fugue for three voices chapter 3 (partial)

[figureofdismay]

Gerri Kellman was just as enchanting as he remembered from the Hamptons house interview, despite his improbably vivid recollection of that day. She answered the door quickly, though not as quickly as if she’d been waiting on him and ushered him in with brisk grace and a precise gesture of her hand.

She was wearing a soft looking wrap dress in a color between olive and evergreen, perfectly neat, the vee of the neck was demure, leaving just enough decolletage to show off the piece of carved jade she wore on a fine chain against her collar bones, and the skirt fluttered modestly below the knee, but none of this seemed to help. The twist of fabric where the dress overlapped drew his eyes dangerously to the curve of her hips and Roman struggled not to stare. He dragged his eyes up, and quickly realized he was in trouble, tried not to stare at her cleavage, demurely hidden though it was, and landed on the gentle slope of her shoulder, the taper of her wrist as she held open the door. Every curve of this woman was magnetic, meanwhile her wide, pale eyes seemed to spear through him with unfailing accuracy, catching him out as starstruck and shambling. He made an abortive sound of dismay and appreciation that became a choked cough. Blood rushed dizzyingly in his ears. Oh, so this is what it’s like, he thought obliquely and then discarded the line of thought in desperate self preservation. “Hi,” he squeeked, took a breath and tried again, “Um, good morning, hi, I’m not late, see?”

“Good morning, Roman. I’m glad to see you can follow instructions,” she said with a wry quirk of her mouth and a tilt of her head, watching him amble past with intentional nonchalance, “If you’d like to leave your coat, there’s the hall stand,” she nodded to a bulky piece of edwardian furniture made of smooth dark wood on Craftsman lines, a combination bench, hall table, umbrella stand and coat rack set with a slightly murky beveled mirror. On the table stood a chinese vase of hectic white peonies, and Roman almost knocked into them and then caught his own eye over top of the mirrored image of the blooms as he shucked his coat, thinking he looked feverish and furtive in the warm gloom of the foyer.

“Studio’s on your right, Roman,” called Gerri, leading the way ahead of him.

Roman managed to get his bulky coat to stay on one of the brass hooks after a couple fumbles and hurried to follow, brushing his hair out of his eyes with both hands as he went, though it predictably fell right back down in his way.

The studio space had clearly once been the grand parlor of the house when it was originally built. The ceilings were high, with plaster moldings along the walls and a rosette to ornament the frosted and molded glass chandelier. The walls were done with damask paper in muted sage and dark stained linenfold, lined with bookshelves. Tall windows of the bay spilling winter light through ivory lace net sheers, tightly folded rose colored curtains pulled back neatly. The floor was worn wide plank hardwood the color of brandy, and the only furniture was a stately art deco channel back sofa and matching chairs in dusty-blue jacquard with a small brass drum table between them on one side of the room, and the real star, a glossy black baby grand in the center of the room, far enough from the radiators and the windows that it would be safe from concentrated heat and drafts. The bench before it was not the glossy black wooden one that would have come with the instrument but an upholstered Victorian object with dark, curved legs and dusty red jacquard cushion, looking well worn around the corners.

By the piano but far enough away to pick up the resonance of the room was a tall, narrow spindle of a mic stand with a decent looking microphone attached. Roman traced the cords, bundled into a vinyl safety keeper, back to one of the book cases where there was a hifi setup, topped with a bulky beigy gray reel-to-reel unit. “What’s with this stuff?” he asked, gesturing at the sound equipment.

“Don’t worry, Roman, I won’t record anything you don’t okay. Some of my students find it helpful to be able to play their lessons back. It can help identify problems in phrasing that they don’t hear in the moment. It can also be rewarding for the student to hear a progression of their advancement. It’s not a professional setup by any means, and street noise is a factor regardless, but it can be a useful tool.”

“Okay,” he said with a shrug, “Might as well give it a try. As long as you don’t end up selling Roman Roy bootlegs,” he joked, “Caroline would pitch an almighty shitfit about that.”

“I assure you, I leave the album selling business to the talent,” Gerri assured him crisply, and then with a touch more concern, “Only if you’re certain, Roman. I wasn’t sure you’d want to start a record given your, uh, current issues with an audience.”

