Unwind

Well, Risa knows better.

'Risa Ward,' the stage manager calls. 'You're up.'

She rolls her shoulders, adjusts the barrette in her long brown hair, then she takes the stage. The applause from the audience is polite, nothing more. Some of it is genuine, for she does have friends out there, and teachers who want her to succeed. But mostly it's the obligatory applause from an audience waiting to be impressed.

Mr. Durkin is out there. He has been her piano teacher for five years. He's the closest thing Risa has to a parent. She's lucky. Not every kid at Ohio State Home 23 has a teacher they can say that about. Most StaHo kids hate their teachers, because they see them as jailers.

Ignoring the stiff formality of her recital dress, she sits at the piano; it's a concert Steinway as ebony as the night, and just as long.

Focus.

She keeps her eyes on the piano, forcing the audience to recede into darkness. The audience doesn't matter. All that matters is the piano and the glorious sounds she's about to charm out of it.

She holds her fingers above the keys for a moment, then begins with perfect passion. Soon her fingers dance across the keys making the flawless seem facile.

She makes the instrument sing . . . and then her left ring finger stumbles on a Bflat, slipping awkwardly onto B-natural.

A mistake.

It happens so quickly, it could go unnoticed—but not by Risa. She holds the wrong note in her mind, and even as she continues playing, that note reverberates within her, growing to a crescendo, stealing her focus until she slips again, into a second wrong note, and then, two minutes later, blows an entire chord. Tears begin to fill her eyes, and she can't see clearly.

You don't need to see, she tells herself. You just need to feel the music. She can still pull out of this nosedive, can't she? Her mistakes, which sound so awful to her, are barely noticeable.

'Relax,' Mr. Durkin would tell her. 'No one is judging you.'

Perhaps he truly believes that—but then, he can afford to believe it. He's not fifteen, and he's never been a ward of the state.

* * *

Five mistakes.

Every one of them is small, subtle, but they are mistakes nonetheless. It would have been fine if any of the other kids' performances were less than stellar, but the others shined.

Still, Mr. Durkin is all smiles when he greets Risa at the reception. 'You were marvelous!' he says. 'I'm proud of you.'

'I stunk up the stage.'

'Nonsense. You chose one of Chopin's most difficult pieces. Professionals can't get through it without an error or two. You did it justice!'

'I need more than justice.'

Mr. Durkin sighs, but he doesn't deny it. 'You're coming along nicely. I look forward to the day I see those hands playing in Carnegie Hall.' His smile is warm and genuine, as are the congratulations from the other girls in her dorm. It's enough warmth to ease her sleep that night, and to give her hope that maybe, just maybe, she's making too much of it and being unnecessarily hard on herself. She falls asleep thinking of what she might choose to play next.

* * *

One week later she's called into the headmaster's office.

There are three people there. A tribunal, thinks Risa. Three adults sitting in judgment, like the three monkeys: hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil.

'Please sit down, Risa,' says the headmaster.

She tries to sit gracefully but her knees, now unsteady, won't allow it. She slaps awkwardly down into a chair far too plush for an inquisition.

Risa doesn't know the other two people sitting beside the headmaster, but they both look very official. Their demeanor is relaxed, as if this is business as usual for them.

The woman to the headmaster's left identifies herself as the social worker assigned to Risa's 'case.' Until that moment, Risa didn't know she had a case.

She says her name. Ms. Something-or-other. The name never even makes it into Risa's memory. She flips through the pages of Risa's fifteen years of life as casually as if she were reading a newspaper. 'Let's see . . . you've been a ward of the state from birth. It looks like your behavior has been exemplary. Your grades have been respectable, but not excellent.' Then the social worker looks up and smiles. 'I saw your performance the other night. You were very good.'

Good, thinks Risa, but not excellent.

Ms. Something-or-other leafs through the folder for a few seconds more, but Risa can tell she's not really looking. Whatever's going on here was decided long before Risa walked through the door.

'Why am I here?'

Ms. Something-or-other closes her folder and glances at the headmaster and the man beside him in an expensive suit. The suit nods, and the social worker turns back to Risa with a warm smile. 'We feel you've reached your potential here,' she says. 'Headmaster Thomas and Mr. Paulson are in agreement with me.'

Risa glances at the suit. 'Who's Mr. Paulson?'

The suit clears his throat and says, almost as an apology, 'I'm the school's legal counsel.'

'A lawyer? Why is there a lawyer here?'

'Just procedure,' Headmaster Thomas tells her. He puts a finger into his collar, stretching it, as if his tie has suddenly become a noose. 'It's school policy to have a lawyer present at these kinds of proceedings.'

'And what kind of proceeding is this?'

The three look at one another, none of them wanting to take the lead.

Finally Ms. Something-or-other speaks up. 'You must know that space in state homes are at a premium these days, and with budget cuts, every StaHo is impacted—ours included.'

Risa holds cold eye contact with her. 'Wards of the state are guaranteed a place in state homes.'

'Very true—but the guarantee only holds until thirteen.'

Then all of a sudden everyone has something to say.

'The money only stretches so far,' says the headmaster.

'Educational standards could be compromised,' says the lawyer.

'We only want what's best for you, and all the other children here,' says the social worker.

And back and forth it goes like a three-way Ping-Pong match. Risa says nothing, only listens.

'You're a good musician, but . . .'

'As I said, you've reached your potential.'

'As far as you can go.'

'Perhaps if you had chosen a less competitive course of study.'

'Well, that's all water under the bridge.'

'Our hands are tied.'

'There are unwanted babies born every day—and not all of them get storked.'

'We're obliged to take the ones that don't.'

'We have to make room for every new ward.'

'Which means cutting 5 percent of our teenage population.'

'You do understand, don't you?'

Risa can't listen anymore, so she shuts them up by saying what they don't have the courage to say themselves.

'I'm being unwound?'

Silence. It's more of an answer than if they had said 'yes.'

The social worker reaches over to take Risa's hand, but Risa pulls it back before she can. 'It's all right to be frightened. Change is always scary.'