Play By Heart (Chapter 2)

         “I had the flu.” Kevin told Felecia, as she stood in front of her locker. It was Friday and Felecia had been on top of the world all week, counting down the days until she would finally have her first piano lesson. All she needed was for Kevin to show up with his sob-story, to ruin the start of her day. And so he did.
          “So, when can we get a minute to talk?”
         “I don’t really see you until after school.” She murmured, “And, I’m busy after school today.”
         Kevin suddenly became defensive and pounded the locker. The thin metal actually bent beneath his fist. Felecia was shocked. “That’s how it is, huh?”
         She glanced at him and was disgusted by what she saw. He was completely different from the Kevin who she was head over heels for so many years. “You don’t want anything to do with me.”
         If Felecia would’ve answered honestly she might’ve said yes. She was disappointed in him, not only by the way he was acting, but also the things he’d been saying lately. It wasn’t Flu season, and he didn’t even look sick.
         “I have to get to class.”
Felecia took a deep breath and decided to walk away. She was surprised when Kevin jerked her arm and pulled her backwards. A few people in the hall stared at them curiously.
         “Let go of me Kevin.”
Kevin fieceness dissovled, and his expression softened. “I’m sorry, Felecia.”
         She turned and walked away and felt her arms trembling. She was scared that he actually might hurt her for a minute there. She wondered how he had changed so quickly. They were supposed to be going to Homecoming that month, but when they started arguing things really fell apart.
         Felecia forced herself not think about her problems with Kevin, and thought about her lesson that day. She could barely sit still in class. By third period she had forgotten about everything, including Kevin. She was now completely engulfed in what her first lesson would be like. Would she have some old crabby instructor? Would she learn how to play Mozart? Was she going to be good enough?
          Felecia was a little disappointed the class was only once a week, but every Friday didn’t conflict with her schedule. She still had to work a few hours at the book store. Felecia worked at a book store.
         For the most part the job was an easy part time job where Felecia made plenty of girlfriends. They loved to gossip at her job, and Felecia got a lot of fun out of goofing around with her co-workers. She had been working there just a year, and they were very flexible about her days and hours.

         “Ring, Ring.” Somebody spoke into her ear. Felecia looked up to see Shay standing with Marco. They were both laughing.
         “Look it’s three o’ clock.”
Felecia glanced at the clock and realized they were right. She must’ve sat in class oblivious for ten minutes.
         “I thought you were waiting for my after school tutoring.” Ms. Stevens, told Felecia as she entered the class.
         “I must be out of it.” Felecia mumbled.
Shay dragged her up from her chair and walked with her out of the room. The two laughed uncontrollably. Marco followed closely behind.
         “I feel like a third wheel.”
Shay laughed and grabbed Marco’s arm. “Aww, come on and join us.”
         She and Marco were very close, a little too close to be just friends in Felecia’s opinion. Marco was sort of shy, but he was crazy about Shay. She liked him but was too scared she might ruin their friendship.
         Felecia had to admit; even she had once had a crush on Marco. He was very good-looking. He was tall with slick black hair, golden brown skin, and black eyes. He may have been a recluse but the girls still fell all over him. Marco was too humble and of course too in love with Shay to notice. Felecia believed that he and Shay deserved one another, but Shay was too busy searching for older guys.
         Felecia was really the third wheel, as Shay and Marco shoved and nudged, and snuggled each other down the hall. Their affection was, after a while, depressing to Felecia. She was glad it finally came to an end when she was all packed up and ready to leave. Marco finally took his eyes off Shay long enough to say goodbye to Felecia.
         “I’m so glad Marco’s my partner.” Shay gushed as they walked down the front steps of the school.
         “I wonder why.” Felecia mumbled under her breath.
“He’s smart.”
Felecia chuckled when she realized Shay had heard her.
         “And he’s easy to look at.” She admitted with a laugh. Well, that was obvious to her and everyone else.
         “Where is this place?” Shay asked speaking of Settlement Music School. She hopped in the front seat of her car adjacent to the front steps of the school, and turned on the ignition.
         Felecia handed her a piece of paper with the address as Shay backed out her parking space. “Hope I can find it.”

