Natalie swatted her leg. “See, I told you I’m a good teacher.”
“It’s possible that I’m just a really good student.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Natalie shrug. “Maybe we’re a good team.”
Willing the warmth away from her cheeks, Sam pulled up to a stoplight and raised her eyebrows at Natalie.
“Turn left. The students who were there last week should be moving on to the Twinkle Variations, and the newbies will start with the technical stuff. They’re going to want to play songs, not scales and arpeggios, but it’s important to start with the fundamentals.”
Sam nodded. “Which group should I take?”
“I assumed you’d want the first-timers. Is that okay? It’s there, on the right.” She pointed, and Sam turned into a parking lot labeled with a sign reading Open Door. The building bore all the markers of a converted warehouse, including drab brick walls and identical windows on the first and second floors. It could have been a YMCA once.
She drove through the lot with unnecessary caution and slowness, buying herself more time to prepare. “How many kids?”
“Probably five or six total, and we’ll split them.”
Sam nodded, turning off the ignition and unbuckling her seatbelt. “Here goes nothing.” Natalie extracted her personal keyboard, which had full-sized keys but was only a few octaves, from the trunk of the car, and tucked it under her arm. They walked to the door in silence, but before Natalie opened it, she turned to her. “Remember, they’re just people, like anyone else. They want and need the same things.”
Natalie’s words might offer comfort if Sam had any skills at understanding people. She followed Natalie to the front desk, where an older woman smiled and waved them through. They entered a large open space containing rows of bunk beds, each one sectioned off with three-panel room dividers. At the foot of each bed were two small metal cubes that looked like high school gym lockers, presumably to prevent theft. Only a few occupants were in the room, sleeping.
“I thought there’d be more people…” Sam said softly.
“It’s lunch time. They’re all in the dining room, I imagine. It’s through here,” Natalie said, crossing the room and walking through an archway leading to an equally large, open room. This one contained long, rectangular tables and benches and about a hundred and fifty people. Lines for a basketball court had been painted on the floor, and two freestanding basketball hoops were at either end, suggesting that the residents collapsed the tables when it wasn’t mealtime. There were a few kids running around the borders of the room, evidently playing tag. One of the kids spotted Natalie and yelled her name as he sprinted into her arms.
“Hey kid,” she said, picking him up. “Have you been practicing?”
He nodded, and Sam put his age at seven. Or four.
His diversion from the tag game drew the attention of the other kids, and four newcomers joined them, one of them hugging Natalie and one giving her a high five. The other two stood by shyly, staring at the floor and swaying from foot to foot.
“And you two. Do you have names?” Natalie asked.
“Rufus,” said the taller boy. His jeans were ripped, and Sam wasn’t sure if it was a style thing or the result of poverty.
“Donnel,” said the smaller boy, extending his hand politely. “I used to take lessons. Before.” Something about his demeanor and confidence made Sam think he was older than Rufus, even though Rufus had about six inches on him.
“Great—let’s see what you can do!” Natalie led the way to a comfortable sitting room off of the gym. Couches and easy chairs were scattered here and there, and a television showing football was in the corner. The first kid who ran to Natalie turned it off and then pulled a keyboard, identical to the one under Natalie’s arm, out of the closet.
“That one’s for you, Sam,” Natalie said, and Sam accepted it from the boy. “Everyone, I want you to meet my good friend Sam. She’s going to help us out today.”
A chorus of “hi, Sam!” filled the room, and it bolstered Sam’s resolve to be helpful. This whole affair, after all, wasn’t about her. Besides, the kids seemed eager to learn, and that was something she could relate to.
“Hi, everyone. I hear you all are going to teach me how to play piano,” Sam said with as straight a face as she could muster.
“Noooooo!” the kids all said together.
“You’re supposed to teach us, silly,” Rufus said.
“Well, then. Rufus and Donnel, come with me to this side of the room, and let’s see what we can learn.”
Donnel, it turned out, knew how to play a few basic songs, including “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” but no one had taught him scales. It took a bit to bring Rufus up to speed on the names of the keys, and Donnel was thrilled to help. They worked on five-note scales, and by the time Sam was ready to leave, the two boys could play with their right hands, ascending scales as a duet. Rufus gave Sam a high five when they were finished, and Donnel gave her a big hug and whispered, “See you next week, right?”
“Right,” Sam said, without thinking. It didn’t matter, really, since when she did stop and consider it, all thoughts she had on the subject followed the same line: it was the best Sunday Sam had had since she moved to New Haven.
Clearing the last book off of Natalie’s futon and placing her pillow at one end, Sam kicked off her shoes and sat down. “I brushed my teeth before I came over,” she said, wondering what Natalie thought of the glasses she only ever wore right before bed. Pulling her contact case out of her pocket, she placed it on the floor just under the futon. “Thanks for letting me stay the night. Again.”
Natalie rolled her eyes at Sam. “Look, I love that you sleep on my couch when your roommate annoys you, but I think we’re going to need some ground rules here. You can’t sleep in jeans. You just can’t. It’s bad for you.”
