She sees her for the first time in a bar.
She’s looking around, aimlessly, not for anyone nor anything. She doesn’t even like bars that much, she thinks, and remembers Heika telling her she should get out more often and, ‘stop being glued to that violin of yours, I mean, honestly, Sharon, you should have a life.’ Her sister is probably right. That's why she's subjected herself to this torture. She drowns the rest of her shot in one gulp, and as she’s setting her glass down, she sees her.
Blond hair down to the shoulder. Cheekbones that protrude against pale skin. Light eyes. Tailored clothing; masculine.
Her heart beats painfully, and she gets up to leave.
The next time she sees her, she’s standing in front of her, a polite smile curving soft lips. “Lydia Tár,” she introduces herself as, her eyes belying whatever humility she wears. Pride radiates off of her, and Sharon thinks that it is so different that she could love it. “I’m the new guest conductor.”
“I’m Sharon.” She replies, shaking the offered hand. “Concertmaster.” She is proud, too, and recognition, perhaps admiration, flares in light eyes that are blue on closer inspection. Blue eyes are treacherous. Sharon turns to face the orchestra. “Take it away, maestro.”
Lydia is not German, Sharon finds out. Lydia is also ambitious. That, Sharon didn’t need to find out. Lydia wears it like a cloak. It’s refreshing.
Sometimes, Lydia’s face will turn, just a little, under the lights of the concert hall, and a flare of familiarity will burn Sharon’s heart. Then Lydia will blink, and her face is hers once again. It is the cheekbones, perhaps. Or the nose, strong and straight. Even the lips, full but not overbearing, soft. Sharon can’t look at her for long without having to turn away, heat burning behind her eyes. Her violin becomes a weapon in her hands. She plays like there is no tomorrow. Lydia’s eyes are often on her in praise. She chases that look, because it has a familiar taste and texture, all while she turns her nose up at it. She’s killing herself, she thinks as she turns back the covers to go to bed at night. She’s burying herself in glimpses of the past and found mementoes.
Lydia asks her to stay after rehearsal. She fingers the E-string and nods.
Later, fingers wet with arousal, Lydia whispers in her ear what she wants. Sharon arches her back, clenches down hard around Lydia’s fingers, and breathlessly agrees to stop other words from coming out of her mouth.
Lydia is ambitious, willing to do anything it takes to get what she wants. Her side profile is delicate under the sun, and Sharon thinks she wants to see that face on top of the world. Andris, the old fool, won’t know what hit him.
Time does wash away memories, Sharon finds. But when Lydia’s fingers are buried deep inside her, crooning pretty nothings at her, she still has to bite her tongue and remember to scream ‘Lydia’ in ecstasy.
“I’ve been in Berlin for two years now,” Lydia says, her hands absently playing with Sharon’s hair. When they are alone, they speak English. It separates reality and memory; Lydia is American. “You’ve been with me for two years now.” Sharon hums in agreement.
“Will you marry me?”
She thinks distantly that the correct reaction to a proposal from a person you love is surprise, shock, tears of joy. She tries to go through with the motions. Tears of joy don’t come, but she grips Lydia’s hand hard and says with all the conviction pain brings, “Yes.”
Her sister pulls her aside after she introduces Lydia to her family and announces their engagement. “Do you know what you’re doing, Sharon?”
She looks out. Lydia is wearing the light blue shirt that Sharon said she liked, and she’s speaking to someone animatedly. Her face is softer under the sun, her edges more hazy, and Sharon understands exactly what her sister means.
“Of course I do,” Sharon replies, dismissively.
Her sister looks like she doesn’t believe her. “Anna is dead. You need to move on.”
She turns, her heart being incinerated, and glares hard. “I don’t need you to tell me that,” she hisses, “And if Lydia finds out…” She trails off. Walks away. Her sister stays where she is, and Sharon presses a kiss to blond hair. “Are you ready to head out?” She asks softly, in German. Lydia nods, and they leave arm in arm.
Sometimes, she wonders if she loves Lydia. When Lydia presses a kiss to her curls before going to work, when Lydia tells her, eyes blazing and hand firmly in hers, 'I will not let them make me hide you,' when Lydia remembers her favorite restaurant and goes to great lengths just so they have a reservation there for her birthday, she thinks she could. But then Lydia tilts her head some way, and suddenly even breathing hurts.
Sharon claps harder than anyone else when Lydia stands and tells them that she has been made conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. She doesn’t have to fake her joy and pride that night. Under the lights, Lydia’s cheekbones cast shadows over her cheeks, and she is radiant, stunning. Beautiful. Alive again. Sharon blinks back tears.
“Good job, my love,” she whispers, her hands already going to the hair that she loves so. Blond hair, she finds, is all of the same texture. “I’m so proud of you.”
Lydia shrieks under her tongue, and Sharon kisses her way back up to her lips. Her heart pangs again, creaking a little, shivering from the sinkhole punctured in it that has never healed. Lydia’s moans are hollow and echoey in it. She falls asleep holding tight to Lydia's sweat-damp body.
It doesn't come as easily as breathing to be around Lydia. Lydia isn't beautiful, even though her face could set battleships against one another. Lydia is hidden behind veils of deception and lies, and the pride that was so different, that drew Sharon in in the first place looks a lot more like arrogance and self-contempt on closer inspection. Still, Sharon never thinks of leaving, even when Lydia does cruel things. She's willing to compromise everything just to see that face in the spotlight, shinning like the brightest star in the night.
