Charlie Meets Celeste¶
✨ "Hello, Girl!"¶
“Hello ... girl?”
The words fell into an awkward silence. She mercifully shortened it.
"You ... ARE a girl. Aren't you?"
The thought that she might be the one who was misplaced didn’t even register initially. Not even a flicker. He was too busy trying to process the fact that this ... this stunning girl was actually looking at him, talking to him. She was talking to him. To him! And that, at that moment, it was all he could process: it was so unbelieveable. The restroom, the potential for awkwardness ... none of it mattered. Just this. Her. Talking. To him.
Her question seemed… vaguely odd, yes. Like he’d somehow missed a crucial piece of information, a plot point he’d slept through. It was the kind of oddness that suggested a larger, looming something. He felt a growing uneasiness.
He managed, cautiously, “No, I’m ... I’m a guy.”
The girl’s smile seemed oddly sympathetic, as if at an admission of a shortcoming, a defect. “Oh, sorry. It’s just that you’re about the same height as some of my friends. And, to be honest, you’re not built like a bloke, at least, none that I know.” He was so completely, ridiculously charmed by her accent — that lovely, rolling British thing — that he honestly would have basked in her words even if she'd been actively, aggressively insulting him. Probably would have just nodded, as he did now. “Plus, well ... you’re in the ladies’." Another pause. "Um, you know, the girl's toilet.”
Reality suddenly hit. He stared at her for a moment, eyes wide in horror, then glanced quickly around him. Sure enough, no urinals. The colour drained from his face.
“Oh - sh... dear! I’m so, so sorry! I ... uh, I can’t believe I—”
He wasn’t the dangerous kind of boy. He was the wrong-door, head-in-the-clouds kind: hair in his eyes, oversized shirt with a slept-in collar.
She could have said: 'get out'. Instead she felt the oddest impulse of charity: perhaps it was curiosity, but more than that, pity. She moved a half step closer. His head tilted up, and then she saw them: those almond-shaped doe eyes with long thick lashes. Far from being a threat, he was a lost lamb that had wandered in and needed shepherding.
Her smile broadened, a twinkle in her eye. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.” She peered at him with a slight tilt of her head, curiosity growing. Charlie found himself backed into the sinks. What was she going to do? He had invaded a sacred space for women.
At least she wasn't screaming.
She gazed at him for what seemed an awkward eternity, then precipitously extended her hand.
“I'm Celeste. Celeste Shelley.”
Not only was she not screaming, she was introducing herself. He looked at her hand the way a child looks at a violin up close the first time: reverence mixed with the concern as to its fragility. Then he put his palm in hers.
“Um, I’m Chuck, um, Charles Rossignol,” he finally croaked as her hand firmly grasped his. Celeste’s hand was soft, but its grip surprisingly tenacious.
“Chuck. Charles. Hmmm," she mused, studying his hand. The bones were fine, the fingers long and slight, the skin cool. A girl’s hand, if that were possible, only partly because of weakness but more of the way it settled in her own without weight, of a delicate refinement out of character with the rest of the person.
"'Chuck' doesn't really suit you.” Her grin pinched into a thoughtful grimace. “‘Rossignol’... that’s French for a kind of bird... the nightingale?” Charlie's heart pounded in his ears as he stared at her hand gripping his, not really taking in what she was saying.
“‘Bird’ ... that’s a term some blokes back home use for ‘girl’.”
Her eyes finally met his looking up at her imploringly.
“Oh! Sorry,” she gushed, releasing his hand, a blush rising on her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to...” She grinned. “I make you a bit nervous, don't I?”
Her smile, her accent, her smell. Her grip: he was spellbound. "Uh ... yeah, I mean," Dry-mouthed, tentatively he tried to explain. "Well, it's just that, well, I probably shouldn’t be in here.”
“Quite right,” she said wryly with a short chuckle. “I reckon I’d feel a bit awkward in the gents’ myself.”
Charlie turned to go. He was forcing himself, as if his feet had decided they were quite content to remain precisely where they were.
