A dinner party
If I only could
I'd make a deal with God
And I'd get him to swap our places
-- Kate Bush, Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)
A distant sound, like the blinking of a lighthouse, cut through the darkness. It was muffled at first, a very small and non-descript noise, but as it grew louder, the sound became cleaner, sharper—a phone call. The darkness took the shape of a building, and zooming in, a window showed a phone buzzing on a corner table. A woman picked it up; her voice was soft, a quiet hello in the middle of the night. Strangely, though, her phone continued to ring. Why? He stirred, turning to lie on his side. Oh wait—this was real life; his phone. His phone. Barely awake, he reached blindly for the nightstand, fingers tapping on the wooden surface. When they found it, he brought his phone to his face, eyes opening slightly. “Yes?”
“Hello, Theodore. Is this a bad time?”
Oh my god. He jolted awake, eyes wide, a breath deep in his lungs. Even though his father couldn’t see him, he still moved up to a sitting position, legs swinging over the edge of his bed. His entire body operated on autopilot at the mere sound of his father’s voice. “Hey, dad. No, not at all; what’s up?”
Why was his dad fucking calling? What time was it, even? A quick glance at the watch on his nightstand allowed him to see it was 6:30. Damn, it was early; no wonder he felt like shit.
“Your mother and I would love to have you for dinner tonight. When was the last time you had duck? I’m leaving the office in fifteen minutes; I should be there by seven. Bring some spare clothes to spend the night. Is there anything you’d like to have for dessert?”
Henry spoke too fast; Theodore could barely keep up. He’d be going to his parents’ for dinner right now? What about Streisand’s and the girls? Laith…? He shut his eyes, focusing—okay. Okay. Streisand’s was off; they’d have to go without him. This wasn’t an invitation he could reject. Actually, none of his parents’ plans could be opted out of. If he thought about it, it was actually very nice of his dad to call ahead of time rather than simply show up at his door.
“Maybe some éclairs?”
“Excellent suggestion; she’ll be happy to hear it. See you in a bit.”
The line went silent. He breathed in deeply, back straightening up. He could do this—he had to. Just like last time, he knew his parents wanted to talk about something important, so he had to be prepared, one step ahead. What had he done? Everything. No, something specific—what did his dad know?
As soon as that question crossed his mind, he remembered the video. His blood curdled into ice, lungs ceasing to work. Oh my god, his dad knew everything. What was he going to say? His legs bounced, hands grabbing the edge of the mattress. Jesus Christ, what could he say? His father would have his head for that. Laith—holy shit, was Laith okay? Had he lost his job? Had the dogs hurt him again? Just as his hands began fidgeting with his phone, Theodore realized Laith’s shift hadn’t ended yet; he only got off around eight, so maybe his dad really was coming here straight from the office. Laith was safe—he could still turn this around. Not sure how, but he had time.
The next thirty minutes were spent in a surprisingly effective manner. On the inside, he panicked, but on the outside, he operated very calmly. Without wasting time, he took a shower, got ready, did his hair the way his mother liked it, packed a small bag and headed straight for the front door. The girls were all sitting at the dining table at this hour, but he couldn’t afford to sit around and go over what had happened at lunch, even though he really wanted to. Daisy—god, just looking at her made his blood boil, frustration rising in his chest. No, not now; they’d have to talk later. Fuck that—fuck her; he had a lot more to worry about. His life was about to change.
On the way out, he gave everyone the rundown—that he wouldn’t make it tonight, that they’d have to go without him and if they could please let Laith know. Concerned, they asked a million questions about that, what was happening, but all he said was that his father would be here in less than five minutes, so he had to go. That wasn’t a good explanation, of course; questions continued to fill the room, but all he could offer was a quick thanks before leaving.
***
His father’s black car rolled up to the curb at 7 sharp. Theodore got in with a breath stuck in his throat. The only thing on his mind was how he wished he could tell Laith about this, to reassure him that he was safe. It was all in his hands—he got this. He could do it just fine; he’d done it a million times before.
“Hey, dad.”
Henry passed him a brief smile. “How was school today?”
