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“Okay, put fingers here…”
That’s Juleka speaking – quietly, as per usual, but Zoé hears it on account of Juleka’s mouth being literally a couple centimetres away from her ear as she guides Zoé’s hand around the fretboard. The sensation of her breath against Zoé’s neck is enough to make her shudder, but she tries to keep herself in check.
Because Zoé isn’t meant to feel this way. She’s just supposed to be learning how to play the guitar.
“Like this?”
“Mm. Now strike.”
Zoé pulls her thumb down the strings, catching a little on the third one before she completes the motion. The sound that comes out of the instrument isn’t pleasant, as such – rather, it’s a sound that could become pleasant with practice, and with a left hand that doesn’t accidentally mute half the strings.
“Try to lift this one a bit… Mm. Good. Strike again.”
She does so, and the sound gets a bit more pleasant now. It almost sounds nice. Zoé opens her mouth to say something else, but then Juleka interrupts her.
“Mute first string. Thumb here.” Juleka points insistently towards the second string from the top, until Zoé shifts her thumb to where Juleka wants it – which takes a couple of tries. “Mm.”
“Um… so I just don’t play that string at all?”
“Mm.”
Zoé doesn’t hear a ‘Strike again’ but assumes, from context and silence, that she’s supposed to. She pulls the thumb down slowly, taking one string at a time. The sound is – strangely beautiful, in a kind of haunting way. As it rings out between the walls, she almost forgets about how close Juleka is to her.
“… So was that a G major?” she says, a little confused.
“Nn. A minor nine. Ninth below third.”
At that point, they can both hear Luka returning from upstairs. A little bit from the footsteps, a little bit from cups clinking together, but mostly because he’s humming to himself as he walks. Juleka pulls away a little, and just sits there watching, as Zoé relaxes her shoulders.
He comes to a stop right inside the doorway. “How’s it going down here?” he asks, smiling.
Juleka nods to Zoé. “Play,” she says, and Zoé does as she’s asked – accidentally muting, oh, a lot of strings at first, but then she tries one more time, and that softly melancholy chord plays out again. It sounds even better this time, not by a huge margin, but Zoé feels that she’s a little more secure in her grip now.
Luka looks a little perplexed, but smiles nonetheless. “It’s very pretty. But why did you start with that one, Jule?”
“It’s pretty,” Juleka replies, as though he didn’t just say the same thing.
“Don’t you think she should start with the easy ones? G major, E minor?”
“This one’s more pretty,” repeats Juleka, a little more affirmative this time. “And it is easy.”
Zoé, who’s got no concept of difficulty when it comes to guitar chords, stays silent. She’s starting to feel the strain in her left hand.
Luka shrugs, and comes to put the tray on the table in front of them. “It’s a little sad, though, don’t you think? Doesn’t sound like Zoé to me.”
Mindlessly, Zoé strikes the chord once more, though she forgets about the upper string and includes it. The sound in the room is a lot rougher, suddenly.
“It’s not sad, it’s meaningful,” Juleka shoots back, uncharacteristically blunt – uncharacteristically several things – in the presence of her brother. Luka can easily call out her assertive side, the one that has a slightly higher volume and that has clearly emphasised opinions, because they’ve known each other for so long. Zoé knows she isn’t anywhere near close enough to Juleka to bring that side out yet. In a way, she worries she’ll never be. Because there’s a comfortableness in it, too – Juleka doesn’t seem frustrated. She seems relaxed, unmoored from her usual inhibitions and fears.
Luka doesn’t say anything else . He just smiles, and picks up his cup of tea, withdrawing to the chair behind him. Like he’s calling on them to keep playing. And Juleka seems happy to take him up on the offer, or maybe just to ignore him.
“Now, index finger flat… there. Good. Ring there, middle… yes.” She does some simple adjustments to Zoé’s grip until she seems satisfied. “Strike.”
