Terry accepted.
She followed the sound of the music. Around the corner. Up a little
flight of stairs. She entered the realm of Euterpe; Euterpe with her
hair frizzed; Euterpe with her flowing white robe replaced by soiled
white shoes; Euterpe abandoning her flute for jazz. She sat at the
piano, a red-haired young lady whose familiarity with the piano had
bred contempt. Nothing else could have accounted for her treatment of
it. Her fingers, tipped with sharp-pointed and glistening nails,
clawed the keys with a dreadful mechanical motion. There were stacks
of music sheets on counters and shelves and dangling from overhead
wires. The girl at the piano never ceased playing. She played mostly
by request.
A prospective purchaser would mumble something in the ear of one of the
clerks. The fat man with the megaphone would bawl out, "Hicky Boola,
Miss Ryan!" And Miss Ryan would oblige. She made a hideous rattle and
crash and clatter of sound.
Terry joined the crowds about the counter. The girl at the piano was
not looking at the keys. Her head was screwed around over her left
shoulder and as she played she was holding forth animatedly to a girl
friend who had evidently dropped in from some store or office during
the lunch hour. Now and again the fat man paused in his vocal efforts
to reprimand her for her slackness. She paid no heed. There was
something gruesome, uncanny, about the way her fingers went their own
way over the defenseless keys. Her conversation with the frowzy little
girl went on.
"Wha'd he say?" (Over her shoulder.)
"Oh, he laffed."
"Well, didja go?"
"Me! Well, whutya think I yam, anyway?"
"I woulda took a chanst."
The fat man rebelled.
"Look here! Get busy! What are you paid for? Talkin' or playin'?
Huh?"
The person at the piano, openly reproved thus before her friend, lifted
her uninspired hands from the keys and spake. When she had finished
she rose.
"But you can't leave now," the megaphone man argued. "Right in the
rush hour."
"I'm gone," said the girl. The fat man looked about, helplessly. He
gazed at the abandoned piano, as though it must go on of its own
accord. Then at the crowd.
"Where's Miss Schwimmer?" he demanded of a clerk.
"Out to lunch."
Terry pushed her way to the edge of the counter and leaned over. "I can
play for you," she said.