The Silent Sister(66)

Jade shook her head. “No,” she said. “They don’t even know where I am and I want to keep it that way.”

Celia was quiet a moment. “Was it because you’re gay?” she asked without looking at her, and Jade was stunned by the question. Did she look gay? Her hair was still down to her shoulders and she thought she looked pretty feminine. Maybe, though, looks had nothing to do with it.

She hesitated. “I don’t think I am,” she said, then added, “Although right now, I’m a little confused.”

They were passing beneath a streetlight, and she could see the slight smile on Celia’s lips. Jade had the feeling Celia knew more about her than she knew about herself.

Celia touched her arm. “It’s okay,” she said.

She thought about the way she felt every time she looked at the Nastassja Kinski poster in Grady’s, and she remembered the day she’d bought her violin from Cara and the electric jolt she’d felt watching Cara play. Matty’d told her once that he wondered if she was gay and just didn’t know it yet. She’d thought he was joking, his feelings hurt because she said she didn’t care if they ever kissed or not. She looked at Celia’s profile. That was not the way she felt right now. She wished Celia would try to kiss her. She wouldn’t resist.

Neither of them spoke for half a block.

“That’s my place.” She pointed toward Ingrid’s bungalow. “I live in a little cottage behind the house.” She pushed open the gate to the walkway. “Down here,” she said, and Celia followed her down the narrow path.

“This is really cute,” Celia said when Jade flicked on the living room light. She was embarrassed by all the papers and music scattered all over the place. She’d never had anyone other than Ingrid inside the cottage. “How do you afford it, working at Grady’s?” Celia asked, then she blushed. “Sorry,” she said. “That’s so personal.”

“Ingrid takes pity on me,” Jade said. Ingrid had never once raised her rent. “Plus the in-state tuition is great. I’ll need to find a teaching job as soon as I’m out, though.” She was worried about that. How many schools were hiring music teachers these days?

She picked up her violin case. “I bought this from a student who was trading up,” she said. “I had a better one before I left home, but had to leave it behind.”

“I’m sorry.” Celia touched her shoulder, a look of sympathy on her face. “Whatever it was you went through with your family,” she said, “you didn’t deserve it.”

Jade couldn’t look at her, she felt so choked up. She was glad when she turned out the light and they walked outside into the darkness again.

* * *

Sitting once more in Charlie’s living room, Jade felt her hands shake as she tuned the violin. She knew what she was going to do, and she knew there was danger in it. “Want us to start and you join in?” Charlie said kindly. He and Celia sat on the futon, waiting for her to finish her painstaking tuning. “What’s your favorite song?” he asked.

“I’ll play it for you,” she said, and she lifted the violin to her chin and began to play Bazzini’s “Dance of the Goblins,” her eyes shut so she could lose herself in the music. Forget where she was. Forget she was taking a risk, playing one of the most technically challenging pieces of music she knew. Forget she was pushing the bushel aside and letting her light explode from beneath it like fireworks.

When she’d finished, she opened her eyes to the silence in the room. Celia’s hands were prayerlike, pressed to her mouth, and above them her gray eyes were wide.

“Holy shit,” Charlie said into the still air of the cottage.

Jade’s arms trembled as she lowered the violin to her lap. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s my favorite song.” Please don’t tell, she thought.

“Where did you learn to play like that?” Charlie asked.

“I studied a lot as a kid.” She shrugged her shoulders. She hadn’t played well out of a need to show off. Not at all. It had been a need to let out a little of who she really was to people she cared about. People who cared about her.

“Why aren’t you making this your life’s work?” Celia finally found her voice. “Why San Diego State? Why not a conservatory?”

“Juilliard,” Charlie said, making Jade jump. It was as though he knew.

“Because I had to leave home,” she said. “I had to give it up.”

“No!” Celia said. “You can’t. You have to get back to it.”

“It’s a gift,” Charlie said. “You have a responsibility to use it.”

“I want to teach,” she said. “That’s all I want right now.” She nodded toward his guitar. “Let’s play together.”

It took them another minute to recover from what she’d done. They could tell she was hurting, she thought. That she needed the relief they could offer. So, in their kindness, they began playing. The three of them played until two in the morning, and this time when Celia walked Jade home to her cottage, it surprised neither of them when she took the violin case from Jade’s hands and set it next to the couch, then drew Jade toward her, her hands warm against her rib cage, her lips pressing gently against hers.