The Beethoven Quandary

  Chapter Eleven

  Melissa picked up the magazine from the table. Another music magazine. How many classical music magazines were there?

  God! She hated Jeremy's apartment. It was soulless. It wasn't that it was cheap. Her apartment had cheaper rent than his did. It wasn't the paint peeling off the walls. It wasn't the absolutely horrible bathroom. Hers was at least as bad.

  But there was nothing that showed any personality. Nothing at all. Of course that was Jeremy, wasn't it? Jeremy had ambition. He had an enormous ego. He loved it when his agent booked that European concert tour. It wasn't much of a tour of course. Jeremy admitted that in his emails. Of course Jeremy would have loved a big, glamorous tour, playing all the major European concert halls. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. And in the meantime, he was perfectly happy to give small concerts to bored businessmen and little old ladies who thought he was charming. For now, he'd take what he could get. If he could only play the small cities in Europe—the cheap concerts— then that's what he'd play.

  And now Jeremy had his precious Beethoven manuscript. So now that was going to make him rich and famous. Maybe…but maybe not. Sometimes it seemed that Jeremy was a fool.

  But she had to admit that she had been attracted to Jeremy. Certainly in the beginning, almost eight months ago now. Jeremy was like no one else she had ever met. He sure was out of place in her crowd. She remembered the first time he had come to hear her band. Did he really come to see her, or was it just something to do, something to fill up a night? He said he saw a poster of the band and just had to come and see her in person. But that couldn’t be true. No, he just happened to walk in off the street and saw her.

  It was a crummy place. She noticed him right away. It was a small crowd and he didn’t fit in. Too buttoned down. Khakis and a sweater for Godsake. And cute, in a manufactured sort of way. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. Still, she was surprised he hung around until the end of the first set. Then he came right up to her and bought her a drink. It looked like he had some money, although she was soon to find out that he didn’t have it very often.

  So she stayed and talked with him. He was trying to be hip. He probably thought he was speaking her language, but it was obvious to her that he was just playing a role. Still, she liked him. She wasn’t quite sure why. And when he asked her out, she said yes.

  They went out several times. He never mentioned her Goth outfits. He seemed to like being with someone who was an outsider, even though he always seemed to try so hard to be an insider.

  It wasn't that she didn't have other boyfriends. She had as many as she wanted. And they'd do anything for her. But she didn't care. She was bored. She was bored with them and even with her own music.

  But she couldn’t ever understand why Jeremy loved classical music so much. Sometimes she didn’t even really think he did love it. It was something he was just very good at, so he pretended to be enthusiastic about it.

  But God! Those concerts! All those concerts! She went with him to as many as she could stand. But eventually she began to hate even the sight of those musicians…classical musicians. The men dressed up like little penguins...those straight -laced women so rigid that they look like they'd break in half if they bent over. She just hated the symphony concerts.

  The piano recitals were better. There weren’t as many stuffy old men and rich women in the audience flashing their stupid jewelry. Sometimes she even lost herself in the music for a little while, forgetting where she was and drifting off into these funny little dreams.

  But that’s not how Jeremy would react to the piano concerts. He would be completely concentrating on the performer. Not the music, but the performer. He was listening hard to every note the performer played. If somebody made a mistake, he would smile. That would make him happy. After every concert, he would go on and on about the performer. He would say that the pianist had played this piece well, but that piece badly. He was always comparing himself to the other pianists. It’s like he wanted them to have flaws. He wanted them to be bad so he could be better.

  God, she hated Jeremy’s apartment. She still kept her old apartment and every once in a while would go there just so she could be alone. She knew that Jeremy expected her to stay with him all the time now. But she just couldn’t do that.

  She looked at her phone. When was he coming? He was late. She flopped down on the miserable sofa. At that instance there was a knock on the door and she moved swiftly to open it.

  She threw the door open and said,” It’s about time.”