Jennifer Pinto
Figuring Out C
C stands for Convincing.
First you beg your parents for piano lessons. When pure begging doesn't work, you write a letter listing the benefits of music for brain function. You wiggle your fingers over an imaginary keyboard whenever you hear music playing. Everywhere you go, you keep an eye out for advertisements for piano lessons.
Or maybe C is for Convenience
Like the flyer you find in the foyer of the public library. A piece of purple paper with big black hand printed letters promising, “Piano lessons taught in your own home at your convenience.” It is tacked to a large cork bulletin board and stands out from the other notices offering babysitting or book clubs for bored housewives. You rip the flyer off the bulletin board and let the tiny white tack fall to the floor and roll under the wooden bench along the wall. You wave it in your mom’s face and say, “How about this one, Mom. This one is convenient.”
C is also for Considering
While you wait for your parents to make up their minds about the potential piano lessons, you spend your afternoons sitting on the wooden bench of the old piano in your living room. The one you convinced your parents to buy from the school secretary who was downsizing to a small apartment and no longer had room for. It was really cheap. It may even have been free since she had no use for it anyway. You slouch over the keyboard and bang on the keys to a tune inside your head.
“Would you please stop that awful racket,” your dad yells.
“It wouldn’t be noise, it would be music, if I knew how to play.”
On the day of your first lesson, you try not to look surprised that he doesn't resemble any piano teacher you’ve ever imagined. All of the teachers at school are either gray-haired ladies with spidery purple veins crawling up their calves or bald men with pot bellies that hang over their worn-out belts. He rides up your driveway on his red and black bicycle with a backpack slung over one shoulder. He’s wearing jeans and an I love New York t-shirt, the kind where the word “love” is replaced by a red heart. He’s got on black converse tennis shoes and big round sunglasses. The weirdest part is he is smoking a pipe.
“My mom doesn't allow smoking in the house.”
“No problem,” he says and shoves the pipe into the front pocket of his jeans. You can still smell his pipe long after your lesson is over.
C is for Confidence or maybe for Cocky
He didn’t come with any music books. He simply pulled out blank sheets of music manuscript paper from his backpack and scribbled the notes between the lines. Any song you wanted to learn, he could write it for you in minutes. Like he didn’t have to follow any one’s rules. He created whatever music he wanted right there on those sheets. You ask for Billy Joel’s Piano Man and Faithfully by Journey.
You sit down at your piano week after week trying to coordinate the notes with the keys. It's not as much fun as you dreamed it would be. After several months of lessons, your enthusiasm starts to fizzle out like a soda that's been left open on the counter too long. You forget to practice and beg your mom to cancel your lesson, so you don’t feel embarrassed. You're pretty sure his enthusiasm for your playing has also waned. You've caught him more than once dozing off during your lesson.
C stands for Continue
You are told you need to continue your lessons because of money. Not that your parents have already invested so much into your lessons, but rather because your mom found out the piano teacher needs the money. In fact, she has decided to sign herself and your two sisters up for lessons as well. She seems very concerned with helping him get back on his feet. Later she designs new flyers and makes you deliver them to every mailbox in your neighborhood. At first you are happy because you figure if he has more students, then your mom will let you quit. When she tells you to put one up on the bulletin board in the foyer of the library, you crumple it up and flush it down the toilet instead.
C is for Clam Chowder
You climb down off the school bus and look down the street toward your house. You peek from behind the old oak tree and see the red and black bicycle leaning up against the side of your garage. You wonder why he is already at your house and drag your feet the rest of the way home. The house is filled with the scent of his pipe. “I started my lesson early,” your mom explains. “This way he won’t have to stay so late.” By the time everyone finishes their lesson, it’s time for dinner. You are confused to see the piano teacher sitting in your spot at the table. You open your mouth to say something, but your mom is giving you that stare with one eyebrow raised. You slide over to the seat at the end of the table and ask, “What's for dinner?” She says she has made her famous clam chowder. The one you know she secretly buys from Stancatos but calls it her own. Usually for special guests. She serves the adults large steaks and baked potatoes. The kids get hot dogs and soggy fries. Your dad says he’ll have a hot dog too. “Don’t be ridiculous. There is a steak for you,” she says. He insists on eating the hot dog.
Later that night, you ask your dad what he thinks of the piano teacher. “You’re the one who insisted on lessons,” he says. Something is puzzling you, but you can’t decide what exactly. You sneak around the house looking for clues. Like a detective without a plan. You steal your mom’s copy of The Thorn Birds and read all the juicy parts twice. You’re careful to leave the dog-eared pages turned down and put your mom’s handwritten note back between the exact pages where you found it. The note where she wrote out the details of the simple affair between Meggie and Father Ralph. You wonder what she means by simple.
One day when you are done with your lesson, your dad slides onto the piano bench. “Scoot over, it's my turn.” He has agreed to add himself to the lineup of lessons because the piano teacher still doesn’t have enough to make ends meet. You watch as your dad struggles to play a simple tune. The arthritis in his fingers makes it difficult to hit the right keys. Behind his back, the piano teacher looks over at your mom and rolls his eyes.
C is for Convalescence
You happily skip the rest of the way home from the bus stop because when you peek from behind the oak tree, you don’t see the bicycle in your driveway. You go inside and find your mom pacing back and forth, her face flushed with worry. “What's wrong?” you ask.
“Oh, it's nothing, the piano teacher is just late today.” She tells you to sit at the piano and practice until he arrives. Hours go by and you beg your mom to let you go to bed. “No,” she says, “he’ll be here. Just keep playing.” Your butt is numb from the hard wooden bench and your fingers are tired. When you hear your parents arguing in the kitchen, you sneak upstairs to your bedroom.
You find out the next day after school that the piano teacher had been hit by a car while riding his bicycle. Your heart skips just a tiny bit as you imagine your afternoons free from lessons. But you see that your mom is terribly upset. “His ear was nearly torn off the side of his head.” she says. “He was on his way over here for my lesson. The doctor said he had no one else to call.”
Now when you practice the piano, he is listening from where he is resting on the pull-out couch in the family room. “That key is C," he yells. “When are you ever going to figure out C? Try it again.” You adjust your fingers over the keys and start over. You wonder why he isn't in his own house and if he is ever going to leave his convalescent bed.
C is for …
You come downstairs for breakfast and peek in on him. As you come around the corner, you see your mom stand up quickly and straighten her blouse. “Go on, get yourself some breakfast,” she says. You pour the milk on your Rice Krispies and listen to the snap crackles and pops. These sounds stay in your ears all day keeping you from thinking of anything else.
“Something weird’s going on at my house,” you tell your friends. They giggle and clasp their hands over their mouths as you describe the piano teacher laying in your family room and your mom nursing him back to health.
When you arrive home from school you find the sofa bed has been folded up and the family room restored to normal. You stand in the doorway and listen carefully to your parents arguing in the kitchen. You walk over to the piano and start to bang on the keys. “Will you please stop playing that god damned piano,” your father yells. You go upstairs, sit cross legged on the bed in your room and look up the word “cuckold” in the dictionary.
Jennifer Pinto is a psychologist who writes both fiction and creative nonfiction. She lives in Cincinnati with her husband. She has three grown children and a Goldendoodle pup named Josie. She enjoys making pottery, cooking Indian food and drinking coffee at all hours of the day. Her work has been published in Sundog Lit, Halfway Down the Stairs, The Bookends Review and The Bluebird Word (forthcoming).
