I eased my hand out of hers and laid it palm down beside my other one on the desktop. “Do you have a question to ask me?” I said.
“Do you?” she countered.
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “Do I what?”
“Play the piano.”
“No, I do not.”
“Well, now, that's a shame with hands like yours. I noticed them the first day I was here.” She was still rocking back and forth like a child.
“Do you have a question that pertains to your work?” I asked.
She placed both of her hands on the sides of her head with an expression of mild dismay. This was a gesture that I was to see many times. “I almost forgot,” she said. “I
do
get sidetracked sometimes. I wanted to tell you that Mickey's found him a job, the seven to three shift, and is going to be starting next week. It's over in Spartanburg, though, so he'll have to leave home a little past six every morning. It's at a place called the Barker Bag Company, which I think is the funniest name for a company, don't you? They sell nothing but bagsâall kinds of them. Little plastic zipper bags and mailing bags and drawstring trash bags and brown paper bags andâ”
I interrupted her. “Are you informing me that you will not be returning to work next week since your husband has found employment?” I distinctly recall feeling a peculiar blend of dread and relief at this prospect.
Birdie laughed. “Oh my, no! I'm not quitting already! I just wanted to tell you that since Mickey's got to be there by seven, I'll have to be coming in to work a little earlier starting next week. I can just sit on that little bench out by the bike rack, though, if nobody's here yet. I can read or write letters or watch the traffic, if nothing else.”
“I arrive at a quarter past six,” I said.
“Well, now, that'll work out fine,” she said. She leaned forward and touched my thumbnail with her index finger. “I used to wish I had hands like yours.” I didn't reply but slid my hands into my lap and pushed my chair back.
She laughed. “Speaking of hands, I've got to go help scrub up. French fries sure can make a mess.” She turned to the doorway, then stopped. “I could teach you, Margaret.”
I must have looked puzzled, which I was, for she quickly added, “The piano, I mean. We could set up a lesson time. I've got some beginner books, and I know you'd go through them in no time. I probably wouldn't be so much teaching as just watching, but I'd love to help you get started. I've got a piano at my house.”
I stood up decisively. “We both have a great deal of work to do.” Because I could not bring myself to address her directly by the name Birdie during the early weeks of her employment, I used no name at all. The sound of my voice filled the glass enclosure of my office and sounded to me as a tinkling cymbal.
Birdie smiled and waved her fingertips at me. “Well, let me know if you want to take me up on my offer sometime. I wouldn't charge you, of course. I'd just consider it a real privilege.” When I saw her next, she was hanging the clean spatulas and large slotted spoons on the hooks above the steel worktable, humming “Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring” and smiling as if fitting holes to hooks were the culmination of her life's work. The words from Robert Browning's “My Last Duchess” sprang to my mind as I passed by her: “She had a heart too soon made glad.”
Birdie's offer of piano instruction created a restless stirring within me for almost a week. I spoke earlier of my love of music, which I inherited from my mother, who, given her natural gift and her rigorous self-discipline, could doubtless have made a name for herself in professional music had she not spent her few adult years taking care that her stepfather did not discover her whereabouts. I know now that her deepest fear was not for herself but for me. Before she left her stepfather's house at the age of twenty-two, she had studied piano and voice at a private college near New York City, though to my knowledge, all of the jobs that she subsequently held were unrelated to music.
As a young woman she had played the piano quite proficiently, I believe, but later, due to our frequent moves and our limited monetary resources, she was unable to advance her skills. She spoke of music reverently, however, and often sang to me in what I remember as a beautiful contralto. We listened mostly to operas and symphonic concerts on our radio, though her range of musical interests was wide and varied. She knew many spirituals by heart, as well as German tone poems, medieval plainsongs, Italian arias, Broadway musical tunes, hymns, and American folk songs. Many of these she taught to me, and we sang them together in the evenings.
