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Holding On, Letting Go by
10
(19 Stories)

Prompted By Home

/ Stories

The first time I went to IKEA I was thirty-five and about ten months pregnant. I had my arm in a cast, the result of a slapstick tumble I had taken a few weeks earlier on a rain-slicked street in Astoria, Queens. I had been on my way to a piano gig at the Manhattan Grand Hyatt and was wearing a black chiffon Zsa-Zsa caftan and a parka. My belly was so huge I couldn’t see my feet, let alone the slippery wooden ramp propped on the curb. Down I went. A chorus of Greek women, concerned about the baby, surrounded me and called an ambulance. One of the Emergency Medical Technicians made a joke about needing a crane to get me onto the gurney.

"Don't worry. They have everything at IKEA. They probably even have the IKEA birthing room. Look, you've already peed your pants in a liquor store. What have you got to lose?"

The baby was fine; the arm, cracked at the elbow; the ego, deflated.

What better time for a little shopping?

“Enough of this indignity,” said my Swedish-American friend Lesley as she looked at my cast. “Über-pregnant andmaimed? This is pathetic. You are two weeks past your due date and need to have this baby pronto. A trip to IKEA is in order. Swedish meatballs are known to induce labor. They are magical.”

Lesley, who was smart, helpful, and funny in an Albert Brooks kind of way, had given birth six months earlier. She was anxious for me to join the New Mother Club.

Let me say this and get it over with: I didn’t like being pregnant. A ham-fisted, steel booted trampoline artist had invaded my previously lithe body and the ruckus drove me crazy.

My feet swelled every time I ate.

“Why bother with shoes?” said Lesley. “You could just wear the shoeboxes.”

I had tried everything to get labor started: hot baths, a tiny glass of Merlot (Lesley’s idea), awkward aerobic ambles around the block. Sex. Even swimming. My crawl stroke had become an actual crawl.

A few days after breaking my arm, I was waiting in line at the liquor store—not a good look for a pregnant woman, I know, but I was buying a bottle of champagne for a friend’s birthday—when my water broke. We grabbed our pre-packed suitcase and raced to the hospital, only to be told the imagined amniotic fluid was urine—a bladder mishap. Or pishap. The doctor sent us home to wait it out.

“Ah,” said Lesley. “The third-trimester Walk of Shame.”

Sure,I thought. I’ll try IKEA meatballs. Why not?

“What if I go into labor in IKEA?” I asked Lesley.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “They have everything at IKEA. They probably even have the IKEA birthing room. Look, you’ve already peed your pants in a liquor store. What have you got to lose?”

We drove to IKEA. I ate the damn meatballs (Köttbullar, $3.99). At that point I would have eaten a snake testicle (Rattelbals, $ 301.29) if they offered one and I thought it would speed things along.

Köttbullar aside, I loved IKEA. The whimsical Scandinavian names of household articles large and small—named after towns and people—were a linguist’s fantasy. To entertain myself I wandered through the store, inventing my own names for merchandise. In the children’s department I spotted a plastic bib (Sloppgard, $1.00), a set of tiny wooden blocks (Chöke, $2.99), and an adorable crib that would later convert to a real bed (Nytemäre, $49.99).

I was so intrigued by the living-room department I forgot about my pregnancy. I shuffled my swollen feet past affordable sofas (Näpp, $169.00) and practical coffee tables (Crapholdor, $29,99), mentally decorating rooms I didn’t own, marveling at fabric combinations, and occasionally lifting my plastered broken arm, pointing to a display, and saying things like, “Look. They even make colorful soup ladles.” (Glop, $1.39.)

Big-haired Long Island mothers pushed parade-float strollers through aisles of baby items—Bratsy, Dipewop, Spitlik—and I wondered if I would ever have my own bundle of glädje, or if I was destined to forever roam the IKEA showroom floor like a pregnant zombie, staring longingly at childproof flatware (Stabsma, $2.99) and searching for my former self (Svvelte, out of stock).

I bought numerous Slopskidtowels and a Ristsprane bookcase for the baby’s room.

When I arrived home my patient husband wedged me into the bathtub and washed my hair, carefully avoiding the cast on my arm. He dried my back with the Slopskid, then, using the special IKEA Allen wrench, assembled the Ristsprane—the first of dozens of IKEA storage units he would build over the next few decades.

“I don’t think the baby will need a bookcase, like, right away,” he said. “This might be a bit optimistic.”

“We can store other stuff on it,” I said. “Why do they call this screwdriver thing an Allen wrench? Was it named after someone named Allen? Woody?

“Maybe Steve,” he said as he twisted the screws into place, stopping periodically to stretch his cramped hands.

I watched him, grateful beyond belief to be married to a jazz bassist willing to risk his livelihood by building a bookcase for an infant. I waddled across the room, plopped my blimpish body on the tiny sofa, and sobbed.

The final throes of pregnancy test even the strongest women.

“This is God’s way of making you ready for labor,” said a snarky friend. She was at my apartment, sporting a super slim pencil skirt and crop top, and balancing a chilled martini in one perfectly manicured hand, an unlit cigarette in the other. A year ago I had looked like her. Now I looked like four of her. I wanted to karate chop her chiseled midsection with my cast, but I feared causing another pishap. I had already peed in public once this month; a second round seemed distasteful.

“I think it’s God’s way of making me want to shoot myself,” I said. “But thanks for the support.”

“You know,” she said, glancing with obvious disdain at my IKEA bookcase. “I adore IKEA. They make such cute cardboard containers for accessories (Sluttbox, set of 3, $2.99). Maybe you could use them for baby jewelry or something.”

“It’s a boy,” I said.

“It’s New York,” she snapped. “Try to have an open mind.”

“Be careful,” said my sister, Randy. “You couldhave a very fast labor and delivery. My friend in Butler had her baby in the car, right in her pants.”

“Must have been some big pants,” my husband said.

“I feel like this will never be over,” I said.

“Well,” said my sister. “No one stays pregnant forever.”

***

A child was born. It took almost thirty hours of labor, a Philippine nurse who liked to perform selections from Madame Butterflyunder her breath, a lot of medication provided by MY HERO—an anesthesiologist who resembled the neighborhood crack dealer, and, when it became apparent the baby was not anxious to vacate a perfectly comfortable piece of NYC real estate, a C-section.

After a lot of hoopla, I was allowed to hold our son. In a heartbeat I forgot the swollen feet, the broken arm, the sore back and aching legs. I looked at him and turned into a joyful, maternal cliché.

Lesley brought me homemade soup in an IKEA container (Likuidgladje, $1.69) and wine in an IKEA sippy cup (Drönk, $1.20). She admitted she made up the IKEA meatball story.

“Well,” she said. “We had to do something to get you to the other side. Welcome to motherhood.”

***

2017

IKEA, for better or worse, has been a big part of my motherhood story. We’ve been living in Germany for twenty-three years, and have taken frequent trips to IKEA to purchase the material things that keep a household running smoothly and inexpensively.

It recently occurred to me that I’ve never purchased anything in an upscale “real” furniture store. Our modest home is decorated (quite nicely) with a mix of New York City dumpster-dive finds, antiques of negligible value from family and friends, “gotta leave town fast” spit backs from departing American expat families, dining chairs from a castle where I used to perform, and paintings from the Washington Square Art Show. Even my grand piano, cigarette-scarred and elegant, was purchased, second hand, from a jazz guy in Pittsburgh.

The rest, the stuff that glues together the ragtag pieces of our lives, comes from IKEA. The store has never disappointed me, even when I’ve been particularly susceptible to disappointment. If I’m having a bad day I stroll through the IKEA showroom, fantasize about loft beds (Krässh, €129.99) and pick up a lawn chair (Gartenswäag, €19.99), a night lamp (Elderblynd, €24,55), or a toilet brush (Covfefe, €6.39).

I have an IKEA Family Card and I always, always stop for the complimentary hot beverage (Söpewasser,free).

Our adult children have recently left home to start their own lives and careers. This year, to help them with their new apartments, we have made a record number of trips to IKEA, buying mattresses (Bäkkpadd, €119.00), dressers (Jammkräp, €54.99), curtains (Pervstopp€14.99) and dishes (Ramenscoop, set of 4, €4.00). The kids each have their own starter sets of Ristspranebookcases, lovingly assembled for them by their devoted father, who might as well keep an Allen wrench in his back pocket, just in case.

Little by little, they’ve sorted through their belongings here at home, taking what they need, dissembling their childhoods one trip to the dump at a time, until finally, one day, the shelves are empty. I enter my son’s room. It’s lonely in here, like he was never here at all. Even the smell of him is gone. My daughter’s room—now my office—seems blank without her paints and posters and piles of sweatshirts.

I guess I thought my kids would always be around—arguing, laughing, slowing us down, challenging our “fly by the seat of our pants” parenting instincts, collecting rocks, throwing rocks, watching Seinfeld DVDs, playing the “Axel F” theme on my piano, and refusing to eat eggplant.

The original IKEA Ristspraneshelf—where I once stacked cloth diapers with an arm in a cast—looks forlorn. Over the decades this shelf has held Lego cabins, school reports, Batman action figures, Harry Potter volumes in two languages, a stuffed dog named Ruby, an NBA autographed photo of Steve Nash, a replica of a Chinese Terracotta Warrior, handcrafted heart-shaped figurines, and books about Steve Jobs and Eleanor Roosevelt.

I think back eighteen years, to when our daughter was a toddler. While I was in a decorator stupor, distracted by an area rug in an unusual shade of taupe, she disappeared into the IKEA Marketplace. I raced around the showroom searching for her, sick with worry. After the longest ten minutes of my life, I found her in the lighting department with a lampshade on her head.

“Look, Mommy,” she said. “A party hat!”

