Chapter 2
Jesse
For the past two years, I’ve rented a quaint, quirky, albeit drafty studio, made up of half the upstairs of a hundred-year-old house, situated on a side street in the U-District.
Mr. Thorpe, the elderly and irritable owner of the building, lives downstairs, and until two weeks ago, the other half of the upstairs was occupied by a med student who might as well have lived at the hospital where she was interning for all the time she spent at home.
Now that she’s moved out, the apartment is vacant.
Somehow, knowing that I’m truly neighborless makes the space feel quieter than ever.
Contrary to Alex’s plans, I’m feeling distinctly unmotivated by the time I step inside and pull the door shut behind me. In fact, all I really want to do at the moment is forget about everything to do with dates and Todd. Especially in combination.
Kicking off my shoes, I head straight to crank up the heater before swapping out my damp clothes for pajama bottoms and a worn old t-shirt. It’s been an especially cold start to March, and the walk home from Alex’s left my clothes soggy with a drizzle that I swear had a few flecks of sleet in it.
Naturally I’d forgotten to take a coat tonight. Apparently, I’m practicing for the whole absent-minded professor thing.
Trying not to focus on how thoroughly I’m proving Alex’s observations about my need to get out more, I sink down into my well-loved chair beside the radiator.
My book, a surprisingly well-researched historical fiction about Henry VIII, is where I’d left it last night, wedged between the threadbare pouf the seat and the cushy, if rather sunken in, base of my chair’s arm.
In the few seconds it takes me to extract it and flip to the page where I’d left off though, I’m already restless.
Gritting my teeth, I focus my eyes on the page, trying to make myself relax.
I make it through one page before I realize I don’t have a single shred of memory of what I’ve just read.
Instead of Henry’s growing mistrust of the Catholic church and obsession with the dark-haired Anne Boleyn, my mind is spiraling through a stomach-knotting list of places where I might be able to meet someone.
The absolute last thing I intend to think about tonight. And maybe a day or two longer. It’s not like the task Alex has set me will actually take the two whole weeks, and I can’t deny that procrastination is sounding pretty sweet at the moment.
Fucking Alex.
Huffing out an irritated breath, I stuff the book back into its spot in my chair, extract myself from the overstuffed softness, and wander over to the ancient upright piano that’s tucked against the wall in the corner by my front window.
Since I can’t focus on reading and don’t have a hope of accomplishing anything to do with my stalled dissertation tonight, I might as well practice.
Playing the piano is a “talent” I’ve only acquired over the two years I’ve lived here; learned via free, prerecorded online lessons.
Technically, the piano isn’t even mine. When I moved into the apartment, it was already there, sitting against the same wall where I’ve left it. Mr. Thorpe’s grunted explanation was that a tenant of his had left it several years ago, and he couldn’t be bothered to have it hauled away.
Though I started out of rather morbid curiosity—six months of torturous cello lessons when I was twelve long ago proved my utter lack of musical inclination—it has turned out to be surprisingly fun.
I’m definitely not talented, or even good at playing by any means, but messing around on that old, probably out of tune piano provides a welcome change from the world of historical academia.
And hopefully tonight, a distraction from the looming threat of Todd and whatever hell a date with him would unquestionably prove to be.
Pulling the battered stool out and settling myself at the keys, I swipe open the tab for the online piano lessons I’d left open on my phone.
Real musicians everywhere would probably be cringing right now if they could only see me as I balance the device on the piano’s sheet music stand, but I don’t have a printer of my own, and anyway, there doesn’t seem to be much point in wasting paper when this works perfectly well.
My most recent success on the piano, of which I have to admit to being insanely proud, is managing to plunk out a rather choppy, simplified rendition of the overture of Swan Lake.
It’s always been one of my favorite pieces, and now, as I curl my fingers over the keys and begin the familiar melody, the challenge of trying to get the notes right does what I’d hoped, taking over my thoughts completely.
I’m about halfway through, just approaching the part where the piece first begins to shift, transforming from hauntingly plaintive to something wilder with a touch of darkness, when a sound from the vacant apartment next door catches me off guard, making my fingers slip into a discordant clunk of noise.
Rich and complex and magical in a way I don’t think I could ever accomplish, not even if I practiced for a hundred years, the sound of a second piano drifts through the thin wall, echoing back a stunning reimagining of what I’d been attempting to play.
It takes me a good second or two longer than it should take any reasonable human to remember that, after two weeks of being neighborless, I’d heard the unmistakable sounds of someone moving in next door earlier today.
And whoever they are, my new neighbor is apparently a real-life virtuoso.
I can feel the telltale flush of embarrassed heat creeping up into my cheeks as the impulse to stop playing grips me.
What right do I have to stumble through a kiddy version of Tchaikovsky when I’m less than five feet away from someone who can not just play it, but transform it into something new and breathtakingly unique so apparently effortlessly?
If I were face to face with whoever’s playing like that, I know I’d never have the balls to keep going.
I am not face to face with them though, and maybe because of the fact that I can’t deny I’m every kind of cliché introvert nervous about having to find someone to take out on a date to keep Alex, and by extension Todd, off my back (I bite back a shudder as I realize how unfortunate that metaphor was) I’m totally unwilling to let my inner recluse win this time.
Never mind that this is just about the least sociable stretch of the definition of interpersonal interaction ever.
The first few notes I try are hesitant, but a moment later, Mystery Neighbor’s playing slows a bit, giving me the space to work my amateur contribution in beside their beautifully flowing music.
More easily than I’d have imagined, definitely all thanks to the other half of this little impromptu duet, our playing falls into sync, and by the time the last notes of the piece hang in the air, I’m grinning.
Then awkwardness seizes me. What am I supposed to do now?
Say something through the wall? No, that would be weird as hell.
Go out into the rain, trek through the connecting alley and up the stairs to knock on their door to introduce myself?
Not a chance. Not only does that seem even weirder than calling out through the wall, it would also be really intrusive.
Whoever my new neighbor and duet partner of the evening is, they’ve just moved in. They don’t want some awkward stranger coming and knocking on their door in the dark.
And so, as quietly as I can, totally aware that sneaking away from the wall between where the two of us are, like I’m trying to hide, is probably the weirdest of all the options I’ve come up with, I do precisely that.
Practically tiptoeing, I creep away from the piano, back to my chair where I attempt to content myself with good old Henry and his religious turmoil.
I can’t say it works especially well.
The weekend and the first half of the week pass in a frustrated blur of attempting to focus on my research with even less than usual success. Not surprising, given the threatening specter of Todd hanging over my shoulder at every turn.
I’d stocked up on groceries Tuesday afternoon before forcing myself to face the task of trying to decipher digital copies of some extremely faded documents from a mass witch hysteria event in 1427 that led to accusations against over half the inhabitants of a small town in Lincolnshire.
The script on the documents was nearly impossible to read, faded and tiny and, per usual for the time, rife with highly creative spelling.
In the end, all I really succeeded in doing was giving myself a headache so massive that, when I roll out of bed on Wednesday morning, about two hours later than I usually get up, the best I can manage is a halfhearted effort to organize my notes.
After absently staring at my laptop for the remainder of the morning, I finally concede defeat.By now, it’s pushing noon, and the restless frustration of having accomplished precisely nothing is hanging around me like a thick fog.
My head gives a vicious pound, probably made worse by the fact that I didn’t bother to make myself coffee this morning before trying to jump into work.
In a moment’s snap decision, I flip shut my laptop, shove it in my bag, and, without bothering to change out of the especially tatty but especially comfy sweater I’d thrown on in preparation for an antisocial day at home, I’m on my way out the door.