Want

by Stephanie Lawton

  “You ought to be more careful.” He doesn’t sound at all convinced. “Can’t your mama help with the dogs? They’re hers, aren’t they?”

  I don’t answer. Instead, I plunge back into the arpeggio. I only glance up at him once. His face conveys skepticism, concern, and something else I can’t put my finger on. It’s something like disgust, but without repulsion.

  You don’t want to know. Please don’t ask any more questions.

  He looks at me funny for the rest of the day, but he doesn’t pry. I might imagine it, but I swear he keeps staring at my arms, like he can see through the fabric.

  Don’t be paranoid. He doesn’t care about your problems.

  Funny how I’ve lived in the same house with two other people—three before R.J. went to college—for seventeen years, but none of them ever notice. I spend a couple weeks with Isaac, and although he doesn’t know it, he’s already in possession of two of my deepest secrets.

  ***

  It’s been four days since Isaac found me out. Tonight, Daddy missed an important Mardi Gras society meeting with Mama. They belong to one of the oldest, most prestigious secret societies in Mobile, the Mystics of Dardenne. The only thing Daddy puts ahead of the Mystics is his law practice.

  I hear Mama, though she’s not even in the house yet. Here’s how it usually goes: First the car door slams, followed by the garage door. Then the muttering makes its way through my bedroom window from below—words no mother should use, words no kid should hear. Next, the kitchen door slams and rattles the fragile leaded windows throughout the house.

  Should I lock myself in the closet? Hide under the bed? Grab the scissors out of the drawer?

  One time she took my closet door clean off the hinges. When I hid under the bed, she grabbed my hair. I don’t dare get the scissors in case she turns them on me. I have to do the only thing I can: take the brunt of it and wait for her mood to pass.

  She laughs to herself as she stomps up the stairs—twelve, thirteen, fourteen, then five steps to my door. Just before she throws it open, I wonder what the excuse is this time. It doesn’t matter. Something happens and she goes dark. I’m the scapegoat. My stomach churns and I could throw up. I shake too hard to make my feet work.

  Maybe this time will be different.

  No matter how many times we do this, I always hold onto a tiny string of frayed hope, though I know the string will be stretched taut and eventually snap. When it does, I’ll snap, too.

  For now, I jump up on my bed and back into the corner. I won’t really fight her. How can I? She gave me life, and this isn’t really her. It hasn’t always been like this. Besides, once she gets it out of her system, she’s good for a couple of weeks. But it still makes me feel just a little better to see what’s coming. Plus, it’s softer to land on the bed than the floor.

  I close my eyes. I swear I can smell her stinking, rotting breath mixed with manufactured peppermint. When she growls my name, I hear her ironic smile, feel the air displace when she stalks across my room and over to the bed where I shake, shake, shake. For a moment, I’m glad I haven’t had much to drink today, or it would run down my leg. Her slight weight depresses the mattress when she climbs onto the bed.

  Then the world goes blank. I don’t faint exactly. I hear myself beg her to stop, but I don’t see anything. Truth be told, I don’t really feel anything.

  Afterward, I wonder how much more I can take before someone gets seriously wounded. I’m not sure if it will be me or her.

  ***

  I run through a dark brick tunnel again, but I can’t see what chases me. There’s weird piano music that sounds like the tinny tunes that accompany silent movies—where the bad guy with a handlebar mustache ties the screaming blonde to the train tracks. I try to find the source and get a glimpse of Mr. Cline sitting at an antique upright. His back is to me. I call out to him, but each time I do, he and the piano slide away. I can’t catch up.

  I turn a corner and see Isaac’s face directly in front of mine, eyes full of pity and panic. I blink. The strange piano music is replaced by chirping birds and muffled traffic. I bring my hand to Isaac’s cheek to see if it feels as real as it looks.

  Why is Isaac in my dream?

  “Julianne?”

  “Mmm.” I smile at his perfect French and sink into the warmth of his voice.

  “Who did this to you?” His voice vibrates through my hand, still pressed against his smooth, newly shaven face.

