Porcelain Keys Page 2

  With each stride, the pressure behind my eyes built until the dam began to crumble. And when I reached Dad’s barn, I pressed my back against the side and slid to the ground, where I buried my head in my arms and released the tears.

  ~

  The kitchen was dark when I stepped through the back door to get ready for work, and all my senses were on high alert. The faucet dripped slowly in the kitchen sink, but the rest of the house was silent. An open bottle of brandy sat on the kitchen table, waiting to be finished. I tiptoed inside, the old floorboards creaking underfoot, and as I approached the living room, I saw Dad stretched out on the carpet at the base of the stairs.

  He lay on his back, one arm resting across his muscular chest, the other propped up on the bottom step. His thick red hair shot out in every direction as if he’d been tugging at it all night, and he still wore the plaid flannel shirt I’d mended the day before. Oddly enough, it was still tucked neatly into his jeans. His abdomen slowly rose and fell, and his face was relaxed and peaceful. The way he used to look before Mom died, the way he’d begun to look again before his relapse the night before. It made my heart grieve over the loss of the good father he’d once been, and the three months of sobriety he’d thrown away.

  A long rectangle of sunlight stretched across the carpet from the parlor door, and I was surprised to see it still open. The piano beckoned to me from inside the small room, but with Dad sprawled out on the floor just feet away, it wasn’t exactly an ideal time to interpret Fantasie Impromptu. I went to close the door, but first stepped inside to pick up the sheet music that had fallen to the floor the night before. The morning sun spilled through the tall windows, washing the room with a heavenly golden hue.

  Dad viewed the parlor as a sacred sepulcher, a forbidden place where memories of Mom dwelled, sleeping and inaccessible. But for me, it was where I came to be with her. I couldn’t run my hands across the worn piano keys without seeing her own, couldn’t sit on the bench without feeling her warmth beside me. Even the tendrils of dark hair that spilled over my shoulders when I played reminded me of her. Her hair had been the same shade as the dark mahogany piano, and when she wore it down, it shrouded her shoulders and back like a hooded cape, melding her and the piano into one inseparable instrument.

  With a heartsick sigh, I turned around and left the parlor, locking and shutting the door behind me, just the way Dad wanted it. As I approached the stairs, I could feel Dad’s hunting prizes watching me. I could almost hear them say, If you go in there again, you’ll be next.

  Dad didn’t know, but I had names for all his furry trophies. Ann, the red fox on the side table, was polite, kept mostly to herself, and had impeccable posture. Harriet and Ned, two quails on the wall, constantly quarreled about whose fault it was that they’d ended up stuffed and mounted to a tree branch. Of all the stiff specimens in the room, I related to Harriet and Ned the most. Wings forever spread as if in flight, yet suspended, unable to go anywhere.

  And then there was Knox, Dad’s prized possession and my least favorite resident. The large gray wolf was preserved pushing off his hind foot, the rest of his body leaping into the air in attack position. Every time I walked past him, I felt him stalking me, waiting for an opportunity to tear into my calf with his razor teeth.

  I heard the crackling sound of tires rolling over the gravel driveway outside—one of Dad’s customers, I guessed. I always thought it ironic that when Dad wasn’t running around in his fireman’s uniform saving people, he ran a taxidermy business in our barn, preserving what others had killed.

  I glanced through the lace curtains that were the last remains of Mom’s decorating influence and saw a middle-aged man getting out of a silver car. A nervous tremble rippled down my abdomen as I recognized him from the night before. He’d shown up and argued with Dad in the driveway, and although I hadn’t heard their conversation, it had set Dad off on his drinking rampage. And now, here he was again. I didn’t know him, and from his appearance I guessed he wasn’t one of Dad’s customers. His sandy-blond hair looked like he’d spent half the day styling it, and he wore a starchy dress shirt and vogue square-rimmed glasses. Dad’s customers were inclined toward dungarees, flannel shirts, and duck canvas vests.

