Maestro grinned. “You should try it.”
“There’s no one who holds my interest for long.”
Maestro put his cup on the glass table and leaned back into the couch. “Tell me about this girl you saw.”
Mark blinked and chewed his lip. “It’s dumb.”
“Is it? I’ve never seen you blush about a woman.”
Mark huffed. “I’m not blushing.”
“If you say so.”
Mark rolled his eyes. “I went to play in the subway to calm down...”
Maestro nodded. He’d found Mark there more than once when his temper got the best of him during a lesson or rehearsal.
“I was playing the Mendelssohn and I opened my eyes and she was standing there. Staring at me. Well, not at me exactly. Just staring.”
“She enjoyed your music?”
“I guess so.”
“You don’t know?”
“It was hard to tell if she loved it or hated it.”
“Perhaps both. Music touches people in many different ways. You can love and hate it at the same time.”
Mark scoffed.
Maestro smiled. “Remember when you started on the Bach partitas? You hated them. Said they were impossible to learn and as boring as practice etudes.”
“I remember.”
“But now you use them—ordiduse them—as the opening pieces of your tour, yes?”
“I still hate them sometimes.”
“They were the most challenging pieces of music you’d learned up to that point. Only you playing. No accompaniment. It’s a love-hate relationship. Or think aboutVocalise.”
Mark grimaced at the name of the piece. “I still don’t play it.”
“Because it brings back memories. But when you have played it, your emotions come through powerfully.”
“I guess.” He wasn’t about to admit he’d played it in the station.
“What’s her name?”
“Who?”
“The girl you met.”
“We didn’t meet. I only saw her. We didn’t speak.”
Maestro smiled.
“What?”