Page 43 of Dark Verse

I’m more than happy to have connected with such an amazing rock band. They are absolutely the kind of people I would want to work with again.

I feel strangely wired. My mind is thinking through a solid exercise plan that might wear me out as the rest of us part ways for the night. That’s when I notice that Raven’s car still sits in the parking lot, the only one left from the staff. Typical. She is always working.

I turn back into the building, wondering if I’ll catch her in the office pouring over spreadsheets like usual. Instead, I almost immediately hear music, a piano playing deep inside the space. I follow it, intrigued by the expressive sound. Raven’s posture is straight-backed and calm, almost reverent. Yet, there is an unmistakable electricity in the way her hands hover before striking the next note of the piece, like she was listening for something only she could hear.

I ease myself silently into one of the chairs. It’s mostly a standing venue, but a handful of seating options are alongside the wall, keeping me in shadow and out of her line of sight. The opening passage she is playing is delicate, each note placed with care. The piano does not merely release a series of notes. With Raven at the bench, it speaks in a voice that feels beautifully human. I’ve heard a dozen people play that piano over the last few weeks, but it has never sounded like this before. She seems to know the instrument’s full emotional range, teasing out soft phrases that shimmer and dance across my taste buds.

As the piece develops, so does the intensity, Ven’s body becoming more lively. She leans into the keyboard, drawing out thunderous chords that resonate through the floor and into my chest. Her hands move with breathtaking precision, gliding effortlessly across octaves. Arpeggios cascade out of the piano like water over a precipice, crashing into each other, foaming up and out like spray.

What makes this clandestine performance truly extraordinary to me, however, is the emotional honesty woven into every moment. For someone seemingly afraid of vulnerability, she nevertheless lays out every emotion, exposing it to the stage lights. Pauses linger just long enough to ache, resolving only when the phrase has earned the release. There are moments of playful joy, bright and dancing, fully alive, followed by passages of somber reflection, approaching funereal.

Time bends the longer she plays. Seconds stretch and contract. The music guides me through an emotional landscape I’ve never heard, and I never want to leave. The bursts of flavor I keep experiencing as I listen drag me into the depths of summer. Limes, raspberries, rich soils, and Kansas breezes. Oranges, hops, and coconut.

Raven sways with the phrasing, breath aligning with the tempo, as if the piano were an extension of her, as familiar to her as any other part of her body. I sense deep listening happening in real time on her part, which seems to respond to the resonance of this room, the decay of each note, the silence between sounds.

The final notes fade, lingering in the air like dust, leaving an imprint of ginger on my tongue long after the last sound has vanished. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath since I sat down, and now I exhale. I’m standing and clapping before I can think it through, and I watch as the loud, sudden action startles Raven out of her reverent moment.

“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” I say honestly. “But that absolutely deserved a standing ovation.”

“Thanks.” She smiles softly, closing the fallboard of the upright piano.

“Please don’t stop on my account.”

“No, I’m done.” She stands, the bench scraping the floor as she does.

“I knew you could play, but you never told me you could play like that.”

She shrugs. “It’s nothing.”

“Really? Because that sounded very much like the opposite of nothing. Raven, that was incredible.”

“Thanks.”

I take the side steps up to the stage, joining her in the spotlight.

“Where did you learn to play like that?”

“Oh, I’ve been playing since I was five. I’ve had plenty of music teachers, not just for piano. But playing like that? I worked on that piece in undergrad. It’s called Okosum’s Piano Sonata No. 5.”

“It was beautiful. You must have gotten a standing ovation when you played it in college.”

Her expression darkens noticeably.

“No, not that one. I wasn’t able to perfect it in time for my senior recital. I played another one of hers, her Sonata No. 1. It’s another lovely piece, but less technical.”

“I would love to hear that one too.”

“I don’t really play for audiences anymore.”

“That’s an actual shame, Ven.”

Her expression twitches, but she doesn’t comment on the nickname this time. She looks away from me.

“Have you been talking to my parents, because they say the same thing during just about every conversation these days?”

I sense I’m wading knee-deep into a loaded conversation. But I press forward.