2 7

crescendo

verb. to gradually increase the volume of music.

alt.

noun. the peak of a gradual increase.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

AWAY GAMES SUCK FOR MARCHING bands.

Depending on the host school, your music is at best received with chilly, scattered applause, or at worst the ensemble is downright booed as you walk through a foreign campus and into a foreign stadium. Straight after classes on Friday, the marching band splits up by gender, filing into the buses to Pittsburgh.

The Halston Foxes spend Friday night in a more upscale hotel two blocks away, but we're in a Holiday Inn near Mt. Washington. People either sleep four to a room, spread across two doubles, but a lucky handful (with seniors getting priority) get two singles. I'm rooming with Quen, who sleeps like a rock—heavy and utterly still.

On Saturday morning, the marching band raids the continental breakfast on the ground floor, gets into our maroon-and-white uniforms, and buses to Rooney Field for a noon kick-off. As expected, no-one really pays much attention to our music. We're not playing the halftime show nor post-game show. We're just in the stands, delivering fight songs and pop hits, to make sure our football team isn't psychologically dragged down by the weight of the opponent's derision and home turf advantage. Go Foxes!

One advantage is: we're using this performance as a primer of some of the Eclipse music, which will be performed for realsies at the next Halston home game after the Thanksgiving break. Depending on how well the Foxes do, whether they make playoffs, that might be the last game. Eclipse will definitely be our last show.

In the stands, the drumline takes the front-most rows. For this game I'm playing center, drumsticks whirring and spinning expertly in a line with the other snares, cymbals hemming us in at either side.

At the end of the game (we lost, so the mood is downbeat) Keller gathers us in the backstage part of the stadium. "I know once we get back to the inn, I won't be able to get your attention again," in reference to the fact we'll be unleashed in Pittsburgh until tomorrow morning. She rattles off a series of instructions for checking out of our rooms. "If you miss the bus back to Halston, you'll have to find your own way home," and reminds us: "You're all adults, but you're still representing the university. You're also my responsibility until I get you back to campus. So if you do anything stupid, just don't let it get traced to me please."

The marching band members have varied interests. Some people are outdoorsy and want to do the walking trails and overlook climbs to see the city skyline (some of the less outdoorsy people are going to take a cable car or incline up the hill). The epicures want to sample the food and drink circuit and go shopping. The touristy, artsy sect want to visit the museums, conservatories, and galleries. People splinter into section and friend groups for the day, though tonight everyone of age (or wanting to try their luck with their fake IDs) plans to hit the nightclubs.

Initially I was supposed to go with the outdoorsy group, with Robby, Devin, and the boys, to climb to the city overlooks. It's an unseasonably warm day, beautiful blue sky and cauliflower clouds. We were packed and out the hotel door and everything, waiting at a pedestrian crossing with backpacks and spending money—and then I saw Bay exiting the Holiday Inn, her Science Faculty tote bag on her shoulder, black hair tumbling loose from underneath a baseball cap. She's alone.

"You know what," I find myself blurting, completely unthinking, "I forgot something at the hotel."

Devin, tugging on the adjustment cord of his backpack strap, pauses. "What?"

"My water bottle."

"Alright," Robby shrugs. "We can wait for you to get it. No rush."

My smile freezes on my face. Damn it. "I also forgot that Quentin asked me to do something with him," I ramble, "it shouldn't take long, but it also might, so you guys should head on without me. I'll do the climb alone if I want to catch up."

"You sure?" Devin furrows his eyebrows.

"Yes," I wave a hand dismissively, "I'll text you. Maybe." From the corner of my eye, I see Bay turn the corner. "Have fun, homies."

Then I turn around and head back towards the Holiday Inn. Glancing over my shoulder, I see the boys cross the road and keep walking past the hotel, pulling my phone from the pocket of my running shorts.

Quentin, who unfathomably just wants to take his laptop to a café with good WiFi and shack up for the afternoon, answers after two dials. "Quen. Buddy. I have a request."

