Fantasia

XVIII

Eddy motioned his eyes over his shoulders. "Uh yeah..."
Brett stood up and reached out his hand. Eddy stared at it for what he hoped wasn't too long and took it. A warm, strong hand with slender, elegant fingers. Brett pulled him up and together, they made their way over the walkway. When they came closer, Eddy recognized the messy piles as books. Scores, to be precise, with blue covers.
He bent down and picked one up. The paper in his hand felt thick, expensive, and the front cover showed the name of a composer whose picture hung downstairs. Heavy, black letters spelled out "Bach".

"What are these?"
Brett crouched down next to him and looked around. "Scores."
"Well, I can see that. But why are they here?"
"I sometimes use them to practice."
"And then you just throw them around?", Eddy asked incredulously. Brett didn't strike Eddy as the type who'd be disrespectful towards high quality goods.
Brett sniggered. "That would be something, huh. No, they're just here. Like always. If I try to stack them neatly, they're like this the next time I come here. There's no music stand, so I just place them on the handrail here to practice."
"How weird", Eddy stated and flipped through the book he was holding.
"Yeah, right? I sometimes wonder if that's some kind of revenge for all the music sheets I might have treated like crap."
Eddy laughed. "You didn't though. You were always super careful with your stuff. Violin stuff in particular. I was the bad kid, forgetting my violin and shit."
Brett's jaw fell open. "You what???"
"Yeah, more than once in fact. You knew of all the incidences and always made fun of me."
"Haha, I can imagine. Sounds legendary."
"Yeah, legendary bad if you ask me. And super embarrasing. The first time around was when we went to youth orchestra camp and traveled by plane. My sister had to take a cab and bring my violin to the airport for me."
Brett was holding his belly at this point, laughing his ass off.
Eddy smiled and doubled over. "The next time was on a train. I freaked out and called you when I noticed."
"What? And what did I do?"
"Nothing. You made fun of me for the first five minutes or so. Oh, and then you told me to inform the train station about it or something. Can't quite remember."
"Wow" Brett brushed tears away from the corners of his eyes. "I sound like a terrible friend."
"Nah." Eddy picked up the next score, one containing Tchaikovsky's work, and simply added, "You were the best."
Brett threw a glance at him from the side. "I can imagine why."
The soft undertone Brett's last comment carried made Eddy look at the man and yet, he felt like that had been all that would be said for now.
This Brett wasn't so different from the Brett he once knew. And Eddy was still pretty good at reading him, apparently.

He cleared his throat. "So, what are you practicing now?"
"Beethoven. Romance number two."
"Difficult?" Eddy couldn't recall what that piece sounded like. He knew the Spring and Kreutzer Sonata and that was about it, aside from the violin concerto of course
"Kinda. Beethoven is challenging as it is, but this piece also sounds easy. It's a good opportunity to practice projection, since a lot of the notes are played on the high D and A string."
"Uh", Eddy made and grimaced in empathy, while he desperately tried to scrape together all his knowledge about projection on the violin and Beethoven pieces.
"Also, it's in freakin' F Major! F Major is a dick key to be able to make your violin sing and resonate nicely."
"I see..."
"So yeah, good piece to practice. Not fulfilling or super motivating, but good piece nonetheless", Brett stated, sat down and leant his back against the pillared handrail.
Eddy's eyes searched the pile and when he spotted the name, he fished out a score from Beethoven. It was the violin concerto.
"The Romances are over there", Brett said and pointed to the banister behind Eddy. Eddy got up and saw an open book lying on the white stone.
Brett was right. It didn't look super difficult at first glance.
"Would you play it?"
Brett sat up. "What?"
"Would you play it for me?" Eddy turned around and winked at him. "Practice performing."
"Dude, I just started on this."
"Doesn't matter, I'd like to hear you play. Without a mirror from another world in between, I mean."
Brett eyed him sceptically. "You sure?"
"'Course! Why not?"