  I didn’t have time to deal with him, so I stepped over Dad and went upstairs to get ready for work. Already late, I skipped the shower and went to my room to change. As I slipped the sheet music under my mattress with all my other music, there was a knock on the front door, loud and urgent. But I ignored it, taking off my dirty tank and shorts and throwing on an unflattering lime-green bussing shirt and black slacks.

  The doorbell rang, and I poked my head into the hallway to see if Dad was waking up, but he hadn’t stirred. I crossed the hall to the bathroom, where I did my best to make myself presentable by dabbing on some makeup and wrangling my hair into a bun. Luckily the sleeves of my bussing shirt were long enough to conceal the bruises on my arm. The doorbell didn’t ring again, and soon I heard the man’s car rolling back over the gravel and his engine fading away. I came back down the stairs and stepped over Dad, gave him one last pitiful look, and then left for work.

  two

  Despite the rock already filling my gut, I fetched my lunch sack from my locker Monday afternoon and went to the cafeteria. Students gathered in their new back-to-school clothes at long tables or lined up with trays, poking and flirting as they waited for pizza and fries. I leaned against the brick wall and browsed the tables for a place to sit. A couple of girls from English Literature waved at me from a table by a window, but I didn’t have it in me to join them. With my nerves still frayed from what had happened over the weekend, I didn’t feel like putting on a show and pretending that everything was okay. I didn’t want people asking what was wrong or why I was wearing long sleeves and jeans in August or what I did this summer.

  A tall, dark-haired boy with a black T-shirt and loose jeans strolled in. With his back to me, he paused and scanned the lunchroom. Even before seeing his striking profile, I knew it was Thomas.

  I felt anew the humiliation of the other morning, and not wanting to risk running into him, I backed out of the cafeteria and fled down the hall. Turning a couple corners, I came to the heavy door that led to the auditorium stage. I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then snuck inside.

  I found the old upright piano tucked behind layers of black curtain and opened the key cover, then sat on the bench and locked down the soft pedal. With my sandwich in my left hand and my right hand on the keys, I practiced the melody of Debussy’s Reverie. I switched sides and practiced the bass line. When my sandwich was gone and both hands were free, I sank into the lulling passages without reserve, expressing the things that were not safe to say.

  My hands moved up and down the keyboard, summoning great waves of music, each one crested with sorrow, loneliness, and anger. Tides of emotion rose and fell, gradually finding their way down my arms and to the keys, becoming harmonies that filled and then dissipated into the air like mist.

  When the lunch bell rang, I lingered for a few minutes so no one would see me come out, then gathered my things and went to class.

  My World Civilizations class was bubbling with chatter when I walked in, the various tones and timbres of students’ voices mixing like the cacophony of an orchestra warm-up. I skirted around the back of the room until I found an empty seat, but the moment I sat down, I regretted it. One row over and two seats up sat Thomas. He gazed down at his notebook with pencil in hand, making long, slow movements across the page.

  “Choose your seat wisely,” Mr. Becket said, twisting the corners of his overgrown mustache, “because I’m starting around the seating chart.”

  Feeling uneasy about sitting so close to Thomas, I scanned the room for another open seat. There were only two. One was right in front of Thomas, and the other was across the room, behind Dirk Page and Trisha Rosenblatt. I briefly wondered if they were back together, and which would be more tolerable—sitting so close to
Thomas or watching Trisha give suggestive looks to Dirk all year.

  Realizing I couldn’t avoid Thomas forever, I decided to stay where I was. But I dreaded looking into his eyes again. I dreaded the sympathy I would see there, the questions he might ask, and the things he might say. I wondered if he’d keep what he’d seen to himself, or if, within days, the entire school would be casting pitiful looks at me. My pride and reputation were at his mercy. I felt like a small helpless bird enfolded in his hands—he could either crush me or set me free.

  Mr. Becket was pacing with hands clasped behind his back in front of the room, giving a travelogue of all the countries he’d visited over the summer and claiming he’d learned to speak at least one phrase in every language. “Name a language,” he challenged, “and I will say something in it.” A couple kids called out German and Chinese, and he demonstrated each with nonchalance. “Come on,” he urged, “give me a challenge.”

