In the Key of Nira Ghani

by Natasha Deen

  The bell tinkles as I step inside, away from the cold rain and gray sky. The shop is warm, and the faint scent of wax adds lemon to the air. Guitars line the walls. Old-school acoustic for the sensitive types, lipstick red for the rockers. What I want is in the back.

  Alec, the cashier, looks up from his phone and gives me a nod. “Nira. Haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks. Already buried with back-to-school stuff?”

  “I was studying for a science competition.”

  “How did it go?”

  I shrug, and he smiles. “Placed in the top five but you’re pissed that you didn’t get first.”

  “Next time I’ll try harder.”

  “You should put that on a T-shirt.”

  “Don’t need to,” I tell him. “It’s tattooed on my skin.”

  His eyebrows go up. A smile curves his lips, and he gives me a quick once-over. “Yeah? Where?”

  “All over. It covers me in a blanket of brown.”

  He laughs and slides off his stool. “Here to drool?”

  “Think of a better way to start the morning?”

  I head to the back. He trails after me. The wall is wood and hanging on every available space are rows of trumpets. They gleam in silver and gold under the lights, their metal burnished. My longing is reflected in their bells.

  “Some guy brought in a Bach Stradivarius.”

  I close my eyes. Imagine the feel of the metal along my fingers, the sweet pain of my lips tightening to hit the high notes, my burning breath as I try to make the music last as long as I can.

  “You wanna see it?”

  God, yes. We sneak in the back.

  “If the boss comes, we’re looking for help, and you’re interviewing. That’s your cover.”

  “Are you really looking for help?”

  “Yeah.” His eyebrows go up. “What do you know about music?”

  “I know what I like.”

  He laughs.

  This job would be my calling. Spending a day surrounded by these walls and having someone pay me for it. Maybe my folks would visit me at work. They would see how happy I am and unchain me from their burdensome need for me to become a doctor. “What do I need to know?”

  “Not much. If you know a bit of everything with instruments, that’s cool.”

  Jeez. He may as well have asked me to redesign the Large Hadron Collider to run on cream cheese. This store has everything—guitars, pianos, tubas, violins. I’d have to know the difference between an acoustic and Spanish guitar. Plus, all the tiny things, like strings and picks, and how to troubleshoot sticky valves.

  It’s not like I can’t study for it. I’m brown, and I’m an immigrant kid. Studying is in my DNA. But trying to wedge the knowledge in between studying for my regular academic challenge classes is a feat for Hercules. “Can you train?”

  The downward pull of his mouth says it all. “If it were up to me, I’d say yes. But Masao is all about his people being experts. Customer service and whatever.”

  “Too bad.” The words are light, but my heart is heavy. Why did I even ask? The heavens would have to crash down, and the voice of God sound before my parents let me have an after-school job.

  That’s the problem with being in this country. I see all the things I could be and do. Everyone and everything, from TV to school and books, encourages me to shoot for the moon. But I’m a poor kid who wasn’t even born here, and every day is a struggle just to get people to see me. Reach for the heavens? I’m busy trying to stay upright on the ground.

  I want jazz band, and I want a job to buy a real trumpet to play in jazz band, and I want my parents to see me play and see how good I am and let me do music as a job and not a hobby, and I want, and I want, and I want until I’m breathless and starving from all the wanting.

  “Come on.” He pulls my hand.

  The trumpet he shows me is the stuff of dreams. A 1923 Faciebat Anno Stradivarius. Engraved flowers and leaves etch the gold frame.

  “Family heirloom,” he says, which tells me everything I need to know about its cost. “Wanna hold it?”

  I shake my head. It would be like touching the upper stratosphere. How would I come down after that? How would I hold and love Georgia, after that? I trace the round lines of the bell with my finger. “Thanks,” I tell him when I find my voice. “It’s beautiful.” We turn to leave when I see it. Not the stuff of dreams. The stuff of life and breath. It’s like a sudden spotlight is on the trumpet, and its lines and curves hit me like a physical punch to the gut.