Right, the formalities. Of course, they had principles. If he had to guess, they’d keep this up all the way home, have dinner and then talk about it, just like last time. For now, he smiled and talked about classes, how today was a really good day. He didn’t say why—his father didn’t have to know—and anyway, Henry never asked.
They talked about accounting, then taxes, then law. It surprised him how much he could keep up with his father now, even if he didn’t understand absolutely everything; the basics were there. He’d never cared much about it—his professors made everything sound terribly boring—but speaking with his father of day-to-day occurrences, how real life applied those principles, he found himself interested. The tax part was especially intriguing; the government’s cut, the percentages and how some laws allowed offices to work around it. His father, a true libertarian, had very strong feelings about that, and the more he expressed those feelings, the more Theodore started to agree with him—why should the government take part of a company’s earnings? It didn’t really make sense. He’d have to ask Laith about it later.
When they arrived, he realized this wouldn’t be a private dinner. No, it was a big event; he could tell from the number of cars parked on the driveway and the valet at the door. Walking in, he saw dozens of people he didn’t know sipping on champagne while servers circled the room with appetizers—duck and éclairs. They’d made those fast. A guy in the foyer took his backpack and jacket. The moment he was gone, Theodore turned to his father. “I didn’t know I was supposed to dress up,” he whispered.
“You are dressed up; a suit isn’t necessary. Come and say hello to your mother.”
In the living room, he noticed the men weren’t wearing suits at all; some of them had button-up shirts on and some wore polos. It was the women, in their extremely fancy dresses, that had thrown him off. So he’d dressed for the occasion after all. It was strange to think about that in skinny jeans, but they didn’t have slashes across the knees, and anyway, everything else he had on had been hand-picked by his mother.
As soon as she saw him, a big smile broke out, arm spreading to motion at him. The drink in her hand explained the size of her smile, entirely genuine. They met up with a hug, tight yet impersonal, that didn’t leave him any warmer. When Laith hugged him, it was a completely different story; it seemed his life always split in two, how it’d been before that moment and what it’d turned into afterwards. This hug didn’t reach him below the surface, which was fine; he’d never expected it to.
Carolyn turned to some of her friends and introduced him. Since they were all about her age, he didn’t think there was an ulterior motive to this introduction; chances of her trying to set him up with a potential suitor here were low. He waved at the group and very politely let them know it was a pleasure.
“What a lovely haircut,” Carolyn commented. “So fresh. I’m assuming you didn’t go to my salon.”
“No, I went somewhere else. Your salon is far from my apartment.”
“Yes…” She sounded pensive. Her free hand touched the shaved portion of his hair. “For now,” she spoke with the ghost of a smile, almost there.
That obviously alluded to his Christmas present—he would’ve never forgotten about it. When he wasn’t thinking about Laith, he was thinking about the car, how the wind would feel in his hair, what California looked like in person. He didn’t think he’d actually run away anymore, but it’d still be nice to just drive off on a whim and spend some time unaccounted for.
“Oh, he is just precious,” one of Carolyn’s friends commented.
“A fine young man,” someone else added.
“He’d make a great match for Lucy.”
Lucy?
The woman who’d said that regarded him with beady eyes, made even smaller by her glasses, round frames attached to a short handle, as if she were stuck in the eighteenth century. She wasn’t even that old, about the same age as his mother; her style was just so retro that it gave her the appearance of being from an entirely different era.
“Is that your daughter?” he guessed.
“Yes, of course; I’m Debby Adams.”
She said that like he knew what it meant.
“I’ve told you about her, sweetheart; she’s the Literature major,” his mother cut in.
Oh, right… He had some vague memories about that. To be fair, that conversation had taken place outside of his sobriety; it wasn’t his fault if he didn’t remember all the details. He’d never have remembered Debby’s name, but he remembered the person his mother had been trying to get him to meet—Lucy, apparently.
“I thought I’d only meet her on New Year.”
He still had time, right? His heart skipped a beat, eyes quickly roaming the room. So far, out of everyone here, he was probably the youngest.
“And you will,” Carolyn confirmed. “She’s not here tonight.”
A very discreet breath left his lungs. Good.