Celeste gently lifted her eyebrows and nodded at the door. It felt less like an command and more like a slightly amused dismissal. He moved numbly, as if being nudged forward. As he pulled open the door, he risked one last glance back, and his stomach did a little flip — the one you get on a roller coaster, or when someone unexpectedly touches your arm.
She was smiling. At him.
“See you, Charlie.”
By the time Charlie entered the cool quiet of the library and put his glasses back on, a dizzying lightness enveloped his being.
He had just met an angel.
Again, With Feeling¶
Celeste stared unseeing at the part she had been practicing for the past month, the part for the english horn. Around her, student orchestra musicians were readying their instruments... some were chatting. Some were practicing those difficult bars. Celeste wondered about those bits: she had already mastered her part.
The instructor, Ms Duncan, took her place as conductor on the podium.
"As you know, we're going to try that new piece today. I've give you a month to practicing it ... it's not a hard piece. Just a simple serenade for english horn and strings by one of the students here at the high school," she said. "Horns, the rest of you woodwinds and the rest of the class, just pay attention to how this is put together."
Celeste's part wasn't complex. She'd performed more demanding parts on her clarinet. Second beat after the downbeat, she brought the reed to her lip and let the note bloom, not forced, not shy ... dolce, mezzo voce, the human voice told through wood and wire. The line was considerate in that way only a good ear writes: it knew where breath lived, where the room inhaled with you. She could feel the orchestra awaken, violas with their heads lifted, second violins stilled into a single spine, cellos quieting so as not to spill light where shadow was wanted.
The phrase stepped once over a small rivelette and landed sure-footed. She didn’t push vibrato; she let it arrive like a confession, then leave. The hall that wasn’t a hall (only the ugly rehearsal room with the scuffed risers) seemed for a moment to forget itself. She played it as if she had been born to this colour, this melancholy that wasn’t sad so much as truthful. For the first time since the restroom incident, she didn’t think of the wrong-door boy; she thought only of the line that had been written by someone who understood breath and refused to crowd it. The piece—a student piece, someone had scoffed earlier, did the one unforgivable thing: it made them care. When the cadence resolved, no one spoke at first, as if speech would scuff it.
Then the room exhaled, as a single animal.
The conductor lowered her arms slowly, the way you lower your hands from a hot kettle you’ve realised is bearable. “Whoever wrote this,” she said, half to herself, “listens.” She found Celeste’s eyes. “Again, and strings: no embroidery. Let the English horn tell the story.”
Celeste allowed herself the smallest smile. It was not pride but relief. The hours in her room, the reed-scraping until the shaving curled just so, the stubborn long tones that had felt like punishment until they didn’t... none of it had been theatre. The music knew her now. Or she knew it. It was difficult to say which, and that was the point.
The little serenade had three parts... the beginning, a wistful, almost fairy-like idea; the middle was dance-like, almost like a pas-de-deux, carried by a solo violin, with the rest of the strings playing in soft pizzicato. Almost at the end of that section, there was an odd moment of dissonance, which the english horn confidently swept aside with the original melody.
As the sounds died, the orchestra and conductor sat and stood in speechless silence. Celeste stared unseeing at the page before her.
This was next-level.
They played it again. Celeste pushed the dynamics this time - being in a 'star' role suited her perfectly - and the serenade took on a vibrance, a poignancy that raised the hair on the conductor's neck. Again, piece done, silence. They played it again. It wasn't a difficult piece to perform... they were not playing it over and over to perfect their technique. It was the piece itself: it entranced, bewitched.
“Right,” she said to Ms Duncan quite boldly, unbothered on the surface, burning underneath. “One small request. At B: I’d like a written breath before the leap. It will sing better.”
Ms Duncan made the mark without argument. “You’re not wrong.”
“Thank you.” Celeste paused, then, because it mattered: “And whoever the composer is, tell that person the English horn part is ... considerate.” The word felt indecently intimate in her mouth. “It listens back.”
“High praise,” Ms Duncan said, amused. “I’ll pass it on.”
