Ending in Major Need of Feedback!!!

Jun 29, 2008

I'm having major difficulties with the next part of my story. I don't know if she should announce the cello player or if there ought to be a last minute switch and she's forced to announce Toast? Or if she should be asked last minute to also announce Toast.
I've also had him either send her a text message or leave her a voicemail, one of them . . . .
I think I've got that part.

"Toast was heading out onto the stage towards her carrying his violin. He was smiling the way he always smiled when he took the stage but there was something a little bit forced about it. Not wanting to let on to anything amiss, Pippa held her flight attendant-like grin and held out a hand to him as she had done with the cellist.
Toast responded in kind and pulled her toward him and kissed her on both cheeks. When he moved to the upstage side of her face she heard him whisper fiercely into her ear,
"Check your phone, already, woman!"
Before kissing her again.
Bewildered, Pippa moved away from him, applauding and made her way into the wings and down to where the musicians stored their things.
As she began to descend she heard Toast take the microphone.
"Tonight is a very special night for me. I am very excited to be back in this great city that I love, performing for you good people. This next piece is very well known and I expect you all to sing along; but it is also very special to a dear friend of mine who is amongst our number this evening. I dedicate this performance to her. Thank you."
Pippa watched in awe as he moved away from the microphone and looked her way. His face was serious, as it usually was directly before a performance, but there was something else in his face.
Phone, he mouthed to her, then turned back to the conductor.
Pippa pulled her phone out of her sweater pocket. She had three missed calls. One from Barb, one from Mary and one from Toast. They had all left voice messages. Quickly Pippa dialed the number to check her messages. The orchestra was playing the first few bars of music, but Pippa wasn't really listening.
Mary's message was first. Something about work and the vile people she worked with giving her a hard time about something or other and how much she needed her little sister to comfort her. Pippa erased that one and moved on to the next. It was from Barb. Pippa skipped that one knowing it was something arbitrary about the Christmastime posters she'd sent to the client that morning. Voicemail number three was from Toast.
As his voice came to her through the little silver box in her hand, Pippa realized what the Orchestra was playing: it was a medly of songs from Fiddler on the Roof that Toast himself had arranged while at Julliard. It was a good mix of the more well known songs, and heavy on the Hodel and Perchik duets. He had arranged it for her knowing that Hodel's was her favorite storyline. And now he was performing it, for the first time in nearly nine years for her.
"Right now you are telling Arun all about how women never forget the ones they love," came his voice through the cellphone. "And I am in agony. We're here at you're brother-in-law's sister's engagement party, one of my best friends and you're pseudo-little sister are on the threshold of falling in love, you're convincing Arun that he has it made with Sarai, which he does, and you and I are here in the same place at the same time and I'm dying. Ever since I saw you right outside this building that day, I have thought of nothing but you. Forget that, for the past eight years I've thought of no one but you. Every other woman I've dated has been compared to you, anytime I dreamed of the future, it was always with you. Arun would call me a prat, but the thing is Pip, I love you. I'll never stop loving you. You just told Arun that men never forget love just as women don't and the fact that you believe thats possible gives me so much hope. I know part of you is just trying to placate him, don't worry he doesn't notice, but you can't fool me, Pippa. I know you far too well. I'll be at the concert tonight, I'm performing actually, and don't be fooled by anything I might say: this performance is for you, and you alone. I love you."
Pippa closed the phone. Shock and awe was battling with happiness and confusion within her. There he was playing the very medly he wrote for her, the very medly his sister told her he played all the time, in private, with a kind of venom, and was always grumpy afterwards. Here he was, pouring his heart out to her the only way he knew how. The message was lovely, but the music . . . oh, the music! The music was the best he'd played in a very long time. His trills were exilerating, his crescendos uplifting, his piano tender and stirring, his forte exciting! Everyone said so. Reporters and commentators couldn't get enough of Anastasios Dranias' performance that evening. And neither could Pippa.
She didn't cry. Tears threatened, but she was too happy for tears. Her face could hardly contain her mouth, her smile was so wide. She watched him putting all of himself into this performance and she was extremely pleased. He was a lovely man, and she had missed him."

Ok, I just busted that out. Not sure where it came from but it just flowed. So let me know what you think, cause I desperately need the feedback!