BONUS PART 8 — The Appointment I Never Made It To
“I was supposed to pick up a piano,” I told Brenna.
For a few seconds, all I could hear was the faint sound of her refrigerator.
“A piano,” she said.
“A little upright. It belonged to a woman named Irene.”
“I didn’t know you played.”
“I used to.”
The answer came out more sharply than I’d meant it to. I put my feet back on the floor.
“I used to,” I said again. “I’d been taking lessons on Tuesday nights for almost a year.”
Brenna was quiet.
I could picture her trying to find a Tuesday when I’d told her I was busy. There had been plenty of them. I used to say I had something after work, which sounded enough like an obligation that nobody asked me to move it unless they really needed me.
Sometimes they did.
Sometimes I moved the lesson.
“What happened to the piano?” she asked.
“Irene sold it to somebody else.”
“When?”
“That Saturday. She’d given me until Friday.”
Brenna took a breath.
“Can you tell me about the day you were supposed to get it?”
I looked down at the photograph she’d mailed me. The old coffee maker had a brown ring around the warming plate. I could remember turning it on in my first apartment and standing in front of it the whole time it brewed because I’d never owned one before.
I could remember just as much about the piano. A little square of lighter wood where Irene’s son had stuck a label on the lid. A pencil mark inside the bench. The lowest key had a chip that felt smooth when I ran my thumb across it.
“I can,” I said.
Then I told her about the first time I played it.
Irene was moving to an apartment with a narrow staircase. She’d already paid somebody to measure it, and he’d told her she could get the piano upstairs if she was willing to lose the banister.
“I’m sixty-eight,” she told me. “I’d rather keep the banister.”
She’d put a picture of the piano on the noticeboard at the place where I took lessons. The photograph was slightly crooked. Underneath, she’d written the price and added, You’re welcome to come play it before you decide.
I’d called from my car so I couldn’t change my mind on the walk home.
When I went to see it, she opened her front door and told me to keep my shoes on. She’d just come in from the garden and had already tracked dirt through the hall.
The piano was in a room with a big front window. There were two faint rings on top where somebody had set flowerpots. Irene lifted the lid and moved a lamp so I could see.
“Play whatever you like,” she said.
I sat down and put my hands on my knees.
“Would you mind going into the kitchen?”
“Of course.”
She walked out. A moment later I heard her turn on the radio, low enough that I could still hear the piano and loud enough that I knew she’d understood what I was asking.
I played eight bars of the piece I’d been learning. I got the left hand wrong twice. On the third try, I made it all the way through without stopping.
There was a moment after the last note when I could still feel the key beneath my finger. I sat there longer than I needed to. I’d practiced on a keyboard with one pedal that slid away from me across the floor. I’d never played anything at home that kept making a sound after I’d lifted my hands.
Irene waited for me to come find her.
“Well?” she asked.
“I’d like to buy it.”
“Did you bring a tape measure?”
I pulled one out of my coat pocket. She laughed and helped me measure the bench, too.
I spent that evening standing in my living room with strips of masking tape on the floor. I marked where the back would sit against the wall and where I’d need room to pull the bench out. I moved a bookcase six inches. Then I moved it another two because I wanted to be able to open the window without reaching across it.
The following morning, I stood in the doorway with my coffee and looked at the place where the piano would go.
That was the part I’d forgotten until I told Brenna. For almost a week, every time I walked into the room, I looked at the empty space and felt happy.
On the afternoon I was supposed to meet Irene and the movers, Brenna called me at work.
She said there was a deadline on her school account. If she missed it, she could lose her place in the courses she needed. She’d already called Mom, who’d told her to call me.
I walked out to the stairwell because somebody was using the room where I usually took private calls.
“How much do you need by today?” I asked.
Brenna told me the total.
“Have you asked whether they can split it up?”
There was a pause.
“Mom said they wouldn’t.”
I remember the way I leaned against the stairwell wall when she said that. It had been painted recently. The paint was rough enough to catch on the back of my sweater.
I could have asked whether she’d spoken to the school herself.
I could have told her I had an appointment and called her the next morning.
Instead, I opened the account where I kept my savings. There was enough to cover the piano and the movers. There was also enough, if I emptied most of it, to put toward what Brenna needed that day.
There wasn’t enough to do both.
“Let me see what I can do,” I said.
I went back to my desk and called the lender. The man there said he could see me at three thirty. I told him I’d be there.
At three twenty-five, Irene texted me.
I cleared the hallway. Tell the movers they can park right in front.
