3. The Pianist
The Pianist
Sleep hadn’t come easy last night, as I’d been startled awake every hour by—nothing. Over and over. The uncanny feeling that I was not alone, every hair on my body standing on-end, my lungs sucking in air like I’d dreamt of drowning.
I’m too old to be afraid of the dark.
“So you’ve found the Steinway, then.”
I whirl around, lucky that I don’t slide off the bench and make a fool of myself.
A man and a woman are standing in the room's entrance, both gazing at me expectantly.
“You must be Miss Doyle,” the woman says. Her blonde hair is styled in loose waves, her makeup simple and perfect, her block-color dress ironed into crisp lines. A dozen feet away, she doesn’t offer a hand to shake. “Mariane Beauchene.”
I nod my head once, already feeling like they can see right through me. “It’s great to finally meet you.”
“And my husband. Leo Beauchene.”
He stands next to her at a bit of a cold distance, hands in his pockets. It’s his stare that unsettles me the most: where her features are bright, TV-ready, effortlessly styled, his eyes are dark, shadowed by his brow, and calculating. “Welcome to our home,” he says, voice a low, grating timbre.
A lump forms in my throat.
“Yes, thank you for coming on such short notice,” Mariane smiles wider, teeth shining. “And before the holidays is a big ask, but we didn’t want to interrupt Henri’s progress. We can’t thank you enough. His previous tutor seemed to make good progress with him, before she left.”
“Why did she leave?” I clear my throat. It takes everything in me not to fidget with the chain around my neck, a habit I’ve had no luck cracking these past few years. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
The corner of Leo’s lip curls, like the question is amusing. “A family emergency.”
“She left us very suddenly, so Henri has gone without a lesson for almost three weeks now.” Mariane glances at her husband. “We’ve managed to keep him on a practicing schedule, but his progress has noticeably slowed. If you could push him, get him back up to proper speed...”
I nod. “Did she leave any of her lesson plans? A curriculum?”
“Yes. She left almost everything.” Mariane gestures to the table, where a few scattered sheets and some notebooks lie.
“Progress notes, scale books. I believe her folders are still there. You should not have trouble getting him back into his routine. Henri is a good boy. But,” she pauses, “should he become… difficult, we trust you’ll set him straight.
” Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes, thin lips pulled taut over her perfectly whitened teeth.
“I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.”
“He must understand that there is no room for delaying further.”
I nod again. “And his other lessons? His other tutors?”
Leo laughs, finally deigning to speak. “He has one other tutor, Ms. Wilder. For now, anyway. She has overseen the schooling of all Beauchene children for three decades, now—she was my tutor. At this point in her career, we’ve not been able to convince her to work outside of their scheduled lessons.
But you’ll look after him, right? Make him practice all afternoon, if you have to. ”
I blink. “All afternoon?”
“Yes.” Mariane’s smile doesn’t falter. “Did they not add this into your contract? We are terribly busy and he must be looked after until dinner. He is getting to that age. Trouble seems to find him. Toys amuse him less and less every year.” She laughs, too. “Is this a problem?”
“No, of course not.” Though it’s not what I signed up for, saying yes isn’t an option. In a few months, I’ll be able to say I worked for The Beauchenes. With this alone I could be principal pianist next season. I’ll get my own features, maybe my own shows. “When can I meet him?”
Leo looks at his wrist watch. “Now.”
Henri Beauchene has the same curly blonde hair as his mother, emerald eyes, and a small bruise on his chin, and the moment he steps into the room, he is the smallest eight year old I’ve ever met. He clasps his hands together like it’s a practiced gesture, and his lips remain sealed shut.
“I’m Mallary.” I offer a hand.
He stares at it for a moment, shuffling on his feet. Glancing away.
“Henri, behave.” A hissed command from his mother. “You’ll be with Miss Mallary until lunch, remember?”
They don’t kiss his head, or hug him before saying goodbye. They don’t say goodbye at all. They just leave him with me, a stranger, and I have to feel for him.
The boy doesn’t move, frozen in his shyness. He’s dressed in a knit sweater and slacks that my mother would’ve insisted was wasted on a child, what with how they’d be ruined by the end of the day.
“Well,” I say into the silence. “Let’s see where your last tutor left off.
