All Dolled Up!

Charlotte

The next day we decided to dedicate our time to cleaning and working around the house. There was quite a lot that I could do once I put my mind to it even in this new body of mine, but there were things that were beyond me, or either of us for that matter.

"Hey Charlotte- was this yours or something?" Charlie's voice came from another room. I walked over there to see him pointing to an old piano. It was one of the few things in the house that hadn't been taken away, likely, based on its appearance, because it no longer worked and it was too much of a hassle to move.

"No," I told him. We had owned a piano at one point, two as a matter of fact, but they had likely been sold off along with much of the other furniture my family had originally owned. This was something some later owner must have brought in. I walked over to it and pressed a key, and when nothing happened pressed it again, to hear a very abrasive squeak come out of the instrument.

"Do you know how to play?" Charlie asked.

"Only slightly," I told him. As I traced my finger across the keys, with a layer of dust accumulating on my fingers, a memory came unbidden to me.

I must've been about five or six years old at the time. It had been a boring day, or maybe it was just me who was bored, when I heard something coming from a room upstairs. I recognized it as a piano- it was a grand sight to behold. It was imported from England, made of a special material whose name was lost to me. All I remembered was that even by my family’s standards, it was quite expensive.

Only one person in the house was allowed to play that piano, though I didn't know that at the time.

I opened the door to see a man with his hands flowing across the keys as easily as water flows down a stream. He had a kind smile on his face even while he was concentrating solely on playing. A woman was seated beside him, seemingly mesmerized by the melody, much as I was.

Immediately, I thought that what I really wanted to do was to play that melody on my own. I jumped onto the seat beside him, and began pressing the keys, creating a messy cacophony of random notes, interrupting the man's symphony with my terrible performance.

"Charlotte!" the man cried out, though he was more surprised than angry. After all, it was hard for one to be angry at their own child.

I looked at him with bright eyes. "I... want to play too!" I then began banging on the keys indiscriminately as I had done before, once again resulting in nothing that could even be remotely said to resemble music.

"Charlotte," the woman near him said, a bit more upset than he was. I suppose it was my fault for disrupting my mother's enjoyment of what my father was playing. "This piano is not a toy." She chided me.

"Ah, no problem at all," my father said, a bright smile appearing on his face as he rubbed my hair. "So you want to play the piano like me, is it? No matter, I think we can arrange for lessons for her, don't you?"

I don't even remember what my mother had said in response, but I remember nearly jumping out of the seat as I screamed "Yes! Yes! Thank you!"

I pressed another key, no, this one wasn't working either.

The lessons... they all seemed to blend into one. My first teacher was a kind old lady, though now that I reflected on it, I didn't learn much of anything those first two years that I had tried. She was more interested in making me happy than having me learn, though in her defense I suppose, I was not exactly the most diligent pupil when it came to learning.

It was one thing to say that you wished to get good at something like this, and another thing to follow up on it entirely. One had to go at it day after day, even when it began to feel like it was dragging on. And when I started to lose interest, it was hard to work towards it.

My next teacher was younger and more strict- though at the same time someone who did try to teach me something. I learned most of what I know in the year she was there. I forgot why she had left so soon, but her face was just a blur in my mind because I had never spent that much time with her.

After that, my parents had difficulty finding another tutor, and real schoolwork was beginning to start for me. I was occupied with other things and there was a three year gap in which I never touched a piano.

And then, one day, when I saw my father playing again, a stroke of inspiration hit me, and I wanted to learn again, pleading with him to get someone else to teach me.

My third teacher was an elderly gentlemen and was a fusion of my first two. He told me that when he had started to learn how to play, he got a rap on his knuckles from a rod whenever he made a mistake. I don't know how truthful that was, even now, though the prospect of it terrified me at the time which is likely why he had told me it in the first place- to inspire me to work harder. He was actually a lot less abrasive than my second teacher had been - he was far more bark than bite, and the work I put in finally did come to fruition at one point.

That day, my father was there, and so was my mother. It was before we had dinner, and I started playing. I had rehearsed this piece time and time again, though now that the hour to perform had come, I ended up making two mistakes in the performance, even though I had played it perfectly three times before then.

But, that hadn't mattered. I was sweating, even though it was a cool evening, when I looked up to see broad smiles on their faces, with them applauding.

It was the same piece I had first heard my father play at the time. It was a small piece he had composed on his own, called 'Sparkling Dawn' and after hearing it enough times, I had been able to play a version that was similar enough to it, though I had made some slight changes to it. Some of the changes were because I simply didn't remember some of it, and some were because I thought it sounded better.

My father was no short of praise for me that day.

I pressed more keys, though of course, nothing resembling a melody came out. It had likely not been tuned in forever.

"Charlotte!" a concerned voice finally reached my ears and I turned to see Charlie, looking quite worried.

"What happened?"

"What happened?! You just froze up for a moment- I thought that the sun had come up early for a moment or there was some rule you didn’t know about, like the fact you couldn’t play pianos or something," he said. There was concern in his voice, which of course only intensified as I felt tears roll down my face. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I told him, as a smile came upon my face. "I was just... lost in my memories." Why had I stopped playing after that day again? I don't remember exactly, but I was sure there was an issue with how much time I had on my hands later on and I eventually forgot about playing the piano once again. The longer that I spent away from the piano, the more I forgot and the more I would have to relearn if I tried to play again, and this negative cycle likely continued and dissuaded me from ever seriously trying to improve. "Yes, I could play at one point. But this piano, it hasn't been touched in what looks like a decade. It isn't even worth trying to clean or repair at this point, I think." I had thought about trying things out one more time when I had seen the piano, but that was impossible given its current state. Maybe I would be able to charm Charlie like my father had enchanted my mother with my music... but that was all wishful thinking without an actual instrument.

"I could, y'know, find something on the cheaper side if you want," Charlie offered. "That you could try playing."

"Oh," I said. I knew pianos were very expensive even if they weren’t of the make that my father had purchased, and I didn't want to bother Charlie with anything else given what he had already done for me. As it stood, there was little I could do to help him from a financial viewpoint. I didn't have any 'marketable skills' as you might call them, I had been expected to marry and leave the household, little else than that. A plan that doesn't work oh-so-well in this day and age.

My family had owned a large textile factory which is where we had made our fortune, though from what Charlie had found out, it had to be sold as part of a bankruptcy deal sometime in the early 1920s. "I don't want to burden you given there's so little I can do to help you."

"I mean, I don't think I can get an actual piano," Charlie said. "It might be more like a toy than an actual instrument, but I guess you could play something with it."

"I'll leave it to you," I said, wiping away my tears.

Though, for the rest of the night, I found myself humming that same tune my father had played under my breath.