I wrote back, I’m running a little late. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way.
I already knew I wasn’t going to be on my way.
The lender explained the monthly payment twice because I’d asked him to. He turned the page so I could see the total. I checked the clock while he went to make a copy.
It was four sixteen when I signed.
Outside, I sat in the car and called Irene.
“I can’t come,” I said. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”
She asked whether something had happened.
I said there was a family expense.
“Do you need me to hold it until next week?”
For a second, I almost said yes. I wanted to put the appointment back on the calendar and spend another week walking into the living room imagining it there.
Then I looked down at the papers on the passenger seat.
“I won’t have the money next week,” I said.
Irene was quiet for a moment.
“I have another person coming Saturday,” she told me. “If you change your mind before then, you can call.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
That was the sentence I thought about afterward.
I’d said it because I didn’t want her to keep waiting.
On the way home, I got a message from Brenna.
It went through. Thank you. I was so scared.
I pulled into a grocery store parking lot to answer.
I’m glad it’s sorted.
I put the phone down. Then I sat there long enough for the grocery store sign to come on.
When I got home, I peeled the masking tape off the floor. One strip came up whole. The other broke into little pieces, and I had to get down on my knees to lift them with my fingernail.
I left the bookcase where I’d moved it.
For months, it was slightly too far from the wall.
“Did you tell Mom?” Brenna asked.
“About the piano?”
“Yes.”
“I told her I’d had plans for some of the money.”
“What did she say?”
“She said you wouldn’t forget what I’d done for you.”
Brenna let out a breath.
“I forgot to ask what it cost you,” she said.
I rubbed my thumb across the back of the photograph.
“There’s another thing I should tell you,” she added. “I did talk to the school. The day after.”
I sat up.
“What did they say?”
“I asked if the payment had gone through on their end. The woman asked why I hadn’t called before paying the whole amount. She said there was a payment plan. I’d have had to put some down. I could’ve asked for extra time on the rest.”
“What did you do?”
“I said I wished I’d known.”
“And then?”
“I went to class.”
I looked down at the table. I could see the old iron mark just beyond the edge of the photograph.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid you’d ask if I could get some of the money back.” She paused. “And I didn’t want to make another call. I wanted the whole thing to be over.”
“For you, it was.”
“Yes,” she said.
Neither of us spoke for a while.
I’d brought up the piano expecting to tell her something she didn’t know. I hadn’t expected to find out there’d been an afternoon after mine when she’d learned something that might have changed what happened next.
“Do you know if they would’ve refunded it?” I asked.
“No. I never asked.”
I was glad she didn’t try to guess.
“I’m angry about that,” I told her.
“I understand.”
“I’m glad you finished school, Brenna. I’m looking forward to seeing you graduate. I’m also angry you got off that call and went to class.”
I could hear her breathing.
“I can listen to both,” she said.
I thought of how she’d listened when we ate dinner over the phone after I saw the Christmas video. The sound of her knife against her plate. The way she’d stayed when I started crying.
I believed she could listen.
I still needed to get off the phone.
“I think I’ve told you what I can tonight.”
“Okay,” she said. “Can I still send you the questions?”
“Yes. I’ll read them when I’m ready.”
After we hung up, I went to the living room and looked at the wall where the piano would have gone. I’d put a narrow cabinet there since then. It held spare batteries, a stack of takeout menus, and a game Lauren had left at my apartment because she said I was the only person who remembered all the rules.
I opened the bottom drawer.
My lesson book was underneath the game. The spine had split. A grocery receipt marked the page where I’d stopped.
I took the book out and set it on the crooked shelf from my old room, which I’d finally managed to put up straight.
Then I left it there and went to bed.
Brenna sent the questions the next afternoon.
I didn’t open them until Thursday.
There were seven.
The first was, What were you going to do that afternoon before I called?
I read the second.
What did I tell you I’d already tried? What had I actually tried?
I had to get up after that one. I’d been about to make dinner anyway, so I took an onion out of the basket and chopped it. I put it in the pan and remembered to turn the burner on.
When it started to soften, I went back to the page.
The last question was the shortest.
Did I leave you time to say no?
I read it once, then turned the paper over.
I could remember Brenna’s panic on the stairs at work. I could remember the exact way she’d said Mom told her to call me. I’d heard that as proof that my mother had looked at the problem and decided I was the only person who could fix it.
There had been time to say no. There’d been time to call the school. There’d even been time, between the lender’s office and Irene’s house, to make one more phone call and ask somebody else what was possible.
