“You sound like me ten years ago. Couldn’t wait to get out and then couldn’t wait to come back. But giving me the third degree isn’t going to help your audition.” There’s a hard edge to his voice. He smiles to let me know he’s not being ugly, but I can tell his patience is wearing thin. “Let’s go back to the fugue.”
Ugh. Shut down.
I try a couple more times to broach the subject of his mysterious return, but he deflects my questions every time. I suppose I’m being rude—okay, there’s no supposing about it—but I’m curious. I spend hours a day with him. He’s hiding something, and I bet it’s juicy.
I let my imagination run wild. I’d rather make up stories about his life than look too closely at mine. Maybe he’s involved in a love triangle, and he’s the loser; maybe he’s secretly a drug dealer and got chased out of Boston; or he’s on the run from the mob. Rumors are rampant, and I’ve got to know his story. Knowledge is power, Mama always says.
Then one day, an ordinary Wednesday morning, something changes. I find a chip in his brick wall.
“So, Mr. Laroche—Isaac—did you murder someone in Beantown? In the library with a candlestick?” I smile sweetly. “Was Colonel Mustard there?” He stares at me like I have three heads, then recognition spreads across his face. The result is another small smile.
That’s two! Not that I keep track.
He leans on the piano with his arms crossed and looks down at me from his impressive height. Today he wears khaki cargo shorts with a white-collared shirt. The sleeves are rolled up to reveal tanned, muscled forearms.
Not that I notice.
“Hardly,” he says. “It was Miss Scarlet in the foyer with a wrench. Since when do you know about Clue?”
I flutter my eyelashes. “I downloaded an app with a bunch of old-school games. Plus, I used to play it with my granny.”
“That’s funny. I used to play that with my gran, too.” He smiles. This is the most I’ve seen him smile in the weeks he’s been here. “Beat me every time. She’d never let us grandkids win; had to earn it. You probably never met her, huh? She sat in the section right by Uncle Robert at church when he played.”
And just like that, the storm moves in, his face clouds over, and I know he’s done. I turn back to the music and pick up where I left off.
Several hours later, I try my best to sleep, but it’s sticky as a swamp in my room. The air conditioner can’t keep up with the humidity, made worse by the summer thunderstorm that pounds outside. I give up and kick off the twisted sheets. My bedside clock says it’s after midnight, though lightning flashes so frequently that it might as well be broad daylight.
When I can’t sleep, I sit in my window seat and read with a flashlight. I’ve done this since…well, since I’ve been able to read, I guess. I grab my paperback off the dresser and settle in so Mr. Darcy can propose again.
Between the streetlight outside and the lightning, I barely need the flashlight. One look out the window tells me there’s a light on in the garage. Did Daddy forget to turn it off? I know better. I tiptoe down the steps to the kitchen, look out across the yard and, sure enough, her arm goes around and around in perfect circles, buffing away impurities.
My mama’s waxing her SUV at two a.m. in a rip-roaring thunderstorm.
***
Morning brings more rain. Isaac and I discuss my strengths—dexterity and technique—as well as my shortcomings—interpretation and emotion.
“It’s probably because you’re used to Uncle Robert, but, Julianne, you need to loosen up. Mechanics will only take you so far. The Conservatory panel wants to see you—your interpretation of the piece. These composers are all dead. They’re not gonna come after you for tweaking their stuff.”
The only composer whose work I can come close to making my own is Rachmaninoff. I tell Isaac this. I watch as he transforms from a full-grown adult into a kid on Christmas morning.
All in one breath, he says, “Okay, see? We can work with this. We can incorporate some of his pieces into your audition. What are your favorite ones? Could do the second or third symphonies. Probably not the Prelude in C Sharp Minor, it’s overplayed. Along with the Paganini. But the Etudes-Tableau or the Moments Musicaux.”
“Jeez, who plugged you in?”
He paces back and forth like a maniac, then stops abruptly and swivels to face me.
“‘Without color it is dead.’”
Uh?
“What?”
