Chapter Six Lessons
Caleb
I opened the shop earlier than usual that afternoon, even though there was no real reason to.
The sign on the door said OPEN, the lights were on, and everything was already exactly where it belonged.
Still, I tuned a guitar that had been tuned the night before, adjusted the stool near the counter, and wiped down a surface that didn’t need it.
Teaching lessons always made me restless beforehand. Not anxious, exactly, just more aware. It was the kind of attention that did not demand anything from me beyond presence and patience, which was precisely why I liked it.
The shop smelled faintly of wood and metal and the citrus cleaner I used sparingly. Instruments hung neatly along the walls, each one familiar, each one quiet unless invited otherwise. I looked at my online website and noticed there weren’t any orders or sales the night before.
I checked the clock and reminded myself that Kitty was not late. I was the one who was uncharacteristically early. For some reason, I was the one who felt nervous.
It was just a music lesson, I firmly told myself. I was never nervous for any of my other students. Of course, my other students weren’t small brunettes with big doe eyes and sweet smiles.
I shook the image out of my mind.
I heard the bell over the door a moment later.
Kitty stepped inside carefully, as if she were entering a place that might change its mind about having her there. Her hair was tucked into a knit hat, her coat zipped up higher than necessary, and she moved with the faint stiffness of someone who had discovered new muscles the hard way.
“Hi,” she said, smiling a little. “I hope I’m not early.”
“You’re right on time,” I told her.
She visibly relaxed, which told me more than she probably realized. She shrugged off her coat and outer great, glancing around the shop, her gaze lingering on the instruments like she was taking inventory rather than browsing.
“How are you feeling after yesterday?” I asked.
She hesitated. “I’m sore in places I didn’t know existed.”
“That tracks,” I said. “Snowboarding has a way of introducing itself aggressively.”
She laughed softly and then winced when she shifted her weight. “Lydia has already declared she’s ready for the Olympics.”
“Your sister seems to be determined to conquer the mountain. I’m not so sure it’s ready for her,” I commented.
She smiled, then looked down at her hands as if she was reminding herself why she was there. “Thank you again for doing this. I know you’re busy.”
“I like teaching music,” I told her.
She nodded, though she didn’t quite look convinced.
Going to the back of the store, I gestured to two stools and picked up a guitar from the ones lining the wall. Handing it to her, I showed her how to hold it properly. Kitty did as instructed, shoulders tight at first, then slowly easing as she adjusted to the weight.
“You don’t need to brace for impact,” I said lightly. “It’s not going anywhere.”
She laughed again and shifted her grip. “I just don’t want to accidentally drop it, or break it.”
“You won’t,” I said. “And even if you did, I can fix it. Here, if it makes you feel more secure, let’s add a strap.”
That seemed to help. She settled a little more, posture still cautious but no longer rigid.
We started with the basics. Finger placement. How to press the strings without pressing too hard. How to sit so her wrists would not protest immediately, which they did anyway.
“That sounds terrible,” she said after her first attempt.
“It sounds like a beginning,” I corrected. “All we are doing is learning.”
She glanced at me, surprised. “That’s generous.”
“It’s accurate.”
She tried again. The sound improved marginally, which she didn’t acknowledge. Instead, she frowned in concentration, watching her fingers like they were betraying her personally.
“I’m sorry,” she said automatically when the chord buzzed.
I lifted a hand gently. “You don’t need to apologize.”
“I keep doing that,” she said, embarrassed.
“Yes,” I said. “You do.”
She laughed, sheepish but unoffended. “Old habit.”
“You’re allowed to be bad at something,” I told her. “That’s kind of the point. We’re all bad at the beginning, then we practice to improve.”
She absorbed that quietly and tried again, slower this time. The sound was cleaner.
Her eyes widened. “Oh.”
“There it is,” I said with a smile.
She smiled, pleased and entirely unguarded.
For a few minutes, there was nothing but instruction and effort and the soft, imperfect noise of learning. I noticed how closely she listened, how seriously she took every adjustment. Some people treated lessons like entertainment. Kitty treated them like something that mattered.
“That was better,” I said after a short progression.
She exhaled. “It was?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head, incredulous. “I didn’t think it would feel like that.”
“Like what?” I wondered
“Like I might actually get to a point where someday I might be able to play an actual tune,” she confessed.
I stood, pulling a guitar from the wall, casually picking at the strings as I sat back down on the stool. “Most things feel impossible right up until they don’t.”
She nodded slowly, thoughtful.
After a moment, she said, “The town is very excited about the talent show.”
I kept my tone neutral. “I heard.”
She glanced up at me. “You did?”
“Marjorie cornered me with a stack of flyers,” I said. “I agreed to help with sound on stage. I have some equipment I can loan and make sure things are set up properly.”
Her shoulders dropped in relief. “Oh. That’s good.”
The way she said it caught my attention and I wondered what she meant.
“It’s a lot,” she added, carefully casual. “Trying to make sure the talent show goes well.”
I nodded, already feeling something shift, though I couldn’t yet name it.
“Well, I’m sure the festival planning committee has everything under control. They did a really good job last year,” I said, keeping my voice even..”
She smiled faintly and looked back down at the guitar, fingers poised, uncertain again.
We returned to the lesson, but something had changed enough that I was aware of the space between us in a way I had not been before.
And for reasons I could not yet articulate, I suspected the conversation we were circling would not be as simple as either of us hoped.
Kitty tried the chord again, slower, and this time the sound came out clean enough that she froze like she didn’t trust it.
“There,” I said. “That’s the shape. Your fingers will complain for a while, but they’ll learn.”
“They already are,” she admitted, flexing her hand carefully. “I think snowboarding started a rebellion.”
