Page 78 of The Other Side of Green

Greene coughed and cleared his throat. “Lyra, you are extraordinarily talented. Now I don’t know what’s been going on with you; why when you arrived you couldn’t play.” I cringed a little but then re-straightened my shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’ve heard all the rumors, more of them coming from jealous students than I would have liked. It seems you create an emotive reaction in a lot of people, but I know you can play. Jack Cross told me you could play.”

My stomach dropped, causing me to wince. “He had more faith in me than I deserved at the start of term.”

“Jack has been working with me since his second year here. He’s unparalleled at his skill of spotting talent and nurturing it. That’s why we’ve been so keen to keep him on. He will make a wonderful professor in time, and we really don’t want anyone else stealing him.”

I couldn’t snap my mouth shut. “I was under the impression that Mr. Cross had his job because of the Collins family?” Okay he’d never actually said this to me, but I kind of assumed. “You were really cross at the picture in the paper of us playing together. I thought it was because of them.”

“It was to a degree, but really, Jack shouldn’t be seen out playing intimate gigs with one of our freshmen. It would reflect badly on his application.”

“Application?” I asked faintly.

“Yes, of course, for his PhD.” Greene waved his hand. “Anyway, this is all beside the point. Mr. Cross is still away on personal matters. Shaun will be recommencing your pastoral care and we shall change things as and when it becomes appropriate.”

But I can’t play with Shaun…

I nodded.

“Lyra.” The dean leaned forward and stared me dead in the eye. “We really don’t want any riots, please.”

“I never wanted people to do that on my behalf.”

He wagged his finger. “But they did.”

“You know where I come from if you’re born black it’s almost compulsive to come into the world with a brass instrument in your hand.”

The dean smiled and Greene chortled, muttering, “Told you,” under his breath.

“But you aren’t holding a French horn, or a saxophone. You play violin, Miss Lennox, and that makes you a bit of a rarity.”

I shook my head. “There is nothing rare about me.”

Both of them shook their heads. “That’s where you are wrong. Don’t waste this opportunity to really make a change.”

“What do you mean?”

“The world is now watching just what you can do. We’ve had more admissions enquiries for classical applications then we have had in a long while.” The dean picked up his now cold cup of tea, a dismissal without words. “You, my dear, might just make the violin trendy for a whole generation.”

I wanted to laugh. I’d never been trendy. Carting my violin case around at school had acted as more of a barrier against friendship then if I’d had two heads and permanent egg breath.

Meeting over, I grabbed my backpack and stood up. When I got to the door, I turned.

“Sorry. Just to clarify, I am staying, right?”

“Yes, Lyra,” they both answered at once.

I opened the door and walked out, closing it softly behind me, an unexpected rush of blood pulsing through my body and making me grin wider than I had since the fateful night of Grams’ passing.

Turning down the hall, I had the faintest sensation of being home.

But then I thought of Jack. He wouldn’t be enrolling on a PhD to become a professor if he had an attempted murder charge against his name. He wouldn’t be doing anything, ever again.

Most definitely he wouldn’t be with me.

And that thought alone popped my small balloon of elation.

Chapter Nineteen

Jack