Dark Notes(30)
I close the door and make my way around the corner of the L-shaped room. Leaning a hip against the B?sendorfer grand piano, I wait for her to join me then rap my knuckles on the sleek black surface. “Four hours every day.”
An enormous grin overwhelms her beautiful mouth. “I won’t waste your time.”
“No, you won’t.” I could stare at her twenty-four hours a day and feel like the most productive pervert in the world. But if I don’t eradicate those thoughts from my head, our time together will be over before it begins. “Did you practice last night?”
“Of course.”
She doesn’t tense up, change her breathing, or convey vulnerability in any way. She’s telling the truth, which might explain her whereabouts last night.
“Where did you practice?” Realizing that implies I know she wasn’t home, I rephrase the question. “You own a piano?”
“Not anymore.” Her dark brown hair escapes the curve of her ear and falls over her shoulder. She gathers it at the bend of her neck and twists it into a rope down her chest. “My mom sold my dad’s piano after he died.”
My dad’s, not Daddy’s. I bite the inside of my cheek to hide my satisfaction.
“There’s a music store down the street from my house.” Facing me, she braces an elbow on the edge of the piano and mirrors my position. “The owner lets me practice on his Steinway until eleven every night.”
Which coincides with the time she came home. So why can’t I shake the feeling she’s leaving something out?
Because she’s not looking at me. She’s toying with the ends of her hair, and wherever her thoughts just drifted, she’s distracted to silence.
I touch a finger to her chin, lifting it to recapture her attention. “Time to finish our earlier conversation.”
Her lips thin.
“Who asked you for an inappropriate favor?”
She turns away and lowers onto the piano bench. “No lies?”
“I don’t mentor liars, Miss Westbrook.”
She nods, her expression grim. “The truth is, I need your help.” Her hands run over the keys without depressing them. “With this. Mastering the piano.” She stretches her fingers. “I’m the best pianist in this school, you know.”
“Is that right?”
She peers up at me through her lashes. “I may even be better than you.”
My stomach swoops in the presence of her tantalizing smile. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“You’re right.” She studies her fingers on the keys. “I have a lot to learn. But with the right teacher and enough focus, I’ll be out of here at the end of the year. Out of Treme. This is the most honesty I can give you, Mr. Marceaux.” She pulls her hands into her lap and stares up at me with pleading eyes. “If you focus on the other stuff in my life, the things not related to my talent, it will hurt my future. And if you involve social services, every opportunity I have here will be taken away.”
She’s all but admitting I won’t like what I find when I poke around in her affairs. I have no intention of involving social services, and she doesn’t need to know the extent to which I’m capable of investigating a person.
But I prefer to hear it from her. “Answer the question.”
“I can’t. Please.”
That’s all it takes. The seductive sound of her begging in one breathy syllable and she owns every nerve in my body. I want to hear that sound as she kneels to me, releases me from my pants, and guides me toward her mouth.
Get a grip, *.
It’s clear she won’t tell me who’s taking advantage of her, but I’ll find out.
“All right.” I flick a hand toward the piano. “Play for me.”
She adjusts the bench, slides off her tattered shoes, and positions her toes on the pedals. With her palms on her knees, she gives me her attention. “Baroque? Classical? Jazz?”
“Surprise me.”
Eyes on the keyboard, she steadies her breathing. A current of serenity seems to float through her as her posture loosens and her face softens. Then her hands lift, her head bows over the keys, and f*cking hell, her fingers fly. The concerto she chose is pure insanity, a high tempo complexity of too many notes. Balakirev’s Islamey is one of the most challenging cadenzas in the whole classical piano repertoire, and she plays it like an expert.
She’s a tornado of whipping wrists, violent fingers, and rocking hips. Her chin sways, head jerking on the hard-hitting beats, her expression a picture of intense focus. But my critical ear doesn’t miss the slips when she hits the chords with too much force, speeds up too fast, and plays all the sixteenth notes like eighth note triplets.
This is why I don’t play the piece. I mastered it in college, but it’s a goddamn nightmare. The difficulty and awkwardness in positioning the fingers, the left hand hopping over the right, and at the end of eight minutes, it leaves me drenched in sweat. Besides, I’m not a fan of classical interpretation, which is ironic since I hold a seat in the Louisiana Symphony Orchestra.
Despite Ivory’s minimal mistakes, she brilliantly manipulates the rhythmic flexibility within the measures while following the rubrics with her own artistic convictions. I find myself exhaling with her at the end of every phrase and bending closer as she falls on strong beats, completely mesmerized by the leap of her hands. She breathes life into the notes, beams, and bar lines, making it the best performance I’ve heard on this piece.