Mr. Teller pointed toward the young men standing among the guitars.
Flora looked at her father, her eyes wide.
Flora’s father smiled at her. Then he asked Mr. Teller which of the young men was Flora’s teacher.
Mr. Teller then pointed to the young man who had just made the guitar sing so beautifully.
“That one there in the corduroy jacket,” said Mr. Teller. “His name is Zachary, and he is our musical genius.”
Flora’s father then looked at her with his own wide eyes.
“Maybe a future rock star,” he said.
Flora was so surprised. She had been certain her piano teacher would be a gray-haired man with a pair of wire spectacles perched on the end of his nose.
Nessy looked at Flora.
“Groovy,” said Nessy.
Mr. Teller and Flora’s father laughed. The girls laughed too.
Four-Part Harmony was a whole new world—in Rosetown!
11
All good things go by threes, wrote the wise author of Stories for Children.
Flora had been pondering this idea as she helped her father plant a row of winter kale in the empty window boxes of the white house. Serenity was sleeping inside in her little cat bed, as the November day was blustery and the kitchen so warm.
“Do good things go by threes?” Flora asked her father as she scooped potting soil from a bag.
Her father paused in his planting. He nodded his head.
“I have heard that,” he said, “although I have also heard that bad things go by threes.”
“Well, that would be unfair,” said Flora. She did not want any bad thing to happen at all, but that two more bad things might be promised to follow was too much to even consider.
“Maybe it is only mildly bad things,” said her father.
Mildly bad, thought Flora.
“I guess that could be,” she said. “But I am hoping good things go by threes and bad things only by ones.”
“So am I,” answered her father.
Flora looked closely at her father, Forster Smallwood, at his tall thin frame in the red flannel shirt and canvas dungarees, at the lock of hair that always fell across his glasses. Today his face was ruddy, but sometimes his face was gray with worry. Flora knew that Rosetown was the best place for someone like her father, someone who felt so keenly all the things wrong with the world. A noisy city would never do.
“Nessy and I have a piano recital in two weeks,” said Flora.
“Really?” said her father, his eyes brightening.
“Zachary is working on my posture,” Flora said. “I slump.”
“Probably from sitting for hours in a certain bookshop chair,” said her father. “Are you looking forward to the recital?”
Flora nodded.
“I am,” she said. “And Nessy is really going to wow them.”
Nessy had discovered that she had a talent for piano. At least, Nessy’s piano teacher Miss Larsson had discovered this. Nessy did not know what was good or bad in music. She just played.
When she had visited Flora in the yellow house recently, Nessy sat down at Flora’s piano and played a series of difficult scales by heart. By heart!
“I am barely past Every Good Boy Does Fine,” Flora said to her friend. “You are amazing, Nessy!”
Nessy was so pleased to be good at something. She had been looking, hoping, for an activity that felt all her own, and mattered, just as Flora had found in reading the dear old books at Miss Meriwether’s bookshop. Nessy needed something thoroughly Nessy.
But until the piano, nothing had been a good fit. Nessy’s mother had sent her to classes for tap dancing, for swimming, for roller-skating, and for volleyball. But all of these had just caused Nessy to bite her nails and lose sleep.
Why her mother had never considered piano lessons was unclear. Perhaps Nessy’s mother thought that group activities were best.
But then Flora’s mother opened the door to piano lessons. She had wanted them for Flora. And Flora wanted them for Nessy.
Because of this, Nessy now belonged to something. She belonged to the piano.
The recital was to be on a Saturday morning at ten o’clock. The time fit nicely with Flora’s schedule, for she always had something very important to do Saturday afternoons at Rosetown Hardware.
“Can you come to my recital in the morning before puppy class?” Flora asked Yury on their walk from school to downtown.
“Of course,” said Yury. “I will practice shouting ‘Bravo’ until then.”
“You can meet Zachary,” said Flora. “He is, as my father put it, a hard taskmaster. Which means he won’t let me have a lazy mind or lazy fingers. Don’t let Zachary’s long hair and Rolling Stones T-shirt fool you: he is a perfectionist.”
“Then you will be perfect,” said Yury.
“Oh, no,” said Flora. “I like playing piano, but I am not very good at it. Zachary could do so much better if Nessy were his student.”
“I disagree,” said Yury. “How many other piano students can quote lines from old books?”
“Do you want to hear my favorite for this week?” Flora asked.
“I’m ready,” said Yury.
Flora stopped and straightened her shoulders.
“The first ice of the season lay as smooth as glass across the river.”
She waited.
“Very nice,” said Yury.
“It’s from Stories for Children,” said Flora. “1929.”
“I can see it in my mind,” Yury said.
“What a lot of people don’t know is that words are music too,” said Flora.
Flora and Yury arrived at Wings and a Chair and stopped to take a look at the new display in the window before Yury went on to his father’s office and then home to Friday.
“Look,” said Yury. “There’s a book called Foraging for Wild Edibles.”
Flora and Yury, survivalists to the bone, looked at each other then raced for the door.