“‘So you make music live. Without color it is dead.’ Why didn’t I think of this before? Rachmaninoff was talking about interpreting and performing other composers’ works. Said he could approach their stuff better because he was a composer too and knew the composer’s mind. ‘You can make contact with their imaginations, knowing something of their problems and ideals. You can give their works color. That is the most important thing for me in my interpretations, color.’”
“And?”
“And you’re going to compose. Your interpretations lack color, so invent some. If I can’t make you feel other composers’ works, we’ll see if you can feel your own.”
“Um, okay.”
“By tomorrow.”
“Are you kidding me?”
That’s so unfair.
“Nope. Look, I know you spend all hours of the day and night out here. Put that time to good use—”
“Whoa, wait. How do you know how much I’m in here?”
“Have to drive by your house to get just about anywhere. Nine times out of ten, your light is on.”
“Creeper much?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m usually late getting in from the symphony rehearsals, and I do have a life.”
Yes, a life you won’t tell me anything about.
“Don’t change the subject. There any Rachmaninoff you can play right now?”
“I’m a little rusty, but I can give it a shot.” I take a deep breath.
This is my moment to impress him. If I do, maybe he’ll let me in.
I begin the Etude-Tableau No. 2 in C. It’s a relatively quiet piece, but technically difficult. For the next few minutes I’m lost. I will my left hand to do what it’s supposed to. When I finish, I hear the clock tick like a metronome. I sing a little ditty in my head, “Tick tock goes the clock. Tick tock, tick tock…” and I wait for his judgment like a gladiator in the ring, wondering if my performance gets me a thumbs up or down, live or die, mercy or none.
A wicked blush burns my ears when I look up just the tiniest bit. He hasn’t moved. At all. I have no idea what this means. “Well?”
Arms crossed, eyes narrowed, he looks like he wants to kill someone. Slow as molasses, he draws up his mouth on one side into a sexy smile.
“Well,” he drawls, “you’ve been holding out on me.”
***
I complain to R.J. that night after dinner.
“I suck at composition! I don’t mean to, but I always cram together bits and pieces of other people’s stuff.” I flop onto his bed while he taps away on his laptop. “I got away with it around Mr. Cline, but Isaac will blow a gasket if I pull that crap on him.”
“So don’t.”
“Thanks, R.J. You’re so helpful. Glad we had this talk.”
Maybe it’s because I want to get a reaction out of Isaac. Maybe it’s because I like to sabotage myself. Whatever the reason, I decide to use one of the hymns he played last week at church and pair it with a straightforward Alberti bass in the left hand. Simple and sweet. I can do simple and sweet, right? Nothing dramatic and no nuances required.
Just before bed, I pull on a long-sleeved shirt over my pajamas and head out to the studio one last time to make sure I’ve got the thing down. R.J. follows and throws himself onto the loveseat to listen. He’s been doing this since we were little, and it’s one of the things that keeps us so close. He’ll sit for hours and listen to me play. His friends teased him about it when he was in middle school and high school, but his constant string of girlfriends thought it w
as sweet.
The third time through the composition, he opens the door to leave.
“Hey. You didn’t tell me what you thought.”
He narrows his eyes. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Sis.”
R.J. is right, of course. I know it the minute Isaac walks into the studio the next morning, Bruins mug in hand.
Sweat collects in unmentionable places, but it has little to do with the heat index.
“Let’s hear it.”
“I don’t think—”
“No excuses. Begin.”
I will disappoint him. Mostly, I’m angry that I set myself up to fail. But then, there’s a teeny-tiny, slimy part of me that secretly wonders What’s he gonna do?
I hang onto that thought and begin to play. When I look up, he’s not there. His car is gone.
I cry like the sniveling little brat I am.
***
Morning brings buckets of rain and thunder every few seconds. The leaves on the live oaks tremble in the wind with a constant hussshhh sound. I want to crawl back in bed.
Instead, Isaac is here and forces me to do Bach’s Two-Part Inventions for warm-up. I’m well into the second exercise when his cell rings.
“Sorry. Should take this.” He turns to go outside, but it looks like monsoon season. “Yeah, man?”