In Akron, Ohio, we lived in an old hotel that had been converted into an apartment building. The lobby was dank and dim, I recall, but against one wall an old piano was ensconced like an aged and neglected matriarch amid an array of dusty artificial potted plants and an inoperative Coca-Cola machine. One day my mother stepped in among the large plastic planters and lifted the lid of the piano. Many of the ivory plates were missing from the keys, leaving a hard residue of glue, but when my mother leaned forward and played a series of chords, the fullness of the sound delighted me. There was no bench for the piano; she stood as she played.
I requested that she play a song for me, and thereafter I remembered what she had played as clearly as if it were but moments before. That is, I remembered the tune and character of the piece, although it was many years before I knew it by name. I have no doubt that my mother properly identified it on the day she played it for me, but I was very young, not quite five years of age, and I believe I must have confused the title with the novelty of the occasion, for I later discovered that the piece, one of Robert Schumann's
Kinderscenen
, was titled “An Important Event.”
From that day I nursed a secret yearning to play the piano as my mother did. It was not to be, however, for we left Akron only days after her brief recital in the old hotel lobby and never again to my knowledge had access to a piano. When I went to live with my grandparents after my mother's death, no mention was made of music lessons, and my life was so fraught with confusing developments from that point that learning to play the piano drifted far from my immediate concerns.
I continued to listen to classical music on the box radio after my mother died, however, and rarely missed an evening program broadcast from Faraday, New York, called
An Hour with the Masters
. Though I heard my fellow students at L. K. Drake Junior High and later at Latham County High waxing enraptured over the popular singers of that day, such as Bill Haley and the Comets, the Platters, and Little Richard, I was never interested in what was known as rock and roll. The first time I saw a picture of Elvis Presley on a magazine cover, the thought that sprang to my mind was this:
He should be exiled to an uninhabited island
. Though my response to music has been strong and ready from my earliest recollection, I have always regretted the absence of opportunity for formal study. Reading and listening, though invaluable, are not adequate substitutes for firsthand instruction.
Six days after Birdie said to me, “I could teach you, Margaret,” I beckoned her into my office as she was sitting down to eat her lunch. The workers eat between the completion of their lunch preparations, which is generally a few minutes before eleven o'clock, and the arrival of the first class of children at 11:20. A dish called beef-a-roni was the day's entree, I recall, and Birdie had spooned a portion for herself into a Styrofoam cup. When I tapped on the glass of my office cubicle and motioned to her, she cheerfully dismounted her stool and came to me at once with the Styrofoam cup of beef-a-roni in one hand and a plastic spoon in the other.
“This is really tasty!” she said, pointing into the cup with her spoon. “Have you had some?”
“No,” I said. “I do not care for it.” I was standing beside my desk, and she was just inside the doorway. Positioned thus, we were only three feet apart. My office, as I have said, is quite small.
“The biscuits are good, too,” Birdie said. “Algeria put some of the beef-a-roni on a biscuit, and she's eating it like a sandwich. Maybe you'd like it that way.” She smiled hopefully, as if eager to please.
“I seldom eat the beef casseroles,” I said firmly, and then without pausing for her to reply I added, “I would like to engage you as a piano instructor if your recent offer still stands.”
She opened her mouth and stared at me, then quickly recovered herself. “Why, Margaret ⦔ she said, implanting her spoon into her beef-a-roni with a swift jab and laying her right hand over her heart, “that would just thrill me to pieces. Just absolutely to pieces.”
“I will inquire about the availability of the pianos in the music room or the auditorium,” I said, speaking quickly and avoiding her eyes. “I believe that the last music class ends at two o'clock. We could perhaps have our lessons then.”