Pregnancy ends with the birth of a child. Childhood ends with the birth of an adult. Motherhood never ends, but it sure seems different these days. I miss my kids. It’s a new phase for me—fraught with opportunities for redecorating, renovation, and reinventing myself. It’s a little lonely, but also a little exciting. Maybe I’ll head back to IKEA and buy myself a Sluttbox. Maybe not.

Music helps.

Sometimes your shelves are full; sometimes they’re empty. Sometimes—like when you’re pregnant—time moves too slowly, but more often it rushes by faster than the twist of a Woody Allen wrench.

I gather up a dusty IKEA basket (Weepmum, €1.19) and remember the things it once stored.

***

Robin Meloy Goldsby is a Steinway Artist. She is the author of Piano Girl; Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl; and Rhythm: A Novel.  

New: Manhattan Road Trip, a collection of short stories about (what else?) musicians. Go here to buy Manhattan Road Trip!

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In case you’re wondering, the German word for Allen wrench is Innensechskantschlüssel.

Home for the Holidays by
10
(19 Stories)

Prompted By Home

/ Stories

Let’s break it down. H-O-M-E.

We gripe about the USA. We find fault, we convince ourselves we’re the lucky ones—we got out just in time, we say.

H could stand for happy or hideous, heartwarming or heartbreaking, heavenly or hellish. It could also stand for hopeless. Or hungry. Hungry for home.

O stands for ocean—that big salty stretch of water we cross so often. We glide over and back, shedding tears of sadness, anticipation, loneliness, or elation. Across the water we go—we can always head home again. But we don’t. Not really. Sometimes I imagine the ocean is made up entirely of expatriate tears.

M might stand for marriage, or motherhood, or menopause. If you’re like me—an American expat in Germany—you’ve lived through all three phases while uttering words like Unbefristigteaufenhaltserlaubnis, Kaiserschnittor Wechseljahren(Green Card, C-section, menopause). Or maybe M stands for magic, which sometimes seems to be the only thing keeping us here—a happy-go-lucky chain-smoking Beamterat the Ausländeramtwaves a magic wand over our heads, stamps our passports and gives us permission to stay. If only he would grant us permission to feel at home.

E could stand for enchanted—the feeling we get when we stand on the Dom Platz in Cologne and gaze at the cathedral’s silhouette against a clear blue autumn sky. It might also stand for Error, that sinking sensation we get when we realize our children have never eaten a popsicle, a Pop-tart, or a piece of candy corn.  They have never met a proper American Santa Claus. Are they missing anything? No. But we are.

Home. It’s a four-letter word jam-packed with enough emotional gunpowder to send even the most hardened expatriate running for safety. Quick! Duck and cover! Hide in the bushes (but watch out for the Brennessel). The subject of homepops up and the expert cynics among us—expat “lifers” with no hope of ever again feeling at home anywhere at all—dodge the topic with a joke, an anecdote, a shrug of our proud American shoulders. “We are foreigners no matter where we go go,” we say with a casual smile. “Even when we go home.”

What do we care? We’re sophisticated European residents now—citizens of the world! We’re following in the footsteps of expat giants like Bobby Fisher, Julia Child, and Ernest Hemingway. Like them, we’re a little drunk on our worldliness, a little melancholy about what we might be missing back at home. Pass the wine, please.

Expat Americans who have been here longer than five years don’t return to America and automatically feel at home. We’re concerned with the obvious—violence, politics, the religious right, lack of health insurance. Little things sometimes get to us even more: No sidewalks, bad grammar, tank-sized SUVs, tank-sized young people drinking tank-sized soft-drinks. On a holiday trip we find ourselves in rural Pennsylvania at a restaurant that proudly calls itself “Home of the Deep Fried Pickle.” Not as bad as deep fried butter on a stick—another local specialty—but still.

We listen to a CNN report featuring Howard Schulz, the founder of Starbucks. “Guns are not part of the Starbucks experience,” he says, trying to convince the American public he is not on the side of the National Rifle Association, even though, probably out of fear of being shot, he will continue to serve NRA members five-dollar cups of half-caf extra-froth low-fat no-fat crusty-caramel Christmas-cookie Venti latte-lite to go. We’re not sure what the American Starbucks experience is, exactly, but we’re glad guns are not part of it.

And we’re glad that we’renot part of it. And we’re grateful that we’re not sipping our cappuccinos next to a posse of rifle-toting rednecks. Or sending our children to schools that require metal detectors at the front door. With all that’s going on, how can America ever feel like home again?

We gripe about the USA. We find fault, we convince ourselves we’re the lucky ones—we got out just in time, we say.

But then it creeps up on us—the National Anthem Moment. We watch the summer Olympics on television with our children. Michael Phelps wins his eighty-fifth gold medal and ascends to the podium. The Star Spangled Banner blares and an official raises the American flag. Tears squirt from our eyes. Projectile crying. We feel patriotic about a place that’s no longer home. We are ashamed to feel so patriotic. And then we are ashamed to feel ashamed. We still love where we came from. And that makes us cry more.

We are here for a variety of reasons. We have been welcomed by assorted neighbors and work colleagues. We belong and yet we don’t. We struggle with language and cultural differences, but we muster our courage, gather our baskets, and collect experiences of a lifetime—photos and boarding passes and postcards we will glue to the fragile and transparent pages of our personal scrapbooks. We adjust. Constantly, we adjust. We take in the new, always the new—new words, new customs, new, new, new everything—until we realize we’ve crowded out the old. There is nothing to do, except add more pages.

My daughter, at the age of twelve, wrote an essay for the Clements Youth Expatriate Scholarship competition:

If home were a color, it would be blue like the ocean that stretches between where I live now and where I come from, a wide sparkling sea with patches of shallow and deep water, filled with mysteries and secrets. Or maybe home would look like the blue sky on my birthday in June. Every year in Germany I blow out the candles on my cake and imagine the same sky over my grandparents and cousins, many thousands of miles away from here. If home were really a color, it would be blue like my grandmother’s eyes, the same silvery blue she passed on to me. I sometimes close my own eyes and dream of when I’ll see her again.

If home were a song it would be a soft and warm melody, a familiar tune that always pops into my head. If the song played on the radio, I’d recognize it right away, and I’d sing along, knowing every word and note.

If home were an animal, it would be a bird, maybe an eagle soaring from one hilltop to the other, reminding me that home is a place where I’m free to be myself. Or maybe home is more like a dove, a symbol of peace. But sometimes, when I’m feeling lonely, home seems more to me like a bird without wings—maybe even a lonely penguin. Like the eagle and dove, I want to fly back and forth between places I love, but all I can do is waddle along, knowing that I can only visit everyone I love by using my imagination.

If home were something I could touch, it would be a scrap of velvet fabric with hidden thorns that I can never remove, no matter how often I try. Home sometimes seems like sandpaper. When I run my fingers over it, it feels scratchy, in a nice way. But when I do it too often, it starts to hurt.

If home were a nuisance (which it isn’t, at least not all the time), it would be the hiccoughs. No matter what I do, the idea of home keeps popping up and reminding me that there’s something different, in a good way, about the way I’m growing up.

To me, home is more than a place—it’s a feeling.

***

She won the contest.

I recently asked Julia—now an adult—if she feels differently about the concept of home—now that she’s almost an adult.

“What makes you feel at home?” I asked.

“That’s easy,” she said. “Home is any place at all where you feel loved. And understood.”

That is this place for me. Here in this castle, when I play this piano, surrounded by friends and family, I feel understood, and occasionally loved.

Mister Rogers, in all his wisdom, used to say this: “Take a moment and think about the people who understand you—the people who have loved you into being the person you are right now.”

Some of them are here with me right now, some are far away, some might bump into me only in my dreams. All of them understand me, on one level or another. For better or worse, they have made me who I am.

We sing holiday songs, we paint pictures, we travel far, we journey wide, hoping to be understood, but trying just as hard to understand the new culture swirling around us. When we forget to listen—we’re lonely. But when we get it right—when we open our ears and eyes and hearts to the magic of our expatriate lifestyles—we’re content. Peaceful, even. We might be starving for home during the holidays, but we sit at a banquet table laden with thousands of delicacies.  When we stop trying to go back to an emotional place that’s no longer there, when we embrace the place that nourishes our souls, when we give ourselves permission to be loved and understood by those around us, a miracle happens.  Call it, if you like, a Christmas miracle. We notice that we’ve arrived. We realize, wir merken, that we are zu Hause. Home. At last.

Hallelujah.

***

Robin Meloy Goldsby is a Steinway Artist. You can listen to her quiet solo piano music on your favorite streaming platform.

The Girl Who Curtsied Twice by
10
(19 Stories)

Prompted By Fame

/ Stories

London, November 23rd, 2017. The prince is giving a ball. My daughter Julia and I are headed to Buckingham Palace, where I’ll be playing dinner music tonight for HRH, the Prince of Wales, and 250 of his guests as they celebrate the 20th Anniversary of In Kind Direct, an organization that encourages corporate giving for social good.

Members of my family share a long and celebrated history of playing for royalty and heads of state. We are not exactly court jesters, but we come close. My Buckingham Palace event is one more gig on a long list of fancy-pants musical soirees.

Julia and I are wearing our very best sound-check/meet-the-tech-team outfits, and have our voluminous ball gowns, golden snakeskin sandals, extra bling, and hair-cranking products crammed in a small trolley bag. This suitcase has seen a lot of swag in its years on the Piano Girl circuit, but tonight takes the royal cake.

Members of my family share a long and celebrated history of playing for royalty and heads of state. We are not exactly court jesters, but we come close. My Buckingham event is one more gig on a long list of fancy-pants musical soirees. My dad calls us “grinders”—career musicians grinding out one gig at a time, most of them in humble places, some of them in decidedly uptown venues. Over the decades my father, husband, and I have played for Lyndon Johnson, Nancy Reagan, George H.W. Bush (come back, all is forgiven), Haitian Dictator Baby Doc Duvalier, the Queen of Sweden, the President of Brazil, Chancellor Angela Merkel, Vice President Al Gore,  Donald Trump (before he became a very stable genius), the President of Finland, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the King and Princess of Oman, members of the Thai Royal Family, various US Ambassadors, and (my favorite) Crown Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia.

