The Book of Matthew (The Alex Chronicles Book 1) (3 page)

I leaned over the empty seats that separated me and Heather to ask if she knew anyone who played the guitar. She told me about a freshman who played rhythm guitar for an all-student rock band. He gave lessons on Monday nights.

His name was Matthew Levine.

That’s how I found myself sitting outside a locked building one Monday evening, early for a 7 p.m. guitar lesson, trembling on the outside from the cool October weather, shaking on the inside from having left the emotional comfort of my dorm room to face the unknown.

And that’s how I found myself face to face with a beautiful stranger.

I stood up from the curb and approached him. “You’re Matthew?”

He nodded and extended his hand. “Call me Matt.”

I took his hand. It was warm and firm around my fingers. “Alexandra,” I said. “Call me Alex.”

“All right, Alex. Come on in.”

He held the door open for me and I walked through into a large, empty room with a high ceiling. There was no furniture and the walls were bare. A musty smell hung in the air. There was a brick fireplace blackened by soot, and the carpet showed signs of age and years of foot traffic. But otherwise there was nothing, no indication as to what this place had been used for.

Matt flipped a switch and a dusty chandelier above our heads sprung to life.

“What was this place?” I whispered.

“I think it was the original cafeteria,” he said.

Now that I had seen the inside, I was sure I hadn’t toured this building. The tour guide must’ve skipped it for a reason, maybe because it was abandoned and in disrepair and in need of a new purpose. The building seemed like it had a rich history begging to be discovered.

I was instantly intrigued.

I looked around the room again and then set my eyes on Matt. He was looking at me.

“So what I can do for you?” he asked.

“I’m here about the guitar lessons. You give lessons on Monday nights, right?”

“Yep.”

“Are you still accepting people? I mean, can I join?”

“Sure.” He stood silent for a moment, watching my eyes, as if waiting for me to ask more questions. Maybe he was waiting for me to explain why I had arrived empty-handed to a guitar lesson.

“I don’t have my own guitar,” I said. “I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s just that I’ve never played before.”

“No problem.”

“So you have loaners?”

“Yep.”

I waited for him to lead the way, to show me where to go. But he continued to look at me, sizing me up, perhaps, and I suddenly grew uncomfortable.

“So…are the lessons here, in this room?” I asked.

“They’re upstairs,” he said, finally peeling his eyes away from me. “I’ll show you.”

Matt led the way to the back of the building, just beyond the chandeliered room, to a flight of steps that was to the left of a swinging door.

“What’s in here?” I asked, reaching out to push the door open.

Matt stepped in front of me, blocking the door. “That’s the kitchen.”

“Can I see?”

He pushed the door open slightly for me to look in. I caught a glimpse of dark shadows and felt a brief chill of cold air and then he quickly let the door swing closed. “Nothing in there.”

“Creepy,” I said.

Matt smiled faintly and started up the stairs two at a time. “So how did you hear about the lessons?” he asked, not attempting to turn around or look back in my direction, forcing me to talk to the back of his head.

“This girl in my psychology class. Heather something. I don’t know her last name. Her boyfriend plays saxophone in the university orchestra. I heard her talking about him one day and—”

“What’s his name?” Matt interjected.

“I think it’s Rob. He’s got a weird last name.”

“Rob Fenistrino?”

“That sounds right.”

“Yeah, I know Rob.”

The flight of stairs seemed to go on forever, the sound of our sneakers squeaking up the steps magnified to the point of annoyance. Where the hell was this practice room?

“Heather mentioned you have your own band,” I said. “That’s awesome.”

Matt twisted around and flashed me a crooked smile, the first of many crooked smiles, a close-lipped grin that meant a hidden thought or two lay just beyond his pretty lips.

Finally we reached the top of the stairs. Matt led me into a small room to the left. Music stands, folding chairs, speakers, amplifiers and microphones were strewn about. There was a tall cabinet in the back left corner. A grand piano took up the other corner.

“This is where the guitar lessons are,” Matt said. “And this is where my band practices.”