Zoé finds herself wondering if Luka can hear what Juleka is saying all the way over there. If he’s so attuned to his sister that he can tell apart the miniscule differences between how she pronounces different words; if he’s so attuned to her thoughts that he can read what they’re saying just by being in the same room as her. If there’s some secret way to communicate with Juleka that only he knows.
Because he’s not even looking at the guitar, but as soon as Zoé plays the chord, he closes his eyes and says “E minor seven. Seventh fret flat index .”
“Luka,” says Juleka, in a vaguely exasperated tone.
“Sorry. Carry on.”
They do carry on. But it doesn’t feel the same now. The closeness feels less electric, and Zoé doesn’t know if it’s her, or if it’s Juleka, or if it’s both of them at once. But their intimate meeting, which was supposed to be a guitar lesson, becomes just a normal guitar lesson again. A guitar lesson, and two rapidly cooling teacups.
The lessons are only once a week. Which doesn’t mean Zoé doesn’t see Juleka the rest of the time. They don’t share the same classroom but because of Marinette, because of Marc and Nathaniel, because almost all of Zoé’s friends are in Miss Bustier’s class – she sees Juleka just about every single day.
A couple of days after her third lesson, though, she’s sitting in the art classroom with an unusual companion: Rose, without Juleka.
“Isn’t it fun to learn the guitar?” Rose asks from the other side of the table, with a smile that could have been noticed from the other side of a wall.
“Yeah… It’s fun.”
“That’s good! Juleka told me you were catching on quickly. I bet you’ll be a great guitarist in no time!”
Zoé smiles awkwardly. “I don’t know… but I have a great teacher, at least.”
In fact, Zoé isn’t sure. She struggles to disentangle Juleka’s instructions from the sensation of Juleka’s fingers against her hand . And she struggles to separate Juleka’s words from the warm but quiet voice she says them in. She doesn’t know what she’s actually learning, because all of it is tangled in the realisation of how much she enjoys Juleka’s company. But if a teacher is defined by the feeling they give you, Juleka is the greatest teacher in the universe.
She’s less jealous of Rose than she thought she’d be. Because Rose is kind and lovely and cheerful, and she makes Juleka happy. Just like Luka, Rose can call out the Juleka that lies underneath the surface. But it’s the one that’s comfortable with touching, with feeling and being felt, with loving openly.
Luka’s calm teasing brings out the Juleka that asserts her own place in the world; Rose’s adoration brings out the Juleka that adores back. And Zoé can’t get those sides out of Juleka. Not yet, says the small part of her that is treacherous and envious. Probably never, says the larger part of her that knows Juleka loves Rose, and that she can’t take that away from them. But the largest part of her still clings to a hope, however faint, that she could still be part of Juleka’s more intimate circle.
Rose beams when she hears Zoé’s praise for Juleka. “I know she is! She’s been talking about giving lessons for a while. And now she gets to practice with you!”
Rose doesn’t seem jealous, Zoé thinks. She has no reason to be, Zoé thinks. They’re just guitar lessons, Zoé thinks. I have no claim on Juleka, even though I feel like my whole body is an earthquake when she whispers in my ear, Zoé thinks.
And she realises that she feels safe in Rose’s company, too, and in sharing this happiness with her. Because their happiness is for Juleka.
But the imbalance still twitches in Zoé’s stomach, like she’s swallowed an insect. The closeness Rose has, and that she doesn’t.
“Lift right hand off strings.”
“Um… Okay.”
“Pluck thumb, index, middle. Slowly.”
Zoé does as she’s asked. Inexpertly, she knows: the rhythm is off, the ring finger pokes into the last string and twists the sound into a noise, but it’s her first attempt at fingerpicking.
“It’s fine. Try again.”
Juleka’s breath hits Zoé like a pan off the stove. But she tries again, with a couple more false starts, and then a chord that rings – not fully, not cleanly, but still all three of the strings she struck ring out through the room.
“How was that?” she asks, because she hasn’t received any new instructions.
