Page 14 of Solo

“You’re running out of time, Evan,” Markham begins candidly, his concern obvious in his tone. “I think the best use of what little you have left is to just start over. Don’t come at it from a twenty-first-century composer’s perspective. Pretend you’re one of Mozart’s students. Write it the way he would want you to write it. The way it would have been written in his day. Does that make sense?”

“Uh, yeah, I suppose…”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see our professor pat my classmate’s arm supportively. “Take another run at it tonight, then come see me during office hours tomorrow and I’ll have another look. You can do this, Evan. I know you can.”

I sneak a quick glance and see that Evan is as surprised by this offer as I am.

“You’d do that? You’d see me two days in a row?” he asks, clearly stunned.

Markham’s expression is perplexed. “Of course. That’s what office hours are for. That’s what I’m here for.”

A stunned Evan nods, taking his paper and shuffling back to his seat. I’m still watching him walk away when I hear my name.

“Miss Brenner?”

“Y-yes?” I ask and immediately berate myself for stuttering. What’s wrong with me? Why do I let him make me like this?

“Did you want to go over your paper?” Markham asks.

“Sure,” I say a little hesitantly. There are some furtive glances from my classmates as I put the staff paper on his desk and pull up a chair so we can both look it over.

“You really did an excellent job with this,” he says quietly. “If the midterm assignment is as good as this, there’s no reason you shouldn’t score an A.”

“Thank you,” I murmur, keeping my eyes fixed on the paper in front of me.

“Do you understand why I gave you the grade I did?”

I’m on guard immediately. Such a simple question could so easily be a setup. I clear my throat to buy myself another couple of seconds while I consider my reply.

“I am disappointed that you wouldn’t accept the assignment,” I begin slowly. “But I appreciate the fact that you took the time to look it over and give me your comments,” I conclude at last.

There. Diplomatic, polite, and the truth.

“But you understand my reasoning?” he presses.

Oh, come on, really? Clearly, he is not going to let this go. I sigh and angle my chair a little so I can look directly into his eyes. They’re so brown that they almost look black when you get up close to them.

“No, Dr. Markham, I can’t say that I understand it, because I don’t. It seems unreasonable to me,” I say with as much sincerity as I can muster. “That being said, I’ll just have to respect whatever decision you make.”

Markham’s jaw clenches into a hard line and his dark eyebrows draw down into a harsh V. Clearly I will not be benefiting from the same kind concern that Evan just received. When my professor speaks again, I can hear the frost in his soft voice.

“Miss Brenner, if that were true, if you really did respect my decision, you wouldn’t have gone crying to Russell Atherton about me.”

I can actually feel the blood as it drains from my face.

“Dr. Markham, I swear to God I didn’t say anything about our conversation. He’d heard about it from someone else. And I asked him—I pleaded with him—not to discuss it with you,” I explain in a hushed tone.

For a long beat he seems to be looking for something on my face. Sincerity, maybe? I hope so, because that’s what it is. That and abject horror. Finally, he gives a long sigh of reluctant acceptance.

“All right, Miss Brenner. But if he wasn’t acting at your behest then you might want to have a little chat with him about letting you fight your own battles. He’s not doing you any favors.”

I’m not sure who to be more upset with—Russell for going against my wishes and confronting Markham, or Markham himself for making sure that I knew about it. I sit back, closing my eyes and rubbing my temples. My headache just got about ten times worse.

“Yes, you’re right. I’ll do that. It’s just…it’s hard to make Professor Atherton do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

“Yeah. I know,” he mumbles.

What? Is it possible that, for once, Dr. Drew Markham gets it?