Broken String

LXIX

"I'm really not sure at all." he whispers back. 
"What, that you would have been great?"
He nods and looks down. "Yeah. I was freaking out."
"Oh, deary, don't we all? You would have been fine."
Now he does look up and stares at her. The sobbing has stopped, now, and it's getting easier to breathe again. 
"You're a musician?"
That same forlorn, little smile. 
"I was. Cello." she says, quietly enough so no one on stage will even know a conversation is taking place. 
"What happened?"
She shrugs. 
"I got sick just before I was going to graduate. Some post-viral thing. By the time I recovered it was... too late, really. I have a family now though, a lovely husband, two kids and a job I love. I turned out okay."
"Jesus." he whispers. 
"Nah, you can just call me Ms. Parry." she quips, causing him to grin only just not too loudly. "Or Anita, if you want."
"But... Anita... I... do you think that will happen to me?"
"What, a husband and two kids? Seems a little complicated to me."
Now he does snort out loud and he clamps his hand over his mouth before anyone on the stage can turn to them.
"I mean, not impossible, of course." Anita carries on with a cheeky grin.
"You know what I mean, though." he whispers. 
"Yeah, I do. No, Eddy. I think you'll be fine. I have faith in you. I'm sure it's just something... simple that they'll find, and some solution. You'll be here, next year, playing something else. I think they're planning for it to be Barber. You like twentieth century?"
He blinks as he sees it in a flash. Him, on stage, with the orchestra that's there now playing the piece he always thought was his, but playing the Barber instead. He's listened to that piece a million times in high school. Whoa. What a dream that would be. It would make this auditorium his again.
"I do. Not quite as much as the Sibelius, maybe. But I do love the Barber."
"See? There you go."

They sit in silence for a while then, two almost strangers side by side, and somehow he feels a million kilos lighter. 
Because what if she's right? It's scary, to have hope for something like that, because it might never happen.
But what if it does? What if it is him, next year, up on that stage? 
"He's doing alright, hey?" Anita whispers then, as the first movement ends and the conductor starts talking again. "I'll bet he's feeling the pressure."
Eddy looks at her in surprise. Actually, she's got a point. Frank didn't win. He's up there anyway. He looks so confident, though. 
Would he himself have looked confident?
"I should go talk to him." he says. "After. Tell him it sounds good."
Anita shrugs. 
"Only if you're up for it. Look, deary, you only have one job right now and that is doing what's right for Eddy. Let everyone else worry about the rest."
And look, he would shrug it off. But she said she'd been sick. So maybe she knows what she's talking about? Has she maybe been here? 
"I'll try." he whispers back. "I'd still like to tell him though."

And he does, in the end. He sits there in the back of the space for the whole rehearsal with his new friend, his unlikely friend, and waits for Brett to finish up and come to him. Then he avoids his curious glances and waves at Anita as Brett pushes him forward.
"Hey, Frank." he says once the crowds around the soloists clear and he manages to get eye contact. "Nice work, mate."
"Eddy! Oh! You're here! I hadn't seen you." Frank says. He sits down on the stage straight away so he's almost level with Eddy, ignoring some girl to his left who clearly wants a word too. "Jesus. I was shitting myself, man. Good job I didn't know you were here."
Something pulls though Eddy at the words and he looks back at where Anita was. She's gone, though, presumably to get back to the front desk. 
"It sounded great, I mean it." he says. 
Frank smiles shyly.
"That means a lot, coming from you. I hope you're okay, man."
Eddy shrugs.
"I hope so too. We'll see."
"Will you be here for the concert?"
"I don't know, yet." Eddy says honestly. "Maybe. But if not: toi toi toi, hey?"
"Thanks, man."
As if cued Brett takes the chair and starts pushing him out of the fateful auditorium while Frank gets up again.
"You good?" he asks as soon as they're out of earshot of the others. 
"Yeah. I'm fine. Let's get home."