Juleka smiles, just a little bit, in the corner of Zoé’s eye. “Mm. Can do better. But good start,” she says.
Zoé has always dared to imagine. In the past, it was an ability she treasured, because it allowed her to see beyond the dreary life that was her own. Where she lied about doing things she couldn’t ever imagine doing, and told only one genuine truth: that she wanted friends and a place to belong, something she could only tell herself and nobody else.
And that dream came true, when she came to Paris. When Marinette saw through the façade she’d built and helped to pull her free, and she realised the things she’d imagined didn’t have to be only in your head. When Ivan hugged her, and Mylène welcomed her into a big and happy family, and she caught on to what it means to trust.
Now that she’s settled in, she is starting to imagine other things. She imagines kissing Juleka. She imagines tousling Juleka’s hair in a gentle caress. She imagines putting her hand on the nape of Juleka’s neck and slowly pulling it upwards until she meets the skull, as Juleka twists around at her touch and bends her head back to push back against the hand. She imagines spending long nights talking to Juleka, and getting her to reveal her secret comfortable sides.
(She imagines it so much that she fails to recognise how comfortable Juleka seems already.)
This time, her dreams feel different from what they felt like when she got to Paris. They feels like selfishness more than self-realisation, because she’s dreaming of a relationship with someone who is already committed. It feels like ruining two friendships only to rebuild one of them as something more base and egotistic. And yet, she can’t stop thinking about it.
“Let go left,” Juleka says. “Only pluck. Same strings.”
“I shouldn’t hold a chord or anything?”
“Nn. Just pluck.”
She does as she’s asked, although she doesn’t understand why. After a little while, Juleka puts her hand on the guitar’s head, gently, to hold it in place. It’s the same thing she does to Rose, Zoé knows, when she wants to show support. But it’s also not the same thing at all, because it’s just a physical simile to the real, deeper thing. She swallows as she keeps plucking, as the motion settles in her own fingers – a physical simile to the real, deeper thing that is to play music. Second string, fourth string, fifth string, second string, fourth string, fifth string. All three sounding together.
“Good,” says Juleka, finally, after what feels both like hours and mere seconds.
“Really?”
“Mm. Your right hand is steadier. That’s good.”
The compliment, vague though it i s, carrie s Zoé t hrough the lesson . She learns a couple more chords, but their names are forgotten the moment she steps off the Liberty.
All that remains is the feeling in her fingers. Their position on the guitar’s neck are the only physical sensations from moments that feel like they’re as liquid as the Seine, as transient as the vapours rising up from a fresh cup of hot water.
“Do you think you’d like to join Kitty Section, Zoé?” asks Rose.
They’re outside the school now, just after the final bell toll of the day. The sun is shining, and the wind is softly touching Zoé’s cheeks, and she’s headed out to get croissants with Alya and Nino, and the day should be perfect – but the question throws her off course.
“Me? In a band?”
“Juleka says you’re doing really well,” Rose replies, cheerful as ever. “And we’ve been talking about getting another member, because Adrien is so busy, so you’d be perfect.”
“Um, Rose, I don’t really play rock guitar… Juleka’s been teaching me more classical stuff.” That, and some other stuff that sounds neither classical nor rock, but like angels whispering the secret names of mountaintops across still waters – when Juleka plays it to demonstrate, anyway. Zoé’s own versions sound more like the waters are choppy and the angels are hungry cats.
But Rose keeps smiling. “That’s fine. It’s easy to learn. And Juleka can show you some more things, if you’d like to join!”
“Have you... talked to the others about this?”
“Nope! But I’m sure they’d love to have you along.”
Zoé looks at Rose – a being of pure light and joy, it seems to her in that moment – and wonders how someone gets to be as trusting as Rose. If there’s a process you have to go through in life to get to that point, or if you need to be born with it, or if you just make the conscious choice to do it every day.
