Page 26 of A Very Merry Matchup
“Beau Wall,” he says with a little grunt. “Still in the minors, I hear.” And I see his style of cheery greetings hasn’t changed either. “Who’s this?” Mr. Gebhard points at Ivy. “Is she the fiancée I’ve been hearing all about?”
Mr. Gebhard keeps up on my careerandmy social life? Why am I actually a little flattered right now? And why can’t I scrape my tongue away from the roof of my mouth to say anything?
“Hello, sir, I’m Ivy,” she says when it becomes apparent that I’ve lost all ability to make sounds, let alone form any words. “And no, we’re not engaged. I’m just helping Beau deliver baskets for his dad.”
While Ivy picks up the basket Mr. Gebhard shoots me another look of disappointment. “Not engaged, huh.”
“Can we set this somewhere inside for you?” Ivy asks.
“Or we could just leave it out here,” I add, finally finding some words.
Mr. Gebhard eyes the contents of the basket beneath the porch light. “Where’s the socks? There’s usually socks.”
“Oh.” Ivy darts a glance at me, then to the neighbors next door.
“Just take the basket to the kitchen,” says Mr. Gebhard, waving us inside. “I always hated those socks.”
Of course he did. I grab the basket from Ivy and dart through the doorway for the kitchen, which also smells the same as it did nearly twenty years ago. Like some sort of meat and boiled cabbage. He’d always make me wait at the kitchen table while he fixed his stinky supper whenever my mom was late picking me up from practice. Which was basically every week.
“What a lovely piano,” I hear Ivy say as I set the basket on the kitchen table.
It’s not a lovely piano. It’s a terrible piano. I grab Ivy’s hand so I can drag her away from the dark upright piano perched along the wall of Mr. Gebhard’s tiny living room. We need to go. My shirt is too tight. The air is too stuffy. My head itches. I just want to get out of here so Ivy can kiss my cheek.
“Do you still play?” Takes me a second to realize Mr. Gebhard is talking to me.
“Play? Piano? Me?” I swallow. “Uh, sure. Yeah. I mean, I play as much as I always have.”
“So you don’t play,” Mr. Gebhard says to me, his pale eyes bouncing off our joined hands, then up to Ivy. “What about you?”
She’s tapping one of the high-note keys with her freehand. “Used to. Haven’t played in a long time though.” The nostalgia in her voice is as easy to hear as the note she’s tapping. “My grandma bought an old used piano back when I was a kid just so there’d be one at her house whenever my brother and I visited. ‘Silver Bells’ was her favorite song, so I made sure to play it for her every Christmas.”
Mr. Gebhard nods toward a worn green piano book with Santa Claus on the cover. “You’re welcome to play,” he says. “Piano hasn’t been tuned in a while, though, I’m afraid.”
“That’s okay,” Ivy says, letting go of my hand despite how hard I’ve been squeezing it as a Mayday signal for us to get out of here.
She slides onto the bench and starts flipping through the piano book. “I wonder if—oh, good. It is here,” she says, glancing at us with a smile, then settling the open pages in front of her.
She starts playing, her fingers stumbling over the first few notes before settling into the melody. I wait for Mr. Gebhard to say something about her wrong notes. Her uneven tempo. Her lack of finesse.
Instead, I hear him quietly say, “‘Silver Bells’ was my wife’s favorite Christmas song too.”
I spare him a quick glance. His wife. That’s right. I’d forgotten that he was married at one time. Back when I startedtaking piano lessons, he was already a widower. That’s the only way I’ve ever known him. Alone and grouchy.
But I suppose if I were married to someone like Ivy and lost her, I’d be feeling pretty lonely and grouchy too. Especially if I got saddled with a kid week after week who never learned anything from the lessons I kept trying to teach him.
Before I can stop myself, I pat Mr. Gebhard’s shoulder. His bones are prominent beneath my touch. I let my hand rest there. He could probably use a little more warmth than he gets from that cardigan.
“You know something?” I say back just as softly while Ivy continues to play. “I think this song just became my favorite, too.” When I lower my hand from his shoulder, he looks at me and we share something we’ve never shared beneath this roof before. A smile. Guess miracles really do happen at Christmas.
“Want a little advice?” Now Mr. Gebhard is patting me on the elbow. Probably because he’s a foot shorter than me and it’s a little easier to reach than my shoulder. I’m just relieved he’s not whapping me on the knuckles with his number-two pencil anymore. “Looks to me like you’ve got the potential for something good here. Don’t blow it off. Be willing to put in the time.”
“What happens if I don’t have enough time left?” I ask as Ivy reaches the final notes of the song.
“I think we both know that was never the issue with you, Beau Wall. It wasn’t lack of time that kept you from becoming a great piano player. It was lack of heart. Figure out what really matters to your heart, make it a priority, and you’ll be fine.”
Sure. Fine. But what if both Ivyandbaseball matter to my heart?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
