Chapter 235: Elena II

A/N: The song lyrics are my own.

 

Chapter 235: Elena II—Piano Lesson

 

            Mom was with Jonathan’s mom in the dining room. They were friends now, they smiled and laughed, they winked at each other. They were drinking coffee, Elena could smell it. The smell of coffee always made her slightly nauseated but it was the way adults bonded. She always drank it from the places in malls where it could be drowned with milks and syrups, so it didn’t taste like coffee anymore. She drank it with friends and she knew they only did because they liked to say the ever precious names attached to each specific drink. Really she shouldn’t drink it period. She didn’t need to caffeine and there was too much calories in the milk, even if it was skimmed.

            “Seee!” Jana said, the little girl was smiling and obviously pleased with herself. “I did it.”

            Elena nodded. “Sure,” she said, “but you didn’t hold down the note like I showed you. Try it again and count to two. One… Two. Like that.”

            Jana blinked with large blue eyes. Her eyes reminded Elena almost of a cartoon character. Blink… Blink. Jana wrinkled her nose and pressed down the right hand G note with her toothpick like pinky finger. “One, two,” she said and then lifted her hand. “OK. I get a sticker now.”

            Elena shook her head, feeling slightly irritated. She didn’t mind teaching the little girl, but she didn’t like repetitive action sometimes. She knew Jana knew what she was supposed to do, and Elena didn’t like having to repeat it so often.

            “Not yet,” Elena said, “Play the whole song again, and remember to hold down G this time.”

            Jana’s golden eyebrows straightened and her cheeks flushed. “But… the sticker!” she said. The hurt pride was there in her voice, a little beast ready to squeal.

            Elena shook her head. “You know that when you make a mistake it’s best to play the entire page over, so you remember how everything goes. It’s only two lines anyway, it’s not that hard Jana. You played the rest beautifully.”

            Jana crossed her arms. “If I did then I don’t see why I should have to play everything else.” Bleeding defiance, Jana turned back to the keyboard and played just the G note, counted to two. “There, see.”

            Elena raised her eyebrows. “Play the whole thing.” She used the voice she used on her baby siblings. It was only tainted with the menace of horrible consequence but not overly imposing. It seemed to only redden Jana’s face even more. The little girl took a deep breath, Elena could see it the workings of a rebellion. She was no doubt measuring the possible consequences of a tantrum, how much did she want to?

            “I don’t want to,” Jana said. “I don’t see the point.”

            Elena shrugged. “Tough.”

            Jana narrowed her eyes.

            “I guess I should just tell your mom that you don’t want lessons anymore?” Elena said, pondering over a hangnail.

            Without a word, Jana swiveled back to the keyboard and hit each note heavily, without much feeling for connecting the notes and with obvious lack of grace. It didn’t matter, the notes were correct, so was the timing and then it came to the G which Jana only held down briefly before she looked at Elena.

            “I forgot to hold it down again,” she whispered. “Oops.”

            “See,” Elena said. “You forgot.”

            “No sticker?” Jana asked, her bottom lip trembling.

            “Nope,” Elena replied. “Not for that one. And it gets better.”

            Jana crossed her arms. “Oh goodie,” she peeped in baby voiced sarcasm.

            Elena couldn’t hold back her grin. She knew that Jana was accustomed to teachers and other adults coddling her as a little blond princess. She had to admit she took some delight in making the girl pout. It was roughly the same delight she took in irritating her own baby sisters when they became too enamored with their positions in life.

            “You get to practice it for next week,” Elena said. “And then we can talk about that sticker.”

            Jana sighed loudly. “Fine,” she said. “And it’ll be so good you’ll reap with joy!”

            Elena frowned. Reap with joy? Before she could question the girl on it, Jana hopped off the bench and ran out of the room. She watched her turn out of the doorway and then she heard her squeal and there was a deep bellowing roar.

            “Daddy let go!” Jana snipped.

            “Ow!” Elena heard Mr. Roy yell and then she heard the thumping of the girl’s feet as she ran away.

