The Orchestra - Sinfónia Lifsins - 2. Rehearsal

“May I take your orders?”

Great, they had a new waitress. She looked like she had barely left school. Likely, she could not tell the difference between the soup of the day and cat vomit. This would be a long lunch, and we only had an hour to eat and leave before we were late to rehearsal.

“I want just the beef and some lettuce with no dressings and no seasoning.” I said before the others could open their mouths.

The dumb waitress looked at me as if I was the one with a mental disability. “I’m sorry, sir, but we only serve what is in the menu.”

“I don’t care. I want beef and lettuce.”

“I cannot accept that order, sir.”

Dmitri, Gísli and Karen did that thing where they look at each other like they have telepathic powers and make ridiculous worried faces. This time, it was Karen who spoke for them.

“The thing is… my friend here is aller…”

“I want what I asked.” I interrupted. “Go tell the chef and stop wasting my time.” I should not have to explain this. New waitresses had to learn to do as they were told.

“The chef will not accept it. She is…”

“She knows who I am. I have been coming here for longer than you have been out of school.”

Dmitri turned his face away from me, his shoulders shaking with laughter. Bastard. I wish I could beat some sense into him. The dumb waitress was staring at me, probably trying to figure out what to do.

“If you doubt him, go call the chef and see for yourself” Gísli almost shouted, though that was the way he usually spoke. The dumb waitress jumped in surprise, undoubtedly not expecting the skinny, good looking guy to speak so loudly in such a deep voice. She took some time to recover.

“I cannot disturb her when she is working.”

“Then call your manager.” I snarled. Oh, the magic words. This time she actually did what she was told. Next time I should probably go straight to the manager. And maybe next time Karen will listen to me when I say I do not want to eat out because it is not worth the effort.

“What is going on here?”

“Your waitress is trying to kill Siggi.” Dmitri dramatically bustled out before I could say anything.

“No! I…” the retarded waitress tried to uselessly defend herself. Sadly for her, the cat was already out of the bag.

“She won’t let him have his usual stuff” the Russian carried on. Under the table his hand touched my knee. “She wants to expose him to rice, potato peels, gluten, peppers, eggs, tomatoes, carrots, and nuts! This ways she’s gonna kill him many times over, because we don’t have that many EpiPens to get through all the allergic reactions!” his hand squeezed my knee then, in that kind of gesture that tries to show he has everything under control. It was a lie, but I could not be bothered to correct it. Not when the girl was looking like a ghost and profusely apologising.

“I don’t want to hear it. I want you to go to that fucking kitchen and tell the chef what we want so that we can get out of here.” When the girl left, the manager promised I would eat for free to compensate for the trouble.

“Who would’ve guessed, eh?” Dmitri exchanged looks with Gísli and they changed places. The Russian was next to me now. “The one restaurant we thought was safe for you to eat in… how disappointing!” he leaned against me, caressing my thigh. “And to think that the only reason we were eating out was to cheer you up!”

“Stop it.” His hand had been dangerously close to my belt. He sounded like one of those bad actors failing to be dramatic enough. “It’s irritating.”

“I’m trying to cheer you up!” his hand grabbed my belt.

“This is a public place. Keep your hands to yourself.” I tried to shove him off me, but the bastard did not move. Karen’s eyes were gleaming and Gísli was pretending to pay attention to a stupid kid at a table near-by. Not that I expected any help from them.

“You were never intimidated by other people before, why are you complaining now?” Dmitri carried on as his mouth approached my neck.

“I’m not on the mood. I just want to eat and get out of here before we miss more than the first hour.”

“Kill-joy. I’ll catch you at the break.”

And just like that he let go. He did not touch me again until we were in the car on our way to the rehearsal. Knowing him it was surprising he kept his hand off for so long. I did not say anything this time around, though. I could welcome such distractions when rehearsal was bound to be an endless musical torture.

(...)

We were on for five depressing hours at the ISO. With Arnar still absent, Santa was going to pretend he was the leader, for the time being. It was to be expected because he was the assistant principal violin. Still, Santa was not Arnar, and he did not do anything to improve his situation by acting like he was doing something wrong. Which, by the way, he was.

