When You're In Love with a girl

Chapter 7, Sitting Next To The Great Eagle

On Tuesday I wake up with a feeling of great excitement because today I get to play with the Worth-Marion band. Finally, a band worth playing with.

I read my emails while I eat breakfast.

"Hello Alie,

I hope you are doing well! Don't forget to bring your instrument today. I would like for you to play your horn for a bit during flex period (your period after lunch) so I can determine your skill level, which will determine where you will sit in the saxophone section. If you could come to the band room during your flex period that would be great.

Mr. Berswick"

I nearly bite my tongue. Playing my horn for Mr. Berswick in private so he can determine my skill level? That's intimidating. But of course, he expects me, so... I send an email in reply: "Thank you, I very much enjoyed listening to your band yesterday. I would be delighted to play for you during my flex period today."

Oddly, I always take on a pompous manner in my emails, but I am rather incoherent when I speak aloud. I just can't think fast enough.

During lunch it's always a question: who should I sit next to? Yesterday, I had sat alone, at an empty table and occupied myself by reading a translated copy of Les Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir.

Today as I walk in I see Arya sitting and laughing at a table, surrounded by other girls. She's not at the popular girl table, per se, but she looks happy and like she has friends.

I debate sitting there or sitting alone at my empty table.

I sit alone.

I'd rather have Simone de Beauvoir's translated words as company.

After a hasty lunch, I speed over to the band room, get my saxophone out from my band locker and assemble it.

Mr. Berswick walks over, wearing a gray athletic jacket and light blue jeans. "Hello, Alie," he says, smiling.

I look up from the spot where I'm sitting, assembling my saxophone. "Hello," I say, and then after a pause I realize I should have addressed him with his name and I mentally reprimand myself.

"What music would you have me play?" I ask.

Mr. Berswick had been assembling the chairs and stands into the seating order for ninth grade. "Oh, not much. Just some scales, I suppose, and if you've learned the sheet music for the band pieces I gave you yesterday, you can play that as well."

I nod.

I take out my best reed and begin to play. I play some scales, and Mr. Berswick's eyes light up a bit, but they do not sparkle... I frown and try to make the most beautiful sounds I can.

"That's wonderful," says Mr. Berswick with a smile.

I play the new music he gave me yesterday, which turned out to be not too hard at all, really, and Mr. Berswick seems impressed. "You certainly learned it quick," he remarks.

"Well, that's all I really need to hear!" he says with a wide smile. His eyes meet mine. "Okay, you can go back to your flex period." As he finishes talking he folds his lips back into a smile.

Mr. Berswick, the smiler.

*****

Band is the last period of the day, so I spend all the other classes waiting, so very anxious. Arya is in many of my classes, and I watch as she participates in each and every one, confidence evident in her low, soothing voice.

At last, 8th period, last period, comes. Arya and I walk to the band room, and some other kids from 7th period who I don't know the names of yet. They talk and joke around—I suppose they have known each other for a while.

It amazes me how some people can so easily place themselves at ease to talk so lightly with other people.

All of us saxophone players take out our instruments from the band lockers, which is a wall of lockers in which we keep all our instruments. Nobody pays me any mind.

As the kids around me talk and interact with each other, I learn their names—Roger, Sam (another Sam?), Bruno, Christopher, Jaxel... I suppose none of them care to greet me, and I try to tell myself I don't care about them either.

Mr. Berswick comes out of the band room to talk to us saxophone players who are still hanging around the band lockers. "Hey saxes," he says, "as I'm sure you guys will find out when you hear Alie play today, she is very good." He smiles, and I cringe inside, feeling incredibly embarrassed. I hate compliments; I hate all attention. I try to keep an impassive face as I feel Arya's eyes on me. "So, I've made the decision that she should play first chair."

Without my admission my eyebrows rise and my eyes widen. I quickly neutralize my expression, though. Mr. Berswick looks at me expectantly. What is he expecting from me? Oh, perhaps a word of thanks.... "Thank you," I say.

The other saxophones, boys, look at me for a second and turn their eyes away—I suppose they could care less who plays first, after all it was a girl before me and now I'm a girl first chair again.

Only Arya smiles. "I'll be your second chair to support you," she says, in a true, principled way, with no trace of envy in my voice.

At Greenheim I was certainly the best, but there wasn't a first chair thing. Suddenly, I have a strong urge to confide my doubts to her. "To be frank, I don't know why he—Mr. Berswick gave me first chair....I think you play much better than me," I say to Arya quietly.

"No, I'm sure you're amazingly good at saxophone," she said, and while again there was no envy or bitterness in her voice, and her face looked perfectly composed and happy, I wondered if she was suppressing hurt and envious feelings inside. I decided to drop it. The saxophones all sat in their seats from the day before, so I pulled a random chair.

As I sat in the chair, I became painfully aware that Arya was in a thousand ways better than me, just like I had initially thought. She had a better sense of timing, an innate feeling for how things were supposed to fit together, when to play loud and when to play softly against the composer's wishes, and she had a beautiful way of equanimity even when the band was falling apart (when Mr. Berswick attempted to have the band play at a faster tempo, half of the band just couldn't keep up).

Perhaps my tone was better, but I don't think that is too important. What is important to understand the music deeply, and I had only learned a superficial amount. It was clear to me that Arya understood and felt the music deeply, like how I read into books and glean so many little details more than the speedreader (I am a fast reader, but I never skim).

If my playing was like a quite hummingbird, hers was like a proud eagle. Her playing soared and glided on the wind of the other players, she led them with a fierceness and pride, and although she gave off a slightly apathetic feeling when Mr. Berswick helped other sections of the band figure out their part, she seemed to deeply understand that they must work together. My playing was short, perhaps sweet, but my eyes would be limited... Arya could see the whole field and I could see a whole flower. Arya's playing may have been coarser while mine was honeyed, but does it matter, in the end? It is who makes the impression that lasts the sands of time.

Author's Note: Thank you very much for reading Saturday's update! All comments, suggestions, and questions in the comments are carefully read, replied to, and appreciated! Feel free to add comments to the story.

Please don't forget to vote! If you vote, it will help the story be seen by more people.

I hope you all enjoyed this update! 

-Tara