  Gold valves and a main tuning slide that’s alternating blocks of silver and gold. But the bell. Copper that’s been polished and hewn, so it’s not so much copper but pale pink.

  “Like it?” He asks.

  “Is there a discount on instruments if you work here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If I worked here, that would make this—”

  “A couple of thousand instead of a few thousand. But there are other trumpets you could start with, less expensive, you know?”

  Less expensive, more expensive. None of it matters. I get thirty dollars a month for chores. My savings account has a few hundred dollars, and that’s for university. It’ll take me decades to get a down payment.

  “You sure you don’t know enough about music? I could put in a good word with Masao.…”

  “Thanks for letting me look at them.” I head for the door, but in my daydreams, I’m back at the store, buying a trumpet with the money from a part-time job. A breath later, my mind’s eye has taken me to center stage, where I wail and play to an adoring crowd. My parents are in the audience, proud, not horrified, that their daughter is a musician.

  “You need anything? New mouthpiece? Oil?”

  “How soon do you think that job will be filled?” I come to a stop by the cash register. Behind me, I hear the tinkle of the bell as someone enters the store. I’m too busy calculating the odds of achieving my dreams to turn around and look.

  “It’s been up for a couple of months.” He peers at me as though trying to figure out my secret. “Masao would take any recommendation I give him.”

  “Hey, Nira.”

  My mouth’s suddenly dry at the familiar voice. It wasn’t just a random someone who came into the store. It was the ultimate someone. I turn to face Noah.

  “I’ll tell Masao to look out for you. He’ll be back in town in a couple of weeks.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I wheeze the words, my gaze still locked on Noah. I’m hoping I look mildly surprised at his appearance. Smart money’s on me looking like a turkey who’s just woken up on the slaughter line.

  Noah smiles. “What’re you doing here?”

  I’m still grappling with the fact he knows my name. Noah knows my name. Sure, theories of a multiverse say there must be a parallel universe where he knows my name. But I never figured it would be this universe. Where he knows my name. Noah knows my name.

  “What is it? Top secret or something?”

  And the question makes me realize I’ve been standing there, mouth wide open, with the loop he knows my name, he knows my name echoing in my head. “Uh, no, not top secret.”

  “We were looking at trumpets and maybe having her work here.” Alec smiles at me as though he’s being helpful.

  Next visit, he and I are going to have a long talk where I explain that customer service doesn’t mean telling people my business.

  “I didn’t know you play the trumpet,” says Noah.

  “What do you know about me?” I blurt the question, then go back to looking like a dumbstruck turkey.

  He grins. “Nothing else, okay, Super Spy?”

  “You here for strings?”

  It takes me a second to realize Alec’s talking to Noah.

  “Yeah.” Noah’s face folds into a scowl. “Broke another one. So, if you play trumpet, does that mean you’re trying out for jazz band?”

  “Huh? Oh, uh, yeah.” I’d say yes to anything if it meant he’d keep talking to me.

 
; “So, what do you play?” He clasps my wrist and nudges me in the direction of the guitar accessories.

  “Trumpet.”

  He grins. “I know that. I meant, which kind? B-flat? Bass, cornet?”

  My brain’s as empty as a dust bowl. I’m ninety percent positive if I tell him I play a much-loved but banged-up pocket trumpet some guy donated to Goodwill a billion years ago, he’s going to stop talking to me.

  “Okay, Super Spy,” he says with a laugh when I stay quiet. “Keep your secrets. Come on, help me buy a string.”

  “I don’t know anything about—” Shut up, Nira. Shut up. I smile. “Sure.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HOPE IS A HIGH-CALORIE SWEETENER

  The meeting for jazz band happens during lunch. There are about thirty kids who want to try out. Just my luck, McKenzie’s one of them.

