We stared at each other for a moment. Suddenly, our bubble burst and we returned to the empty theatre hall. Tara was the first one to realize the awkwardness of the situation and look away. I couldn’t believe she was the same emotionless dancer I had observed just a couple of hours earlier during the rehearsal. It was like a different person stood in front of me. If she had it in her, why did she never show it?

I still wasn’t as shocked by her performance as I was by mine.

Tara wiped her forehead. She steadied her breath and said, “T…that was…okay, I guess.”

Her expression told another story. She was amazed too. I returned the compliment, “Yeah, you were pretty okay, too.”

To be honest, I kind of wanted to be alone to process everything. As much as her performance impressed me, the whole thing also perturbed me. I shut the lid of the piano. A weird feeling took over once more.

Something went on in Tara’s head. She paced around a little and finally asked, “Do you mind if we do this again tomorrow? I’ll bring some stuff to record and…”

Do this again tomorrow? Was it possible to recreate this? “You want to re-record your video?”

“Yes. Of course, I’ll credit you.”

I didn’t like that I was already getting so involved in this contract. However, I had no good reason to refuse. “Actually, you don’t have to credit me.”

She studied me with a confused frown. “Really? What if other people want to know who played?”

“It’s fine. I’d rather not.”

The big doors at the back of the theatre opened. Tara started and looked back to check who was intruding. From the uniform, I gathered that the man who’d just entered was a security guard. He yelled at Tara, “Hey, what are you still doing here?”

Tara flashed me one of her dagger-throwing glares. She wasn’t in trouble yet, so I didn’t understand why she was already mad at me. I got up and told the security guard, “She’s with me, we’ll be out soon.”

The guard hesitated a little. He clearly felt like I did have some business here, but he couldn’t figure out which one, since the MBT rehearsal was over. The stealth spell held on so the guard changed gears. “Oh, sorry. Take your time then.”

And he was out. Tara was speechless, which was quite a relief for once.

***

Later that evening, I sat at my crappy keyboard, trying in vain to recreate what had happened on stage. It was so frustrating. The harder I tried, the worse it sounded. What the hell had happened on stage for my…my power to return? I questioned my own experience. It had to have been real though, because I was certain that Tara had heard it too.

What would I do the next day if I couldn’t get it back when she did her recording?

I shook my head. It wasn’t my problem. Even if I failed to get Tara a principal role, I wouldn’t lose much anyway, so there were no high stakes for me. I had no interest in our agreement, and I had no interest in making Tara’s video a success.

My frustration must have seeped through the paper-thin walls. After a while, Eva passed by, politely wondering what all the wailing was for. I apologized to her as we stood in my doorway and promised I would be more silent from now on. However, instead of returning to her den, Eva held up a plate covered in aluminum foil, “I have a paper due in two days, so I decided to bake an apple pie. You want some?”

That was a sound logical reasoning. There are a lot of good things I can say about Eva. It turns out that her pie had some unexpected therapeutic properties, and it did a great job of taking my mind off of my most recent crisis. We settled at the kitchen table and took a few bites without saying much.

Eventually, Eva addressed the main issue. “You sounded pretty distressed earlier.”

“I’m so sorry.” It’s possible that in my frustration, I had let out a loud curse or two.

“What’s the matter?”

“I was trying to play something, but nothing’s working.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

The pie would have been nice with ice cream. I debated how much to tell Eva. “It will sound strange, but everything I play is boring and clunky.”

“Isn’t it easy to fix for you? Working on interpretation is what musicians do.”

“I know, it wasn’t a big deal…until I lost a friend.”

Eva made a face that suggested she got the cue for a sappy backstory. She put down her fork and leaned toward me. “You lost a friend?”

The friend I referred to was Odette, the third member of The Black Claws. I filtered out the sensitive details and told the story as pithily as I could. “I had a friend… Odette. She disappeared two years ago.”

Eva hmm-hmm’ed in sympathy. I continued carefully, “We found her car abandoned near a bridge. No one knows what happened. A body was never found in the river, and she was never seen again. I haven’t been able to play since then.”

That wasn’t the whole story, of course. I left out the part about me entering a contract with her in secret, just before her disappearance. My talent as a pianist had been the penalty for failing.

I doubted that Eva had ever heard of Odette’s case because even though The Black Claws was pretty popular back then, we were all anonymous and we kept the whole thing private. Odette’s disappearance never really made the headlines.

“I’m sorry.”

I brushed off Eva’s sympathy. I didn’t want to talk about this sad story anymore. What a way to ruin a perfectly good apple pie.

I played around with the crumbs on my plate. Why did Eva always end up at my place anyway? “Don’t you ever hang out with your classmates?”

She chewed a piece of crust. “They’re nice, but they’re not very interesting.”

“You think I’m interesting?”

“Of course!”

My good humor gradually returned, but a nagging feeling kept pulling at me. I remembered the incident at the pub two days earlier. I was almost completely sure that the weird comment I thought she’d said was just something I had misheard from someone else. Despite this, I kept looking for clues that Eva might know more than she let out about my job as a freelancer.

At some point, there was a lull in our conversation. Eva checked her phone and let out a sigh. “A bunch of friends from university are going to see Midnight Pirate this week-end. I was supposed to go with them, but it’s already sold out.”

Midnight Pirate was Jayda’s artist name. You know, because she wore an eyepatch during her shows and in her music videos. Very subtle.

How could an overall well-adjusted person such as Eva enjoy Jayda’s music? I would, of course, forgive her that one flaw. “You like her?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think she’s different from other singers.”

No shit. “Do you still want to go to her show?”

Eva stared at me with interest. I moved on to my offer, “I can get us free tickets.”

As much as I dreaded asking Jayda anything, the awe in Eva’s eyes made the idea less dreadful. “Are you kidding?”

“I have some connections. Saturday is fine?”

“Yes, that’s perfect!”

The nice part was seeing Eva being so happy about something I offered to do for her. The difficult part came later that night when I spent two hours sitting in the living room, searching for the strength to text Jayda and ask her for the tickets.

Do you have two spare tickets for Saturday?

Jayda replied right away. Apparently, she had nothing better to do.

Of course, anything for you my dear <3

Great, thanks.

I shuddered imagining the grin of satisfaction on Jayda’s face. The things I do out of sheer stupidity.