She returned to her chair, fitted the reed, and let the tip wet again, the way you give a plant a sip before moving it to a sunnier window. The others were watching her in the sideways way orchestras watch one another when something is suddenly real. She lifted the bell, counted the rests, and thought, with an odd, fierce tenderness, I want to write like that.
Who wrote This?¶
In chemistry, Lauren gave her friend a quizzical second look.
"What's up with you, girl?"
Celeste grimaced. "You know that piece I've been practicing on my english horn?"
"I thought you played the clarinet."
"I told you, Miss Duncan had loaned me her english horn."
Lauren shrugged. Orchestral stuff didn't 'float her boat'. "Oh yeah ... sorry, I forgot. So, why the weird vibes? Didn't go well?"
Celeste turned to her friend, fixing her with an intense gaze. She seemed to be searching for words.
"Lauren, it was unreal," she finally managed through dry lips. "The loan was for me to play specifically this piece. I can still hear the whole thing in my head... I think we only played it three of four times, but it's all ... right there!" She pointed to her head, her eyes wide.
Lauren smiled uneasily. "So, um, what sort of music was it?" she asked cautiously, as if opening a can of expired beans. She feared a long exposition couched in music theory terms.
"It was a serenade some student wrote. It was... insane."
"Insane."
Lauren could be so thick, sometimes. "I know, I'm not making any sense. Look, I've been practicing this piece for the past month or so - it's not hard to play. But today was like, well we heard the whole thing for the first time. The string section and my english horn. I'm telling you, everyone was blown away. Including the teacher!"
"Cool."
"Lauren, you would literally have to hear it. I know you're not into classical stuff..."
"'But' ... do I hear a 'but'?" Lauren cleared her throat. "yeah, nah ... doesn't do it for me, sorry ... not if there's no lyrics." A change came over Celeste again. "What now?"
"I gotta find out who wrote it," Celeste murmured, almost to herself as she turned back to her retorts and beaker.
It wasn't until Friday that she got her answer. She'd gone to the music building early that morning in hopes of catching Miss Duncan in her office. The hallways were empty: someone was in a piano room on a piano badly needing tuning.
"Celeste?" She turned to see her teacher unlocking her office.
"Good morning, Miss Duncan... I won't keep you long. Just have a quick question." Miss Duncan raised her eyebrows. "Um, who wrote that piece we played on Wednesday?"
"He's a junior, here. A quiet kid... well, between you and me, he's got a lot of talent. That serenade!"
"I know, right?" Celeste's eyes shone. "Am I allowed to ask what his name is?"
"Sure. It's Chuck."
Celeste stared at her, eyes wide.
"Chuck."
"Well, Charlie. Charlie Rossi..."
"...ignol," Celeste finished for her softly, pensivefully. She murmured: "Er, thank you..." and walked slowly away, lost in thought.
Love this setup, Robyn—there’s genuine electricity in Celeste’s dawning respect/curiosity. Here’s a tight craft pass with “believability / predictability / trope” notes, then a clean mini-polish, and a where-to-next path that avoids the clichés you dislike.
Quick eval¶
Believability
- ✅ The rush after first full read-through feels true: “it’s all right there” is a great musician’s line.
- ⚠️ A few dialogue beats read writerly (“fixing her with an intense gaze,” “through dry lips”). Pare back and let subtext carry it.
- ⚠️ School details: “retorts and beaker” (plural: beakers) feels science-textbook. Maybe just “glassware” or “bench.”
Predictability
- Mildly predictable that the best friend “doesn’t get classical” and says “cool.” Keep Lauren, but let her contribute something non-musical (e.g., social intel or a practical nudge) so she isn’t only the foil.
Trope radar
- No “emasculating schemer” vibes—good.
- Watch for “boy genius mystique” + “girl as admirer.” Ensure Celeste’s want is active (to learn how to write like this; to collaborate), not just to find the boy.
Line-level nits
- “english horn” → “English horn.”
- “three of four times” → “three or four times.”