What I hadn’t known how to do was let Brenna hear me take that time.
I picked up a pen.
Under the last question, I wrote, I don’t remember either of us expecting me to.
Then I went back to my dinner.
When I told Lauren about the piano, she put down the mug she’d been drying.
“You took lessons for a year?”
“Almost.”
“Where?”
“The music shop by the laundromat.”
“The one with the stuffed bear in the window?”
“Yes.”
Lauren thought about it.
“I remember you telling me you’d found a parking space there once. I asked what you were doing in that part of town, and you said you’d gone to pick something up.”
“I picked up a lesson book.”
“You left out a surprisingly large amount of that story.”
I smiled.
I’d brought the book with me. Lauren wiped her hands on her jeans and turned a few pages. The teacher had written little numbers above the notes where I kept using the wrong fingers.
“Would you play something now if there were a piano here?” she asked.
“Would you go into the kitchen?”
“We’re already in the kitchen.”
“Then I guess you’d have to leave your own house.”
Lauren laughed and slid the book back to me.
“Does the music shop still give lessons?”
“I looked. They do.”
She waited while I turned to the page marked by the grocery receipt.
“Would you come with me on Saturday?” I asked. “I think I want to ask if I can use one of the practice rooms.”
“Sure.”
“You’ll have to wait outside.”
“I’ve got a book I’m willing to pretend to read.”
On Saturday, the bear was still in the window. Somebody had put a tiny pair of headphones on it.
The man at the counter said I could rent a practice room for half an hour. He asked if I wanted the room with the digital keyboard or the one with the upright. I chose the upright before I had time to wonder who might hear me.
Lauren found a chair in the hall. I went in and closed the door.
The bench was too high. I found a knob on the side and turned it until my feet rested flat on the floor.
Then I opened the lesson book.
The first time through, I played so quietly that one of the notes barely sounded. The second time, I got to the place where the left hand came in and lost my place.
I started again.
Near the end of the half hour, I managed the same eight bars I’d played at Irene’s. There was a pause before the next line. I’d always been so relieved to get there that I stopped.
This time I tried the next line.
It sounded dreadful.
I tried it again.
When I came out, Lauren was still sitting in the hall. She’d put a folded receipt in her book to save her place.
“Did you hear me?” I asked.
“A little.”
“What did it sound like?”
She thought about it.
“Like somebody figuring out a song.”
I laughed. My hands were still a little shaky. I held the book against my chest so I wouldn’t drop it.
At the counter, I booked another half hour for the following Tuesday.
Then Lauren and I went to get lunch.
Mom called on Sunday to ask if I wanted to come over Tuesday evening.
She’d found a soup recipe that claimed to make enough for two people, and she wanted somebody there in case it made enough for six.
“I have something Tuesday,” I said.
I heard the old shape of the answer as soon as I gave it. It was the same answer I’d given years ago when I was leaving work with the lesson book tucked in my bag.
“What about Thursday?” Mom asked.
“Thursday’s good.”
We might have hung up there.
“I’m going to play the piano on Tuesday,” I said.
“Where?”
“The music shop where I used to take lessons.”
A second passed.
“You took lessons?”
“Yes. There was a piano I was going to buy, too. I had an appointment to pick it up the day Brenna called about school.”
Mom was quiet for long enough that I heard Dad ask her something in the background. She told him she was on the phone and closed a door.
“I remember you saying you had plans for that money,” she said.
I waited.
“I thought it was something you could put off.”
“Did you ever wonder what it was?”
“I thought it might be the car. I remember hoping it was something else because I knew how long you’d been putting the car off already.”
I sat down on the arm of the couch.
“Did you tell Brenna the school wouldn’t take payments?” I asked.
“I told her I didn’t think they would. She asked if I’d call, and I told her there wasn’t time. I said she ought to call you before you left work.”
Mom stopped. I could hear her move the phone.
“I should’ve called the school,” she said.
“I could’ve called, too.”
“Yes,” she said. “I wish one of us had.”
For a minute, neither of us said anything. It was strange to sit with a problem that had once seemed so urgent and hear how small the first useful thing might have been.
“Would you like to hear me play someday?” I asked.
Mom’s answer came quickly.
“Yes.”
I looked at the book on the shelf.
“I’ll tell you when.”
“All right,” she said. “Do you want bread with the soup on Thursday?”
“Yes. Especially if it only makes enough for two.”
“It’s got a whole head of cabbage in it. I’m beginning to have doubts.”
She ended up giving me a container to take home. I’d asked for it after the second bowl.