I can’t play, so I begin marking up the sheet music. Whoever put in the recommended fingerings is an idiot.
“Wow. Okay. No, that’d be great. Any time, you know that. Uh, yeah, she’s right here.”
At that, my ears perk up. I glance at Isaac, who’s looking at me through narrowed eyes.
“Don’t think that’s a good idea.”
A man’s voice booms from Isaac’s phone so loud I can hear it across the room. “Hah! You are so full of shit! She doesn’t exist!” Isaac rolls his eyes and holds out the phone.
“I’m so sorry. My friend needs to talk to you. I’m not responsible for anything he says.”
“Uh, okay.” His phone smells like aftershave. “Hello?”
“Who are you?”
“Um, who are you?”
“I am every woman’s dream and what I want to know is: who are you; how old are you; and why Ike had the balls to tell me some little girl in Alabama plays Rachmaninoff better than me? And…go.”
“I’m seventeen. It’s not like I’m twelve.”
“Well then, that makes it much better. Totally trumps my Conservatory degrees. Please excuse me while I scrape my ego off the floor. I’m Dave, by the way. And you have a very sexy voice, anyone ever tell you that? Must be the accent.”
“Uh…”
“It’s okay. I often render women speechless. So, Sexy-and-Seventeen, what’s your actual name?”
“Julianne. Or Juli. Whatever.”
“Uh-huh. And now for the real question: Can you really play Rachmaninoff as well as Ike says?”
“I don’t—I don’t know. He said that?”
Isaac rubs his temples.
“He did. And I challenge you to a duel. Hear that sound? That’s me throwing my glove on the floor. I bite my thumb at you. It’s on, Julianne-or-Juli-whatever. Next time I’m in Mobile, it’s you and me in a classical music death match.”
I giggle.
“Too much?”
“A little.”
“Sorry. Nice talking to you, Juli. Can you put Ike back on?”
“Sure. Here.”
Isaac mouths sorry. “Are you done? We’re trying to rehearse here. Some of us take our music seriously. No. I’m hanging up. Later.”
He tosses the phone onto the loveseat. “Sorry. What did he say? No, wait, I don’t want to know.”
“Did he graduate from the Conservatory, too?”
“Yeah. Twice.”
“Piano?”
“Yep, and French horn. Look, I apologize for the interruption. Please continue warming up. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today.”
And just like that, he closes the little window I’d been peeking through into his private life.
***
The next day, Isaac asks me to warm up using Bach’s Inventions again.
“I hate these. You know that, right? Mr. Cline tried to make me do them, too.”
They’re meant to give both hands a workout—and both halves of your brain. The Inventions were also meant to be played on a harpsichord, which only has one volume. It doesn’t respond to different levels of touch or intonation like a piano, which makes Isaac’s reaction so unexpected.
“For God’s sake, Julianne, you cannot expect to make an impression on the panel if you mechanically plunk out the notes. I get that you want it to be technically correct. Really, I do.” He’s stomping around the studio and waving his arms like a madman. I stifle a giggle. “But you don’t need me for that. I cannot help you if you do not loosen up!” He pounds on the piano with an angry fist.
“But I—” I plan a witty response but don’t get the chance to deliver it.
“No, you listen to me,” he snarls and points a long finger in my face.
Oh, he’s serious.
“You’ve got to get out of your comfort zone or you’ll never get any further than Mobile. Maybe that’s the problem: you don’t have a comfort zone. You look at me with sappy-ass eyes, but I know it’s all an act. Stop. Stop acting and start being.”
It’s not funny anymore. My mind and mouth won’t work, but my fingernails gouge into the bench. I hope it’ll suck me in. His nose is an inch from mine, and I’m sure he can smell the fear as it rolls off my body. I’m humiliated, but he keeps going.
“I don’t know what your issues are. Don’t want to. But you’ve got to let go. Starting now.” He whips the sheet music away and throws it across the room. I flinch and instinctively let go of the bench to cover my face.
The sheets flutter through the air with an audible crackle from the storm’s static electricity. They land one by one to form a trail on the floor. I stare in disbelief and desperately try not to cry.