I looked around the room again and noticed thick foam pads on all the walls and on the back of the door. “What’re these things?” I said, poking one of the foam pieces with my finger.

“Acoustical panels. The room is soundproof.”

Voices floated up from below, becoming louder as footsteps started up the stairs.

“Take your coat off and stay awhile,” Matt said. He shrugged out of his jacket and let it fall to the floor in a heap. He pushed it off to the side with his foot.

“So who else practices here?” I asked, hanging my coat on the back of a folding chair.

“Just us.”

“You mean, just your band and the people in this class?”

“Yep.”

“What about the other musical organizations? Where do they practice?”

He shrugged. “The main auditorium, I guess.”

“They’re not allowed in here?”

“They don’t have a key,” he said, grinning.

“So who else has a key?”

“Just me.”

“You’re the only person on campus with a key?”

“Well, Maintenance has one too.”

“So the university lets you have exclusive access to an abandoned building?”

He thought about it a moment. “Yeah.”

“How’d you swing that?”

“My father pulled some strings.”

Matt didn’t offer more of an explanation. He just stood staring at me, or through me, I couldn’t tell which, like he did moments ago in the chandeliered room, as if waiting for more questions.

“Are these lessons free?” I finally asked.

He motioned with his head to the small group of people filtering into the room. “For them, no.” He leaned in towards me. “But for you…yeah.”

I laughed nervously and stared at the carpet to hide the sudden warm blush in my cheeks. “You charge them a lot?”

“Nothing they can’t handle.”

“From what I hear you’re pretty good.”

He smirked and said nothing.

I turned my head and caught a glimpse of the other people in the room with us. Six young men. I was the only girl.

“Like I said, I’m a beginner,” I said, breaking the silence once more.

He raised an eyebrow and grinned at me. “I can help you with that.”

Our eyes caught again and I was suddenly aware that Matt was staring
at
me, not through me, hanging on every word, every breath. I stared back into his dark green eyes for as long as I could, for what felt like minutes but was really only seconds, while the other people in the room continued to talk amongst themselves, their voices indistinguishable words and murmurs, until the door creaked closed behind us and shut with a thud. It brought me back to attention and I broke eye contact and stared at the floor.

Matt led me to the tall cabinet and opened the door. Guitars of all shapes and colors and sizes were stacked neatly inside on hooks. He pointed to one of them. “That’s a Gibson Signature Series six-string electric guitar. Mahogany body and neck. Rosewood fingerboard, nickel hardware, and satin lacquer finish in dark cherry.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering if he realized none of that meant anything to me.

“That one’s off limits,” he continued. “But you can play any of the others.”

He reached inside the cabinet and gently pulled out an acoustic guitar. “Back and sides are made of maple. The top is spruce.” He flipped and rotated the guitar several times for me to get a good look at it. “Mahogany neck and rosewood fingerboard.” He held it out to me.

I secured the strap around my neck and grabbed the neck of the guitar with my left hand, struggling to find a comfortable position.

“How’s it feel?” Matt asked.

I pretended to strum the guitar. “Okay,” I lied.

“Come on. Let’s start.”

There were seven of us, six guys and myself. We stood before Matt, each cradling a guitar. I hid in the back row to the far right, just in front of the door so I could make an easy and quick escape if necessary.

We started with a warm-up exercise—reviewing the different chords. Matt had us align our fingers on the combination of strings that formed each chord. Then we were supposed to open strum in down strokes a few times with a guitar pick.

No matter what I tried, I couldn’t do it right. Either my fingers wouldn’t stretch or I was covering one or two strings too many or too few. The beautiful sounds that should’ve emanated from my guitar when I strummed sounded more like the howls of a wounded animal.

Noticing my struggle, Matt walked over and stood behind me. He wrapped his arms around me and placed his hands on top of mine. He pushed his chest hard against my back.

“Like this,” he whispered in my left ear, guiding my fingers. “Take it easy…nice and slow.” His breath tickled my earlobe.