Note: Sniffer dogs do not like bass cases.

This evening the plummy Baglioni Hotel has provided us with a Maserati limousine driven by a Brit-suave guy named Abdul. Traffic slows us down for a minute, but Abdul seems wise to every short cut in London. We swerve around pedestrians and zoom toward the palace over narrow, Harry Potter-ish lanes. The “backwards” traffic direction in the UK makes me woozy—every time Abdul turns right I’m sure we’re going to have a head-on smash-up with a double decker bus.

I’m playing at the palace tonight because Robin Boles, Director of In Kind Direct, heard my performance at an event in Germany for sister organization, Innatura (Juliane Kronen, director). Robin Boles, also born and raised in Pittsburgh (never underestimate a woman who knows the exact location of Kaufmann’s clock), liked my music and invited me to perform at the palace.

Both In Kind Direct and Innatura focus on reducing waste by encouraging corporations to donate surplus goods to charities who can use them. A noble cause, on many levels. Tonight’s guest list includes generous sponsors of In Kind Direct. Me? I play the piano for a living and, when I have time, volunteer my musical services to non-profit organizations creating positive change. I don’t have piles of cash to contribute to worthy causes, but I have music.

When Robin Boles booked me at Buckingham—it took eighteen months of careful planning—I asked if I could bring Julia as my “assistant.” Julia is an aspiring photographer and filmmaker. Sadly, she had to leave her camera back at the hotel tonight—only the “royal photographer” has permission to document palace events.

“Mom, exactly what am I supposed to do without a camera?” asks Julia. “How should I assist?”

“Pretend to help me. Carry the suitcase and look official. Fix my hair. Make sure I drink enough water and that my bra strap isn’t hanging out. Check that I don’t have toilet paper stuck to my shoe, lipstick on my teeth, or the back of my skirt tucked in my knickers. You know, the basics.”

Mother’s assistant: every daughter’s worst nightmare. But at least she’ll get to see the palace.

“Do you think Prince Harry will be there?” she asks.

Abdul has instructions to deliver us to the palace service entrance. Figures. Even though I’m in a car fit for a king and have a 3000-dollar silk-taffeta Ralph Lauren ball skirt in my suitcase (purchased on sale for 29.99, I kid you not)—I have to use the back door.

What?” says Julia. “We have to go in the peasant door?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m a musician. Peasant.”

“You know what that makes me? Peasant assistant.”

We bid farewell to Abdul and greet a heavily armed guard who checks our names on a list.

“Good evening to you, ladies! Lovely, lovely night, isn’t it? I suppose you’re here for the gala!” It can’t be easy to conduct civilized chitchat while holding a machine gun, but this guy has it down. Very polite, these Londoners.

“Indeed, we are,” says Julia, using her official Madonna in London voice. “This is Ms. Robin Goldsby, peasa . . . I mean, pianist. And I am her ASSISTANT.”

“Very well, then. I’ll need to see your passports, ladies, if you please. “

We fork over our documents. Background checks had been run several weeks ago, so the guards only have to cross check our IDs with the info on their computers. We also have our photos taken for palace ID badges. My picture is, of course, awful. Really, you’d think they’d have better lighting. A portrait of the queen hangs over the guard’s desk—a nice touch. Several police officers are suiting up in bullet-proof vests as other guards search our bags.

“Thank you for your service!” I shout, because I can’t think of anything better to say and I feel a need to babble. A security guard plunders my suitcase and I’m anxious about him yanking my taffeta ball skirt (also known as the circus tent) out of its carefully coiled position. That skirt has a life of its own.

I’m nervous. Not about playing the palace piano, but about getting through security. A big part of me—the Western Pennsylvania girl that suffers from occasional bouts of imposter syndrome—thinks I don’t belong here. I’ve lead a stylish life, but I am, after all, a woman of modest origins. With the assistance of a piano, a great music teacher, and a lot of grit, I’ve made my way from Pittsburgh to the Palace. Banksville to Buckingham. Kennywood to Kensington. Mount Washington to Mountbatten. Right now I am about as far as I can get from the Golden Triangle.

“Mom, shall I carry your purse?” says my assistant. “I believe the event manager is ready to escort us to the sound check.”

“Really?” I say. “We’re going in?”

“We’re going in.”

Before the Gala, Outside the Gate . . . .Photos by Julia Goldsby

*****

We follow a handsome event planner up a long set of stairs. This guy has star power—he’s wearing a James Bond tuxedo, patent evening slippers, and a royal blue silk pocket-square with matching socks. We pass a sparkling, state of the art, enormous kitchen—with scores of workers preparing for the festivities. I keep expecting to see Mrs. Patmore and Daisy, but the palace appears to be staffed by upscale, posh-looking, multi-culti Oxford grads.

Behind the scenes at Buckingham! The palace is huge. No wonder Her Majesty takes her pocketbook with her everywhere she goes—a woman wouldn’t want to get lost in this place without taxi fare. We walk forever, up and down, around and around.  Eventually, our escort opens a discreet door and—bam—we’ve arrived.

Julia grabs my hand. “Holy cow, Mom,” she says. “Look at this.”

We coast into the gallery, a panoramic, portrait-filled corridor with mile-high ceilings, plush brocade sofas, and enormous, polished chandeliers. I assumed Buckingham would have that shabby chic, trampled-by-tourists, slightly musty vibe I know from most European castles, but this place, ancient and modern all at once, is spit-shined to the max. I feel like we’re walking into the muscular arms of someone else’s history. I guess we are.

*****

You and the Knight and the Music . . .

The ballroom, the venue for this evening’s gala dinner, is the location used for vestures. Knighthood! I’ve been dropped into a real-deal fairytale. Thick amber light softens the kaleidoscopic effect of the crystal chandeliers. History meets opulence meets Disney.

“Well,” says Julia. “I guess I was wrong. Maybe you should have brought that tiara.”

We meet the stage manager and the sound technician and head to the stage and the grand piano. Julia walks around the ballroom and listens as I play a couple of pieces. The freshly-tuned piano sounds warm and bright; the three microphones inside the instrument will ensure proper amplification, even when people are talking during dinner. Or chatting, as one does in the palace.

Julia joins me onstage.

“Mom, look!”  Behind the stage is a throne.

“Is that a real throne?” I ask.

“Mom, it’s Buckingham Palace. You think they have fake thrones?”

“Yes, it’s real! Pretty cool, right?” the stage manager says. She breaks down the schedule for me: “A porter will take you to a palace bedroom so you can change into your fancy dress. He’ll return to fetch you and Julia at 8:30. We want you seated at the piano at 8:40. The guests will come through at 8:50. That’s when you start playing. At 9:10, after the guests are seated, HRH will make a short speech from his table. Stay at the piano and resume playing when he finishes. Three courses will be served and the meal will be finished at 10:15.”

“Wow,” I say. “That’s really efficient.”

“Yes,” she says. “We’re very good at this.”

I want to take this woman home with me and have her run my life.

“Let me continue,” she says, glancing at her watch. “After dessert, we will give you a cue to stop playing. There will be an announcement acknowledging you. Stand, take a bow, walk down the center stage steps—facing the audience—and exit to the left.  You will be escorted back to your dressing room. Sound good?”

“Wait!” says Julia. “Those steps are steep and Mom will be wearing a rather, uh, puffy long skirt and heels. I don’t want her to have a Jennifer Lawrence moment and take a tumble right in front of HRH.”

Julia Goldsby, professional assistant.

“Good thinking!” says the stage manager.  “I will escort your mum down the stairs.”

“Is there a place for Julia to sit during my performance?” I ask.

Julia points to the throne. “Over there would be good.”

The stage manager laughs. “You can sit in the tech booth. Other end of the ball room.”

“Great!” says Julia. “The tech booth! I’ll be with my people.”

Our porter escorts us down another long corridor and up an endless spiral staircase. We arrive at our suite and collapse on a couple of overstuffed chairs.

“Look at this!” Julia says. Royal catering has provided a large assortment of pre-event snacks and beverages. Julia turns on the television and Her Majesty pops up on the screen, next to a little text that says: “Welcome to our royal home.”

Julia, who now has her stockinged feet up on the coffee table, grabs the remote, flips the channels, and lands on a UK Strongman competition.

“Well,” my daughter says. “It doesn’t get any better than this. I’m in Buckingham Palace, I’ve got a bottle of wine, a block of cheese, a greeting from Queen Elizabeth, and a TV show featuring a muscle man who can pull a car with his teeth.”

“Jul,” I say. “Maybe we should unpack and hang up the dresses. They might be wrinkled.”

“Go ahead,” she says, waving me away. “Just toss my dress on the bed. Man, this cheese is delicious. So cool they have real television in the palace. And wifi!”

“We only have thirty minutes. Maybe we should think about make-up?”

“You look fine. Don’t worry so much. Hey mom, they even sent gluten-free sandwiches for you. With hummus! I think I’ll have one.”

“Julia! Check this out!” I am looking out the window down into the courtyard as the guests arrive in their shiny cars. “Wow, these people are really decked out. Look!”

“Just a minute. Some guy from Reykjavik is picking up a truck with one arm.”

“Julia!”

“Okay, sorry. Not sorry. These guys are amazing.”

“Focus, Julia, focus. We’ve got to get ready.”

She flips off the TV, brushes the crumbs from her lap and puts on her gown. “Do you think Her Majesty watches the Strongman show?”

“I hope so.”