- “pensivefully” → “pensively.”
- The “expired beans” simile undercuts the moment; consider a drier beat.
Micro-polish (light touch, your voice preserved)¶
In chemistry, Lauren gave her a second look. “What’s up with you, girl?”
Celeste grimaced. “You know that piece I’ve been practicing on English horn?”
“I thought you played clarinet.”
“I told you—Miss Duncan loaned me her English horn.”
Lauren shrugged. Orchestral stuff didn’t float her boat. “Right, sorry. So why the weird vibes? Didn’t go well?”
Celeste met her eyes, searching for the words. “It was unreal,” she said at last. “The loan was for this piece. We heard the whole thing today—the strings and my solo—and it’s still in my head. We only played it three or four times, but it’s all right there.”
Lauren smiled, uneasy. “So… what kind of music was it?” She braced for a lecture.
“A serenade some student wrote. It was—” She shook her head. “—insane.”
“Insane,” Lauren echoed.
“I know I’m not making sense. I’ve been practicing my part for a month. It isn’t hard. But today? Everyone was blown away. Even Miss Duncan.”
“Cool.”
“You’d have to hear it,” Celeste said, softening. “I know lyrics are your line in the sand.”
“Do I hear a ‘but’?”
Celeste turned back to the bench, to the neat rows of glassware. “I need to know who wrote it,” she murmured.
Friday, she staked out the music building. Someone was thumping scales on an untuned piano.
“Celeste?” Miss Duncan’s key scraped in the office lock.
“Good morning. Quick question.” Celeste waited. “Who wrote the piece we played Wednesday?”
“He’s a junior here. Quiet kid. Between us—loads of talent. That serenade!”
“I know, right?” Celeste couldn’t help the grin. “May I have his name?”
“Sure. It’s Chuck.”
Celeste blinked. “Chuck.”
“Well—Charlie. Charlie Rossignol.”
“…Rossignol,” she finished, softly. “Thank you.” She slipped back into the hall, thoughts already running ahead.
How to proceed (anti-trope, high-agency)¶
Celeste’s want (name it clearly on the page): not “get the boy,” but “understand how he did this and learn to write like it.” Ethical tactic: she avoids hunting down personal contact. She uses musical contact.
Bridge beats (3 short scenes)¶
-
The ask, craft-first: Celeste leaves a note via Miss Duncan addressed to “Charlie R.” Not praise-gushing; three specific craft questions (e.g., “Why the English horn over oboe in the exposition?” “That deceptive cadence at m.42: is the bass a tritone substitute?” “Was the final phrase meant to sit in modal ambiguity or did I miss an accidental?”). This frames her as peer/serious student, not fangirl.
-
The near-miss: He withdraws from school before she gets an answer. Rumor mill says Victorian Faire job. Lauren adds non-musical value here: she knows someone who works the Faire, or she digs up the schedule—use her competence so she’s more than a “cool/doesn’t get it” friend.
-
Choice & boundary: Celeste debates whether going to the Faire is intrusive. She decides to go only if she can keep a boundary: she’ll bring a marked score and a one-page letter with a “no-pressure” invitation to a public rehearsal where she plays his piece; he can come, or send notes anonymously. (Consent baked into the pursuit.)
First Faire encounter (avoid savior/muse clichés)¶
- Let Charlie have dignity in the cleaner role—competence, quiet pride.
- Keep the stakes small and real: Celeste asks permission to play the serenade publicly and to study his pages, not to “rescue” him.
- Conflict: he’s protective of the piece / embarrassed / wary of attention.
- Turn: she proves she’s read him musically by naming a tiny fingerprint in his writing (a pattern, a spacing choice, a voicing tell). That earns a crack of trust.
Medium-term arc¶
- Correspondence collaboration: exchanges of annotated PDFs / photos of manuscript margins.
- Celeste’s growth: she drafts a short “Response” piece—8 bars in his idiom—then rewrites it in her emerging voice.
- Public test: school ensemble (or a small chamber group at the Faire) performs one movement with his name on the program—consent explicit.
