Daphne Kalotay - Calamity and Other Stories

Acknowledgments

Enormous thanks and endless gratitude to: The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, The Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow, Eve Bridburg at grub street, inc., Leigh Feldman, Deb Futter, Leah Kalotay, Judy Layzer, Ron Nemec, Emily Newburger, Rishi Reddi, and Julie Rold.

Some of these stories have appeared elsewhere, in slightly altered form: Serenade in The Missouri Review, All Lifes Grandeur in PrairieSchooner, Sunshine Cleaners in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Man from Allston Electric in AGNI, Snapshots in The Literary Review, Calamity in AGNI, Prom Season in Good Housekeeping.

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint a portion of I Knew a Woman, copyright 1954 by Theodore Roethke, from The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke by Theodore Roethke. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

Daphne Kalotay

Calamity and Other Stories

Born and raised in New Jersey, Daphne Kalotay is a graduate of Vassar College and of Boston University, where she received an MA in creative writing and a Ph.D. in literature. Her short stories have appeared in various literary journals and magazines, and she has taught literature and writing at Middlebury College and Boston University. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Serenade

My mother believed that her entire life would have somehow been different had she been given piano lessons as a girl. She said this often, with a little sigh that made me feel I had better run through my scales one more time. She had grown up, as she often reminded me, a sculptors daughter, which I later learned to translate into poor. I did not take the piano in our family room for granted. My parents found it at a garage sale, a big brown upright with the face of Ray Charles painted on the frontpiece. I always approached it reverently, with the impression that my piano lessons were going to somehow transform me.

In outright mimicry of my neighbor, Callie, Id demanded that my piano instructor be Cole Curtin. He would appear at our doorstep chewing his thumbnail, invariably late, sheet music stuffed into a paper bag. Entering our house, he strained his neck to glimpse my mother chopping vegetables in the kitchen. In demonstrating a technique or correcting an error, he could play a ten-minute cadenza and then look surprised to find me sitting there beside him. After Id struggled through my scales, his only reaction might be to say, Your mother is extremely beautiful.

According to Callie, Mr. Curtin treated her mother no differently. Neither Callie nor I questioned such behavior. We were best friends, both of us ten years old, with a little brother each that we didnt much like. We lived next door to each other and owned identical yellow jumpers. It seemed appropriate that we have the same piano teacher, and that he be in love with both of our mothers.

My father might never have made the fuss about Mr. Curtin had he not been home from the office early one Thursday. In my worldview, fathers were either at the office or on the porch. When mine came home, winter or summer, he retreated to the little screened-in space that nosed into our backyard. There he had installed a large rocking chair (it had been in the family, Russ and I were often reminded, for over one hundred years) next to a table full of wood for whittling. My mother explained this to us as Daddys downtime. Winters he would bundle up in a scarf and hat, wrap a wool blanket around himself, and nap there for an hour or so before creating some small object out of a piece of cedar.

Now it was July, and my father was home earlier than usual, whittling away on the porch. Peeking through the living room window, I saw Mr. Curtin approaching our front door, stopping at one of the planters to have a look at some petals or bugs. He was a soft-shouldered man, with thick dark brown hair, bushy eyebrows, and a droop to his eyes. Even though it was summer he wore the same fading corduroy pants as in winter, only now with five-and-dime flip-flops. His button-down shirt was tight on his shoulders, as if it had been purchased ten or so years earlier, before his body completed pubertys cycle. He was still young! Callie and I didnt know this. Mr. Curtins tired eyes suggested a long, difficult past. His mumbled comments implied a history of lost opportunity and poor decisions: Women gone off with other men. Jobs lost unaccountably. Sheet music lent to students and never seen again.

He bore the slouch of someone perpetually waiting for a tow truck. And despite his thick build, he looked as though he needed to be fed; his skin was pale, and there was a neediness in the way he lingered by the kitchen door as I urged him into the family room.

Hello, Melena, he said softly to my mother. She looked up from her cooking, and a shiny loop of dark hair swung across her face. How are you, Cole?

Oh, you know, he said. Things happen. I got fired from the ballet school. Days Mr. Curtin played accompaniment for dance classes.

Why? This was me.

The teacher said I made her feel uncomfortable.

Im sorry to hear that, my mother said.

I asked, Why? Why did you make her feel uncomfortable?

Quiet, Rhea. Dont be nosy.

She said I kept looking at her. How could I not? Shes there in those pink tights. Mr. Curtin sighed. She has such a beautiful neck.

That was when my father came in and said, Cole, with a little nod of his head, the way he did with everyone except children. Hows Rheas progress?

Mr. Curtin sighed again and said, I suppose wed better get started. We went to the family room, where the piano sat squarely against a clean white wall. Mr. Curtin listened to my scales and my tudes, and then I moved on to my pride and joy real sheet music by a real composer. Other kids were playing Four Jazzy Fingers and a Swingin Thumb, but Mr. Curtin had given me and Callie the real thingsimple, elegant childrens pieces by Bartk.

Ohugh! Stop! Youre murdering it! he yelled when my fingers hammered at the keys. Its a sin! Then he mumbled something about how he didnt actually believe in sin, and after that he demonstrated how to play with appropriate sensitivity. His eyes closed and his head bowed, and beautiful music wafted into the kitchen, where my mother was sliding a casserole into the oven.

You need to work on refinement, subtlety, Mr. Curtin told me. I didnt know what either of those words meant. Here, he said. Heres a beautiful little one, soft and sensual. Play this for your mother in the evening, when shes tired and wants to rest her eyes.

Leaving that night, he said, Melena, your cooking smells wonderful, in a way that made me think he wanted to stay for dinner. But the invitation he elicited was for the coming weekend.

Were having people on Saturday, my mother said. A sort of garden party. If youd like to come.

Yes, said Mr. Curtin.

Starting five or so, my mother told him as she let him out the door. See you then.

My father had left the porch to sit down at the dinner table. I wish you hadnt done that, he said softly. I wish you hadnt invited the piano teacher to our party.

Why shouldnt I? my mother asked, sounding truly surprised. Rhea and Callie just love him, and I think it will be a treat for Cole, too. He doesnt have much money, Gordon. Im not sure he eats.

Melena, you know that Jerry Waslick is coming.

What does your boss have to do with it?

Imaybe you dont think this way My fathers voice sounded embarrassed. You know Im keeping my fingers crossed about the promotion. Id like to be able to make a favorable impression on Saturday. Im just not sure its appropriate to invite a piano teacher who sleeps in his clothes and ogles girls in tights

Not girls in tights, my mother said. The teacher. She has a lovely neck. She laughed briefly. Hes perfectly cultured, Gordon. Why, hes more cultured than the both of us put together.