Photo by Julia Goldsby
*****

Our porter picks us up at exactly 8:30. I’m not about to walk the three miles back to the ball room in heels so I hand them to Julia and go barefoot. I think “Barefoot in the Palace” would be a great song title. The word “palace” has some interesting rhymes: chalice, malice, Dallas . . .

“Pay attention, Mom! Hold up that skirt!” Jul shouts as we start down the spiral staircase. “No accidents, please.”

We reach the ballroom. I put on my shoes, head to the stage, sit on the piano bench and, with Julia’s help, drape my skirt—big enough to qualify for its own zip code—to the side so that the fabric pools on the floor.

“See you later, Mom! Have fun. You need anything?”

“No, thanks.”

“Good!” Julia heads back to the tech booth. The last minute flurry of crew activity is enough to make me nervous, but basically, I’m pretty chilled.  I love this. My personal assistant might be somewhat inexperienced, but, even though I’m playing what amounts to a dinner-music gig, I have a porter, a stage manager, a lighting technician, a piano technician, and a sound-design team.

The stage manager approaches. “Five minutes before we start,” she says. “I suggest you take this time for yourself and absorb the beauty and history of this room. You don’t work in a place like this every day.”

The house lights dim and the stage lights come on. It’s completely quiet. I look over my shoulder at the throne and down at my age-speckled hands. I will turn sixty in three days. When I was a kid, my sister used to drive me around Chatham Village on her tricycle. I balanced on the back while she pedaled. I pretended I was the queen and waved at my subjects, the oak trees. A striped lounge chair on our front porch was my throne. Like a lot of little girls of my generation, I thought I could get to Buckingham Palace by wearing the right fairy dress or marrying a prince. But the secret entry to the palace was right on the other side of our porch screen door—an old green piano that I played whenever I wanted to feel less like a princess, and more like myself.

Music, it turns out, can be a golden ticket to just about anywhere. You just have to keep showing up and doing what you love. It took me fifty years of coaxing reluctant sounds out of unforgiving keys, but for one shining hour, I am here. The candlelight in the ballroom reminds me of a star-splattered sky on a cloudless night.

The guests arrive. I start to play. I hope I don’t make the royal mistake.

Photo by Paul Burns, Royal Photographer

*****

Musicians know that a gig is a gig is a gig. We play the way we play. The only thing that changes, really, is context. Like always,  I fall into my piano zone. Even though I’m playing solo, I’m not alone—the Orchestra Invisible has shown up and everyone I love is here. They’re squeezed in next to me on the narrow, royal piano bench, jostling for position as I play through my set list.

Before I know it, the hour is up and the stage manager signals me to stop. I stand, soak up the applause, take my diva bow, and extend my hand to the stage manager so I can wobble down the steps without taking a header.

Whoa.

I walk through the door as the next performer, Australian baritone Daniel Koek, prepares to go on. I recognize the laser-focus in his eyes—he’s pumped up and so tense he’s ready to snap. Not me. I feel like I’ve just stepped out of a warm bath.

Julia meets me in the corridor and hugs me. “You sounded great!”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Goldsby,” says an official looking man in one of those Downton Abbey butler-valet suits. “Lovely music.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“His Royal Highness would like to meet you.”

I am tempted to say get out of town and slap him on the shoulder, but instead I say: “Really?”

“Indeed. Please wait here for further instructions.”

“Uh-oh,” says Julia. “What do you do when you meet the Prince? Are there rules?”

The stage manager tracks down a protocol expert for us. He says: “Curtsy. Call him ‘Your Royal Highness’ the first time, then switch to ‘Sir.’ Wait for him to extend his hand before you extend yours. That’s it. Wait here. Someone will come for you.”

We hear Daniel singing “Bring Him Home” from Les Miserables. Wow. What a voice! The song seems an appropriate backstage soundtrack as we watch waiters and sommeliers and technicians and dozens of other groomed palace workers buzz from one station to another. I love this.

“Did you hear the Prince’s speech about waste reduction?” Julia says. “He’s really doing something positive for the planet. It’s such a simple concept. Take what you have and use it. If you can’t use it, donate it to someone who can. No waste.”

It’s time for the House of Windsor meet and greet. The royal photographer hovers. My legs are stiff from all the sitting and I’m slightly worried about executing a proper curtsy, but my circus tent skirt will disguise my lack of technique. When HRH shows up, I forgo the “sweep and dip” and opt for a simple hillbilly squat. My Pittsburgh roots have revealed themselves.

HRH and I have a three-minute private conversation about music and sustainability—two subjects that, oddly enough, go hand in hand. I present Julia to him. My cheese-eating, wine-swilling, strongman-watching gal from two hours ago morphs into a picture of elegance as she gracefully nods and curtsies to our host. This child of mine, I think. A strongwoman, a princess. Both.

“Mom,” Julia says, after HRH has departed. “I was so nervous I curtsied twice.”

“You curtsied twice?”

“Yes. I don’t think he saw the first curtsy, so I did it again. I must have looked like a crazy person.”

“Did he notice the second curtsy?”

“Oh yeah, he noticed. That time I got it right.”

Photo by Paul Burns, Royal Photographer

We change clothes, freshen up, wrestle the skirt back into the trolley bag, take a few swigs of wine, and slip some royal crackers into our peasant pockets. Our porter takes us back through the labyrinth of rooms and corridors, past the security gate, and just like that, we’re on the street—two exhausted women in black stretch pants—looking for a taxi. I can’t help noticing that the way out of the palace is much quicker than the way in.

The hulky silhouette of Buckingham looms behind us.

“The golden coach has officially turned back into a pumpkin,” says Julia.

“Fine with me,” I say. “I like pumpkins.”

“Me, too,” she says. “Let’s go home.”

*****

Note from Robin: Please visit In Kind Direct to learn more about how they assist our under-served sisters and brothers in the UK and around the world. Do you work for a company with surplus goods? You can help.

Juliane Kronen and Robin Boles are two of my personal heroes. Thanks to both of them for the gig of a lifetime!

*****

Robin Meloy Goldsby is a Steinway Artist. She is the author of Piano Girl; Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl; and Rhythm: A Novel.  

New: Home and AwayGoldsby’s latest solo piano album, directly from the artist, at Amazon, or from your favorite streaming channels.

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Nakey: The Concert by
10
(19 Stories)

Prompted By Nudity

/ Stories

Back Story

The novelty of the German sauna has accompanied me through much of my literary career. The first essay I sold—to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in 1995—chronicled my first hesitant forays into the world of public nakedness. Through a series of wonderfully misguided steps over the course of two decades, my solo piano recordings became part of a popular sauna ceremony at Mediterana, an award-winning wellness center, located twenty minutes from my home in the German countryside. Wellness plus soothing solo piano—the concept made perfect sense to me. It still does.

"Keep your eyes closed, Mrs. Goldsby, and imagine your listeners dressed in gabardine and silk. Or at the very least, underpants."

Full disclosure: I have an annual membership to Mediterana. It’s one of my favorite haunts when I need a tonic to soothe frazzled nerves, repair aching muscles, or chase away the winter blues. It’s Disneyland for stressed adults.

The ceremony in the Kerzensauna (candlelight sauna), called Piano del Sol, features two of my recorded compositions, a flag-waving sauna guy in a plaid loin cloth, a pendulum full of ice that drips water onto lava rocks, and, at any given time, thirty naked, sweating people who have to remain silent and aren’t allowed to leave until the music finishes. My father, Bob, insists this is karmic payback for the decades I spent playing in noisy cocktail lounges and hotel lobbies. Imagine. People sit there and listen, and no one is serving them drinks. The ceremony is wonderful and silly. I love it.

As the nakey gods of fate and good fortune would have it, Mediterana asked me to compose and record sixteen new pieces—four for each season—for use in the Kerzensauna. They licensed the music from our record company and purchased the exclusive rights to sell the physical CD to their visitors over the next five years. I keep hearing rumors that music fans have stopped buying CDs. Perhaps this doesn’t apply to those who are naked, asleep, or both.

Mediterana released Piano del Sol on October 13th, 2015. Keeping with the industry tradition of presenting a launch concert, they booked me for a performance on the drop date. Don’t we just love those music-biz terms? Drop, release, launch. Maybe not such fitting words when your audience is buck nakey, and you’re the only one wearing a bra.

The Concert

It’s three o’clock. In one hour I’ll be performing in the Indische Hof, Mediterana’s East Indian indoor garden. The English translation of Indische Hof is Indian Square, which makes the event sound like a concert in a teepee. I hope no one asks me to do a white girl rain dance. Circle your wagons while you can.

The Indische Hof, a Mecca of mosaic tile in soothing shades of green and blue, hosts a large granite fountain with floating rose petals, an indoor garden with palm trees and ferns, and a skylight that filters the dusky German light into something both gauzy and gilded. The garden pulses with mingled fragrances of eucalyptus and lavender, myrrh, and sandalwood. It is a refuge for meditation and reflection; a place to lie half naked next to a complete stranger and hallucinate. Today, in the middle of the vista of over-sized lounge beds, sits a large Yamaha grand piano, looking like a stout hostess at an “east meets west” cocktail party. A sitar would be more appropriate in this space, but it’s Piano del Sol, not Sitar del Sol, so we’ll work with what we have.

What we have is me, dressed in my Ultimate Pajamas—a black silky outfit with a vaguely East Indian looking cape tossed over my shoulders. With the exception of my blingy flip flops (you can’t wear real shoes here), I’m dressed for a concert in a more traditional location, or a gig in a fancy hotel lobby. This is not true of my audience. Terry cloth—or fairy cloth as my daughter once called it—covers most of the guests. Towels, wraps, bathrobes, more towels. At the perimeter of the performance space, naked people stroll from one sauna area to another, but they don’t spook me. My nearsightedness blurs them into an impressionistic tableau of brown and beige skin. Mostly beige.