Sample next beat (first contact at the Faire—non-exploitative, charged, not saccharine)¶
She found him sweeping sawdust into tidy lines as if the floor were staff paper. No costume, just work boots and a fluorescent vest that made his hair look darker.
“I brought your music back,” she said, holding out the scuffed folder. “Well—not back. Forward.” A breath. “I marked questions. You can ignore all of them.”
He glanced at the tabbed pages, then at her. “I don’t—uh—do… public.”
“I’m not asking you to,” she said. “But there’s a harmonic thing in your bridge—this little bass slip that shouldn’t work and somehow does. I can’t stop thinking about it.” She smiled, embarrassed and earnest all at once. “I want to learn how to think like that. Or at least how you think like that.”
The broom paused. “Measure forty-two?”
“So it was a trick.”
“Not a trick.” He eased the broom back into motion. “A risk.”
“Then maybe you’ll let me risk something too,” she said, tapping the folder. “There’s a rehearsal Tuesday. I’ll leave a seat at the back with your name on it. Or no name. Your call.”
He didn’t answer, but his eyes flicked to the folder again—and that was enough.
If you want, paste the marked-up letter Celeste leaves him; I’ll tune it to hit “craft-first, boundary-clear, consent-loud” while keeping your elegant, natural tone.
Love this beat. Here’s a clean, drop-in sequence: Charlie in close third (note → rehearsal/reveal), then Celeste in 1st (after).
Charlie — close third¶
The note came folded twice, the creases neat enough to suggest either a teacher’s hand or a student who owned a ruler.
I’m the English-horn player from Wednesday. Three questions:
- Why English horn over oboe for the first exposition phrase?
- In the bridge around m. 42 the bass “slips” in a way that shouldn’t resolve and somehow does—was that a tritone substitute idea or something else?
- The last cadence sits between modal and tonal—intentional ambiguity or my misread?
No pressure to reply. I’ll rehearse Tuesday, 4:15, Room 204. There’ll be a seat at the back with no name on it. Your call. —C.
No name beyond the letter. The handwriting was tidy, slanted just enough to look decisive. He read it again, then a third time for the questions themselves, which were the right kind—about choices, not mistakes.
Why English horn over oboe. He had a practical reason and the other reason: the color that lived between the notes, the way a good player could lean into grief without tipping the line over. He started an answer on scrap staff paper, crossed it out, started again. “Because the timbre sits lower in the chest,” he wrote, then winced and scratched through that as well. It sounded romantic on paper and wrong in air.
Measure forty-two. He smiled before he could stop it. Someone had heard the slip. Not a trick, he could say. A permission.
He put the note under his theory book and told himself he wouldn’t go. Anonymous was safer. “Your call,” it said, so he made one: he wouldn’t. He could leave comments with Miss Duncan. He could send a page of counterpoint and let that be the conversation.
Tuesday came anyway.
He stood in the door of 204, not far enough in to be counted. The room smelled like rosin and old carpet; a stand light buzzed in the corner. The strings settled; the English horn player adjusted a reed with the quick mouth-half-smile of someone who’d made peace with imperfection. He could only see the side of her face, the hair pulled back, the collar of a plain shirt. It told him nothing. Better that way.
They began. The sound was bare at first—school room, fluorescent ceiling—but the bass lift in the second bar made a space, and by the time they reached the soft turn into his bridge he’d forgotten the doorframe in his hand.
Measure forty-two. The bass slipped. The room did that thing rooms do when air changes its mind. And the English horn didn’t correct it; she committed, the breath before the long F like someone stepping into cold water on purpose. He felt his ribs go hollow with relief. She’d understood.
She turned a fraction to take the next phrase, and he knew her. The lost lad in the ladies’ restroom—except not a lad, obviously, and he hated himself all over again for needing the reminder. The flush found him fast and stupid. The broom closet, the fluorescent vest; the part where he had stammered and she had said, “You’re fine,” as if it were ordinary, as if he were ordinary and not a catastrophe wearing two sizes of shame.
