I hadn’t understood then, but I can now laugh with her warnings.

Our family was never one for very radical things – we loved art that came from the Renaissance, classical and romantic music, and writers of the twentieth century and earlier.

I was raised loving things like El Greco and Rembrandt; my room used to be teeming with CDs of Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Mozart.

Bach was Mama’s exclusive favorite.

I was usually isolated from the ‘A crowd’ in school because of my tastes, but that was before Emma came onto the stage.

Emma had been the first to actually step into my world – she’d always visit me on the weekends and I’d show her the suites I favored above others.

In turn, I’d listen to her side of music – things like rock and pop.

Despite our tastes, our friendship stayed strong.

In the end, I decided that it wasn’t tastes in certain things that kept people apart.

No, it wasn’t that.

It was their unwillingness to accept something different.

It was their malice.