Sam wasn’t about to say that it didn’t matter what she was wearing—what was bad for her was sleeping in the next room while Natalie was wearing boy shorts and a white see-through T-shirt. “Please. Explain to me the health hazards of sleeping in denim. Does it cut off my circulation? Will it give me a weird rash? Will it make me sneeze?”
“Smart ass. I don’t know how or why it’s bad for you. It just is.”
“Persuasive, but this is all I have.”
“You could sleep without pants.” Natalie smiled pointedly.
Sam coughed and sputtered some words about propriety and Claire being in the other room before pulling a blanket over her legs.
Sighing, Natalie sat next to her. “Fine, wear what you want to bed. So what did Tracy do this time?”
“Tracy?”
“Yeah, you know, the roommate whose annoying antics drive you out of your own bed at least three times a week?”
“I don’t remember.” Truth be told, she hadn’t seen Tracy for weeks. What had started out as a legitimate excuse to sleep on Natalie’s couch had evolved into, well, habit. “Hey, are we still going shopping tomorrow?”
“You know it. Wouldn’t miss the chance to drag you around a mall. Besides, we don’t want your car battery to go dead from lack of use.”
“With you around, it’s more like the tread on my tires wearing thin.”
Natalie quickly asked, “You don’t mind, do you? I can give you money for gas.”
“You know I like driving around with you,” Sam said, bumping her knee against Natalie’s. They sat in comfortable silence a few moments, admiring the waist-high fake Christmas tree in the corner of Natalie’s common room. A handful of small packages wrapped in candy cane paper littered the knitted tree skirt. “Are those all from Claire?”
“I think she finished her Christmas shopping the day after Halloween. Tomorrow’s shopping spree will be my first attempt at buying presents for everyone in my family, and I’m hoping we
’re very efficient. Anyway, Claire’s present to me is the tiny one with the silver bow.”
“Have you shaken it yet?” It was endearing how poorly Natalie handled secrets, especially when they involved gifts.
Scooping it up, Natalie deposited the present in Sam’s lap. “I think it’s dangly earrings, since the box is so small.”
Shaking the package gave Sam no new insights into its contents, which might have had something to do with her general lack of knowledge about jewelry. “Maybe it’s a car,” she suggested, leaning over and placing it back under the tree. Before she could straighten, she caught her name written on one of the packages. “Claire got me something?”
“Yeah, she says you’re practically a roommate at this point.”
“Oh.” Sam rubbed her neck.
“That doesn’t mean you have to get her something, you know.”
“Come on. It would be totally awkward if I didn’t. I don’t know her that well, though,” Sam said, hoping Natalie would offer suggestions.
“I’m sure you’ll think of something. Did you decide what you’re getting your dad?” Natalie asked.
Sam wanted to be frustrated at the gentle understanding in Natalie’s voice, because it reminded her, however inadvertently, of how absent Jack had been since Thanksgiving. Frankly, Sam was surprised Natalie even brought him up, but more surprised to find she didn’t mind talking about him—at least, not with Natalie.
“You mean, besides a kick in the…proverbial…you-know-what, as they say?”
“You can say ‘ass,’ you know. If you’re going to be a sometimes-writer, you should be comfortable using all the words in the English language.”
“I am. What he did to my mom was really—” She choked on the word but managed to get it out—“shitty, and I don’t feel like giving him something this year. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to get him. Sometimes I can’t blame him, because Mom’s no picnic. He obviously cares, right? I mean, he sends money, and he’s going to keep paying the mortgage.”
“That seems a cold way to care for someone,” Natalie said, articulating something Sam’s defense mechanisms hadn’t allowed her even to think.
“Well, he’s got to look out for himself too, and I get that. But it doesn’t explain why he had to move so far away. I mean, he doesn’t have any family in DC, his estranged wife and brother are in the northeast…” The touch on her shoulder startled her before she leaned into it, highly aware of the slope of Natalie’s fingers and the warmth emanating from them.
“It’s okay to say that he left you too.” It was both nerve-wracking and completely compelling that Natalie seemed to have a knack for voicing things Sam would never dream of saying out loud.
“I can take care of myself. She can’t.”
“Samantha Latham, you’re nineteen. I get that you’re independent—maybe the most independent person I’ve ever met—but stop pretending. Missing him is natural.”
For a moment, Sam wondered if her inextricable attachment to her best friend stemmed from the lack of stability in her home life. “I feel torn in two on multiple fronts,” she admitted.
“Fair enough. This is new, and you need time to process it. But from the stories you’ve told me, it sounds like things haven’t been good between your parents for a while. It’s possible they were only staying together for you.”
“I guess I didn’t see.”
“It wasn’t your job to see. You were their baby, Sam. It was your job to enjoy the happy childhood they gave you. You’re in a different place now—literally and symbolically. They are so proud of the independent, intelligent woman you’ve become. And that’s the gift you can give back to them: you are now adult enough to set them free.”
“So I should stop trying to convince my dad to come back?”
