Being Kalli(10)

And for a moment, I see no fun written over that sullen expression. I hear the biggest lie of all, “I never mean to hurt you. You and them.”

Yes, you do.

When you are a slave to drugs and alcohol, you give permission to that master to forget about anything else but your desperate addiction. The obsession gets so deep you start believing it’s everyone else with the issue.





4




My violin lessons start at nine thirty this morning. The ground level of the shop sells everything from guitars and violins to little plastic recorders and knick-knacks. I continue upstairs to the teaching rooms, and in my room, I put down my bag and violin.

The reflection in the mirror on the sliding closet door is a shock, as usual. I’m in a cutesy knee-length dress with my shoulders covered and a high, cowbell neckline, which doesn’t match my personality considering I’m still without sleep and livid from the early hours of this morning. But the paying parents appreciate it when I look like I have nothing else to do but wait for their children to arrive. And fair enough; each 45-minute lesson costs as much as it does to fill up the tank of a standard car.

I pull out the sheet music I wrote and mull it over in my head while I do some scales and exercises to warm up my freezing fingers. Weather at this time of year isn’t the coldest by far but it’s enough to freeze me silly between where I parked and the entry to this little double-storey building.

Then I warm up on a new piece one of my students will be starting this morning. When I’m at my lessons, I rarely play my own stuff. I run my eye over my student’s sheet music, noting it’s heavy on dramatic shorter notes. I keep looking back to the wall clock as I flick through songs and practice. Playing the violin, I easily lose track of time.

Most of my friends hate waking at this hour for work, but I’ve never hated coming here. I’d come still, even if they couldn’t pay me. It’s my place where I can escape.

Until my phone buzzes.

Nate: Kall Bell :) U said ur working, right? Downstairs waiting on the bench beside the guitars. Or I will be in 2 mins.

My phone reads 8.55 am, so there’s time to catch up before 9.30. Nate always puts me in a good mood and, with three and a half hours of lessons headed my way, I could certainly use some of that.

I put my violin back in its case, fold it away, latch it up and hide it in the closet.

Just to make sure.

My violin is my most prized possession, and expensive, thanks to the twins’ father, Chester who happened to have $1,500 to give me.

By the time I start padding down the carpeted stairs to the ground store level, Nate’s leant over, plucking at an electric guitar’s strings. They barely make a sound, and when they do it’s mainly the noise of vibrating strings. He senses me looking at him, so I look away with a smirk plastered on my face.

The bench is wide enough for two so I slip beside him, lean over too, and cross my arms over my knees. I watch him play with the same electric guitar, humming notes to make a sound instead.

Feeling useless with unoccupied hands, I walk to another section and bring back a display violin. It’s a tiny half-sized one. I lay the violin on my lap, and pluck the G string. The note is low and angry, and grabs Nate’s attention.

“Well, who knew a tiny violin could make a better sound than this thing.”

Nate follows the path to where I grabbed the violin from and comes back with the bow. I could say something, but I don’t. Just watch him lean over my lap to play. He starts on the down-bow, and even worse than when he was playing with the electric guitar, this one makes no sound at all. Of course it doesn’t but Nate as a non-violinist looks up with the cutest expression, lip pouted and turned out in sadness.

“You need to put resin on it to make a sound.”

“Yeah, but it’s stupid, ruined.” Nate drags the bow across, holding it with a fist, instead of similar to a pencil, which would be a problem but there’s no sound without the resin anyway. “See?” he says. “It just doesn’t even work.”

I shake my head, and Nate notices my passion, even just with the violin resting on my lap, my hands not even touching it. Maybe it’s the way I melt away and my world doesn’t matter. Around a violin, magic stirs in me. It feels that way, at least. And it’s nothing like the ecstasy I get when I hook up. It fills me with joy and keeps me whole and satisfied for long after.

“Here.”

I hold out my hand and Nate places the bow in my palm. I didn’t think about when he would lay it down, how his fingers would touch me. They feel strangely natural, like I could just hold his fingers in mine until someone has to kick us off the bench. His fingers are on the colder side, mine warm and calloused after warming up before.