Chapter 4: The Hall in Daylight

She opened her handbag. Before leaving home she had wrapped bread and cheese in wax paper, remembering the covered bowl she had left untouched after their lesson. The package had flattened beneath her purse. She turned it over on her lap, trying to find the folded edge.

Eli Finch looked down the road.

She could have begun eating and waited for him to notice. Instead she said, “Would you like some?”

“Is there enough?”

“Yes.”

He sat beside her. She handed him half, with the paper folded beneath it. A little cheese had escaped at the crust, and he pushed it back with his thumb.

“Thanks.”

The bread was dry at the edge. She had cut it too early and left it out while looking for her gloves. She chewed slowly, with the cold reaching the backs of her hands. Beside her, he ate as though there were nothing about the food that required explanation.

A bus appeared at the far intersection. He leaned forward, then sat back when it turned away.

“Different route,” he said.

She nodded with her mouth full.

After a while he asked, “Was I getting better at it?”

“At the end?”

“At hearing it.”

“Some of it. You started waiting for the sound to settle.”

“I kept thinking you wanted me to say yes.”

A crumb had fallen into the seam of her glove. She picked it out before answering.

“I needed you to say what you heard.”

“I know. It just sounded like a question with an answer.”

She turned toward him. He was looking at the crust in his hand, pinching its soft edge flat.

“I’ll try to ask it differently.”

He nodded and ate the crust. She had expected to need another sentence. Without it, she could hear traffic moving behind the shelter, tires crossing a loose cover in the road.

He brushed crumbs from his coat and checked his phone.

“Do you have to be somewhere?” she asked.

“Homework.”

“What kind?”

“An essay.”

“Started?”

“I put the title on it.”

She folded the empty wax paper. “That part usually goes quite quickly.”

“Not always.”

She smiled. He looked at her and smiled too, briefly, then tipped his head back against the shelter panel. She let him rest there. The bag remained between his shoes, and for once neither of them was doing anything with it.

When their bus came, she stood first. He gathered the bag, and she held the folded paper until they reached a trash can beside the stop. On the ride home they sat together without discussing the piano.