“I was just asking if you play,” the clerk said, giving her a tentative smile. “You were touching that baby grand like you know your way around the keyboard.”
“Oh, I do,” Mia said. And then quickly added, “a little,” for modesty’s sake.
“Well, go on and try it out, why don’t you?” the clerk asked, her smile widening.
“Are you sure?” Mia asked uncertainly. “You…you really don’t mind? I mean, you don’t think it might disturb other customers?”
“What other customers?” The clerk gestured around the empty store. “It’s seven o’clock on a Tuesday night—it’s dead in here. To be honest, it’s almost always dead,” she added in an undertone, as though they might be overheard. “I don’t know how much longer this place is going to be open, but as long as it is, here I am. And here you are too—so why not play me something?”
She gestured at the baby grand and smiled in such an easy, friendly way that Mia found herself sitting down at the sleek instrument and settling her hands on the keyboard.
She warmed up first, with a little Fur Elise, playing the lovely old melody with ease. It had been the first piece of classical music her mother ever taught her and she still thought of her family back home in Texas whenever she played it.
“That’s beautiful,” the clerk said, smiling when Mia finished. “A classic. Can you play anything more complicated?”
“Oh, well…sure.” Mia shrugged and began playing some Chopin.
“Oh, Nocturne number nine!” the clerk sighed, smiling.
“You recognize it?” Mia asked, a bit taken aback. She had a deep and abiding love for classical music herself, but not many people in the small town she found herself in seemed to share her love. Hank certainly didn’t.
“Of course! But what else can you play? What about…wait—let me go get it!”
The clerk ran behind the counter and reached for her purse. She began digging in it until she pulled out a much-folded piece of paper. Actually, it was several pieces of paper, Mia saw when she unfolded them.
The clerk saw her watching and gave a little self-deprecating laugh.
“I know, I know—who carries sheet music around in their purse, right?” she said, coming over with the pages, which were densely printed with notes.
“Well…I do, actually,” Mia admitted. She opened her own brown, scuffed handbag and pulled out the piece she’d been working on, using the old upright piano her Granny had left her in her will as a wedding present.
Hank had bitched and complained to no end about having to load it on the moving truck and take it with them all the way to Florida, but in this one thing, Mia had asserted herself. She must have her piano, she told him—especially since he was moving her nearly a thousand miles from her family. He had given in at last, mostly after Mia’s stepfather had glared at him, and now it was set up in their modest little living room right in the front window where she could play it and watch the sky outside at the same time.
But as beloved as her little old piano was, it was nothing like the gleaming beauty in front of her. Mia had brought the music, stuffed secretly in her purse, in the hopes of getting to play it on an instrument that would do it justice. And the baby grand she was sitting at would do nicely, she thought.
The clerk burst out laughing when she saw Mia pull the sheet music from her purse.
“Oh my God—aren’t we just two birds of a feather!” she’d exclaimed. “Well go on—play yours first and then you can play mine.”
“Thank you.” The clerk’s laugh was infectious and Mia found herself laughing along even as she arranged the sheet music on the baby grand’s music stand. It was more Chopin—this time his Etude Opus 25 number 6, which was considerably more complicated than the earlier Nocturne but just as beautiful, Mia thought.
She took a deep breath and started to play, her fingers flying over the baby grand’s keys fast and then faster, hitting every note to perfection, just as she had practiced them. She had been right, she thought, this piano really did do the piece justice. It sounded gorgeous when rendered in the baby grand’s silky tones, so much different from the beloved but boxy upright Mia had back home.
When she finished, the clerk began applauding. Mia looked up in surprise, and saw that the other woman actually had tears in her eyes.
“Beautiful!” she exclaimed, smiling at Mia through her tears. “That was just beautiful.”
“Oh, well thank you.” Mia ducked her head in bashful acknowledgment. Her playing had never made anyone cry before—well, except for Mama, when Mia had gotten that scholarship…
No use in thinking about that now, she told herself. It’s over and done with. Some opportunities only come around once and you missed that one by a mile.