“Funny.”
“Come on,” he says. “I think you’ll find you remember more than you think.”
I take a deep breath and lift up the fallboard. Then I place my hands on the keys. I try to remember a piece I used to love,Fleur de Lis. The first few notes and measures sound rusty—like the spokes on an ungreased wheel. But as I go, I start to loosen up a bit. It’s harder than I remember, and I get out of breath in just a few seconds, but it also feels wonderful. Like finally moving my legs after a really long airplane ride.
I stop after about a minute, and I realize I’m nearly panting.
“Not bad,” Len says. “You need to start playing again.”
I do. I’d forgotten how alive piano used to make me feel. The music sends my cells spinning, like the adrenaline high you get after a long run.
Len slides in next to me and runs his hands over the keys, and I notice it again—that birthmark on his thumb. It’s red, a deep burgundy, and when I follow it, I see it runs up the length of his arm, or at least up to where he has his shirtsleeves rolled up. It looks like a map, the way it spans and dips and runs like continents and countries and rivers across his skin. It’s actually beautiful, not gross at all, and now that I see it, I can’t believe I missed it all these years.
Len’s breathing slows next to me and his eyes slip closed, and I realize I’m holding my breath too, that the whole room is. It feels like the moment before a rainstorm, the sky heavy and dense, the moisture so thick you can already feel it. And then the first droplets fall, cool and precise and quiet. They build slowly until the moment when the heavens open up and it pours.
I recognize the tune immediately. It’s by Frédéric Chopin and it’s called, if you’d believe it,Raindrops. Famke used to play it for me. Sometimes if I was being stubborn or tired or just off, she would sit me down at the edge of the bench and let me listen to her for a change. If it’s possible, Len plays it even better than she did. His fingers glide over the keys like the wind dancing on the beach. Pulling up the sand, twirling it, asking it to play. I tear my eyes away from his hands and look up at his face. His eyes are no longer closed, but they’re still, calm, focused. Like the counterpart to the motion of his fingers: steadfast and unmoving.
He stops, and the room falls silent. But the silence is pulled tight, stretched, as if the room itself—the sofa and chairs and even the curtains on the windows—is restraining itself from breaking into applause.
Len lifts his fingers off the keys, slowly, and returns them to his lap. Then he looks at me, and it’s kind of like I’ve never seenhim before. Because this person next to me isn’t the guy from school who gives teachers lip. He’s not sarcastic, but funny; and he’s not rude, but witty; and his hair isn’t messy, it’s, well, kind of sexy.
He runs a hand through it and smiles down at the keys. Then he reaches to close the fallboard and so do I, and for a moment our fingers touch, midair. Immediately something shocks me, and I pull back.
“Static electricity,” Len says, pointing to his T-shirt.
I shake my head to say no big deal, but there’s something besides the electric shock lingering in my fingertips. And it makes me look away, because I’m pretty sure my cheeks are starting to speak for me.
Instead, I focus on that mark on his thumb.
“It’s called a port-wine stain,” he says. He’s not looking at his hand, but at me.
“Oh,” I say. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”
“It’s not a big deal,” he says, holding up his arm. “I’ve had it since I was born.” He pushes up his sleeves farther, and I see that the birthmark runs all the way up to his shoulder, even farther than I thought before. Instinctively I reach out and touch it, tracing the outline, and when I do, he smiles. His skin is warm and soft.
“It’s beautiful,” I say before I even realize I’m speaking. “I’ve never noticed how cool it is before.”
“It’s always been there; you just weren’t looking,” he says, letting me turn over his arm.
“Is that why you always wear long-sleeved shirts?”
He laughs, and I internally kick myself. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I don’t mind.” He takes his arm away and pulls down his sleeve. “In the beginning, when I was a kid, I guess, yeah, I was a little self-conscious about it. But not anymore. Now I kind of like it. It’s different.” He shrugs. “I guess that’s the thing about getting older. You realize your differences can be good things. Not just bad ones. But the long sleeves kind of stuck around.”
The room is still humming in the wake of his music.
“So if you got into Juilliard this summer, why didn’t you go already?” I ask.
I look up at him, and he’s staring at me with a mixture of calm and confusion. Like he’s trying to figure out what to say but is not too concerned about how long it’s going to take him to get there.
“I guess I just wasn’t finished here yet,” he says.
“With San Bellaro?”
He keeps looking at me. It feels like it did in the wings of the auditorium. Like he can see right through me.
“High school isn’t as bad as you think,” he says.
