This is Michael’s story. And it begins in the middle of the night, in the hinterlands of suburban North Carolina.
Michael and his musician friends are hiking through a dark neighborhood, lugging two violins, a viola, a cello, four folding stools, collapsible music stands, and backpacks. And its chilly.
“Are we almost there?” says the cellist. “My feet hurt.”
“Keep your voice down,” says Michael, swinging his violin case at his side. “We’re almost there.”
“I don’t understand why we had to park so far away.”
“Keep your voice down. Do you realize what time it is?”
The cellist is in poor spirits. He is hauling a massive hunk of spruce-and-maple torture otherwise known as a cello. He adjusts the three-quarter-ton case. “I shoulda been a flute player.”
Meet the string quartet. Four average college kids from your average American community college. They’ve been playing chamber music together for three years.
Have you ever listened to a string quartet? Or better yet: Have you ever been awakened by a quartet playing Haydn on your front lawn at 1 A.M.? Me neither.
This was all Michael’s idea.
Michael has a severe case of lovesickness. Lovesickness, according to the dictionary, is the inability to act normally due to love. And tonight’s events are definitely not normal.
Although for 19-year-old Michael, this is more than mere fascination. He has been dating Eleana for one year and he hopes to marry her someday.
Michael and Eleana had an argument last week. And in the way of disagreements, theirs was Hiroshima. Pride got in the way. Feelings got hurt. He’s been lost without her. Eleana won’t take his calls. He tries texting, but she doesn’t answer.
Which leads us to Covert Operation Haydn.
Tonight’s makeshift string section sets up in a semicircle on Eleana’s front lawn. Michael is nervous. His hands are trembling when he opens his violin case.
Life is not like the romance…