CHAPTER ONE  

“It’s not the fall,” Papa used to say, “but the ground that kills you.”  According to the Navy, he died in a HALO accident when I was fourteen, so I guess he knew what he was talking about.  

Trouble was, I’d been free-falling for six months, and I hadn’t hit ground yet. 

It wasn’t that I wanted to self-destruct.  More like I’d been scrambling to hold my life together, to set a good example for Chris.  Since I’d never really had that great of control, anyway, watching him blow his brains out while tripping on that new street drug called CYBL kinda made me lose my grip.  He was my little brother.  I should have been able to save him.

Jim kept telling me it hadn’t been my fault.  Deep down, I knew he was right.  He was always right.  Sometimes I hated him for it, but only sometimes.  He smoked cigarettes and didn’t care for Kabalevsky and looked ridiculous in a tux; but he was my best friend, so I put up with his shortcomings.  Besides, he could cook as well as he played music, and he never complained when I owed him money.  

But Chris’ suicide had torn some deep hole inside me that even Jim couldn’t fill.  Maybe, if he hadn’t been gay, or I hadn’t had breasts, things might have been different.  If he’d been more than just a friend, he might have kept me from sailing off the deep end.  

But I doubt it.  

Even if I hadn’t spent all of January spiraling down into a black pit of guilt and despair, I’d still have shattered my right hand against Pinky Webster’s jaw in February.  I can’t abide bullies.  Or bigots.  Sometimes you have to draw the line, no matter the pain.  No matter the risk.   

I felt sorry for Jim, though.  We’d been playing together for three-and-a-half years, building up a reputation, expanding our repertoire, and the week after we score our first recording deal, I break three metacarpals and get thrown out of school.  

He could have gone solo.  He was good enough.  But, for some stupid reason he stuck by me.  When the V.A. hospital revoked my privileges because I wasn’t a student anymore, Jim got Dr. Vic Balcour, a top-flight orthopedic specialist, to take me on for a nominal fee.  

Jim was like that.  A sucker for lost causes.  He kept throwing me parachutes, hoping to slow my descent.  Or maybe he just couldn’t bear to let the music die.  He kept lining up auditions, even after the University kicked me out and my medical bills had gone to collections.  He just wouldn’t give up on me.  On us.

This was how it all started.  This was how I wound up sitting at a concert grand piano on the stage of Scott Foster’s renowned Concerto Club, wiping the sweat from my palms while Jim did a last minute check of his synth.  His hair was combed back with too much gel, his pale stick of a neck bracketed by the crisp black of his tux.  He looked like an oil-slicked stork.  

I took a deep breath, listening to the muted walla-walla of the crowd behind the closed curtains, the clink of china and glass as the waiters cleared the tables in preparation for the show.  In preparation for us.

I still couldn’t believe we were there, really there.  I mean, the Concerto.  Movie stars, politicians, the financial elite; everybody wanted to be seen in this oasis of gourmet food and classical music.  Crystal glassware, fine china, gold-plated flatware, sustainably sourced candles on the tables.  It was one of only seven restaurants in Southern California with one of those neo-tech, holographic décor systems. 

Four of the other six were also owned by Scotty.  Jim told me that Scotty had gotten some kind of national environmental award for saving all those trees and gypsum bushes by making the walls out of Mylar baffles instead of employing carpenters and plasterers to build out each restaurant’s theme.  It was a big deal to be here.

Admittedly, we were only filling in for some chamber musicians who had missed their flight in Zurich, but still, with this on our résumé, we had a shot at breaking into the big time.  Or as big a time as classical musicians get.  

“Thirty seconds,” Lonny, the stage manager whispered from the wings.  He cast a questioning glance at Jim, who returned a thumbs up, then turned and smiled at me, his warm, honey-brown eyes shining with anticipation.  

His eagerness infected me, and for the first time since Chris had died, I thought that maybe Jim had done it, after all.  Maybe he had saved me from myself.  After five months of casts and splints and surgeries; endless weeks of physical therapy, I had a hope of redemption.  

The stage lights dimmed.  The noise behind the curtain wound down to a low murmur, then slipped into silence.  My heart rose up in the expectant gloom.  I felt every form-fitting curve of my black suede mini-dress, every minute imperfection in the cool ivories beneath my fingers.  

God, I was so hungry for this.  

Jim and I locked gazes, breathing in at the same moment, and then the notes sliced through the darkness, the warm, mournful, resonant tones only a grand piano could make.  Only I could make, sitting in front of a roomful of strangers, begging them to share with me, to let me belong, if just for tonight.  If just for right now…

And Jim as the orchestra, his playful-serious-shy-mysterious harmonies.  The human drama on two keyboards.  