She appreciates it, of course – because she thinks it must be the most callous thing in the world to see a smile like Rose’s and overlook it, that it must take a fool or a clown to not feel loved or wanted in such a presence as hers. She smiles in return, a smile that feels far too insignificant in comparison, but that she knows Rose will appreciate in her own return.
“I’ll think about it,” she says. “But… I don’t think I’m quite there yet.”
“That’s fine. But the offer’s still open, for when you’re ready!”
It’s not until Rose is gone that Zoé even thinks about how being in Kitty Section would mean even more time next to Juleka. She promptly drops a book on the ground in pure fluster.
When Juleka is late home for the lesson one day, because of an akuma attack at the mall she was at, Zoé ends up waiting below decks on the Liberty with Luka.
“I’m sure they’ll be back soon,” he says, laying back on his bed with one hand behind his back, and the other off the side of the frame. “Ladybug will fix everything up.”
“Yeah…”
“How do you like learning the guitar?” he asks her, and there really is no good way for her to answer without leaving too much on the table, or without hiding too much of it inside.
“I think it’s fun,” she says, and hides too much; “Juleka’s a great teacher,” she adds, and it still doesn’t come close to the truth she feels.
“She’s got a way with it,” he says, wistful as he looks up at the ceiling.
Zoé swallows. “Yeah.”
“I think you’re catching on pretty quick, too.”
“Really? I don’t think I know the name of a single chord yet…”
He laughs. “You don’t really need those. Music is a feeling. As long as it feels right, you don’t need to know what to call it. Your heart will guide you to where you need to be.” Then he turns more serious – losing the laughter, but keeping a mild twist on his lips and a compassionate look in his eyes. “And Juleka will teach you more about it, of course. Just give her the space to talk, and you’ll learn very quickly.”
Luka isn’t the teaching type, she’s realised. Even though Zoé knows full well he’s a more accomplished musician than Juleka, he’s expressive in a different way – he seems more content to just be a presence in the room, and listen to the music as it floats by. He lives and breathes the music, where Juleka wants to communicate it further. He listens to people’s inner tunes, but Juleka helps them write new ones to follow.
Or that’s what Zoé thinks, anyway. She doesn’t know if Juleka has started to teach others yet, but with the sheer enjoyment on Juleka’s face as she’s guiding Zoé’s thoughts and fingers around the guitar – if a teacher is defined by the joy and pleasure they derive from teaching , then Juleka is already the greatest teacher in the universe.
“… You and Juleka are pretty close, aren’t you?” she asks, hoping he won’t read too much into it.
He smiles sideways at her. “Yeah… Juleka’s pretty great. We’ve been close since we were toddlers. I tease her sometimes, but only because I love to see her speak up for herself. Sometimes she needs a reminder that she’s allowed to take up space in the world. But we can always rely on each other.”
“That’s good,” she says, also smiling.
“What do you think of Juleka?” he asks –
– and Zoé thanks her lucky stars that Juleka chooses that moment to arrive, and that the noise from upstairs distracts Luka from repeating the question – because this time, she would have answered by oversharing. And she’s not sure if she could have stopped talking before the dawn of the next day.
Rose is there the next time, reading up on a subject for an upcoming test. She, too, seems content to just exist in the same room as Juleka – to let her presence wash over her like the smell of fresh bread, or a cool breeze on a hot day.
She also seems content to let Juleka sit so close that Zoé feels she’ll fall apart. She even smiles at the two of them, as they wrestle Zoé’s fingers into position.
Zoé is well aware of the mortifying ordeal of being known, and that it’s a necessary step on the way to earn the rewards of being loved. But the mortifying ordeal of being observed by the person who is loved by the person you love, with no promise of a reward beyond continuing to be there , is still a little daunting to her.
“Elbow forward. Wrist less angled. Okay?” Juleka’s breath trickles down Zoé’s shoulder, and cascades in her lap. She acquiesces, like a servant to her mistress. “Mm.”
