Justin Kramon Read online

  “I thought it was you,” he said when she got back up to the top of the hill. “I’m so glad you came today. I was worried all yesterday that you were going to come and I wasn’t going to be there.” His cheeks were flushed. “On Mondays my dad travels for lessons, and I usually go with him after school.”

  Finny was about to tell him she did come yesterday, how she felt when she saw he wasn’t there. She could have told Earl that. But instead she said, “You’re lucky I didn’t.”

  Earl smiled. He had a way, she’d learn, of softening under her pressure, offering up his belly the way a puppy would. When she kidded him or spoke sharply, he just laughed and went on. He seemed to trust in her good intentions. When Finny teased her mother, Laura puckered up her mouth like she’d eaten something sour. But here was this funny little half-man, the best audience she’d ever had.

  “You wanna see my house?” Earl said.

  “Sure,” Finny said.

  When they got close to the house, Finny could hear the piano music. She didn’t recognize the piece, but she knew it was beautiful. Or thought it was. Something about the way it swirled and tumbled at you. She understood that her feelings about Earl might have influenced her reaction to the music. But she still allowed herself to believe this was the most beautiful music she’d ever heard. Much later, when she and Earl had to be apart for some time, she would go to a library and try to find the piece in their music collection. It was a sentimental gesture, but she knew that no one would ask her why she was doing it. She didn’t know anything about classical music or composers. She listened to dozens of albums. She tried to describe the piece to the music librarian: “It’s this cascade of notes. All piano. Just really full and happy, but with an edge of something sad.” And then she realized she was describing her own feelings, and stopped.

  Now, though, she asked Earl, “Is your dad giving a lesson?” She hadn’t seen another car.

  “He’s just practicing,” Earl said.

  When Earl opened the door, the piano immediately went quiet. The instrument was enormous, probably eight or nine feet long, and it took up half the living room. It was kept against the shadowy wall opposite where Finny stood. In fact, the whole house was shadowy. Only a couple of little peephole windows punctured the wall to her right, and then one window in each of the two bedrooms, the doors of which were open. The house was decorated in dark colors, a brown and gold rug on the floor of the living room, beige shades, wood on the walls and floor, giving the place the look of a cabin. The light was dim, too, flickery like candlelight. In the kitchen there was a stove with some pots stacked on it, and the sink was full of dirty dishes. (It’s a sad but true fact that guests to your home will lose their appetites if they see a sink full of dishes, Finny’s mother once told her.) There was another door that presumably led to a bathroom. And that was the whole house.

  “Dad?” Earl said.

  “Yes,” the man sitting at the piano said.

  “I have a guest.”

  “No,” Finny said, “don’t stop because of m—”

  But the man was already turning around. He was a short man, and when he sat up fully on the piano bench, facing Finny as he did now, his feet dangled just off the ground. (In order to play, he’d had to sit on the very edge of the bench.) He had a paunch, and the top half of his body was shaped like a summer squash. He’d combed a flap of wispy walnut-colored hair over his astoundingly pale scalp. His head was round as a basketball, and his lips pouted a little when he closed them, so that he seemed to have an expression of mock-seriousness or concentration on his face.

  “Menalcus Henckel,” he said to Finny, and at first she thought he was casting a spell on her, the words sounded so crazy. His voice was high like Earl’s, though not as gentle. He had a touch more impatience in him. After he spoke, he did an odd thing with the corners of his mouth, moving them up and down, like he was switching between a smile and a frown.

  Finny realized he had said his name, so she said, “Finny.”

  She stood there, then, for maybe five seconds, in absolute silence, until Earl said, “We met outside up there.” He pointed in the direction of the hill above his house. “Finny lives in the neighborhood.”

  “Very good,” Mr. Henckel said, like he was commenting on a piano exercise Earl had just finished, and then he performed three of his smile-frowns.

  “So, Dad, we’re going to spend some time here, okay? You can just go on practicing if you want.”

  “Actually, I’d love that,” Finny said.

