“She’s harmless enough, and I am grateful she took me in when I had nowhere to go, but I always felt like I was imposing.” Picking up my pace, I steer us down the long wide hallway and around by the stairs.
Uma whistles under her breath as she drinks our surroundings in. “You weren’t wrong about this place either. It is like a show home.”
“Wait till you see the formal living room. She has plastic coverings on the couches, and a maid cleans all the ornaments daily.”
I drag Uma along, speed walking toward the object of my desire. We bisect a few other hallways and take a left as I lead my friend toward the locked door on our right. After glancing around to ensure no one is in sight, I stretch up and retrieve the key to the living room, quickly opening the door and pulling my bestie inside.
“Quick,” I say, shutting the door and kicking off my shoes to pad across the white carpet toward the Steinway, salivating and drooling a little. “We don’t have long, and this is the only reason I subjected myself to this ordeal.”
“You weren’t wrong about your aunt’s OCD.” Her gaze skips around the large room. “Why buy a white carpet and a white couch if you know you’ll have to cover it to keep it pristine? A living room is supposed to belivedin.”
“You’re preaching to the converted,” I murmur, smiling expansively as I slide onto the piano bench and lift the fallboard, brushing my fingers along the keys as warmth fills my belly and spreads across my chest.
I take a few seconds to breathe deeply and savor the moment before my fingers move in a rhythm I could play in my sleep. Chopin’s prelude in E minor is one of my favorite pieces. Thehaunting sadness and deep-seated longing have always spoken to my soul, along with the hidden hope threaded throughout the eloquent short piece. It was one of the first pieces I learned to play as a kid when I started lessons.
Uma removes her shoes and walks toward me barefoot, propping an elbow on top of the piano as she listens. “You’re amazing, but that’s a little depressing.”
“A lot of Chopin’s music is quite melancholy, but it reaches deep inside me and really speaks to me in a way most other composers don’t. Tchaikovsky is a favorite too.” I switch to Chopin’sButterflyetude, letting my fingers race across the keyboard. “This is one of Chopin’s happier pieces.”
I lose myself to the music, closing my eyes and absorbing every note, feeling the emotion on a transcendent level.
“Emery!” My aunt’s shrill tone rips me from my happy place, and my fingers stall on the keys as my eyes pop open. Bernice stands in the doorway with steam billowing from her ears. “What have I told you already!” She grips the door frame, and I’m sure she’d love to storm across the room and yank me away, but she won’t risk getting her carpet dirty.
“A piano should be played,” I mumble, reluctantly standing and closing the fallboard over the keys.
“Not that one!” She draws a long breath and smooths a hand down over her skirt, plastering a half smile on her face. “I commend your passion, but that piano is an heirloom, Emery. It’s been in our family for generations, and I want to maintain it for future generations to come.” She waves her finger in the air. “It is not for playing, and that’s the last time I will tell you.”
You’d swear I was planning to take a wrecking ball to it. I only wanted to play it. “I’m sorry.”
“Come. Dinner is served.”
“I heard something interesting this week,” my aunt says twenty minutes later as we are waiting for dessert to be served. The tension around the table has been almost unbearable. I’ve been quiet since my reprimand and regretting coming here. I barely got ten minutes on the piano.
“Oh?” I play along before lifting my glass of sparkling water to my lips.
“I believe you’ve become…acquainted with one of the Anderson boys.”
“Who? Me?” I stare at her incredulously, having no idea what she is talking about.
“Joaquin, I believe.”
My brow puckers in confusion.
“I think she means J,” Uma whispers in my ear, and my aunt sends her a dark look Voldemort would be proud of.
“No whispering at the table, Uma. It’s rude.”
“Apologies, Mrs. Hall. I grew up in a group home, and they weren’t much for formalities.”
“Not Winston’s group home, I hope.” Gordon leans back in his chair, placing a hand over his swollen belly.
“Fuck, no. Ugh.” A shudder works its way through my friend, and she purposely ignores the scowl on my aunt’s face. I love that Uma is unapologetically herself. I wish I could be more like her. “The home I was in was a good one. They were kind to me there.”
Uma reaches over and clasps my hand, squeezing. She knows how much it upset me to discover the things going on at Wakefield. I wasn’t there very often, but I sometimes dropped by to see my cousin with Dad, and it sickens me to think of thethings she was doing to the boys in her care. I’m glad they threw the book at her, and I hope she rots in a cell for the rest of her life.
“Back to Joaquin,” Bernice says, draining the rest of her wine. She snaps her fingers at the young server standing inside the room, and she dashes forward to refill my aunt’s glass. “He’s from a founding family. I approve of you dating him.”
I blink repeatedly, wondering how to reply to that and what it even means. I clear my throat. “I’m not interested in dating anyone right now.”