  Bulgarian and Yiddish were requested. He spewed out a phrase in each.

  “Dutch,” someone called out.

  “Nog een prettige dag toegewest,” said Mr. Becket.

  “You mean toegewenst?” Thomas chimed in with a half-raised hand.

  “Ah!” Mr. Becket’s face brightened. “Do you know Dutch?”

  Thomas lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Enough to get by.”

  Mr. Becket stammered through another phrase, and Thomas replied with a long and fluent-sounding string of Dutch. The class reacted with yawns and eye rolls. But I was suddenly intrigued, wondering how on earth Thomas knew how to speak Dutch.

  Trisha raised her hand, waving it in the air like a beauty queen.

  “Miss Rosenblatt,” Mr. Becket said, “do you have another language request?”

  “Actually,” Trisha replied, twirling a tendril of long golden hair around her finger, “I was wondering if I could change my seat.”

  “We already filled out the seating chart,” Mr. Becket said.

  “But I can’t see very good back here, and it’s giving me a headache.” She pressed her fingers to her forehead, and Dirk turned around to shoot her a skeptical look.

  Mr. Becket considered a moment, scanning the front of the class for an empty seat before gesturing to the desk in front of Thomas. “Come sit in front of Mr. Ashby.”

  Ashby. There was something lyrical about his name, like I could string the letters together on a staff to form a melodic phrase. Thomas Ashby.

  Trisha happily popped out of her chair and perched herself in front of Thomas, flashing him a sultry smile before facing the front of the room. It was too easy to see how this would turn out. They would go to homecoming, hold hands in the hallway, and get married right out of high school. She angled her body sideways and crossed her bare legs, no doubt so Thomas could get a better view. But he didn’t seem to notice. He kept his head down and his pencil moving across his notebook as Mr. Becket transitioned into a lecture on the Middle Ages.

  As though fearing Thomas would forget she was there, Trisha made a point to move every minute or so. She gathered her hair to one shoulder, then the other. She uncrossed her legs and crossed them again. She trailed her pencil along her jaw, then tied her hair into a loose bun. A moment later as she pulled out the elastic band, she “accidentally” flung it into the aisle behind Thomas.

  He reached back and picked it up, catching my eye as he did so. There it was—that look of commiseration that made me feel as small as the lead tip on my pencil. He paused and acknowledged me with a little smile before turning back and handing the elastic band to Trisha.

  The fire spread from my cheeks to my ears, and I eyed the door, once again feeling like that little trapped bird. Set me free, I thought. Don’t look at me again. Don’t talk to me. Just forget about me and what you saw.

  For the remainder of class, Thomas sat unnaturally still. He didn’t take any more notes, and he didn’t seem interested in Mr. Becket’s lecture. He appeared distracted, and the unfocused glances he cast at the window made me wonder if he was watching me from the corner of his eye. I sensed he wanted to talk to me, but it was a conversation I didn’t want to have.

  With five minutes of class left, I gathered up my things. Thomas glanced back at me with an anxious expression, then gathered up his things as well. I watched the clock and eyed the door. He watched the clock too. I gauged the distance from each of our desks to the door. His was closer, so I would have to move fast. It would be a race for the door, and if I lost, I would have to face him to hear whatever he had to say.

  The instant the bell rang, I dashed for the door. Glancing back, I saw Trisha stand and intercept Thomas. It was the first time in my life I felt gratitude toward Trisha.

  ~

  When I got home, I found Dad clean shaven at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and eating dry toast. He was probably sobering up because he had to work the next day.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said as though he hadn’t been missing for two days, as though he hadn’t left a mark on me the last time I’d seen him.

  He lifted his eyes from the Field and Stream magazine on the table. “Aria.” He nodded, a look of contrition on his face.

  I dropped my backpack on a chair and walked to the fridge, opening the door.

  “How was school?” he asked.

  I wanted to tell him it was awful, that I felt sick all day thinking about what happened over the weekend, and that I ate lunch alone because I didn’t want people to see I was upset. But having an honest conversation with Dad was about as appetizing as the raw pheasant that had been sitting in the fridge for the last three days. “Fine,” I said. “I like my teachers.”

