"She has her own," Denise said. "I'm just borrowing them until she notices."
"Rent is due on that thing in nine days."
"I know when rent is due."
"I'm not nagging. I'm counting."
"Count quieter," Denise said, and then, because she loved her sister and because love in their family often arrived dressed as irritation, "Thank you for the eggs."
The rented harp stayed through Nia's seventh year and into her eighth. Denise auditioned for better hotel contracts and for a per-service spot with a civic ensemble that rehearsed on weeknights. She got some of the work. She did not get the fellowship she had wanted years earlier, the one at the Meridian, the one she did not talk about except once, late, when the radiator was knocking and Nia had asked why they never went to the big hall with the pictures outside.
"I went," Denise said. "Once. I played well. They were polite. Polite is a long hallway. It doesn't always have a door at the end."
"Were they mean?"
Denise considered the question with the seriousness she gave to fingering. "Not the way mean looks on television. Nobody shouted. A man in a nice suit asked if I had a more suitable dress for donor events. A woman said my sound was lovely and that the program was very competitive. There was a younger man on the staff who helped me get the harp to the elevator. He looked like he wanted to say something and then he swallowed it. I remember the swallowing. Funny what you keep."