Never did I imagine he might be hiding a temper like this. He’s grumpy and withdrawn, yes, but always professional. Sometimes, he even borders on friendly. Never ever out of control. Now, I don’t know what to think.
“There. Play. You’ve got this memorized forward and back.” He stands behind the piano with his massive arms crossed again, feet wide apart in battle stance.
Scorching embarrassment creeps up my neck and into my ears. Part of it is fear, but part of it is shame, shame because…I kind of like it. The adrenaline tingle is almost pleasant.
What kind of sick freak does that make me?
As if my mind’s betrayal wasn’t enough, my body turns traitor, too, when a tear breaks free and slips down the side of my nose.
“Go ahead. Cry if you want to, if it’ll make you feel. Get pissed at me. Hate me. Now play!” He pounds the piano one more time, and I worry he’ll crack the veneer. I’m sure the neighbors can hear. Musicians can be moody. Lord knows I’m the princess of moody, and Mr. Cline and I’ve gone a couple of rounds over the years, but it’s different being yelled at by someone who looks capable of breaking me in half. Someone who isn’t her.
Adrenaline heightens my urge to flee or fight, but neither is an option. My fingers have gone ice cold, and I don’t know whether to submit or tell him to take a flying leap. I know what he’s trying to do—draw me out—but this is dangerous territory.
I wipe my eyes and blow on my fingers to warm them. God, if I can’t take this from him, how can I handle a professional panel? Such a stupid, stupid baby.
I place my cold, clammy fingers on the keys and start again. Submit or fight back? Is there a middle ground? I totally overdo it.
Isaac rolls his eyes and wanders off to flip through sheet music.
I finish.
He apologizes.
We move on.
***
The door opens a crack, and I know it’s her. No one else comes to my room in the middle of the night. Maybe if I shut my
eyes really tight, it’ll all go away. Everything will go away.
It’s no good. It never is. I pull my arms over my head and whimper.
***
Bartok. That’s what this sounds like. A jumbled mess of his Sonatina and a dash of Piano Concerto no. 2.
I’ve really screwed things up with Isaac and I need to make them right, so I try my hand at composition again. I get up early, inhale breakfast, get dressed and duck into the studio before anyone else stirs. It’s Saturday, so they’ll sleep in. I won’t meet with Isaac until Monday.
I think about what happened in the middle of the night. Most of the time, I can pretend it was just one of my usual nightmares. But today I let the memories and emotions surface like gaping wounds. I want to put it down on paper—in music. This scares me, because I have to figure out what my feelings are.
This is why I don’t like to compose. Why I can’t compose?
I’m confused, so I go for that: confusion. At first it sounds like a jumbled mess, but as the measures tick by, there’s structure in the mess. My fingers don’t so much press the keys as skitter across them in a frenetic series of spasms. That part is like Bartok. But the notes themselves are dark. They remind me of another recurring dream I have of running through a dim, brick tunnel. They carry the influence of Rachmaninoff.
And yet, this composition is wholly mine. I haven’t squished together two existing ones. I’m as close to giddy as I can get. I can’t wait until Monday to play it for Isaac. I settle for R.J.
“Please? Pretty please? You’d be the bestest brother in the whole world if you’d just give me five minutes. I won’t even tell Daddy that I caught you smoking again.”
When begging fails, resort to blackmail.
“Wench. But you better not make me sit through that ‘Jesus Loves Me’ crap again.” He rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. “That was the lamest thing I ever heard.”
“It’s not. I promise. And it wasn’t ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ Okay, sit there.”
When I finish, R.J. says, “Juli, I—that was incredible. Kind of random, in a good way. But…I gotta ask, are you okay? That middle part, it freaked me out a little. Again, in a good way, you know?”
“But?”
He sighs. “But I guess I’m worried about you. You know, the usual. Last night…” His gaze wanders all over the room. Finally, it settles on me. I smile. “Never mind. I’ll be keeping my eye on you, though.” He stands and wraps an arm around my shoulders. I fight the urge to wince, aware of last night’s injuries. He gives me a gentle squeeze and kisses the top of my head.
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