Porcelain Keys (20 page)

“Karina passed away,” Nathaniel answered for me.

Margo gasped and placed a ring-covered hand to her heart. “Oh,
quelle tragedie
. I’m so sorry.” She cupped my cheek in her palm. “Well, if you’re half as good as your mother, you’ll have no problem getting in.” She patted my cheek lightly. “Good luck,
ma chérie
. We’ll see you in the audition room.”

“See,” Nathaniel whispered as she walked away, “you already have an advantage. Knowing even one judge removes you from the crowd of nameless faces.”

It was then that I noticed the hallways lined with other Juilliard candidates. They were poring over sheet music, fine-tuning violins, listening to iPods while playing along on air-instruments. Seeing all the competition should have made me nervous, but instead, I remained calm. I wasn’t thinking about impressing the judges. I was thinking about Mom and Thomas and Elsie and Hal. I wasn’t auditioning; I was playing a tribute to the people I’d loved and lost, and for the boy who held my heart thousands of miles away. Maybe if I played well enough, they’d somehow be able to hear me.

When it was my turn, I walked into the audition room. A Steinway grand piano sat on one end of the room, and four judges with pens in hand sat at a long table on the other. My shoes tapped across the wood floor as I approached the piano, and one of the judges coughed, nicking the silence.

“Start with your choice,” Margo instructed as I sat on the padded piano bench.

I took a moment to clear my mind, then I placed my hands on the keys and began with Schubert’s
4
Impromptus
. As the delicate strains enveloped the room, images of Thomas played through my mind like scenes from a movie.

His warm hand folding over mine in the cold rain, his blue eyes beckoning to me. The beautiful contours of his face, traced by the light of the stars. His fiery lips pressing softly against mine, making the cold autumn feel like summer. His hands slowly, meticulously moving colors around a canvas, creating beauty in the wake of his strokes.

My feelings for him could not be expressed in words, but the music gave voice to my heart. I imagined how it would feel to be in his arms again, to see him standing on my doorstep in June, to drive to New York with him and never have to be separated from him again.

I knew all too well the torment of separation, and as I played Bach and Chopin, drawing ripples and swells of song from the piano, I thought about Mom. She had auditioned like me in this very room, possibly at this very piano. Her hands had graced these keys and her music had pierced these walls. My heart ached for her, and my spirit wept at the sting of her absence.

With one more piece to go, I struck the dramatic opening fanfare of Beethoven’s
Sonata No. 23 in F Minor.
As I did so, an unexpected fury flared up inside me and unwelcome memories sprayed into my mind like gasoline on a fire. The desperate look in Mom’s eyes as she lay on a hospital bed. Her yellow-tinted skin and the coldness of her hand as I’d held it for the last time. The word
Mother
engraved on a new tombstone, and Dad’s warm hand on my shoulder. A hand that had grown cold and hard in the weeks that followed.

Every tear I’d cried in the last six years seemed to burn again in my throat, and each slap I’d received at Dad’s hand stung anew on my skin. I forged away at the keys as though striking the things I couldn’t put names or faces to. For the chains Dad had bound me with, for death and its merciless sting, for life and its indiscriminate unfairness.

Nathaniel’s words from months earlier came back to me.
You need to cut yourself open and hand over your heart.
I felt the blade puncture my skin, felt blood exiting my veins along with the notes I played. They sounded like indignant flames licking the walls, consuming, destroying, fueled by my despair and rage. But the music wasn’t enough. Despite the fast tempo, it was like being forced to walk when my body wanted to run. My fingers were already sprinting across the keys in a blur, but there were not enough notes to contain my anger, and it consumed the room beyond the piano. As I played the final abrupt chord, the remnants of Dad’s chains shattered from my wrists like porcelain, and I bit down on my lip to smother a sob.

The room remained silent until Margo began clapping and blubbering something in French. I swiped at my tears and stood to face the judges.

Three of them had their eyes down, their pencils scribbling furiously across their papers. Margo was standing, fanning her face with her fingers, still exclaiming words I didn’t understand. “
Magnifique
!” she exclaimed. “
Comme ta mère
!” The other judges glanced at her with bored or annoyed expressions, and one of the judges looked at me and said flatly, “Thank you, Miss Kinsley. You’ll receive a letter within four weeks. Please don’t call. Just wait for your letter.”

