Page 28 of Echoes of a Silent Song
Had all these thoughts just flashed across his face?They may well have, if Blair’s expression was any indication.Her head tilted to theside, her lips quirked in an odd, mystified grin, and the skin beneath her eyes bunched slightly, as though she’d momentarily burst into a full-on sunny smile.
She didn’t, though.She just adjusted her grip on her bags and started for the door.
“Have a good weekend, Callum.”She tossed the nonchalant farewell over her shoulder as she slipped through the door.
“Right,” he replied.“You too.Good weekend.”
Thank the Lord his musical abilities were functioning a bit better than his verbal ones.
But having a good weekend?For the first time in ages, that might actually happen.
Chapter Eleven
October 1969
ACOOL GUSTof wind hit my cheeks as the referee blew his whistle to end the second quarter of the football game and announce the beginning of halftime.I was in the line of mellophones, pressed between Jacob Whittaker and Larry Schmidt, who both stood at attention, their gleaming horns positioned perfectly.But beneath their navy-and-white silver-embossed hats, their eyes communicated the pair’s usual brand of mischief.
Someone bumped my back with the slide of a trombone.Will Garrison, no doubt.
“Sorry,” Will mumbled, and I rolled my eyes.
The crowds, the noise, the funky smell of band uniforms ...all these made me detest marching season.But it was a required part of the class, so if we wanted to sit onstage wearing elegant black dresses and tuxedos, performing music by real composers instead of bad arrangements of radio drivel, we had to spend the first quarter of the year marching in formation and putting up with the occasional clonk on the head from stray footballs.
But as we took the field tonight, I had at least one glimmer of enjoyment.
Victor.
As drum major, he marched out first onto the white-striped field.He strutted with confidence, leading the parade of majorettes, all flash andfringe and silver batons.Pride swelled in my heart.Victor was such a natural at everything.He never seemed nervous in a crowd.Never robbed of speech around someone he liked.Not the least bit unsure of what he wanted to do after high school.No, Victor’s goal was clear: He wanted to become a world-renowned choral director and composer.And his path to achieving that goal was equally clear.Even before high school, he’d set his sights on the Whitehall Conservatory of Music in Chicago.As I watched him, his baton moving up and down with expert precision, his head held high, every movement a concerto of choreographed confidence, I couldn’t imagine him not achieving all those dreams and then some.
Men had it easier, of course.Victor’s mother hadn’t sat him down repeatedly and encouraged him to come out of his shell, to put away his sensitivities and shyness and just“Smile.Smile, dear, you’re so much prettier when you smile.Not like that face you always make.You mustn’t look at a man that way, darling, or he’ll think you’re criticizing him.”
“And what if I am, Mother?What if he’s doing or saying something that deserves to be criticized?”
“Iris, you mustn’t.Certainly never in public.If you absolutely cannot hold your tongue, then it is imperative that such a conversation take place in private and with the utmost in respect.Otherwise you’ll never find a husband.”
And what if I didn’t care about having a husband?
Of course, I never asked Mother that.Whatever I might want didn’t matter.Never mind that women were achieving more than they ever had.Money talked, and most people thought if you came from money, you could do whatever you wanted.But in my case, money was precisely why dreaming about the future was painfully pointless.Why, if Mother had her way, I’d be trapped in a prewritten life, a boring composition with no dissonance, no development, and no hope of improvisation.
No hope of improvisation now either.It was time for the halftime show.
A few minutes later, it was over, and I made my way back to the band’s spot in the stands.A variety of sounds assaulted my ears.Theblaaaaaaatttttof a trombone.An unnecessarily loud rim shot from one of the snare drum players.The seal-like laughter of Jacob and Larry.
I sighed into my mellophone’s mouthpiece and opened the spit valve.Only four more home games, and then I could leave the Peterson High Marching Patriots behind forevermore.
“Hello, gorgeous.”
The deep voice startled me, but in a much more pleasant way than all the previous noises had.Victor stood at my right.
Gorgeous?Not possible.Not in this ridiculous navy-and-white band uniform, complete with a cape, with my face half covered by the chinstrap of my hat, my hair mashed into a frizz bomb underneath.
“Hi.”There was so much noise—and my voice so quiet—that Victor probably didn’t even hear me.
He removed his hat, his dark-blond hair damp and pressed to his forehead from a slightly-too-tight hatband, and his pale skin flushed, but the smile he aimed at me could’ve melted ice.He made this dumb, itchy band uniform seem dapper and sophisticated.Like he’d been born to wear it.
He leaned his baton against the front of the bleachers.“Hungry?”
Actually, yes.I’d only gotten half an hour at home before I’d had to get ready for the game, and I’d spent that time working on another melody that wouldn’t leave me alone.“Gosh, I—”