I got to the graduation lunch forty minutes early.
The restaurant was in a low brick building near Brenna’s placement. The front windows had paper flowers taped to them. One of the flowers had slipped and was hanging upside down.
Brenna was in the back room moving a chair away from the wall so Patricia would have room to take her coat off. She was still wearing the shirt she’d worn under her graduation gown. One sleeve was creased where she’d pushed it up.
She saw me and came over.
“Where’s the coffee maker?” I asked.
She pointed.
It was on a side table beside a stack of cups. It looked almost exactly like mine, right down to the glass pot with the white numbers printed up the side.
“Does it work?”
“I hope so. I promised the manager I wouldn’t make a mess.”
Beside it was a little card in Brenna’s handwriting.
Coffee before the speeches. Please help yourself.
There was a second card lying facedown. Brenna picked it up before I could ask about it.
“I was going to put a longer one out,” she said. “I wrote about Patricia finding you a coffee maker and you helping me with school. Then I talked to you about the piano, and I read the card again.”
“What did it say?”
She looked down at it.
“‘Everybody here gave up something to get me to this table.’”
I watched her fold the card.
“I wrote it because it sounded grateful,” she said. “I hadn’t asked anybody whether they wanted what they gave up written on a card.”
She tucked it into her bag.
“The coffee maker’s still here,” I said.
“Patricia said your old one meant you could make yourself a decent cup before you went to work. I thought it would be nice to give everybody coffee before they had to listen to me talk.”
“I think they’ll appreciate that.”
“I also bought the coffee you like.”
I looked at the bag. It was the same one I usually bought. I hadn’t known she’d noticed.
“Can I make you a cup?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She filled the pot at the little sink behind the side table. I sat down while she found the filters.
When she came back, she handed me the first cup.
“I wanted to tell you something before everybody gets here,” she said.
I wrapped my hands around the cup.
“I took your loan story out of the workshop,” she said. “I told my supervisor I should’ve asked you before I handed her the first version.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she should’ve asked before she kept it.”
Brenna looked toward the front of the restaurant. A woman carrying a gift bag had stopped near the host stand to ask where she should go.
“She’s still coming?” I asked.
“Yes. She said she’d like to congratulate me and eat lunch. She also said if you wanted to talk to her, you could come find her.”
I took a sip of coffee. It was stronger than I usually made it.
“Did you put in an extra scoop?”
“Yes. The pot looked bigger than the one at my apartment.”
I took another sip.
“Good call,” I said.
Brenna smiled, then sat down beside me.
“I’ve been thinking about the question you answered,” she said. “About whether I left you time.”
I turned toward her.
“When I called that day, I’d already opened my banking app,” she said. “I was looking at the account where the money was going to go. I remember thinking I just needed you to tell me when.”
She rubbed a crease in her sleeve.
“When you told me about the piano, I got halfway through thinking I could buy you one. I was looking at listings before I’d even finished listening to you.”
“Did you find anything?”
“One that said it came with ‘most of the keys.’”
I laughed. She did, too.
Then she said, “I closed the listings. I figured you already know how to find a piano.”
“I do.”
“Would you tell me if you want help moving one?”
“I might ask you to hold the door.”
“I could do that.”
She reached for her cup. We drank our coffee while the woman at the host stand found the right room and started toward us.
It was her supervisor. Her name was Elise. She shook my hand, told Brenna she’d nearly brought a card with a graduation cap on it, and showed us the card she’d bought instead. It had a picture of a woman at a desk holding a mug over her head like a trophy.
“The one with the graduation cap said ‘You’re finally done,’” Elise said. “You start the new project Monday. It seemed a little soon.”
Brenna laughed and went to show her where to put her bag.
I stayed in my chair and finished my coffee while it was hot.
Dad and Mom arrived together. Dad had brought flowers, and Mom had brought scissors because she didn’t know if the restaurant would have any. Patricia came five minutes later with a bag that clinked when she set it down.
“Is that a bottle?” Brenna asked.
“It’s a mug. I wrapped it in another mug.”
Brenna looked inside.
“You could’ve used paper.”
“I had two mugs.”
Lauren arrived just before we ordered. She sat beside me and asked why the coffee smelled better at the graduation lunch than it did at her house.
“Extra scoop,” I said.
She got up immediately to pour herself some.
We were halfway through lunch when Brenna stood with her glass.
She thanked Elise for letting her keep the notes from her first meeting. Elise called across the table that she’d asked for a copy because her own notes were terrible.
