Page 53 of Bad Teammate
Uh oh. Here we go again.
A dark cloud followed her as she made a beeline to the Steinway. The piano bench softlyswooshedacross the hardwood floor as she yanked it out from beneath the instrument.
She took a seat on the bench and turned to glare at me. “So what do you want me to play?”
“Come on, Katerina. You don’t have to play anything. I believe you’re just as good at piano as your brother is at hockey, okay?”
“No, you don’t. And I don’t want you to believe me, either—you’d be a fool to believe someone who says a thing like that. Because you’re right, Sasha is very, very skilled.” She let out a quiet breath. “So, what do you want me to play?”
“Idon’twant you to play. I want you to have the couch. C’mon, I’m getting up now. Let’s do this trade.”
“No, Derek, I don’t want the couch. I want you to name a classical piece.” Her eyes strained with an intensity. “Seriously. Do it. Now.”
I sighed. “Okay. Let me think.”
I racked my brain for classical music. Sure, I could think of a few composers’ names—Mozart, Beethoven, Bach—but did I know any actualtitlesof songs? Damn, how dumb was I going to look when I couldn’t even name one classical piece?
One of my favorite classical melodies popped into my head, but I didn’t know the name of it or who composed it.
“I don’t know what it’s called,” I said. “Can I try to sing it?”
“Sure.”
I hummed the first four or five notes before she stopped me.
“That’s the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Number Fourteen. You might know it as Moonlight Sonata.”
Well, she certainly possessed the confidence to be convincing, anyway.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s probably it.”
She lifted the fallboard, exposing the keys. For a moment, she sat with her spine straight, her hands neatly folded in her lap. The air was silent and tense as she stared at the keys. This was the moment of truth—and I thought she might be talking herself out of it.
She turned to me. “I’m nervous. I haven’t played in years. I’m going to be so rusty. Please don’t think poorly of me.”
“It’s okay, Katerina,” I said gently. “I won’t.”
With a small breath, she reached for the keys and began to play. My ears instantly perked up at the eerie melody.
I sat up. “Yeah! That’s it!”
She didn’t just play with her hands; her whole body moved with the smooth melody. I knew I was watching something special. It was like the music was coming from her soul.
I stood and made my way over to the piano to watch her as she played.
“I love this song,” I said. “You play it wonderfully.”
“It’s a beautiful piece,” she agreed, her concentration unbroken. “Haunting, yet hopeful. Somber, yet romantic.”
“Yeah. I’m surprised you don’t need the sheet music. You really have it memorized?”
She laughed.
“I learned it when I was six. It’s an extremely easy piece to play,” she said, her eyes locked on mine. She didn’t have to look down to see what her hands were doing—just like her brother when he had the puck on the end of his stick. “In fact, even you could play it on your guitar.”
I smirked. I knew she’d meant it as a slight at my guitar skill, but I didn’t even care. After thinking she was a crazy person, I probably deserved whatever insults she threw my way.
Having proven her point, she stopped playing mid-piece. The gloom of the moody piece still lingered in the quiet.