  “Hmm?” I’m sure I’m still in the house, curled up on my bed, sleeping off injuries I’ll have to hide from him for one more day, and then another, until they heal and the cycle repeats. I open my eyes again. This time, I see him search my face. For real.

  Crap.

  I half-remember dragging myself outside and into the studio where I must have fallen asleep. I’m huddled on the tan loveseat, my cheek smashed into the armrest. An attractive wet spot remains when I raise my head.

  He’s bent over me, hands in midair, as if he’s looking for a place to touch me that won’t cause pain. “Who…what happened?”

  His voice breaks, and I withdraw my hand when I realize this isn’t a dream. It’s a continuation of last night’s nightmare. I need to think fast to come up with a whopper of a story. Can I blame the dogs, or have I used that excuse? It won’t explain why I’m in my studio in yesterday’s clothes.

  Oh shoot, he probably already knows. His uncle suspected. Did he pass on the information to Isaac? From the look on his face, I don’t think so. Think, moron, think!

  “Um, I went to Felix’s last night.” Oh, it hurts to talk. “I got mugged on the way home.” My throat and torso are so sore.

  “You were at Felix’s last night?”

  “Yeah.” Single-syllable lies are good.

  He stares a hole through me then, and I wonder if he’ll call my bluff. He frowns but doesn’t say anything. Seconds tick by.

  “Can you stand? Need to get you cleaned up. Where’s your mama?”

  Not here, I hope.

  “I don’t know. What time is it?” Truthfully, I don’t even know what day it is.

  “Nine. We have lessons today.” He takes my elbow and lifts me to a sitting position.

  Red and black stars burst in my peripheral vision. Don’t pass out. Hold it together.

  “Right.” I wince. I have to gather strength to say more. “Um, then she’s already at the gym.”

  “Wouldn’t she notice you weren’t in the house this morning?”

  I keep my gaze down. “No.” I’m back to one-syllable answers.

  He crouches there and waits for me to elaborate. I decide to keep my answers short and sweet, partly because I don’t want to spill my guts and partly because it’s just excruciating to talk.

  “Okaaay,” he stretches out the word. “Let’s get you into the house. Need to get you cleaned up, then we’ll call the police.” He freezes, eyes wide as another thought occurs to him. It’s clear what he suspects. “Oh, Jesus, you weren’t—they didn’t…?” He leaves the rest unsaid. “So help me God, I will track them down myself.”

  “No. It’s all right to get cleaned up.”

  He relaxes a fraction and helps me stand. I realize his question means he buys the lie, at least for now. Another wave of dizziness rushes over me, and he catches my waist. We hobble across the yard toward the house.

  Halfway there, he huffs and mumbles, “Screw this.”

  And just like that, he gently knocks my legs out from under me and cradles me like a child, careful not to jar me too much or hold me too tight. It kind of feels like a scene from a cheesy movie, except he’s stepped out of a romance while I star in my very own horror flick.

  My ribs ache, my head hurts, and I don’t have a good excuse yet for not calling the police. But at this moment, it doesn’t matter. None of it does. I can’t get past the protective kindness that radiates from Isaac. I’m sure he thinks I’m too out of it to notice him, but he doesn’t realize—and I don’t want him to—that I’m
used to the aches and bruises, the dizziness and nausea. It’s the closeness, the protectiveness that overwhelms me.

  I try not to think it, but the harder I try to push it away, the louder the chorus: He cares. Someone cares. And as soon as I allow myself to think it, another unwelcome feeling pushes it aside: humiliation. He’s only my piano teacher, for heaven’s sake, not a guardian. He didn’t sign up for this, and now everything will change if I’m not careful.

  The last thing I need is pity. A couple more months and this won’t happen anymore.

  “Which way to your room?”

  “Up the steps and to the right.” After I mumble into his shoulder, I’m struck by the fresh-out-of-the-dryer smell of his shirt. So clean. So safe.

  He tromps up the steps, and I count my blessings he’s in such good shape. He sets me on my bed, perfectly made up with the antique white coverlet tucked around the pillows. It seems Mama cleaned the crime scene this morning.

