What He Doesn't Know(5)

"You met your husband when you were at Garrick?"

I nodded. I still didn't look up.

Reese was quiet, but then he stepped forward, his auburn oxfords sliding  into view with my shoes. We were toe to toe, and I remembered another  time when we stood this way, when I couldn't look at him. Another time  long ago.

"And now?" he finally asked.

I slowly lifted my gaze, eyes catching his.

"Are you living the best years now, Tadpole?"

The way he looked at me willed me to say something, to bare my soul that  he was trying so desperately to see. I used to hand it to him in the  palm of my hands, eyes wide and heart open, nothing to hide.

But he didn't understand. There was just nothing to see, now.

It had been five years since I'd had anything to offer.

The doors behind Reese flew open, students trickling in slower at first before that trickle became a stream.

"We should head back," I said, running a hand over my hair to smooth any  flyaways back into place. "I told my aide that I might be a little late  coming back from lunch, but we have a lot to cover today, so I  shouldn't be gone too long. And you're with the fifth graders, yes?"

Reese just watched me. He was still waiting for an answer.

"Well, they'll be heading back to class now, too. Best not to leave them  alone too long. They're old enough to cause more trouble than you  think."

I wrapped my scarf around my neck again and pushed through the doors, not checking to see if he followed.





Reese



Later that evening, I dumped my leather messenger bag on an unpacked box  near my front door, shaking off my coat and scarf and dropping them on  the box beside it. My new house was covered with those boxes, most of  them left untouched, a few of them ripped open and rustled through in my  haste to find what I needed that morning.

Everything had been moved out ahead of me, one suitcase being all I had  back in New York up until the red eye flight into Pittsburgh the night  before. The decision to move back to my hometown and teach for  Westchester had been made on a whim, spawned by a drunken night online  where I stumbled upon the job opening. They'd asked me to come out two  weeks ahead of the start date, but with finishing up my commitments at  the restaurants where I played and transferring the students I was  working with at Juilliard, I hadn't had the time.

It was my first time seeing the house in person that morning when I'd  dropped my suitcase off, changed clothes, and ran out the door to my  first day on the job.

I sighed as I unpacked the Chinese takeout I'd grabbed on the way home  from Westchester, pulling out each container with my exhaustion wearing  in more and more. It'd been a long day, one that took more of a toll on  me than I'd imagined.

I couldn't believe I was back.

Making the move back to Mount Lebanon was my last attempt to find  sanity, to find home, to find some sort of comfort in a world that felt  as unfamiliar as an undiscovered planet to me now. My new house was just  a stone's throw from the one I grew up in, and I'd hoped that would  make me feel closer to the man I used to be.

So far, it'd only made me feel lonelier.

Mount Lebanon had been my home, it was where my parents started from  nothing and built a family, as well as a fortune. It was where my  sister, Mallory, and I played in a large backyard and argued over who  had to do which chores. It was where I learned to play the piano, where I  discovered music was what mattered most to me.

It was where I fell in love with a doe-eyed girl who lived next door,  and where I left her wondering if she ever meant anything to me at all.                       
       
           


///
       

I cracked open one of the beers I'd picked up on my way home, tossing  the rest of the six-pack into the fridge. The bitter carbonation  comforted me, along with the lo mein, and I finally let myself think  about her.

About Charlie.

It'd been impossible not to think about her all day - in the classroom,  on my break, in the car on the way home. But I'd tried my best, tried to  stay focused on learning about my new students and what they needed  from me. Now that I was alone in my new house with nothing but fast food  and the daunting task of unpacking to distract me, I couldn't keep  thoughts of her at bay any longer.

She was still Charlie, still the girl I used to know, except she wasn't  the same girl I used to know. Her eyes were darker, more tired, marked  at the corners with lines from the years. I knew she hated me for  leaving her, I knew she hadn't tried to reach out over the years, but  the way she'd reacted to me was shocking.

It wasn't like she hated that I was there, or that she was still mad at  me, and it definitely wasn't that she was happy to see me, either.

It was worse - because she didn't seem to have any reaction at all.

She used to be so full of life, and now she seemed almost hollow, the  shell of the young woman I'd known over a decade ago. She couldn't even  answer my question about whether she was happy now, one I'd asked in a  moment that belonged to just the two of us. I wanted her honesty. I  begged her to let me see, to let me in.

Now that I was alone, I realized how naïve I was to believe I'd earned that privilege after just an hour.

She didn't owe me anything, least of all trust, and I'd been stupid to ask her for it.

I ate my chicken lo mein in silence, sucking back my first beer too  quickly before replacing it with another as I thought through my first  day. I'd stayed late after class had ended to finish the tour on my own  that Charlie and I had started, spending extra time getting familiar  with the fine arts center where I'd teach the youth the magic of music.

Me. Teaching kids.

It was still so impossible to believe.

I'd been reckless as a teenager, wasting my nights away partying when I  wasn't losing myself at the piano. Graham, my best friend and Charlie's  brother, had been my smarter counterpart. Though he tended to stay out  longer than I did, he never seemed to find as much trouble as me. He'd  end his nights in bed with a new girl, and there were too many nights  where I ended mine waking up my parents with police officers in tow.

It was never anything serious - no illegal drugs or stealing or anything  like that. Mostly, I was just bored, so I'd prank anyone in my path  just because it was something to do. It was the same reason I never did  very well in school. It wasn't that I wasn't intelligent, but rather  that I found the busy work they assigned me a complete waste of time. I  never did homework, but I aced every test, which landed me somewhere  around a B average, simply floating through school.

Charlie was just the opposite. She always had straight A's.

I scrubbed a hand over my face as I abandoned my barely touched food in  the fridge and opted for a third beer, instead. I pushed one of the  kitchen bar stools over by the sliding glass door, pressing it open a  crack and propping my feet up on an unpacked box before lighting up a  cigarette. I lit it quickly and inhaled, a sigh of relief leaving my  lungs in the form of smoke.

Westchester was a strict no-smoking zone, even for teachers, and though  I'd lit up as soon as I got in the car, I felt uneasy after being used  to smoking nearly every hour on the hour back in New York. I suppose it  was probably time I thought about quitting anyway, but I'd never  actually tried.

Charlie used to harp on me all the time for smoking when I was a  teenager. I'd started at fourteen, and she'd never let me do it around  her. Anytime I had lit up in her presence, she'd ripped the cigarette  from my mouth and chastised me. Sometimes I'd do it just to get a rise  out of her, just to see if she still cared.

I let the cigarette settle between my lips, kicking back on the bar  stool once more. The smoke filtered up slowly, the cool Pennsylvania  wind sucking it through the small opening of the sliding glass door. I  didn't mind the cold, not here and not in New York City. But Mount  Lebanon was night-and-day different from the city. I was back in the  suburbs now, in a place where I'd build a future most likely very  similar to the one Dad built here with Mom.

I wished they were around to see me now, to see what I'd become.

That same familiar ache penetrated my chest at the thought of them, and I  winced against it, finishing my cigarette and taking my beer with me  into the dining room. There should have been a table there, one where I  could sit and enjoy meals with a family, but instead there was only my  baby grand piano. I hadn't played it in a week, not since the movers  showed up at my apartment in New York to load it away.                       
       
           


///
       

I sat my beer on the lid, settling on the bench as my fingers  automatically moved for the keys. As the first notes filled the empty  house, I found a little peace, but not the way I used to. It was almost  like a fake assurance, a lie saying everything was okay when it was so  far from it.