“She will be delighted to meet you,” Debby commented. “She’s very shy, but you’ll see she has a heart of gold. You two…” She took a step back, glancing him up and down. “Oh, I can already picture it—how lovely you’d look together! She has her father’s beautiful black hair and my blue eyes… Oh, what a Hollywood couple you’d make. Your children would be the most perfect little things.”
“Can I see her?” He didn’t know why he’d just asked that. Everything Debby had just told him—apart from Lucy’s appearance—had utterly disgusted, and honestly, terrified him; asking to see her daughter would just humor her. Still, he was a little curious—what made everyone think they were so right for each other? This was the first time they’d even met him. The picture they had in their minds was of his mother’s son, the guy she’d told them about, not who he really was. Following that logic, then the version of Lucy they wanted to pair up with him also wasn’t the real her. These people were trying to put picture cut-outs together; how… literally delusional. It almost fascinated him.
His request put a delighted little smile on Debby’s face. She fished her phone out of her clutch, fidgeted with it for a minute and soon flipped it over to show a picture of her daughter, a profile picture from one of her social media accounts. Just as she had described, her daughter’s eyes were blue, but a much warmer hue than her mother’s. Similar to Theodore’s, actually. Her hair was dark and straight, curled at the very ends, carefully styled. She was very pretty, with a small nose and round lips; a perfect little doll. Was he a perfect little doll too? He tried picturing the two of them together, what a relationship with her would look like, but his brain simply couldn’t do it; he had no idea who she was. Was she nice, was she mean? Did she gossip about her friends, did she party on the weekend? What did her voice sound like? Was it low and smooth and would he want to hear it every day? Suddenly, Emily came to mind—her full, round lips and her low, melodic voice. He could hear that every day, but even then—even if they were together—he still didn’t think his parents would’ve liked it very much. His type was pretty out of the question.
“She’s pretty.”
That was all he could say about Lucy; it was all he knew. It wasn’t much, but it seemed just enough to kick off conversation with the circle. First, they talked about her, how well she was doing in college, how much she liked her job and how much fun she seemed to be having, making friends left and right. Her lifestyle sounded very suspicious, carefully crafted to elicit jealousy from the rest of the world. It begged the question if she was really doing so well or if Theodore was the problem—if he just sucked at the game of life. Thinking of his friends, he supposed they were all doing well too; half of them had jobs and the other half loved their majors. They saw each other often and partied all the time. Huh—maybe he was the only one that was just a huge mess. Even Laith had his shit together.
He really needed to get a grip. Last night had stabilized his rapidly deteriorating mental state, so now his brain was back to working properly, but overall, nothing had changed. He hadn’t taken any expressive steps forward; he didn’t even know where forward was or what it looked like. He could just settle into the life his parents had manufactured for him, sure, but he didn’t even know if he wanted that. Right now, he just kind of wanted to drive down the highway and feel the wind on his face. Then again, if he worked for his father, he’d be able to do that and more. He’d probably get his own place after college. Laith could come over any time and Theodore would be able to play music all night, songwriting without waking anyone up. He could be in his underwear and shower with the door open. He’d be a real adult with a job, a house and a car—now that sounded pretty appealing.
When a server came around with a platter full of champagne glasses, everyone swapped out their empty ones. He took the opportunity to grab a glass too, hyperaware of his mother right next to him. They’d never had this conversation; he wasn’t legally allowed to drink yet, and even though his parents drank at every social gathering they’d ever been to, they’d never offered him any. He watched her while taking the glass, almost timidly. Wrapped up in the topic, she didn’t notice it right away; her eyes only fell on his drink a moment later, pausing. She watched him sip—casually, of course; not the way Laith did—and surprisingly, didn’t say anything. They both drank in silence, eyes locked over the rim of their glasses. Something happened in that moment, an understanding, a shift in the fabric of the universe—he felt closer to her, more adult than before. She thought he was old enough to do that.
Their conversation didn’t stay on Lucy for long. Soon enough, the group took to asking him questions about his personal life; college, his friends, if he’d given any thought to getting a part-time job somewhere. It was an unexpected turn, and while he wasn’t too keen on talking about himself near his parents, this came as an opportunity to gather some insight on where to go from here. He had no idea what to do with his life; speculating could be helpful. He’d have to be smart about it, though, since Carolyn was right there.