Of course it was her.
He tightened his grip on the doorframe, then let go too late and knocked the spare chair beside him. Heads turned. He put the chair upright, whispered “sorry,” and for a second couldn’t find the door handle that was right there. He escaped into the corridor and stood with his forehead against the cool painted block like a penitent, counting slowly to ten.
He could leave. He should leave. Instead he sat on the floor out of sight and took the note from his pocket. He wrote, small and spare:
- English horn: because the line wants weight without brightness. The melody reads older in that register.
- m.42: not a substitute, a risk. Let the bass lead; EH hold the F a half-breath longer than polite.
- Last cadence: yes, ambiguous. Let it hang. If you resolve it, do it like you regret doing it.
He added eight measures on the back—an answer to her question in music, a countermelody that folded under the bridge and lifted where the bass slid. His pencil snapped on the last note; he sharpened it with the little metal sharpener in his case, which meant he wasn’t leaving, which meant he was leaving, because now he had something to drop off.
When they cut off at the end, he waited for the scrape of chairs and the easy talk of people who moved through rooms as if they deserved them. He slid the folded page into an envelope from the office desk—To the English-horn player—and left it with Miss Duncan’s stack, then escaped down the stairs two at a time.
He didn’t put a name. He couldn’t figure out how to be both the writer of that bass slip and the boy who had blundered into the wrong room and needed telling how to breathe.
Celeste — first person¶
I didn’t look at the chair by the door. That was the rule I’d made: set it there, play, don’t check whether the void is occupied.
Measure forty-two—his risk—arrived and I took it the way the line asked me to, not smoothing, not apologizing. The room did that small tilt it does when everyone’s breath gets the same idea. Someone near the door jostled a chair; a murmured “sorry.” I kept playing.
After, I packed slowly enough to look like I wasn’t lingering. Miss Duncan caught my eye and tipped her head at the office pile. “There’s something for you.”
The envelope said To the English-horn player in a hand that tried for plainness and didn’t quite get there. Inside: my note with answers and, on the back, eight measures of reply—his script more confident once it turned into notation.
- English horn: because the line wants weight without brightness…
Weight without brightness. I wanted to clap. Instead I sat on the floor with my back to the lockers and traced the countermelody with a finger, humming under my breath. It did that clever thing his writing does where you think it’s going to pivot one way and then it doesn’t—like a thought changed its mind at the last second and took you along.
No name. Of course no name. But the chair had scraped, and the breath in the back of the room during m. 42 had hit my spine exactly where the bass slip sits when I practice, and I’m not an idiot. He came. He heard. He left me a line.
I wrote back on the blank side, pencil still warm from my case:
Thank you. I’ll try the half-breath longer than polite and probably get scolded for it. Enclosed: eight measures of cheek—my answer to your answer. If you have thoughts, return volley. If not, thank you for letting me hear your thinking.
I didn’t say I knew him from the restroom. I didn’t say anything about that afternoon, or the way his face had gone stricken and the way I’d wanted to fix a thing that didn’t need fixing. I kept to the rule: music first, boundaries clear.
I left my page with Miss Duncan and went home to the kind of quiet that lets a new voice move in. I opened a fresh document and labeled it “Response in C (for Charlie? For Cor Anglais? Don’t be ridiculous, Celeste)” and began to sketch a movement that answered his cadence by refusing to choose a key until the last possible moment.
Wednesday morning the registrar posted withdrawals.
“Rossi— Rossign—” Lauren mangled it, then found it. “That kid from band?”
“From nowhere,” I said, too fast.
Victorian Faire, the rumor mill said by afternoon. Cleaning crew, out near the back lot where the vans park and the sawdust goes down. I stared at the eight bars he’d sent; they looked like a door held politely open.
I made myself a new rule: one more note, delivered through Miss Duncan, then silence unless he walked through. The seat at the back of 204 would be there next Tuesday anyway. No name on it. A whole rehearsal’s worth of air waiting for a bass to slip and a player to believe it.
..
Filling In¶
