The Piano Teacher

Chapter 12

Charlotte disliked that she didn't have nearly as much time to herself as she used to. Four times a week, she taught the piano. Two days for Miss Wilder, two days for the Oleson children. It was very tiring, and sometimes she feared she was pushing herself, but she needed the money.

She continued this for a few weeks, eventually getting into the rhythm of things.

Teaching Miss Wilder was just fine, as they only became dearer friends the more time they spent together. But teaching the Oleson children stressed her.

Willie was not nearly as bad as his sister. His worst fault was being distracted or playing the occasional prank like leaving a pin on the piano bench for Charlotte to sit on. But none of that was as bad as dealing with Nellie Oleson with her constant sneers and backtalk, and especially her meltdowns which would occur as soon as Charlotte gave her any sort of criticism.

It didn't help that, as soon as Nellie threw a fit, Mrs. Oleson would come running and give Charlotte a good scolding, sometimes threatening to fire her if she wasn't gentler with her daughter.

Charlotte frankly had no idea how she was still hired anyway, with all the troubles the children and Mrs. Oleson caused that made it so difficult to teach. She only had two solaces: Willie seemed to have a slight, growing interest in the piano, or at least the idea of playing ridiculously difficult pieces for the sake of showing off, and Mr. Oleson had prevented his wife from firing Charlotte at least twice.

It wasn't necessarily that he "stopped" his wife from making such a decision, but rather he reminded her that there weren't any other alternatives at the moment. This allowed him to avoid conflict as much as possible.

The very last day of summer had been memorable, being an unusually warm and lazy day. The sky was cloudy and the air thick with mugginess.

Hardly anyone came to the mercantile, and Mr. Oleson focused on cleaning the counters while Mrs. Oleson leaned on one of the said counters, fanning herself.

Meanwhile, Charlotte sat at the piano in the parlor with Willie, the windows open and the humid air rustling their hair. Charlotte repeatedly tugged on her white blouse to cool herself as beads of sweat formed on her chest. She tried to focus less on the hot, stale air and more on the duet of Mozart's Turkish March she was performing with Willie.

It was a catchy, choppy tune, and quite uplifting. Willie smiled as he played it with Charlotte, surprised that he could play such a piece. "You've been practicing," Charlotte pointed out once they finished.

"I guess," the boy replied, his brown hair unruly in the hot weather.

"He wants to impress a girl at school," Nellie chimed in from the back of the room, slumped in an armchair with her arms folded over her chest.

"Do not!" Willie shouted. "Albert bet me a nickel I couldn't play nothin' worth hearin', so I'm gonna prove him wrong."

"It doesn't matter," Charlotte laughed. "Willie, you're doing well enough that you'll be able to impress any of your schoolmates. Nellie, let's play the same song together."

The siblings switched places next to Charlotte on the bench. As soon as Charlotte and Nellie began their version of the Turkish March, Charlotte could tell that it was off to a bad start. She wondered if Nellie was purposely making mistakes as there were so many of them, even after weeks of lessons, that it seemed intentional.

She stopped the girl halfway through. "Nellie, haven't you been practicing how I told you?"

"I don't have to practice," she answered sharply. "Playing the piano comes naturally to me. These little lessons of yours may be enough to fine-tune my skills, which I think were already quite high-class. If you think that my playing is anything less than ideal, that might demonstrate that you're not a very skilled teacher."