Page 40 of Absolutely Not in Love
“Absolutely.” I take the record from her and walk to the ancient turntable that also belonged to my grandmother. It was the gold standard in her day, and as far as I’m concerned, it still sounds better than anything I could buy now. Maybe that’s nostalgia talking. I don’t care either way. Especially when the music starts, and Gracie takes a long, slow breath, her eyes closed.
“That tone,” she says. “Nobody can get the richness out of a cello like Janos Starker did.”
I’d maybe argue thatshedoes, but I’m willing to own my biases on that front.
Gracie jumps from the couch and moves into the open space just in front of the bookshelves. “Come here,” she says as she sits down on the floor. She stretches out full length, lying on her back, and lifts her arms over her head. She pats the floor next to her. “Join me?”
She doesn’t have to ask me twice, even if I did just move us from the floor to the couch, and now we’re back on the floor again.
I stretch out beside her, mimicking her pose, right down to my arms stretching out over my head.
“This is how I used to listen when I was a kid,” she says, her eyes closed again. “I told myself it was the best way tofeelthe music instead of just hearing it.”
We listen for a few more minutes, the music washing over us, before she says, “It works, right?”
I smile. “It totally does. I wonder why.”
“No distractions, maybe,” she says, her voice soft. “Why does music sound so much better from a record? Has music streaming ruined all of us, you think?”
“Grandma used to say the same thing. Not about music streaming—it was barely a thing when she died—but about the radio and cassette tapes. Even CDs. Nothing sounds like this.”
“Your grandmother sounds like an amazing woman.”
“You would have loved her,” I say.
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I wish I could call them back. They feel…too intimate, maybe? Too familiar?
They also feeltrue.
Gracie doesn’t seem bothered by them, so I force myself to breathe, to let the music calm me just like it always did when I was a kid.
Beside me, Gracie shifts, and I open my eyes to see her on her side, propped up on her elbow and looking at me.
“Do you play an instrument?” she asks.
I can’t help the grimace that immediately stretches across my face.
Gracie giggles, lifting a hand to cover her lips. “Oh no. That bad?”
“I was truly terrible,” I say. “Grandma tried for almost three years to teach me to play. But I was hopeless. Eventually, she took me by the shoulders, looked right in my eyes, and said ‘Felix, you’ll always appreciate good music. That’s going to have to be enough for you.’”
“I’ve had a few students like that,” Gracie says. “It just never clicks. Did it make you sad at all?”
I shake my head. “Nah. I was pretty self-aware for a twelve-year-old. I heard how terrible I sounded, especially since I had her to play for me. The gap between what I could do and what she could do seemed insurmountable. I was mostly just relieved when she told me I could stop. Up until then, I’d worried I would disappoint her.”
“I love that she let you stop,” Gracie says. “I have some parents who just keep insisting, even when their kids are obviously unhappy and never getting any better. I have this one kid who wants to play the flute so badly, and her parents just keep pushing the cello. I don’t get it. Just let the kid play the flute, you know? Or do whatever else she loves.”
“Unless she wants to play hockey,” I say, in what I hope is a teasing tone.
Gracie rolls her eyes. “You really must think I’m some kind of hockey-hating monster.”
“Definitely not a monster,” I say. “But you told me yourself you hate hockey.”
“I did,” she says, worrying her bottom lip. “But that doesn’t mean other people can’t love it. My nephew just started playing, and I don’t have any problems loving my nephew.”
“Got it. So the hockey ban doesn’t apply across the board, only to men you date.”
For a moment, the apartment is completely silent, the record shifting from one cello suite to the next, and a heaviness settles over our conversation.
