“This. Being this high, above everything, the world huge around us. Makes it seem like my life is small, you know? Like it’s not the only thing. There’s a lot more, more to be, more to experience. More to feel.”
I breathe in the briny air, and the world around us does feel big. It does make me feel small. Hemmed in by the vastness. It’s strangely comforting.
“Why are you doing that?” Eva asks, interrupting my calm. She taps the back of my hand and I look down, stilling my fingers that had been silently moving over the railing, a silent song pouring out of the tips.
“Oh. ‘Riverside.’”
She turns so she’s facing me. “Is that supposed to make sense?”
I laugh. “Not really. It’s a song by one of my favorite singers. She’s a pianist too, and this song gets stuck in my head all the time.” I don’t mention how effing gloomy the song is. It’s depressing as hell, but I love it, love playing it. I’ve even been known to sing it a little when no one’s around. Not that I’ll have too many opportunities to do that now that my piano is gone.
I stretch my fingers out, joints cracking. “I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”
“So you were playing this song? On the railing?”
I shrug. “Not note for note. It’s mostly in my head. Fingers just move a little here and there. It’s more nervous habit than anything.”
“It still looked pretty involved. Are you any good?”
Again, I shrug.
“Oh.” She gives me a slow smile. “You’re good.”
“You can’t possibly know that from me tapping on a railing.”
“Sure I can.” She takes my hand and lays it on her own palm. “Long fingers, elegant movements. All the makings of an excellent piano player.”
“Again, fingers have very little to do with it. Just ask my mother. Her fingers are longer than mine, and she’s completely tone-deaf.”
Eva just smiles, my hand still in hers, running her thumb over my darkly painted middle fingernail. “Is that what you want to do? Play piano?”
I swallow hard, that word want tripping me up. It’s hard to want things when your life is like mine. Dangerous, even. So I settle for the facts. “I have an audition at Manhattan School of Music at the end of July.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Wow. That’s serious.”
I smile. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“I’d like to hear you play sometime.”
“Only if you do it with me.”
She frowns. “I don’t play piano.”
“But you dance, right? Ballet? You could dance while I—?”
“No, I couldn’t.” She turns her face toward the ocean, her expression completely closed-off and blank. The silence that settles between us is so thick, I can almost chew on it.
“Sorry,” I say, even though I don’t know what for.
She shakes her head, her curls springing around her face. “It’s fine. Just . . . don’t ask me again, okay? I get enough of that from Emmy.”
“What do you mean?”
“She thinks I should get involved, start dancing again. I guess there’s a good-size studio in Sugar Lake or something.”
“And you don’t want to?”
She doesn’t look at me, but her eyes go hazy over the water. “It’s not about want.”