Our fingers moved in unison, entwined as they searched for strings to press and hold and strum. I stared at the long, slender neck of the guitar, suddenly aware of his closeness. I was caught between the hardness of a wooden guitar and the soft embrace of a human body; I was trapped between the need to push away and run and the urge to spin around and kiss him.

He whispered in my ear again. “Got it?”

I nodded.

He released my hands and our fingers untangled. He gave my wrist a soft, parting stroke and then slowly backed away.

Suddenly all my nerve endings were alight with fire and my body tingled as if it had received a bolt of lightening. The burning sensation spread through every inch of me, but was concentrated in my lower abdomen, just below the bellybutton. It was a feeling I hadn’t experienced since my night in the grass with Bobby: the intimate touch of a lover quelling the pang of physical contact.

An hour passed. The guitar lesson was over. I had fudged my way through the whole thing, feeling more lost and overwhelmed every minute.

There was so much to learn. There were riffs and licks and frets and down strokes…and something about arpeggios and hand muting. These were all things Matt said we would learn in time.

What the hell had I been thinking two years before as a junior in high school when I decided to take guitar lessons?

Oh, right. I was trying to impress Bobby. Prove to him that whatever he could do I could do too.

But I didn’t know the first thing about playing the guitar. I couldn’t even read music.

I was in way over my head and suddenly feeling like I had chosen the wrong hobby. I wanted to be a writer, not a musician. Why hadn’t I joined the newspaper staff?

But at the moment I had bigger issues to contend with, like that tingling sensation in my lower abdomen. When Matt caressed my wrist, I felt a spark of mutual attraction, and it made my belly burn.

While everyone put away their guitars and gathered their things to leave, I stood frozen and silent—too afraid to move, too embarrassed to speak. All I could do was stare off into space and wonder what the hell had just happened. A few people brushed passed me on their way out, shouting their good-byes to one another.

Matt and I were alone once again.

He walked over to me. We stood looking at each other for the first time in an hour.

“You plan on giving it back?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“The guitar.”

I looked down and realized I still had the guitar around my neck. “Oh, sorry,” I mumbled, lifting the strap over my head and handing over the guitar.

He leaned it against a nearby chair. “Am I moving too fast?” he asked.

I raised my eyes from his black shirt until I saw the green of his eyes. I tilted my head at him, as if looking at his eyes from a different angle would make me understand what he meant. Moving too fast musically or romantically?

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

His eyebrows furrowed and he looked at me quizzically. “So you don’t know if you were following along?”

“Yes,” I said. “Wait! I mean no! Well, yes and no.” I sighed. “Let me start again.”

He crossed his arms. “Okay.”

“No, you weren’t moving too fast and yes I was following along. Sort of.”

He gave me a crooked smile. “All right.” He dug his keys out of his pocket and hoisted his duffel bag over his shoulder. “See you next week!”

Had I fallen asleep during the lesson and dreamt the part where he pushed himself against me, whispered in my ear, and seductively caressed my wrist? Had he not felt the spark? The chemistry? The attraction?

I did the only thing I could at the moment. I casually grabbed my coat and said goodbye, walking down the stairs as if completely unaffected by what had just happened. Once I reached the kitchen door, though, out of Matt’s sight, I darted through the chandeliered room and burst through the front door into the cold darkness outside. I didn’t stop running until I reached the safety of my dorm room.

II.

I had a party on my seventeenth birthday. The day had been spent opening presents, playing games, and eating lots of cake. Bobby was there, and he brought a few of his friends so that the girls didn’t outnumber the boys. Every time one of my parents tried to enter the room I shooed them away with a wave of my hand. I didn’t want them embarrassing me in front of my friends. Not that it mattered. It happened anyway, the minute I blew out the candles on the cake. My mother sobbed in front of everyone that her little girl was no longer Sweet Sixteen.

Later that evening she tapped her tear reservoir for the second time that day. She didn’t cry happy tears, however. These were angry tears, ones that surfaced from the deepest bowels of her being—the place where wrath befriends your worst fears.