  “Why are you here?” she asks. “This isn’t science club or mathletics.”

  “Thanks, I didn’t realize that—”

  Emily comes up beside me. She’s my curvy conscience whose presence shuts my mouth before I say something rude.

  McKenzie stares a little too long at her. “Why are you here?”

  Man, I want to punch her. “What are you? The band police?”

  “I’m just asking—”

  “Why are you here?” I ask. “What can you play?” Other than my last nerve.

  “Saxophone,” she says. “Alto sax.”

  “Hey, Super Spy.”

  Noah comes up, smiles at me, at McKenzie and Emily, and the urge to smack down McKenzie melts in the heat of his proximity. Noah is talking to me. In public. The most popular guy in school is acknowledging my presence.

  “Come to show us how it’s done?”

  I babble a response, then I’m saved by the entrance of Mr. Nam. He gives us the rundown, and it’s all routine—practice times, commitment, events—until he says, “Because of budget cuts, you will be responsible for bringing your own instrument.”

  I’m screwed. I can’t walk into the audition with Georgia. I’ll get laughed out of the room. Especially with McKenzie there. Plus, Georgia. He’s an inanimate object, but he’s real to me and I don’t want to set him up for ridicule. I feel my dream evaporating into nothing but I won’t let it disappear.

  I have to get a job. God, what am I thinking? Ask permission for a part-time job, from my parents? I have a better chance of discovering a planet where unicorns and gummy bears coexist.

  “This is cool,” says Noah, nudging my arm. “You and I will get to play together.”

  “Huh?”

  “Noah always gets in,” says McKenzie. She bumps him with her shoulder and gives him a special smile. “He’s amazing.”

  When he laughs and shakes his head, there’s no false modesty. He’s genuinely pleased by her compliment. “So is she.” He gestures to McKenzie. “She can make that sax wail.”

  I’m not surprised. God knows she makes me wail. “That’s great that you guys are shoo-ins for the band,” I tell him, “but I still have to try out.”

  “For you, that’s just paperwork,” says Noah. “If your playing is anything like your marks in school, you’ll be leading the band.”

  McKenzie doesn’t look happy about that. She shifts closer to Noah. “What kind of instrument do you play?”

  “Trumpet.”

  “What kind?”

  “A B-flat trumpet.”

  “Yeah, but what brand? Bach, Yamaha, Jupiter?”

  Trust her to ask about the brand name. I’m saved by Mr. Nam shooting us a glare.

  “As I was saying”—he pauses to give me the fish eye—“tryouts will happen in two weeks. You must be prepared to practice on your own time. Practice here means jamming and figuring out the blend, not figuring out your fingering or what notes come after what notes. You slack off, you’re out. We’ve got a tight performance schedule, not to mention the city and regional finals.”

  “How grumpy is this guy?” asks Emily.

  “It’s not his fault,” says Noah, “not really. His wife’s in the hospital, some kind of complication with her pregnancy.”

  “Oh.” Emily’s eyes go soft. “That’s so sad.”

  “Am I interrupting something?” Mr. Nam shoots another glare in our direction.

  I shake my head.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Noah whispers. “He’s a s’more. Crunchy on the outside, but soft filling.”

  I’m not worried. Mr. Nam may be a s’more, but my parents are overbaked cookies. Hard all the way through. I can meet anything he sets out.

  What I’m worried about is the timing of the audition and the need to get a new instrument. How can I get a job, get paid, and get a trumpet before practice? And how will I convince my parents that I can hold down a part-time job, keep up my marks, and find time for practice and night events?

  When I get off the bus and start for home, I’m hungry for food. But I want the trumpet from Reynolds so badly, I can taste the metal on my tongue. Hunger is making me stupid and lustful for all the things I can’t have. And it’s growing, taking me over. I’m famished for a million things, and none of them is within my grasp. The trumpet. A place in jazz band. Noah as a friend. Clothes. I want it all. I want it now. And I have just low enough blood sugar to delude me into believing I can convince my parents to give me permission.

