She steered him away before Preston could answer, her arm firm through his, and Darius went β grateful and embarrassed in equal measure, his borrowed sleeves flapping at his wrists.
At the edge of the dance floor, Harper let go, and her breezy smile softened a fraction. "You okay?"
"Yeah." Darius exhaled. "Thanks."
"Don't thank me. Preston's like a piano lid β shiny, expensive, and slams shut on your fingers." She peered at him. "Don't let him get to you. That's what he wants. It's like a hobby."
Darius glanced back toward the Steinway, gleaming under its spotlight, untouched. "Some hobby," he said.
"Tell me about it." Harper grinned and bumped his shoulder with hers. "Now. Chocolate. Eleven or twelve? This is very important."
And despite everything, Darius laughed.
Chapter Seven
The Program
The call to dinner came as a single clear chime β not a bell, Darius noticed, but one pure struck note that hung in the air until the whole murmuring hall began drifting toward the round tables. He found his seat at the staff-family table near the back, close enough to the kitchen doors to hear the clatter of plates and the hiss of something delicious. A place card read DARIUS COLE in looping gold script, and for a moment he just stared at it, his name dressed up fancier than it had ever been.
The table filled around him: a maintenance man with kind eyes and his wife, who folded her napkin into a perfect triangle; a bus driver still in her uniform jacket, trading jokes with a security guard; two kids Darius's age who eyed him curiously and then went back to daring each other to try the sparkling water. Nobody here glittered. Nobody here was performing. Darius felt his shoulders drop half an inch for the first time all evening.
Across the room, Tanya caught his eye from the first-aid station and mouthed, You okay? He gave her a thumbs-up. She smiled, tired and proud, and turned back to her neat rows of bandages.
Then the lights dimmed a fraction, and Dr. Alan Pierce took the small stage beside the piano β a tall man with silver hair and a voice like warm wood. He welcomed everyone to the Winter Lights Gala, and spoke about the founders whose portraits watched from the walls: their vision, their generosity, the school they'd built "note by note, brick by brick." He spoke about the music scholarship fund the evening supported β lessons and instruments for young people who showed promise, he said, "wherever that promise is found."
Wherever that promise is found. The room applauded. Darius applauded too, though the words sat strangely in his chest, like a coat that almost fit.
Then came the charity auction, and Darius watched money move the way he'd watched rivers move on field trips β fast, shining, a little frightening. The auctioneer talked like a drumroll, words tumbling over each other. A weekend at somebody's lake house went for four thousand dollars, and the room barely blinked. Courtside seats climbed to six thousand while two men in the front row grinned at each other like it was a game. A private dinner cooked by a famous chef went higher still, paddles flicking up around the room like startled birds. At Darius's table, the maintenance man's wife whispered each number to her husband, and they both shook their heads and laughed the soft laugh of people doing math they'd never need.
Darius tried to imagine having that kind of money to throw at a lake house and couldn't. His mom counted grocery coupons at the kitchen table. His dad drove two states to keep the lights on. Four thousand dollars was a number from another planet.
Between courses, the student performances began. A boys' choir filed onto the risers in matching blazers β real ones, fitted β and sang something old and soaring about light in darkness. Their voices braided together so neatly that Darius, who heard harmonies the way other kids heard traffic, found himself leaning forward despite everything, his foot tapping under the table.
Then a ninth-grader named Elise Tran walked to the center of the floor with a violin tucked under her chin, and the room went still in a different way β the respectful stillness of people who knew exactly what they were about to hear.
She was flawless. That was the only word for it. Every note landed exactly where it was supposed to land, clean as footprints in fresh snow, and when she finished, the applause rolled through the hall like thunder. Her parents beamed from the front table. Dr. Pierce shook her hand. Somewhere to Darius's left, a woman whispered, "Juilliard material, mark my words," and her companion nodded like it was already decided.
Darius clapped until his palms stung, and felt the distance between his world and this one widen with every strike of hands. Elise Tran probably had a teacher with a studio and a metronome and a waiting list. She probably practiced on a piano that didn't have a chipped middle C and a sticky E-flat. She probably never had to sweep a rec-room floor to earn her lesson time, never had to choose between new shoes and sheet music.
He slipped his phone out under the tablecloth and typed with his thumbs: It's really fancy here. Everybody knows exactly what fork to use. A girl just played violin like an angel and I'm sitting at the back table.
The reply came before the next course arrived: Play like nobody's watching, son. Music don't care who owns the room.
Darius read it twice. He could hear Mr. Banks's gravel-road voice in every word, could picture him in his armchair with the afghan over his knees, the old upright standing silent in the corner of the rec room behind him. Music don't care who owns the room. The tightness in Darius's chest loosened, just a little, like a knot giving way.
He typed back: Thank you, Mr. Banks.
The phone buzzed once more: That's what I'm here for. Now put that thing away and eat something. Gala food's too expensive to waste.