Consent (3 page)

I try to imagine what it would be like if Plum went away to Harvard or wherever and I stayed in Eden Grove. Aside from missing her, I really can't spend the rest of my life here. If I do, I will turn into Theo. Or worse, my dad.

Maybe I should just follow Plum's lead on this college business. Adulthood by osmosis. I'm sure there are worse ways to grow up.

Later that night I decide to practice piano for a bit before going to bed. It's been a while, but something about hearing Mr. Rossi has motivated me; I could have listened to him forever.

I'm so glad I didn't sign up for photography with Mrs. Lutz.

Dad is still at his office, preparing for a new trial. He's been texting me for the last couple of hours, giving a later ETA each time.
Feel free to order in Chinese
was the most recent one.

I'm tempted to text back:
I'm sorry, do I know you?
or
The owner of this phone has been kidnapped by demented squirrel-bots.
But I don't. Dad does not have a sense of humor.

I put the phone away and play some arpeggios to warm up. The piano is a Kawai upright with a scratchy walnut finish. It hasn't been tuned in all the years we've lived in this house, and it's missing the high F key.

Still, it's a piano.

Gradually, my random broken chords begin to fall into order: first a C-major arpeggio, then a D, then an E. I complete all the major arpeggios and move on to the minor ones. The sound swells and resonates in the two-story living room/dining room, which is enormous and sparsely furnished and therefore a bit echoey. Our development is named Pleasant Meadow, which is weird because there are no meadows in sight, pleasant or otherwise. The house used to belong to Dad's mom; she gave it to him after he moved back to Eden Grove and before she retired to Tucson, Arizona. Dad never bothered to buy more furniture beyond what Grandma Min left, though, including the old piano, which was Aunt Jeanine's, I guess, when she was a kid.

Cream Puff appears out of nowhere and leaps onto the bench. She head-butts my arm with a violent burst of affection and derails my A-minor arpeggio.

I continue playing with my left hand and scratch Cream Puff's ears with my right. She purrs and digs her knifelike claws into my lap. Until last week Cream Puff was just “Cat.” She's a stray, and Dad doesn't want me taking in any more strays. The last one cost us five hundred dollars in vet bills and died anyway. The one before that turned out to be pregnant.

Dad said Cat would have to go back outside unless I found another owner for her. I tried really hard not to name her
because I was afraid of getting attached. But I ran out of willpower, and besides, she's so darned beautiful: a fluffy marmalade coat, an elegant lion nose, and amber eyes that will play nonstop stare-down with you. She's also homeless, so how can I turn her out? The nights are already starting to get chilly, and I've had zero success getting someone to adopt her. Not even Plum's family can take her because Mr. Sorenson is super allergic to cats.

After a while Cream Puff stops her furious digging and curls into a warm ball on my lap. I can feel her gravelly purrs through my thin cotton skirt.

My arpeggios gradually morph into Chopin's Etude Opus 25, Number 12, a.k.a. the “Ocean Etude.” The word
étude
derives from the French word for “study”; many études help to hone a particular technique. The Ocean Etude is all about the technique of arpeggios.

But for me, it's all about the ocean. When I play it, I hear waves rising and breaking and crashing against the rocks. I've never actually been to the ocean, any ocean, but I figure it must be just like this.

See ocean
would be at the top of
my
wish list, encircled in a big pink heart.

After Chopin, I go backward in time and start from the beginning. Bach's second Partita—I wonder if Mr. Rossi plays
this one? Then Beethoven's Sonata Number 32, Opus 111, which has only two movements instead of the usual three and was one of the pieces he composed after becoming deaf.

Then I return to the nineteenth century with Schumann's Fantasy in C. Finally, I move on to the twentieth century with Rachmaninoff's “Little Red Riding Hood” étude and Ravel's “Jeux d'eau,” meaning “water games.”

It's almost eleven o'clock before I realize that I've been playing for three hours straight. I don't remember the last time I did that. I wonder if Mr. Rossi likes to practice late at night too? What kind of piano does he own? Where does he live? Does he live alone, or—

My phone buzzes, startling me. It's another text from Dad:
Home after midnight. See you in the morning.