12
Forster and Emma Jean Smallwood were like many other young parents in America. They had come through a time when their country was darkened by war, assassinations, riots, and often a loss of hope.
Yet Forster and Emma Jean shared a real sense of purpose for their lives. When they found out they would be having a child, they decided to move to a place in Indiana where they hoped life would be simple: Rosetown.
Sweetly, everything really felt simple and easy, at first. After their baby, Flora, was born, each morning one of them would put her in the baby carriage and take her to the central park, placing her in one of the baby swings and swinging her gently, singing old folk songs to make her smile. Forster and Emma Jean had faith that if they stayed in Rosetown, life would always make sense to them.
And yet today they were more confused than they ever had been, and were now living five streets apart while Flora navigated the distance between them.
Though at first their separation had made Flora deeply sad, the situation was not now as uncomfortable as it had been. Some months had passed since her father carried linens and silverware five streets over, and there was a feeling now of a kind of relief. As though a wind had blown through the family and loosened something that had been stuck.
Flora observed other children’s parents, who managed to live in the same house, together, and who seemed to do all the things expected of them. They looked like they were winning the contest for best parents.
But Flora knew, she just knew, that her father and her mother were very special people, and she was glad to be their daughter, even if they did not do the expected things.
So when the exciting day arrived, it was a natural and easy thing for Forster Smallwood to walk from the white house five streets over to the yellow house and slide his long thin body into the front seat of the family station wagon to ride with his wife, Emma Jean, and their beloved daughter, Flora, to her first piano recital.
Flora’s mother had helped her find a new dress for the e
vent, one with a blue satin sash, and they dyed a pair of white flats the same shade of blue, and Emma Jean plaited Flora’s hair into a long braid, which she tied with a blue ribbon.
Being her reflective father’s daughter, Flora had a tender feeling for the passing of time as she rode to the recital. She looked out the window at Rosetown, and she knew that days such as this would always be remembered, when she was older and everything was different.
It was all right, though. This reflection meant only that she appreciated what she had in her life.
When they arrived at Four-Part Harmony, a sign with blue lettering was posted on the door, welcoming everyone to the piano recital at ten o’clock in the performance room.
“The letters match my sash,” Flora said to her mother as they walked inside.
“I noticed,” said her mother.
They went inside and saw rows of folding chairs, many with people already seated in them, and a Baldwin piano in front. Mr. Teller’s wife was serving as usher, and she handed Flora and her parents each a recital program.
Flora looked for Yury, but he hadn’t yet arrived. Nessy was already seated with her parents and her older brother. Nessy was dressed all in white ruffles, and she looked like an angel.
“Good luck!” Flora whispered as she moved past Nessy’s chair.
“You too!” Nessy answered.
And soon the recital began. First, each of the four piano teachers stood before the audience and said a few words about teaching their students. Zachary was wearing a very hip black jacket and shiny black boots. Flora was quite proud to be one of his students, especially when he used the word “transcendent” in his talk. He winked at her when he sat down.
Then one by one the students went up to the piano, sheet music in hand, to play their pieces. The beginners went first, and this meant Flora.
When it was her turn, she stood up and looked behind her for Yury. And there he was in the last row, his large eyes behind his round glasses looking right at her. Beside him sat a man with the same kind of eyes and similar glasses, and Flora realized that Yury had brought his father along.
She waved, and Yury smiled, giving her the okay sign with his thumb and forefinger.
Flora played her piece—a Hungarian lullaby—just fine.
Nessy played her piece—a sonata by Beethoven—beautifully.
And for that hour when everyone was there in the hushed and respectful gathering, it was as if they all had stepped outside time. The young musicians—beginners, intermediate, and advanced—with their sashes and bow ties and carefully combed hair, all did their very best.
And everyone knew it was so.
13
Puppy class had been progressing very well. All of the puppies were now paying attention, even the ones who at first wanted to do nothing but roll on the floor and chew on someone’s shoelaces. They all had learned to walk nicely around the room on lead and to watch their owners’ faces after they came to a sudden stop. If the puppies did this, they each received a mini-biscuit. What the puppies were being prepared for was official dog school, when an understanding between owner and dog was everything. And it began with the eyes.
Yury also practiced often with his puppy, Friday, many times during the week. Between puppy practice, office duties, homework, and archery lessons, Yury had had little time to visit with Flora at Wings and a Chair. They both missed it.
Then, on the Thursday following Flora’s recital, a mildly bad thing happened, followed by two more mildly bad things, and Flora found herself on the other end of Friday’s lead in puppy class.
The events all took place during Yury’s after-school visit to his father’s medical office.
While Yury was preparing a pot of Mo’s 24 tea for everyone, a woman in the waiting room suddenly could not find her eyeglasses and was upset that she could not read the movie star magazine she had picked up off the table.
The second mildly bad event happened immediately after that, for in her search among the chairs for her eyeglasses, she knocked over a floor lamp, which knocked over an asparagus fern, scattering dirt all over the carpet.
The receptionist at the desk then called out for Yury to assist in all of the chaos, and that precipitated the third mildly bad thing to happen.
