Page 5 of Not Another Love Song

She hadn’t cared what she sounded like. She’d just played. Page one then page two. And then on and on. And when she’d finished the entire beginner’s book, Mabel was standing in the doorway, her jaw slack and her arms crossed over her chest, staring at her like she was a ghost of someone else.

“Was it not good? I can get better if you let me come back,” eleven-year-old Gwen had stammered.

Mabel’s body had twitched, like it was just waking up. She’d asked Gwen to play the last two songs again for her, and then brought down the intermediate books.

Now, Gwen stared at the sheet music for “Creep” by Radiohead—an odd wedding selection, to be sure, but a gorgeous song on strings. She could capture that moment again. She would just stare at the book and play.

With the added challenge of mentally transposing the violin music to cello. Sure.

Jacob asked if she wanted to do anything different than what was on the music, but Gwen shook her head. She placed the bow on the strings, and waited for Jacob’s first four measures.

It wasn’t great. It was passably good, though. She followed her bow markings and the strings sang out the melody as Jacob played the broken chord accompaniment underneath. When “Creep” ended, Gwen felt a weight lift off of her. It was doable. She could make it happen.

Glancing over to the back porch, she saw Ama giving her a thumbs-up and a three-minute warning. Relief spread through her body.

Gwen turned the page in her music book and laughed. “Numb” by Linkin Park. Another beautiful one on strings, but more than that—one that Gwen had memorized.

Jacob took the opening measures again, and Gwen let her eyes drift, feeling the melody that she’d screamed to when she was young. The song seemed to have been on a constant loop her entire childhood. Her mother would yell into spatulas and hairbrushes with her, playing the pots and pans as drums and crowd-surfing her through the tight living room of their Queens apartment. When she was ten, Gwen had tried to convince her grandfather to include Linkin Park in the music for her mother’s funeral service, but he’d put his foot down.

The memory made her eyes sting and her lips tug in a smile. These songs were odd choices for a wedding, but she preferred “Numb” and “Creep” to traditional love songs. Something always felt forced about songs written about falling in love. She preferred playing the anti-love songs. The arrangements were always better.

Jacob let the final tinkering notes play from “Numb” as the last of the guests found their seats, and she checked her phone.

4:01 p.m.

Ama’s assistant came by to cue them, and they switched their music to “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” It was a very quick melody that Gwen had perfected years ago on the violin. On the cello…she was having trouble visualizing it all.

“Gwen, are you feeling good?” Jacob asked. “Do you want to just take the bass line?”

“No, no,” she said, eyes flying over the page. “I can do this. Just take the tempo down five clicks.”

The assistant prodded them again, and Gwen raised the bow, the muscles in her arm already tiring without the proper stamina for the cello. She met Jacob’s eyes. They synced their breath and began.

Gwen kept her gaze glued to the sheet music for the first eight measures. She slid through the page without breathing, finally taking a moment to glance back at Jacob when he took solo on the next eight. Her eyes flicked up to the procession just as Xander Thorne linked arms with Chelsea, the brunette bridesmaid, and led her down the aisle. She barely got a chance to note how amazing the charcoal gray tux looked on him before picking up the bow again and joining Jacob.

She wasn’t pleased with the way she was playing. She could have done so much better with practice. And she tried not to dwell on the fact that she was playing on Xander Thorne’s spare cello. Or the fact that she would not have worn a knee-length skirt if she’d known she would have a cello between her knees.

Xander Thorne’s cello.

No, no. Don’t think about Xander Thorne’s anything between your knees.

She looked at Jacob, and he gave her an encouraging nod. Checking ahead in the music, she remembered how she had purposefully memorized the violin part so she wouldn’t need her eyes on the binder. As much as she wished she had her violin, she could still trust her memory.

She envisioned the sheet music and let herself just play, imagining Mabel in the doorway of the practice room, imagining her mother singing Radiohead and not caring if she got the words right. Gwen closed her eyes and played, trusting herself. She didn’t open her eyes again until the bow pulled across the final chord.

The audience was standing, facing the floral arch. The bride had made it down the aisle. As the minister told everyone to take their seats, she looked at Jacob, and he beamed at her, shaking his head, silently laughing. She guessed that meant she’d pulled it off. Adrenaline flooded her veins, and Gwen was shocked at the rush. It felt so different to play without a safety net like that. She didn’t experience anything like that at the Pops, where everything was rehearsed and, while the music was fun, it was purposeful.

With trembling fingers, Gwen turned the page in the binder to the final song, looking over the solo line and figuring out what she’d have to do. It would be much easier than “Jesu.”

Once the ceremony was underway, she glanced back up, finding two of the tallest people she’d ever seen in her life holding each other’s hands in front of the minister. Gwen herself was not a short woman, but the bride had to be over six feet. She looked even taller with Xander Thorne standing behind her.

Gwen blinked. She’d guessed that when Xander said he was in the wedding party, that meant he was a groomsman. But the bride had Xander, Chelsea, and the light-haired model in a line behind her, so it was clear he was actually the man of honor. Gwen smiled. That’s what she’d probably have to do one day, with Jacob standing with her.

She cast her eyes over Chelsea again. And just as she gave up trying to place her, Gwen realized she recognized the groom as well. He was one of Xander Thorne’s band members in Thorne and Roses. Her gaze darted to the guests in chairs, and she found the other three members scattered among them. Her heart hammered in her throat. If she thought she was starstruck the first time she met Xander at Carnegie Hall, this was next level.

That’s how she knew Chelsea. She was all over Thorne and Roses’ social media accounts, sticking her tongue out in pictures and joining the band on out-of-town gigs. People went wild in the comments under a picture of her sitting next to Xander in a hot tub, asking if they were together and tagging the two of them incessantly. Neither one replied.

Gwen glanced at Xander and found him looking right at her. His expression was focused. Dark.

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