Page 87 of Love You Like That (Excess All Areas 4)

Her teacher had disapproved of the freestyling but had been amazed at her talent.

He’d watched as she’d learned the chimes. The harp. The marimba. The steel pans. Even a vintage Theremin played without any physical touch.

There had been nothing she’d picked up she couldn’t play.

There’s still nothing you can’t play.

She struck the G, feeling the vibration move through the mallets, then the E, D, C, and G.

Dashing through the snow.

Closing her eyes, she could almost feel the echo of the note in the hotel room.

So, she played the notes again.

G, G, G, E, D, C, A.

She caught sight of herself in the window. It was dark outside, and she could see out over the lights of Nottingham. How many times had she stood in her dressing gown in her room at university trying to learn something? Until she could play the snare drum line to the Rolling Stone’s “Paint it Black” as easily as she could play Toccata and Fugue in D minor on the marimba.

Because you persevered.

Emmanuel Séjourné’s “Attraction” had the most thrilling run of notes to learn. Not that she was going to play it. But she glanced in the marimba’s open case and found more mallets. Yarn wrapped ones. Perfect. “Attraction” required one rubber and one yarn in each hand, and she placed them in position. One between her little finger and ring finger. The other between her forefinger and thumb.

“This is a stupid idea,” she said to no one.

Then sighed.

No more stupid than falling in love with a tattooed rock star.

To shake the thought from her head, she played the first run vigorously.

Perhaps it sounded like shit.

She could put her hearing aids in. See what she could hear amongst the hiss and clatter.

But perhaps this was better.

The mallets were an extension of her hands. The placement instinctual. Muscle memory ensured the sticks landed. In the window, her reflection danced.

She imagined the earthy low notes, the reverb, the switch from Mixolydian to Phrygian dominant. The immeasurable bliss that came from filling a room with music.

If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she was back on the stage at the Royal Northern, with its theatre filled with her peers as they played their recital piece. Her teacher, Doctor Lorenzo Boncaldo, conducted when they played as an ensemble.

And just because the idea of pissing Boncaldo off made her grin, she switched to the Mission Impossible Theme tune. One lesson, they’d had an incredibly heated discussion. Boncaldo had believed scoring movies to be pedestrian, while Zoe had argued it was the easiest way to attract children to music. He’d said she had a commercial heart. She’d told him he was an elitist snob. Then they’d gone for a pint at the student’s union with the rest of the class.

They’d playfully traded barbs all that year. When she’d played Philippe Hurel’s “Loops IV,” the painfully fast changes in mallet articulation caused her blisters. He’d told her she had spaghetti arms until the day she’d nailed it and he’d been the first on his feet to applaud her.

She began to play “Loops IV,” letting her worries pour out through her fingertips. Her mind quieted like it did during sex with Alex. Until she noticed Alex standing behind her. The others were crowded in the door. She dropped the mallets as if they were on fire. “Hey.”

Quickly, she attached her hearing aids.

And they all burst into applause she couldn’t hear properly. Cerys signed applause.

“I guess I was loud.”

“You are fucking amazing,” Alex said.

“I need to go.”

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