The Test of Time

Eight

          Eddy hurriedly finished his food, not wanting the waitress to wonder why he was left alone. He paid at the counter, then walked home, dismayed. He was having such a good time with Brett like they used to always do. That stupid feeling wasn't stopping him, he had gotten a whole lot of practice done, and Brett had even mentioned going touring again! And yet, the moment had been ruined, snatched away! He ascended the stairs to his front door, and slid the key into the lock. He let himself in, put his food into the refrigerator, then threw himself onto the couch. 

          Why did every good moment he was able to share with Brett anymore get taken away? He picked up the remote and flipped through the channels. Nothing good was on, that he could tell, so he decided to get something useful done. He opened the work laptop that happened to be lying there, carelessly discarded the last time they worked, and began replying to some business emails.

          He looked up from his fifteenth email, and saw that he had been working for two and a half hours. It was finally time for something decent to come onto the TV. He smirked to himself as the Boston Philharmonic's performance of Beethoven's seventh symphony played. He always enjoyed having classical music play in the background of his whatever he was working on, especially when he could see the performers. 

          He went back to his email-replying, and came upon one from a conductor in Spain. Eddy's eyebrows shot up as he read on. The conductor, Maestro García, wanted them to come and play Bach's Double Violin concerto with his orchestra. García's proposition contained flight tickets, a hotel room, and arrangements to see Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia in all of their glory. Eddy glanced down at the proposed dates, and instantly was angry with himself for not checking emails sooner. This was sent thirty-six days ago, and Maestro García wanted them there in less than two months!

          Eddy dialed Brett's number immediately, and only remembered where Brett was after the phone sent him to voicemail. At the beep, Eddy didn't really know what to say, so all he managed was, "Hey, Brett, I gotta thing from an orchestra in Spain. Need you to talk 'bout it. Bye." 

          Brett's approval was of course required before Eddy could reply to the email, but he did give it a triple star of importance. He tried to go on and reply to other emails, but the thought of preforming with a Spanish orchestra was overwhelming. He hit the 'back' tab to see the email again, realizing that he hadn't even checked to see what orchestra it was. The Barcelona Symphony and Catalonia National Orchestra. Huh. He wondered why it had two different names.

          He googled the orchestra, turning off the TV that was just about finishing up the Beethoven. He listened intently to the Barcelona Symphony play, realizing quickly that this wasn't just any orchestra. They were good, really good. Their musical integrity in playing together was one of the best he'd ever heard. He was astounded! 

          He got lost in listening to the Barcelona Symphony play piece after piece, but eventually remembered his earlier mission of finding out why it had two names. He googled Barcelona, even though he knew where the city in Spain was, but google popped up with Barcelona, Catalonia instead of Barcelona, Spain. Confused, he put, 'Catalonia' into the search bar. All  he got from this endeavor, though, was that apparently the people in Barcelona don't want to be a part of Spain anymore, and they want to break off and become their own country which they call Catalonia. 

          Well, that explains it, kinda. He thought, laughing to himself. The ringing of his phone snapped him out of his thoughts, though, and he jumped out of his skin. He was forced to wait a couple of seconds to catch his breath before pulling his phone out, revealing Brett to be calling him back. 

         "Hello?" Brett asked on the other end of the line, his tone questioning, "You never call when I'm busy unless something's wrong. Is everything okay, Eddy?" He asked. 

          Eddy felt badly now. He had worried Brett. "Yeah, Brett, it's all good, I'm sorry. I got so wrapped up in what I was thinking about. We can talk about it later though, I'm really sorry for interrupting."

          "Oh, so it's nothing important? Good. It's okay, everyone forgets stuff. Well, if that's all you needed, I'm going to get back to the main room, there's this super hot girl in there that one of my cousins brought along. Talk to ya later, man!" Brett hung up the phone. 

          Eddy felt so and that he had interrupted what was going on, however, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of anger, although he had no idea why. He gently set his phone on the couch, too preoccupied in his own thoughts to even bother clearing the screens. He stood up and stalked up the stairs, taking some crackers from the kitchen with him as he went.