Chapter # 3

Chapter # 3

When your fingers will guide

mine on the strings of your guitar,

Eureka Springs will dance

onto the melody, we will create.

©Elif Hoorain.

Jane Arnold's P.O.V.

This Saturday was the longest one. I was exhausted the whole day in wait for Sunday. Now, that it is the morning of Sunday, I am damn excited. I change into a sky blue top and denim jeans, pull my hair up in a ponytail, slip my phone in my pocket and leave the house.

Today, it is sunny. Eureka Springs is in its full bloom. My mood is lofty. Perhaps the air of spring is affecting me. I reach the studio, but find a sign of close on its glass door. Disappointed, I am about to take a step back when the door opens. Disappointment fades, but only for a second. I look at the person standing in front of me at the door.

He is not Nathan. He has black tousled hair. Slightly dark complexion. Hazel eyes. Strong jaw. Symmetrical nose. Undoubtedly, he is handsome.

"Are you done staring?" He snaps a finger in front of my eyes. I blink and look away before looking back.

"Where is Nathan?" I ask with a straight face. I do not justify that I was not staring. I do not owe a stranger any justification.

"Who are you?" He asks folding his arms on his front. His upper arm muscles bulge, out of the white t-shirt. He taps his right foot fitted in white sneakers on the ground.

"I can ask you the same question." I do not know why do I have this sudden urge to argue with him. I do not even know him.

He laughs. A bright laugh. So annoying. I did not tell him a joke.

"Why are you laughing?" My forehead creases. I am standing on the pavement. People are watching as they pass by and this person has no ethics. Did not even ask me to come in.

"I am laughing because what is it to you that who am I? You are not here to see me." His eyes gleam and he smirks. Jerk.

"Nathan. Your girlfriend is here." He raises his voice as he calls him. Did he call me his girlfriend? What the hell. I am not.

I try to tell him that I am not Nathan's girlfriend but he only winks and walks out of the studio.

I gape at him. Putting his hands in his black pants pockets, he is whistling while he saunters on the pavement.

"Hey!Jane." I turn my head back to the studio and enter. Nathan greets me and drags a chair for me to sit in.

"Hello, Nathan. I am here to learn music. Remember?" I sit in the chair. He also sits on a stool and faces me.

"I remember. Let's begin then. Shall we?" He gets up from the stool, grabs a guitar and tells me to hold it. It is heavier than I expected.

"No. Not like this. Hold it properly, as I have." I follow his direction. When I hold it as it deserves. He smiles at me. I grin like a 5-year-old receiving a star from her favourite teacher.

"Now look at me keenly and notice, the way I play it." I nod. He starts.

Nathan's both hands are busy on the strings of his guitar. One is over the part near its head and the other one is in the center of it. He plays beautifully. I can not even hold a guitar properly. My confidence falls to the level of zero.

"See. It is easy. It is a short tune and beginner-friendly."

He stops playing. I clap for him and he thanks me.

"Now your turn." He looks at me as if I was going to invent the most beautiful song ever.

"Sure." No way. I am not ready to play. I can not scare him off with my awful guitar skills.

Still, I play. My fingers push the strings downwards and then leave them. A piercing sound echoes in the studio. Guess, I have invented a tune, the rarest one and worst of all the musical inventions.

Nathan cringes. I cringe. I hope that he will not throw me out of his studio.

"It is okay. Perhaps you pushed strings too hard." He laughs. I laugh too. Best way to hide embarrassment.

"Let's try again. Ok?"

"Okay."

He again starts to play. This time the tune is softer than before. It is slow. Much easier to follow than the former one.

On my turn, I try to move strings slowly. Nothing is produced, identical to Nathan's. But it is better.

"Good. Just like this. Keep it moving. Slowly and steadily." I grin. I am finally on the first step of the ladder to learn what I love.

"Naaaathaaan." Someone barges into the studio and strings jerk away from my fingers. An alarming noise echoes in the air.

"Easy, guys. Are you creating a new fire alarm tune?" He stuffs his fingers in his ears. I push away the urge of rolling my eyes.

"Why did you barge in the studio like this, Eric?" Nathan seems displeased with him. So his name is Eric. I wish I could throw him out of the room for disturbing us. The best way to take my revenge for his earlier treatment. How tragic, I can not. I am not the owner of the studio.

"I forgot my keys." He grabs his keys from a corner table.

"You could have knocked or entered silently. You know, I take my work seriously." Nathan gives him a lecture over some manners. Good. Nathan should also teach him to take a side and ask a lady to come in next time, instead of arguing with her, while blocking the door.

