Almost like wedding planning. My parents have had to talk couples down from dream venues, dream bands, dream dresses when they were out of their budget.
“And you’re going to sell all of these?”
“Ideally.” She runs a hand along a harp’s neck, as though erasing an invisible blemish. “I go to conferences a couple times a year, and I have some regular clients. It’s not the kind of thing where you get a lot of walk-in customers.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t give me your card so you could try to sell me something,” I say, even though it was my initial assumption.
“That wasn’t my intention, no.”
But she doesn’t elaborate, and maybe that’s okay because my fingers are itchy. The silky sheen of the lacquered finish, the smell of the wood, all these beautiful instruments—they’re messing with my head in the best possible way.
Maxine explains that all of these are lever harps, also called Celtic harps, while I’ve only played a pedal harp. With a lever harp, each of thirty-four strings goes through a lever at the top, along the neck, and those levers are used to change the key. My Lyon & Healy has seven pedals at its base, one for each note. So the A pedal raises all the A strings to a sharp or lowers them to a flat, and so on.
“A lever harp gives you a little more control. You might find playing it is actually easier.” She gestures to the row of harps. “You want to give it a try? Which one speaks to you?”
There’s a cherry one at the end I haven’t been able to stop staring at, so I inch closer, run a hand along its brand-new strings. “This one, I think.”
“The instrument chooses the musician,” she says. “Some people claim the sound is the most important part of a harp, but the look and the feel are important too. Well—you must know that, with all the weddings.”
“My harp has been in many, many wedding photos.” Most of the time, the couples standing moodily in front of it look like they’re a generic indie folk band posing for their album cover.
What I also learn, once she encourages me to sit down, is that a lever harp isn’t nearly as heavy. There’s a new intimacy with the instrument as I tilt it back, letting my inner thigh bear most of its weight.
I run my hand along the levers, flipping a few back and forth, testing their flexibility. “I might be terrible.”
“You play beautifully. I wouldn’t have asked you here if I didn’t believe that,” she says. “When I watch someone, I’m always paying attention to their hands. Yours are never resting. They’re always in motion, anticipating the next note. There’s this energy there that I don’t always see.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I honestly thought you were casting a spell on me, so that’s great to know.”
She snorts at that, and it’s such an un-Maxine-like sound, at least based on what I know about her so far, that it drags a smile out of me. It’s not something I’ve allowed myself to think about for a while: that what I do is anything special. It’s been a job. An obligation.
Maybe it doesn’t have to be.
She encourages me to play anything I want. Most of the pieces I know are classical, not exactly toe-tappers. Since it might as well be written into my DNA at this point, I launch into Pachelbel’s Canon. I mess around with the levers, flipping the ones I need to get into the key of D. The smaller, lighter harp is a bit of an adjustment, but Maxine’s right; it’s a relatively simple one. The string tension isn’t as tight, and I’m playing too strongly at first, but I manage to figure it out.
The whole time, Maxine is watching with her arms crossed, serving me that look she did at the wedding.
“What?” I ask, a little irritated. I wasn’t that bad. At least, I don’t think so.
“That was… safe,” she says. Very much not a compliment. “You didn’t have any lever changes in the middle of it. That’s where it gets really tricky. Do you only play classical pieces?”
Just like that, I’m knocked off my high horse. “I play at weddings. Most couples aren’t requesting death metal.”
“What about when you’re not performing?”
If that isn’t the million-dollar question. “It’s been a while since I played on my own, except when I’m learning a new piece for a wedding. Which, yes, is usually classical. My grandma helped me learn a couple fun songs when I was younger. All of it came more easily back then. When weddings were still exciting.”
“You lost interest.” It’s matter-of-fact, the way she says it, and she’s not wrong.
“A little.”
“And yet here you are.”
I shift the cherry harp back into its upright position. Maybe this was a bad idea. The harp, Maxine Otto, her workshop—none of this is going to fix my problems. It was absurd to think it might. “Thank you for doing this, but I should probably get going.”
“The way you play,” Maxine continues, as though she hasn’t heard me, or more accurately, doesn’t care, “your body is very stiff. Your hands are doing the work—all the work. You need to allow yourself to really feel the music with the rest of your body.”
“I know that,” I insist, though it’s been a long time since I felt anything with my whole body, if I’m being honest. “Do you still play? I didn’t see any recent videos online, so…”
“Occasionally. I don’t perform as much as I used to.” She sits down at the black lacquered harp next to mine, her hands moving along the strings with ease, like she could play the harp and recite Shakespeare at the same time. “I guess I’ve grown accustomed to working on my own these days. My kids used to help out. They’d sand, or they’d help with the stringing once the instruments were lacquered. But they live out of state now, with their
