Excerpt 1:
There were two new faces I didn’t recognize from last year’s concert. They looked familiar, though I couldn’t place where I had seen them before. The conductor stood in front, his back to us as he summoned the choir’s eyes to him with a few taps of his baton. He took a deep breath, synchronizing the choir’s breathing to his own. Gesturing with his baton, he released the soprano’s voice—rich, powerful, and throbbing with emotion. The beginning strains of the solo filled the auditorium. Holding his right hand at waist level, the conductor flicked his right index finger left, then right, counting the beats.

“That’s Amanda, in case you didn’t know,” Liz told me behind her raised hand.

I nodded and tried to stop my giggles when Liz’s shoulder hit mine.

“Will…you…shut…up?” Barbara widened her eyes more with each word.

Liz waved her hands in surrender, twitched her body deeper into the chair, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. If it weren’t for the trembling of her shoulders, Liz could have fooled us with her pose of deep listening. But we knew her, and all she got from Barbara was another shove. Despite her unfailingly put-together appearance—manicured nails and hair always expertly cut and dyed—Liz hadn’t left her teen years behind. We must have been making a racket because a woman three rows down turned around and glared at us.

Liz and I looked at each other and decided to settle down and listen. I swayed, imagining my soul lifting in prayer, soaring past the lights of the auditorium and ever more upwards into the wide open sky beyond the school building. Then it happened. One minute I was up in the heavens, one with the song; the next minute I was crashing without a parachute.

The glorious voice stopped, leaving echoes of the high note ringing in the auditorium. A harsh cough sounded, jarring and unexpected. The accompanist stopped. The conductor jerked forward while the soprano toppled gracelessly to the floor, face down. Music scores fluttered in the air before landing gently around the stricken woman. A choir member huddled over her while the rest stared in shock.

“She’s not breathing!” The grief-stricken wail rattled my bones.

Barbara jumped up from her chair, her eyes fixed on Stefan, who stood frozen in his place, his eyes fixed on Amanda.

Amanda…who wasn’t moving.

I whipped my phone out of my bag and dialed nine-one-one. How long would help take to get here? Stefan moved to where Amanda was, kneeling to touch her on her shoulder. What was Stefan waiting for? Why was he not giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? A few other choir members crept nearer but then backed away when Stefan waved them off. Start CPR, I wanted to shout, but couldn’t because the 911 operator had picked up my call.

Then the door to the auditorium opened, and in walked Edna, former third-grade teacher of Post Elementary School and the last of our group. One look at the stage and the woman laid out on the floor had Edna gasping, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Oh no, not another murder?”

Excerpt 2:
We were at the school to meet our friends. Stefan sang in the Whitman’s Port Choral Society, and they were rehearsing for their annual fall concert this Sunday. He had asked everyone to meet him at the school auditorium. Said we might as well listen to the rehearsals. Except we were late, as the voices sounding from the auditorium made clear to me when I pushed the doors open. The rehearsal had started. Barbara took a seat beside Liz, sitting in the last row of chairs by the center aisle. The chair hinges squeaked as Barbara pushed the seat down.

“They still haven’t fixed these chairs,” Barbara grumbled.

“Fix? The school board should replace them,” I whispered back, eyeing the faded velvet-covered chairs and the dark stain marking the middle of the seat next to Barbara. Facing Barbara’s wrath was better than risking my brand-new jeans, so I scooted past her and Liz, who, of course, was on time.

“You’re late,” Liz whispered.

“Shush.” Barbara waved her hand at the stage. “Stop talking; we’re here to listen, in case you’d forgotten.”

Catching Liz’s eye and her grin, I knew she didn’t mind being told to shut up. She was used to Barbara. She had taught fifth grade at Post Elementary School until retiring a year after Barbara. Settling my back firmly against the school auditorium’s chair, I let the music take me away. Listening to music was my second favorite way to relax, next to drinking my morning latte. All that beautiful melody filling my heart and flying away with it up to the heavens. What could be better than that? Choral music soothed my worries away, even with the auditorium’s dismal acoustics.

“Why hold rehearsals here and not at Saint Anthony’s Cathedral? The acoustics in this auditorium are awful. It’s killing my listening pleasure,” Liz said.

“Your whining is killing mine.” Barbara didn’t even bother to turn her head toward Liz.

Liz winked at me and continued complaining. “I heard the choir members were giving the conductor grief about the acoustics, but he told them they’re lazy and they just need to project their voices more. That singing from their diaphragms will strengthen and bring energy to their voices.”

I raised my eyebrows to urge Liz on. We ignored Barbara’s huffing, knowing she’d make us pay but wanting to rile her up anyway. I know, I know. We were acting juvenile, but at our ages, we took our amusements where we found them.

“One of the choir members whispered to me that any energy coming from this cost-cutting is energizing the conductor’s pockets.” Liz chuckled. “They’re betting on whether—”

But then Barbara transferred her gaze from the choir to us, her eyes fierce and brooking no mutiny. It was time for us to behave. Liz and I sank back into our chairs, like our students did when we sent them to the principal’s office for Barbara to deal with.

Karma’s a bitch, as if I didn’t know that by now.