an hour on Mondays, if you’re not expressing your innermost self when you play, I’ll tell you right now to quit,” Lucy says. “Are you tired or something? Your head is a million miles away today.” “Long day,” Delia says, her fingers tripping over sharps in the Prelude. She doesn’t tell Lucy—or anyone—how Bird’s been touching her at work, stroking her lightly, brushing her fingers when she hands him something. No one would believe her anyway, since everyone in the neighborhood admires him for his generous donations of both money and time to
community and church endeavors. She begins the Prelude again, this time forcing herself to concentrate, still stumbling over black keys as the melody shifts downward on the scale. “Keep going,” Lucy says. Instead, Delia starts again from the beginning, her fingers stumbling over the same black keys once more. Wanting perfection, she stops at her first stumble and restarts the piece. “Take it slower,” Lucy cautions. “Careful of your fingering techniques; you might be stumbling because of the wrong fingering.” She claps the rhythm that she wants Delia to follow and sings
the notes aloud to the exercise she wants Delia to play. “D flat, E flat, F flat, G flat, A flat, B double flat, C and D flat,” she chants, her voice mimicking the sound Delia’s fingers press on the keyboards. “Slowly,” Lucy says, now singing the Prelude’s melody. Delia smiles. Her former piano teacher never sang the notes to her. Lucy leans slightly forward in her chair, back straight; her long, curly black hair is held tight in a barrette, the thick mass cascading down her turquoise sweater like a carpet between her back and the chair. Her mouth opens in an “O,” Lucy