He started off by telling them about college, his major, the classes he was taking and what kind of stuff he’d been learning about. One of the women, whose name he still didn’t know, commented on how similar he was to his father in that respect, which he decided not to clear up. Sure, yeah, he loved finance; who didn’t? It was a good career move. They all agreed on that. The other woman whose name he also didn’t know, a brunette, asked him if he’d be working in an office like his father, or if he preferred to work for a company instead. It was asked in earnest, so he told her the truth and said he didn’t know yet.
The bait worked perfectly—the women all started telling him about themselves and their husbands, how they’d started out in life and how their careers had taken off. To his surprise, two out of three had jobs, and even though Debby had retired at thirty-five, she’d only done it because she could afford to; she didn’t need the money. Their stories were all a little different, but fundamentally the same—they’d hopped from job to job until they’d found something they liked and were good at. They’d switched majors too; their parents could afford it. They all had a similar life to his, with plenty of opportunity for trial and error; Carolyn was the only outlier. She couldn’t speak to her own experiences, but still had a lot to say about it, especially how Theodore was free to learn and explore as much as he wanted to. While he knew that was true, it still didn’t strike him as a good thing. He didn’t trust her word to its full extent; only a certain amount of deviance could be tolerated.
Eventually, the topic changed from his major to his hobbies, if he saw his friends and what they were like. He couldn’t really talk about the latter, so he focused on his hobbies a little more, that he wrote music and played a couple of instruments. The women were delighted by that; they wanted to know all about it—what kind of music did he write, which instruments did he play and did he sing? No, he didn’t sing, but he wrote a lot of lyrics. Thankfully, they didn’t ask him to perform anything; they just wanted to know about his songs. Sappy stuff, he told them. That kinda thing. Big smiles broke onto their faces, hands touching their hearts—oh, he was so wonderful, so emotionally intelligent. He didn’t think that was true, but took the compliment with a wide grin anyway, chin held up. Someone thought he was emotionally intelligent—what a compliment! He told them he wrote about his feelings a lot, how things affected him and what he thought about them. For example, when classes had just started, he’d felt pretty lonely, without being able to make a single friend while everybody else seemed to have a very easy time with it. The women reassured him that making friends took time; he’d probably only really start getting along with people when group projects came about, and honestly, that kind of made sense.
His mother never mentioned Justin. Instead, she said Theodore would be surrounded by good people in no time. Fair enough; he was supposed to have cut contact with Justin anyway, so his former lack of friends—which the women thought was still current—made sense. In a roundabout way, he’d covered for himself without even thinking about it. He did have friends, though—his roommates. Ooh, did he have a crush on anyone? As soon as the brunette asked him that, he breathed in sharply. He should’ve seen it coming. God, should he just lie? Oh, but it’d break Debby’s heart. Wait, he didn’t actually like her daughter; he didn’t even know her. No, he wouldn’t lie, but he wouldn’t be completely truthful either. This was a social event, not a coming out party, so he said that yes, he did.
Carolyn’s eyes all but popped out of her skull, hand gripping his arm—really? Who was it? Their eyes met—he could only continue this in one of two ways, either lie and choose one of the girls to keep lying about, or say it was someone she didn’t know. If he said the latter, it could allude to the fact he hadn’t fully cut contact with Justin and the others. Should he risk it? Well, if he didn’t, then he’d find himself in the same position he’d been with Jessie before.
“She doesn’t like me back,” he prefaced, “and you don’t know her. We met at a party some time ago. She’s short and mean and really, really cool.”
Carolyn cocked her head aside. “When am I meeting your friends? You should invite them over for a little party sometime; I’ll let you take the living room. How old is she?”
“She’s eighteen,” he lied. “Jessie knows her ex-boyfriend.” There was so much wrong with what he’d just said that he wouldn’t even attempt to unpack it; leave it in the anecdotal graveyard.
“So you do have friends,” the third woman remarked. “It’s not so bad.”
“No, it’s not so bad; it just feels like I don’t sometimes, you know?”
She nodded solemnly.
“You’re still young and college’s barely started,” Debby added. “You still have a lot of people to meet, I promise.”