         “You know you’ll find a date.” Shay told Felecia as they rounded the corner of 33rd and Market, for the third time.
         “Maybe I’ll ask Marco to Homecoming.”
         “Marco?” Shay questioned abruptly. “Not him.”
Felecia laughed. “I’m only teasing you.”
         “Oh.” Shay looked like the cat that had swallowed the canary. “Hey isn’t this third time I’ve seen this place?” Shay pointed to a store on the corner. “We’d better get some directions.”
         She stopped and walked into the corner store. Felecia could see Shay nodding from afar. She held up the paper with directions and pointed to it, then nodded her head again. Minutes later she was strolling back to the car. Felecia checked her watch; it was nearly four-thirty already. She was getting the jitters and was afraid she might be late.
         “We’ll get there on time, don’t worry.”
Shay seemed confident that she knew exactly where she was going. Felecia tried to calm herself as they made there way there. She had never been more prepared to do anything.
         “Well here we are.”
Felecia realized they were there and was suddenly terrified. “You don’t want to be late do you?”
         Felecia took a minute to catch her breath, and stepped out the car. The school was a small building that Felecia figured was probably very spacious on the inside. It took a little more nudging from Shay for Felecia to finally walk into the building.
         Shay came along with her as she they stood in the lobby. Felecia handed her the check her mother had given her and handed it to the desk clerk. She offered her a seat.
         Felecia was excited and nervous. “Who’s my instructor?”
         “Joel Roberts,” she told her “You can have a seat.” The woman gestured to the row of chairs behind her. Felecia sat down stiffly and bounced her hands in her lap. Shay giggled when she noticed how tense she was.
         “Felecia it’s just a piano lesson, would you calm down.”
Shay recommended she do a breathing exercise with her. They took deep breaths simultaneously and then finally Felecia felt her heart stop racing.
         “That really helped.” She told Shay.
Felecia looked down at her hands and the stretch denim jeans she was wearing. Her hair was sloppily pulled back in to a bun, and she was wearing big hoop earrings. By then it was too late to be worried about her appearance, she saw that other students were dressed casual so let that go. Felecia felt like a little kid.
         “Okay,” the desk clerk said. “Your class is down the hall and to the right, Room 301.”
         She opened the door and began down the hall. Felecia was surprised to not hear music floating from the rooms. It was a very quiet hall. Felecia stayed along the hall until all she could do was go right. She walked into the room with the light on, which was the first room and wasn’t 301.
         “Are you Joel?”
The person standing in front of her didn’t answer. She noticed he had busied himself with writing something, so wasn’t too surprised when he didn’t answer.
          “Are you-- are you Joel?” She stammered.
         His eyes met hers; he was silent for a moment. “I’m Joel. Yeah, I am.” He sounded as if he had just come to this realization which Felecia found herself laughing about.
         “You sound sure of this.” Felecia commented, feeling her tenseness dissolve. Joel let out a laugh. He was so much younger than she expected he’d be. In fact he looked about twenty. He was about 6 feet tall, with curly brown hair that was sloppily held back by a rubber band, and he was just as casually dressed as she was in a blue t-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers.
         “I’m Felecia, I’m you’re student.”
          “It’s nice to meet you, Felecia.” Joel shook her hand and smiled warmly. When Felecia glanced down, she became easily distracted by their contrast in skin tones. When Joel's grip on her hand loosened, her eyes warily returned to his face. “Yeah, nice to meet you.” She whispered.
         “I’ll go find you an exercise to work on.”
He glared at Felecia as if he were waiting on a response, and then suddenly turned away from her.
         Felecia took a moment to explore the room. It was a rather large room, and there was only the piano, a few chairs and a couple of boxes. It looked like a new room, with fresh carpet and freshly painted walls.
         Felecia walked over to the piano and stood beside it. She lifted up the top, and looked down at the strings.She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen a Grand Piano as clean as this one. It had not a speck of dust. Her reflection stared back at her in the case.
         She hurried over to the piano bench excitedly, and played the beginning of Chopsticks very softly. Just then, Joel, who had disappeared, reappeared. He stood at her side, and watched her play. Something about his closeness really made her tense, and she lifted her fingers back from the keys. Chopsticks was a very simple song, it didn’t really showcase her abilities. In fact, it was one of the first songs she had learned to play.
         “So how long have you been playing?” Joel asked.
         “Oh, since I was three.”
         “So this stuff should be relatively easy.” He told her placing sheets of photocopied exercises in front of her.
         “But I play by ear.” She responded nervously.
“By ear?” He asked, as if he didn’t hear her. He took a deep breath. “Okay.”
          Felecia warily began to play the exercise in front of her, straining to remember what formal lessons had taught her. Measures and counts suddenly came into play. As much as she was concentrating she couldn’t make up for lack of technique.
          She was more surprised at Joel’s assessment. “Not bad.” He told her.
Felecia let out a chuckle. She couldn’t tell whether he was being honest or just being gentle.
         “Felecia,” He began, sitting down next to her on the bench. “I would suggest playing this,” He played the first few notes while counting, “like this.” He finished the first bar.
         She mimicked what he had done as best as she could, but it still sounded wacky. “That’s better” he told her. Joel drummed out the tempo on the side of the piano and played it again, and then began explaining something that barely registered in her mind.
