Of Aspiring Pianists and Thunderstorms
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Collette was reminded that day of a recent conversation she had with her cousin over the phone, several weeks before. Lucia had called her after ten o’clock one week-day evening on her way to Dairy Queen with Queen.
“Hey, sweetie!” She yelled into the phone.
“Hey, Lucia, what’s going on?”
“I have to tell you; I’m so excited! I want to learn to play the pi-ano! Give me advice!”
“Wow,” Collette said, “That’s great, Lucia. But you don’t have a piano.”
“I don’t care. I’m going to play the pi-ano!”
“Well… I suppose you could get a keyboard like Carrie’s, maybe.”
“Oh! That is such a great idea! Collette, you are a genius! That’s what I’m going to do tomorrow. I’m going to go shopping for a keyboard!”
Later, the idea of Uncle Mo actually allowing Lucia to bring a keyboard into the house to disturb his precious peace and quiet, was rather a comic thought, and highly unlikely. But Collette congratulated Lucia on her efforts and decided that perhaps she could end up practicing somewhere besides the house.
Meanwhile, on the other side of reality, Collette could not quite believe her ears. But it seemed to her that the classical radio station announcer actually had something good to say concerning the weather. Between dreams and wakefulness, she heard him say:
“And it looks like we have thunderstorms in the forecast for today. Actually sounds rather refreshing, doesn’t it?” He said cheerfully.
Collette decided he should be given a trophy for his first optimistic attempt towards the weather on the radio.
Later, at the office…
Scott Hamilton breezed through that morning on internship duties.
“And how’s my future son-in-law?” He called over his shoulder as he passed Collette’s desk.
“Doing good, doing good,” Collette chuckled.
Later, Scott Hamilton passed through again on his way up to Sinai’s office, muttering something about taking over the universe. And later he sang a few bars over something about there being “no water”.
By 2:30 Collette was picked up for the proceedings of the evening. But unlike all summer camps before, this year it was threatening the rain…