CHAPTER EIGHT: THE OPEN REHEARSAL

The workshop director, a patient violinist named Imogen Vale, met Nadine and Caleb in a school auditorium on Monday evening.
The original orchestra group had already started preparing for a community concert.
Several students watched Caleb enter with an expression that mixed curiosity and sympathy.
Imogen pulled two chairs close to the stage.
“You were offered a place,” she told Caleb.
“Your reply never reached us before the deadline.”
“I didn’t receive the offer,” he answered.
“I understand that now.”
She explained that all funded places had been allocated and that removing another student would not repair the injustice.
Caleb nodded, although Trevor could see how much effort it cost him.
“May I hear you play anyway?” Imogen asked.
He took out his violin.
His first notes were stiff.


Halfway through the piece, he found the movement of the music and stopped looking at the floor.
When he finished, the room remained quiet for a moment.
Imogen asked him to play a short duet with the assistant instructor.
They began again, and Caleb adjusted to the unfamiliar tempo without losing his place.
Afterward, Imogen offered him access to the workshop’s open rehearsals and promised to place him first on the waiting list for a genuine vacancy.
She did not call that equivalent to the place he had lost.
Caleb did not pretend it was.
But he smiled on the way to the car.
“Did you hear the second piece?” he asked Nadine.
“Every note.”
Trevor sat in the back seat because Nadine had insisted he come.
He watched Caleb study the printed rehearsal schedule as if he wanted to memorize it before somebody could take it away.


At the same hour, Evelyn sat across a conference table from Ortiz and Bell.
She described how Jonah had encouraged her to prioritize letters that could produce a strong emotional response.
He had asked her to make notes about households with teenagers applying to competitive programs and adults waiting for public appointments.
Evelyn knew she had crossed a line when she opened the first letter without permission.
She admitted it plainly.
She had crossed another when she failed to return it.
She admitted that too.
“I cannot tell you that I meant well anymore,” she said.
“I wanted to matter, and I liked being the person who knew things before everybody else.”
Ortiz did not offer absolution.
She asked Evelyn to identify the requests she had submitted herself and to distinguish them from those prepared by Jonah.
They worked through the information carefully.
When the meeting ended, Evelyn asked whether she could write apologies to the households.
“You can,” Ortiz said.
“But you should not use their mail to find an address you don’t already know.”
Evelyn gave a small, miserable laugh.
“I suppose that would be a start.”