

“Adaya. It isn’t the notes you play that make something perfect. When you’re accompanying, they need you to keep pace, even more than to play the right notes. You work together to make the music. They’re relying on you not to be perfect, but to be present. You certainly figured that out.” I can’t help the glance at Grayson, or the blush that spreads all the way down into my neck and collarbone when I look at him. “You’ve figured out how to keep going when the plan fails. I think you and the school choir are going to work well together. Congratulations.”

I snap my head back to the screen so fast it hurts a little. “What? Really? I — ”

Relief sits heavy in my skin. Getting everything I worked for doesn’t feel as big as I thought it would. I thought I’d feel validated. Proof that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. But it’s just another moment. Real, wonderful, but almost anticlimactic. “Wow. I, uh, didn’t expect an answer immediately. Can I think about it?”

Mr. Gutierrez looks at my mom. I watch their conversation, though it doesn’t have any words. He probably expected me to be giddy with excitement.

“Two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have needed half a second to decide, but now? I’ve been so focused on getting the part I forgot to stop to make sure I wanted it.”

He smiles, tension easing from his muscles. “Of course. Practice starts on the first day back to school, so I expect to hear soon,” he says.

“I understand. Thank you so much for letting me audition for another role. Really. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”

Mom looks at me like she doesn’t even know who I am, then doesn’t say anything before hanging up the call. I shut my laptop and Grayson immediately runs on stage. “Did I just hear you correctly? You asked if you could think about it? He offered you the part! That’s all you could talk about since you got here.”

On this stage where Grayson first won a competition against me, where I keep messing up, for the first time, I feel completely comfortable not knowing what I want just yet. “Other things became more important. Like figuring out who my family is. And who you are to me.” I check my watch dramatically for the time. “By my calculations, it’s time I make that decision.”

Grayson pulls me into a hug and it’s better than anything Mr. Gutierrez could offer. I’ve won everything I could possibly imagine. His shirt is soft on my cheek as I breathe against him. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be here.”

I know that. He’ll be there every time I see an elaborate Christmas tree, or French toast, or snowmen. He’ll be the one playing the piano whenever I hear it in a score.

He’s everywhere. Grayson is absolutely everywhere.

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