“Snowboarding does that.” I reached for the small jar of finger picks on the counter and set it aside, then resisted the urge to tidy it again. “We’ll keep it gentle today. You’ll build strength without wrecking your wrists.”
She nodded and adjusted her grip. Her focus sharpened, and I watched the way she concentrated. She played the progression once more, then looked up at me as if she was asking permission to be proud.
“That was better,” I said. “You heard the difference.”
“I did,” she said softly, and her smile returned, small but real.
The room settled into that comfortable rhythm lessons sometimes found. Instruction, practice, and minor corrections filled the time.
Then Kitty cleared her throat.
“I was thinking,” she began, and her tone shifted into careful politeness. “About the talent show.”
I kept my expression neutral, but something in me tightened anyway. I told myself it was nothing. I had agreed to help Marjorie with sound and absolutely nothing more.
Kitty looked back down at the guitar and rotated her wrist slightly like she was easing into the topic the way she eased into chords. “Lydia and I went to the committee meeting last night.”
I waited.
“It was… a lot,” she continued. “Apparently Lydia volunteered us to be lead organizers.”
I blinked. Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn’t that. “Lead organizers?”
“Yes,” she said, and the word came out like a confession. “I didn’t know that was what I was agreeing to.”
“Your sister didn’t tell you,” I said carefully.
Kitty’s mouth pressed into a line that was half amusement and half dread. “It wasn’t her finest moment.”
There was affection underneath the frustration, which meant the frustration was probably constant. That was how family arguments usually worked. The annoyance was real, and so was the loyalty.
She shifted on the stool. “I’m trying to pin down what we actually have to do, and the committee is waiting for direction. They already handed out flyers and the talent show date isn’t that far away.”
“You mean they haven’t figured out anything yet?” I wondered with a small amount of alarm.
“No.” Kitty glanced up at me. “You said you offered to help with sound?”
“I did,” I confirmed.
Her shoulders dropped again, visibly relieved, and that relief did something to me. It made me want to keep being the person she could lean on. It also made me wary, because leaning on me was how things got heavy.
“That was really kind,” she said. “Honestly, I was hoping you might also be able to tell me what to do to make the talent show successful.”
The sentence was simple. The meaning should have been simple.
It wasn’t.
What I heard was a dozen other conversations layered underneath it, all the ones I had tried to forget.
People telling me what success looked like.
People insisting that success required me, specifically, on a stage.
People smiling like they were offering an opportunity, when what they were offering was a cage.
Kitty’s eyes were earnest. She wasn’t manipulating me. She wasn’t being sly. She was asking like someone who truly didn’t know where to begin.
I told myself to answer the question she meant. “ Successful how ?”
She gestured with one hand, the other still resting on the guitar neck. “I don’t know. Happy people and nobody angry . No disasters.”
I nodded slowly. “Disasters happen.”
“I would like to avoid them,” she said, very sincerely.
I almost smiled, because I understood that feeling. I also understood that you could plan your heart out and the world would still do what it wanted.
Kitty continued, voice still careful. “I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m just hoping for advice.”
I made myself keep my tone even. “I can help you plan the sound needs. Mic count and speaker placement. That kind of thing.”
Her face brightened. “Yes. And also, maybe… the flow.”
I felt the shift in my own posture, subtle but real. The old instinct to protect space. To protect the quiet in my life.
Kitty was still looking at me hopefully, and I hated that my first reaction was to step back.
“Kitty,” I began, choosing my words carefully, “I told Marjorie I would handle the sound. That’s what I can commit to.”
Her smile faltered. Not dramatic. Just a small dip, like a light being turned down.
“I know,” she said. “I’m grateful for that. I just thought…”
That was the problem. Thinking. Expecting. Imagining me in roles I didn’t want. I heard myself say, “I’m not performing.”
The words landed between us with a sharpness I hadn’t intended. The shop suddenly felt too quiet.
Kitty blinked. “What?”
“I’m not performing,” I repeated, softer, but the damage was already done. “I don’t do that anymore.”
Her cheeks flushed, and she sat up straighter, like embarrassment had pulled a string through her spine. “I didn’t ask you to perform.”
I hesitated. She sounded genuinely offended, and that should have clarified things.
Instead, it made me defensive, which wasn’t fair to her.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but my apology came out stiff. “It’s a talent show with music. I assumed.”
She stared at me for a beat, her hands still on the guitar like she wasn’t sure if she should put it down or keep going. “I was asking for organizing help. For advice, because you know about music.”
I tried to correct course . “If you want advice about managing the schedule and keeping performers moving, I can tell you what usually works.”
The offer sounded reasonable. It also sounded too late.
Kitty nodded, but she did it politely, not enthusiastically. “Okay. That’s fine.”
Fine was never fine.
I shifted my weight, suddenly aware of how easily I had turned something good into something awkward.
“You’re doing well with the guitar,” I said, because it was true and because I needed to give us something neutral to talk about.
She looked down. “Thank you.”
We finished the lesson after that, but the warmth was gone. Kitty still practiced. I still corrected her hand position. We still made progress. It all felt slightly more formal, as if we were both proving we could be adults about it.
When the time was up, she set the guitar down carefully and stood, wincing slightly as her sore body reminded her it existed.
“I’ll see you next week,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied. “Thank you for your time.”
The phrasing was so polite it might as well have been a receipt.
She put on her coat and hat, then paused at the door.
“And thank you for the sound help,” she added, voice gentle. “Marjorie will be relieved.”
“No problem,” I said.
She nodded once, then left.
The bell chimed softly as the door closed, and the shop settled back into silence.
I stood there longer than necessary, staring at the spot where she had been.