Music in the Key of Love

Chapter 27: Scenes From a Diner

"Still mad at me?"

Cressida looked down at her phone during class and smiled. She knew he couldn't take it for very long. She put her phone away until class was over, both because it was rude to text during class and just to make him suffer a bit longer.

"I suppose I'm getting over it."

"Great! Can you come uptown? Please?"

"Okay. Be there in an hour."

She got off the subway and walked out into a day that had grown cloudy and damp with impending showers, from a morning of relative sunshine. People huddled in their coats and scarves, and umbrella sellers on the corners were doing a brisk trade with people who'd stepped out without one.

The lobby was deserted excepting the concierge, who tipped his hat at her in recognition.

Graham was waiting for her in the foyer with a bunch of flowers.

"Hello."

"Hello." Graham leaned in to kiss her, which she allowed. He handed her the flowers with a flourish, saying, "See? Yellow, your favorite color, Sweetiecie."

"Nice of you to get yourself flowers," she said drily.

"What do you mean, they're for you."

"They'll have to go in water in your room, they won't last long enough otherwise. What do you want me to do, carry a vaseful of flowers home on the subway?"

Graham considered. "Oh I see. Good point." He planted a kiss on her cheek. "Well, they'll remind me of you every time I see them, how's that?"

"I guess."

They got the flowers all squared away, then headed for the practice room. Soon the only sounds were of the piano, and in between, Cressida tapping away on her laptop.

He went through about twenty minutes of warm ups, scales and arpeggios that rang out, even with the lid closed. Once again, Cressida had to stop herself from just staring at his back as he worked.

Cressida noticed, after he started on the Rachmaninov, that he didn't play it all the way through, but rather one movement at a time, and out of order. He had a remote with which to work the sound system.

Eventually she stopped working altogether and started paying attention to him, to make sure she wasn't confused. After all, she didn't know the piece very well; maybe he was playing them in order? But no, she remembered him telling her that standard construction was a fast first movement, a slow second, and then a fast third to wrap things up, and he definitely wasn't playing them that way.

"Shouldn't you play the whole thing, all the way through?" she finally asked during one of the silences when he was just scowling at the music.

"Hm? What?"

"Shouldn't you play all three movements in order? From beginning to end."
Graham smiled at her. "You can tell I'm playing them out of order? Good for you, Cress!"

"Don't be condescending, even I know this piece a little bit, it's famous, you hear it everywhere. And you, sir, aren't playing the entire piece, just the movements, out of order."

Graham shrugged. "I thought it might help, you know? Sort of sneak up on it a little? Like drawing something upside down, so you don't know what you're drawing exactly, and it just becomes lines and angles."

"Would you play me something?" She hadn't asked this in a few weeks. "Postcards From Far Away?"

He turned back to the keyboard and played it, melting her, as he did every time he played it for her.