Page 20 of Not Another Love Song

And then Nathan gave her the sheet music, and as she played, Alex realized that if she ever got out of her head long enough to play her violin like that, like the rest of the world didn’t matter, he was fucked.

The rest of his life would be spent chasing her, trying to catch up.

Because Alex had traveled the entire world by the age of twenty-six, and Gwen Jackson was the first person he’d found who could actually do what he did. And possibly do it better.

Only she didn’t know it yet. And that—that—was the terrifying part.

CHAPTER FIVE

Her feet were light on the stairs as she raced down the steps from the subway and sprinted through the familiar streets of Queens. The train she had just jumped out of screeched above her, gears grinding against the rails as music in Spanish blasted from the speakers at every storefront.

With her violin case swinging dangerously from her fingertips, she flew by her favorite food carts and the shops with comically top-heavy mannequins and rounded the corner to a building with a worn sign that read Mabel’s Music Shop. The bell sounded above the door, and the smell of record covers and inspiration hit her full in the face.

Mabel was behind the counter, standing on the little four-inch step Gwen knew she used. Her pale copper arms were crossed over her wide chest, and she was frowning at a Park Avenue Princess, who looked like she very much resented the fact that she’d ended up in Queens today.

“My daughter’s music teacher told me this was the only place in New York I could trust with her violin, so I’m just trying to understand”—the woman pinched the bridge of her nose— “you’re saying you can’t get this done by the twenty-first?”

“No,” Mabel barked. “I’m saying that the store policy requires at least a week for repairs—”

“It’s not a repair. It just needs to be restrung for her concert on the twenty-first.”

Mabel stared her down, plum lips still parted from before the interruption. “Like I was about to say to you, a week for repairs and restrings.”

Gwen smiled to herself and flipped through the new CDs and records at the front. It was always such fun to watch Mabel deal with difficult customers.

“Okay,” the woman’s voice grated. “So, if her concert is on the twenty-first…”

“You should have brought this in on the fourteenth,” Mabel said drily.

The princess huffed. “So, what’s your rush order policy?”

“Double,” Mabel said without missing a beat. Gwen bit back her smile.

“You can’t be serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

The woman sighed and popped her hip, as if waiting for Mabel to change her mind. “Well, fine. Just—have it done on the twenty-first and delivered to this address—”

“We don’t deliver.”

Gwen hid her laugh behind a cough and stepped inside one of the practice rooms to keep from drawing attention to herself. She breathed in the heavy, stagnant air that was so familiar to her. This was the exact room where she’d picked up a violin for the first time.

She ran her fingers over the crooked metal music stand in the center of the room, remembering how she used to skip middle school to ride the 7 train back to the apartment her mother had raised her in. Moving out to Flushing, changing school districts, and getting used to her grandfather’s humor and grief over his daughter had been a culture shock, to say the least. Gwen would spend school days walking through the streets of Queens, looking for places she and her mother had visited.

When she was eight, her mother had stopped on the sidewalk and pointed at a record in the window of a small music shop. She wished she remembered what record it was, but by the time she had found the store window again, three years later and without her, the records had changed. Gwen had slipped inside the shop and stared at the walls lined with instruments she couldn’t name. After an hour she’d memorized them all.

A short Puerto Rican woman stepped in her path as she tried to learn the differences between clarinets and oboes and said, “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“My dad works across the street,” Gwen had lied. “I’m just waiting for him.”

She’d given a humph and moved back to the counter, watching Gwen with eagle eyes.

When Gwen came back a week later, the owner followed Gwen around the store with crossed arms. So, eventually, Gwen started asking her questions. She answered every one of them, brusquely at first, then slowly softening after a few weeks as Gwen proved she was memorizing things.

“Why don’t you sell second violins?” Gwen asked one Saturday.

The shop owner threw her head back and laughed. She took Gwen to the counter and opened an album cover with pictures of a live orchestra, showing her that first and second violins were the same instrument, just different positions in an ensemble. She pulled out the sheet music for a symphony score and taught her which line was which and how they came together to harmonize. Gwen’s eyes tracked the notes, not quite understanding the language, but seeing how the instruments talked to each other. She spent the rest of the day sitting on the ground behind the counter, reading the score like a good book.

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