  Finny had trouble seeing Mr. Henckel in the dim light, but it looked like he was nodding. It also looked like he had his eyes closed. He was very still. And then all of a sudden his mouth dropped open.

  “Earl?” Finny said. “Is your dad okay?”

  “Yeah. You just need to give him one minute,” Earl said. “Let’s sit down and wait for him.”

  They sat in the beige-cushioned chairs across from the piano in the living room. Mr. Henckel was slumped over on the piano bench. His flap of hair had come loose and was dangling over his ear. He breathed noisily, the air whistling in his nose.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Earl said, and Finny knew he was talking about his father.

  “I’m having fun,” she said. Because she was. Entering into this family’s house was exciting for her, like peeping in the windows of a place she was told never to look. She’d been to other girls’ houses before, but they were always so neat, and everyone was so polite, and she could nearly hear Laura saying I told you so in the background. The friendships never stuck.

  All of a sudden Mr. Henckel made a loud snorting sound. Finny let out a little yelp, but clapped her hand over her mouth in time to stop herself from making too much noise.

  “So sorry, my dear,” Mr. Henckel muttered when he was awake, his hand darting to smooth the flap of hair back over his scalp. “You have to understand,” he told her in an almost pleading way, “it just comes upon me.”

  She was delighted that Mr. Henckel had called her “my dear.” She said it was fine, that she needed a rest, too.

  “Thank you for being so kind,” he said with four smile-frowns. “A lovely young lady.” She loved his formal way of speaking, calling her “my dear” or “young lady.”

  “My dad was a professional piano player a while ago,” Earl said. “He played one time at Carnegie Hall.”

  “Not a soloist, mind you,” Mr. Henckel said, correcting his son. “Just a kind of exhibition.”

  “And he was once in the Tchaikovsky competition,” Earl said.

  “And that, my dear, was very sadly the end of it all,” Mr. Henckel reported.

  “Why?” Finny asked. It sounded like he wanted to talk about it.

  “I fell asleep,” Mr. Henckel said. “During a rest in the piece. I couldn’t help myself. It just comes upon me.” Finny noticed his forehead shining. He took out a handkerchief and swiped at his brow. It turned out Mr. Henckel always sweated when he talked about himself.

  “The judges didn’t know what to do,” he went on. “They thought I was in a very deep concentration. But then it just kept going and going. It was the first time it had happened in the history of the competition. After thirty seconds, they realized I was asleep and disqualified me. A pity. They said my performance was top-notch until then.”

  “I’m sorry,” Finny said.

  “Very kind, my dear,” Mr. Henckel said, and concluded his story with a smile-frown.

  He then offered everyone coffee. It was his favorite drink, and he dosed himself with it constantly. His breath smelled strongly of coffee, and he treated the drink as if it were some vital drug.

  “I sleep better when I have a cup before bed,” he confided at the kitchen table, where they sat next to the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Mr. Henckel mopped at his forehead with the yellowed handkerchief, which Finny was afraid might touch her, so she scooted back.

  Earl served the coffee out of a silver pot, into white china cups. Despite the indi
fferent housekeeping, there were these odd flourishes in the house—a fancy coffee set, a piano that must have cost a fortune, some antique-looking furniture.

  “My mother’s,” Mr. Henckel said about the coffee set.

  “It’s very nice,” Finny said.

  “I have decaf normally,” Earl said. “But since it’s a special occasion.”

  “I’ve never drunk coffee before,” Finny said.

  Mr. Henckel raised his cup and proposed a toast. “To our lovely young lady friend,” he said. And then seemed unable to help going on: “Who has every bright prospect in front of her, and appears more than wise enough not to squander them in the manner of some of her elders.”

  They all clinked cups and drank. Finny nearly spit her first mouthful out, the taste was so bitter. But she swallowed it down, then asked if she could have some sugar.

  “Of course,” Mr. Henckel said, and brought out a little silver dish of sugar from the cabinet, and a silver pitcher of cream from the refrigerator. “Forgive my rudeness, my dear.” He offered a smile-frown with his apology.