  “Will you come sit down for a minute?”

  Here it comes, I thought. I shut the fridge and joined him at the table in the chair farthest from him. One of the buttons on his flannel shirt cuff was undone, and he buttoned it. Then he unbuttoned it. Then buttoned it again.

  “I’m sorry about the other night.” He hung his head and ground his knuckles against his mouth. “I just . . .”

  “It’s okay,” I said, knowing that guilt would only give him more momentum for the next ride.

  When he lifted his face again, his eyes were misty and his mouth contorted in pain. “No—it’s not okay.” His eyes swept over me. “Did I hurt you?”

  I shook my head. “I’m fine.”

  “Why are you wearing long sleeves? It’s ninety degrees outside.”

  I glanced at my shirt and shrugged. “It was cool this morning.”

  “Did I leave a mark?”

  “No.” The sooner he moved past what had happened, the sooner he’d get back on the path to sobriety.

  A strained silence filled the space between us, and I watched his face slowly turn from remorse to frustration. “I don’t understand why you go in there,” he said, referring to the parlor, “when you know what it does to me.”

  “It won’t happen again.” But what I meant was, I won’t get caught again.

  He studied me for a moment as though trying to measure my sincerity, then from his wallet pulled out five twenties and pushed them across the table. “I know it’s not much, but you could probably use some new school clothes.”

  I stared at the money and nodded. “Thanks, Dad.”

  He stood and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Well, I need to give one of my customers a call.”

  “Cody stopped by on Sunday for his marmot,” I said, assuming that was the customer he needed to call. “I took him out to the barn and he found it. He said he’d already paid, so I let him take it.”

  He nodded, shame returning to his expression. “Thanks, Aria. I’ll give him a call to make sure he’s happy with it.”

  Dad went to the phone, and I folded the twenties and slid them in my back pocket, already knowing the money would go in my savings account and not toward my wardrobe. I didn’t own a car, a cell phone, or new clothes. But I had freedom money waiting for me. I’d accumulated a meager savings bussing tables over the summer,
and the moment I graduated high school—in less than nine months—Woodland Park, Colorado, would have one fewer resident. I didn’t know where I would go yet, but it didn’t really matter. Anywhere I could get a full-time job, a cheap apartment, and a thrift-store piano.

  Dad started dialing a number, and I grabbed my backpack and went upstairs to my room, not wanting to hear him lie to his customer about where he’d been all weekend.

  I sat on my bed and unzipped my backpack, then pulled out the Rachmaninoff book I’d picked up on my way home from school. I slid it inside my binder to use as a cover, then leaned against the wall and browsed the pieces. I found the most difficult one, with abundant sharps and flats, tightly stacked notes, and an array of dynamics. Determined to learn it, I took a pencil and began making fingering notations, all the while planning how I would avoid Thomas Ashby the next day.

  three

  The air was muggy the next morning as I pedaled away from the house, and a wing of ashen clouds was sweeping in, turning the mountains a gloomy lavender. Foreseeing rain, I pulled up the hood of my sweatshirt and tucked my hair down my back. By the time I got to the highway, it was drizzling.

  My bike tires cut through puddles on the roadside, forming little walls of water and splashing my sneakers. The smell of wet foliage and earth saturated the air, invigorating my senses.

  A distant rumble echoed through the trees, but it wasn’t thunder. It was an engine, loud enough to recognize from a mile away. Maybe Dad still felt bad about this weekend and was coming to offer me a ride to school. The roaring vehicle grew louder as it came up the highway behind me, and the engine’s pitch lowered as it decelerated.

  As I whipped around to see if it was Dad, my front wheel slipped off the wet pavement and into a rut. The next thing I knew, I was flying off my bike and crashing into the muddy gravel, my palms scraping across the sharp rocks. I cried out in pain and glanced back to see an old red Bronco pulling over. It wasn’t Dad. And it only took an instant to recognize the driver.