Page 54 of Crescendo

She stared at me for a minute before she huffed. “Just because I’m curious, all right. Let’s get to a piano.”

She loosened up a little as we got into one of the practice rooms together—Sunday morning, we had our choice of rooms, but Hannah skipped the one with the Steinway grand and went to a smaller one with an upright. I didn’t realize why, following her inside, until she unhooked an electric bass from the wall, and she held it my way.

“You know how to use this thing?”

“I’m not Paul McCartney, but I know how to play notes on it.”

She flickered a smile despite her best efforts. “Then hands off it. Play something on the piano, okay?”

I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, are we jamming? You’re very demanding all of a sudden.”

“You came to me for help, so sit the hell down and do what I say.”

Hannah really was a different person when Eliza wasn’t around. She was kinda cool. “So,” I said, settling at the piano while she tuned the bass, plucking the strings and checking it by ear. “Bassist, huh? Did you and Eliza play together?”

“We had a band up in Liverpool. Played a couple open mics, booked a couple gigs, nothing serious. My dad was a pretty serious bassist, retired but still taught classes, and he taught me since I was little.”

“He sounds cool.”

“He was, yeah. Not as cool these days.”

I paused, looking up from the keyboard. “Something happen?”

She shrugged, not looking at me, fussing with a bass string I knew was tuned just fine. “Yeah, had a stroke and died. Makes a person a little less cool.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

She shrugged again. “People die. He was old when he had me.”

Well,shewasn’t repressing any grief. I couldn’t even imagine the concept. I decided to poke a wound. “I bet he’d be really proud seeing you take it all the way to a big program like Crescendo.”

She snorted, hunching her shoulders, back to me. “Nah. He always hated London. Scouser through and through. Never thought I’d up and be here, but Eliza talked me into it.”

“You left the band together?”

“Band’s not much without the rhythm section, is it?”

Therhythm section.In a rock band, drum and bass. Hannah being the bassist meant something I couldn’t possibly wrap my head around. “Elizawas your drummer?”

That got a grin out of her, finally looking at me. “She’s fucking boss too.”

“I’d have guessed keyboard, or lead vocalist playing guitar and trying to be the star, or… maybe the marimba or the triangle before I’d guessed her on the drums.”

“She’s changed a lot the past year and a half.” She kicked a stool up next to the piano, sitting with her bass in her lap. I decided to go for the casual-comment approach.

“You had feelings for her from then?”

She almost fell off the stool, shooting me a look. “Shut your fucking mouth about things you don’t know about, all right?”

“Shutting my mouth isn’t really my strong suit.” I had other skills with my mouth, if this morning was anything to go by. I wasn’t going off thinking about that in front of Hannah.

“Well, learn it, then, and practice it well.”

“You ever feel like you wish the old version of Eliza would come back?”

She shot me an actual dirty look, enough to make even me back down. “You keep talking shit and we’re done here.”

“All right, all right. Not another word. Still, I’d be curious to hear her drumming.”

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