  “It’s fine,” Finny said. “My mom says I act like I live in a barnyard.”

  “Well, you live next to one,” Earl said, and Finny laughed.

  “May I ask what distinguished family you come from?” Mr. Henckel asked.

  “The Shorts,” Finny said. “But I’m not sure they’re distinguished. My dad quotes a lot of famous people.”

  “So he is a man who knows history.”

  “I guess.”

  “Finny has an older brother,” Earl said.

  “And what is this young fellow’s name?”

  “Sylvan.”

  “Perhaps you could bring him by one afternoon, and we could increase our eminent party by one.”

  “Maybe,” Finny said. Though she knew what her brother would say about her new friends. Misfits. It was a word he’d picked up from Stanley, and he used it to describe anyone he didn’t approve of. But Finny had grown to like the word, and thought it was a pretty good description of how she saw herself. As someone who just didn’t fit. A square peg in a world of round holes. Earl and his father were the same.

  “I’d like to meet Sylvan sometime,” Earl said, his cheeks glowing a little, “but it doesn’t have to be soon.”

  “Okay,” Finny said.

  Mr. Henckel had fallen asleep again. Finny heard his breath whistling in his nose.

  “It’s usually not this bad,” Earl said about his dad. “I think he just got excited that you were over and it made him tired. I think he likes you. You’re very nice and interesting to talk to.”

  “Thank you.”

  Earl had a way, Finny saw, of building up the people around him. He’d done it before with his dad, when he’d talked about his piano playing, and now he’d turned his attention to Finny. It was a way of making people feel accomplished and important, and they immediately became comfortable in his presence.

  “I think I should go soon,” Finny said, as she watched Mr. Henckel’s comb-over flop back down over his ear. “But I wanted to say bye to your dad.”

  “It’s okay,” Earl said. “I’ll tell him. But you’ll definitely come back, right?”

  “Of course,” Finny said. She hesitated. “But I was thinking. My parents might not like it if I’m coming over too much.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s just how they are. They have to approve everything. But maybe there’s a way I can get over more.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  She told him her idea. It was as bold as she’d ever been with a boy, but something about Earl made her that way.

  When she was done, Earl said, “It sounds great.”

  Back at home Finny felt jittery from the coffee, and from the excitement of her afternoon, the plan she and Earl had hatched.

  “Where were you?” Laura asked her.

  “Just walking,” Finny said.

  Chapter3

  Lessons

  Stanley loved Bach. He’d been to the Tanglewood festival once and heard the Mass in B-Minor in a church, and since then he’d thought Bach was the greatest composer who ever lived. He had Bach records lined up in his study, a poster of the first page of the cello suites on his wall, and he talked about Glenn Gould, the Bach pianist, like he was a family friend. “Gould is tough,” he would say whenever the subject came up. “You have to take time to get to know him.” Sometimes he would play a brief recording for Sylvan and Finny, and they would have to sit there and pretend they were listening. Stanley would do a little conducting as the record played, working himself up feverishly in the crescendos. When the recording was done, Stanley would say “Bach” and nod.

  He’d wanted Sylvan and Finny to be musical. They’d obliged by joining chorus. But Finny hated singing. She thought her voice sounded like a creaky gate, and her high notes were enough to make Raskal whimper. She hated being stuck up there, in the white turtleneck and black slacks they made them wear, howling out her part. The boy next to her used to stick his finger in his ear on the side Finny was on. “Am I that awful?” she asked him. “It helps me hear myself,” he said.

  “I was wondering if maybe I could take piano lessons,” Finny said to her father at dinner on the evening she’d visited Earl’s house.

  “Of course,” Stanley said, and she thought she saw his mouth tremble with pleasure. Sylvan stopped eating.

  “If you practice enough,” Stanley said, “you might be able to play the Well-Tempered Clavier. Or at least the Inventions.”

  “That would be great,” Finny said.

  “Maybe the Goldberg Variations!”

  “There’s a teacher I heard was pretty good. He actually lives near here.”

  Sylvan was watching Finny, a little crease denting the skin between his eyes.