“Thanks, Debby.”
Despite the fact they barely knew each other, these women were actually really nice; he understood why his mother was friends with them. If he’d taken the time to talk to her friends in Jasmine Gardens, would he have liked them too? Would they have bonded like this? Granted they were his friends’ parents, so maybe not getting to know them very much had been for the best.
The whole group drank glass after glass, growing progressively drunker as the night went on. Topics shifted back and forth, moving from him to one of them, to somebody they knew, to their failed marriage, to their unsuspecting children and back to him in an endless loop of gossip intertwined with his personal life. It was incredibly addicting somehow, being in the middle of it, an integral part of something. He felt important.
While they told him of family members, friends and coworkers, he told them about the girls; that Hannah didn’t seem very interested in dating anyone right now, that Jessie was conflicted about a guy and Daisy was seeing Nadia. It slipped out, but his mother didn’t seem very affected by it; her nonchalance gave him the impression she hadn’t even heard it. Either that, or she already knew about it. If that was the case, then Daisy must’ve come out to her parents too. The other women weren’t shocked either; in fact, his comment prompted Debby to bring up her gay nephew, who was very dear to her and who she thought was hilarious. All in all, the reception was great. It almost allowed him to entertain the idea of saying it—almost.
He let the conversation take its course, skipping from the gay nephew to his boyfriend, to his mother, to her cheating husband—classic. They talked about that for a while, how they hadn’t been in love for years, but remained together for the kids. It was insane; that logic made absolutely no sense to him.
“I would’ve divorced him,” he blurted out, half-speaking into his glass. A delicate movement knocked back the rest of his drink.
“Of course you would,” the brunette rebutted. “You don’t have kids to speak of. Do you know how traumatic it’d be for them?”
“I’m more interested in how traumatic it’d be for me. I mean, does she at least cheat on him too?”
“Well…” The little smirk that cut through her face was all he needed to see. Oh, the drama was endless.
Before he could hear the end of that story, a hand touched his neck, holding his nape firmly—his dad was here. His earthy cologne reached Theodore a moment too late; he’d already figured him out, and if he were sober, he would’ve had a panic attack. As it was, he calmly placed his empty glass on a corner table, allowing his dad to step closer.
“Sorry to interrupt, girls, but if I may, I’d like to borrow him for a moment; I think he should speak to some of the men for a while.”
The women seemed pretty upset about that, but would never fight Henry over his son; they understood where he came from and allowed the disengagement.
“Sorry,” Theodore mumbled, “I guess the men want me.”
“Oh, you and my nephew would get along swimmingly.”
Debby’s comment pulled laughter from the group, successful at putting a smile on his face too.
“I wanna meet him sometime!” he almost shouted, already being dragged away by his father.
“No, you don’t,” Henry whispered. By then, they were far enough away that the women couldn’t hear them anymore.
He stumbled next to Henry, smiling still. “Oh, c’mon. That was pretty funny.”
“For a slobbery fool, perhaps.”
His smile faltered.
“Try to keep a level head, will you? These are people I respect, so don’t be an embarrassment. Albert, for one, is a businessman and I’d like for you to get acquainted.”
Heat rose to his cheeks, heart beating mutedly against his chest. If he weren’t so drunk, he would definitely have felt the intensity of it punch him in the ribs. “Okay,” he muttered. “Is that Lucy’s dad?”
“Yes. He’s a new client at the office; he has three companies in Oregon.”
Impressive.
The men in question stood a little ways away, closer to the entrance arch and the buffet table. Some of them were tall and some were short, but they all talked in loud, booming voices that traveled the room with ease. When the two approached, conversation halted for a moment, so Henry could introduce him to the rest, receiving a round of firm handshakes and polite nice to meet you’s.
