Chapter 7: Celeste
The waiting room door opened, and the room seemed to rearrange itself around the girl who walked in. She was tall and poised, dressed as if for a programme cover: a dark blue dress, neat shoes, a small pearl at each ear. Behind her came a woman in a tailored suit, carrying a leather case and speaking in a low, assured voice.
"Celeste, dear, do not rush," the woman said. "You have time."
Althea knew without being told that this was Celeste Moreau. She had heard the name in the corridor chatter: Celeste would play early, because her family had given money to the Alden, and because she had been trained by the best teachers since she was five. Althea felt a small, cold tightening in her chest all the same.
Celeste took the chair nearest the window, crossed her ankles, and opened a bound score that looked as though it had never been creased. The other candidates glanced over, then glanced away, as if looking too long might be counted against them.
A young man a few chairs down leaned toward Althea and spoke quietly. "First time here?" he asked.
Althea nodded. "Is it that obvious?"
"Only a little," he said, smiling. "I am Nolan Everett. Second year. I am waiting for a friend, not auditioning, so I have no reason to be nervous, which is why I am nervous for everyone else."
His kindness landed like a hand steadied on her shoulder. She told him her name, and that she had come from East Philadelphia, and that she played at church. He did not ask where she had trained, which she appreciated more than she could say.
Across the room, Celeste was talking, not loudly, but clearly enough for the whole row to hear. She was describing her programme for the audition, the pieces she had chosen, the teachers who had approved them. Her voice was polished, every word placed like a note in a scale. "Mother says a clean performance matters more than a clever one," she said. "Anyone can be emotional. Not everyone can be exact."
Althea felt the words settle on her like dust. She thought of the way she played at New Hope, where emotion was not an ornament but the reason for the music itself. She wondered whether that counted here, or whether it would be heard as a fault.
Celeste's mother turned, as if noticing Althea for the first time, and smiled a smile that did not reach her eyes. "And you, dear?" she said. "What will you be playing?"
Althea hesitated. She did not want to lie, and she did not want to explain herself to strangers. "A simple piece," she said at last. "And one of my own, if they allow it."
"How brave," Celeste's mother said, in a tone that made bravery sound like a mistake.
Celeste looked at Althea's folder, at the tape on its edges, and then at Althea's dress. She did not sneer. She did something worse, in a way: she looked politely puzzled, as if she could not quite place what she was seeing. "I hope it goes well for you," she said, and turned back to her score.
The door to the audition room opened, and a name was called. It was not Althea's. It was Celeste's. She rose gracefully, handed her score to her mother, and walked through the door without a backward glance. The waiting room exhaled. Someone whispered that Celeste had won prizes since she was twelve.
Nolan leaned closer. "Do not let her get into your head," he said quietly. "She plays beautifully, and she knows it, and that is a heavy thing to carry. It is not the same as playing truthfully."
Althea tried to smile. "Is there a difference, here?"
"I think the judges can hear it," Nolan said. "At least, some of them can."
Through the closed door, faintly, came the sound of a piano. It was Celeste, Althea was sure, playing something rapid and brilliant, each note landing exactly where it should, like rain on a tin roof, bright and untroubled. The waiting room listened. Even the clock seemed to pause. When the playing stopped, there was a short silence, and then the low murmur of voices from beyond the door, too soft to make out.
Althea closed her eyes and listened to the silence after Celeste's playing. It was a clean silence, an admiring silence, but it did not ache the way music ached at church, when a hymn found the sore place in a person and stayed there. She opened her eyes and looked at her hands. They were not the hands of a prodigy. They were the hands of a girl who cleaned offices at night and practised after midnight, and they knew things that no prize could teach. Doubt was still sitting beside her, close as a shadow, but it was no longer the only company she had. Nolan was still there, and her own music was still there, waiting behind the side door.