Chapter 6 Piano for a Dummy #2
Theo nodded as her hand moved to his shoulder, resting there briefly.
The contact was light, barely more than a touch, but she felt the bone beneath the hospital gown and the frailty that hadn't been there years ago when she'd first met him.
Her fingers pressed gently, acknowledging his sentiment without words.
At the curtain, she paused, her hand on the fabric. She watched the monitors for longer than necessary, tracking the peaks and valleys of Harry's heartbeat across the screen.
Until eventually, the sounds of the ER filtered through the curtain: someone calling for assistance in bed three, a phone ringing at the nurses' station, the pneumatic whoosh of the tube system delivering labs.
The controlled chaos that defined her existence continued without pause, indifferent to whatever small moment of understanding had passed between her and a dying man in a curtained-off corner.
She found Natalie at the nurses' station, who took one look at her and set down the chart she was reading. "You okay?"
"Yeah, fine," Theo said, the words automatic.
"Bed six needs an abdominal exam. Possible appendicitis."
"I'll take it."
Theo reached for the chart Natalie extended, her hand steadier now, the tremor from earlier completely absent. She scanned the patient information: twenty-three-year-old male, right lower quadrant pain, fever of 101. Classic presentation.
She reached bed six and pulled the curtain aside, her professional mask firmly in place by the time she stepped through, ready to begin again.
* * *
The next morning, Theo woke sprawled across the couch with a book tented over her chest. At some point, she had come out here with tea and the vague intention of reading, but the book now lay open where she’d dozed off halfway down the page.
She stretched, savoring the rare day off, and reached for the now-cold tea when the first piano notes filtered through the wall.
The melody stumbled forward, hesitant and careful, like someone testing thin ice. Not Catherine, then. Catherine's playing had a confidence that filled rooms. This was someone placing each note down like it might break.
Noah must be here for his lesson.
Jesus. When had she started recognizing Catherine’s students by their playing?
Apparently, she’d been paying more attention than she thought. She knew Catherine taught about fifteen kids. Theo had given them all nicknames, just to text Catherine and needle her about her teaching ability.
There was ‘Overachiever Octaves’, who treated every warm-up like an Olympic qualifier; ‘Miss Pedal-to-the-Metal’, who believed subtlety was for the weak; ‘Little Miss Minor Key’, whose gloomy scales made her want to prescribe antidepressants; and, of course, ‘The Phantom Sneezer’, who punctuated every phrase like a brass section with allergies.
It was all fun and games until she ran into one of them in the hallway or lobby, a tiny virtuoso smiling up at her, completely unaware that she’d been silently critiquing their emotional range through drywall.
Still, not all of them grated.
Noah was her favorite. He played like he was afraid the piano might bite back. He was hesitant, sincere, some notes landing a beat late, like he was apologizing to it. Compared to Catherine’s usual army of prodigies, he was wonderfully human.
She found herself moving closer to the shared wall without conscious decision, settling onto the armchair in her bedroom, where she could hear better.
Noah was working through scales, his young fingers finding their way across the keys. She could hear Catherine's voice occasionally, muffled but distinct, offering corrections that sounded less harsh than Theo would have expected.
When Noah moved from scales to an actual piece, Theo recognized it.
And the recognition caught her off guard; she'd been listening to classical piano during her commutes for the past few weeks, ever since the sticky note war had escalated into something more consuming than simple noise complaints.
She'd told herself it was research, a way to understand what Catherine did, to find ammunition for their ongoing battle, maybe even to finally beat her at Keyed In.
But somewhere along the way, without quite noticing, she'd started actually enjoying it.
She tilted her head, listening a little more closely, and the name clicked into place. This was Bach. She was almost certain. Prelude in C Major, unless she was completely wrong, which was entirely possible given her crash course in classical music education came from a random playlist she’d saved.
The lesson continued for another fifty minutes, Noah's playing growing more confident as he progressed.
Theo stayed where she was, listening with an attention she couldn't quite explain to herself.
There was something intimate about hearing Catherine teach, the way her voice gentled when she praised the boy's improvement, or the patience she displayed when he stumbled over a difficult passage.