“It’s fine,” Roman asserted breezily, not fairly sure that he wasn’t totally fine with it but at the same time intrigued by the idea of a record of their work together. He already knew it would be important, his work with Gerri. “After all, the audience is still just the two of us in the future, right? So only we will know if it sucks absolute ass. I’m cool with it.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, grimacing at his turn of phrase and his smarmy grin but strode over, the low heels of her smart pumps ringing on the wooden floor, and fitted a new reel into the machine with easy precision and hit a couple buttons. He could hear the faint whir of the tape turning, or felt he could. “Settle in then, Roman,” she said, coming back to loom over him somewhere behind him and to the left, “I assume you’ve brought what you’ve been working on?”

So he fumbled his sheet music out of the folder of his bag and fidgeted his way into place on the padded bench. Couperin, a favorite of his for the expressive phrasing and the baroque rigor, and for the way the flow of small, precise notes always impressed. He flexed and clenched his hands, feeling them freezing and stiff with nerves and cast a glance over his shoulder at Gerri, the dark green shape of her dress, softly curved, the glint of her pale hair in the winter sunlight, a solid presence that was both intimidating and reassuring. He warmed his icy fingers against the back of his neck, letting his short, blunt nails scrape his skin, shivering with it, and then dove in before he had too much time to think. He barrelled through Les Barricades Mistérieuses, and Les Calotines. Gerri stopped him mid way through Tic-Toc-Choc just as his awareness of her coming up behind him tripped him into fumbling a trill.

“Roman,” she said, with a note of concerned hesitation and then paused for a breath, as if gathering her thoughts. All she said, though, was, “There is no particular merit taking these pieces at breakneck pace. They’re spritely but you still need to leave room for the notes to form and the audience to hear them.”

“Right. Sure, yeah. Usually, I. I don’t usually don’t do it like that but I, uh.” He shrugged helplessly, mute with indecision and unable to say that he was distracted by her presence. That he’d pinned all his hopes on the strange aura of her that had distracted him in just the right way to make it possible to play that day in the Hamptons but now there were expectations and how he wanted to impress her.

Gerri flipped through his folder and found Ombres Errerants by Couperin, a slower piece in the grouping and set it before him. “I’d like you to try this one. Pay attention to your pacing, Roman, let me hear your interpretation.”

“Sure. Can do.” He sat, icy hands heavy on his thighs through his jeans, reading over the notes to refamiliarize himself with the piece. He put his hands over the keys without making a sound, feeling the smooth ivory under his fingertips and watching Gerri’s calm anticipation beside him out of the corner of his eye. He took a slow breath trying to calm the pace of his heart, knowing that with his mind racing this quickly the notes would race too, no matter how carefully he applied himself.

“Roman?” she asked softly, when the hesitation dragged on, “Are you alright?”

“I, uh. Sorry, I don’t know? Why I’m not, uh. You know.” he gestured at the keys and then rubbed roughly at the side of his head. “I think maybe you’re making me nervous? No offense.”

“Hmm. You were fine back at the Hamptons,” she said, with a thoughtful purse of her lips.

Roman shrugged broadly. If he knew how to articulate it, he would have by now, he thought, but he just sat, running his fingers along the worn edge of the bench cushion.

“Okay. I guess we jumped in too quickly. Well, we can work with that. I’m going to go into the other room and make a fresh pot of coffee. Roman, go back to your most basic warmups again, get settled in without me over your shoulder. Then you can start again or we can have a cup and talk this out. Sound good?”

“Um.”

“Good,” she said briskly, turning and heading out of the room with an unhurried grace. “I want to hear you basic exercises, Roman, and pay attention I’ll be able to hear if you get lazy on the fingering,” she called as she walked into the back of the house, “Get going, kiddo, come on.”

Somehow it was easier without Gerri right at his elbow. He ran through his warmups, dutifully thoughtless and with slowly loosening hands, filling the absent space of time while Gerri was in the other room with familiar exercises and bit of overly familiar recital workhorse Bach, telling himself it didn’t matter that much that she was still probably listening in. Then he tried Ombres Errerants again, once haltingly and again more smooth, probably still a little fast. Roman had tracked the click of her heels as she came back into the room with the waft of fresh coffee, though she hadn’t stood quite as close. Maybe she’d realized she was spooking him, or maybe she wanted to watch him work from a distance. He turned the last page of Ombres and reached for the next piece, but she stopped him again and set her own sheet music in front of him. He did a double take at the title.

