“I can imagine,” Sam said. “So you’re a professor at Berklee?”
“Adjunct,” I clarified, my mouth full. “Adjunctprofessor.”
“What’s the difference?” Sam asked.
“I teach more classes for a fraction of what tenured profs are paid. I’m obligated to assist the department chair and do all his grading. Plus research. Tons of research. Never-ending research. But that’s the deal until I finish my doctorate.” I redistributed the cream cheese to an even layer and took another bite. This wasn’t the time to tell all of higher ed’s dirty secrets. “I’m not convinced academia is for me. Like, forever. I don’t like making forever plans. I’d rather see where life goes.”
“I guess that’s fair,” Sam said. “What do you teach?”
We talked about my introductory music therapy courses, and the path I took into the discipline, which came after spending two years with a family who hired me to give their autistic daughter piano lessons. Lillian didn’t speak much, and she struggled to interact with her family, but she loved music. We didn’t have to talk to understand each other; the music spoke for us.
I didn’t do anything miraculous or special with Lillian. I just taught her to control the notes, and she was the one who turned it into complex compositions. Her mother referred me to another family whose child experienced similar challenges, and soon I had more than my share of unique, incredible children who possessed my passion for music.
“So . . . After finishing work on a graduate degree in strings performance, I wanted to learn why music spoke to these children when nothing else could,” I said.
“My sister’s like that,” he said. “She just kept finding new reasons to stay in grad school.”
I stared at the table, debating whether I wanted another coffee or another bagel.
Most likely both.
“So you teach them violin? The kids, I mean. In your private lessons?”
Shrugging, I swirled my straw around the empty glass. “Sometimes. Sometimes piano. I’m working with a percussionist now, and there’s one who wants to learn guitar.”
“You can teach them all that?”
I nodded. “Most people who go to music school can play a few things. Not unusual.”
Sam leaned back in his seat, crossed his legs, and folded his arms over his chest. The movements pulled his shirt open at the neck. He was slim yet strong—beautifully sculpted—and I wanted to taste the dips and curves of his shoulders.
“These kids, they’re prodigies or something?”
I wanted to drag my teeth over his skin. Bite, lick, savor.
“Tiel?”
My tongue swiped over my lips, and I inhaled deeply. “Hmm?”
“I asked you whether these kids are prodigies, and then you zoned out on me,” Sam said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m great. I’m just . . .” I stared at my glass. “Nothing. I don’t like calling anyone a prodigy. Some people can just play.”
“Andyou’renot a prodigy? You can ‘just play’ all those instruments?” he asked.
It was funny how the rest of the world offered a certain degree of reverence for children with boundless musical talent, yet my family saw it as a nuisance.
My parents seized on an opportunity to channel my hyperactivity and teach me some focus when I was five, but I knew they deeply regretted putting me into the area’s early orchestra program. They never expected it would turn into an entity that defined my life.
Unless I was playing traditional Greek songs at the restaurant, I was an expensive, time-consuming annoyance, but not playing wasn’t an option for me. It was the movement my heart and soul required, and once it became clear they didn’t support that for me, I was willing to invent solutions to every obstacle.
My mother found my Rachmaninov and Prokofiev pieces “screechy.” I took to practicing in the garage when I was seven, and cut the fingers off my mittens when winter rolled around. When my lessons and practice time were squeezed out by Greek school and church activities, I secretly woke up before sunrise to play. When I grew out of my three-quarter violin and my parents couldn’t afford the full sized, I started babysitting to cover the expense. In high school, I saved my camp counseling salary for new bows, sheet music, and trips to see the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center.
I might have known—even when I was very young—that my violin was my ticket out. My talent and skill made me different, and it helped me leave.
“That term is kind of . . . hmm,” I started. “Everyone has gifts and talents. Music is mine.”
Sam opened his mouth to speak, but sneezed instead. Then he sneezed twice more. “Sorry,” he said. “There might have been a little dairy milk in there.” He pointed toward his half-empty latte and pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket.
