Kira at Tanglewood
Copyright© 2026 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 8
When Kira and Linda went back inside, she knew a lot more about what Linda’s conductor was planning. Linda rushed off to phone home, and Kira returned to sit with Rachael.
Rachael smiled, a little upset. “I was unsure if I should send a Saint Bernard to see if you needed rescue. Your face is flushed.”
“Linda wanted to talk to me,” Kira replied. “Talk!”
Rachael shrugged. “When I was growing up, I could go where I pleased, when I pleased, and stay out until the street lights came on. You are at an age, Kira, where apron strings start to chafe, and things are changing.”
Kira ignored her. “Linda wanted to know if I could play a benefit concert on Thanksgiving. Her orchestra’s concert mistress has developed leukemia, and their insurance won’t cover it, and they are trying to put something together. No one has ever asked me to play a concert before for someone else’s benefit.”
“Well, I don’t know about how that works for someone your age. I think that the union has a membership class for youth, although there are very few members of the class. Has anyone said anything about the union to you?”
“No, no one has.”
“The Arizona Symphony is a union shop; someone should have spoken to you about it. We’ll need to call Taylor Ford to find out what your status is. Did you get a paycheck from the Arizona Symphony?”
“I remember something that was talked about by my agent when we were selling Tree Symphony. He asked if I’d been paid, and my father said I’d been paid four hundred dollars. I’d have done it for free, but they told me it wasn’t possible.”
“That’s the minimum, just about, for a concert solo. Most benefits, I understand, have a sort of kabuki dance. You charge union minimums, they write you a check for it, then you endorse the check back to them, and they pay your agent fee ... if the agent negotiated the deal. If not, it goes to the benefit.”
“Linda said I should come up early and talk to her concert mistress and their music director.”
Kira looked thoughtful. “She says her concert mistress is beyond a Star Wars fan. She was trying to work up the courage to ask Mr. Williams.”
“Kira, he’s a busy man. His schedule is planned at least a year in advance, and sometimes longer.”
“What happens if he says no? Nothing happens. But what if he says yes?”
Rachael sighed. “You are so very different than you were when you first said down for me in the intermediate orchestra. You have grown and grown. There is still the matter of your flushed face.”
Kira looked Rachael in the eye. “When I said yes, Linda hugged me. I felt weird.”
As if talking about her, Linda came up. “I never dance at these things. Please, could we dance again? Just dance.”
Kira felt the same strangeness wash over her. “That was the second time I’ve danced with someone who wasn’t teaching me.” Still, she stood up and walked out onto the dance floor with Linda. It was another stately waltz, and the two danced. It was something Kira noticed almost at once. The vast majority of the other dancers were mixed sexes, and most of them danced really close. Linda and she danced at an arm’s length. But that was how Irene had taught her.
Maybe a minute into the dance, Linda leaned a little close. “We are dancing like I dance with my mom. Arm’s length.”
“It’s the way I learned,” Kira admitted. “My roommate at the State Orchestra taught me when I told her I didn’t know how to dance. She was a senior in high school then; now she’s graduated and off to Stanford. I was a middle school student who is a giantess; she could only get one boy to dance with me.”
Linda laughed. “At least we move around a little. Some couples just stand in place and sway.”
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