“Thanks, Dad,” I say out loud.

It's probably just as well. I want to practice for a little bit longer, and it's always best to play when he isn't around.

On Tuesday, I sleep through my phone alarm, and I can already tell that it's going to be one of those days. My blankets are in an agitated knot, and my muscles are tight with exhaustion. My head throbs with a sort-of migraine and the foggy vestiges of a dream.

I try to remember the dream. It was vague and sexy and disturbing. Was I in it? Who was I with? And then it comes to me: Mr. Rossi.

Why am I having X-rated dreams about him?

Obviously,
because,
I tell myself. Still, it's probably not a good idea to harbor sexual fantasies about one's teacher.

A sudden hacking noise makes me bolt straight up. On the floor next to my desk Cream Puff is throwing up on my backpack.

“That is not cool!”
I yell at her. She regards me with a helpless
look, bucks, and proceeds to throw up some more.

Sighing, I slip on my glasses and get up to search for paper towels.

I pad down the hallway, which overlooks the great room with only a skeletal faux-wood guardrail separating me from the void. Rain spits against the skylights and makes a loud, steady, drumming sound.

Peering over the guardrail, I can see Dad's legal papers fanned across the dining room table, along with a coffee mug and an empty carton of Ben & Jerry's. He must have stayed up after he got home, to work. He gets like this whenever he has a trial.

Just before I reach the bathroom, I realize that the door to Theo's room is open. Curious, I poke my head inside.

Dad is on the floor, peering under the bed.

“Um . . . Dad?”

He turns and gives me a quick, embarrassed smile. He is wearing his fancy charcoal suit, a white shirt, and his lucky tie. The tie is maroon with invisible maroon stripes. His silvery-black hair—what there is of it—is still damp from the shower.

Plum once said Dad looks like an Asian George Clooney, but I don't buy it. I think he maybe
used
to be handsome, from my impression of his and Mom's wedding photo. But that photo is no more, so the details are a little fuzzy.

“I thought I heard a mouse in here. Hope I didn't wake you,” he says.

“Dad, it's almost eight. I was supposed to be up, like, half an hour ago.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, I'm a little . . .” His sentence trails off as he resumes his search for the mystery mouse.

I glance around Theo's room. It's basically unchanged since his last visit here, when he had to pick up some sweaters and also his old Yu-Gi-Oh! card collection for who knows what reason. Probably to sell it for beer money. Luckily, he left all his comic books behind. I don't care about his Green Lanterns and Fantastic Fours, but the Supermans and Batmans are absolutely not allowed to leave this house. He used to read them aloud to me when I was little, or at least he did on the few occasions when Dad forced him to babysit me.

Dad rises to his feet and brushes his hands against his pants legs. “I must have imagined it. How was your first day back? Do you need me to sign any forms?” He always asks me this, as though I were still in elementary school.

“No, no forms. The first day was fine.”

“Did you get the classes you wanted?”

“Yes. Hey, Dad? Plum wants me to go to Boston with her on Columbus Day weekend, to visit some colleges.”

Dad's phone buzzes in his jacket pocket. “Sounds good. Sorry, honey, I have to get this. I left you some lunch money by the coffeemaker. Feel free to use my credit card to make travel arrangements.”

He pulls out his phone and turns his back to me. “Hello? Good morning, Carlos. Yeah, I was on Lexis all night, and I still haven't managed to dig up the right precedent on the ‘defense of others' angle. . . .”

“Okay, then,” I say to myself. Still, what did I expect? A sudden show of interest in my life?

I continue down the hallway and find a roll of paper towels in the bathroom. Hannah, our housekeeper, always keeps the cleaning supplies under the sink.

Back in my room Cream Puff is preening on my bed as though nothing happened. On top of my backpack a furry hair ball lies in a slimy pool of cat vomit. There are two other vomit piles on the floor. Luckily, they just missed my stack of prized vintage Nancy Drews.

“Thanks a lot,” I say to Cream Puff. She blinks at me and continues licking her paw.