Albert, specifically, was about as tall as his father; a big man in an expensive shirt with two buttons undone and fitted dress pants, not exactly fat, but not in-shape either. He was the kind of man who could easily kill Theodore, with arms as big as his face and large hands. His hair was dark and his eyes were muddy, somewhere between green and hazel, a color Theodore couldn’t identify. Where his father was all sharp lines and piercing edges, Albert was softer, with a big wide face and a thick neck. His handshake was the firmest—Theodore couldn’t help but notice the Rolex on his wrist. Strangely, he both disgusted Theodore, but also kind of piqued his interest, because if they’d met under different circumstances, Theodore would probably have gone for his face. Holding Albert’s hand, all he could think of was how thick his cock was and what it’d look like in his fist. When their eyes met again, he offered the man a smile, reciprocated by another, brief and tight, cold.
Albert wasn’t gay at all. In fact, the man probably hated him.
Conversation in this circle was very different; the men jumped between politics and economics, discussing new laws and the future of the country. Normally, Theodore wouldn’t care about any of that, but as the men talked, he found his attention getting pulled into it—how companies profited, what allowed them to survive, what made them thrive and how incompetent management drove businesses into the ground. Albert was a good businessman; he knew how to handle assets and optimize the workforce, whatever that meant. He visited his three companies on a rotational basis, traveling across the state every week. His mustache moved as he talked, carefully kept; chin and cheeks shaved to perfection. There was criticism and bickering as they discussed each other’s lines of work, but none of them spoke badly of Henry; he was the only one who got off scot-free, probably for being tonight’s host. He gave his fair share of criticism too, and while he was met with resistance, there was no retaliation, nothing about his work and how poorly he handled it.
Theodore’s deteriorating sobriety kept him from being able to follow the topic for too long. In time, he stopped processing what Albert said and watched his mouth instead, the way it moved, his flashing teeth. The air around him was rich with firewood and whiskey, a dangerous combination that brought a very specific image to Theodore’s mind—an office in a log cabin up on the mountains, wide with a high ceiling, big windows lining one of the walls and a fur rug by the fire. Albert was alone all week; he must find company somewhere—maybe on the rug, sometimes over his desk. It was all fair game.
No one asked Theodore anything; he was just kind of there the whole time, feeling his rib cage shake as the men talked. He wasn’t part of it. His eyes kept wandering to the girls’ corner, where his mother spoke with the others and eventually began circulating the room, talking to her other guests. His attention followed her quietly, watching the smile on her face and how easily she burst into laughter when she had a drink in her hand. His parents got drunk pretty much every weekend, so this wasn’t a big surprise. In fact, he kind of preferred it when they drank; they were easier to get along with that way.
Carolyn eventually came over to this corner and stopped right next to him, hand touching his hair. He smiled at her, lost in the curls of her hair and the depth of her eyes, how beautifully they shone under the light, seafoam green. He loved her so much his heart could burst at any moment, chest big with a breath, warm and full. A hand touched the folds of her dress and grabbed them, the same way he used to do when he was small—he’d missed her so much.
“Mom…” he trailed off, unsure what to say. Being in her presence was already enough.
“Why don’t you play us a song?” she suggested. “I left your folder on the piano.”
He frowned a bit. “I haven’t played in a long time.”
“It’s only been a couple of months, Theodore; don’t be dramatic. Show our guests how talented you are.”
The scowl on his forehead deepened—could he even do this? He was so drunk. Plus, the pieces his parents usually requested were very intricate and required at least some practice beforehand. It really felt like, even though he’d quit piano lessons in middle school, he’d never actually quit the piano itself; having guests over every weekend had forced him to keep playing it.
“Mozart?”
“Sure, how about the Turkish March?”
“I don’t think I can do the Turkish March right now.”
“Sonata number sixteen, then. You’ve played that one multiple times.”
“I could probably do twenty-one in C major…”
“That’s for children, Theodore; half the room could play it. Do sixteen, at least.”
“Can I start with twenty-one and then do sixteen?”
Carolyn’s features softened, lips quirking into an almost-smile. “Alright, then; give us a beautiful spectacle.”
He breathed in deeply—god, why? They didn’t have to do this every time. If he knew there would be people here, he would at least have brought his guitar, goddammit. He squeezed his eyes really hard, eyebrows drawn together—fine, whatever. Whatever. His mother liked it, so he’d do it for her. That was what he always told himself.