Then Brenna thanked our parents for showing up on moving day. Dad said he’d mostly held a door. Brenna said that was exactly what she’d needed him to do.
She glanced at me.
“My sister asked me a question when I was deciding whether to take the placement,” she said. “She asked what I wanted to do. I’d been telling everybody what could go wrong because I thought that sounded more sensible. She waited until I answered.”
She took a breath.
“I wanted to go. I’m really glad I did.”
She lifted her glass.
We lifted ours.
I hadn’t known what it would feel like to hear my sister thank me in front of my family. I’d wondered whether I’d spend the whole lunch waiting to hear what version of me she planned to describe.
The sister she talked about had sat beside a budget and asked a question.
I recognized her.
After lunch, Brenna took pictures with Mom and Dad. Patricia made her move two feet to the left because a lamp looked like it was growing out of her head.
I went to the coffee table for a refill.
Elise was there, trying to get the last of the coffee without taking the pot all the way out.
“Go ahead and pull it out,” I said. “I turned it off.”
She did. There was enough left for half a cup each.
She looked at me.
“Would you like some?”
“Yes.”
She split it between us.
We stood there for a minute watching Brenna try to explain to Dad where to look on the phone when he took a picture.
Then I said, “What did you like about the questions she wrote?”
Elise set the pot back.
“We’d been asking students to bring a budget and list who they might call if they ran short,” she said. “One student wrote her grandmother’s name and the amount she thought her grandmother could give her. I asked where she’d got the amount. She said it was how much her grandmother had lent her cousin.”
I thought of the two columns in my mother’s ledger. What my parents could pay. What she thought I could pay.
“What did you say to the student?”
“I asked if she wanted to practice making the call. She said yes. We got to the part where I said I couldn’t afford it, and she stared at me.” Elise smiled a little. “Then she asked if we could start again.”
I drank my coffee.
“I might be willing to help with one of those,” I said. “A practice conversation. I’d want to see it first.”
“Of course.”
She gave me her card. I put it in my bag beside my keys.
Across the room, Brenna had finally got the picture she wanted. She looked at it, laughed, and turned the phone so Dad could see.
He’d been looking at her when he took it. Only half his face was in the frame.
She kept it anyway.
A few weeks later, I called Irene.
I still had her number saved under Irene Piano. I’d almost deleted it twice and had somehow always found a reason to leave it where it was.
When she answered, I told her my name and reminded her I’d come to look at the upright.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “You asked me to go into the kitchen.”
“I hope you didn’t mind.”
“I got the kettle cleaned while you played. What can I do for you?”
I looked at the lesson book in front of me.
“I wondered what happened to the piano.”
“It went to a man who teaches music. He bought it for his daughter, and then she went away to school. Last I heard, he was using it with his students.”
“Do you ever miss it?”
“I miss having somewhere to put my lamp,” she said. “I got a little electric piano after I moved. I wear headphones. My neighbors think I’m very quiet.”
I laughed.
“Are you playing again?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Good,” she said. “Did you ever finish that piece?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Well, if you get stuck, go back one line. My teacher used to say I was always stopping one line too late.”
I wrote that in the margin of the book after we hung up.
I wasn’t sure what she meant until the next Tuesday. I kept missing the same chord. Each time, I started again at the chord and missed it in the same way. Then I went back a line and heard what my left hand had been doing just before it needed to move.
I got it on the next try.
I got it wrong again the try after that. By then, I knew where to go back to.
The piano I eventually bought was smaller than Irene’s.
I found it through the music shop. One of the teachers had a student whose family was moving, and they wanted it gone before they had to clear out their front room.
I went to play it on a Saturday morning.
It had a scratch across the lid and a bench that wobbled if you leaned too far forward. The woman selling it said her son used to put his feet up on the bench when he practiced. She told me she’d spent four years asking him to sit properly and was beginning to miss the sound of his heels hitting the wood.
I played the first line of my piece.
The woman started toward the kitchen.
“You can stay,” I said.
She sat on the arm of the couch. I played the whole first page. My left hand came in too soon once. I kept going and found it again.
When I finished, she asked what the piece was called.
I told her. She wrote it down because she thought her son had played it once.
We agreed on a price. I paid for the piano from the money I’d saved and booked the movers for the following Saturday at eleven.
Then I texted Brenna.
Would you be free to hold a door?
She sent back, For you or for a piano?
Both, probably.
I can be there at ten forty-five.
I asked Dad if he could bring his level. I wanted to see whether it was the bench or the floor that made it wobble. He said he could bring a couple of things to try after we found out.
