The Composer

The young man had come into Phillips and Egrets’ legal office one Tuesday.  His grandaunt had recently divorced from her third husband and had the intention of battling for custody of a little Vietnamese girl that she and her ex-husband had adopted five years ago.

He had an awkward air of pretension.  He was thin and wore dark grey slacks that were half an inch too short with a dusty maroon corduroy overcoat.  His russet hair almost fell into his coal-black eyes, which had an odd light to them, like smoldering embers.

Tina’s coworker Monique took his name—Johann—and his phone number.  She asked his purpose.  He explained.

“Have your grandaunt come in herself,” Monique said in response.

“I had told her that,” Johann said, “but she insisted that she had an appointment that she couldn’t miss.”

“Then she can come when she doesn’t have an appointment.”

“Well, since I’m here—”

“Look, sir, if she’s the one who needs the legal help, then she’s the one who needs to come in and talk with us.  We’re a little more important than a trip to the beauty parlor.”

Tina continued tapping at her computer but she caught Johann’s glance out of the corner of her eye.  He shifted his weight back and forth.

“I beg your pardon,” he said.  “I didn’t mean to waste your time.”  He glanced at Tina as he left.  She held his gaze for a split second, giving him a polite nod and, a beat too late, an awkward smile.  He hesitated before leaving the office.

 

The next morning there were flowers for Tina at the reception desk.  Monique scowled as she handed them over and shot the lilies and baby’s breath murderous glances.

 

Tina took the flowers home that evening.  She was arranging them in a vase when the phone rang.   Her friend Darci had bought two tickets for the symphony intending to go with a boyfriend, but the boyfriend had dumped her and she didn’t want to waste fifty bucks.

“The b*****d,” Tina heard herself saying.  Darci echoed.

“The b*****d.  But it’s a water theme, which sounds interesting.”

“Sounds fun.  Sure, let’s go.”

Tina changed into a skirt that she’d  hid in the back of her closet for lack of occasion.  But it was stylish when she bought it, flattered her waistline, and dropped to a modest yet teasing length.  For good measure she tossed on a pink cardigan.

Darci had suggested dinner before the musical performance.  Tina met her at a trendy Mexican place that had a New Age fusion ambiance and renowned fajitas.  She felt a little frumpy next to Darci, who sat waiting for her at the bar drinking a mojito.  Darci was wearing an off-the-shoulder little black dress with an asymmetrical hem that cut up-to-there and four-inch heels.

“How do you manage to walk in those?” Tina asked upon greeting.

“Very carefully,” Darci answered.  “I want to look sexy tonight.  Serves the b*****d right for dumping me.”

“Well, you look fabulous,” Tina said and unconsciously smoothed her skirt.

 

After dinner, they walked over to Symphony Hall, where a large crowd of people was steadily pressing in.  They found their seats in the front of the upper balcony and Tina leaned over to see the waving mass of people ringing below them.  It made her dizzy, like looking down from the top of a dam into the flood of water being held below.  She pushed herself back and glanced over at Darci, who was staring at the program.

The symphony opened with Handels’ “Water Music” and continued with Strauss’ “Blue Danube.”  By Debussy’s “De L'aube A Midi Sur La Mer” Tina noticed that Darci was yawning.  Fifteen minutes later when intermission began she led her to the bar in the lobby.

The massive flood of people pressed and pushed against the bar.  Tina and Darci had to squeeze through the crowd to get out of the lobby and back up to the balcony.  As they leaned over the railing to people watch, Darci glanced over at Tina.

“What do you want to do when the concert’s over?”

“You won’t be too tired?” Tina asked.

Darci shrugged.  “I don’t really want to go home.”

“Fair enough.”  Tina looked down at the swirling ebbs of people.  “You want to get some coffee?”

“That sounds pretty—”

“Hey, I know that guy!” Tina suddenly exclaimed.

“Who?” Darci asked.

“Right there,” Tina said, pointing.  “In the newsboy hat.”

“The orange one?”

“That’s it.”  Tina stared at the mop of messy russet hair sticking out from under the cap, and then down to the slim frame covered in a coal-colored hand-me-down suit.  “At least he looks familiar.”

The man wearing the suit looked up and held Tina’s gaze.  He started walking towards them up the stairs.

“You work at the law office,” he said as a method of greeting.

“Yes, I do,” answered Tina.

“I’m Johann,” he said.

“Tina.  Santina, actually, and this is Darci.”

“Good to meet you,” said Darci.

Silence lapsed and Tina shifted her weight from foot to foot in an attempt to fill the space between sentences.  Finally Johann spoke.

“You like music Santina?”