         She had become preoccupied with stealing glances of the tattoo on Joel’s wrist and the tiny earring on his earlobe. Felecia strained just to see what exactly the tattoo was; it looked like some kind of symbol.
         “It’s the zodiac sign for Scorpio.” She heard him say. Felecia nearly jumped out of her skin. Either he was reading her mind or she was more obvious than she thought. She could feel herself blushing. God, why wasn’t she paying attention?
         She dared herself to look him the eyes, and found herself gazing into his expressionless face. He was actually kind of cute. Still, Felecia couldn’t get pass how different they looked up close.
         “You blinked.” He told her; smiling warmly. Felecia laughed, despite her embarrassment.
She was suddenly nervous, very nervous. Unfortunately they still had close to an hour left.
         She was glad when he finally wasn’t staring at her and had returned to flipping through the sheet music in his hand. “Are you still in school?”
         “Uh-huh. I’m a senior at Central High.”
         “Are you in college?” She asked quietly. Her voice seemed like it was shrinking as she spoke now.
         “I just finished.” He stopped flipping, and looked over at her. “I had enough credits to graduate so I finished up early.”
         Felecia calculated what his age may have been and figured she was probably right on the nose. “Did you major in music?”
         He nodded. “But I didn’t want to.” Joel barely raised his voice above a whisper. “That’s another story.”
         Felecia, on the other hand, couldn’t conceive herself majoring in anything else but music at that point. She had planned to do so since she was in elementary school. There was nothing else she’d rather do.
         Joel leaned over and placed the sheet music in front of her. “This is something we can work together on.” She looked over at the sheet music in front of her and read ‘Minuet and Trio’. “It’s somewhat difficult. So we’ll work on it gradually.”
         Felecia’s eyes swept the page. She let out a breath. Okay, she was ready to learn what she had to. This was going to be very tedious.
         Joel thought for a moment, and then pulled a folder out his backpack near the piano. It was loaded with sheet music. He pulled out a stack and placed it in front of him. Flipping through the pile, he selected about six sheets of music. “And I guess we’ll try these.”
         Joel browsed the pile of sheet music again, and began conversing with himself on what he should choose. Felecia found herself watching him again. Every time he moved his hand through his hair, the loose rubber band holding it back would slowly slip off. Finally it fell off, and his hair sprung up all over. With strands falling in his face, Joel leaned over and placed a few more sheets in front of her.
         He started to play one the exercises and then Felecia tried, and he helped her through it. Felecia couldn’t believe that what she played actually didn’t sound that bad. She was also surprised that she remembered as many notes as she did by sight. She hadn’t had piano lessons in so long.
         Before Felecia knew it an hour had passed, and her first lesson was over, and it wasn’t as complicated as she thought it would be. At least Joel was very patient. Felecia was a little concerned about how quickly she’d learn just what she needed to. She would definitely have to make time to practice more.
She got her things together, and sat them in front her. When Joel left the room she began playing her version of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Ribbon in the Sky’.
         It brought back fond memories of when she’d played in Elementary School. She was so nervous that day because it was the first time she had played for a large audience. Felecia giggled as she, remembered how her first crush, Avery, had sung the words as she played. She could hear him singing loudly in the audience, and she remembered blushing the whole time. She would never forget his standing ovation at the very end.
         Felecia stopped playing and laughed herself to tears. She could hear clapping but this time it wasn’t Avery’s. It was Joel’s.
         “Wow that was amazing.”
Felecia smiled, “Thank You.” It was a nice compliment. Felecia could’ve been showered with compliments all afternoon.
         “So, what do you think of the classical?” He asked, as he slid on his windbreaker.
         “Umm,” Felecia let out a breath. She didn’t want to say it was boring, so she thought of another adjective. “It’s very complex.”
         Joel laughed. “Complex,” He murmured, with a knowing smirk on his face. “Don’t worry. It gets better.”
         “So you like classical?”
         “Yeah,” He paused. “But, not as much as jazz.”
Jazz was one genre of music she would’ve never suspected he was be interested in. She certainly couldn’t tell by his folder overflowing with classical pieces.
         “My grandfather played in a jazz band,” He sat down on the piano bench, with his back to piano. “And I loved sitting and listening to him as a kid. Overtime, I learned to appreciate the jazz legends.”
         I want to play jazz, Felecia thought. It seemed so vibrant, and free flowing. It was a lot less structured then classical. “One day we’ll try jazz.” He told her, reading her mind again. Felecia came to the conclusion that he knew exactly what she was thinking, and that scared her a little.
         She decided on that note that she’d better stop wasting time and leave already. “You’re leaving?” He asked as she started to walk out the door.
         “Well it’s five thirty.”
He let out a laugh. “Well, that’s true.” She turned back around, and looked at him. “I’ll see you next week. It was a good first lesson.”
         “Yeah, you’re a good-look---I mean—a good teacher.”
         What she was thinking and saying should have been entirely separate. She left out the room and walked down the hall feeling good about her first lesson. Everything seemed like it was going to work out.

"Play By Heart (Chapter 1)" 

"Play By Heart (Chapter 3)"