“You know I was serious,” he said, “when I asked you to come tour with me. You’re so talented. You should share that with the world.”
Emily had been blotting the oil off her pizza with a napkin and looked up at him. “That’s sweet of you to say, but I’m not that talented. Not like you.”
Rob shook his head. “I don’t think you understand.” He pulled out his phone. “Here,” he said. “I want you to watch yourself perform. Pretend it’s someone else.”
“Rob—” Emily started. She didn’t want to watch herself. She knew it would be embarrassing to see. She probably made ridiculous faces or did something strange with her eyebrows. Her voice probably wasn’t as melodic or rich as she’d hoped it would be, her piano playing not as sharp.
“Just watch it,” he said. “Please. For me.”
She wiped her fingers on a paper napkin and took his phone, pressing play on the video. And she saw herself. She saw herself as he saw her. She looked smaller than she imagined, on that stage, playing the bar’s upright piano. Her hair shone copper in the spotlight, where it glinted off the peaks of her braid. Then she started to play, her body rocking with the music, her hands strong against the keys. The music sounded bold, powerful. And then she started to sing. And her own voice almost brought tears to her eyes. She was mournful, passionate, hopeful. Rob was right. She hadn’t known, hadn’t realized.
She looked up and felt a tear slide down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. “I guess I’m not so bad,” she said.
“Queenie,” he answered. “You’re transcendent.”
Before Emily realized what he was doing, he’d pushed his paper plate across the table and slid in next to her in the booth. She moved over to make room, but they were still only millimeters apart.
“We could be huge,” he said. “The Sonny and Cher of our generation. The Johnny and June Carter Cash.”
She smiled, remembering those words from years before. “Could we still?” she asked.
“You’re only thirty-three,” he said. “After we broke up, I never thought I’d write a song that hit the Billboard charts, but here we are. Anything’s possible, Queenie.”
Emily stopped to consider it, really consider it. What would that be like? Leaving her life in New York, her patients? Living apart from Ezra? Traveling the country, maybe the world, playing with Rob? Being recognized at pizza joints? She’d be living out the dream they’d had when she was twenty. But not the dream she and Ezra shared. The one they’d been building these past years.
Rob was watching her think. “You don’t have to answer now,” he said. “It’s a big decision. But think about it. They’re sending me to Mexico next. Then Miami. Top hotels, everything comped . . . if you were there, too, I bet we could book even bigger venues, reach even more fans.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said, but she wasn’t sure if she meant it.
Rob slipped his arm around her shoulders, and Emily let herself lean against him, marveling, as she always did, at the analgesic property of human touch. She felt calmer, less anxious, more hopeful. New paths had suddenly opened up for her, paths she’d long ago thought had been blocked off and closed down. She didn’t know if she wanted to travel down them, but knowing that they were there felt good somehow. Like the world was more open than she’d thought it was.
“I’ve been listening to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony recently,” Rob said.
“The Fate Symphony,” Emily answered, its name popping into her mind from the Music Humanities class they’d both had to take in college. Part of the core curriculum.
“The Fate Symphony,” Rob echoed. “And you know the motif—”
“Ba-ba-ba bum.” Emily sang the opening bars softly.
“Right. Short-short-short long,” Rob sang back, replacing her sounds with words. “It’s amazing to me how he keeps that motif going, throughout. The melody’s not the same, but in all the movements, it’s there. Short-short-short long.”
Emily nodded, remembering the second movement as one they’d focused on in class.
“I was thinking about my life—my career—as a symphony the other day. And I think you’re the motif. The first movement was in college, when we played together, when we made magic on the stage. And then when I was composing scores, even though you weren’t there, you were. I kept thinking, ‘How would Queenie harmonize here? What would she do on the keys?’”