” The nostalgia of the songbooks hits me like a wave.
Only, I didn’t have someone to teach me these scales, or these quick one-minute tunes.
I didn’t have the luxury of a tutor to push me to practice.
I flip through the worn books, the last tutor’s notes—Nocturne no 9, E minor, at 45 bpm Sept 22—
“Was that you playing earlier?” His voice is small and rough, scratched through his throat like they were his first words of the day.
“No, I just tapped the keys.” I frown, turning to him. “What did you hear?”
“I don’t know.” He shrinks into himself even more.
“Did you hear music?”
He only looks at me, green eyes widening. I know this look.
“It’s alright.” I smile again. “Why don’t we warm up? You can show me which book you’ve been using, and then we can—”
He glances at the Steinway. “Can… you play something for me?”
Not two seconds ago, his parents insisted we get right to it. There’s no time to waste, apparently. But Henri’s green eyes are big and shining, and I haven’t played for days, too preoccupied preparing for this last-minute gig.
“Any requests?”
He shakes his head and watches me with the pull of rapt concentration at his brows as he tracks the movements of my hands at the keys—left to right and back, as though the song is simply hiding inside of the piano and I am its exorcist. I play the Nocturne, by Chopin, at the correct tempo.
It’s the easily-impressed fascination of children.
The song is there, I tell him, suspended in the air.
The chords, the harmonies, they’re already mingling, already dancing together.
Our fingers, this instrument, is what gives the music breath.
Maybe I understood this when I began playing by myself, even if I couldn’t put it into words. The reason certain songs take me over, overwhelming to the point of tears.
When I turn to him again, the last note ringing, his cheeks flush.
“You know of Chopin’s Mazurkas?” I ask.
He nods. “We talked about them.”
“Have you tried one?”
He shakes his head.
“What songs do you know?”
After a moment of silence, I consider that maybe he doesn’t know the names. Then he shrugs.
“Hey,” I say. “Why don’t you play something for me?”
Maybe, just maybe, he starts to ease into a smile. “What song?”
“Whatever you want.”
I know he decides he likes me when, as his small fingers spread across the keys, producing a popular etude, he glances at me, anxious for my approval, his tongue sticking out in concentration, looking up at me every few seconds.
And my heart breaks a little.
A master’s brutal hand never dissuades the loyalty of an eager and well-trained dog.
I would know.
Lunch is in the kitchens, and Ms. Byrne arrives at the practice room to escort me at the same time Ms. Wilder comes to take Henri away.
Ms. Byrne gives me a brief tour of the staff wing, pointing to any room I might need to find.
The staff has their own dining room, and around the table are a dozen young men and women. All of whom turn to me the moment I pass the threshold.
“Everyone, this is Miss Mallary Doyle, Henri’s new piano tutor.”
Their conversations interrupted, the room goes silent. A dozen pairs of eyes, all staring, dissecting, making assumptions.
Don’t be too intriguing, or you’ll get unwanted attention. Don’t be too boring that they shrug you off. Be pleasant, be pretty, and most of all, become untouchable. Become important, and you can do anything.
Or so someone told me in college.
One of the young women reaches over and pushes the seat next to her away from the table. “You can sit here,” she says, beaming at me from across the room.
There’s suddenly a chorus of greetings, like time had stopped and resumed again. I’m ushered into the seat and a bowl of some hearty soup is placed in front of me, a delicious-smelling steam wafting up.
“So you’re the new babysitter,” one of the guys says with a grin. Dark brown hair, tan skin, and hazel eyes.
The girl next to me elbows him. “Nathan.”
“What? It’s sort of true.”
She rolls her eyes and turns to me. “Don’t give any of these guys the time of day, they’re all idiots.”
“Noted.” I force a soft laugh. I feel like I’m intruding.
“I’m Em, by the way,” she says. Her blond hair is in a tight ponytail. She must be around my age; most of the group around us seems to be in their mid-twenties. “I’m mainly helping in the kitchen, but you’ll see me around. Nathan is one of our handymen.”
He gives me a suggestive look.
Em sees it and scoffs, then points at each person at the table, too quick for me to remember every single name. “Reece, Daria, Julia...” And so on.
