If she were in front of me I’d punch her in the arm. “You dirty skank!”
Her laugh is so loud I have to pull the phone away from my ear. “I’m kidding. Not really. Well, kind of. But seriously, you need to get laid. Aren’t there any nice boys around?”
“No boys. Just Frank and a few guys at the academy. And Mattie who lives upstairs. He’s way too young. I don’t even think he can drink legally.”
“Oh . . . Do Mattie. Do Mattie!” she chants.
I shake my head at the thought. “Good night, Leah.”
“’Night, sis. I’ll text you the days the girls and I are coming to town. Love you!”
I hang up with Leah and finish my salad, tuning the pages on the class list for next week.
I look over the pages but my mind is only thinking of one thing.
Asher.
I could kick myself for letting my mind go there.
Leah and I stayed on Capri for three more days after he left. Three days I hoped he would return and clear up the misunderstanding. But there was no misunderstanding. He lied to me about who he was, got me in bed, and then disappeared.
For a split second I thought I was falling in love with him. Isn’t that tragic? After knowing him a short time I let myself think he was worth giving my heart to. I blame the sex. Yes, it was really good sex.
Clearly it was the kind of sex that makes you think only illogical thoughts.
Gah!I stand up and shake off all thoughts Alexander Asher. I need a cold shower and a good night’s sleep.
I turn up the stereo slightly and decide Mattie and I need something with more edge. I blast One Republic because while Mattie had a wicked day it looks like I’m gonna have a wicked night.
chapter FOURTEEN
For a girl who grew up in the Midwest and spent the last few years in Pittsburgh, moving to Manhattan was quite a change, though I’d like to say I’ve been catching on rather easily. Since I’ve moved to New York I’ve learned: avenue blocks are longer than street blocks, there are separate downtown and uptown train entrances (a lesson I learned the hard way, after swiping my trusty Metro Card), cabs with the number lit up are empty and available, cart food is delicious, five dollars for a domestic beer is completely reasonable and an empty subway car during rush hour is not a good thing. I’ll let you use your imagination as to why (I also learned that one the hard way).
The city has an energy unparalleled to any other. Even in the fall, a time of melancholy when the leaves are making their way to the ground, I find myself breathing in the new life the city has given me. Sure, I haven’t taken advantage of the nightlife, and I only know a handful of people, but just walking through the streets, looking at the architecture, seeing the people and hearing the sounds of the hustle and bustle gives me the charge I need to put one step in front of the other.
I chose my neighborhood because it’s a short walk to the Juliette Academy. The school is housed in a landmark building on the corner of Suffolk and Rivington, in the Lower East Side. The Gothic Revival architecture of the building has lancet windows and spiral-like finials that make it look like a nineteenth-century church.
I wasn’t home from Italy two weeks when Frank contacted me, letting me know the school was opening the first week in October and was looking for an Assistant Director of Music Performance. I couldn’t believe they wanted me. I mean, the pay isn’t that great. But, an assistant director role? That’s huge, especially for someone with zero teaching or managerial experience.
Frank and I know each other from the music circuit. He heard about my accident and knew I was in need of a career change. He said he would deal with the benefactors and finance managers. That works for me because accounting, spreadsheets, marketing . . . that is all way over my head.
It’s not lost on me this job is a blessing. I don’t have many job skills, and teaching is something I did not want to do. For starters, it’s difficult to teach someone control of a bow when I can’t hold one myself for more than a few seconds. We’ll also try to put aside it’s incredibly depressing. If I can’t play, why do I want to teach someone else how to?
Yes, it is selfish. I know. I’m working on that.
I push open the heavy wooden stairwell door and exit onto the fourth-floor hallway. My office is a tiny seven-by-seven–foot space housed inside one of the four classrooms on this level. It has white plaster walls, linoleum floors, a desk, a chair, and a filing cabinet. I decorated the walls with music note decals I bought off the Internet. Treble- and bass-clef bars line the wall you face when you walk in. Behind my desk is another decal that says, “Music is not what I do, it’s who I am.” I have no idea whose quote that is, but he or she should be revered.
To get to my office, you have to walk through one of the music rooms. Frank says it’s part of the charm of working in a historic Manhattan building.
The classroom attached to my office belongs to Crystal, who is teaching cello.
Go figure.
She also has a bad habit of leaving her instrument in my office so she doesn’t have to lug it to and from work. I can’t deny I loathe that it sits in the corner of the room looking at me all judgmental.
At least it’s better than bunking with Lisa. She’s the violin teacher.
Crystal is a sweet twentysomething like me who trained at the Fiorello LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts and then furthered her studies in Rochester. Unlike me, she is a professional cellist who books regular gigs with a wedding orchestra. Teaching is a great way to supplement her income and keep herself familiar with new techniques and trends.