“Well, we could do that if you'd like,” she said. “The time would be fine since we're done in the kitchen about then.” She removed her hand from over her heart and let it fall toward me palm upward. “I was just thinking, though,” she continued, “that it might work better for you to come to my house. I live about four miles from here, but it's right on Highway 11 going to Derby. That way we wouldn't have to worry about being in anybody's way or any of the children interrupting us or anything like that.” I started to reply, but she winked at me and continued. “And besides that, if you came to my house, you could give me a ride home after school those days so I wouldn't have to wait for Mickey.”
The thought of entering this woman's home filled me with alarm. One did not visit another person's home lightly. Such a visit invariably expanded the dimensions of a relationship, I felt, regardless of how casual or businesslike the connection might be in its initial stages. It has always been my custom to enter the homes of others only vicariously, through the media of books and an occasional television program. When I choose to attend the summer gatherings of Thomas's clan in North Carolina, I generally station myself outdoors in a folding chair on the fringes of the crowd.
Birdie was smiling up at me sweetly, awaiting my response. She took another small bite of her beef-a-roni and chewed in silence. As I quickly considered the options, I thought of the dark, cavernous interior of the old school auditorium, its musty smell, its narrow rows of squeaky seats, and the ancient upright piano near the stage. I imagined the sound of a piano lesson in progress and thought of the tremendous echo that would resound inside the large, empty room.
The music room would provide a more pleasant atmosphere; it was cozy and cheerful, with large windows along its length. I knew, however, that the room was frequently occupied even after school hours. Our music teacher, Miss Lorraine Grissom, held rehearsals with the Emma Weldy Singers two afternoons a week, and I had heard, upon passing the room from time to time in the afternoons, the sounds of a small ensemble of recorders, which often caused me to wince. It was a busy room along a well-traveled passageway. The prospect of pupils and teachers overhearing my piano lessons was not to my liking.
“Very well,” I said. “Seeing that it will be a convenience for you, I will take the lessons at your home.”
Birdie smiled and said, “Well, now, that'll be just perfect.”
We settled upon a schedule to begin the following week. Each Tuesday and Friday, I would take Birdie to her home and stay for a forty-five minute lesson. She gave me the names of two piano books I might want to purchase for what she called “supplementary exercises once we get past the basics,” and she asked me to bring to each lesson a notebook of some type in which to write assignments.
“This is going to be so much fun!” Birdie said. “We can make lots of headway with two lessons a week. You know, I've given lessons to little boys and girls off and on for years and years, but I've never had a grown-up interested in learning to play.” She reached forward and patted my arm. “With those hands you can't help but be a natural. We'll have us a real nice time, Margaret.”
“Yes, well, it is arranged, then.” As I turned my back to her and opened a drawer of the file cabinet, I added firmly, “I do not care to have others know about this. Please do not discuss the lessons with Algeria or Francine.”
Behind me, she was quiet for a moment before replying. “Well, now, that's perfectly understandable. I don't guess I'd necessarily want people knowing I was taking up something for the first time at my age, either, especially something most people learn early in life, like swimming, maybe, or roller skating or even piano. Or learning to readâI know a man at my church who just learned to read last year, and he's in his late sixties! Although, when you really stop to think about it, you have to admire anybody who decides it's never too late to make a dream come true. It's a credit to you to want to take piano lessons, Margaret! It's nothing to be ashamed of.”
I turned around and fixed her with an icy glare. “No one is talking about learning to swim or skate or read,” I said. “And I do not need your admiration, your cheerful encouragement, or your sermonizing. I simply value my privacy and request that you not speak of my business in front of the other women.”
The expression on her face changed in an instant. She opened her mouth as if preparing to yelp in pain, but no sound came. Her forehead puckered in distress, and her nostrils flared. Neither of us spoke for several long moments, but her face gradually cleared and her lips relaxed into an uncertain smile. “I sure didn't mean to offend, Margaret. Please forgive me. I do have a way of going on and on sometimes. I promise you I won't tell the others about our piano lessons. You can count on me for that.” She looked down into her Styrofoam cup, sadly, it seemed, stirred the spoon about slowly, then turned and left my office.