I need to warm up—it’s toasty in here, but I want to get the touch of the keys under my fingers. Every piano feels different, and this one, delivered in a rush this morning, schlepped from the cool autumn air into a manmade tropical retreat, might have unique issues. It’s pin drop quiet, people are sleeping, and other audience members are silently taking their places in beds and on velvet sofas. Not a good time for a soundcheck. I figure I’ll take my chances and wait until show time before playing anything at all. I open the piano to full stick, then sit and check the position and height of the bench.

Uh-oh. Not good. Right in my sight line—at the end of the piano—is a corpulent man in a robe. He’s asleep. Not a problem; sleeping seems to be the activity of choice in this space. But he’s got a case of man spread, the robe gaps open, and there, right at eye-level, are things no self-respecting Piano Girl should have to see, at least not while performing, and certainly not while attempting to focus on a new composition that features chord clusters that are a bit advanced for tentative fingers. Concentration is key for this performance. Am I really going to play something called “April Tango” while looking at Benny and the Jets at the end of the Yamaha? I think not.

Or I think so. For better or worse, I’m determined to make this concert work. I escape to the holding area and try to get hold of myself. Forty minutes until I go on. The holding area doubles as a First Aid station. I hope there are no medical emergencies between now and show time. I check out the defibrillators on the wall and wonder how often they’re needed. Imagine, naked, covered in sauna sweat, and having a heart crisis. Every middle-aged woman’s worst nightmare. Not even a chance to put on nice potty pants before being whisked off to the ER. In this place it’s fairy cloth or nothing.

I sip a cup of chamomile tea, thoughtfully provided by the young woman in charge of today’s shindig. The beautiful J wears a cotton sarong. She’s rosy-cheeked and cheerful, excited about the concert, worried about her introduction, concerned that there won’t be enough beds and sofas for the guests. There are 1200 visitors today at Mediterana—about 100 of them will recline and hear my performance. That’s a lot of beds.

I think about the guy in the front bed, then I try not to think about him. Family jewels. Right. Obviously a term invented by a man.

Voice of Reason, a reliable friend from my Piano Girl past, resonates in my head: Keep your eyes closed, Mrs. Goldsby, and imagine your listeners dressed in gabardine and silk. Or at the very least, underpants.

A loudspeaker voice blares through the building: “Please head to the Indische Hof in five minutes for the Piano del Sol concert!” The voice sounds like one of those “stand by for evacuation” announcements I used to hear during a fire alarm or bomb threat at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. Scary. I remind myself that I’m twenty-one years and 3,755 miles away from Times Square. Sure, we had the occasional naked person roaming Forty-second Street—perhaps a PETA activist or a flasher—but for the most part my daiquiri-swilling Manhattan fans were clothed. They weren’t always wide-awake, but at least their private parts weren’t flapping in a Broadway breeze.

I sit on the paper-covered exam table in the First Aid holding room. I go through my set list—I am scheduled to play all sixteen compositions with musical transitions between the pieces. There won’t be any applause until the end—an intense sixty minutes of new music for me, but a swell opportunity for music lovers to chill out and take a nap.

It’s time. I take another gulp of tea and leave the First Aid area. J introduces me. I take a bow and sit down at the piano. It’s very quiet—management has turned off the fountains and my naked audience, swaddled like newborns in towels and blankets, has settled in for an hour of meditative music.

Voice of Reason: Concentrate. It’s just another concert. It’s just music, with sleeping people allowing you to accompany their dreams.

Voice of Doom: You’ve been putting people to sleep with your music for years. Nothing new here.

Voice of Bob (my father): Now would be a great time for the “Hokey Pokey.”

I swat the voices away—shew!—close my eyes, and focus on the task ahead. Four seasons of music, starting with spring. I play the vamp to Piano del Sol, the title track of my album and let the sound wash over me. Slowly, like a lonely traveler finding her way home, I wander through the faded light of my past. Through my fingers, I feel the relief of a shade tree on a hot summer day, the golden glow of a cloudless sky in mid-October, the miracle of a clear day in February. Fairy cloth and sun dance. For several moments, I even feel young.

I play on and on, caught in my own weird spell. I don’t know if I sound good or bad but it doesn’t matter. I sound like me. Take it or take it not. My sleeping audience frees me—maybe their nakedness frees me as well. We connect with each other—not through eye contact or visual cues, but through sound and trust. Together, we’ve created something magical. Almost. It’s as close as I get in the music business.

I’m dazed and exhausted when it’s over. I sign CDs and do the “meet the artist” thing. I chat with some of our guests, wondering if I haven’t already said enough with my music. Maybe not. But that’s the great thing about art. There’s always more to say.

1.Med_Concert copy

*****
Listen to Robin Goldsby’s solo piano music on your favorite streaming channel. Clothing optional.

Photos by Julia Goldsby. RMG is a Steinway Artist.

Don’t Eat Pie by
10
(19 Stories)

Prompted By Diets

/ Stories

January, 1981: “Ladies! Listen up! It’s ‘Team Time with Deanna!’ Grab your buddy and head to the center of the floor where we’ll meet and greet, dance and prance, and burn away that winter blubber.”

Deanna is a thirty-five year old exercise instructor and seasoned resident of Queens. I am a twenty-three year-old out-of-work actor/pianist and a newish New Yorker. I wear a slightly see-through white leotard, a purple polyester sash around my waist, and a very large badge that says, “Elaine Powers Figure Salon TRAINEE.” It is not my finest moment, but I’m grateful to be employed. I’ve graduated from Chatham College, a gentle but high-minded women’s school in Pittsburgh, with a BA in Theater Arts. I know a lot about Shakespearean comedies and Greek tragedies, but hardly anything about how to get work as a performing artist in New York City.

This is the third job I’ve had since receiving my diploma. When I moved here eighteen months ago, I landed a fancy-sounding gig as a promotional model at Bergdorf Goodman, where a skinny fashion director wearing a  narrow black suit stuffed me into a voluminous Anne Klein evening dress and forced me to spray shoppers with expensive perfume. My most recent round of employment has been a role as a piano-playing stripper in the national touring company of an old-fashioned Burlesque show called Peaches and Bananas. Not a bad job, really. I’ve gotten my Equity card, learned to peel off a corset while playing Chopin, how to cope with weathered Burlesque comedians (hint: never ever steal a laugh from an eighty-year-old Top Banana), how to crank my hair  to skyscraper heights, glue on false eyelashes without blinding myself, and how to save money by sleeping eight actors in a Days Inn motel room meant for two (hint: never ever room with the Top Banana—he’ll use all the towels). I’ve also figured out how to survive on stale Dunkin’ Donuts crullers and cold shrimp-fried rice. Dancing  (ass-shaking disguised as choreography) and road rat meals (leftover  half-eaten Whoppers for breakfast) have left me enviably lanky but one step away from a full-fledged Scurvy diagnosis. I touch my arm and it bruises. For over a year I’ve been counting pennies and looking forward to the day when I can afford food that doesn’t come in a white cardboard carton or a greasy paper bag.

Now, a little uncertain about my next shaky steps in city jam-packed with out-of-work actors skidding in their own greasepaint, I’ve signed up to work part time as an instructor at an Elaine Powers Figure Salon. I haven’t found an Elaine Powers salon with job openings in Manhattan—those places are already staffed by Bob Fosse rejects, soap opera spit-backs, and runway models who are an inch or two short of the 5’9″ minimum. So I’ve nailed down a position as an instructor at the Flushing, Queens salon, in the shadow of Shea Stadium. In Flushing the accents and waistlines are thicker. Hair and coat colors dazzle. It’s a place where, refreshingly, avenues swarm with civilians who want nothing—nothing!—to do with show business. The # 7 Express train from Grand Central gets me there in no time at all.

During “Team Time with Deanna” I sit on an Elaine Powers weight bench and take notes. I’ll be expected to conduct my very own “Team Time with Robin” in the next few days, and there’s an Elaine Powers protocol I’ll need to follow.

Cats have claws! Dogs have fleas! All I’ve got are chubby knees!

I’m not dumb! I’m so wise! Pump away these flabby thighs!

Move those arms! Move those feet! How I hate this cellulite!

Pec-tor-als! Stretch and reach! We’ll look foxy on the beach.

Remember, it’s 1981. “Foxy” is one of our favorite words. While Deanna and her students recite these rhymes, Donna Summer blares from the Elaine Powers sound system. “She Works Hard for the Money” is the track of choice. The music and the rhymes don’t sync and I feel like I’m caught in a John Cage nightmare. Deanna, single mother of four sons, resembles an Italian female version of Barney Rubble. She is tiny and rock solid—no chubby knees on her. Deanna is a dynamo—during my shift I watch her conduct Team Time every hour on the hour. No matter how much she jumps around, her big Sue Ellen Ewing hair stays in place.

After Deanna’s third session I head back to the front desk—a platform that oversees all the weight machines, vibrating belts, and treadmills. The vibrating belts intrigue me. The clients strap a belt around their problem zones and the belts shake-shake-shake the fat. Wow.

“Do those things work?” I ask Deanna.

“Nah,” she says, evading my eyes. “They make your thighs itch, and that’s about it.”

“Oh,” I say. “Who needs that? Itchy thighs. Blah.”

“Right. So. You gotta handle on Team Time, now?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Good. Okay, write this next thing down in your notebook. It’s one of our most critical functions, as, like, Elaine Powers role models and instructors.”

“Okay.” I sit with my pen poised and ready to write. I’m good at taking notes. Deanna picks up the microphone. “You turn it on like this,” she whispers to me, and shows me a little on and off switch. “Write that down. Turn on the microphone.”

“Okay. Turn on the microphone.”

“Ladies, listen up! It’s time for your ‘Diet Tip of the Day.’” The gyrating women step down from their weight machines, treadmills, and vibrating belts. They swivel to face Deanna. She is their weight-loss queen of Queens, their calorie-counting pocket-Pope, their great white hope for slimmer thighs and sleeker silhouettes.

