Underwater New York

She Dreams of Her Piano at the Bottom of the Bay by Nicole Miller

The baby grand was a gift from a man she no longer knows – in any case, no longer wants to know.  He bought it at an estate sale and had it delivered to her apartment, where it now sits in the middle of the room, collecting dust and her unopened mail.  At the time, it seemed like a mad, improvisational gesture – something extravagant and wildly inappropriate, like a diamond tiara or a pair of antlers – a gift with no apparent use.  She should have known he was going to leave her.

She made a list, after he left, of all the things she intended to do.  “Get a dog,” she wrote at the top.  She didn’t specify what kind of dog, but something small, obviously, to accommodate the piano.  She’d call him Nipper and he’d lie at her feet while she took long naps in the afternoon.

“Spackle drywall” was next on her list.  For the life of her she couldn’t imagine why she’d written this.  Number three was just plain illegible, obscured where she’d spilled coffee on the page.  “Spfdnk?”  Spiffdunk?  It’s a shame, she thought.  Whatever it was I’d intended to do would never get its day in the sun.  Everything deserved its day in the sun, even the most reluctant desire.

He’s a man with cultish tendencies, she thinks.  She hears the phrase again in her mind and wonders what it means.  He’s a real estate agent, for crying out loud.  And here is another phrase that gives her pause: crying out loud, crying out loud.  Someone on the verge of hysteria.  But she refuses to get a job, so she probably deserves it.  Alone in the apartment with her plants.

There was something he’d said to her once, sitting in her apartment, listening to a recording of Mahler: “One bar derives from the last and leads to the next.”  Was he speaking of music or liquor?

Maybe this is what she meant by cultish tendencies – susceptible to coercive persuasion.  One bar derives from the last. She herself had never managed this trick – the sort of charisma required by cults – though she’d once wanted him to worship at the foot of her bed – to light candles and perform obscene ablutions – to place clean hands on the top of her head.

Perhaps if she’d told him she had cancer?  Maybe he would have stayed.  If she’d said it was terminal – isn’t everything terminal?  She could’ve learned to be fevered and brave.  She’d grow frail and lose her hair.  She’d wear her bones like exquisite jewelry.  She’d make herself irresistible to him.

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Tags: Grand Piano, Lower New York Bay, Nicole Miller