I nodded and walked out, and Nathaniel greeted me with open arms. He wrapped his arms around me and I shed a few more tears. Then he stepped back, put his hands on my shoulders, and looked in my eyes. “You did it, Aria. You did it.”

I
 
sat on a
padded wicker chair on Nathaniel’s back patio, soaking in the warm rays of early spring. It was the first week of April, and snow crocuses pushed through the scattered remnants of snow on the lawn. Purple, yellow, and white. Their bright petals hinted at the promise of warmer days and sunshine, holding so much hope in such tiny packages. Hope that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to feel.

Three months. Thirteen weeks. Ninety-one days without a phone call, a letter, or a knock on the door. I tried to imagine where Thomas was, tried to come up with excuses as to why he hadn’t called, but they all left me feeling frustrated and delusional.

I heard the sliding glass door open behind me, and I twisted around to see Nathaniel step out onto the patio. He wore a jogging suit and sneakers, and his forehead glistened with sweat.

“Why are you crying?” he asked. “You haven’t even opened it.”

I wiped the back of my hand across my cheek and sat up straighter. “Opened what?”

It was then that I noticed a couple envelopes in his hand. One long and white, the other square and pink. He came and sat in the wicker chair beside me and handed me the white envelope. It was thick and heavy. “From Juilliard,” Nathaniel said. “I guess you didn’t see it.”

My pulse picked up, and I looked at Nathaniel, suddenly unsure I wanted to see the contents.

“Looks promising,” he said. “Open it.”

I rubbed my thumbs over the envelope and stared at it, too terrified to break the seal. What if it said, “Thanks but no thanks,” and it was only thick because it included a long list of alternate schools to audition for? I handed it back. “You open it.”

I watched Nathaniel tear open the envelope and slide out the folded papers. I listened to him read it, the words “pleased” and “acceptance” and “scholarship” bursting in my ears like fireworks. I stood up and threw my arms around Nathaniel, like it was the most natural thing to do. “Really?” I said the word again and again, with Nathaniel patting my back and answering, “Yes, really.”

I pulled away, and my first impulse was to run for the phone and call Thomas. But when I remembered that wasn’t possible, I sank back into my chair, my tears of joy turning into tears of sorrow.

“What’s wrong?” Nathaniel asked.

I hugged my knees to my chest and buried my head in my arms, shaking my head to indicate I didn’t want to talk about it.

“You’re still waiting for a call,” Nathaniel said perceptively.

All I could manage to get through my lips was a broken
cry. The sun was still shining on my back, but the air suddenly felt more chilled and lifeless.

“Did he tell you he’d call when he left?” Nathaniel asked.

“No, just that he’d come get me in June.”

“Well then, he’ll come.”

“But why wouldn’t he want to talk to me in the meantime?”

Nathaniel was quiet for so long I finally turned my head to look at him. His face was sad and introspective. “Grief can do strange things to people,” he mused. “I lost someone important to me once, and for three months I couldn’t even function. I was like a sloth on Valium. I had to turn students away, tell them I’d gone on sabbatical, because I couldn’t even pretend I was okay.”

“Who did you lose?”

“A close friend.” He shrugged. “But eventually I got back on my feet and rejoined society.” He looked at me and offered a little smile. “I bet Thomas will call any time now, or show up at the door. Things will work out; you’ll see. But for now, you need to focus on school and practicing. You only have a couple months of school left, but your acceptance to Juilliard is contingent upon your final grades.” He handed me the pink envelope. “Here—I got you a little something.”

I opened it expecting a congratulations card, but instead I found a belated birthday card and a gift card for a department store.

“I didn’t really know what you needed, so . . .” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway, I know it’s late. I have a terrible memory when it comes to things like that.”

He was late by a long shot. Eight months, in fact. I wondered when he thought my birthday was, but I didn’t have the heart to say anything.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you to a movie or something.”