“Are you ready?” she shouts.

“Yeah!” they reply.

“I can’t hear you!” she yells.

“Yeah!” they scream.

“What do we wanna do?”

“Lose weight! Lose weight!”

“Louder, louder!”

“Lose weight! Lose weight!”

“Okay, ladies, here we go. Your ‘Diet Tip of the Day’—drum roll, please!” The ladies beat on the purple padded benches of the weight machines.

“Your ‘Diet Tip of the Day’ is . . . DON’T EAT PIE!”

A startled silence fills the salon. Then the ladies break into applause. After a few moments, they return to their workouts.

“That’s it?” I say to Deanna. “Don’t eat pie is your diet tip for the day?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Good, right?”

“But that’s ridiculous,” I say. “Everyone knows not to eat pie if they’re trying to lose weight. These poor women are paying $11.99 a month—”

“$9.99 a month for the two year program, $7.99 a month for the five year plan and a one time fee of $499.99 for a lifetime membership.”

“Right. What a deal. But shouldn’t you give them something more than a poem about chubby knees and a diet tip that tells them not to eat pie?”

Deanna glares at me and I’m really glad she doesn’t have one of those Barney Rubble clubs. “Sometimes,” she growls, “you just have to hit them over the head with this stuff. It’s not, like, rocket science. Obvious is good.”

“Obvious is good,” I write in my notebook, which, thirty years later, I will dig out of an old carton so I can write this story.

**

Cathy, a platinum L’Oreal-blond with an inch of black roots, dangling earrings, water-balloon boobs, narrow teenage-boy hips, and lavender tights paces on the magenta carpet of the violet-walled Elaine Powers back office. Purple, purple everywhere. Working in this place is like living inside a grape. Cathy (who could be a man—I’m not sure) is our manager, a job that involves chain smoking and convincing middle-aged female citizens of Flushing that they, too, could look like her if they stopped eating pie and forked over $11.99 a month for the next year.

Cathy has called me into her office to discuss “security” issues at the salon. Deanna accompanies me. We all light up cigarettes. It’s 1981. We smoke. No guilt.

“So,” says Cathy to Deanna. “Did you show Robin the panic button?”

“The panic button?” I say. “The panic button?”

“You didn’t tell her?” says Cathy to Deanna.

“I couldn’t,” says Deanna. “It’s too upsetting.”

What?” I say.

“Deanna,” says Cathy. “If you’re going be an Elaine Powers Assistant Manager some day, you gotta get a grip on these things. Now tell her.”

I wonder if the panic button has something to do with pie. I haven’t thought about pie for a couple of years, but now I can’t stop conjuring visions of my mom’s pumpkin, lemon meringue, pecan, and peach pies. Flaky crusts, whipped cream, the works. I take a drag from my Benson and Hedges cigarette, a luxury I can’t afford.  I scrimp on meals, but I buy these cigarettes because I like the way the package looks. Classy.

“Terrible,” says Deanna. ” It’s terrible. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. It was all over the newspapers. It was even on TV.”

“It really caused our membership to drop,” says Cathy.

What?” I say.

“Go ahead,” says Cathy, lighting another cigarette. “Spill.”

“Well,” says Deanna. “It happened in Texas. Five years ago. And people say New York City is dangerous.”

What?” I say.

“Okay, like, two goons wearing masks busted into one of our Houston salons. They had guns, which later turned out to be toy water pistols, but how could anyone know? Anyway, they made all the ladies strip down to their underwear.”

“At least they kept their underwear,” says Cathy.

“Yeah, thank God for small favors,” says Deanna. “Although most of those underpants weren’t exactly small.”

“Go on,” says Cathy.

“I can’t,” says Deanna. “You tell.”

Cathy rolls her eyes and blows a long trail of smoke across the room. “They crowded all of the ladies into a small storage room, more of a closet, really, and then they selected the most, uh, voluptuous women and forced them back out onto the floor.”

They picked the fattest ones,” says Deanna.

“Deanna, that’s not the way an Elaine Powers instructor talks. Show some respect.”

“Sorry,” she says, “but it’s true. I don’t know why we can’t say the word fat around here. It’s stupid. Fat is fat. F-A-T. So go ahead with the story.”

“Right. The masked men took these stout ladies—”

Stout? Like that’s better than saying fat? Excuse me, but if I ever gain, like, a hundred pounds, call me fat but don’t call me stout. Even statuesque sounds better than stout.”

“Fine. But stout is an approved Elaine Powers word. Anyway, they took the stout ladies and forced them onto the vibrating belt machines, with the belts around their butts. Then they turned on the machines.”

“Oh, no,” I say.

“You can just imagine how that looked,” says Deanna. “All that naked flab, covered by those giant underpants, of course, but still, wiggling and jiggling. I mean, even a skinny girl on those machines looks like used Jello.”

“Deanna! That’s enough. You wanna tell the end of the story?”

“No way, José,” says Deanna. “That’s the worst part.”

I am ready to resign on my very first day of employment. “Please don’t tell me those poor women were raped.”

“No,” says Cathy. “But the two men, they, uh, watched the stout ladies on the belts. And they did Unspeakable Things while they were watching. You know, the shaking butts turned them on, I guess.”

“That’s horrible,” I say.

“And the goons kept their masks on,” says Deanna. “Oh my God. I can’t even think about this. It makes me sick. Sick. Just skip the next part. Robin can use her imagination.”

“Yeah, I think I can figure it out. No one was raped?” I ask.

“No.”

“No one was hurt?”

“No. Upset, of course, but not harmed in any physical way. Sadly, most of them never returned to the salon again. They were traumatized.”

“Did they ever catch the guys?”

“No. They’re still out there. And that’s why we have a panic button. If any man comes into the salon for any reason, one of us has to stand by the panic button and be prepared to hit it. Because we don’t want a VBI here in Flushing.”

“A VBI?” I say.

“Vibrating Belt Incident,” says Deanna, flicking the ash of her cigarette into a lilac ashtray.

**

The following week when I’m alone and closing the salon—Cathy has given me a key because she claims I’m management material—I step onto one of the vibrating belt machines and hook the belt around my butt. I turn on the machine. In the mirror—there are mirrors everywhere in this place—I catch a glimpse of myself as I shake, waggle, and roll. Look at that. Turns out I have a lot of fat on my skinny frame.  There’s a stout girl lurking inside me, and I see her, right there in my jiggling reflection. Traumatic, indeed, and there’s not even anyone watching. That’s it. No more pie for me. I lock up and go home.

**

A miracle! Four months into my Elaine Powers siege a music agent calls and offers me a gig at the Newark Airport Holiday Inn, where I’ll play the piano five nights a week for turnpike lounge lizards, red-eyed truck drivers, and world-weary flight crews—the worker bees of the transportation industry. I accept the offer. For a few weeks I do both jobs, conducting Team Time during the day, and playing the piano at the Newark Airport Holiday Inn at night. I love my job in Newark—I’ve got a beat-up out-of-tune piano in a smoky bar and my very own hotel room with a bright orange chenille bedspread—no Top Bananas, bed sharing, or begging for towels. I have a decent paycheck and free meals (featuring egg dishes with melted cheese) in a real restaurant with white tablecloths, and a chance to sunbathe next to a pool with a thin film of jet fuel floating on the water’s surface.  From my pool perch I watch as jets take off and land, a hundred times a day—sky ships carrying eager passengers to anywhere but here. Sometimes I fall asleep outside with planes disappearing into the clouds over my head. I dream big fat dreams.

Finally, I resign from Elaine Powers. I’m sad about saying goodbye to Cathy and Deanna, but happy I’ve escaped without a VBI. I am sick of the color purple. During my final Team Time I blast Donna Summer’s cassette on the boom box.  I work hard for my money, chase away those chubby knees, and wish my clients well.

“You know what?” I say to the ladies. “A little bit of fat is okay. Be fit. Be foxy. Be healthy. Be happy. Listen to music. Dance. Don’t worry so much about the pie.”

Cathy smiles at me. Deanna scowls. I exit. Obvious is good.

*****

Robin Meloy Goldsby is a Steinway Artist. She is the author of Piano Girl; Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl; and Rhythm: A Novel.  

Newest book: Manhattan Road Trip, a collection of short stories about musicians. Go here to buy Manhattan Road Trip!

New piano album: Home and AwayGoldsby’s latest solo piano album, directly from the artist, at Amazon, or from your favorite streaming channels.

Sign up here to receive Robin’s free newsletter. A new essay every month!

Playback 2011: The Summer of Love by
10
(19 Stories)

Prompted By Weddings

/ Stories

I perch on my padded piano bench, inhale the mingled scents of jasmine, Jo Malone, and musty French cheese. I sip a glass of Agrapart Champagne, contemplate the months ahead of me, and marvel at my good fortune. The summer of 2011 offers more than the typical number of castle weddings. This year, we’ll be hosting a gaggle of international couples, who will tie the nuptial knot in a location that meets storybook expectations.

Pianist Robin Meloy Goldsby recalls a handful of unique, international weddings, as seen from the other side of the Steinway. Here comes the bride . . .

I’ve reached the point in my career where I’m playing for the second weddings of some of my previous clients. Creepy. But this summer—all newbies! First timers with a peeled-egg patina of loveliness, pretty children dressed for adulthood, a wash of youthful optimism in a world grown sour. I cannot think of a better way to snap out of my fifty-year-old funk than sitting behind a grand piano and playing songs to accompany the hopefulness of young love.

I have musician friends who play for weddings in barns where guests end up naked and dancing on rooftops. I know of one wedding that featured an ensemble of 100 elementary school flutists, standing in a field, playing “Moon River.” My father once played for a Fourth of July wedding that included the reenactment of Slovenian immigrants arriving in America by boat—a group of babushka-clad women (including the bride) rowed across a swimming pool in a rubber raft to simulate their ancestors’ arrival on American shores.

