Chapter 8
EIGHT
FRANKIE
Now
The two violins chased each other through the sonata, the harmonies crisp and clear in the video that Tina, Starview’s violin teacher, had sent Frankie of that morning’s Easter Sunday service performance.
Frankie had not been able to make herself return to the church where she’d said goodbye to Estelle, instead opting for a cup of coffee in Mom’s red mug.
She smiled at the students’ perfected arpeggios, telling herself for the umpteenth time that if they could do it, so could she.
She was seated on the piano stool by the baby grand in Mom’s living room.
Her conversation with Matt the other night had driven home the urgency of the situation, which meant that she needed to get over her weird block not only for her own sake but to keep parents like Bonnie DeWitt happy.
Her hope was that if she sat there long enough, music would happen.
Now was not the time to risk losing students.
If anything, they needed to enroll more kids, extend their hours, and possibly find some buried treasure to dig up too.
Outside the window, a sudden April shower created a wall of mist, its sound hypnotizing against the wooden deck. The rhythm goaded Frankie to join in, but even though more than an hour had passed, she had yet to even touch the keys.
Estelle had given Frankie her first lesson when she was four years old.
They’d been on the road somewhere, and after the gig, while Frankie waited for Estelle to finish chatting with the band, she’d sat down at the upright piano and started picking out tunes with one finger.
After a while, Estelle had joined her, drawing the first five notes in a C scale on a piece of paper and matching them with the keys.
While guitar was Estelle’s first love, she did all right on the piano too, and she’d continued to teach Frankie until they settled in Aspen Creek, and she enrolled her in more formal lessons—first with a lady down in Cornelius and then at Starview once the school was up and running.
Frankie had understood the instrument from the start, quickly progressing through beginner books to more advanced ones.
She wasn’t necessarily a prodigy, but she loved everything about it.
The smoothness of the keys, the muted tap at the press of them, the deep resonance of the lower register and the bright chime of the higher one.
The thrill of a perfectly executed vivace passage.
It was where she escaped after a stressful school day, where she refilled energy reserves, expressed her joy, and worked through conflicts.
Estelle had used to say she could tell Frankie’s mood from one single keystroke.
The piano had always been her ally, but now it sat before her silent and judgmental. Now, when she needed the escape the most, the door to it was locked and the key lost. The irony.
Maybe she could trick her hands to comply? She reached for the sheet music to a simple sonata from the shelf next to her and set it on the rack above the keys. This would be like decoding words in a book without caring about the story. Emotionless.
She placed her hands in the starting position, closed her eyes, then opened them to the first measure.
With an achingly familiar movement, the two eighth notes rose to the ceiling followed by a mournful minor chord, and as she shifted her hands, Frankie had time for one hopeful inhale—a glimpse of that other world where she could lose herself.
Then a chill ran down the back of her arms, locking them in place, and her fingers slipped off the keys to a dissonant din.
She groaned out loud, slamming the fallboard down. Why couldn’t she get past this?
She left the room, turning off lights as she went, and after locking up the kitchen entry, she jogged through the wet grass to her own little house.
She’d have to keep being creative with her lessons, do more instruction than demonstration, and hopefully Kayla would understand if she had to use recorded music for her ballet class again rather than Frankie’s accompaniment.
It wasn’t as dynamic, but it would have to do.
She sat down at her desk to have another pass at Starview’s scheduling to see where they might be able to fit in new students since now, for the first time since she’d joined as partner, they’d have to actively recruit to keep the school afloat.
She’d just started drafting an email to the three academic classroom teachers about possibly increasing the class sizes come fall when her phone rang.
She sighed at seeing Uncle Ray’s number lighting up the screen. Matt hadn’t called him off then…
“Uncle Ray,” she said in greeting. “Happy Easter. How is everything?”
“Frankie, dear. Yes, Happy Easter. Doing all right. Spending the holiday weekend at the St. James cottage with good friends. But how are you holding up?”
Matt’s father had homes in three states and thriving property developments in even more.
He still called Aspen Creek his base, but nowadays he split his time between North Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee depending on the time of year and where he currently had new projects in progress.