“Do you want children?”
She looks up from her work. Lydia is taking a sip from her coffee, as nonchalant as you please. She appraises Lydia’s mask. It is tightly on today, no slip ups that tell Sharon what she is really thinking. That’s something that's different, too. Lydia is always so careful with what she shows the world. “Do you?”
They’re both past child-bearing age, or Sharon would have said yes in a heartbeat, just to see light eyes looking up at her from a small bundle. But now, they would be adopting at best. Lydia shrugs. “I do.”
Sharon considers. She remembers wanting children once. So she nods. “Alright then.”
A smile, wide and pure, blooms on Lydia’s face, a rare treat. The smile makes her face softer, less structured, and Sharon chases after that smile like a blind man chases after light.
Petra has brown, voluptuous, big curls. Her eyes are brown, and they stare up at her with a childish delight. She throws herself at Sharon, and when small arms close around her legs, the gaping hole in Sharon’s heart feels just a little smaller.
She spends many nights lying next to Petra, smiling and laughing and teasing her child. Her child, she marvels at the words. Lydia, too, is smitten, and Sharon craves the way she looks at Petra always, so she sends Lydia texts and messages about Petra when Lydia is on business trips. Lydia never fails to respond to them. Even if she doesn’t pick up the phone when Sharon calls.
Somewhere along the line, something changes. Lydia lets her hair grow long. She stops curling it, no matter how many times Sharon lays out the curling iron. With time, her face, too, becomes more severe, her bone structure making itself more clear on her face. She is still pretty, no doubt, but she wears only neutrals for the most part now.
Sharon finds a long, red hair on her seat in the backseat of the car one day. She is particularly rough with Lydia that day. She draws out one, two, three climaxes from her without pausing for breath, and Lydia is begging her to stop before long. She stops, climbs down, and sleeps with Petra that night. If Lydia is confused, she is too immersed in her music the next morning to ask Sharon.
“Do you love her?” Her sister asks her one day, when they are out shopping.
Sharon looks up at the blue skies, and sees a bag from Dior she knows her sister will like. “Look at that bag.”
Her sister buys the bag, and a small toy for Petra while she’s at it, and Petra squeals with happiness when the small stuffed animal is just what she needed to, ‘finish my orchestra, doesn’t it look beautiful, Sharon?’
Lydia comes home, Petra shows her her new symphony, and Sharon hands Lydia a glass of wine once Petra goes to bed. Lydia kisses her gently, and Sharon presses her to her chest.
They stop having sex. Sharon loves seeing Lydia’s faces on magazines and billboards. Lydia’s fingers, though, disgust her now. She touches herself some nights, presses chaste kisses to Lydia’s lips other nights. She doesn’t confront Lydia, doesn’t say anything, because she wakes up everyday next to a sun-softened face and that is enough for her.
“Be careful, will you?” She remarks lightly when Lydia heads out for another business trip.
Lydia frowns, searches her eyes to read her. She won’t find anything to hold onto. Sharon has cultivated a mask of her own over the years. “Of course.” Sharon rises to press a kiss to her lips.
Lydia gets away with things for so long that Sharon is actually relieved. Petra deserves two loving parents, and she loves Petra. Perhaps Lydia did heed her warning.
The next day, the news breaks. The news doesn't bother her at first: paper can’t cover fire for long, especially when the fire is passion. But when she reads that Lydia has been fired from Accordion, fury begin to burn in Sharon's heart. She has to read the line once, then again, and again until she realizes: Lydia is toppling.
She did not help Lydia get to the place she is now for her to fall and break a million bones. She did not help Lydia become the tip of the iceberg only for her to fall face first back into icy waters. She is furious, and her heart beats to the anger that floods her veins.
She waits in the dark for Lydia to come home. Lydia tries to argue, but it is rare Sharon loses her temper. Sharon thinks she sees a spark of shock in Lydia's eyes. “You are to ask for my fucking counsel,” she tells Lydia, and leaves the room to find Petra. Petra is asleep. She lays down next to her daughter, and begins to plot her own next steps.
It’s not so hard to tear a person down, she finds. Easier than building them up. She takes Petra away, sends her lawyers a divorce agreement, and watches, her face an appropriate mask of shock when Lydia sends her replacement conductor flying with a punch. She ignores Lydia’s pleads for meetings with Petra, tells her daughter that Lydia is going away for a while, and Heika looks at her like she’s never met her.
Sharon is furious. Still. Burning, angry, and furious.
How dare Lydia wear that face and ruin herself?
She doesn’t say anything when given the chance to help Lydia. Instead, she registers a new account on social media and starts to spread the obviously edited video of Lydia’s so-called ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’ tirades. It only fuels her anger. She realizes that she is still married to Lydia. So she reaches out to the right people, and soon Lydia loses her court case and her book deal.
She sits at home, watching the livestream of a video game conference. On-screen, Lydia seems smaller, more broken, and she watches as Lydia strides to center stage, shakes the first violinist’s hand, and puts on headphones. Lydia turns, her face hidden, and gives the down beat for the narration of Monster Hunter.
Sharon takes a sip of her expensive red wine. Her tears don't mesh well with her wine, so she turns her face skywards, lets her tears fall right into the cavernous hole she calls a heart. Lydia really isn’t anything like Anna at all.