“I wrote about that in my letters to you.”
In several of my letters to Julian, I’d mentioned that I played the piano. What I hadn’t mentioned, at least not directly, were my own musical ambitions. I loved writing songs. Since I was seven, I could remember hearing various melodies in my head or coming up with an interesting phrase, and then jotting it down in my journal. I’d spend days, months, years fiddling with those melodies and snippets—I loved the puzzle of songs. The rewarding feeling of placing all the pieces in just the right order.
But when I’d started to suspect that Julian Oliver was my father, I felt a slight panic. Sure, my own interest in music was just one more thing that made my suspicions seem more like truth than fiction, but I felt like a copycat. I hadn’t wanted to tell him about my own songwriting in case he would mistakenly think I wanted something from him. Which I didn’t. Or at least not like that.
What I’d wanted were answers.
He tapped his fingers against his leg again. “The piano. Of course. I remember that now. But it was a huge fight with Lena, right?”
I pinched my lips together. “A struggle for sure. She’s always been suspicious of my interest in music. I guess now I understand why.”
“Will you play something for me?”
I locked eyes with him. It was like staring at a fun-house version of myself. There was something so familiar about those eyes, but also something so alien. “You have a lot of nerve, you know that?”
“Yes,” he said plainly. “I do.”
“To come in here after years of absence and just start making all these requests,” I continued.
He grinned a little. “Well, I thought maybe you could play something for me while you thought about my other request.”
I considered this. “Okay. Fine.”
I knew I should’ve been nervous. It wasn’t every day that I was asked to play the piano for a full-fledged rock star. I mean, this dude was the recipient of a Grammy Award. Responsible for a multiplatinum album. But somehow, I wasn’t that nervous. The idea of playing the piano actually felt calming. Looking back, I’m sure this was some sort of mind trick on his part. He probably knew it would be calming because we shared half of the same genetics, and playing music was obviously cathartic for him.
Also, despite Julian Oliver’s frightening level of fame, there was no way he was as impossibly intimidating as my current piano teacher, a wrinkle-faced German man named Bruno—the most swelling praise I’d ever received from Bruno was “That didn’t make me want to claw my eyes out.” So there you have it. If I wrote for Rolling Stone, the headline of this moment would’ve been: “Julian Oliver Is No Bruno Kaufman.”
He was silent and still while I made my way to the piano. I slid my legs up onto the bench and scooted to find a comfortable seat. My fingers hovered above the keys as I contemplated what song I should play.
I knew Julian Oliver would want—would expect—me to play some rock anthem. Something that would confirm that I was his effortlessly cool offspring. But unfortunately, even if I wanted to play a rock ballad, my repertoire was severely limited.
It’s not like Bruno was teaching me how to play Nirvana or Radiohead or the Black Lips. Let alone something edgier or less mainstream. Bruno was sort of a strictly Bach and Rachmaninoff guy. And Mom followed Bruno’s suit, so she flipped if she ever heard me playing something that you wouldn’t hear lightly pouring out of the speakers at a fancy French restaurant. Of course I broke Mom’s rules and tinkered around behind Bruno’s back—loosely teaching myself how to play a handful of angry rock goddess songs—but none of my self-taught melodies seemed right for this moment.
I pressed down on the keys and began to play “Feeling Good.” I’d played the song so many times that my muscle memory basically took over. My fingers splayed out, moving back and forth almost as if an invisible puppeteer were controlling them.
For my fourteenth birthday, Mom had purchased the sheet music for me. It was a big deal that she brought music into our home that wasn’t classical. Yes, that’s right. To Mom, even Nina Simone was a stretch.
As I played the song, I smiled to myself thinking of the irony of the lyrics. I hummed under my breath. I loved how the song continued to build underneath my fingers. It felt like tossing gasoline on a fire. It literally smoldered. It made me feel powerful when I played it.
When I finished, I turned around to face Julian. He was beaming, but there was something off about it. There was an artificial brightness to him—his face was not a cloudless sky, but more like a fluorescent lightbulb.
He clapped once. “Bravo.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s not exactly the reaction I was expecting.”
“What? I think you’re a really talented pianist.”
“But …?”
“No but.”
“Yes there is. I can tell there is most definitely a capital-B But. Just tell me.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Nina Simone. Really?”
“What’s wrong with Nina Simone? She’s a goddess. And it’s a classic.”
“It’s …” He stretched his legs out in front of him, dragging his heels along the woven carpet.
“It’s what? One of the most perfect songs in the entirety of the universe?”
He frowned teasingly. “You can’t really think that.”
“You can’t really think that it’s not.”
“It’s stuffy,” he argued.
“No way! It’s sophisticated.”
“Jesus.” He shook his head. “Lena raised you to be a snob. I should’ve figured.”
“‘Raised’ being the key word,” I said, not missing a beat.
He bristled. “I guess I walked right into that one.”
I nodded. “It’s not exactly like you were around to show me the dark side.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Yeah. If only I’d been able to supply you with Nevermind and Loose Nut and Goo.”
I played along. “If only. Maybe I would’ve even been cool enough to own White Light/White Heat on vinyl.”
His face lit up. “You are my daughter.”
I shrugged and stared at the woven carpet. If you looked at it long enough without blinking, the blues all started to run together.
“That’s kind of typical, though, isn’t it?” I finally said.
“What?”
“That you, as a white dude, decide to disparage the music of a black woman by calling it ‘stuffy.’”
The color drained from his face. “You know I didn’t mean it like that.” He squirmed as I stared at him. “You can’t possibly think … I mean, your mother.”
“My mother?”
“Well, you can’t think I’m, you know, prejudiced. You have to know …”
I felt my whole body stiffen with discomfort. “Because you slept with my mother to create me and she isn’t white, you think that somehow adds up to you not being ‘you know, prejudiced’?”
“Jesus!” he exclaimed again. He shoved a hand through his messy hair and shook his head. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes suddenly seemed more pronounced. For a brief moment, a sadness welled in me. I’d never seen him, known him without those wrinkles. He’d had lifetimes before this moment.