“Dad, it’s like six hours in the car to get there and back, plus thirty dollars of toll money. I still haven’t found a part-time job, so I have to watch my ‘allowance.’” Sophie made sure to smile and roll her eyes like it was all a matter of money and all a minor inconvenience. It worked, for now.
As if on cue, her father started a lecture on the criminal prices of tollway fees and the automation of EZ-Passes that were ruining the potential for hard-working folks to keep their jobs safe from robots. She nodded in all the right places. Inside, she wondered how many more times that excuse would work. She wondered when she’d really have to take job-hunting seriously.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go home. She just knew that when she did, she might not be able to force herself to ever leave the apartment again. The thousands of eyes in the city were too much. The few startled stares that she earned even in this remote mountain town were too much.
Maybe it was time to go back on her anxiety medication, but it ruined her appetite. She’d become dangerously thin and stopped sleeping, taking her look from slender to skeletal in a matter of months before the doctors realized the pills did more harm than good.
“Alidz? Check the screen. She’s frozen.” Her father’s exasperated groan startled her back to the present.
“I’m here!” Sophie blurted. “Sorry, I was just— thinking that it’s great that at least they can’t make a robot teach the cello.”
“Yet!” Her father slammed his fist down on the table and he was off again about self-checkouts and self-pay turnstiles at the subway. Her mother nodded supportively, piling more food on his plate.
Sophie bit down a grin. Her parents were so freaking cute together, even after twenty-two years of marriage. Her father still scooped his petite wife up like she was a teddy bear and swung her around. She still purred and giggled his name andcalled him her “Hot Cup of Coffee”, which apparently had some secret meaning that made them both smirk.
As she watched her mother cluck supportively and pat her father’s tense shoulders, Sophie had another dreadful realization.
I’m not asexual.
I want that kind of steady, long-lasting, still romantic, still-in-love love. I’m never going to have it.
The salty, starchy goodness that she’d been looking forward to all week was suddenly an unpalatable tangle in her mouth.
“Sam. Samuel, stop going on about the instant ordering at the deli! Can’t you see Sophie is upset?”
“No! Mom, seriously, I’m not. I— just got a really big chunk of raw carrot and I bit down on it wrong. No big.”
“Sophie, are you lying to your mother?”
“No! Do you want me to try to hurk it back out so I can show it to you on the screen?”
Her father made a disgusted face and her mother squealed. All three of them dissolved into giggles.
She loved her family so much. She had to stick this out or they’d blame themselves and claim they’d failed her.
It wasn’t their fault they adopted a freak. That was probably why her biological parents hadn’t wanted her.
FALL ROLLED ON, SEEMINGto speed up as October arrived. The nights drew in and the rain never let up. Sophie pretended that she had made friends. She told her mom and dad stories of the awesome kids in the orchestra. Thereweregreat people there, she just made it sound like they had welcomed her with open arms.
True, there had been some sectionals that ended with everyone eating pizza. She passed them off as parties,responsible ones with nice kids that didn’t drink alcohol. Some of the girls in the cello and violin sections had invited her to hang out, but she could tell the invitation was a way to invite all the new string members at once; it wasn’t that they specifically liked her.
If there was one person she listened to, it was her conductor and cello teacher, Professor Grigoryan. “We are going to have some spooky fun!” he said, waggling his caterpillar-like eyebrows as he addressed the entire orchestra early in October. “The Panhellenic Society is having a costume ball and I’m looking to pull together a chamber orchestra who will have fun with some of the greats!”
“The greats?” said Brooke Mendenhall, first chair in the violas.
“Monster Mash,Thriller,The Purple People Eater!” he cried, waving his baton.
Everyone laughed. Before Sophie knew it, she was raising her hand to volunteer.
“Of course, we have to show them what we’re made of.Danse Macabre,Night on Bald Mountain... Someone get me the score fromDraculawith Gary Oldman!” More laughing, more hands raised. In the end, there were enough volunteers for a fifteen-piece chamber group. Grigoryan asked anyone who was interested to stay behind and work out some times to rehearse and pick up their music.
Maybe I’m going to find my niche. Yeah. Maybe this will be a way to get to know people. I won’t be so nervous if I have my cello.Her cello was her shield and her security blanket.
“SOPHIE!” PROFESSORGrigoryan handed her a thick folder when she came for her lesson. “Here’s your music. I’m gladyou’re going to play with our little chamber group. Will you be my stand partner?”
“Wh-what? Aren’t you conducting?” She felt herself blushing, not that it would show.
“Well, yes, but from a sitting position.” He had a warm laugh that matched his smile. “I’ll be first cello and I think you should be my partner.”
