Home of the Braves by David Klass

Author:David Klass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 2012-01-29T16:00:00+00:00

17

As I showered and started dressing, I found myself moving more and more slowly. It’s a strange thing—I hadn’t been scared to meet Slade in the subbasement bathroom and risk getting beaten up, but I was afraid of this talk I was about to have with Kris. I must’ve spent ten minutes combing my hair and thinking of things I should and shouldn’t say to her. Finally I couldn’t delay any longer, so I walked out and headed for the band room.

The conductor’s platform was pushed off to one side and the wooden band shell was empty, but the lights were on, and I could hear flute music coming from one of the practice rooms. I followed the music to the closed door, and knocked twice. Kris let me in, and the door swung shut behind her. We were alone in the small practice room. “I’m almost done,” Kris said. “That must have been the longest shower in history.”

“I was dirty,” I told her, which sounded so stupid when I heard myself say it that I grinned, and followed it up quickly with the equally goofy “But now, as you can see, I’m clean.”

“Yes, you do look cleaner,” she said with a nod and a smile. “Do you mind waiting?”

“Go ahead and finish. I’ve got nothing to do.”

The practice room held only one chair and one music stand, so I sat on the floor, with my back against a wall, and watched as Kris glanced from me to her sheet music, and slowly raised her flute to her lips.

I can’t tell you how pretty she looked as she started to play. I sat there and watched her, and remembered why I had liked her so much for so long. And I could feel that as she played, Kris was aware of how close I was sitting to her in the tiny room, and of the intensity of my gaze. She didn’t seem uncomfortable with it. In fact, I sensed that she was kind of enjoying it. A strange, charged energy bounced around the room. Her fingers moved expertly across the keys, her lips kissed the silver mouthpiece and let it go, only to kiss it again, and her hazel eyes flicked over the bars of music as if she was looking for hidden secrets.

As I watched her, and listened to the beautiful music she was making, I kept asking myself variations of the same question, over and over. How could I have let months and years slip by without telling her how I felt about her? We had had many good times as friends, but we should have been girlfriend and boyfriend long ago. How could something that was so clearly meant to be not happen?

Kris played a last few dazzling, silvery notes and was done. She lowered the flute and looked at me. “So, was that awful or what?”

“I’ve listened to more painful things,” I told her. “Kris, I thought it sounded great.”

“That shows what you know about music.”

“I know what I like.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.