“You should listen to him. And to your mom. Try to really hear what they say, and what they don’t say. That’s the best you can do. And even while you’re being diplomatic, you can also miss him. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that you’ve always adored your father, that you want to be just like him, that he’s why you hope to be a doctor. The painful truth you’re confronted with right now is that he’s not superhuman. He’s just a guy with weaknesses and limitations, like everyone in the world.” She hesitated briefly and removed her hand. “He doesn’t have your strength.”
Sam’s gaze shifted from the Christmas tree to Natalie, who stared at her with such open admiration that it took her breath away. “I’m not so very strong,” she said softly, feeling weaker in the face of the love Natalie was giving her than at any moment since her parents had separated. It was too much, and she dropped her eyes to study the hands folded in her lap.
The touch on her cheek was so soft that, for a moment, Sam thought it was her imagination, until Natalie gently caressed her jawline. “You are strong, Sam. I hope you never have to find out how strong you really are.” Natalie opened her arms and Sam allowed herself to curl up into the comfort she offered. As a lone tear wended its way down her check and dripped onto Natalie’s T-shirt, Sam tried to remember the last time she cried—a movie probably. Other people’s stories afforded her the opportunity to feel things she refused to indulge in when it came to her own life.
While being in Natalie’s arms warmed Sam to her core, she didn’t want to stay there in sadness. Maybe the next time Natalie held her, she would be laughing—or sighing in contentment. She sat up and changed the subject. “Hey, I was in the English department today to scope out our professor for next semester. You were right.”
“About the dimples?”
“Definitely cute.”
“Told ya.” Natalie was clearly pleased with herself—Sam just wished the grin on her face was about her rather than their good-looking teacher.
“Yes, you told me. You’re very smart.”
The grin faded, and Natalie adjusted her position on the futon, putting her arm across the back of it. “No one ever says that to me.”
Sam was surprised. “Obviously you’re smart. You’re at Yale.”
“Doesn’t seem to convince people.” As a flicker of a shadow crossed Natalie’s face, Sam thought perhaps she understood at least part of the reason Natalie was scared to definitively select a major. She resolved to convince Natalie that she was more than a pretty face—maybe taking a class together next semester was a good idea after all.
Sam wished she didn’t feel the need to come up with excuses to see Natalie. Never once had Natalie seemed surprised or put out to see her when she had crafted elaborate plans for a simple run-in. Still, she didn’t feel comfortable just stopping by the theater where Natalie, trying her hand at directing, was rehearsing Diana Son’s Stop Kiss; it was seven p.m., and she suspected Natalie hadn’t left the theater all afternoon, so she picked up a mushroom pizza.
Ever since the unfortunate incident with the bunny costume and the tambourine during her first grade Christmas pageant, theaters had given Sam the creeps. When she stopped just inside the door of the auditorium and squinted for her eyes to adjust, an involuntary shudder passed through her. After a few blinks, she picked out the blonde head in the third row, gesturing toward the lights as she gave instructions to someone Sam guessed was the designer. Their conversation grew louder as she approached, and she stopped in the aisle a few rows behind them.
“I’m the first to admit I don’t know much about lights,” Natalie said, “but given how old these units are and how hard it is to get an even wash with such few lighting positions, what if we just dropped gobos into the front light and embraced lighting holes as, like, a look?”
The designer chuckled. “Not sure I buy your theory, but I’ll give it a whirl. I can do it by tomorrow’s cue-to-cue.”
From her hiding place behind them, Sam observed the way Natalie pointed at various lighting units hanging above them and the areas on the stage that needed “more fill.”
Deep in concentration, nibbling on the earpiece of her glasses, she exuded confidence and ease, and Sam found her far sexier in unguarded moments like this than when she was scantily clad and in full-on seduction mode. Natalie tossed her head, flicking overgrown bangs from her eyes as she contemplated color options for the sidelight, and Sam’s stomach clenched, her heartbeat doubling its pace. When Natalie’s hand swept across the air in front of her, responding to a question about top light, fantasies of those hands on her body flooded Sam’s mind, and her face grew hot. Natalie sighed about something, and Sam closed her eyes, wishing the warm air from that heavy exhale was on her skin.
Dimly, through a haze of desire, Sam heard the designer say something that sounded like a good-bye, and she pulled herself out of her longing. Willing her body to cool, she walked closer to them on unsteady legs.
“Everything else looks beautiful,” Natalie said to the designer. “I’m doing some character exercises with the actors for the rest of rehearsal, but after that you can have the space until six tomorrow night.”
As they said good-bye, Sam took a minute to absorb Natalie’s smell and take in her attire. Rectangular glasses, black dress pants, high-heeled black boots, and some confusing but flattering layers of black clothing on top. Sam supposed this was the “Broadway director” look.
The designer smiled at her as he left, and she took a moment to thank the old lights in the theater for failing to illuminate the flush that still reddened her cheeks.
Natalie looked at her in surprise, and she cleared her throat. “Madam Director, I know how hard you’ve been working, and I come bearing sustenance,” Sam said, formality being her default response to potentially awkward situations.
“Hey you!” Natalie leaned over the seat and kissed her on the cheek, giving no indication that she was aware of Sam’s discomfort. “You are an angel. God damn, that smells good. If there are mushrooms on it, I’ll love you forever.”
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