"Big bro. I am sorry. Okay? Now forgive me or I will never be able to forgive myself for murdering your peace." He makes a face of a crying baby. Such an actor. What is he doing in Nathan's Studio? He should be in a theater.

"Alright. Now stop your drama and leave. I have a student to teach." Nathan laughs before waving him off.

"Oh! She is your student?" He gapes at me. Yes, I am his student, not a girlfriend. Not yet at least.

He keeps staring at me for a moment then squints his eyes.

He taps his lips with his fingers and then says surprisingly;

"Is not she the one, who used to stand outside your studio every evening?"

Wow. What a reference I have. This makes me seem like a stalker.

"Yeah. She is that one. She wants to learn music. That's all."

"I understand now. My apologies, Miss. I thought you were big bro's ex or girlfriend." His apology sounds fake. Nathan's eyebrows shoot up. His reaction forces a giggle out of my mouth. I still, nod, smile and say to Eric that it is fine.

"Eric."

"Yes, big bro." Eric turns towards him, all attentive.

"Do me a favour."

"Anything for you."

"Please, get lost for an hour and do not return." Nathan's voice is hoarse. He is really serious.

"Okay, Boss." Eric salutes him. Winks at me and runs out of the door.

An uncontrolled laugh erupts from my throat. I immediately control it. Nathan notices this. He also starts to laugh and shakes his head.

"Sorry, about that Jane. My cousin is cracked."

"It is Okay. I have also a best friend and she is cracked too." I say in a hushed voice. This makes him chuckle.

Jessie is the most amazing crazy thing that ever happened to my life.

"Let's continue, from where we left." Nathan gives his guitar strings a stroke. Signalling me to start playing.

This Sunday has been the best Sunday of my life. Even though I did not hear or learn the tune, I am in love with, still, I learned what I could never learn without Nathan's help.

------------------------------------------------

"You did not spill the details of your date on Friday night. I dropped you home without asking any questions and you selfish girl, you too did not tell me anything." Jessie closes Gone with the Wind-the only novel she has been reading for a month, with a thump and drops it on the table.

"First of all It was not a date. Second, I went to Nathan's Studio yesterday." Her lips expand and she grins. The next moment she jumps from her seat and grabs me by the arm.

"You are going to spill the details from A to Z. But not in the classroom." She jerks me up from my seat and grabs our bags.

"The classroom is almost empty." I can not help rolling my eyes.

"Yup. But I can not hear all the details with my empty stomach." She pinches my cheeks and I shove her hands aside.

"You know, I hate it when you do this." I rub my cheeks with my palm and glare at her.

"That's why I love to do it." She moves her hand again to take a hold of my cheek but I dodge her move and run out of the room.

"Jane. Do not run. I can not meet your pace." She shouts while running. I stop near the corridor stretching into the space of the cafeteria. I turn to look at her. I burst into giggles as I watch her trying to run, carrying our bags. She finally reaches me and hits me with my bag. I still do not stop laughing. My lungs hurt.

"You little rat. You run too fast." She hits me again with a punch on my arm.

"If I am a rat then you are a cat. A fat cat." I wink at her. She blows her dark hair falling into her eyes, with her mouth. Her face crumples.

"I badly wish to strangle you for calling me a fat cat. Still, I forgive you because I need lots of things to know yet." She smirks like a serial killer giving her victim a little more time to breathe and nearly drags me into the entrance of the cafeteria.

I tell her everything, from the night of the Friday to the guitar lessons on Sunday.

Her face changes expressions from bewilderment to disappointment and then back to it.

"So who is that Mr Cool, handsome but a jerk with ladies?"

"His name is Erick," I tell her, taking a bite of my sandwich.

"Full name." Her fingers work rapidly over her phone's screen.

"I do not know that and you do not have to Google him." I snatch her phone from her and look at it. She has already every handsome boy of Eureka Springs we have ever encountered in her search list. I press her phone's power off button and slip it into my bag.

"Now this is very impolite." She folds her arms on her front.

"And stalking people over the Internet is the most polite thing to do?"

"This is not stalking. This is called boosting your general knowledge."

"About particular people?" I raise an eyebrow at her with a smirk.

"Not just particular but handsome too." She leans and whispers with a wink.

"Hahaha, you are crazy. Finish your burger, we soon have Mr Nelson's class of organic chemistry."

"Sure." She stuffs her mouth with a large bite.

------------------------------------------------