“Yeah, for the most part,” Tina answered.  “You?”

“It’s what I do,” Johann answered.

“What you do?”

“I’m a composer.”  He smiled.  “Among other things.”

More silence.  The house lights flickered on and off a couple times.

“Time for the second act,” said Johann.  He moved to go, stopped, nodded his head, and then left.

Darci glanced at Tina, who glanced back.  “He came into the law office,” she explained.

The next morning, a recording of the previous night’s symphony performance was delivered to the secretary’s desk of the law office.

 

“Tina, I need you to pick up Tyler from his piano lessons.”  Tina’s older sister, Francesca, had a tendency to order rather than ask for favors.  So mid-afternoon Tina excused herself from the law office, Monique’s glares icing over her.  As often occurred whenever Tina found herself obligated to leave the office in the afternoon, Monique would all of a sudden find an exhausting amount of work that had to be done, invariably without any available help, and would greet Tina with sullen scowls upon her return.  She sighed, being careful that Monique didn’t hear, as she left the office.

Tina arrived early to the piano school on purpose because she usually got lost looking for the studio where Tyler had his private lessons.  As she wandered up and down the halls trying to remember the room number she saw a familiar figure walking toward her.  It was Johann.

“You’re lost?”

“I’m just picking up my nephew.”

“Name?”

“Tyler Westin.”

Johann nodded.  “Private.  Come here.”  He led Tina to the room where Tyler was finishing up his piano lesson with a woman who had salt and pepper hair and wore a thin gold glasses chain.  Tyler gathered his lesson books and walked out of the room alongside his teacher.

“Oh, yes, you’re… what are you again dear?  His nanny?”

“His aunt,” Tina informed the teacher.  “Tyler, I’m taking you home today.”

“Okay.”  Tyler hugged his piano books to his chest and stared up at her silently.

“Great, um, okay, let’s just go home then,” Tina said, holding out her hand.  Tyler dutifully took it and led the way out of the school, Johann accompanying them a few paces behind.

They were walking down the concrete steps on their way to the car when he called her name.  She turned around to see Johann standing just inside the shadows of the piano school, his hands in his pockets.

“Santina, I would like to have some coffee with you this afternoon.  If you can.”

Tina shielded her eyes from the sunrays firing just over the top of the school.  “Okay.  I have to take Tyler home, but then I guess I can meet you there.”

“You aren’t working?”

Tina hesitated, then looked down at Tyler, who was silently staring up at her again.  A car whizzed into a spot alongside the street and Tina’s sister called out the rolled down passenger side window.

“Mommy!” Tyler cried, letting go of Tina’s hand and running to the car.

“Change of plans,” Francesca called, “and if you had a cell phone I could’ve called you, but you don’t, so…”  Tyler slammed the door shut and Francesca drove off, Tina watching from the steps.  She waited until they had turned the corner and then looked back at Johann who was standing in the doorway, unmoving, waiting for her answer.

“Sure, let’s go,” she said and Johann smiled.

 

“Composition major.  Carnegie Melon.”

“That’s a good school,” Tina said, sipping her French vanilla coffee.  Johann nodded.

“It is.  I studied hard.  And I wanted to get away from home.”

“I went to a state school forty-five minutes away from my parents’ house and settled on English and business.”

“Do you have any career aspirations in that field?”

“Not really.  I just liked reading books.  And I figured I could use business anywhere.”

“Do you?”

“Sort of.  The firm makes me do basic accounting.  And I listen to books on tape during my commute.”

“You don’t live in town.”

“No.”  Tina took another sip of her coffee and stared off through the crowd in the coffee shop.  “I live in a cheap apartment complex five miles from Mom and Dad.  My sister lives in a condo downtown, but I can’t afford anything that nice.  Law secretaries don’t make much.”

“Neither do composers.”

“So you teach.”

“Yes.  And conduct occasionally.  And counselor at a summer music camp for autistic children.”

“Wow.”  Tina moved her gaze back to Johann.  They were in a couple couches in the corner of the shop.  Tina leaned forward while Johann was sunk into the couch, his knees pricking into the air and both hands clutching his tea.  She kicked off her flats and eased back herself.  “You make me look bad.”

“I just try to keep myself occupied.”

“So how long have you been composing?”

“Fifteen years if you would like to be technical.  I wrote a simple melody when I was seven.”

“That’s impressive.  When I was seven I was still playing with Barbies like every other little girl.”

“But with great imagination I’m sure.”

“You can think that.  Barbie rode around in her convertible a lot,” Tina chuckled.

