There’s a cello in the middle of the foyer when we get back to the room after a helicopter ride over the strip a few days later.
Jez opens the door and it’s just sitting there.
He stops in his tracks for a moment, and then walks past it and into the bedroom, as if it’s the most normal thing to happen in the world. Having a cello appear out of nowhere.
I give him a few minutes and then follow him into the bedroom.
He’s sitting on the bed, shoes kicked off, flicking through the channels on the TV.
He doesn’t say anything, even as I slide onto the bed next to him and tickle his stomach.
Barely a smile.
“Hey. So, um, I don’t know if you noticed but, um, someone must’ve planted a cello seed in the middle of our foyer during the night and… well, it’s sprouted.”
He just keeps flicking through the channels, barely giving each one more than half a second before he’s flicked to the next one.
“I wonder who sent it.”
He just shrugs.
I raise an eyebrow. “Do you want to…”
“Nope.” Click. Click. Click.
“Okay. I mean, maybe just take it out of the case and look at it?”
“Nope.”
“Okay. Just a suggestion.” I go into the bathroom for a few minutes, just sitting on the stool in front of the dressing table.
“Fucking Dennis,” I hear him mumble after about five minutes.
I walk out and stand by the bed. “What did you say?”
“The cello. I know it’s from him. He’s trying to force me into playing again.” He throws the remote onto the bed and glares at the wall.
“Maybe he’s just trying to encourage you. How does he even know you’re here?”
“Oh, he knows. He knows everything. He probably knows what we’re going to have for breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“Oh really. Could he tell me? I have such a hard time deciding between the crois-…”
“Bah!” He grunts and reaches over and picks up the phone.
“What are you doing?”
He shakes the phone in front of him, “I’m calling him to yell at him.”
“Jez, is that really necessary?”
“Yes! He said it himself, he should give me some time to recover! Why is he pushing this? I’ve only just left the hospital. Give a man some time!”
I watch as he punches a number angrily into this phone. Shit.
“Wait,” I say, putting my hand on his arm.
“Not now, Emmie. I just need a minute.”
“Put down the phone, Jez.”
“Why?”
I grimace. “Because. Ugh. It wasn’t Dennis. It was… it was me. I called the concierge and asked them to organize a cello rental. They must’ve brought it up while we were out.”
“What? WHY?” He’s angry. He was angry before, but now it’s directed at me. And I guess he has a right. But that doesn’t mean I’m not right as well.
“Because I want you to stop thinking you can’t do it, Jez. Not until you’ve actually tried.”
“Noemie. You… you had no right.” He shakes his head, running his hand through his fringe.
“No right to what?”
“To do this! I’m not ready!”
“Oh, you mean no right like you had no right to force me onto the stage with Celine Dion and in front of thousands of people? Well, let me remind you, I sucked it up and did it anyway, because I knew you would never do something to hurt me, humiliated me. Well, it goes both ways, asshole.” He huffs and throws the phone across the room. We watch it crash against the bureau and land onto the ground.
I shake my head at him. “I was wrong. You don’t underestimate people, Jez. You just underestimate yourself.” I get up and walk over to the window, watching his reflection in the window for a moment before I turn around, swallowing before I deliver the next line.
“Or maybe you don’t underestimate yourself. Maybe you really are just done.”
There’s a pause and then he gets up and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him, leaving me watching Jimmy Kimmel lip syncing along to Tupac.
JEZ
The cello is talking to me, mocking me.
I’m laying here on the couch staring out at a view of the replica of one of the most beautiful manmade objects in the world, and all I can hear is, “Fucking coward.”
I turn to face the inside of the couch, pulling the cushion over my head, trying to drown out the taunts.
“Yeah, a cushion is going to drown out a hallucination. You’re dumb and a coward. Geez.”
For fuck’s sake. I can’t even blame it on alcohol. I’m completely, utterly, sober
And a pile of wood and strings is mocking me
Fuck this. I jump up from the couch and walk over to the cello. I grip the handle as tight as I can and drag it back to the couch with me.
“Alright, you and me, we’re gonna talk,” I tell it, my voice only wavering a little.
I lay the case down onto the floor and push down on the latch.
Click. Click. I ignore the shiver that travels up my spine.
I lift the lid and there she lays. A cello. A stranger, but beautiful. Familiar. I run my fingers along the smooth, polished wood and lift it from the case, ignoring the twinge in my wrist.
It’s not too bad.
But it’s there. just reminding me. It’s there.
I release the bow from its hold.
A smile spreads across my mouth before I can stop it.
“Hello old friend,” I whisper. It’s not mine, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll all old friends.
My right hand grips the bow. My fingers are a little stiff but I bend them anyway, breathing a sigh of relief when it holds. Loose, but not falling from my fingers like in the early days of trying to hold the pen.
“That was the easy part,” I say to the cello. Who’s stopped taunting me, by the way; instead I feel it now urging me on. Rooting for me.
I position the cello between my legs, letting it fall back to rest against me. A musician’s relationship with his instrument is one of symbiosis.
Give. Take. Forward. Back. Play and be played. Life and birth. Of music.
My hands run up the strings all the way up, to curve around the neck. I grip the fingerplate tightly. It hurts, but it is bearable.
One more step forward.
My neck cradles the neck of the cello. Partners in arms.
I lift the bow and take a breath.
Have courage, Jez. I say, but it’s Noemie’s voice I hear.
If not for you, do this for her. Like she did for you on that stage. Believed in herself. And trusted you.
It’s time.
I don’t have to tell my fingers what song to play.