After I manage to restore my backpack to sort-of normal, I look around for something to wear. Fortunately, I find a pair of jeans and a green top on the closet floor that aren't wrinkly
or stained. It's Tuesday, which means no music history class—not that that should affect my wardrobe decisions in any way whatsoever.

Checking the time, I mentally calculate that I can brush my teeth, wash my face, put in my contacts, and scarf down a yogurt before I have to leave. If I catch a ride with Dad, I'll save ten minutes—plus, I won't have to walk in the rain.

I hear Dad's footsteps trotting down the stairs. More footsteps . . . then the front door opens and closes.

“Dad! Wait up!” I shout at the top of my lungs.

No answer.

For a moment I'm tempted to text him and tell him to come back. Something stops me, though—maybe the thought that he will say no? A girl can take only so much parental rejection in one lifetime.

But what am I going to do? I can't drive the other car, the ancient Subaru, because I haven't applied for a student parking permit yet. And I don't dare try to park without one since A-Jax is beyond draconian about rules and regs.

Sighing, I text Plum:
Can you guys give me a ride?

She texts back immediately:
Yes, we'll be there @ 8:30! Do you want me to bring you a banana muffin? They're freshly baked!

I really should just move in with the Sorensons.

Plum has to meet with her chem lab group after school, so I need to kill some time. Later, we're planning to go to her house, take half of a practice SAT test, and reward ourselves with our favorite
Buffy
episode from season two—the one where Buffy and Angel finally, finally get together and enjoy about five minutes of happiness before all hell breaks loose in Hellmouth City.

Plum said that we should also watch a couple
Game of Thrones
episodes so we can stare at Kit Harington. Because that's just what I need, more reminders of how insanely handsome Mr. Rossi is.

I head over to the performing arts wing and try to find an empty practice room so I can work on the Schumann Fantasy. I don't have my sheet music with me, but I know most of it by heart. The hall swirls with students on their way to various
extracurricular activities, including band practice, pointe class, and
West Side Story
tryouts. Bill Kist sings “Somewhere” to an invisible Maria. One of the Tisherman twins squeaks into his oboe. Siobhan Dunham does triceps stretches over her head as she ballet-walks with carefully turned-out feet.

Posters with sayings like
EXCELLENCE IS NOT AN ACT BUT A HABIT
and
THERE IS NOT GREAT TALENT WITHOUT GREAT WILLPOWER
cover the walls. I'm not sure why they make me feel cranky, but they do. “Excellence,” “habit,” “willpower” . . . they are totally made-up magazine words.

Rounding the corner, I peer into the practice rooms. Ugh, they're all filled; I should have gotten here sooner. Diondre Potts and his cute little freshman boyfriend are making out in one of them, so I could technically kick them out, but I don't have the heart.

I start to double back in the direction of the library when I notice that the light is on in the music history room.

Peeking through the glass pane, I see that no one is inside. The beautiful, brand-new Steinway is just sitting there, lonely and unused. I wiggle the door handle. It's unlocked.

I enter and close the door behind me. I make my way over to the piano and peel off the quilted cover.

My breath catches in my throat. The piano is even more glorious up close. The black lacquer finish is so shiny, it's practically
liquid. There is a lovely thin red stripe that runs along the top of the keys.

A white handkerchief sits on top of the music rack. I pick it up, and the scent of eucalyptus and fresh soap wafts up. Could it be Mr. Rossi's? Quickly, I stuff it into my jeans pocket.

Then I sink onto the bench, settle my hands on the keyboard, and play a B-flat scale. The tone is like sweet crystal. I play a couple of low, loud chords. Their darkness is velvety and absolute.

For a moment I feel a frisson of guilt, like I'm cheating on my tired old piano back home.

I close my eyes, which forces me into that mental universe of touch and spatial instinct. Then I melt into the Schumann.

I love the Fantasy so, so much. I first heard it on the radio played by Alicia de Larrocha, who has small hands just like me but still managed to make the piece sound big and powerful. The first movement is lush and romantic, with the left hand accompaniment pulsing and rippling while the right hand navigates the melody.