Buzzed Hearts

35: dinner wouldn't hurt

CHOPIN HAS ALWAYS been Camila's favorite composer. At twelve, she made it her goal to master all his nocturnes and she did it, two years later.

    Now, her goals are more singular, for example, she just wants to get through her sonata two more times. Then, she can go home, take a shower, and sleep until tomorrow morning. Right now, the clock in her private room at the music center points to 2:48 in the afternoon.

    Her phone starts vibrating so she quickly finishes the last few measures and picks up. It's Laurent, his contact picture a photo of him staring off into the sunset. When Camila had asked him what he wanted it to be set to, he and Elle planned a photoshoot for it.

    "Mila," he says first, without waiting for her to say a hello.

    "What?"

    "Where are you? You left your backpack in my locker."

    "Right," she says. She'd gotten fourth period off so instead of lugging two bags full of books downtown, she asked if she could store one of them away in Laurent's gym locker. "Uh, I'm at the conservatory. Do you think you could just drop it off at my house? Say hi to Vanilla for me."

    "I've got practice after school."

    "Tonight, then? I need my laptop."

    "I can do tonight if you make me dinner."

    "Laurent, my parents are home tonight. So unless you want to eat with them as well..."

    "Come to my place."

    Silence and static hangs in the air—the space between the two of their phones—and Camila's eyes search the room for an answer, coming to none.

    "Okay? Are your parents not home?"

    "Nope."

    "Okay. Uh, what time?" she asks. Camila wants to make sure she can go home before then and take a nap because she's been up late almost every night, trying to finish her late work so she can be on track for about two days before she has tardy assignments piling up again.

    "Practice ends at 5:30 so get here around 6 to 6:30. You know where to go?"

    "Yeah. We go the same way."

    "If you get lost call Elle, alright?"

    "Elle? Why not you?"

    "I'll probably be in the shower and I'm shit at directions. Oh, and, I might not have a lot of ingredients for stuff so we could just order stuff."

    It's a lot of work and stressed as she is, Camila doesn't see why she can't just drop by his house to pick up her belongings. But dinner wouldn't hurt, especially not with Laurent.