Her Man Friday(43)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

She had her back to him, but even if she hadn’t, he suspected she wouldn’t have noticed him watching her. The sun spilling through the window beyond her winked off the ring in her eyebrow, and splashed with gold the wild, dark tresses tumbling around her shoulders. She was dressed in a pair of massive, baggy, extremely disreputable blue jeans—actually, the garment appeared to be a series of shreds and tears that were joined, kind of, by denim—and a short, blood red sweater. Her head was turned in profile, her eyes were closed, and her fingers skimmed easily, confidently, along the keyboard. She appeared to not even be paying attention to what she was doing, as if the piano were simply an extension of her body, and the activity she was performing was as natural and as essential a practice as breathing.

Her choice of clothing was utterly at odds with the music that flowed from her fingertips. The music was soft, gently cadenced, pleasantly complicated. Nothing at all like its creator. Nevertheless, Chloe seemed to be transformed, transcended even, by it, turning soft and gentle and pleasant herself. Leo was even able to overlook the facial jewelry for the moment, because he became so caught up in the sounds so subtly surrounding him.

Whatever the piece was she was playing, it was, quite simply, beautiful. He was by no means an expert on classical music, so he had no idea who the composer was. Still, he mused, it might be worth investing in a couple of CDs by the man. Even to his untrained ear, there was something about the piece she was playing that was simply too wonderful to ignore.

"Is that Bach?" he asked as he took a step into the music room. "Or Beethoven?"

The moment he began to speak, Chloe started stumbling over the piano keys as if her fingers had suddenly become paralyzed. She leapt up from the bench, spun quickly around to face him, and, just for a moment, had that look of stark terror on her face that she had worn the first time he’d encountered her. As she had done then, however, she immediately masked the fear, injecting in its place a fair amount of adolescent insolence.

"Do you get off on scaring the shit out of everybody?" she demanded in that grating tone of voice that put Leo’s back up faster than fingernails on a blackboard would. "Or is it just little girls you like to spook?"

He held up both hands, palm out, wondering why he’d even bothered to try to be civil with the kid. "Forget it," he told her as he began to back up again. He had better things to do with his time than defend himself against a young girl whose greatest enemy was herself. "Just forget I asked. Forget you ever saw me. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way."

He had turned to leave, had, in fact made his way through the door, when Chloe called out after him, almost tentatively, he thought, "It wasn’t Bach or Beethoven."

Very slowly, Leo pivoted back around, wondering if this was some kind of trick. For a moment there, Chloe had sounded almost nice.

"It was Sandusky," she told him.

Leo shook his head slightly. "Never heard of him."

"Sandusky’s not a him," she said, still looking a bit uncertain about what she was doing. "Sandusky’s a her."

He arched his brows in surprise. "No kidding. I didn’t even know women were allowed to compose music in those days."

There was a slight hesitation before Chloe replied, and for some reason, Leo got the impression that she was taking great care in choosing what to say. "Sandusky didn’t compose it in those days," she finally said. "She composed it just now."

This time Leo dropped his mouth open in surprise.

"Sandusky is me," she added unnecessarily, scrunching up her shoulders in a rare show of modesty.

"You?" he asked. "You wrote that?"

She nodded.

"Just now?"

She was clearly becoming more than a little self-conscious, obviously disconcerted by his vehemence, but she nodded again, more slowly this time.

Leo forced himself to relax. The last thing a kid like Chloe needed was to have someone gawking at her as if she were the eighth wonder of the modern world. "It, uh… it was really good," he said lamely.

And even at that lame compliment, Chloe smiled. A shy smile. A smile of gratitude, of satisfaction. It was a smile that nearly took Leo’s breath away, because when she smiled like that, she looked just like… just like…

Just like a fourteen-year-old-girl who’d done something she was really proud of, something that made her feel good about herself. Imagine that. Chloe could be a normal human being after all.

She thrust her hands behind her back, an action that brought into stark focus the gold hoop glittering in her navel, and only then did Leo remember what kind of a kid she was—namely, an unconventional one. However, even at that, when she dipped her head forward and swayed her body to and fro, he thought for a moment that she might actually say "Aw, shucks" and stub the toe of her shoe—her really big, really ugly shoe—against the huge Aubusson rug that spanned the floor beneath her feet. Then, as quickly as she had turned human, Chloe seemed to recall that she was, in fact, a surly adolescent, and, just like that, the facade went back into place.

"Yeah, well, you don’t have to sound so surprised about it," she snapped with a toss of her head that sent her curls flying. "It’s not like I’m an idiot here. Unlike some people."

But Leo wasn’t going to take the bait as easily this time. "No, you’re certainly no idiot," he said calmly. "On the contrary, Miss Sandusky—"

Her head snapped up again at his formal address, and she eyed him warily, as if she were trying to figure out whether or not he was being sarcastic or insulting in his formal address.

"I’m sorry I interrupted you," he said further, before she had a chance to verbally assault him. "I hope I didn’t blow your concentration and make you forget what you were doing."

Her expression turned puzzled for a moment, then cleared. "Oh, I never forget," she said. She pointed to her forehead. "It all goes right here and stays. I’ll be able to find it again when I need to. It’s kinda like a filing cabinet."

Leo hid the smile that threatened when he noted Chloe’s use of common English. Obviously she could communicate with anyone if she tried. "You seem to have a rare gift," he told her. "I hope you don’t neglect it."

She stared at him for a long time without changing her expression, as if she couldn’t quite figure him out. Well, that made two of them, Leo thought. Because he sure as hell didn’t know what to think about her now, either.

Dipping his own head forward, he murmured, "Miss Sandusky. It was nice chatting with you. Please, by all means, continue with your playing. I myself have to get back to work, and your music would be a welcome accompaniment."