Johann gave half a smile.  “My mother disapproved of Barbie,” he said.  “My sister and I had to choose a hobby when we turned five.  My sister took ballet lessons and auditioned into Julliard.  I chose music.  Now she is a prima ballerina with the Seattle Ballet Company and I do what I can to make money.”

“My sister went into interior design and now charges three hundred and seventy five dollars a day for her services.  And her husband is a doctor.”

“Good field.”

“Good money.”

“That too.”

Tina chuckled.  “You’ve been sending me flowers.”

“Yes.”

“And recordings.”

“Yes.”

“I like that.”

Johann smiled.  “I can continue to do so.”

“I’d like that too.”

 

A month went by and Tina assumed that Johann had forgotten about her.  One Monday Tina came into work late, a fact which Monique did not hesitate to bring up.

“The rest of us start at nine in the morning.”

“I know.”  She sat in her seat.  Monique threw a manila envelope at her.

“This came for you last night.”

“Is it about the Strawyer case?”

“I don’t know,” Monique snapped.  “I don’t read your mail.”

Tina rolled her eyes as she turned around and opened the envelope.  Inside she found a few pages of sheet music along with a note.

“Santina,” it read, “I am sorry I have not sent anything within the last month, but I have been occupied with this.  In case you do not play any instrument, I have included a piano recording.  Sincerely yours, Johann.”

Tina pulled out the enclosed CD and looked at it.  Then she put it down and picked the sheet music back up.  At the top read “Santina Sonata.”

 

As she drove home Tina popped Charlotte Bronte’s Villette out of her tape player and put in Johann’s recording.  The piano’s music made its introduction as she pulled out of the parking lot and onto the freeway.  It began quietly, rising and falling in soft rolling hills of notes.  A steady persistent pulse began, low, and continued as the higher notes took their place onstage, faster and faster with more fervor and intensity, demanding attention.  The pulse continued but the low notes quickened their pace, repeating the melody several octaves down and a phase behind.  Then the higher notes raised a countermelody, intriguing Tina’s ear.  The countermelody played up and down the scale, first high, then low, until easing in tempo until the countermelody and original melody played in unison, united.  The notes took the liberty of frolicking about the keyboard for a minute or two until slowing and echoing each other.  Finally the countermelody dropped out, but the persistent pulse remained.  The lingering notes waltzed around for a bit more before resting and wrapping the melody in a gentle, soft ending, the pulse continuing a few seconds as the sound of the last note of the melody faded.  Tina smiled when the song ended, liquid crystals sparkling in her eyes.

 

A week later Tina came back from her lunch break to find Monique scolding another young woman.

“Have your grandmother come in herself.”

“She’s in a wheelchair and can’t get around easily,” the woman pleaded.  “She had me just come and get some information.”

“We need to give it to her.”

“Actually,” Tina cut in, “if you explain the problem to me I can ask Mr. Phillips myself and then give you a call back.”

Monique scowled at her.  The young woman looked relieved.  “It’s about my grandfather’s work-related injury; she doesn’t know what claims they have with the company….”

Francesca called later on that morning, ordering her to pick up Tyler.  Tina sighed on the phone and Francesca heard it.

“What?”

“Why are you not able to pick up your son?”

“I have a lunch with a potential client which might run over.”

“To three thirty?  I’m sure your lunch won’t last that long especially if it starts somewhere around half past twelve.”

“Look Tina, I’m only asking a simple favor.”

“Tyler would much rather see his mother, and chances are you’ll be there anyway, so why do I have to leave work early to go get him?  I’m not on commission.”

Francesca audibly sighed.  “Fine, I will.”  She hung up.

 

She had never been given a phone number for Johann, and eventually the flowers and gifts stopped arriving.  She inquired at the piano school one evening and was given a letter along with an explanation that he had been commissioned to write a piece for the Seattle Symphony.  The letter didn’t give much more information other than the fact that he’d be living with his sister and wasn’t sure if he’d be back in town.  He didn’t think it was such a good idea if they kept in touch across the distance, but if he came back he would look her up, and if she ever found herself in Seattle his sister’s name was Monica Walsh.  Tina folded the letter up and thanked the woman at the piano school.  When she walked out the door, she stood on the front stoop of the school and surveyed the scene around her.  She heard a steady pulse of a basketball being drummed on the pavement from the playground across the street, creaking chains of swings, the rising and falling melodies of children’s carefree voices, and the echoing affectionate calls of mothers, elder siblings, caretakers.  Then the wind picked up, lifting her hair from her shoulders and cooling the sun’s burn on her cheeks.  She closed her eyes and raised her head, tuning her ears to the sounds of the street, feeling the caress of the wind, and wondered what the weather was like in Seattle.