I do not play for these kinds of weddings. I would, but no one asks. My weddings tend to be subdued. Upscale, elegant—the kind of events where everyone eats and drinks for hours but no one suffers from bloat. My weddings are studies in silk shantung, seed pearls, and restraint. Picture an English garden in a German castle. Roses, lavender, fifty shades of ivory. Multi-lingual servers in dark suits pass trays of tasty tidbits to bejeweled guests who never seem inebriated, despite bottomless glasses of pricey swill.

For most of these events I sit in the corner of a fancy hall, a hotel lobby, or a garden and play tinka, tinka for serene, occasionally joyous guests. Let the summer of international weddings begin.

The Turkish-German Wedding

Today’s Turkish bride has requested Coltrane music. This alarms me, as I am not a jazz musician. But I shall play “My One and Only Love” and “Angel Eyes” and hope for the best. She also requested “Greensleeves.” She has hired a DJ for the Turkish-music part of the program. Something for everyone—a musical potpourri.

The ceremony takes place at city hall, home to one of the Germany’s finest Steinways. I adore this Model “D”—I’ve gotten to play it a handful of times and it’s like riding on a cloud. The local music school uses the town hall for recitals, so they keep the piano primped and primed for action.

The crowd gathers as we wait for the downbeat. How nice to see two cultures colliding in a good way. German groom, Turkish bride. Anticipation builds. The groom’s family, conservatively attired in dark suits and chalky linen dresses, hovers across the aisle from the Turkish contingent, which features older women in embroidered head scarves, younger women in jewel-toned silky dresses, and men with biceps bulging under their snug suits.

Here they come. The bride and groom march in together accompanied by a recording of a Turkish love song. The Turkish side cheers. I sit at the Steinway and wait for my cue. I love this. I think there should be more cheering at weddings.

I play “My One and Only Love” to polite applause, but alas, no cheering. I play “Greensleeves,” about as well as I can play it. I cruise through “Over the Rainbow” and Bach’s “Air on a G-String.” We finish with another rousing Turkish recording of celebration music. More cheering.

Following the ceremony, I keep playing while guests dig into a huge heart-shaped fresh strawberry pie and drink champagne. Turkish and German parents park their over-dressed and chubby infants in strollers next to the piano and the babies, like a troop of synchronized sleepers, drift into a love-themed afternoon slumber.

The Cookbook Guys and the American Bride

I love the Cookbook Guys. I have played for this persnickety and wonderful group of gentlemen for nine years. They book overnight rooms at the castle, dine at the Michelin 3-star restaurant, and then, after they’ve consumed ten courses of broiled quail’s eggs and skewered truffles, they come to the bar for cognac and whatever. I’m the “whatever” part. I play for them from midnight to two in the morning. Each year the event is quiet and classy and—even though it’s way too late—a delight for me.

This year, when I arrive at the castle at 11:30, I’m horrified to see a conga line of wedding guests (from another party) snaking through the main hall of the castle, around the very grand piano I am scheduled to play. The bride—an American woman wearing what looks like a 1975 Bob Mackie creation, leads the line. She is skunk drunk and singing “I Will Survive” at the top of her very developed lungs. June is bustin’ out all over. Chaos at the castle. Who is responsible for this madness and why is the bride wearing beaded fringe?

What will happen when my suave Cookbook Guys catch wind of this?

The cacophony comes from the back salon, where a musician is running his keyboard through a flanger. He cranks the wedding party into a squealing frenzy by performing a playback medley of German carnival songs and Gloria Gaynor disco hits. Oh my God, is that a smoke machine? And a disco ball? The piano man is just doing his job, but since I am about to do mine, I’m tempted to cut his cables.

My Cookbook Guys, slightly snooty and the type of men who do everything possible to avoid scenes with the Great Unwashed, are currently in the gourmet restaurant, blissfully unaware of the Studio 54 misfire happening in the lobby. Like every year, they expect to stroll into the bar to listen to delicate music and sip their hundred-euro brandies.

What to do.

My colleagues are the best. I grab the banquet director by the shoulders, tell him we have a looming disaster, and persuade him to wrangle the bride and her braying group of line-dancers back into the private salon. The bar manager, my hero, single handedly moves the piano (a Yamaha C5) from the lobby into the bar—a job that involves rearranging the heavy bar furniture, removing one of the French doors to the room, and taking the lid off the piano. After the big heave-ho, he flicks his wrist,  tosses some rose petals on the piano, and lights a dozen votive candles. The Cookbook Guys sashay into the bar, completely unaware that they were seconds away from walking onto the set of Nightmare on Disco Street.

I put on my calm piano-hostess face and greet my Cookbook Guys. The adrenaline has woken me up and I get through the late night gig without my head crashing onto the keys. Periodically I look over my shoulder, through the closed glass doors, and see the bouncing bride and her cohorts cavorting through the lobby in drunken clumps. But it remains quiet in the bar—just me, a very large piano, seventy-five Salvador Dali lithographs, and twenty-two Cookbook Guys.

On his break, the musician from the wedding stops by to say hello. “Wow,” he says. “It’s really quiet in here. Too bad. We’ve got a real party going on next door.”

Before I leave, I stop in the salon to say goodbye to him. He is playing “Mandy” and the bride, nearly popping out of her Cher dress, dances alone in little circles around his keyboard. She sings a different song—I don’t know what it is, but it’s not “Mandy.” Maybe it has some of the same notes.

I say goodbye to the musician. I accidentally step on the train to the bride’s dress as I am leaving. She doesn’t notice a thing.

The All Indian Wedding

The next weekend, I play for an Indian wedding reception. Wow! I’m tempted to start snapping photos from the piano, but that would be indiscreet. Management tells me these are famous Indians, but, being a total idiot about Indian culture, I don’t recognize any of the names or faces.

I can’t help but feel I am the wrong musician for this job, but the gathered crowd seems appreciative and happy. The bride’s aunt has requested “A River Flows in You.” A lovely piece, but I wish I knew an Indian folk song or two. Or perhaps I should have invested in that “Bollywood’s Greatest Hits” fake book.

I have never seen such beautiful attire—saris in bright silks—saffron, emerald, magenta!—with elaborate embroidery. Handsome Indian bodyguards loiter around the piano. They are protecting someone important. I spend much of the gig trying to guess which guest is the VIP, a fun little Piano Girl game I like to play in a crowd like this. The guards stand with their arms across their chests, without ever blinking. I love a man in uniform, even if the uniform involves a saber. I try to get them to smile, but to no avail.

Confession: I have a little crush on CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta—I so admire a man who can look sexy while discussing gastro-intestinal problems—and there’s a guy hanging out by the staircase that looks like him, except taller. My God. Everyone here looks camera ready, airbrushed, serene.

Here comes the bride. Just as she arrives, a ray of sunshine pierces the cloudy day, gleams through an oversized window, and illuminates her flawless skin. Her sari sparkles. We are blinded by the light.

The Japanese-German Wedding

The Japanese bride at tonight’s wedding looks like a human hummingbird wrapped in meters of expensive white tulle. The German groom, normal size by European standards, seems hulk-like next to his fragile wife. We’re celebrating in a Baroque castle nor far from where I live. I don’t like the pianos in this place. Call me a diva, but I can’t stand playing a K-mart piano in a venue that charges 18€ for a piece of cake. The gracious father of the groom likes my music and has insisted on renting a good instrument for the evening.

The bride’s favorite song is “Fly Me to the Moon.” I play it, but she doesn’t recognize the melody. Lost in translation, I guess. Poor thing. She has been decanted into a wedding dress with a corset so tight that it may well have cut off blood circulation to her brain. I’ve never seen a fully formed adult with such tiny features—button nose, wee hands, and feet the size of my fists. Why does a woman this small need a corset? She is ethereal, translucent, Disney-like. If it wasn’t for her puffy gown, I could slip her into the lining of my suit jacket and take her home with me.

Pocket Bride’s white dress has a mile-long train on it. Her dear mother has to tame the train every time her daughter stands. They are seated next to the piano, and one stumbling incident almost results in the three of us being smothered by Pocket Bride’s dress. Death by tulle. There are worse ways to perish.

All musicians know the importance of plotting an advance escape route for the speech-making portion of a wedding reception. Once a speech starts, you can’t sneak off the bandstand without looking arrogant, obnoxious, or downright rude. If the speech begins before you get out of Dodge, you are stuck onstage forever, forced to smile politely at endless stories about people you will never see again. Great Uncle Wolfgang’s delightful reminiscences of a 1957 hiking trip to Schweinfurt might amuse members of his own family, but to you, the hired help, these charming recitations feel like verbal torment, especially if you need a potty break.

At this particular wedding I ignore my own advice. I’m trapped onstage—between Pocket Bride’s dress and a towering arrangement of white orchids. No escape. Several translators have been hired for the evening. Each formal speech—and there are dozens of them—is slowly and painfully translated into Japanese. The Japanese speeches are translated to German. It’s like the United Nations, except without the little earpieces and notepads. One gift exchange ceremony takes about two months. My cheeks cramp and my face freezes in a smile position.

Pocket Bride’s mother gets up, successfully navigates her way past her daughter’s dress, and comes to the piano. She bows. I bow. Ah, she wants to play. She sits on the bench and plays a dirge-like piano solo that is very beautiful, very Japanese, but the most mournful piece of music ever played at a wedding. I can’t leave the bandstand so I stand to the side, nodding solemnly and pretending to understand the artistic intention of her solo. Did someone die? A grandparent? Maybe I missed something when I zoned out during the speeches.

And now, how about dessert?

Uniting two cultures through marriage isn’t easy. Everybody wins, but everybody loses, too. Compromise, the cornerstone of every marriage, plays an even greater role when two people go beyond borders in search of lasting love. Tokyo or Munich? Kimono or dirndl? Sushi or Sauerbraten? Sake or beer?

