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“It wasn’t bad,” Leah said. “What I heard had some interesting stuff going on.” She forked up more salad. Surely if she ate enough vegetables she could reverse the sugar overdose?
“It wasn’t Zach though,” Faith said.
“No. I agree with you about that. Zach is not the electro-pop kind. He could pull it off but he’d hate it.”
“It would be kind of fun to see him in a video trying to do some choreography with a bunch of backup dancers,” Faith said, then burst into laughter.
Leah laughed too. Zach as boy-band heartthrob trying to shake it was a mental image that was arresting for all the wrong reasons. “Yes, but it wouldn’t be worth the pouting that would accompany it.”
“No. I guess not,” Faith agreed, looking sad for a moment. “Well, there’s an opportunity for torturing my brother lost. So electro-pop isn’t what you’re planning?”
“Not at this stage. Not unless he gets annoying. Then it might be worth it, just to see his face. But that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh?” Faith looked intrigued.
“I have a piano part for his track. I was hoping maybe you’d play it for me.”
“Play it or record it?” Faith said, looking wary.
“Let’s start with playing it for this try-out.”
Faith glanced over her shoulder at the bright red upright against the kitchen wall. “You can play the piano just as well as me.”
“That’s not true and you know it,” Leah said. “I can play but you give it that something more.” She knew her limitations. She’d taken years of piano lessons, just like Faith. Hell, she’d started because Faith had already been able to play by the time they’d started elementary school together and she wanted to play too. She could play well enough to work out a melody or to keep herself entertained or to accompany someone at a jam session or to demonstrate something in the studio, but she couldn’t turn it into art. Not the way Faith could. When she let herself.
“I’m out of practice,” Faith said.
“Liar, I’ve heard you playing recently,” Leah said. “Unless Caleb has secret piano-fu that I don’t know about. Sound carries around here, you know. So if you’re trying to keep it quiet, then you need somewhere more soundproof to hide your piano.”
“That’s just for fun.”
Leah shrugged. “And that’s just fine with me. But I really want this track to sound good. It’s really stripped down. Just the piano and a touch of drums and the guitar. I can fake the drums on my computer but I don’t want to fake the piano if I don’t have to.”
Faith looked torn. “Zach might not want me involved. He wants to do his own thing.”
“I’m not asking you to join his band, just give me a decent piano part for my mix.” Leah pulled out her laptop, opened it up. “Here, just listen this. I did a version earlier. You can make it better.” She walked over to the piano, lifted the lid. There wasn’t a speck of dust on it, which made it even more obvious that Faith hadn’t exactly been telling the truth when she’d said she hadn’t been playing. Her cleaners might dust the outside of the piano but they weren’t going to bother making sure the inside gleamed. She touched middle C lightly and the note rang out, pure and true. So Faith had kept it in tune. Given that a beachfront location wasn’t the most piano-friendly environment, that also took effort.
Turning, she pulled one of the kitchen chairs up next to the piano stool. “Come on, Faith. I’m not going to leave until you do. Don’t make me invoke the best-friend-assistance clause.”
Faith rolled her eyes. “You won’t need to do that. I’ll play the darn thing.” She came to join Leah at the piano, making a show of reluctance. But as her hands touched the keys, she smiled.
Yeah. That was good. Even if Faith didn’t want to perform, she still needed music. To play, not just to listen to. She’d cut herself off from that for too long. There had been quite a few years when Leah could have wandered into this kitchen and the piano would have been, well, if not out of tune because Faith wasn’t going to neglect a Steinway—Grey had had the thing lacquered red but it was still a Steinway—but at least dusty inside.
“Okay, here it is.” Leah hit play on the laptop. She waited while Faith listened to Zach’s track with the piano part she’d inserted last night.
When the song ended, Faith nodded. “It’s good, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Leah said. “And it will be better.”
She studied Faith a moment, searching her face. “Are you really okay with this? I don’t want to bring up bad memories.”
It seemed to take a long time for Faith to answer. “It’s okay. It’s not like the stuff Zach and I played together. And that was a long time ago.” She played a chord. “It’s ten years, when you think about.” She blinked at Leah. “How the hell did that happen? We’re getting old.”
“Thirty is the new twenty,” Leah retorted. “And we’re only twenty-nine. Or almost twenty-nine in my case.” Her birthday was more than a month away. Faith had turned twenty-nine in April. “So I still have my youth.”
“It’s just as well I don’t have sheet music or I’d be swatting you right now. So. That’s the song. Now play me the piano part on its own.”
Leah pulled up the file. “This is still rough.” She hit play, then watched as Faith listened, her fingers moving above the keys as she followed along. She’d have it memorized after she’d heard it once or twice, an ability Leah still envied. She could puzzle out something by ear eventually but she didn’t have Faith’s speed at picking up a song so fast. Zach had that gift too. But then, neither of them knew how to finesse a soundboard like Leah did, so things evened out, she guessed.
