back and then turned to the magazines again.
“Hey,” the salesman said. He was now standing right next to me. “Are you a timpanist?”
I looked up at him and I saw the recognition in his eyes at the very same time it clicked in mine.
“Sam?” I said.
“Emma Blair . . .” he said, taken aback.
“Oh, my God,” I said. “Sam Kemper. I don’t even . . . I haven’t seen you in . . .”
“Ten years or more, maybe,” he said. “Wow. You . . . you look great.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You do, too.”
“How are your parents?”
“Good,” I said. “Really good.”
It was quiet for a moment as I stared at him, surprised at how much he’d changed. I was trying to remember if his eyes had always been that stunning. They were a warm brown that seemed so kind and patient, as if they saw everything with compassion. Or maybe I was simply projecting what I remembered of him onto his face.
But there was no doubt that he’d grown up to be an attractive man. His face had angled out a bit, had grown some character.
I realized I was staring.
“Do you play the timpani now?” Sam said.
I looked at him as if he were speaking French. “What?” I said.
He pointed to the bronze drums behind me. “I saw you by the timpani; I thought maybe you had started to play.”
“Oh,” I said. “No, no. You know me. I don’t play anything. I mean, except for when they made us learn ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ on the recorder, but I hardly think that counts.”
Sam laughed. “It’s not exactly the timpani, but I think it counts.”
“We all can’t play a bajillion instruments or however many it was that you play,” I said. “Six, was it?”
Sam smiled shyly. “I’ve picked up a few since then, actually. Most of them amateur-level, though.”
“And here I just have the recorder. Oh!” I said, suddenly remembering. “I also played the finger cymbals in the fourth-grade holiday concert! So there’s two.”
He laughed. “You’re an expert, then! I should be asking you questions.”
I played along with him, pretending to be a humble genius. “Well, finger cymbals are pretty basic. You mostly just want a pair of cymbals that will fit on your fingers and then you hit them together to make a clanging noise.” I hit my own pointer fingers together enthusiastically to show him. “Finger cymbaling is really about confidence.”
He laughed again. He always made me feel like I was the funniest person in the room.
“And from there, the sky’s the limit,” I said. “I know a girl who started out on the finger cymbals; now she plays the actual cymbals.”
I grew slightly embarrassed, as if because he’d laughed, I’d taken that as license to perform a stand-up comedy routine. But he laughed again. A hearty laugh. And my anxiety faded away.
“Actually, all of that is a lie. I mean, I did play the finger cymbals but . . . I’m considering learning the piano. Hence, why I’m standing in the middle of this shop looking really confused.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding his head. “Well, if you want my opinion . . .”
“I do,” I said. “Yours is exactly the opinion I want.”
He smiled. “Then I think you should get one of the Yamaha PSRs in the back by the drum machines. They’re only sixty-one keys and they aren’t weighted, but if you’re just starting out or you’re not really sure you’re going to make it a lifelong passion, I think it’s silly to spend four hundred bucks on a keyboard. But that’s just me.”
“No, that’s great advice. Would you mind showing me one of the ones that you’re talking about?”
“Oh,” he said as if he was surprised that I was actually listening to him. “Sure. I think they have one back here.”
He turned around and headed toward the back of the store. I followed him. “Do you still play a lot of piano?” I asked him.
He nodded as he looked back at me slightly. “For fun, yeah,” he said as he stopped at a short black keyboard on a stand. “This one would probably be great for you.”
I hit a few of the keys. They were silent except for the dull thunk of the key physically hitting the board.
“I don’t think it’s plugged in . . .” he said.
“Right. That makes sense.” I was legitimately embarrassed that I’d tried to play an unplugged keyboard, perhaps the most embarrassed I’d been since a few months prior when a customer