once more.
The Maestro stands, nods, her foot taps to the music. ‘Play it every day, every single day, until you cannot forget it.’
‘Yes, Mutter,’ Beck says, beaten.
Is this punishment for having a friend? For finally doing something instead of wishing?
These eighty-eight keys are part of him, but do they have to be his whole life?
His jaw tightens until he thinks it’ll break off – and his fingers crash the étude finale. He looks at her, fiery and defiant for half a second, daring her to point out the wrong notes. Daring her to say he’s worthless.
The Maestro’s eyes are sad or wistful – or dead. He can’t tell. ‘You could be something, Schwachkopf. You could be.’
But he’s not, is he?
Is
he?
She leaves without saying he played badly.
There’s no torture like a song on repeat.
Beck can’t shake the étude, can’t shake the weariness after playing half the night, can’t shake the feeling that the Maestro has been different – weird – since she said he could be something. He doesn’t know what it means.
Does it mean anything?
Ugh, he’s tired.
But, congratulations to the universe, the Chopin is burned in his brain so fiercely that he wishes he could slam his head against a wall to quiet it.
Instead, he goes to school.
It’s been weeks since the cake escapade, but Beck still gets a pang when he sees August – what is it? Nerves? Anticipation? He knots up, hunches his shoulders and can’t think of anything to say. Until she gets talking. Until he defrosts. Until they find their pocket of comfortableness to stroll in.
It’s wet and cold when Beck and Joey exit the house for school. Joey wears a bright red raincoat and basically looks like a hazard sign. Beck has an oversized hoodie, but it’s hardly waterproof. And August, as usual, is entirely underdressed. She has on shoes, at least, with knee-high neon striped socks, but no jumper. Her flesh is a ripple of goosebumps as they walk in the misting rain.
‘I’m gonna jump in puddles!’ Joey warns and then dashes a few paces ahead.
‘You’ll get wet—’ Beck says, but Joey just swears at him in German and pounds the footpath. Oh, forget it. The preschool teacher can figure out what to do with a soaked five-year-old.
‘I finished the paper.’ August pats her satchel. ‘It’s downright inspired.’
‘What if they know I did nothing?’
‘You’ll get detention. Or expelled. And you kind of deserve both, but –’ she wiggles her eyebrows ‘– I am, fortunately, super nice. I wrote your section with my left hand so it looks crappy enough to pass for you.’
‘You are nice.’
‘“You” –’ August wraps it in air quotes ‘– are a horrific writer compared to my eloquent soliloquy. But I had to make myself look good. No offence.’
Beck shrugs.
‘You say a few dumb things,’ August adds. ‘But I’m not here to make you look intelligent. I’m not a miracle worker.’
‘I can live with that.’
‘You do have a fanboy moment.’ Her grin is evil. ‘It’s hilarious. You misuse the word incredulous, but your gist is that you adore this hardcore rock band. Who’d have thought quiet ol’ Beck could be so passionate about music?’
Ha. The irony.
August pauses to wrestle with her satchel and yank out her iPod. She peels wet hair off her face and tucks an earbud in, hands covering the iPod screen to protect it from the worst of the mist. Is this the end of the conversation? Beck isn’t sure if that’s a relief or a disappointment.
But August yanks the bud from her ear and shoves it at Beck. ‘Listen to this. You have to. Your existence depends on it.’
‘Meaning what? You’re going to kill me and toss me in some ditch if I don’t?’
‘Yes,’ says August sincerely. ‘Don’t turn me into a murderer. Just listen to it.’
Beck takes the extended iPod gingerly, like it’s going to combust. The last thing he feels like is listening to music. He craves silence.
‘Um, you do know how to work an iPod, right?’ August says.
Beck realises he needs to do more than put the earbuds in. He jabs the play button and gives her a withering look – even though he, truly, has no idea how to work an iPod.
She raises her hands in protest. ‘I’ve never seen you within ten feet of a computer! Or with a phone. Or even a calculator.’
‘So you assume I’m rubbish at technology?’
August rolls her eyes. ‘Focus on the song, Keverich. Embrace your Twice Burgundy education.’
But they’re at an intersection, which means pausing and taking one of Joey’s hands each and swinging her as they cross. Then Beck’s left with August’s favourite band in his ears.
Sharing music is personal because music speaks, it feels, it breathes. And it always says something about you.
Beck listens.
What did he expect? Drunk lyrics and panpipes? Instead there’s an acoustic guitar and voices blended in aching perfection. One minute they are fast and violent as a summer storm – and then they’re sharing a lullaby of bittersweet change and loss.
He’s never heard music like this before.
It’s not like he’s a contemporary music virgin. He’s listened to – stuff. Ads on TV for one thing. Shopping centre speakers blasting the latest chart-topping single. The neighbours playing a thumping bass tune for twenty-four hours straight to get back at Beck’s midnight piano practices. There used to be yelling matches over the fence about this, but you don’t win arguments with the Maestro. They eventually gave up and ignored their bruised, incessant piano-playing neighbours.
But August’s music tastes different. He wants more.
It’s been three songs and he hasn’t said a word and suddenly they’re at the preschool gate. Disorientated, he jerks the buds out of his ears and rushes Joey into school. Then he’s out, clutching the iPod, feeling breathless like he just woke up and realised his dispassionately grey existence is actually tinged with colour.
August’s lips twist in a smirk. It’s annoying, but he’s lost for words. His brain throbs entirely with music.
‘You like them,’ August says. ‘You adore them. You realise you haven’t been living without Twice Burgundy in your life.’
‘Are you kidding? I hate it.’ Beck wonders how he can get more of this. He needs more of it.
August snorts. ‘Of course you hate it. If you want, you can borrow my iPod for the day and continue hating it.’ With a flip of her hair and the hip-length necklaces she’s wearing this morning, August stalks off. ‘Don’t get it confiscated!’ She’s swallowed by a huddle of friends – odd friends with mismatched shoes or crutches or twitches, who hug her hello and lean close to share a story. Is August just magnetised to the broken misfits?
Beck holds the iPod like it’s his entire life and he wonders why his stupid feet don’t run after her and say something simple, something nice, like:
Thanks, August, these songs saved my life.
Beck decides to hide and avoid August – for the entire day. For someone who’s absconded with her iPod, it’s rude, but he wants to listen. Needs to listen. He loves the way her music drowns the études in his head. But he hates the way he craves it.
It’s really August’s fault, because she has thirty-six Twice Burgundy songs and he has to hear them all.
Beck hides out in the library over lunch – the absolute last place anyone would guess. He squishes between the rows of non-fiction and eats a tinned beans and jam sandwich, stuck together with toothpicks that nearly impale his throat. Thanks, Joey.
He even gets away with earbuds in class since the rain has sent everyone mental. Half the kids come in from lunch coated in mud from a footie game. Everything smells stale and wet. The teachers flap between giving suspensions and mopping mud and instructing that-kid-who-fell-in-a-puddle to stand below the heater – which turns out to be set on cooling and probably gives the kid hypothermia.