He's immediately dubious. "If it was a reasonable request you would have just made it, but the lead-in makes me suspicious."

I turn the corner that Bay took and end up on a larger road, with a pizza place and Lebanese and Venezuelan restaurants just on the corner. The buildings are all red brick and sandy grout, with evenly-spaced trees, losing most of their leaves, dotting the sidewalks. Bay's still walking, yards ahead, probably to catch a bus.

"If anyone asks, I had to help you with, like, last minute schoolwork. Coding assignment or internship application or whatever. It was urgent, which it why it couldn't wait. And we worked until dinnertime."

"Why do you need an alibi? How do you manage to get into trouble when we've only been in this city for one night?"

"Just because, and I'm not in trouble."

"And you can't even tell me where or what you're doing?" Quen wonders. I don't reply, and in the long silence he is probably trying to decipher my motivations. Then realization dawns on him, and he says a naughty word. "Or who you're doing? Please, Cal, tell me you're not hooking up with someone in the band."

A bashful smile dances across my face. "I mean, I could say that I'm not hooking up with someone—"

"Wow," Quen drawls. "Just. Wow. I thought you were opposed to bandcest. Who is it?"

Bay and I agreed not to tell anyone. "I can't say."

"Just tell me it's not a freshman."

"Whoa, who do you think I am?" On the verge of graduating, freshmen feel like babies. Unformed minds, juvenile tastes and personalities they imported from high school.

"My best friend," he chuckles harshly on the other end of the line, "who is a people magnet with terrible, terrible, like just fucking awful—"

"I get the picture, Jesus."

"—impulse control," he finishes.

"It's not a freshman. I promise."

Quen asks in a wary tone, "It's not..?" Uh-oh. Then he sighs, "Never mind."

"I love you," I coo, keeping my eyes on the buildings and people in front of me.

"Shut up," he responds, before hanging up abruptly. (He loves me, too.)

I'm pretty sure Quen'll be able to find a reliable alibi for me. He said he wanted to find a local café, but he was still in the hotel room when I left, flicking through TV channels and thinking of running a bath. Quen's never been a very adventurous person. He might walk around and take some scenic photos to show his family—but no-one else from the band would be with him to notice my absence.

I resolve then and there to do something kind in return, something to boost his mood when he needs it most. I will know when the moment arises.

Bay stops at the bus station on our side of the road, her phone in hand and eyes pinned to the screen. Being as far away as I am, she doesn't notice my presence until she glances backwards, craning her head in search of an arriving vehicle.

Her expression sours pretty quickly, but for a split second I swear her eyes light up when she recognizes me. "Stalking me, Vierra?"

"Nope," I lie, "I'm going into the city to do some sightseeing."

Bay's gaze flicks down the body, taking in the athletic clothes, trainers, and well-stocked backpack. When her eyes come to rest on my face, she's stifling a smile. "Where exactly in the city?"

Bay is a Philosophy major with a penchant for the depressive, I know that about her. I also know she likes people-watching and feeling deep just for the sake of feeling deep, turning big questions of mortality and morality around and around in her head. She could do it for hours.

"Carnegie Museum of Art," I throw out. When her plush mouth falls into a deep scowl, I know I guessed right.

"I'm also going there," she says.

"Alone?" I question. "A bunch of us were heading to the museums—why didn't you go with them?"

A bus is coming down the road, numbered 51, and when Bay's eyebrows prick up at the sight of it, I raise my arm to signal the driver, feigning my own knowledge of the way there. In response to me, she explains, "Because I take museums slow. Very slow. Even if we're heading to the same place, don't feel obliged to accompany me," she warns. "It's going to bore someone as overactive as you."

"Hey, I can appreciate art," I splutter indignantly. "I'm a veritable connoisseur."

Bay laughs, shaking her head at me in a mixture of fondness and complete doubt. "Okay. Sure."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

I cannot appreciate art.

Not in the way Bay does.

