by Paul Hina
noise of a group of people trying to find something to say.
Max is resting his elbows on the table, his chin parked on the fists of his hands. He makes no secret of the fact that he's looking at Annie.
Annie is nibbling at her pie, trying to pretend that she has an appetite, and doing her best to avoid Max's stare, passing her eyes instead on everyone else at the table, one-by-one, and politely smiling when she catches someone's eye.
The song changes, and a soft piano sound fills the room. Max takes his eyes from Annie and eases back in his chair. Eric, too, seems to relax at the sound of the song.
"Oscar?" Max asks Eric.
"Yep," Eric says.
"Oscar who?" Amy asks.
"Oscar Peterson," Eric answers.
"Our dad used to play Oscar Peterson all the time. And, if this is from Pastel Moods, this was one of Dad's favorite albums."
"It still is. He still plays it all the time. In fact, he gave me the LP when we bought the house. God knows where he got it. It couldn't have been easy to find. But he said that he couldn't imagine a house being a home without it."
Max sits up again, planting his elbows back on the table. "You still play, Annie?"
"Of course I still play."
"Well, I didn't want to presume."
"She plays in a jazz band here in town, and she teaches," Eric says.
"At the university?"
"No, mostly just here at the house," Annie says.
"I knew you gave private lessons," Max says. "Are these mostly little kids?"
"Mostly, yeah."
"So, you've never taught at the university?"
"I've taught a few music theory classes in the past, mostly during summer semesters."
"And you play jazz?"
"Yeah, it's just something I do with a couple local musicians. We play twice a month at The Wayfarer."
"The bar?"
"Right," Annie says, and looks at him skeptically. "Why do I feel like you're judging me?"
"No. All that sounds fine. I just remember you saying that you never wanted to end up like your mom, teaching piano to spoiled suburban kids."
"Max," Eric says, clearly annoyed. "What's the point of—?"
"No, Eric. It's alright," she says, not taking her eyes off Max. "I was naive then, Max. Some things don't turn out quite the way we expect them to."
Max raises his eyebrows at this and laughs a little under his breath. Annie can't quite tell if he's making fun of her, or if his laughing is simply nervous laughter.
"But that's okay," Annie says. "I certainly don't regret leaving Boston to come back home. I love this place, and I love the kids I teach. And I genuinely feel like I make a difference in their lives."
"That's good. And I certainly didn't mean to imply—"
"It is good," she says, with a tinge of irritation in her voice.
"Of course this is always the problem when you run into someone from your youth, someone who really knew you," Max says. "They know who it is you most wanted to be, and you only know who you've become. They hold a mirror up to your past, and it's not always a face you recognize."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Annie asks, disappointed that he didn't just let the subject drop.
"Nothing profound. Just saying that I'm sure it probably happens to everyone."
"Everyone but you?"
"No, things certainly didn't turn out how I hoped they would," he says, and she looks at him. A flash of panic comes over her. She wonders what he might say next, all the while knowing that she's invited it.
"Okay," Eric says. "I think we can all concede that we've all changed since high school."
"Not me," Michael says. "I'm doing exactly what I thought I'd be doing since before my bar mitzvah."
Amy elbows him in the ribs. He looks over at her. She shakes her head at him.
The room is quiet again, and there is a tenseness in the air. No one quite knows what to say. The heat from Max and Annie is still swirling.
"I'd love to hear you play something," Max says, finally.
"Now?" Annie asks.
"Sure. Why not?" Max asks.
"No, I don't really feel like playing. I've just—"
"Come on. I'd love to hear you play some jazz. My memories of your playing consist almost entirely of you wrestling with the Goldberg Variations."
"She's still wrestling with those," Eric says.
"Just one song," Max says.
"Yeah, Annie. It'd be nice," Amy says.
"But I don't have anything prepared."
"Do you know Greensleeves?" asks Wendy. "I've always liked that song, and since it's the holidays and all…"
"Too somber," Max says. "Play something Oscar would play."
"I don't—"
"Come on. If you've been playing in a jazz band, you have to know a ton of standards."
"Of course I do."