Zoé feels Juleka’s arm move across past her other shoulder, to rest above the guitar’s waist, and suddenly she’s enveloped completely. Juleka sits both way too close and too far away, and Zoé is certain she’s going to perish from the way her skin prickles, the way her breath catches in her throat, the way every muscle in her body tenses up.
“Remember A minor nine?” Juleka asks.
“Um… No. I – I keep forgetting what the chords are called. Sorry…” she stammers out, shrinking her shoulders together.
“Mm.”
“Sorry! I’m terrible. The names just… don’t stick.”
“That’s fine,” murmurs Juleka. “Music is a language. A chord is a sentence. If you know where A is, and what a minor is, and what a nine is… you can make that sentence. Okay? Start with A. Then think what makes a minor ninth.”
Zoé considers the frets, and tries to stop herself from fretting. But she knows where the A string is, and that the nine was below the third. So… on the next string.
“Almost,” says Juleka, after a couple tries. “Index up… there. Good. Play.”
“Your hand…”
“Mm. Right.” The hand goes away, and Zoé can breathe again. She swipes her thumb down slowly, letting each of the notes ring – and while she does so, she looks over at Rose, who seems innocently happy all over, even as she sees her girlfriend with her arms around another girl. And – of course Rose isn’t jealous. She has no reason to be.
But Zoé imagines what she would do if she were in Rose’s place, and feels like she wouldn’t take it as well. She has never been in that situation, but she’s almost certain she wouldn’t be able to stand it. She would be envious of how close the person she loved was with someone else.
And then Rose notices Zoé watching her, and smiles, and all of Zoé’s imagined feelings melt away to be replaced by the real feeling of serenity.
“Good. Your grip is better,” says Juleka. And Zoé hears her take a breath to say something else, but then they’re all interrupted by a voice from upstairs.
“Jule?” Luka’s voice comes from the stairwell. “There’s someone on the phone.”
“I’m teaching Zoé,” she replies.
“Yeah. But it’s Dad.”
Juleka doesn’t protest after that. She pushes herself away, gets to her feet, and gives Zoé an apologetic look over her shoulder as she passes through the doorway. Because when your father is international rock star Jagged Stone, you know he doesn’t have a predictable schedule that lets him plan around his children’s extracurriculars. And also, he calls the boat satellite rather than Juleka’s phone, because he’s old.
After Juleka’s gone, Rose turns to Zoé again. “How are you doing?”
“Um… well, I think I’m getting a little better. At playing the guitar, I mean,” Zoé adds, seeing Rose’s eyes widen at the suggestion that someone might not have been doing tippy top. “Yeah.”
“I can tell. Juleka’s a great teacher, isn’t she?”
“… Yes. She is.” Because if a great teacher is defined by how well they teach things, which to Zoé in the moment feels like a bit of a ludicrous concept, then Juleka did just teach her a new way to think about music. To think of notes as building blocks for a chord. A harmony of different tones coming together to create something beautiful.
She even has an idea for how to play an A major nine now.
“Have you thought more about joining Kitty Section?”
Zoé sinks a little. “I’m still thinking about it. I don’t think I’m ready yet, though…”
“Juleka really likes hanging out with you. I think she’d appreciate hanging out with you some more. Luka, too.”
Zoé sighs, looking at Rose. She doesn’t want to be jealous of her. “You and Juleka are pretty close, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes! I love her so much. She stayed behind a year in school so I wouldn’t have to be alone. My health is a little sketchy,” she says with a brief giggle, “so Juleka stayed behind to wait for me, because she was my best friend. She has the biggest heart, and I know I can always trust her.”
Briefly – but not for the first time – Zoé wonders if it’s a reflection on Juleka, or a reflection on those who are close to her, that they’re so ready to sing her praises when she talks to them.
Zoé looks at Rose’s smiling face and realises she was wrong earlier. Rose loves so clearly and openly that it’s impossible not to be smitten. She thinks both Juleka and Rose must be lucky to have each other, because she feels lucky just to know them – and to be appreciated by them.