            Elena frowned and pressed her hand into the back of her neck. Feeling suddenly nervous she sat at the piano and started in the middle of a song. She could sense that he had entered the room, and it bothered her. She stumbled over the notes and frowned.

            “Did she have a good lesson?” he asked.

            “Yup,” Elena replied, not looking back at him. “She doesn’t like to play songs over again but she’s getting better.”

            “Good,” he replied in a light voice. She heard him approaching, soft steps on the carpet. “Here you go for today.”

            Elena turned a little bit, saw the green and she slipped it out of his pale hand. She frowned at it. “Fifty is way too much,” she said and tried to hand it back.

            “Non,” he said. “For the next two weeks then.”

            Elena shook her head. “That’s still too much.” She looked up at him this time. He had a pleasant smile, shiny eyes. She blushed and looked at the keys. White black…

            “Then there is a tip in there yes?” he said.

            “Sure,” Elena said noticing that there was peevish tone to it.

            “How long have you been playing?” Mr. Roy asked.

            Elena shrugged, she wondered why Jonathan hadn’t come in yet. “Since I was four. Mom got me this little electronic keyboard, and I just started on that.”

            “Show me something,” he said. It was in that voice adults used, she knew it well. It was a tone that said, you are an entertainer, then please entertain. A child that could sing or dance or play an instrument was always accustomed to this order-request from an adult. It certainly beat having to make small conversation. Elena nodded and she pressed her fingers into the keys. She stopped.

            “You want to try something?” she asked, feeling a grin. She looked at him, wondering if she should. She was being arrogant now, she knew that. She was being a show off and what’s more she was quite aware of it.

            He frowned, obviously a little surprised. Ha!

            “Like what?”

            She impulsively grabbed his dry, warm hand and pressed into the bass keys.

            “See this one?” she said pressing his finger into it. “That’s A, and here,” she pressed his middle finger into that one, “is C and with your thumb, play the black one here, that’s E flat. Go from pinky to thumb with those three notes, A and C and E-flat and count to two between each one. So it’s like one and uh two and uh… like that.”

            She looked up at him, he laughed quietly, with a grin. “One and uh two and uh,” he said over and over as he played the three notes. He pressed them heavily like Jana did and he didn’t hold them down very long but it was working.

            “Keep doing that,” she said.

            She closed her eyes, listening to him playing the notes, and it began to crawl into her brain. She opened her eyes and in the same key she began to play a scale up and down, matching his broken rhythm. It was working. Elena grinned and put in the slurring pedal, lifting it up and down at intervals. She began to trail away from the set scale, adding a chord.

            “Is that a song?” Patrick asked, and he said a harsh word in French as he lost the rhythm, lifted his hand and he lost the notes as well. “I lost it, desolee.”

            Elena smiled, feeling more comfortable.

            “What are you guys doing?”

            Elena looked at Jonathan who had entered the room. She hadn’t noticed him. “Hey,” she said, “Wanna try? Your dad was playing some.”

            Jonathan grimaced. “He can’t play.”

            Elena grinned. “I bet you can too.”

            Jonathan looked at his dad, he looked at her. He had an expression that reminded her of a dog when it wasn’t sure what to do or whom to trust. “Ok,” he said. “What do I do?”

            “You can sit next to me,” Elena said and she scooted over on the bench. “You can have the high notes.” She then gave Jonathan the same assignment she had given his father. Let’s see who can catch on longer, she thought to herself, curious. She showed Mr. Roy again which notes to play and she pressed herself a little closer into Jonathan’s side as they began again. This time she counted for them as she improvised on the scale. Jonathan was quicker than her counts, often ahead of the beat. Mr. Roy hit the notes on time. She smiled to herself, kicked Jonathan’s leg aside so she could work the pedal.

            A melody began to form out of Elena’s scales and she began to toy with it, expanding on it. She grinned when she heard Mr. Roy curse again, she didn’t understand French but she assumed from the tone that it was a curse word. He lifted his fingers from the keys; and Elena smiled as Jonathan picked up the pace, he was pecking almost randomly at the notes now but it was working. She liked it.