When she said she perused museums and art galleries slowly, I assumed she walked at a leisurely pace and made sure to visit all the rooms inside—I was prepared to do the same. But what she really means is that she walks at a leisurely pace, visits all the rooms, and also reads every single word on every single placard, stopping close to the wall and letting a handful of more brisk spectators pass by. One such member of the public—an old, white-haired lady with a walker on wheels—squeaks past us while Bay is still reading the placard.

Holy hell. I feel like I'm driving on a highway and getting overtaken by grandmothers.

Tamping down my impatience, I cast my eyes to the rest of the room. The Carnegie Museum of Art is built with classical-inspired architecture, multiple stories gilded with ivory detailing, supported with pale columns, and traversed by wide, decorated marble staircases. If I knew anything about art history, I might be more interested in the works housed here, but all I know is that the statues on plinths all look like every Greek statue ever, and the paintings thus far look like every Renaissance painting ever. Bay mentioned a contemporary art collection in the temporary exhibition space, but I don't think we'll get there within this century.

Also, museums aren't libraries, but they all have this similar atmosphere of intense, enforced peace. Be quiet and look at the pretty paintings or else. I feel like I can't speak too loudly, so my next question comes out in a whisper: "Why do you read everything?"

I simply cannot take this anymore. Checking my Instagram Stories, the boys have made it to the summit of the lookout, and are having a picnic with the fried chicken and snacks they brought. My stomach rumbles. "Johannes von Dutchguy was a poor artist in his lifetime, severely depressed, but became famous after he died and his family had to sell his work to survive. Infamy ensues. Isn't that the story of all of them?"

Bay's eyes slide over to me, not offended like I thought she might be. She's smug, like she knew she was right, like she could hear the heavily-smothered restlessness in my voice. I'm too overactive for this sort of leisure. Is she going this slow to torture me? She's a fan of doing that during sex, too.

"You don't have to stay by my side, Callum. I don't need a chaperone."

"No, I like art," I emphasize, "I'm just wondering if art can be appreciated without knowing the minutiae of its context."

Bay takes a small step back and gestures to the current painting, indicating for me to look. I look. I know the paintings with an airbrushed quality and little cracks in the canvas are from Europe, because they're old in style and in material. In this room, with burgundy-painted walls, the paintings seem darker, duller and more American in subject matter. This canvas is taller than a person by far, depicting two nearly life-sized lovers dancing in the middle of a busy street, skirts and hair in motion. There's a marketplace behind them, with a throng of civilians milling about their shopping and supervising grubby children. The man is brunette and handsome, cupping the lady's face and kissing the corner of her mouth. She, wearing a conservative old-fashioned navy dress, is smiling in close-eyed rapture.

"Boy loves girl, girl loves boy, they dance obnoxiously in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare," I summarize. "Didn't need to read the plaque."

Bay snorts, glancing around at the other museum-goers to check if people overheard. "Does it really seem like that?" she asks. "Look at the colors, the mood."

Their clothes are dark and faded, browns, grays, murky greens. The sky is overcast with swollen thunderclouds. It looks like it would pour at any moment. Everyone's pale, even the dancing lady, though there are some children in the middle distance with healthy blond hair and rosy faces. The sort of details I couldn't possibly pick out if I was looking at it on a laptop screen. In the background of the market, the painting morphs into desaturated shadows.

"I mean," I shrug, "dark and depressing was in vogue at the time."

Bay responds, "Nineteenth-century realism has just as many happy scenes as miserable ones; this one is just not one of them."

I sigh and cock my head toward the placard, silently asking for information.

"This painting is an apology. Look," Bay says, pointing to three different spots in quick succession.

The man's ring finger, with a golden wedding band. The lady's ring finger, without any jewelry. Then, on the hand of the woman standing behind those lively, cheerful blond children, a matching golden wedding band.

"It's called Moment of Realization. His wife's realization when she discovered his infidelity, but also his realization, immortalized through this painting, what a mistake he made. The most colorful parts of the painting are his wife and family. Look at her face—she's more beautiful than the lady in the foreground, with just as much detail squeezed into an even smaller space."