“Don’t you agree, Zoé?” asks Rose, and it’s only Luka’s arrival – distracting Rose – that saves Zoé from baring herself completely.
It’s not that the realisation hits her, because it’s more like she hits it – it’s too big to move, too difficult to dodge, as she hurtles through her mind. But she nonetheless makes contact with the realisation like a brick hits a wall.
Zoé is a buffoon, so she doesn’t bring it up to either of them. Instead, she talks to Luka about it, while they’re both sat on the top deck of the Liberty.
“I… think I’m in love with Juleka,” she tells him.
He doesn’t seem anywhere near as surprised as she would have wanted him to be, nor as concerned as she would have imagined him to be. “I’ve noticed,” he says.
“And… I think I’m in love with Rose too.”
“She does have that effect on people.”
“And I can’t be!” she protests, at his lack of reaction. “They’re girlfriends, they really love each other… and I’m just Juleka’s guitar student. I shouldn’t even be their friend, if this is how I’m going to treat them.”
He gives her a smile, and puts his hand on her shoulder. “You haven’t treated them badly. Falling in love is completely natural, you know?”
“But… I feel like I’m breaking apart when I’m near them.”
“Why don’t you tell them how you feel? Just sit down with them and explain what your feelings are. They won’t hold it against you – I’m sure they’d be flattered about it.”
She groans, and buries her face in her knees. “Juleka would hate me if she knew. Rose – I don’t know what Rose would do, but she definitely wouldn’t be the same towards me. Especially not if I hurt Juleka.”
“You wouldn’t hurt them. Trust me. Just like they love each other, they love you too. In a different way, maybe, but anyone who sees Juleka when she’s with you can tell you really help to make her comfortable. She dares to break out of her shell and be assertive, and she gets to do something she really likes with someone she really loves. That’s important to her.”
Zoé unbundles herself slowly, and looks into his eyes – still hunched, but not a human piece of crumpled paper any more.
“And Rose really likes you too. If nothing else, she likes you for how you make Juleka feel.”
“But…”
“You know, Zoé… To make a chord, you usually don’t play just two notes. You play three. Or more.”
“Are you sure about that?” she asks, trying not to be hopeful.
“I’m absolutely positive.”
Zoé is not. But she swallows her fears about it.
“Um… Juleka? Rose?” she asks, putting the guitar flat on her lap. They’re alone now, the three of them watching a film from the same bed – with Rose and Juleka cuddled together, and Zoé a little apart from them.
They both turn to look at her. “Yes?” says Rose; both of them are smiling softly.
“I… need to tell you something.”
“What’s up?” says Juleka.
Zoé swallows. “I… sorry. I think I’m in love with you.” As they raise their eyebrows and look at each other, she looks away and adds: “Both of you. You’re just so… kind and lovely and open to me, and I don’t mean to cause you any trouble. I just needed to tell you, or I think I’d explode.”
“Why do you think you’d be causing trouble?” Rose says, looking a little worried.
It’s all Zoé can do not to burst at the seams, because they’re both watching her with care in their eyes, not disgust; they aren’t dismissing her, they’re welcoming her to keep talking. Just like Luka said.
“Because you’re together, and I didn’t know how you’d react, and I love you both and I want to see you happy…”
“Zoé,” says Juleka, “there’s no trouble at all.”
“Love is never trouble!” says Rose, with a genuineness that makes it sound not just believable, but like an eternal truth.
They’re both smiling at her now. Open and welcoming, their disposition unchanged from before she told them. Or, if it’s changed, it’s changed for something that looks the same.
“… Thank you,” she says with a sniffle.
“Come,” says Juleka. And they both hold their arms open to her, welcoming her into their embrace.
Maybe something should have snapped inside Zoé then – a load-bearing cable getting cut off and sending all her control tumbling back down the mineshaft of her soul. But all that happens is that she feels relaxed. Lulled by the waves of the Seine and the sounds of the film and the looks of the two girls she loves higher than anybody else in the world. And the three notes of their chord ring out together.