  “How did you hear about him?” Stanley said.

  “Through some people at school. He was in the Tchaikovsky competition.”

  “Tchaikovsky,” Stanley said.

  “I think he charges very reasonable prices, too.”

  “Money is no issue in art,” Stanley said.

  “It would be lovely if you learned to play a little for guests,” Laura said. “There is nothing in the world a party guest enjoys more than a recital.”

  “Are there any more potatoes?” Sylvan asked. He was shaking his head at Finny, like she had suddenly decided to perform a jig on top of the dining room table.

  “‘I don’t like to think much about my playing,’” Stanley began. “‘It would be like a centipede considering in which order to move its legs.’”

  Nobody knew quite what to make of this, and they all just watched Stanley. In the silence, Raskal let out a small fart.

  “Gould,” Stanley finally said, and for some reason this seemed to settle the matter.

  So Finny began a routine of piano lessons. She went to Mr. Henckel’s house twice a week because, she told Stanley, she needed to get a good grounding. The lessons were supposed to be an hour, though with all they had to cover, they often lasted longer than that.

  Usually the lessons began with a nap. Maybe five minutes or so. Finny sat at attention on the piano bench, and listened to Mr. Henckel breathe. Sometimes he snored. He had a deviated septum, he’d confided to Finny with a large number of smile-frowns. “It’s very unpleasant,” he’d told her, “but of course we all must accept the fates we are dealt.” He’d always come awake from his nap with a giant snort, and if Finny wasn’t ready for it, the shock of it might knock her off the piano bench. “Whoa!” Finny said when he did it. Sometimes she clapped. Then Mr. Henckel’s hand would dart to his head to fix his comb-over, and he would say, “So sorry, my dear. It just comes upon me.”

  After this part of the lesson was done, there was usually a period in which Mr. Henckel told a story about his past. This was Finny’s favorite part of the lesson. The stories Mr. Henckel told usually centered on some embarrassing revelation about himself. In the first few weeks of lessons,
Finny had already learned that Mr. Henckel had been born to a very wealthy family in Massachusetts, but was effectively disinherited when his parents learned that he was responsible for “the offspring of a nontraditional pairing,” as he’d put it. She’d also been informed that Mr. Henckel sometimes “salivated excessively” while he slept, and that he could never drive anywhere without Earl because if he fell asleep at the wheel, Earl would have to take control of the car and steer it to a safe resting spot—something Earl had become expert at doing. Mr. Henckel sweated so copiously when he told his stories that he had to continuously mop his face with the yellow handkerchief, and sometimes still a droplet would escape and roll down his cheek, fall to the floor. “So kind of you to listen, my dear,” he told Finny, though she could never say that she really had a choice. Mr. Henckel seemed compelled to confess.

  After the story portion of the lesson it was usually time for Finny to play what she’d practiced since the previous lesson on her family’s upright Yamaha piano. Her father always said that their little piano had “good tone,” but it was nothing compared to the way Mr. Henckel’s grand piano reverberated in the tiny space of his house. It was magnificent, the sound of it. Yet it was like a magnifying glass on Finny’s technique, blowing up the tiniest faults until they were mammoth. Finny was not a good player. She knew it. She crossed her fingers and bungled melodies, missing notes or hitting two at once. Earl usually stayed in his room with the door closed, mercifully, during her lessons. Finny had a terrible time counting out rhythms, too. Nothing sounded the way it did when Mr. Henckel played it, and Finny had an uncanny ability to get a ragtime beat into any piece. She could make the Moonlight Sonata sound like a Scott Joplin composition.

  When she was done, though, Mr. Henckel would say things like, “Very fine work, my dear. Just a little practice. That’s all it takes. A little practice and you’ll be performing Shostakovich at Carnegie Hall. It is not hard to ascend in life with the proper discipline.”

  Finny thanked him for his kindness and gave him the check Stanley had written for thirty dollars. “A pittance,” Stanley always said about Mr. Henckel’s fee, which Finny suspected had been lowered for her.