Over the next couple months, I clung to Nathaniel’s words of hope and heeded his advice. I threw myself into practicing and studying and tried not to imagine where Thomas was or what he was doing. Maybe Nathaniel was right. Thomas hadn’t promised to call; he’d only promised to come get me in June. I was sure he had a good reason for not contacting me. I trusted him. He would come and explain, and all would be right.

I watched blossoms grow on the crab apple trees in Nathaniel’s yard, then watched them flutter away one by one. Tulips bloomed and wilted, and I graduated high school. The temperatures grew warm, and leaves unfolded on branches. When the big purple petals of the clematises bloomed, it was time for him to come. I spent the month of June with my fingers on the piano and my eyes on the window. I jumped at the sound of the phone, rushed to the door every time there was a knock—which was often since Nathaniel had a lot of students.

When sparklers and fountain fireworks lit up the street and firecrackers rattled the windows, I picked up the phone and called Vivian to see if she’d seen Thomas around, reasoning that maybe he’d returned to do something with his grandpa’s property. But she hadn’t seen him. So I rallied my courage and called Richard again to see if he’d heard from him. He laughed at me and told me to get a life.

I curled up on Nathaniel’s white sofa and tried in vain to stop my whimpers from escalating into loud, heaving sobs. I listened to the popping fireworks and wondered
how anyone could celebrate when Thomas was lost to me forever. The world went on without him. But I was in my own little time capsule, where the hands of the clock stood still. I remained in the moment when Thomas held me for the last time, right before he climbed into his Bronco and disappeared from my life. I remained where I could feel his arms gathered around me, smell the woodsy scent of his skin, hear his breath in my ear, whispering in earnestness that he loved me, that he would come back for me. But there would be no phone call, no letter, no long-awaited knock on the door. And worst of all, there would be no explanation.

Nathaniel came in the front door with a paper bag in his arm and, without really looking at me, said, “I got some fireworks. Let me put this stuff away; then we can go outside.” He set the grocery bag on the kitchen counter, and when I didn’t answer, he turned to look at me.

“You all right?” he asked, coming to my side. “What’s happened?”

I sniffled and shook my head. “He’s not coming.”

Nathaniel knelt in front of me. “It’s only the first week of July. There’s still time.” His encouraging tone was forced, and I knew he didn’t really believe Thomas would come.

I sat up straight and folded my legs beneath me. Nathaniel handed me a tissue, and my hand trembled as I lifted it to wipe my eyes. “Even if he didn’t want to be with me,” I cried, “wouldn’t he at least have the decency to let me know?”

“Maybe he’s still too distracted dealing with his parents’ matters.”

“Or maybe he’s too busy hanging out with Sasha,” I said bitterly through new tears.

“Sasha?”

I shook my head, not wanting to explain. “Or maybe he’s just angry with me.”

“Why would he be angry with you?”

“The night of the fire, he ran into the house to save his parents, and I pulled him back. Maybe he thinks he would have had time to save them if I hadn’t, and he can’t forgive me for it.”

“You probably saved his life.”

“That’s what I thought too, but maybe he sees it differently.”

“Well then, he’s confused. And a thoughtless dope, I might add, to leave you hanging like this.”

His words rang all too true. For the past six months, I’d felt like Thomas was dangling me over the edge of a cliff, and I was unsure if he’d pull me back to safety or let me plummet to the rocky shore below. If he was going to drop me, I wished he’d just drop me already.

Nathaniel put his hand on my shoulder and said something about the abundance of fish in the sea.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “He’s one of a kind. Irreplaceable. No one else can make me feel the way he makes me feel. I don’t even know who I am without him. I know that sounds pathetic, but it’s true.” I dropped my face into my hands and through broken sobs said, “I’m so scared.”

He patted my back while I cried for another good five minutes. Then I looked up at him and whispered, “What am I going to do?” I could feel the lost, terrified expression on my face.

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” Nathaniel said confidently and without hesitation, like he’d been crafting a speech while listening to me cry. “You’re going to pack
your bags. You’re going to get on an airplane and not look back. You’re going to walk through the doors of Juilliard and discover who Aria Kinsley is—without her mother, without her father, without some dopey, thoughtless boy. You’re going to stand on your own two feet and find out just how strong and talented and beautiful you are.”