Carolyn walked him to the piano, and as they approached it, a heavy sense of dread fell over him. He stopped by the bench—the last time he’d actually played was after the hospital, in music school; what he’d had at home was a keyboard. Something came up his throat, lips trembling. In his peripherals, Carolyn took the folder and opened it on the correct page; if the pieces were long, she usually turned the pages for him. She’d been there since the beginning, so supportive of his musical pursuit that she’d even learned theory to help him with the lessons. She couldn’t play, but she knew exactly how each piece should sound. Mechanically, his legs bent and his body sat on the bench, as if a robot controlled it while he screamed.
Staring at the sheet, all he saw were dancing notes and moving lines. Oh god, it was much worse than he’d thought. He squinted, leaning closer to make the first few notes clear up. Okay, his hands went here and there, like this. As soon as he pressed down on the keys, he remembered how to play this one; muscle memory executed the first passage just fine. It started out pretty easy, anyway; his left hand had a bit more action in the beginning, while his right only played a few notes and then overlapped the other one for a couple of keys at the far left. Then, his right hand picked up a little bit, and around the middle of the song, both had about the same number of notes to play. It helped that this particular piece had a few pauses during the first half, so he had time to focus on the sheet and read what to do next. Overall, he skipped a few notes, but it sounded okay. Still, he decided against checking his mother’s face to gauge his performance.
Sonata number sixteen was the one that screwed everything up. Its difficulty, coupled with his lack of practice in the last few months brewed a disaster. It started out shaky but doable, a false sense of security; he even managed to nail the scale, which he thought would’ve given him trouble. No, it was when the left hand picked up very quickly and very suddenly that he lost it all—less than thirty seconds in. Instinctively, he froze up; his hands paused over the keys, eyes staring blankly at the sheet. The mistake transported him back to middle school, practicing with Carolyn at home. He glanced up at her without a word in his mouth, feeling his heart punch him in the throat. What he found were green eyes glancing around the room, surely for the reaction of the crowd. The murmur of regular chatter told him they weren’t particularly focused on his music. When Carolyn realized that, she glanced down at him and told him to start over. Nodding, he placed his hands down and complied.
Calling the whole thing excruciating was an understatement. Once he got past that one initial mistake, the piece hopped between difficult and complex, taking up his entire processing capacity, brain-dead. It required a much faster tempo than number twenty-one, hands jumping up and down the scale—he couldn’t do it. The lethargy with which he was able to comprehend the sheet affected how quickly he could move his hands; in the end, he’d only managed to get through it by slowing it down. Even then, when he got near the middle, he still fucked up massively again. This time, his hands dropped to his lap, eyes glancing up at his mother.
“Mom—”
“Finish it,” she whispered.
He hesitated. A lump formed in his throat and his eyes threatened to water, but he still complied, placing his hands back on the keys. Smartly, and because he could no longer stand it, he skipped past the middle section straight to the end, which had a similar melodic passage to the beginning. He’d picked that one up by now and could play a variation without much trouble.
As soon as the piece was done, he got up and made to leave, but a hand quickly found the back of his shirt and held him there. He turned around to look at his mother, lips parting with a protest. Before he could get a word in, she told him to bow. Obediently, he did, prompting the room to applaud. They must be drunker than he’d thought; no one in their sane mind would’ve applauded the dumpster fire he’d just performed.
The moment Carolyn’s hand left his shirt, he bolted out of the room. His lack of knowledge regarding the floorplan of the new house made it far more difficult to find a bathroom than it should be, so he just hid in the first room available and locked the door. It happened to be a kind of study with bookshelves on the wall, a couch and a desk. It was too dark to see much more than that and he didn’t care to turn the lights on either; he leaned against the door, covered his face with both hands and breathed.
The heels of his palms pressed into his eyes, squeezing the tears out—it was fine. It was fine. He was a huge fucking embarrassment and his mother would have his head, but it was fine. A sob came up his throat, followed by a hiccup. Why was he like this? Why couldn’t he do anything right? He groaned his frustration out, hands closed into fists—fuck. They rubbed at his eyes, eyebrows drawn into a scowl—goddammit! God fucking dammit! His feet moved, turning him around; when the door came back into view, he slammed it. His fists leaned on the surface, forehead following suit. Another slam, weaker than before, barely made a sound. His throat hurt.
Comments