Page 37 of Not Another Love Song

Popping the lid, Mabel groaned. “Blueberry? Damn it, Gwen.” She sighed and grabbed a few spare napkins from behind the counter. “Well, what are you eating?”

Gwen laughed. “You can have them both if you really want.”

Mabel shoved one toward Gwen and started peeling the paper off her own. “Okay, show me what you got.”

She opened her binder and let Mabel see her work. Gwen saw her lips tighten at the title—a new arrangement of “Wake Me Up When September Ends” by Green Day. Mabel still carried a lot of disdain for the music Nathan used at the Pops. Chewing and humming along with the notes, Mabel ran her eyes over the markings, flipping pages and breathing sharply where the up-bows landed. Gwen stood silently, pulling apart her muffin but refusing to eat until Mabel had finished.

“Good,” Mabel said after reviewing the last page.

“Good? Nothing you would change?”

“Well, there’s this up after the page turn. I think it’s fine as you’ve done it, but I know some section leaders would have moved it a measure later.”

“Should I move it?”

Mabel looked up at her and leaned on her hip. “Didn’t I say it was fine?”

“But is fine good enough?”

Mabel shrugged. “Make a decision. Stand by it. That’s all I can say.” She bit into the muffin and groaned.

Gwen showed her what she was thinking for next week’s pieces. Mabel nodded as she chewed, agreeing with every decision, warming Gwen’s chest with confidence.

When the muffin wrappers were thrown away, and the first customers began wandering in, Gwen cleared her throat and broached the subject she had been dying to talk about for months.

“So, I heard recently that you were Alex Fitzgerald’s violin tutor.” The words left her in a rush, and she felt her heartbeat in her fingertips as she waited for the response.

Mabel’s brows shot upward. She turned to the register and busied her hands as she asked, “Where on earth did you hear that name?”

“I stumbled on it.” She didn’t want to bring up Ava if she didn’t have to. “Do you…You do know who he is now, right?”

Mabel didn’t meet her eye. “Why do you think I never let you play that stupid band’s music at the store?”

Gwen blinked. When she had been running deliveries for the shop at sixteen, she’d brought Thorne and Roses to Mabel’s attention. Mabel shot her down every time she asked if they could play their tracks at the shop, even when it was empty.

She tried to recover herself. “Did you have a falling out with him?”

Mabel chuckled. “You could say that. He ‘outgrew’ me. His words, not mine. Tea?”

Weaving around Gwen, Mabel left the counter for the small back room where she kept an electric kettle.

Gwen stumbled to follow. “Why did he say that?”

“Well, it was partially true, wasn’t it? Have you seen him on the violin?”

Nodding, Gwen followed her into the back.

“Marvelous musician. Too hard on himself all the time, but you can’t help that. He was always set on ‘being’ someone,” Mabel continued. “He was a real brat as a teenager, but I didn’t take any of his shit. Even after he stopped coming for lessons, he swung by asking for more and more music for Nathan’s little videos.”

Her heart hammered “Videos?”

“Nathan made him record three a week.” Mabel clucked her tongue as she flipped the kettle switch. “Thirty minutes long sometimes. Always new material. Always the most pristine performances you’ve ever heard, but I knew that a video recorded on a Friday had taken Alex forty-eight hours of practicing— without sleep. Because he’d just come in on Wednesday asking for that brand-new music.”

As Mabel took down mugs and blew out a tight, frustrated breath, Gwen’s mind whirled. The YouTube account where she’d seen Alex Fitzgerald’s Vitali Chaconne—it was Nathan’s. All eighty videos.

“Why three times a week? What was he working so hard for?”

Mabel pressed her lips together. “I believe Nathan’s words were, ‘you’re not four years old anymore. Now anyone can do what you can.’ It was a way to advance him to the next level, which was all Alex wanted back then. I told him Juilliard would advance him just fine without working his fingers to the bone playing night and day for these recordings. I helped him apply; I talked to the people I knew there. Nathan had said he could join the Pops right at eighteen, but…”

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