“Are you ok, Siggi?” he asked me during the break, as if the answer was not obvious enough. Certainly my unfriendly face and extreme silence were not there because I was overjoyed with life. “I know it must be a very difficult time for you, but I want you to know that I’ll be here if you need me for anything, ok?”

“Yeah, sure…” thankfully Santa got the message this time. He smiled slightly, fidgeting with his long white beard, and left. Wasted effort. He would never take Arnar’s place. Not in a billion years.

“Hey, cheer up, man! It could’ve been worse!”

“Oh, really? How so?” I asked Dmitri without looking at his face. I did not need to look at him to know he had a small bottle in his hands, as I did not need to smell the alcohol to know he had already been drinking for a while.

“One: Arnar could be dead. Two: he could’ve lost his entire arm. Three: it could’ve been a chainsaw instead of a knife. Four: he could’ve been cutting a whale, not a chicken. Five: He could’ve…”

“Enough. I get it.” I got up, indicating my intention to go back to my cello and away from annoying colleagues. “What?” Dmitri’s flawed perceptions of reality did not catch on to it, though, and he grabbed my arm.

“Aw, Siggi… you’re so cute brooding like that! Look at me, come on!” He grabbed my chin, forcing me to turn towards him “That’s better!” and kissed me in the mouth. He pressed me against the wall and begun unbuttoning my shirt. Dmitri had probably not drunk much yet, otherwise we would have been on the ground and my shirt would have come off much earlier. Sadly, we were interrupted just as it was getting good.

“Boys, we are ready to start over; save your energies for later” Kjartan’s voice came from somewhere I could not see because of the blond head in front of me.

“Damn it, Kjartan! I was just getting started!” Dmitri complained, but got off me anyway. He grinned and threw himself in our harpist’s arms, pecking his cheek in the process. “You look gorgeous today too! Did you and Halli fuck like rabbits last night?”

“That is none of your business, I’m afraid.” He smiled back at my friend, knowing this was how the inconvenient bastard normally started conversations. “Now let’s go, you guys don’t seem to be getting the hang of it today. Gummi is not very happy.”

“I don’t care. It is not like we can get it right.”

I did not look back to see their reactions, I just turned away and left. Kjartan was right; this rehearsal was not going anywhere. We would not go anywhere without our leader. Period.

(...)

“And in two weeks we will know who the awesome replacement for Arnar Sæmundsson is! Or so Gummi said, but we all know he isn’t that much reliable, so…” Karen let the sentence hanging in the air. She probably expected us to read her mind the same way she was sure she could read ours.

“It won’t work. We don’t need a replacement.” I argued. The others looked at me with their eyebrows raised.

“Hum… du-uh… Of course we do!” Karen exclaimed, making that silly face people do when they think they are dealing with mentally-disabled children. “Arnar can’t play anymore, Siggi, and you have to accept it! For fuck’s sake, it’s not like the world’s ended!” She seemed very amused with something. At least for once it was not two guys making out.

“Whatever. You can say whatever you want, I don’t care. I won’t give up on him that easily.”

“There is nothing to give up on, Siggi! The doctors said the nerves in his hand were all cut off! There is no way he can recover from that!” she snarled. I followed her lead, standing up to face her from above.

“We don’t know yet! What if he does? What if somehow he does recover and can’t get back because Gummi has already hired someone else? I will only give up when they chop off his hand!”

She fell back on the sofa and grabbed Gísli’s leg. Me raising my voice probably scared the shit out of everybody in the room. Our “animated” after-dinner talk ended there and I went to my bedroom. Unfortunately I did not realise I was being followed.

“You are quite upset, aren’t you?” asked a familiar voice. The room was dark, so I only saw him when he was already too close leaning over me on the bed. “It’s ok to look up to Arnar and pretend he is the dad you never had, but you can’t rely on him forever. There are other people around you too, you know?”

“Like you?”

“Yeah, pretty much like me!”

I was not in the mood to protest. I did not do anything when Dmitri spread kisses all over my face and messed with my ponytail. I did not do anything when he took my clothes off either. He was already drunk anyway, and maybe I needed this as much as he did.

I would have time to worry about Arnar and be depressed about it later. Tomorrow. For now, though, I could at least enjoy the night.