Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 157450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
“You see musical notes as colors.”
“Yes. Like that.” She nods enthusiastically.
“Well, that makes sense. I’ve heard that many accomplished musicians are synesthetes. Do you see anything else in color?”
She looks puzzled.
“Letters? Numbers?”
“No. Just music.”
“Wow. That’s really something.” I give her a smile. “I meant what I said the other day. You can use my piano anytime. I love hearing you play.”
She gives me a glorious smile that I feel in my groin. “Okay,” she whispers. “I like to play your piano.”
“I like to listen.” I grin back, and we fall into an easy silence.
* * *
Forty minutes later I turn in to a cul-de-sac in Brentford and we arrive outside a modest semidetached house. Night has fallen, but I see a curtain pull back in the front room and a young man’s face clearly visible in the light from the streetlamp.
Her boyfriend?
Fuck. I have to know.
“Is that your boyfriend?” I ask, and my heart kick-starts, thumping in my ears as I wait for her answer.
She laughs, a soft, musical laugh that makes me grin. It’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh, and I want to hear it again…and again.
“No. That’s Michal, Magda’s son. He’s fourteen.”
“Oh. He’s tall!”
“He is.” Her face lights up, and I feel a momentary pang of jealousy. She’s obviously fond of him. “This is Magda’s house.”
“I see. Is she a friend?”
“Yes. She is a friend of my mother. They are…how do you say? Pen friends.”
“I didn’t know those still existed. Do they visit each other?”
“No.” She presses her lips together and examines her fingernails. “Thank you for taking me to my home,” she whispers, shutting down that conversation.
“It was a pleasure, Alessia. I’m sorry about this morning. I didn’t mean to pounce on you.”
“Pounce?”
“Um…jump. Like a cat.”
She laughs again, her face shining and beautiful.
I could get used to that sound.
“You were dreaming,” she says.
Of you.
“Do you want to come in and drink a cup of tea?”
It’s my turn to laugh. “No. I’ll spare you that. And I’m more of a coffee person.”
She frowns for a moment. “We have some coffee,” she says.
“I’d better get back. It will take a while with the roads like this.”
“Thank you again for driving me here.”
“I’ll see you on Friday.”
“Yes. Friday.” She gives me a radiant smile that illuminates her lovely face, and I’m smitten.
She climbs out of the car and heads to the front door. It cracks open, shedding a soft glow onto the snowy path, and the tall young man stands on the doorstep. Michal. He scowls at me as I start the car.
I laugh.
Not her boyfriend, then, and I turn the Discovery around, crank the music up, and with a ridiculous smile plastered on my face drive back into London.
Chapter Eight
“Who was that?” Michal asks, his voice clipped and frosty, as he glares at the vehicle outside. He’s only fourteen, but he towers over Alessia, all shaggy black hair and skinny loose limbs.
“My boss,” she answers as she peeks through the front door to watch the car drive away. She shuts the door behind her and, unable to contain her glee, gives Michal a quick, spontaneous hug.
“All right.” Michal shrugs out of her embrace, his face flushed but his brown eyes bright with embarrassed delight. Alessia beams at him, and his answering shy smile hints at his adolescent crush on her. She steps back, careful not to be overly affectionate. She doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. After all, he and his mother have been good to her.
“Where’s Magda?” she asks.
“In the kitchen.” His face falls, and so does his voice. “Something’s not right. She’s smoking a lot.”
“Oh, no.” Alessia’s pulse quickens with a sense of foreboding. Taking off her coat, she hangs it on one of the pegs in the small hallway and goes into the kitchen. Magda is holding a cigarette, sitting at the tiny Formica table. The smoke curls above her in a hazy cloud. Though small, the kitchen is neat and tidy as usual, and the radio is burbling in Polish in the background. Magda looks up, relieved to see her.
“You got home through the snow. I was worried. Good day?” Magda asks, but Alessia notices her strained smile and the tension in her lips as she takes a long drag from her cigarette.
“Yes. Are you okay? Is your fiancé okay?”
Magda is a few years younger than Alessia’s mother, though usually she looks at least ten years younger. Blond and curvy, with hazel eyes that sparkle with her wicked sense of humor, she rescued Alessia from the streets. Today, though, she looks tired, her skin pallid and her lips pinched. The kitchen stinks of cigarette smoke, which Magda normally hates—even as a smoker herself.
She blows smoke into the room. “Yes. He’s fine. It’s nothing to do with him. Shut the door and sit down,” she says. A tremor runs up Alessia’s spine. Perhaps Magda is going to ask her to leave. She shuts the kitchen door, pulls out the plastic chair, and sits.