The receptionist was a highly excitable woman whose voice became quite shrill when such things as floor lamps and asparagus ferns went flying.
And her shrill “Yury!” gave Yury such a start, just as he was on his way with the tea tray, that he upset the tray, overturned the teapot, slipped on the wet mess he’d made, and badly—not mildly, actually—sprained his left arm.
A doctor’s office is a perfect place to sprain an arm, if a person is bound to do so, and in no time at all Yury’s arm was iced, then nicely wrapped in a sling. The asparagus fern was put back into its pot and the floor lamp righted. And the woman’s eyeglasses were found, and when her appointment was finished, she went home carrying the movie star magazine that Yury’s father had given her to keep as her own.
So all in all, the mildly bad things that had arrived by threes did not create too much disaster.
Except this: with his left arm in a sling, Yury could not do puppy training exercises with Friday. For the left arm is essential in puppy training; it is on the owner’s left side that a trained dog walks. The right arm of an owner is for supplying mini-biscuits.
Yury phoned Flora and explained his dilemma.
“Class is in two days,” he said. “And it’s puppy graduation! I won’t be able to participate, and Friday won’t receive his diploma.”
“Of course he will receive his diploma,” said Flora. “He just may not get an A.”
“I don’t think they give grades at puppy school,” said Yury.
“I was kidding,” said Flora.
“Oh,” said Yury. He gave a small laugh. “Well, don’t tell Friday. He’s been working for an A!”
“Why don’t we go to the class anyway,” said Flora, “and I’ll do the exercises with him.”
“You mean out on the floor?” asked Yury.
“Sure,” said Flora. “I’ve been watching you for weeks. I know what to do.”
“Yes, you do,” said Yury. “But Friday doesn’t see you as the boss. He thinks you are the professional head-scratcher.”
“Let’s try anyway,” said Flora. “The worst that could happen is that Friday gets a C.”
“They don’t give grades at puppy school,” said Yury. “Didn’t you know that?”
They both laughed.
“Don’t worry,” said Flora.
“I’m going to worry,” said Yury.
“Okay,” said Flora.
So on Saturday, the eighth week of puppy class and a big day for all, Flora met Yury and Friday at the front of the hardware store. They walked around back to the dog school, where Yury bent down and kissed Friday on the nose before handing the lead over to Flora.
“Buck up, Nora Force,” said Yury.
Flora smiled.
When owners and puppies arranged themselves around the room to begin, Friday looked up at the new person on the other end of his lead.
“Let’s get an A,” Flora said to him. “Friday: Sit.”
Friday wagged his tail, then sat. Flora gave him a mini-biscuit, and they were off to the races.
The hour went by so quickly. All of the puppies exhibited lovely puppy manners, and each received a diploma and squeaky toy as commemoration for their hard work. Yury stood with Friday during the diploma presentation while Flora moved back into the audience of proud supporters. Yury’s face was shining with happiness as he accepted the diploma for his good dog, Friday.
After class Flora and Yury and Friday walked to the Peaceable Buns Bakery. They found an empty bench outside, and Yury and Friday waited as Flora went inside. Soon she was back with a brown bag of cookies and an old crust of bread wrapped in a napkin.
The day was chilly, and winter was in the air.
“I feel snow in my nose
,” said Yury.
But both friends felt warm inside, as they shared life and a puppy on the sidewalks of Rosetown.
14
Snow had arrived in Rosetown in late November, to the delight of snow-lovers and also the owner of Mars Comics. The comic book business always fell off at the start of the school year, quite naturally, with the return of homework assignments, marching-band practice, and football games. But after the homecoming queen had been crowned and the final game played, the snow started falling and Mars Comics came back to life.
Flora was not a regular Mars customer, though Yury was. He owned many comics of which he was quite proud, most of which he had bought with the bit of money he earned helping his father at the office. Yury stored his comics in an old file cabinet and, unlike most other comics fans, could not bear to trade them, especially the Green Lantern, which was far and away his favorite.
And because Flora so loved vintage books, and was completely uninterested in comics, there was never any competition between them about reading materials.
Yury liked Mars Comics, but Flora loved Wings and a Chair Used Books. How lucky for her it was that Miss Meriwether no longer lived the life of a free spirit but instead had opened a shop. Flora watched Miss Meriwether move among the shelves in her long flowered skirts, and Flora hoped she might one day be as interesting and as brave. Flora did not know if she could ever leave Rosetown, for she felt she might be lonely if she ranged too far out in the world. She felt that it was good to wake up in the morning and know that the day ahead would contain all that was familiar and true. What if she moved to London and woke up without that feeling? Perhaps if she brought along a friend. Perhaps then the world would not seem unpredictable.
For now, Christmas was approaching, snow was falling, and the weather had turned quite chilly.
“Serenity sits by the stove warming her whiskers every morning,” Flora told Yury over the phone. Both had finished their homework, and Yury was calling before his favorite television show, Columbo, came on.
“My father does the same,” said Yury.