The stage lights flared to life and the curtains crawled back.  People peered up from their plates, awed faces lit by flickering candles.  They surrendered to me, let me into that secret part of themselves that was too vital for words, too complex for anything short of eighty-eight keys.  I lost myself in the music, in the communion, until the end of the set loomed.  Jim glanced up, eyes sparkling.  

I grinned back, alive again, burning with the need to express it, to show these people what I could really do.  I gave Jim the signal, darting my gaze around as if pestered by an annoying insect.  His jaw dropped.  He shook his head, brow furrowed with concern.

Nothing strenuous, Vic had said, when I’d told him about the upcoming gig.  The tendons aren’t fully healed yet.  Take it easy.  Play some slow pieces.  Adagios.

But adagios couldn’t contain the shouting, kicking rhapsody within me, the laugh-out-loud fire in my veins.  I nodded once, to let Jim know I was going ahead anyway, and dove headfirst into his transcription of “Flight of the Bumblebee.”  He struggled a split-second over the transition, and then we bounded over the keyboards like puppies in a sunny field.  

My hand ran out of strength just as Rimsky-Korsakov ran out of music.  There was an intense, breathless moment of silence, and then the audience began to clap: big, thunderous applause, whistles and shouts, glasses clinking.

I walked front and center and stood, basking in the glow, as Jim disengaged from the cocoon of synthesizer keys and joined me.  He twined his arm with mine and gently cradled my spasming right hand against the dark leg of his tux as we took our first bow.  The applause surged, and we bowed again, my lungs so full of exhilaration I got dizzy on the way up.  When we finally left the stage, I had to wipe the corners of my eyes.

“Jeez, Rad, the ‘Bumblebee?'” Jim griped, as soon as we hit the wings.  “What the Hell were you thinking?  You’re gonna—”  

“They loved us!”  I peered through the teaser curtains into the main house for another glimpse of the crowd, shifting from foot to foot with a joy too intense to remain in one part of my body.  

I was here.  And I had rocked the Concerto Club to the foundations.  Nothing else mattered.  “We were great!  Did you see that?  We’re gonna knock ’em dead with the next set!  We’re gonna—”  

“Rad,” Jim held up my right forearm, shaking my palm in front of my nose.  “There won’t be any next set.” 

I stared blankly at my wrist, amazed to see it had already swollen to the diameter of a coffee mug.  My ring and pinky fingers had gnarled into a kind of convulsive claw, my adrenaline level still too high for me to actually feel it.  “Oh. shit.”

“What were you thinking?  You know what the doctor said!”

“I’ll ice it,” I offered desperately.  “It’s forty minutes between sets, maybe the swelling will go down enough to—”

“Rad, there’s no way you’re playing again tonight.”  

“We’ll do the Left-Handed Concerto.” 

“Gonna play the orchestral sections, too?”  He glared at me, frustrated and accusatory.  “I don’t have the chip for that arrangement.  And there’s no time to change all those settings manually.” 

“I can ice it,” I repeated, the hope dying within me.  There was no way Lonny would hire us back after giving him only half-a-show on our first night.  Without the Concerto, there’d be no other offers.  No gigs, no tours, no recording contracts.  Not only had I dive-bombed myself into obscurity, I’d taken Jim with me.  I sighed and looked away, wondering why he didn’t just unload on me then and there.  If I’d had to deal with me, I would have kicked my ass.  

“You, uh…” I cleared my throat.  “You have the chips for Scriaben, don’t you?  You could just set the synth on auto, do the piano without me.”

His anger melted into that solemn look, the one with the brows arching melancholy over soulful brown eyes.  With a beard, he’d look just like those pictures of Jesus you see in mortuaries.  “I’m going to have to.”

Something lurched inside me and tore away from its moorings.  I nodded, figuring it was just as well.  Better I cut him loose now than drag him all the way to the impact zone.

“I’m sorry, Rad.”

“It’s okay.  I mean, it’s my screw up, right?  It’s okay.”

We stood there, facing each other in miserable silence, and then Jim sighed and turned away.  “I’ll tell Lonny.”

As I watched him thread his way around the shadowy jumble of cables and curtains that made up the backstage, trying to work up enough courage to wade through the crowd out front to the bar and ask Tina for a rag filled with ice.  How was I going to smile and talk happy with defeat burning through me like white phosphorus?

If you’d like to read more of this speculative thriller, Playing Faith by P.E. YoungLibby is available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle versions.