Betting Blind Read Free Page B

six-foot-five bulldog-looking one wasn’t her dad. “We can go right there if you want.” I nodded toward Starbucks at the other end of the pavilion.
    “Okay,” Irina said. I could see all the other guys watching her as we walked over to Starbucks. Guys think they’re sly, but their eyes do this obvious tracking thing. It made me proud.
    We got drinks and sat down at one of the rickety metal tables by the stage. Irina pulled back her blond hair and snapped on a rubber band. She did everything fast and confident, even putting back her hair. Her hands were tiny and pretty and . . . man, I had it bad. I wanted to skip the getting-to-know-you and lean in and kiss her perfect mouth.
    “You played like Lao Ping. Really intense but lyrical,” I said.
    She grinned. “Have you been reading Alex Ross’s blog? ’Cause it’s funny, he said the same thing yesterday.”
    My face heated up. Why was I so stupid? Of course she read that blog, too. “Yeah,” I admitted, fiddling with a straw wrapper on the table.
    She gave me a hard look—but not unfriendly. “Gabe, do you really like classical music? Or was this whole thing just a way to get my number?”
    Damn. The flush was getting worse. Called out to the billionth power. I had a feeling if I lied, she’d see right through me. And besides, I didn’t want to lie to her. “No, I’m not really that into it,” I mumbled. “But I don’t hate it or anything.”
    She laughed. “I knew it. Thanks for sitting through that whole concert.”
    “You were good! Seriously! I like classical music if you’re playing it.”
    She gave me a really nice smile, and I could tell she wasn’t mad.
    “I saw a bunch of your YouTube videos,” I said. “You’re like a prodigy, huh?”
    The smile dropped off her face. “No, I’m not.”
    “That wasn’t you?”
    Her cheeks were getting pink. “It was me, but I’m not a prodigy. A prodigy is a genius. Mozart was a prodigy.”
    “Okay, you’re not a prodigy. How’d you get so good, though?” I asked her.
    She took a sip of coffee. “If you spend six hours a day doing something, you get pretty good at it.”
    “Six hours a day ?” I couldn’t imagine doing anything for that long, except sleeping.
    “Yeah, two years ago I started homeschooling, which means every day I practice for six hours and then study for two hours with a music master.”
    “That’s kind of . . . insane,” I said. “What about schoolwork?”
    She shrugged. “No offense, but my parents think school in this country is a joke. I have my GED, and I’m going to a music conservatory instead of college anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.”
    I put my elbows on the table. “What do you mean ‘school in this country’? What country are you from?”
    “Well, I was born here, but I’m Russian.”
    I looked at her almond eyes and perfect white skin, and yeah, of course she was Russian. That’s where all the models came from. “Cool,” I said. “So were your parents born in Russia?”
    “My mom is from Petersburg, and my dad is second generation, but his dad was from Krasnodar.” Irina made her voice deep, with a heavy accent. “Irinushka, ze job of true Rossians ees to breeng great art into ze vorld. Ve understand sorrow and passion, and so ve are ze voice of beauty. Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Pasternak, Barishnikov, Akhmatova . . . Thees are your people.”
    I cracked up. She sounded exactly like an old Russian dude.
    She looked pleased. “That’s my grandpa.”
    “So your job is to bring art into the world?”
    She nodded and her eyes got a little gleam, and I saw that she totally believed it. And I believed it, too—she was that good. “That’s what Russians do,” she said proudly.
    A couple sarcastic comments about the other things Russians do, like run violent mobs and have screwed-up political systems, jumped into my head, but it’s not like I knew that much about it, so I kept my mouth shut. Note to self: don’t bash hot