            Elena hit a chord heavily and Jonathan took the cue and stopped. The grin on his face was priceless. He wasn’t looking at her though, he was looking at his father. “I win!” he said.

            “It’s not for me,” Mr. Roy said and Elena could hear the irritated lilt to it.

            Elena lifted her eyebrow and looked at him, he was red faced, miffed. Now she knew where Jonathan got it from. Competition was the fire; she knew it was in her as well. A nice trio.

            “Can you sing?” Mr. Roy asked.

            What am I a trained monkey! Elena thought she wanted to yell it.

            “Kinda,” Elena said. Honestly she couldn’t think of what to sing without music but she didn’t want to seem like she couldn’t. She hated being thought of as incompetent in anything.

            She frowned, she couldn’t remember the whole song but it was the one that came to her mind first. She ran over the chords started in the middle of the song:

 

            “A legacy is fragile

            My love for you is not

            The sunlight in your hair

            Will not fade from my heart

            How much would it cost for you to love me

            Your charms are not the sort that are gathered for free

 

            “Why am I contented

            My hair has turned gray

            The sunlight of my warm youth

            Has bled far away…”

 

            Elena frowned and wrinkled her face. She felt uncomfortable again. She looked at Mr. Roy. He looked almost teary eyed. “You’re too young for that song,” he said.

            “Well I just think it’s dumb,” Jonathan said dully.

            Elena stood up and looked at him. Jonathan now had that pouty look on his face. She looked back at Mr. Roy who had lost that dewy eyed look.

            “There now that’s worth a fifty?” she said.

            Omigod, Elena thought and she pushed the thought from her head. It was impossible to completely suppress however and she couldn’t stop the grin. Mr. Roy raised his eyebrows and his smile back was more tentative. She turned away from him quickly and looked at the glowering, pouting Jonathan. She whapped him on the side of the head the way her dad did to her older brothers.

            “Hey!” Jonathan snapped. “What was that for?”

            “TAG!” Elena cried. She turned and ran and she was delighted to hear Jonathan laugh and sprint after her.

            He was taller, faster than her and they had barely gone down the long hallway when he caught her. Elena laughed and squealed and she didn’t wriggle out of his grasp so much as she turned around to face him. She hugged him tightly, she closed her eyes. There wasn’t much else she could think of doing.

            Jonathan was the first to pull away. “You saw my dad naked.” He said almost accusingly.

            Elena laughed, she couldn’t help it and it was more the entire circumstances of that day. The smells of the locker room had been disgustingly sharp, the taste of Chelios’ blood still bitter and salty in her teeth, and there was Jonathan’s dad, dropping his towel like a dumbass while Jana sat in a Red Wing lap. Honestly it all could have been one long, odd dream. She couldn’t say she didn’t see anything or that it didn’t affect her. She would be lying.

            Elena smiled. “Hey,” she said.

            Jonathan narrowed his eyes.

            “What do you think I’m gonna do about it dummy?”

            Jonathan shrugged.

            Elena laughed. “Ewwwwww!”

            Jonathan wrinkled his nose and Elena couldn’t stop laughing. “You’re a twit!” she giggled. “You’re jealous of your dad? Ewwwww gross!”

            Jonathan blushed. “Well,” he said.

            Elena stuck her tongue out as she crossed her arms.

            “Jonathan,” the cartoonishly accented voice of Jonathan’s mom called out. And then she said something in French.

            Jonathan answered in French.

            “What’s up?” Elena asked.

            “Mom’s gonna take Jana and some of the other kids to the museum to see the mummy exhibit, she wants to know if we wanna go too.” He said.

            Elena nodded. “Cool, why not? I mean if mom says it’s ok.”

            Jonathan smiled. “Cool.”

            Elena grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Anything to get you to stop being a baby!”

            “Hey!” Jonathan snapped. “I am not!”

            “Race you to the dining room,” Elena replied and she dashed off again through the huge house, content to hear the sounds of the boy chasing her. This time he wouldn’t catch her.