“What the fuck, man really? Girl music, are you serious?”

“Don’t be an ass,” she snapped, with a roll of her eyes as she retreated to her stance of observation, “I did tell you, Roman, we need to get you used to more different genres, out of your comfort zone and out of your head. These arrangements aren’t as easy as they look.”

He shot a glance at her over his shoulder to see if she was putting him on. Gerri was smirking at the balking grimace on his face, but she gestured with the hand not holding her mug back at the music in front of him. “If Joni is so easy, let's hear you knock it out of the part, huh?”

So Roman plunked his way through a sight read, hearing himself miss the timing and realizing he hadn’t been so unfamiliar with a piece of music in front of him in years, and certainly not in front of any audience. It gave him a cold, squirming feeling in his gut but it was thrilling too, in a strange kind of way, he could feel Gerri’s sustained amusement at his back but he didn’t think it was ill meant, not really at his expense. It was interesting, too, different, fun actually, he found himself giggling as he took another run at the more extreme jazzy syncopation he could recognize but hadn’t tested himself out on much before.

Gerri tapped him between the shoulder blades with a none too gentle finger. “Focus,” she prompted, but he could hear her smiling at him. Then she took an experimental fingertip grip of the tops of his shoulders and tried to encourage him to straighten out his slouch, a familiar move from many teachers before, but teachers before hadn’t started an electric, full body crackle in him when they touched him that didn’t quite abate. “Your posture is atrocious. I’m sure that’s not the first time you’ve heard that, Roman.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Roman tried to subtly lean back into her touch like a cat asking for a scratch but Gerri seemed to take it as if he was shrugging her off and she stepped back again. Roman cleared his throat and reminded himself that whatever reaction he was having, Gerri Kellman saw him as just another messy student to whip into shape. Respecting his boundaries, whatever. He probably didn’t even register. He’d gotten over the mind-wiping nerves when she stood near and now he wanted to lure her closer, he wanted to bask. Roman was aware that instead of fixing one problem, he’d found an entirely new one that was closing dangerously over his head – Roro’s first adolescent infatuation, he thought sarcastically as he settled into Joni’s phrasing, and only about a decade late.

“Okay, let's hear those first two Couperin pieces again. I want you to bring that looseness to it,” she prompted, reorienting him.

So he flipped back through his music and played for her, half distracted by the nascent wonder of attraction, strange and surprising and, yes, somewhat shameful, sparked by half glimpses of his new teacher out of the corner of his eye, the way it seemed to glow in his body. He felt lit up in a new and startling way, if people lived with this all the time he wondered how they could focus, could breath, but it was a light feeling, too, bearing him upward in a whole new way. His fingers moved on the keys and felt the notes ring in the airy space of Gerri’s studio, giving the notes and himself space as he breathed and wondered.

“That’s much better,” said Gerri when he’d finished, “Very much better. See? you do have a sense of what emotion he’s trying to express when you’re not preoccupied by showing off.”

“Right,” agreed Roman uncertainly, terribly conscious that he hadn’t been paying attention to his phrasing at all but trying to guess how close Gerri would have to stand to feel her body heat on his back.

“Now, let me turn off the recording and let’s have some coffee and talk about the blanking out. If you’re amenable to that, Roman?”

“Uh…. I mean okay, I guess, but I don’t know why that’s happening so…” he shrugged, and shifted on the bench so he could turn to look at her. Gerri was busy fussing with the hifi equipment, he heard the solid clunk of a button and the tape coming to rest, but her body language was casual. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, to fail to explain it to someone who wasn’t staring him down with furious curiosity and judgment.

“I know you don’t know,” said Gerri with a coolly coaxing tone that seemed to leave no room for refusal, “That’s why I think we should talk about it. Come on, we can sit in the breakfast room.”

So he followed her, her coffee mug in hand and her neatly clicking heels, his eyes drawn both to the curve of her hips in the jersey dress and to the soft, glossy swirl of her pale curls, twisted loosely at the back of her head. He could see a pair of daintily carved horn combs holding the chignon in place like some kind of blowsy edwardian lady. Roman had to stick his hands in his jeans pockets so he wouldn’t reach up and touch the baby ringlets escaping at the back of her neck.