Page 16 of Broken Chords
Chapter Seven
Acciaccato:broken down, crushed; the sounding of the notes of a chord not quite simultaneously but from bottom to top
Damian
Charlie’s front door closes behind me with a soft click, and I find myself alone in the cool air of a September evening. It’s stayed warm for longer than normal around here, the days full of sunshine, but the nights are as chilly as usual. The cold light from the stars highlights the fact that I’m now cut off from Charlie and her warmth.
I blink at the door a few times, debating whether to knock and apologize and taking her up on her offer of coffee. Trying again to ineptly explain myself.
But she shut down.
She ran away when I said no to sex, and when she came back out she was a different person. Armored with that cold, brittle exterior. If I wasn’t paying attention, I might’ve thought she was fine. Hell, if I hadn’t seen her before she went in the bathroom, been part of what sent her running, I would have thought she was fine.
She wasn’t, though.
I let out a heavy breath and head to my car. Going back inside, even if she let me in, wouldn’t return me to her warmth. No, I was firmly shut out even before the door closed. And no amount of explanation on my part right now will make a difference, even as my body still thrums with what I could’ve had.
But we barely know each other. And I know myself well enough to know I’m not wired for casual sex. That I want something far more than casual.
So I get in my car and drive around for a while, needing to calm down and figure out what to do next before I head home. But when I get home I realize that it doesn’t matter what I’ve planned. I can’t do anything. I never thought to get Charlie’s phone number.
A week passes before I see Charlie again. And when I do, it’s from the audience in the recital hall. She’s on stage, sitting primly beside Cheryl, the staff accompanist, to turn pages during Katherine’s senior recital, one of the vocal majors.
After the recital ends, I linger in the lobby, eating cake and chatting with my friends, all the while keeping an eye out for Charlie. But I never see her. Did she escape while I wasn’t paying attention? Or is she still in the greenroom?
Twenty minutes later, the only people left in the lobby are Katherine’s parents, cleaning up the remains of the refreshments, packing up the leftovers to take home. And me. I stand awkwardly for a moment, still hoping that Charlie might appear. But she doesn’t. Maybe she’s waited in the greenroom this whole time so she doesn’t have to see me.
Frustrated, I head to a practice room. I’ve already practiced today, but with contests to prepare for and my own junior recital coming up in a few months, extra practice time won’t hurt.
But my brain is buzzing with all the things I want to say to Charlie. The frustration of missing my chance tonight. Is she going to avoid me forever?
I asked Lauren for Charlie’s number after class on Wednesday. She just eyeballed me, and said, “Oh, did she not give it to you? Hmm.”
I gritted my teeth and said, “No. I forgot to ask for it. But I need to talk to her.”
She stroked her chin, like she sometimes does, and said, “I’ll tell her you want to talk and see what she says.”
But Lauren didn’t bring it up again, either yesterday or today. I don’t know if that means she never said anything to Charlie, or if Charlie’s answer was no. From the way Charlie avoided me after the recital, I’m inclined to think her answer was no.
My practice session sucks. I can’t focus past all the questions running through my head. My scales are terrible and out of tune. Not even the challenge of the Bach cello suites can distract me.
After about half an hour, I give up. Packing up my cello, I haul it back downstairs to my instrument locker. And I make one more pass through the lobby. I don’t know why. It’s after ten. The only people around this time of night, especially on a Friday night, are weirdos like me in the practice rooms.
But when I do, the faint sound of a piano reaches me. I try the main door to the recital hall, but it’s locked. Still curious, I head toward the entrance to the greenroom that leads to the stage.
It’s cracked.
When I open it, the sound of the piano is even louder, and I recognize the slow sliding chords. The melancholy tinged with sweetness that drew my attention the first time I heard it a couple of weeks ago.
Peeking through the stage door, I see Charlie at the piano. She has the big stick out, holding up the lid on the nine foot Steinway in the middle of the stage. The dark brown quilted piano cover sits in a crumpled heap between the piano and the edge of the stage.
I lean against the door frame, quietly watching her. She’s completely absorbed by her playing, her whole body involved in pulling the sound from the piano. As I stand listening, the sweet quality leaves her music, and it becomes darker, angrier. Fewer major chords are in the mix, and she pounds on the piano, each attack jarring through her small frame.
Eventually, the chords gentle. Now just melancholy. And then they drift off. She’s a frozen tableau, her fingers still pressing down the keys as the sound fades away to nothing.
When she lifts her hands, she gently closes the keyboard cover, puts her elbows on top of it, and covers her face with her hands.
I straighten, concern shooting through me, and speak without thinking. “Are you okay?”