  I head up the sidewalk to my house and reality reasserts its ugly, low-calorie, no fat, no sugar head. How can I ask my parents for permission to get a job? When I placed second in that stupid science contest, they pulled all the specialty channels from our cable package because they said it was distracting me.

  Even Georgia. I had to haggle with them like a SWAT team negotiator just to get permission to buy him. The only reason I got him was because I did a butt load of extra credit projects and was the first kid in the elementary school history to graduate grade three with an average that exceeded a hundred percent.

  The trumpet was a gift, but my parents nixed the idea of lessons. Georgia was for playtime, when I was done with my homework, and they weren’t going to spend money on trivialities. Not when they were saving for my doctoral degree so I can cure cancer, the water crisis, and static cling, and do it all before I’m thirty-five.

  I had one brief, shining moment of possibility when my elementary school started a band course. Unfortunately for me, the practice time for band conflicted with the math club. My parents nixed my request. I tried begging, but when that risked getting Georgia taken away from me, I opted for learning to play via the online videos. And even then, any real playing I do is when Mom and Dad aren’t home. They don’t know how good I truly am, they don’t know about how I mix music and melody. Why would I share? They would dismiss it, and I love music and my trumpet too much to expose them to the light of my parents’ disdain.

  I try to hold my temper as these memories surge, but they’re raising my heart rate. Why does it always have to be a battle with them? I head up the steps to the house.

  As I put the key in the lock and turn the knob, I hear it. They’re arguing. About what I don’t know. I creep inside and hang my coat. They’re in the bedroom, behind the closed door.

  I kick off my shoes and sneak into the kitchen. Grandma is there, knitting. The kettle’s bubbling on the counter. After I wash my hands, I sit by her. “Can I help with something?”

  She shakes her head. “You want tea?”

  My mother’s voice pitches high. My father’s roars in response.

  “Trade you some tea for earplugs.”

  She sets down the fluff of yarn, and I take her hand. And squeeze it when the bedroom door flies open.

  “When you went out, did you see the leaves changing color?” she asks. “It was beautiful. Next time, come with me. We’ll look at them together.”

  “How about now? Let’s run away from these insane people. We’ll hop on a train and see the world.” I hold up my phone. “I’ve got the health app with all of your medications, the files for your
estate. Give me the word and I’ll download your bank’s app. We’ll run away to Paris.”

  The kettle bubbles and clicks off. “Tea first.” Grandma rises.

  I gently push her back down, then move to the counter.

  “You always do this! Always!” My father’s steps falter when he sees us, then speed up again as he heads through the kitchen to the basement stairs.

  “What is always?” Mom yells back. Her hands are up and close to her chest. Pleading or protecting her heart, I can’t tell. “I thought it would be nice.”

  “It’s not nice; it’s cheap! Why do you always have to be impatient?”

  “Again, with the always! I thought it would be nice!”

  Mom and Dad are repeating themselves, and the clues aren’t enough to put together the puzzle.

  I glance at my grandmother, but she’s not saying anything. Drives me crazy. She knows what’s going on—she always knows what’s going on. When it comes to family matters and secrets, she’s a brown and wrinkled Deep Throat.

  Dad veers away from the stairs, pushes past my mother. A few seconds later, I hear the slam of the front door. Then the screech of the engine firing to life. The kitchen is silent. Mom stands frozen at the fridge. Grandma’s knitting, but her needles make no sound.

  Mom’s eyes slide to me, and it’s like she’s seeing me for the first time.

  I shrink against the counter and hope she thinks I’m a teapot cozy.

  “Nira, come help me.”

  Double shrink. When she’s really mad, her voice is calm and low. That’s hide-the-knives mad and talk-her-down-with-tea-fudge-and-mithai mad. “Okay. Do you want some tea?”