The sign in the window read Needful Things.
Jamie looked at the sign, considered going on down the sidewalk. But something about this place....
She moved closer to the large, multi-pane window and leaned forward, her right hand at her forehead, shading her eyes. With her left hand she continued to clutch the body of her shoulder bag, which hung from her left shoulder.
An old upright piano was pressed tightly up against the right wall, as if hiding from something about to come around the corner. A few perforated cylinders—piano rolls—lay on the keyboard, the cover of which was open. A few more lay on the cloth-covered, ornate wooden bench.
Beside the piano, a bit closer to Jamie, was a coat rack, also very ornate. The hooks all ended in knobs, and a different face had been carved into each knob. She couldn’t make out much detail, but she’d been looking for a coat rack to stand in the entryway of her new home. Well, her new very old home. It was located in the French Quarter in New Orleans, only three blocks off Bourbon Street.
Skimming over the small occasional tables, a secretary, and a bookshelf that was crammed beyond capacity with reader-weary paperbacks, she peered harder into the depths of the store, but couldn’t make out much else. She had shifted her shoulder bag to her right side and raised her left hand to shield her eyes just as a bell tinkled and the door opened.
Thinking a customer was coming out, Jamie let her hand drop and turned, ready to nod and issue the customary, guarded quarter-smile she used when greeting a complete stranger in passing. If the customer seemed harmless enough and showed interest, she might engage him or her in casual conversation for a moment, inquiring as to the store’s contents.
She ran through the conversation in her mind:
This is my first week in New Orleans. It’s simply wonderful! I bought an older home here recently.
She would wag one hand in the air.
Early 19th century, you know, and I’m looking for unique period pieces that will both suit the house and enhance it. Of course, I wouldn’t want it to appear gauche. Gauche furnishings are just the worst, don’t you think? So would this store be appropriate for me, do you think, for that purpose?
And she would flash what all of her friends, when they were with her, called That Patented Jamie Smile, the one that made her eyes disappear for a moment and endeared her to anyone at whom she aimed it. She was well practiced at the Patented Jamie Smile.
The door pushed open. The man who came through it glanced at Jamie, frowned, shook his head, then hurried on past.
Taken aback, she frowned herself, then turned and watched him recede.
Jeez... what’d I ever do to you, mister?
Then she turned back to the window, drew closer to the least filthy pane, put her left hand over her eyes and peered into the shop again.
The bell tinkled and the door pushed open again. This time a little old lady came out, but slowly, leaning heavily on a cane. She was short and round, angled only at the shoulders. She might have been five-three or five-four at one time, but the compression of age and the pronounced hump between her left shoulder and her neck had bent her to below five feet.
As Jamie was turning and dropping her hand from her forehead, in her mind she sped through the conversation again. It was a good way to introduce herself and indicate that she was friendly. It would also give the other person the opportunity to lend aid to a stranger, which in turn would make that person feel good about himself. Well, or herself.
Finally, it would also reveal Jamie as a self-sustaining, independent woman who never really needed help from anyone, but who was self-confident enough to ask for advice or direction on occasion. Not that she would then feel compelled to actually take the advice or direction, but certainly she was good enough to ask. She looked at the woman and extended her hand. “Hi! This is my first week in—”
The old woman nodded. “This is the shop you want. It’s perfect for you... for what you need.” The door was half-open, resting against her backside. She shuffled back a few steps, curling the fingers of her left hand to indicate Jamie should come inside.
Jamie involuntarily cocked her head slightly to one side and looked at her for a moment, not used to being so abruptly interrupted. Then she beamed That Patented Jamie Smile and, with a drawn-out pronunciation that she thought made her sound more southern, said, “Why thank yew!”
A stringent cloud of unreasonable fear caused her to hesitate an instant longer than was comfortable. Then what she hoped the woman would see as her unbridled enthusiasm led her to step past the woman and into the store.
As she did so, she glanced around. Everything from the low-hanging very broad ceiling fan to the warped wooden floor seemed to be covered in a light coating of dust. It was almost like looking through a mist. Without turning back, she asked, “Are you the owner?”
“I take care of things.” The old woman shuffled through the opening, the door closing in few-inch increments behind her. The door moved so slowly, touched the door jamb so softly, the bells didn’t jangle.
Jamie glanced back and flashed the smile again. “So then you’re the owner... or the manager.”
The old woman shrugged.
As Jamie neared a broad, waist-high showcase, she stopped, turned around and tried again. She extended her hand. “I’m Jamie. What’s your name?”
The old woman shook her hand loosely, with two fingers and her thumb. “Marie Arceneaux. Pleased. You should be here.”
A frown tugged at Jamie’s brow, then she rejuvenated most of the smile. “Well, that’s good, right? ‘Cause I am here.” She laughed lightly, the same laugh she always used when trying to hide condescension. Then she adjusted her bag higher on her shoulder, turned to the showcase, put her palms on the glass top and looked down through it.
There were watches and bracelets, necklaces and earrings, rings in seemingly every size. No two items were alike (other than the paired earrings, and even they displayed subtle differences) and all were ornate, the result of true craftsmanship. “These are amazing!”
Her bag slipped from her shoulder and she caught it on her elbow. She glanced at Marie and flashed a different smile, a slightly apologetic one that took up only half her mouth and didn’t make it to her eyes at all. “Darn shoulder bags. Impossible to find one that’ll stay put. Don’t you just hate that?”
Marie gestured with her cane past Jamie. “You want the piano. Back there. That’s for you.”
