Page 61 of Sunsets at Seaside
Maybe her mother was right, and everything outside of being an excellent cellist was not worth the energy. Maybe she’d just needed a good dose of reality to slap her into realizing how lucky she was to hold her position with the orchestra. With every tear that fell, she weighed her thoughts, and not one of them took hold.
“I think I’d better go, Dad.”
“Jessica, honey, if you’re this torn up over him, maybe you should talk to him. Tell him how you feel.” He lowered his voice, and it sounded as if he was walking as he spoke. “Honey, some things are more important than being the best cellist. But if you tell your mother I said so, I’ll deny it until the cows come home.”
She heard the smile in his voice.
“Okay.” She wiped her tears.
“I’d do anything for your mother, and you know that, but, Jessica, you don’t have to. You have choices in your life. I know you’ve put your all into your career, and you’ve done a darn good job of it. Whether or not you make the Chamber Players doesn’t matter. Don’t put that pressure on yourself, and I’m sorry if I did.”
Don’t put that pressure on myself? A spot with the Chamber Players is what everyone strives for.Her mother had ingrained that in her mind since she first started playing with the symphony. “You deserve to let yourself be happy. There are ways to have both, you know. Your career and a relationship. Your mother and I did it.”
She couldn’t stop a laugh from slipping out. “No,youdid it. She does whatever she pleases and you conform.”
“Okay, maybe to some degree, but that’s what relationships are. Compromises. I love you, honey, and if you want to talk any more, just call me. But at least think about talking to this man if you think he’s worth it.”
“Okay. Thanks, Dad.” Now more than ever she wished she’d found that baseball for him.
After they ended the call, she once again debated calling Jamie, and after a few minutes, she decided against it. There was only one way to distract herself from her heartache. She took out her cello and began to play.
She jumped when her phone rang twenty minutes later.
Amy.
She debated not answering, but the thought of losing the friends she’d made in addition to losing Jamie was too painful.
“Hello?”
“Hi, hon. It’s Amy. I was just thinking about you and wondering how you were doing.”
Jessica wasn’t sure how much to confess to Amy. She was, after all, Jamie’s friend first, and she knew how close he and the girls were. She decided to be a little vague.
“I’m okay, thanks, Amy. How’s the Cape?” She missed having breakfast with the girls. She missed talking to them and listening to them share advice and give each other a hard time. She never even got to go chunky-dunking.
“It’s quiet without you and Jamie here. But you know, it’s the Cape, so it’s still amazing.”
“Jamie’s not there? I thought he was there for the summer.” He left? His business must be in trouble.I must have been a worse distraction than I thought.
“He went back to handle whatever was going on at work.”
“So he’s here. In Boston?” Her pulse quickened, even though there was no reason for it. Boston was a big city, and it wasn’t like he was there to see her, but still, somehow knowing he was in the same city set a slew of butterflies loose in her belly.
“Yeah. I guess. He left the day after you did. I wish you’d come back. Do you think you can make it up for a weekend? You said you rented the apartment for the whole summer, right?”
Jessica heard the hope in her voice and knew it was genuine. “I don’t know. My schedule with the orchestra is really busy, but even if I could, I think it would hurt too much.”
“Oh, hon. Have you talked to Jamie yet?”
“No. I can’t. It’ll just hurt more. I know it’s over. I just…I can’t believe it. And being there, where we fell in love…”
Amy gasped. “Jamie told you he loved you?”
She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. It felt good to have someone to talk to, to get it out of her system. “Yes. Right before he left to see Mark and never came back.”
“Well, Mark’s a big turd. I’ve known Jamie since he was a little boy, and as far as I know, he’s never been in love before, so that has to mean something. Don’t give up hope.”
I already have.“Yeah, it means he either didn’t mean it, or that he realized I really was too much of a distraction to be worth it.”