  “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Across the hall.”

  When he leaves the room, he gives me the gift of silence. The whole house is oddly quiet. No clocks tick, no birds chirp, no muffled traffic. Nothing. I’m numb.

  I stare out the window in a stupor. It’s a beautiful morning. Joggers and stray cats carry on with their business as if it’s just another day, and to them it is. The buds on the mimosa trees are ready to explode. It feels like hours—seasons—have melted past when I hear Isaac rummage around and water run through the house’s antique pipes.

  He kneels in front of me and brings a cold, wet washcloth to my face. He takes great care to brush back my hair and tuck it behind my ears.

  I can’t look at him yet. He expects me to be devastated by my fictional mugging. I’ve been assaulted—that part’s true—but there are no strangers involved. He can’t guess that instead of being dazed by my injuries, I’m contemplating his quiet compassion, the feel of his long piano fingers wiping away the physical remnants of the attack. The emotional ones aren’t so easily purged.

  A warm finger grazes my chin, turns my face toward his. I hear him breathe through his nose—the way men have of being heard, even when they’re silent. How hideous and absolutely pathetic I am, yet it doesn’t stop me. I blame the surreal circumstances, the strange lethargy that settles over my limbs, that calm, mellow feeling I get when someone like a doctor or hair stylist is close to me and pays attention to me.

  I finally meet his eyes. He’s on his knees in front of me like an old-fashioned suitor, washcloth still in his hand. He studies my face, not just the injuries, as if he’s really trying to interpret my blank expression. He probably wonders if I have a concussion or if I’m in shock.

  It reminds me of when I was little and Mama would put a cold washcloth on my forehead when I was sick. The memory brings a shadow of a smile to my lips.

  “Julianne, if you want to talk—”

  I kiss him. I just lean forward and kiss him, lightly. He does not kiss me back.

  Rejected.

  He leaves, forgetting to call the police.

  Guess I wriggled out of that after all.

  Chapter Five

  “Awkward” doesn’t quite do justice to our next rehearsal. It’s a comedy of errors:

  [Enter Isaac.] “Hi.”

  “Um, hello, Juli.” [Looks miserable.]

  “So, where should we start?” [Julianne twirls hair around finger.]

  “Juli, I—” [Isaac rakes fingers through his hair. Both will be bald by the end of the week.] “—let’s just start with Wanderer again. I—”

  “Yes?” [Holds breath.]

  “Nothing.” He goes three shades of red. He opens his mouth to say something else, clearly thinks better of it and snaps it shut.

  Please don’t say anything. If you say a word, I’ll crumble.

  “Juli, if there’s something you want to talk about…”

  I close my eyes and cringe. I so completely want to talk about it, but not with him. It’s not right. It’s not for me to dump on him. It kills me to be rude, but I have no choice. The best thing he can do for me is help me get the audition, get accepted to the New England Conservatory, and out of Mobile, where this will never happen again. My humiliation gives me the motivation I need to be a total wench to him.

  “No, there’s nothing. You’re here to teach me, so teach.”

  “I—okay. None of my business. But—”

  “But nothing. I’ve got a recording to do, and we’re wasting time.”

  I ignore the slapped look on his face. His lips are a thin line, but fortunately, he keeps them closed.

  At least about that day. He has no problem opening them to criticize my performance as the deadline looms. We spend hours and hours going over the same passages, to the point that I hate everything I play.

  “Try not to be so heavy-handed. Technically, you nailed this a week ago, but you’re still not feeling it.”

  I can’t feel anything, haven’t you noticed? Not even the new scrapes on my arms.

  We’ve narrowed down the required pieces for my recording, which will then be part of my in-person audition if I get one. I also get to choose a large body of work from a twentieth or twenty-first century composer. Of course, I choose Rachmaninoff.

  We’re fine-tuning his Etude-Tableau No. 5 in D Minor when Isaac tells me it’s wrong. Everything I do is wrong.

  “If you’re not going to do this right, then don’t do it at all!”