"Great. So play one." Max says, as if he had decided for her.
"I really didn't plan on playing anything. And I feel like whenever I play in a setting like this it always ends up coming off as needy, like I'm performing for validation or something, like I'm intentionally pushing myself into the center of attention."
"No one thinks you're needy," Max says. "Besides, I asked you to play. It's not as if you just decided to start playing on your own."
"But you will, no doubt, be the center of attention," Michael says.
Amy elbows him again.
"See," Annie says. "And, besides, I've had a few too many glasses of wine."
"I've seen you play at The Wayfarer after a lot more than some wine," Holly says.
"Okay. Since you're all conspiring against me, I'll play," she says and rises from the table. She moves toward the piano, tries to avoid looking at Max, but does glance over for a second, and sees a small smile etched on his face. She hadn't really seen him smile tonight, and now, suddenly, she feels every ounce of that wine swishing in her knees.
Eric takes out his smartphone and pauses the music on the home stereo system.
"How'd you do that?" Max asks.
"What?"
"Stop the music."
"I have an app on my phone that controls the music on the computer."
"But I thought you said it was an LP."
"Yeah, but I transferred all of my LP's to the computer long ago. How do you think we've been listening to so many different artists tonight. I can't put LP's on shuffle."
"Vinyl as MP3's? What would Dad say?"
"I did the same thing for him. It's called moving forward, Max. You should look into it."
"Are you guys done?" Annie asks, standing by the piano, a hand on her hip.
"Yeah, sorry," Eric says.
The piano is behind Max, on the wall beside the entryway to the hall. Annie slides the bench out, careful not to bump Max or his chair. She can feel every set of eyes on her as she sits to play. She stretches her fingers out over the keys, takes a second to caress the coolness of the keys, and takes a slow breath.
She didn't really have to think too hard about what she would play. She's had the same song going through her head since Eric told her that Max was coming. And, as she starts to play the notes, the song feels remarkably fluid flowing from her fingers. So, she just closes her eyes and let's the wave roll over her.
Both Eric and Max immediately recognize the song as "You Turned the Tables On Me." It's one of the tracks from Peterson's great Pastel Moods, and one of their dad's personal favorites. It's one of the songs that their dad always maintained was never played better than Peterson played it on that record.
And before today Max would have agreed. But, tonight, listening to Annie play, watching her body move to the music, the soft swaying of her shoulders, there's something sultry breathing beneath the notes. Now, he feels sure he's never heard it played better, or at least no one's ever played it with as much sex beneath the song.
Eric, surprisingly, who listens to her play all the time, can't remember ever hearing her play th
is one, and there is something in her playing that makes him lean into the table. He's not sure if it's because he's reacting to the earnestness of her playing, or if there is something fearful rising up in him—a reaction to the obvious passion in her playing. There's something soft about her performance, and yet something frantic as well. He can't help but think she's trying to communicate something, even if unconsciously. And he can feel it.
You turned the tables on me.
And now I've fallen for you.
Though Annie is not singing the lyrics, Eric and Max both know the words. And Eric tries not to read too much into it.
Max also tries not to read anything into it, but he can't help but hear what he wants to hear.
In this song, all those emotional undercurrents are there if you want to hear them. All those hopes, regrets, and desires are moving through the air. Every note feels charged with meaning. And, though the tension has been high all evening—something writhing under the surface, seething—the music has made it more present. The song has exposed the nerve, and for those three or four minutes that she plays, Annie, Eric, and Max might as well have been the only ones in the room. And meanings, and hurt feelings, and emotions too long suppressed were rising up in every direction.
Annie, for her part, felt every note intensely. She felt as if she were connected to that piano, as if the song were playing her, and she just wanted to crawl inside the comfort it gave her. For the first time all evening, she felt in control, as if she were finally able to have the upper hand, and she used it.
And as she came to the end, she realized that she had been humming along with the song, like Gould's humming, and she knew she had touched something pure in the music. It had been too long since she'd felt that way. And, as she moved her fingers, ever so reluctantly, off the keys, she could feel Max's eyes caressing her, like fingers near