“Officially? A few weeks,” Julia says. “But it probably would have been longer if I hadn’t been so awkward about everything in the beginning.”
“It was endearing,” Noelle assures her.
They talk about college, and I try my best not to feel left out. Julia and Noelle have been stalking their roommates-to-be on Instagram, and Tarek says he’s rooming again with Landon, his freshman-year roommate. From what I gather, Landon seems to be his closest friend from school. Tarek even gives them tips on how to dress up dorm food and what you should and should not attempt to make in a microwave.
There’s a silent auction happening in the lobby to benefit a local music charity, two rows of items ranging from fancy gift baskets to spa trips to vacations. Maxine’s even auctioning off a harp. Though I’m sure none of us can afford anything, we pretend we can.
“Ah, yes, I’d certainly bid on this trip to Martha’s Vineyard if I hadn’t just summered there last year,” Julia says in her best rich-person voice.
Noelle adjusts the brim of an invisible hat. “It would be an embarrassment to summer in the same place two years in a row.”
As we turn to the other side of the table, something catches my eye: backstage passes to the Seattle Rock Orchestra. I haven’t heard of it, so I step closer to read more. “Oh wow. This one is actually really cool.”
The Seattle Rock Orchestra, I learn, is exactly what it sounds like: an orchestra that plays rock music. They’ve done the Beatles, David Bowie, even Lizzo. I had no idea something like this existed—I assumed orchestras only played music that had been around for hundreds of years. It’s wild, really, how much I don’t know about music, this thing that’s been in my life since I was born.
“You could try for it,” Tarek says.
I peer down at the bids. “For six hundred dollars? My parents don’t pay me nearly that much to play Pachelbel’s Canon every other weekend.”
Serious bidders have started to give us sour looks. I don’t want to embarrass Maxine, so we head inside the auditorium and take our seats. The harp is already onstage, waiting for her.
“You seem nervous.” Tarek places a hand on the knee I can’t stop jiggling up and down. “Everything okay?”
“I mean, have you met me?” I say, forcing a laugh. But he’s not wrong. Maybe it’s that I know how long it’s been since she performed like this and I have secondhand nerves. There are so many people here to see her. At weddings, I’ve only ever been part of the scenery.
I wonder what it would feel like to build the instrument and then play it in front of a sold-out audience like this one.
“She just hasn’t played in a while,” I continue. “I’m probably projecting. She’s a professional. I’m sure she’s extremely calm.”
“But she’s, like, world-famous, right? You said she played on the soundtrack of Dragonthrone?”
“Oh, I loved that show,” Noelle says. “But I’m still bitter about the last season.”
Before the curtain goes up, I get a text from Asher. How are you feeling? The guilt rolls back in like a storm cloud, and I dash off a quick a little better, probably going to sleep soon before I stow my phone.
There’s no opening act, and during the first half, Maxine plays some popular, recognizable songs, including the theme to Dragonthrone. Then she moves on to her original pieces.
I’ve seen her play in videos and in her studio. I’ve been working alongside her for the past month. But here, I am riveted. The audience is holding its breath, and it’s wild to see so many people on the edge of their seats for the world’s tamest instrument. She’s just that good. The sound is rich, warm, at times light and lovely and at others deeply haunting. Her hands, flying up and down it in a way that looks somehow both natural and precisely choreographed.
The harp she’s playing—I know how it began. Several pieces of wood, cut and sanded (and sanded and sanded and sanded) and glued and stained and strung. I know the number of hours it must have taken, the sharp smell of the lacquer when it was freshly painted, the tediousness of getting all the strings and levers just right. I know the way it might have felt when she sat down and played a song all the way through for the first time.
I know all of these things, and that makes my heart swell in my chest.
“Wow,” Tarek says under his breath. His hand stays on my knee, his thumb tapping along, and I’m too entranced by Maxine to unpack what that might mean. “She’s incredible.”
And that’s enough to fill me with pride. He sees it too. It’s not just me mesmerized by what this instrument can do, what the right person can create when they’re playing it. I’ve been performing for years, both literally and figuratively, but I’ve never truly played. Not like this.
What about music? Noelle asked at the farmers market earlier in the summer. Was it too obvious? she wanted to know.
Maybe it was, and I just couldn’t see it yet.
“These are for you,” I blurt, passing Maxine the bouquet that’s now a little lopsided after sitting on the floor during her performance. I hope she doesn’t notice.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says as she accepts it. “Thank you.”
We waited in the lobby as Maxine made the rounds, greeting people she knew and some she didn’t, thanking them for coming and for supporting this cause, a local music charity. When she spotted me, her eyes lit up, as though she was surprised I’d shown up.
She’s dressed in black pants and a capelike shirt that makes her look vaguely medieval. She’s wearing only a bit more makeup than she usually does, some shimmer on her
