Virtuoso
January, 4th week
I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
She canceled her lesson two weeks in a row. It was unavoidable, since medical school interviews weren't really scheduled around the interviewees' convenience.
Those weeks seemed endless to him, leached of color and interest. He doubted she was getting even her usual six hours of sleep and wondered if she was keeping herself hydrated. Air travel was hell on the skin – he knew that better than anyone.
One night, he woke to a strange stillness in the air. He walked out of his bedroom and sat before the windows, watching the snow fall thickly to the ground. It was lighter outdoors than inside his apartment. When the black of the asphalt had been blanketed by the snow, he got up and walked over to the baby grand piano that Jaden had helped him muscle into the apartment. Quietly, he began to practice the accompaniment to the Bolling Sentimentale*, which he had assigned to Ami at the end of their last lesson. The first wistful notes flowed onto the air like sapphire drops spilled from fountains at midnight.
As he played, he thought back to the first time he had performed this piece in a recital. He had miscounted the beats during a long rest and come in too early, and the pianist had had to skip ahead to catch up to him. He thought of the awkward, skinny youth he had been, and what it had been like being one of only two male flute players in the band, the other of whom quit after two years. He thought of the hours of hard work it had taken to develop the proper embouchure, and how getting braces had nearly ended his budding career. He thought of all the sessions at the gym it had taken to strengthen his lungs and add enough and maintain the muscle on his wiry frame, and how it never stopped demanding everything he had to give and more.
Finally, he thought about his first teacher and later friend, who had been possessed of a shock of untidy white hair, long, elegant fingers, and an inexhaustible supply of patience. Eli was often on his mind now, particularly when he was thinking about how to teach his own students. Eli had been old even when Zak had first started taking lessons with him, but his face and playing had been surprisingly youthful. Eli's Sentimentale was perfect – sweetly lyrical and tender, but lively and whimsical at the same time. The name Zakary Atalo had since eclipsed that of Eli Helios, but he never forgot the debt he owed his mentor.
When the song was done, he closed the piano lid and rested his elbows on the stand, putting his head down. Before they could fall onto the scarred dark wood, he dashed the tears away.
The next day, Ami called to tell him that her interviews were over, and that she would be back for her next lesson.
* This is a really lovely piece for flute and jazz piano by Claude Bolling.