I asked Mom if she wanted to come over at one.
Would you like me to bring lunch? she asked.
Yes. Something I can eat with one hand. I don’t know where the table’s going to be.
She brought sandwiches.
By one, the piano was against the wall. The table was still where it had always been. Dad had found the loose screw on the bench, and Brenna had spent ten minutes checking that her coat hadn’t been shut in the front door while she held it open.
We ate lunch.
Then Mom asked if I felt like playing something.
I looked at the piano. I’d lifted the lid after the movers left, but I hadn’t touched a key yet. I’d wanted to hear the first note when the room had settled.
“Give me a minute,” I said.
Dad took our plates to the sink. Brenna sat on the floor with her back against the couch. Mom took the chair by the window, the one where I usually sat to read.
I opened the book and put my hands on the keys.
I got through the first page. At the bottom of the second, I missed a note I’d never missed before and laughed. I could hear Mom laugh a little, too, then go quiet when I started the line again.
There were four measures left after that. I’d been playing them too fast because I liked hearing how they fit together. I slowed down enough to hear each one.
When the last note faded, I kept my hands where they were.
Then Mom said, “Would you play the part in the middle again?”
“Which part?”
She hummed two notes. The second one went up when it should’ve gone down.
I found the place anyway.
I played it for her.
After everybody left, I went back to the piano and played for another twenty minutes.
Then I turned off the lamp, went into the kitchen, and found half a sandwich Mom had wrapped for me. I ate it standing at the counter while I looked at Elise’s card, which I’d set beside the bowl of oranges.
She’d sent me a practice conversation the previous week. I’d agreed to come to one workshop and play the person on the other end of the phone. We’d worked through a few versions by email.
In one, the student needed money by Friday.
In another, the person they called could help with part of it.
In the third, the person needed a day to look at what they could afford.
I’d asked Elise to leave that one in.
My phone buzzed while I was putting my plate in the sink.
It was Brenna.
Can you send me the name of the song? I tried to look it up and all I could remember was the part Mom hummed wrong.
I sent her the title.
A minute later, she wrote, I found it. I like the way you played it better.
I put my phone down on the counter. I was about to go back to the living room when another message came through.
Also, would you check your email? The school invited me to speak at the next workshop. I told them I wanted to talk about the call I made after I’d already paid, because that’s the part I used to leave out. I sent you what I wrote. Could you tell me if there’s anything there you’d rather keep between us?
I opened the draft at my kitchen table.
Brenna had written one page. She’d put the conversation with the school near the top, where she couldn’t rush through it or bury it after the part where she paid me back.
At the bottom, she’d left a question for me.
When I told you there was a payment plan, you asked what I did next. I told you I went to class. What did you do the next Tuesday, when you would’ve had your lesson?
I remembered.
I’d gone to the music shop to tell my teacher I was taking a break. I’d waited by the counter while she finished with another student. Through the glass, I could see the stuffed bear in the window. It hadn’t had headphones then.
My teacher had listened while I explained I couldn’t commit to the lessons anymore. She’d gone into the back room and come out with a little slip of paper.
I’d slipped it into the lesson book without reading it.
I went to the piano and opened the book. I shook it gently over the bench.
A grocery receipt fell out first. Then came the slip of paper, folded in half.
On the front, my teacher had written the hours when the practice rooms were usually empty.
On the back was a note.
If you want to play, ask for the key. I’ve paid for Tuesday at six through the end of the month. Come whenever you can.
I sat down on the bench.
I’d spent those Tuesdays going home from work, making dinner, and trying to be sensible about what I could afford. All that time, there had been a room behind the counter and a key I could have asked for.
I took a picture of the note and sent it to Brenna.
I just found out what I could’ve done.
Her reply came a minute later.
Do you know where she is now?
I looked at the signature at the bottom of the slip.
I hadn’t thought to ask about her when I went back to the shop. The man at the counter had said something about the previous owner, and I’d assumed everybody I used to know had moved on.
I read the name again.
Then I picked up the phone and called the shop.
The man who answered listened while I explained who I was looking for.
“Oh, she still teaches here,” he said. “Tuesday evenings. Hang on a second. She’s just getting her coat.”
I looked down at the note in my hand.
A door opened on his end. I heard him call her name.
Then I heard a voice I hadn’t heard in years say, “Tell her she can wait in the practice room if she wants. She knows where it is.”
I laughed before I could answer.
And when she took the phone, I asked if she’d like to hear how far I’d got with the piece.
END OF BONUS PART 8