Jamie cocked her head again. “Well, now I do appreciate that, but begging your pardon, you’ve never even seen my house. Well, my new house. Well, my old new house actually. Late nineteenth—”
The woman gestured again with her cane. “That’s for you. Go look.”
Jamie frowned again. She still hadn’t turned to even look at the piano. “I’m sorry but... do we know each other? Or maybe you knew my mother? We lived in New Orleans when I was a girl. I took lessons here in town, on Bourbon street. But all of that ended when we moved to Houston when I was nine. I’ve wanted to come back all these years. My life has seemed like a dream. Really, it goes so fast.” She shook her head lightly. “Anyway, now that I’ve retired— Well, what I mean, did you somehow know I play the piano?”
Marie shrugged and gestured with the cane again.
“Well this is all just very strange.”
Marie nodded. “Yes, but it’s okay. It’s okay.” She gestured yet again with the cane.
Not bothering with her Patented Jamie Smile or any of the others in her collection, Jamie pointedly adjusted her bag on her shoulder, turned away and strode, petulantly, toward the piano. She wanted to say, All right, now what? Instead she crossed her arms over her chest, her back still to Marie, and waited.
As the old woman shuffled slowly across the room, her cane tapping the floor with every other step, Jamie moved nary a muscle. Except those immediately around her eyes. She couldn’t seem to help it. The piano seemed to draw her, and although it had appeared to be covered with the same dusty film as she’d approached it, both it and the bench were clear and clean, almost crisp, without so much as a mote of dust on them.
The tall front of the piano above the keyboard was covered with small bas reliefs carved directly into the wood. They were carved in the round, each two to three inches in diameter. Each carving depicted a face, all humans of various ages and races and both genders, and each medallion overlapped at least a few others. Jamie was transfixed. There must be dozens of them. Even hundreds.
She uncrossed her arms, took a step forward and to the right, and glanced at the side of the piano. Same thing. Dozens of carvings covered the side, and the top, each overlapping a few to several others. She stepped to the side and looked more closely. No two carvings were alike.
She moved behind the piano, which at some time or another had moved away from the wall—at least she had thought it was set against the wall when first saw it from outside—expecting the typical cheap, thin, stapled-on pine backing, but it was made of the same heavy wood, and it was covered with carvings from the top to the floor, side to side.
She studied it for a long moment and was not surprised to find there were no repeated faces there either. She moved to the other side, spent a moment verifying her expectation that all the faces on that side were different as well, then completed her circuit.
The bench caught her attention. Although it was fancy, with finely and ornately carved claw-foot legs supporting an equally ornate top and a padded seat richly covered with an embroidered fabric, there were no faces on it. Still, she sensed it belonged with the piano. More to make conversation than for any practical reason, she glanced at Marie. “Are you sure this bench goes with the piano?”
The woman nodded. A smile, both friendly and sad, glistened in her eyes without ever having crossed her mouth. Her voice had changed, was less gruff, less stark than earlier, and she shrugged. “You know.”
Jamie looked at her. Something in the woman’s eyes was calming. Captivating. She nodded. “Yes... yes, I know it does.”
Marie nodded in the direction of the piano. “Play.”
“You—you don’t mind?”
The old woman shook her head. “No. It’s for you.”
Jamie turned and bent to move the piano rolls from the bench, but they weren’t there.
She hesitated for only a moment, then glanced at the coat rack, then back at Marie. “May I—”
The woman was already gesturing toward the coat rack with her cane. For the first time, her voice took on a gentle tone. “Leave your purse there. It will be all right.”
As she reached for the coat rack, it seemed almost that the purse moved of its own accord to hang itself over the hook, which seemed also to extend itself to accept the purse.
She sat down, barely noticing the bench had adjusted itself beneath her. The piano rolls that had been on the keyboard had disappeared, and the moment Jamie’s fingertips touched the keys she was home.
She moved her fingers—or perhaps her fingers moved of their own accord—and her feet worked the pedals and she—she and the piano—played beautifully, expertly, releasing her every emotion into the piano and receiving from the piano everything she’d been missing since the accident.
She continued playing as tears crept from her eyes. They slipped down her cheeks, individually at first, then one after the other after the other.
Her fingers fairly flew over the keys and the years started over with 1926 and she ran and played on the broad lawn in front of the old house just three blocks off Bourbon Street in the French District. Her fingers settled into a gentle, rhythmic interlude as her mind played the introduction, her mother introducing her to the piano tutor when she was four years old.
The tempo began to pick up speed again as she ran the scales in her mind and played the practice pieces and started school and played recitals in school.
Her fingers raced over the keys, picking up speed again as several faces in her mind smiled down at her from their adult height and said things like “wondrous” and “genius” and “prodigy” and her mother’s news that they would have to move from New Orleans, move away from where she belonged.
Her composition took on ominous tones as her mind played the packing of the car, her father being tired, beaten down, smelling of whiskey. The terse, short argument from the front seat as they backed out of the driveway, what he called “the escape from New Orleans.”
The music grew louder, her fingers slamming the keys harder as they “hit the high road” as he called it and slipped out of town on a two-lane blacktop headed west. And the argument that had ensued, growing louder with the music and the crescendo of slammed piano keys and stomped pedals and screeching tires and a massive, grinding smash and—
And Jamie understood. She stopped playing, her song finished.
As she faded, as she was absorbed into the piano to be reunited with all the other needful things, she turned to her piano teacher and whispered, “Thank you.”
And this time it was a genuine smile.