Eight towns waited beneath Vesta’s name.
She had played in seven of them. In the eighth, Hal had once got out of a taxi holding someone else’s suitcase. They had found its owner in a hotel lobby, trying on Hal’s concert shoes.
She remembered the man’s feet before she saw the dates. Autumn. Another tour.
“It’s a proposal,” Hal said.
“Whose?”
“The agent’s.”
“Who asked him?”
Hal moved a cup away from the dressing-room mirror. Its handle had been turned toward her, a small kindness he had repeated for twenty-two years.
“I asked what was available.”
The poster outside called tonight their last concert together. They had chosen this hall because it was in the city where Vesta lived. She could sleep in her own bed afterward. That had been part of the attraction, though it made a poor line for a poster.
“When does he want an answer?” she asked.
“Monday. He won’t sell tickets unless we both agree.”
“Then tell him no.”
“Eight dates, Vesta. Not thirty.”
She sat to change her shoes. Her right hand closed around a buckle. The skin was slightly paler than on her left. That hand had been grown for her after the accident, three years earlier. The narrow cuff at her wrist used AI to turn her chosen muscle signals into movements of the new fingers. It could help her play. It could not choose the music.
Her buckle fastened. She put her other foot on her knee.
“I was talking about stopping before the accident.”
“I remember.”
“Do you?”
“I remember you saying the hotels were getting worse.”
“I was getting tired of them. They were the same hotels.”
Hal looked at the schedule. He was fifty-six. His own home was a rented flat with a piano in the room where most people put a dining table. On tour he ate with Vesta. At home he often forgot to eat until he wanted to go to bed.
“Your hand works now,” he said.
“Yes.”
“We could do this.”
“Yes. I don’t want to.”
From the corridor came a burst of laughter. The hall manager had arrived with flowers too large for the vase in either dressing room.
Hal waited for the laughter to end.
“What am I supposed to do with the last part of my show?”
For years he had played alone first, then brought Vesta out to join him. They had turned two pianos toward each other, like people drawn together across a crowded table. Their last piece always ended with a game: his quick line, her quicker answer, a rush of low notes together.
She liked that piece. She still liked it.
“Play something else,” she said.
He gave a short laugh. “Of course. I’ll have to think of that.”
“You can have my rehearsal recordings. All the arrangements we’ve made together. We agreed that.”
“I don’t want to bring you on as a recording.”
“Then don’t.”
He put the schedule under his cup. She could still see the last town.
“I’ll change,” he said.
He went out. Vesta heard him stop in the corridor to ask whether the flowers were meant for somebody who had died.
The manager laughed again. Hal could give a person that sound even while he was angry.
Before the show, Vesta rested her hands in her lap. On the cuff, one green light told her she had enough charge for the evening. She had checked it at home too. The cuff made holding the keys easier; there was no reason to leave it behind when she stopped touring.
She taught three afternoons a week. She liked hearing a child find a tune under a clumsy hand, and an adult admit they had never really wanted to learn scales. In the mornings she played for herself. Sometimes she stopped halfway through a piece because the washing machine had finished. Nobody sent her a review.
She had told Hal these things. He had heard a life she could fit between tours.
There was a knock. He opened the door in his concert jacket.
“The usual encore?” he asked.
An encore was the extra piece they played if the audience called them back. Their agent had promised it for tonight. Vesta nodded.
“One time through.”
“We always do it twice.”
“You turn back to the start. I go with you.”
He leaned against the doorframe. “People like it.”
“So do I. Once tonight.”
Hal pulled at a sleeve. She knew he was checking whether his shirt showed below his jacket.
He studied her for a moment.
“Perhaps after you hear them tonight—”
“One time through,” she said.
“All right.”
She stood. “Your left cuff is caught.”
He looked down. She freed the folded cloth with her new fingers.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
For a moment they were simply two people about to go on stage. Then the manager called Hal’s name, and he left to play the first half.
Vesta listened from the side door. Hal took his first piece slowly, then gave it a sharp ending she had not heard him use before. She wished he would keep that. She would not be there next autumn to find out whether he did.
When her time came, he walked to the door and offered his arm. She put her hand through it. The audience saw the pale fingers and the little green light as they crossed the stage.
At her piano she adjusted the bench. Hal waited at his. She looked across at Hal.
He lifted his eyebrows. She began.
They knew how to find each other. When he made a phrase longer, she left room for it. When she pushed ahead, he followed and then slowed her with a soft answer. The cuff helped her fingers do what she asked. Hal heard the result and played his own part.
In the last piece, his quick line ran toward her across the two pianos. She sent it back with a note he had not put there. His grin was sudden and wide. He kept her added note on the next exchange.
She wanted another hour of that.
She did not want the eight towns.
At their final chord they lifted their hands together. For one quiet moment she could hear the hall’s air moving. Then the clapping started.
They bowed, went out, and came back for the promised encore.
It was a short piece with a tune people could hum on the way home. They played it lightly. Vesta saw a young man in the third row lean his head against the shoulder beside him. Hal could not see that from his piano. She wished she could point it out without stopping.
The two quick exchanges came. The low notes followed.
Hal’s right hand lifted above the opening keys.
He looked at her.
For twenty-two years, that look had been enough. The piece would turn in a circle, the audience would laugh when they recognized the beginning, and she would chase him through it once more.
Vesta held the last low chord. Hal’s notes faded while hers stayed. His raised fingers did not come down.
Then she let the chord go.
She took her hands from the keys and stood.
Hal looked toward the audience. They were already clapping. He got up and came beside her for the bow.
Backstage, he pulled off his jacket before speaking.
“I thought you’d change your mind.”
“About the second time through?”
“About all of it.”
She put on her coat. He held it out for her as he usually did, then dropped his hands as soon as her arms were in.
“Will you miss it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand how that helps.”
“It doesn’t.”
There were people waiting to see him in the foyer. Vesta could hear the agent among them, telling a story he told at every concert. Hal picked up the tour proposal.
“I’ll tell him your name comes off,” he said.
She nodded.
“Do you want me to stay for the reception?”
“No. I’d rather do that on my own.”
She picked up her bag.
He went to the foyer. Vesta waited until the crush at its inner door had thinned. Then she followed, carrying her own small bag.
The agent turned when he saw her.
“About the autumn—”
“Ask Hal,” she said.
Hal had reached the wall beside the outer doors. He unfolded the schedule against it, covering the eight towns with one flat hand.
“You’re booking me,” he told the agent. “Just me. Let’s talk about where the pianos go.”
Vesta passed them. Hal moved his shoulder to give her room, and she stepped out through the open door.
Loading comments…