"We don't celebrate on the stairs," Denise said, and then she pulled him into the apartment and celebrated with a chicken she had not planned to defrost and a phone call to Mrs. Keene, who said, "Good. Now we work," which was her version of a parade.
They chose the Bach. The nocturne would have been prettier in a lobby. The Price would have been a joy. Mrs. Keene held the Bach score open and said, "This one will tell them whether you hear. Pretty can wait in the hallway. If they are the right school, they will be relieved you did not try to knock them down."
He worked. He worked the crossing voices until he could bring out the alto without punching the soprano in the throat. He worked the places where the prelude gathered itself and ran. He recorded himself on Denise's phone and winced with an honesty that would have been cruelty if it had been aimed at someone else. Mrs. Keene stopped him, one week before the open house, in the twenty-second measure.
"You're explaining," she said.
"I'm playing."
"You're explaining that you can play. It's not the same. The room will try to make you explain. Your job is to decline. You play the piece, not the advertisement for the piece."
He sat with that. Outside, a dog barked at nothing and was proud of itself.