  Finally, I feel a twitch of emotion. More than a twitch. I always know from the whoosh in my ears that I’m about to blow. For a split second, I wonder if this is what Mama feels.

  “Fine! If you know so much, then show me. You’ve been harping at me for weeks, but I don’t know what you want. ‘It needs color. Add some color.’ What does that even mean?”

  I slam down the keyboard cover and grip the smooth, mahogany lid. I sink my fingernails into the finish. It feels good to ruin something so perfect and beautiful. I’ve also ruined my eager-to-please facade. As it falls away, I think of how disappointed Mama would be.

  “I don’t know what you’re asking, and you won’t demonstrate. Why? It’s not because I haven’t asked.”

  “Fine. Move over.”

  My retort dies on an exhale. I fling back the bench and stomp over to the loveseat, throw myself down and cross my arms over my chest. Yes, I’m childish. I was ready for a fight and didn’t expect him to give in so easily. He adjusts the bench a good foot back from where I had it. He closes his eyes and begins, immediately immersed in the piece with the opening low roll.

  And it’s magic.

  The keys and fingerings are the same ones I play; the dynamics are similar, but the song itself, its coloring is different in every way—every nuance, every pause, every touch. He leans back on the seat, fingers upright and stiff, wrists lifted; then he leans in, presses deeper into the keys, rocks the piano’s frame with the pedal.

  His eyelashes glow in the sunlight streaming in from the southern window. Dust motes float in the air, dancing it seems to the quiet energy of his music. I feel his sadness now more than ever. He says much, much more through the piano than he ever does with his spare words. Perhaps this is why he never wants to play for me; he knows I’ll sense whatever it is he doesn’t want to let out. It’s true—there’s something he’s hiding behind the teacher’s critiques and praise.

  I leave my body then, transported into the world of heartbreak he creates with his fingertips. I’m suspended in air just like the dust motes, not even aware of breath or heartbeat. For once, I feel…whole? Whatever this is, I want to hold onto it as long as I can.

  When he finishes, neither of us moves. I try desperately to hold onto the wholeness, but as the seconds glide by, it flees from me like every other good thing. His hands are in his lap, and he stares ahead at nothing. I slip off the loveseat and over to the piano to stand behind him.

  Do I dare? Can I touch him again, or will he push me away?

  I rest m
y hands on his shoulders, a test. When he doesn’t resist, I slide them down in front around his neck and clasp my hands. I lean my cheek on top of his head, and he places a warm hand on top of mine. It’s a gesture I’ve made many times with my brother. We stay like that for a long while until he releases a heavy sigh, and I know the spell’s broken.

  “I think I better go.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  ***

  It’s after dinner, and I’m headed out to—where else?—the studio. R.J. is packing his truck for his return trip to college. He leaves in the morning, and I don’t think he can cram another thing into or onto that poor pickup.

  “R.J.? You under there? Send up a flare if you’re okay.”

  “Hah-hah. You suck. How about giving me a hand instead of being snarky?”

  “Ouch. Sorry, R.J. I didn’t mean it like—” Unwanted tears burn my eyes.

  “Aw, Juli, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just…nervous.”

  I wipe away the evidence. “About what?”

  He emerges from behind the overstuffed truck bed and stops in front of me. He puts his hands on his hips—once again looking like Daddy—but he doesn’t say anything. He gazes at the back of the house like it’ll tell him what to say next. I can see him formulating the words, and it makes me nervous, too.

  “Whatever it is, just tell me,” I say. “You know you can tell me anything.” I take his hand, and he pulls me in for a big bear hug. A lump forms in my throat at the thought of him leaving me alone in that house. It’s been so nice to have someone to talk to and share the blame.

  He kisses the top of my head. “Let’s go into the studio. I don’t want to be overheard.” He nods toward the kitchen windows.

  “Wow, this must be pretty big. Just tell me what it is before I puke all over your shoes.”

  “You’d do that, wouldn’t you?”

  I’m glad I can get a little smile out of him. We settle on the loveseat, and he slumps down until he’s practically horizontal. He links his fingers over his chest and twiddles his thumbs. His nervous gesture puts me even more on edge.