Someone else might have thought it odd that he’d left town for Easter considering Matt was here, but Frankie didn’t know him as a sentimental man.
If she was to guess, his current company of “good friends” included at least one or two new business prospects who might be buttered up by a coastal retreat among the state’s upper crust.
Frankie swiveled in her chair, her gaze trailing through the window toward Mom’s house where her ebony nemesis resided. “I’m fine,” she said. “Everything is under control.”
“Such an immense loss, our Estelle. It must be very hard for you.”
“It is,” Frankie conceded. “But the work continues like I know she would have wanted. One day at a time.” She frowned as the platitude crossed her lips.
“She’d be very proud, I’m sure,” Uncle Ray said. Then he cleared his throat. “It’s why I’m calling actually.”
Here it came… “Oh?”
“I spoke to Matt the other day, and he told me Starview is having some financial problems?” He tipped the last word up, phrasing it like a question.
Frankie sent another mild curse Matt’s way. She hadn’t explicitly told him not to tell anyone, and perhaps she should have realized Uncle Ray would find out, but that didn’t make this any less embarrassing.
“Nothing we can’t handle,” Frankie said, forcing her chin up. “I’m still, um… transitioning into the full managerial role, and once I have a clear grasp on everything, this will likely be a simple misunderstanding on my part.” She sounded confident, right? It could be true.
“I see,” Uncle Ray said. “Well, Estelle was a clever woman, so you’re probably right.
But…” He paused—a move of intentional suspense and an understated tactic for making people hang on his every word.
He was a masterful puppeteer in conversations, but this wasn’t Frankie’s first rodeo, so she waited patiently for him to continue, which he did before long.
“Should that not be the case,” he said, “I’m only a phone call away.
A small loan could ease your headache substantially.
I did get Estelle started once upon a time, so you’d be in good company. ”
To Frankie’s surprise, hearing the offer stated so bluntly, it was more appealing than she’d been prepared for.
She even considered it for a split second.
Their accounts back in black, a cushion.
But loans needed to be repaid, and the thought of being beholden to anyone made her want to hang up the phone.
Uncle Ray may have been the closest thing to family she had left, but he was a businessman, not a good Samaritan—that didn’t make someone rich.
No, she’d do this on her own or not at all.
“I appreciate the offer, but I have a plan,” she lied.
“A plan.” He guffawed. “You sound like me when I was your age. Very good. Then I look forward to seeing what you do.”
She rolled her eyes. As if she had a mercenary bone in her body. No, the only thing they had in common was their fondness for Matt and Mom. “I’m sure Matt will keep you posted,” Frankie said, unable to keep all the snark out of her voice.
If Uncle Ray heard it, he didn’t say so.
Instead, he began wrapping up the conversation, but just as he was about to hang up, Frankie’s gaze snagged on the card from the funeral on the cork board above her desk.
She’d pinned it there as a reminder that it was her duty to pursue the culprit, as if that task didn’t already consume most of her waking thoughts.
“Oh, Uncle Ray—you knew Mom longer than most. Do you know if she had conflicts with anyone over the years?”
“Conflicts?” he asked. “What kinds of conflicts?”
“I don’t know. Drama. Anyone who might have held a grudge.”
“A grudge?”
“Yeah. Someone who, I don’t know, maybe didn’t… like her.” She closed her eyes in the wake of what felt like a crude question to ask about her mom.
There was a beat of silence. “This is an unusual question,” Ray said. “Estelle was a wonderful woman, and I can’t say I ever saw her fight with anyone.”
“Right.” Frankie dug her teeth into her lower lip as she looked away from the card and its odd message. “So no one who would have had reason to think she needed forgiveness then?”
He was quiet even longer this time—enough for the fine hairs at Frankie’s neck to rise—but then he chuckled. “Well, I am quite peeved that she dared go before me, but I don’t suppose that counts.”
Frankie huffed out the breath she’d been holding. “Right.” What had she been thinking? That he knew something she didn’t? Of course Estelle hadn’t done anything to invite dislike.
There was a crackle on the line, then another pause before the commanding rasp of his voice returned, closer this time. “Is there a reason you’re asking, Frankie dear?”