Page 26 of Over the Edge

“No,” I say and peer around her. “I’d rather tune your piano.”

She shrugs, seemingly satisfied with my response then lets me in. I trail behind her to the familiar living room with its thick, plush carpet and walls cluttered with all the pictures she doesn’t have space for in her own home. It manages to feel lived in, even with its constantly rotating occupants.

“You never sent the NDA,” I remind her since she might have forgotten, given her current state.

“I was never planning on sending you one.”

I stop in my tracks.She has to be joking?

“You should.”

“Planning on selling the story?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought,” she says. “You might barely put up with me, but I trust you.”

Her eyes catch mine as I hold her words for a moment, trying to force them into making sense. Days ago she was going on about the move, and now, she trusts me? I don’t get her, but I guess I rarely do.

I need to push past the weight of what she’s said, so I cock my head toward her piano. “This is Meg, then?”

The living room furniture has been pushed into a new formation to accommodate the baby grand. Instead of appearing cramped, the living room feels more finished, as if the space has been waiting for the piano to complete it. Waiting for her.

“The one and only.” There’s an anxious energy to her voice. Her body shifts like she’s rocking back and forth on her heels, though I can’t see through the fabric pooling around her feet.

“Great. I’ll let you know when I’m done.” I set the black cloth case holding my tools on a side table then position myself at the piano.

Instead of retreating to a bedroom or some dark corner to let me work in peace, Evelyn opts to curl up onto a couch and watch. Her body is swallowed by the blankets, making her look somewhat like a floating head.

My jaw ticks as I force my attention back to the piano. I find the lip of the keyboard cover and I slip it back. Starting at the far left, I play chromatic chords up the piano to check for any problem areas. It’s not terrible. Someone without a good ear could play it as is without being bothered.

Should be simple enough, though it’s still tedious. There are two hundred and thirty strings in a piano and each one has to be checked. It’s the type of work I love—the type you can’t rush. I slip my long length of red felt between the first and third strings of the treble and mid sections to allow me to tune the middlestrings first. All the while, I feel a prickle of awareness at the back of my neck.

“Do you have to be in here?” I ask without turning to look.

“No. But I want to be. I’m just actively reconfiguring what a piano tuner looks like in my head.” I know her eyes are on me, I always do.

“And what is that exactly?”

“A cute old man who tells me so much about his three grandchildren going to liberal arts colleges in the Pacific Northwest that by the time he leaves I’d feel like they were in the room with us," she explains. "But at least you've got the cute little glasses. That part is spot on."

“Sorry to be a statistical outlier.”

“Oh, come on. You love being the exception,” she says.

The thing is, I do. Less because of some sense of superiority. But if you are the exception, if you put in the damn work, no one can deny that you belong somewhere. No one can take that from you.

I never did figure out what it was that Lana needed that I could provide, besides money. Growing up there were small things, listening to her stories about her last-minute weekend trips to Boston after not seeing her for three days. Then when I was in middle school there were the shifts she started skipping. I’d go in for her at the pub cleaning tables or spend afternoons watching the register at Love is Brewing. It wasn’t legal, but anyone who hired her in town did it out of kindness to support a single mother. And I usually got a free meal out of it. They took a chance on her and she always blew it. Sometimes I think that in trying to be essential to her, I made myself easier to leave. I gave her a safety net I wove out of guilt so she never had to be fully accountable. I grew up so she never had to.

I’m half certain the reason I joined Fool’s Gambit was because of how adamant Wes was that I had to be the bassist. It didn’tmatter that I’d have to learn the instrument, he was insistent. I would try and brush him off with excuses about studying, but that never deterred him. He showed up to my spot in the library every day. When I relocated, he followed. At fourteen, it was the first time I felt like anyone fought to have me in their life. Wes has his faults, but he gave me that. He let me be young alongside him.

He let me be fourteen.

But things have changed. The longer I’m in Hartsfall, the more likely the spot I’ve carved for myself in the city will become someone else's. The thought sends a wave of tension through my shoulders.

“What if I do?” I ask.

“I do appreciate your help,” she says. “I was worried that I’d have to call someone in from the city and who knows how long that would have taken.”

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