“So? He’s not going to get a teacher who’s better than me.” I wink. “By the way, where are they? I thought you said they were crying.”
“They actually just fell asleep a minute ago. And I’m letting them nap like a wise parent. Nelly’s with them upstairs.”
“Smart.” Ivy deserves a break, and I can always see the twins later.
We head toward the piano room. It’s one of the largest rooms in the mansion, and Ivy and Tony like to have the twins there. Soft rugs cover the hard marble floor, and the sharp edges of furniture are covered with rounded rubber.
There’s a wooden lattice partition around the piano. Translucent rice paper covers the lattice. I look at it questioningly. “What’s that for?”
“We got it so that when the kids are old enough to start crawling and moving around on their own, they don’t go to the Bösendorfer and hurt themselves. I can’t really encase the thing in rubber.”
“Yeah, that’d ruin the finish.” And if she left it on, it’d ruin the sound quality. A Bösendorfer Imperial deserves better. “But it looks so flimsy. Don’t you think they’ll just…push it over?”
“Tony set it up, so I doubt it.”
It looks like they can also go around it, but I keep that to myself. Tony will have thought of everything. He’s paranoid about Ivy’s safety, and that’s bled over into the twins’ safety as well.
A very adult-sized shadow moves behind the partition. I take a step back, spreading my arms out like a shield before Ivy. “Somebody’s there,” I whisper, jerking my chin.
Ivy smiles. “It’s just a friend of Tony’s who wants to check out my Bösendorfer. He’s thinking about buying one for himself someday.”
“Oh.” He’s going to have to save for a long, long time or win a lottery. The piano is more expensive than most cars.
“He says he wants to play a Chopin waltz on it,” Ivy adds.
Doesn’t sound like somebody with a ton of training, because most trained pianists have bigger ambitions than a waltz if they invest in an instrument as impressive as Bösendorfer Imperial. Like one of Liszt’s Transcendental Études. Or Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, which even the composer himself couldn’t play properly.
“Good luck to him,” I murmur.
“He’s going to play it right now, actually. Why don’t you sit and see what you think? He asked me to critique him, but you know me and Chopin. I’m too biased.”
True. Ivy only likes Kissin or Pollini for her Chopin. And it would be incredibly unfair to compare Tony’s friend to two of the best concert pianists in the world.
I nod. “Sure. Why not?”
She pulls me down onto a loveseat, and we sit. As though that’s his cue, the man behind the partition starts playing Chopin’s waltz in A minor. The familiar, delicate melody resonates through the room. He messes up the twenty-first measure, where he needs to play five notes to the second beat. The first three notes are too fast, and the last two a little slow. I glance at Ivy, but she’s staring resolutely ahead.
But he does really well on every other part of the piece. And he has a sensitive touch. I smile when the waltz ends.
“How long has he been working on this?” I ask.
“He’s only been playing for…I don’t know.” Ivy shrugs. “A few weeks?”
“Really? That’s all?”
“He had some lessons when he was a kid, I think, but yeah. What do you think?” She sets her features in an impassive expression.
She wants me to make my own judgment without any external influence. But of course I won’t let anybody’s opinion color my own when it comes to music. Not even Ivy.
“Well…” I gather my thoughts. Ivy’s watching me closely, and I almost laugh. If she wants my verdict that badly for the friend behind the screen, I’ll give it to her.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Declan
My heart races, pounding like a furious drum, as I wait for Yuna’s verdict.
Say you love it, say you love it.