When the lesson ended, and Noah's cheerful goodbye gave way to the click of Catherine's door, Theo grabbed her phone and pulled up the text thread with Catherine before the impulse had time to cool.
The previous messages stared back at her, a stream of sparring and playful taunts, a digital ledger of their deliciously strained rivalry.
Her thumb hovered over the keyboard, and after a moment she typed:
Theo
That first piece Noah played was Bach, right? Don't get smug about it. It's just been annoying me that I don't know for sure.
She hit send and immediately regretted every word choice. Don't get smug was too defensive. It's just been annoying me revealed too much. She should have—
Her phone buzzed.
Catherine
I can send you my bank details if you are interested in taking lessons.
I also offer theory classes for those less able to manage the skill of playing.
There it was, Catherine's signature brand of condescension, wrapped in perfect punctuation and devastating finesse.
Theo felt the corner of her mouth lift before she could stop it.
* * *
By three in the afternoon, Theo had reorganized her sock drawer by color, scrolled to the absolute bottom of her Instagram feed (an achievement she didn’t know was possible), and attempted a seven-minute workout she abandoned after four. Possibly two.
She needed to get out before she started talking to the walls. Her stomach growled in agreement. Opening the fridge revealed a half-empty bottle of ketchup, a yogurt with last month’s expiration date, and something wrapped in foil she was afraid to investigate.
She grabbed her wallet and keys, and opened the door to find a DVD case perched on her doormat.
She paused, then bent to pick it up. It was one of those clear plastic cases with faintly yellowed edges, the kind everyone used to have stacked somewhere before streaming took over.
The cover showed a cartoon stick figure hunched over piano keys with question marks floating above its head. "Piano for Dummies," the title read in that chunky black font that screamed early 2000s bargain bin.
Escalating from digital sparring to hand-delivered psychological warfare was exactly Catherine’s style. Theo had to (reluctantly) respect the craft.
She turned it over and read the tagline: Learn the basics of musical genius in just 120 minutes!
Underneath, in black marker, Catherine had underlined perfect for the rhythmically challenged and drawn a big exclamation mark next to it.
The whole thing was so absurd, so precisely targeted, that Theo couldn’t even summon irritation. She brought it inside, groceries forgotten, and set it on her coffee table.
She grabbed her phone, pulled up Catherine’s contact, and typed:
Theo
And what is this exactly?
The response came within seconds:
Catherine
A DVD. For your musical education. It's what I recommend to my students who are in first grade.
Theo
What’s a DVD? Like some kind of software or…?
Three dots appeared, disappeared, then reappeared again. Theo imagined Catherine on the other end, lips pursed, those sharp eyes narrowing just like Theo had seen on the first night they met.
Catherine
You're joking.
Theo snorted and fired back:
Theo
Obviously. I'm 28, not 12.
But I don't own a DVD player. That technology's extinct except in nursing homes and your apartment, apparently
She added the grandma emoji deliberately, knowing it would irritate Catherine. There was something so incredibly satisfying about using casual text speak with someone who composed her messages like tiny letters.
Catherine's reply was ice-cold:
Catherine
Has anyone ever told you how funny you are, Theodora?
Theo smiled widely. She could hear the disdain dripping from Catherine's words.
Theo
All the time.
Catherine
They're lying.
Theo flopped back against her couch cushions as she typed:
Theo
I’ll go see Mary. I bet she has one lying around. You’re about the same age, right?
She set her phone down and picked up the DVD case again. It was ridiculous, the entire situation. Here she was, on a Sunday afternoon, getting genuinely flustered over a DVD left by her neighbor and a text conversation that consisted mostly of insults…okay, entirely of insults.
Theo tossed the DVD onto the cushion beside her. She needed air, needed motion, needed anything but the restless energy that had her dissecting every word of a text conversation while a borrowed DVD mocked her. The grocery store seemed like the lesser evil.
It wasn’t.
It turned out to be a special circle of hell, overcrowded with weekend shoppers, a picked-over produce section, and a checkout line that aged her visibly.
By the time Theo made it back to her building at five, arms laden with reusable bags that cut into her palms, she was ready to collapse directly onto her couch and not move until her next shift.
She made it to the fourteenth floor and started down the hallway before she registered what was sitting outside her door.