The wife, staring at the lovers in obvious hurt, has color in her face. Lots of it. Red lips, bright alert eyes marked with a single pinprick of dry white paint on each iris to represent twinkling light. Wisps of her tawny brown hair flutter in an invisible wind, each strand impossibly thin, and hundreds of them. The artist must have spent ages stroking each one with a brush.

"He gave the most care to his family, shined the brightest technical spotlight. And none of this you would have known if you just looked and left. Not that it's important or necessary to know, but that's why I take my time. I'm here for the stories, not for the pictures," she murmurs. "So, seriously. Don't feel like you have to stay."

Then Bay brushes past me, only walking a few paces to the next oversize painting, and stops in front of the next placard to read.

This woman.

Shaking my head, I can't suppress the tiny, persistent smile that tugs at the corners of my mouth. With her explanation, Moment of Realization feels less like a relic of the past and more like a living, breathing message. It makes sense now. The melancholy colors make complete sense, as does the composition; I can so strongly imagine the painter agonizing over this work, so strongly feel his remorse, almost see wizened hands painting the white curve of the wife's soft, angelic cheek and wishing she would let him caress it again.

I skim over the placard, which holds the painter's name and years alive, and then linger at this position to watch Bay in profile. I think there's a gravity well around her, some manipulation of the space-time fabric that wants me to rocket towards her. One thumb is casually hooked behind the strap of her tote bag, the other hand hanging by her side. Her hair is tied at the nape of her neck—she tied it up while we were in the line for tickets—flowing down her back in wavy rivulets. Her face is serene and inquisitive, dark brown eyes darting over the lines of text describing the next painting.

I wish I could paint, I think, but even artisans wouldn't do her justice.

With a new approach to art enjoyment, Bay and I meander through the halls of Carnegie, reading alternative placards and explaining them to each other. Some are truly poor-artist-famous-after-death stories, which we skip, and others make us stop and ponder. I'm having more fun than I thought I would, my mind stimulated and engaged in a way I didn't think lifeless antiques could achieve.

In the contemporary exhibition gallery—which has walls erected in the middle of the hardwood floors to increase real estate for hanging paintings—I spot a group of marching band members and stop short. Bay bumps into my shoulder, and I whirl us back behind the thin edge of one wall. In this corner of the room, there is practically no-one else, no security, no windows.

"What is it?" she wonders, leaning out to look.

"People we know," I answer. If they see us, they'll be confused why two people who hate each other are hanging out—potentially rumors, potentially not. Bay would rather die than be the subject of gossip.

"Fuck," she whispers, settling her back against the wall. Sharing the same little blind spot, there's hardly an inch between our bodies. Bay fixes her eyes somewhere around my collarbone, her expression unreadable.

I inch one eye to the right, far enough to see them—mostly saxophonists—laughing, pointing to a particularly phallic display of modern art, and then drifting through the arched entrance to another gallery.

I exhale a sigh of relief. "They're gone."

"Good," she says, "no point starting drama when this is nearly over."

Nearly over.

For a second I think marching band is nearly over—which it is—but it becomes clear Bay is referring to our enemies-with-benefits arrangement.

Our secret trysts and late-night pot-smoking sessions and conversations in the dark of my bedroom. Disguising dirty talk as co-section leader talk over direct messages. Sprinting in the rain.

Making each other laugh like it's war, making love like it's a truce, and kissing her, kissing her, kissing her.

Over.

My own Moment of Realization hits me like a wave at my favorite beach: one big crash at the initial swell, followed by multiple smaller currents that keep shifting the sand I'm standing on, until nothing about the last three-and-a-half years makes sense.

How much time did I waste? How much did I get wrong? Why did I hate her? Did I ever?

Because right now, I know only this: I want Bay entirely, body and mind, heart and soul.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

a / n:

stay calm folks it's happening :D

the next chapter is bay's pov, and then it's the end of Act II. we are about 75% of the way through the book and i am so excited for emotional growth that awaits us.

see you next time,

aimee x