The Music of Spring: “Where’s that Girl?”
The pitch was good, and I poured glasses for all the major pitches of the scale. By then, the amazing bottle was nearly empty. Humming under my breath, I poured a glass for B flat. My hand was steady as I raised the silver serving spoon and tapped the rim of the A glass.
“What’s that music? Where’s that girl? Has anyone seen Aoede?” Aunt Cecelia’s shrill non-saint-like voice sent my father up the verandah steps and through the French doors.
“Keep going sweetheart, that’s just right. Have you tried it with a spoon in each hand? You get harmony that way.”
I grinned at my father as he snatched three spoons from the drawer. He crouched on the other side of the table, and soon we played Beethoven’s Joy in four-part harmony.
“Don’t bash them too hard, Daddy, or Aunt Cecelia will be angry.”
We tapped away, and finished the song. Then Daddy spoiled my fun by gulping down the liquid in the D glass. “It’s time to go home, Aoede, so let’s put the port back in the decanter.”
He held the amazing bottle while I poured each glassful down the narrow neck, and only dribbled a little on the carpet. He dabbed at it with his handkerchief, and I giggled. We left the still wet glasses as they were, ranged along the coffee table.
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During the next several years, I took up many instruments, but always returned to tuned percussion. When my father transferred to a Caribbean embassy, our quarters had no piano. Mother, content to grow tropical flowers, didn’t realize my boredom until the maid complained about my pacing around the parlor.
That afternoon, Mother and I went shopping. We took a taxi through the center of town, until we stuck in a traffic jam.
The Music of Spring is a short story in nine parts. The story continues in The Music of Spring: The Smile I Adored
Read more of my published short stories here.
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