Jane Doe, Alive and Well

You didn’t really think I’d finance a piano, did you?
After my rant last week about credit cards and money mismanagement?
Oh ye of little faith.
Of course not.

We walked out of the store piano-less.
But not hopeless, because my husband had seen an ad in the paper for not one, but two pianos for sale, and they were for sale for only three numbers to the left of the decimal point instead of four. I called the ad and set up a time to go see the pianos. Things were looking up.
I did have a bit of trepidation. I mean, I’ve never bought a piano before. How could I tell if it was a good piano or not? I didn’t want to be taken for a ride.
That particular concern was laid to rest as soon as I met Mr. and Mrs. Parker (not their real names, of course – it makes it so much more dramatic).
They’re a friendly, older couple. Mrs. Parker epitomizes the term “bustling about”, and bustle she did, as she led us out to “the shop”.
The shop that she was referring to was a converted garage, and one that was filled to bursting with years of accumulation. It had the normal things one might find in a garage, but it also had pianos. Lots of pianos. At least, lots of parts of pianos.
I felt a bit embarrassed, actually, to see all of these piano innards strung across walls, draping off of shelves and piled in corners. Aren’t those parts a bit, um, private? Seeing the keys and mallets without their protective wooden coverings felt like walking in one someone not fully clothed, or seeing a lady’s lingerie hanging from a shower rod. You want to look, but know you shouldn’t, because it’s personal.
The pieces looked naked and awkward and a bit indecent. The empty wooden cases looked hollow and forlorn.
Mrs. Parker didn’t seem to have any qualms about grabbing boxes and buckets of parts and handled them without any particular reverence, but I guess one does become casual after handling parts year upon year, piano after piano. That’s what I found out as she unceremoniously cleared a small space for us to move in on the intact pianos. She and Mr. Parker were piano tuners by trade; he being a member of the piano technician’s guild, and she proficient in repairing and rebuilding pianos.
Buying a piano from a piano tuner. This is a good sign. I think he probably knows a thing or two about pianos.
I found out quickly, though, that age had not been kind to Mr. Parker. With both sight and faculties quickly eroding, the vast amounts of knowledge that he held was only sporadically understandable. I had a feeling that many of these piano pieces would never play the parts he intended for them.
With a small space finally cleared for all of us to fit, Mrs. Parker directed my attention to the two pianos.
There they were, their outward differences plain to see, even in the dim light of the shop. Both tall uprights - not the short studios, but the full uprights. The one on the left was beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous wood, absolutely gorgeous, with an intricate carving on the front part of the casing.
The one on the right was a piece of work. And I don’t mean art work.
I couldn’t really tell what color the wood was. It had been painted – well, at one time it had been. Then it looked like it may have been repainted. And then maybe it was….crackled, I think they call it?
“It’s been antiqued.” Said Mrs. Parker. “Remember when that was style for everything?”
Ah, yes. Antiqued. Well, we’ll call it the ugly piano. And that’s being kind.
Maybe out of pity, or maybe because the gorgeous piano was just too gorgeous to touch, I went to the ugly piano first and a bit hesitantly, played a chord.
That something so beautiful could come from something so ugly – well, I was astonished. So I played another, and another.
The piano didn’t just play notes, it swelled them. The sound came up and out and around you and in you and hung in the air like a thick, rich, engulfing tapestry of sound. It sounded complex and deep. It sounded like a perfectly tuned baby grand.
“This was our personal piano.” Said Mrs. Parker. “It’s old, I don’t know how old. It’s been completely rebuilt on the inside. He finished it a couple of years ago. But then we got that smaller spinete inside because we didn’t have as much space.”
Maybe I still looked a little stunned, because she said “Here, do you want Sam to play something for you? Sam, play something.”
Sam groped his way to the stool, situated his hands and asked in a moment of clarity,
“Now, what would you like?”
And without waiting for a reply his hands started flying up and down the keys. My daughter started bopping around as a ragtime tune filled the old garage. He finished with a little trill on the high notes, and I applauded at the end.
“Now this other one” said Mrs. Parker. “We rebuilt this one, too.”
We turned to the gorgeous piano, and I held my breath as I lifted the lid. If they rebuilt the other one, and it sounds so beautiful, then….
Plink.
Plunk.
I know technically that note is a middle C, but…
Plink, plink, plink.
No change in my pulse, no metaphysical transport to Carnegie Hall or a 1920’s tavern. Just stuck in an old garage, with one gorgeous, but ugly piano, and one ugly, but beautiful piano.