It’s Julia, I realize, that brought my dinner last night. She doesn’t avoid my gaze this time, but there’s a line between her brows, something that resembles concern—or maybe suspicion—though for what, I don’t know.
Maybe I really am intruding.
Only five minutes into lunch and already I’m getting a headache.
“Thank you for letting me join you.”
“Letting you?” Em laughs. “You’re welcome to hang with us whenever you’re free.”
“There’s always at least one of us wandering around down here,” Julia says with a small smile. “Our schedules are all pretty staggered.”
“Do you know when you’ll be done for the day?” Em asks, stirring the dregs of her stew.
“Once Henri goes for dinner, I think.”
“Then we should at least see you in the mornings and evenings.” She leans closer to lower her voice. “Though if you’re not feeling it, we can always send something up to your room.”
“I should be alright. Thank you, though.” It’s probably best to make an effort to befriend them, and they don’t immediately strike me as standoffish.
I expect them to begin interrogating me about how I came to get this job. The response is always the same when I tell someone that I am a professional musician: a nod and, “Oh, that’s nice.” A few questions about my schooling, feigned interest to seem polite.
But the conversation doesn’t get that far before another strange figure walks into the room.
Light brown hair, a set to his jaw, dressed in expensive-looking slacks, his sleeves rolled up his forearms. He scans the room, the movement clearly automatic, because he’s moving straight for the dinner rolls and snagging one.
The chatter hardly stalls. But there’s something about him that tells me he doesn’t belong down here. He’s not family, but he’s also not cleaning staff.
His eyes skip over mine. Purposefully ignoring me?
I catch his smirk as he turns to leave.
Julia has an answer for me before I can even open my mouth to speak. “Desmond is his name. He’s Mr. Beauchene’s… assistant. Though I’m not sure that’s the best word for it.”
“What does he do?”
Em shrugs. “Hmm. No one really knows.”
Hours later while Henri is still with Ms. Wilder, I wander the house, which is much bigger than I realized. Hundreds of rooms, more than any one family feasibly needs.
It’s the type of extravagance only available to legacy families who are so intrinsically bound into the history of the land, that their name is plastered everywhere in the nearby cities, if not the whole region.
The Beauchene family came from France sometime in the eighteenth century, already wealthy. Within a couple generations the family amassed an industrial empire in the state. There was enough money now behind the name that the next dozen generations of Beauchenes wouldn’t have to lift a finger.
Leo Beauchene is the youngest of his three brothers, but not much else was detailed on the internet, I found, other than his few philanthropic efforts, and his marriage to Mariane, who did not come from a background quite this wealthy.
Mariane Beauchene was a Senator of Connecticut for two terms, before announcing she would not run for reelection, instead turning her attention and influence to nonprofits in the arts and sciences.
They’ve both taken a step back from the public eye in recent years, especially after Henri came along.
To “protect their privacy” and “focus on family.”
Henri’s timid nature tells me everything I need to know.
When we reunite for the afternoon, I am all smiles, hoping that in my time here, I can at least give him something to look forward to. A distraction, a motivator, something.
The angels on my wall watch my every move as I undress for bed. Fleshy cheeks, feathered wings, pink smiles. An ominous, heavy weight tracking me back and forth across the room.
I stare back as I unclasp my bra. My breasts peak in the cool air, goosebumps spreading across my skin, as I shuck off my pants, left in only my thong. A thin, strappy thing I should’ve gotten rid of years ago.
Jason brought me to the lingerie boutique in the mall, once. Not long after we began—finally— officially dating. Handfuls of lacy bits of fabric, each one I’d held up for his approval: Yes, yes, no, not sexy enough, hell yes.
Sliding the straps down my thighs, I toss them to the pile of my discarded clothing, my laundry now a problem for the morning. I wrap one of the plush towels around my middle.
An hour later, showered and moisturized with my favorite almond-scented lotion, I crawl into bed.
When I switch off the lamp, bathing the room in shadow, the cherubic voyeurs’ stare still pierces through me, as though unmoored souls are trapped in the room with me, and I am now their keeper.
The bed swallows me whole. For a second, I wish it was some monstrous thing, with unhinging jaws that would snatch me up and make me disappear, brutal and efficient, until there’s nothing of me left behind. Only then could I rest.