I play my last notes of the evening. For the sake of Pocket Bride, for the sake of all of us, really—I hope love will find a way.

I bow twice and say thank you three times.

Doumo arigatou. Thank you. Danke.

*****

Robin Meloy Goldsby is a Steinway Artist. She is the author of Piano Girl; Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl; and Rhythm: A Novel.  

Newest book: Manhattan Road Trip, a collection of short stories about musicians. Go here to buy Manhattan Road Trip!

New piano album: Home and AwayGoldsby’s latest solo piano album, directly from the artist, at Amazon, or from your favorite streaming channels.

Sign up here to receive Robin’s free newsletter. A new essay every month!

Emma by
10
(19 Stories)

Prompted By Student Activism

/ Stories

I’ve been thinking a lot about Emma González and the circumstances that plunged her into the bright, white spotlight reserved for America’s budding leaders, shooting stars, and civic heroes. I applaud her valor and admire her authenticity, but I mourn for the childhood she forfeited—the self-consumed teenage years snatched from her by shameful gun laws and a mentally-ill boy with access to a bullet-spraying machine.

Never underestimate the fortitude of a passionate, teenage survivor carrying the weight of her brothers and sisters on her narrow shoulders.

When I was Emma’s age I stayed busy writing bad poetry and playing the piano. My most valued possessions included a mini-skirt, a maxi-coat, and a perfect black turtleneck (remember the dickie?). My hair was shiny and long. I obsessed over shoes. I poured baby oil and iodine on my alabaster skin and baked myself, summer after summer, in an attempt to look like the mahogany Coppertone girl, the one with the puppy yanking down her swimsuit. I wrote ooh baby, baby song lyrics about sunsets and a boy named Mark. I was deadly serious about my hobbies and passions and truly believed—like most teenagers—that the world’s eyes were judging me.

Emma González no longer has time to fret about tan lines, wardrobe issues, or the way the sun bounces on the horizon. Maybe she never did. On the day of the Margory Stoneman Douglas shooting, Emma was in the auditorium with dozens of other students when the fire alarm sounded. For two hours, she hid in the auditorium with classmates and friends—until police told students to vacate the building. Emma—faster than you can shout “we call BS—became an American activist and advocate for gun control, co-founding the advocacy group #NeverAgainMSD.

What happened to her childhood? Poof. Gone with the rhythmic, deadly clatter of a weapon designed for a killing field.

*****

It’s a myth that all kids love high school and enjoy an easy-breezy few years cheering for football teams, trying to get high, and attending proms.  In my early years of high school, I got bullied by the kind of mean girls who populate every generation: hard-edged, resting-bitch-faced, hormone-imbalanced strutters who stomp around the high school cafeteria like a Clearasil mafia. A gang of angry girls once dragged me down the steps by my hair because I lived in the wrong neighborhood. At least they weren’t packing heat. I’m sure, with access to a semi-automatic weapon, one of them might have considered shooting me—they hated me that much. Teenagers torture themselves in different ways. Part of me thought I deserved their disdain.

Whenever the shrill, adolescent voice of insecurity yelled my name, I took refuge at the piano. Composing a new piece of music and figuring out how to play it made me feel in control, confident, and capable. Not capable enough to stare down the NRA, like Emma, but skilled enough to brush off the strutters and regain a sense of purpose.

Emma is a creative writer. She also finds joy in astronomy. Before the shooting, her head might have been in the stars, but—because of her education—she knew how to confront a blank page, take the teen tornado blustering through her brain, and create an orderly, emotionally relevant statement. Catapulted to grief counselor and motivational speaker for a nation of despairing and determined young people, Emma used her writing skills to pull through the tragedy.

Emma is a hero. So are her teachers and parents for giving her the lessons, tools, and artistic freedom to cope.

The shooter had an AR-15, but, in the aftermath of killing, Emma showed up armed with her own artistic arsenal, one that has allowed her to challenge the previous generation’s apathy, the NRA, and the politicians bought and sold by the gun lobby. The MSD High School teenagers astound me. Facing a future smeared by horrific images blistered onto their developing brains, they refuse to give up, give in, or tolerate the sickening chaos that has become the new norm in our government. They have chosen their issue—reasonable limitations on the availability of semi-automatic death weapons to children. They’re facing the need for change by running toward the issue, head on. Run, kids, run.

It’s a different kind of race when unexpected hurdles include bleeding bodies of friends.

I guess the prom will have to wait.

*****

Teenagers like Emma—or your kids or mine—are generally known for rumpled bedrooms, disheveled backpacks, and illogical thinking. In a classic Opposite World scenario, our kids now make more sense than many adults. Our youth are not just marching and taking selfies; they’re collecting names and voting records of politicians controlled by the NRA, mobilizing young people to make a difference at the polls in November, and presenting calm, clearheaded arguments for gun control in high-pressure public forums and at nationally-televised press conferences. Virtuosic grace under pressure. Grief meets bravery meets action.

According to another activist—Congressman John Lewis—the MSD kids are making “good trouble.”

Chaos rules the capitol, whereas ordered, logical thinking guides the actions of MSD High School students—the ones who are still alive. Never underestimate the fortitude of a passionate, teenage survivor carrying the weight of her brothers and sisters on her narrow shoulders.

*****

Some thoughts about chaos and order: A pianist almost always begins with chaos. Before tackling a sonata, fugue, or showstopper from the Great American Songbook, before playing a bebop melody or creating a new-age cushion of sonic comfort, a pianist faces a mess of notes either on the page or in her head—some call them fly shit. The notes swim before her eyes and tease her ears, daring her to embrace mayhem and create beauty.

In an artist’s world, it’s critical to balance the mind’s creative bedlam with logical, systematic, strategic thinking. When starting a project, a composer, painter, poet, or journalist must tango with the disarray of her own imagination. Her over-taxed brain hosts flights of fancy and darkest desolation, joy and hysteria and anguish and confusion. Before she spills her emotional guts onto the blank screen, canvas, or music manuscript paper, she must calm her tormentors, restore order to her subconscious desires, and beat back the distractions and necessary interruptions of real life.

Emma González, at the age of eighteen, has the artist’s required skill set.

Is it too much to ask the same of our government?

The paucity of stability and civility in the United States—brought on by the muddled rants and hateful bombasts of our current president—distresses me. Regardless of political affiliation, most people agree that kindness and respect make progress possible. To move forward, encourage positive change, and save the planet for our children and grandchildren—we must value the kind of creative chaos that is followed by ordered, rational thinking.

Emma has that together. She might be our Malala, rising above ruins and illuminating the path.

I encourage the men and women running our country to take the chaos and necessary distractions cluttering their minds, study a page from the Emma playbook, organize their thoughts, and listen to themselves and each other.

Fact: Kids, in record numbers, are being shot on streets and in schools.  Responsible gun laws could stop many of these tragedies. Instead, our congress turns away. Our commander in chief stays occupied hurling big bags of flaming vitriol at anyone who doesn’t tow the fraying line. Forget—if you can—the firings, porn stars and playmates, or destructive policies; the president’s inability to act in an orderly and civilized manner has perpetuated an avalanche of rudeness, a hurricane of racism,  a wildfire of vulgarity, and a storm(y) front of discontent that seeps, like creeping damp, under our hip, upturned collars.

The shooting continues.

Right now, the government has a chance to heed the words and actions of the #NeverAgainMSD movement founded by Emma and her team of fellow students. Our congress has the opportunity to get one thing right: Stop selling weapons of mass destruction to teens.

I am behind you, Emma González. I wish my generation had been out in front of the gun issue so you could have savored a few more years of poetry, love beads, and hours spent gazing at the darkening sky. But now that you’ve been shoved centerstage, I encourage you to follow the artist’s way. Keep your head in the stars, but make sure you find your way back home to deliver your message. Six minutes of silence? We hear you. We need you. You are who we want to be when we grow up.

#Enough.

*****

Portrait of Emma by Steve Musgrove, graphic artist

Robin Meloy Goldsby is a Steinway Artist. She is the author of Piano Girl; Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl; and Rhythm: A Novel.  

Newest book: Manhattan Road Trip, a collection of short stories about musicians. Go here to buy Manhattan Road Trip.

New piano album: Home and AwayGoldsby’s latest solo piano album, directly from the artist, at Amazon, or from your favorite streaming channels.

Sign up here to receive Robin’s free newsletter. A new essay every month!

Circus, Circus by
10
(19 Stories)

/ Stories

Excerpted from Piano Girl by Robin Meloy Goldsby, Backbeat Books, 2006.

***

I’m not scared, not at all. Of course I’ve never hiked through this particular corner of the city dressed like a hooker.

I’m scheduled to play Maurice Ravel’s Piano Sonatine for the spring music department recital at the Chatham College chapel. I know the material. I love the material. I’ve practiced it until the piece is playing me, instead of the other way around. I’m confident and secure with my interpretation of the composer’s intention, and I’m looking forward to the night’s performance.

I walk onstage, sit down at the Steinway concert grand, and adjust the height of the bench. There are about seventy-five people in attendance, a small crowd for such a big space.

Something is wrong with me. I feel, I don’t know, hollow. My hands are tingling. I take a deep breath, and begin playing the first movement of the Sonatine.

That’s when it hits me. About sixteen bars into Mr. Ravel’s elegantly written composition, my heart starts pounding. Boom. Boom. Boom. My hands sweat and shake, and I’m moving in slow motion, except for my right knee, which has developed a high-speed twitch.

“You can do this, you can do this,” I say to myself five or six times.

Another voice, a strange one coming from inside my head, starts poking at my self confidence.

“Who are you?” I think.

The Voice of Doom, he replies in a loud, whiny voice. I look around. No one else can hear the Voice of Doom. Just me.

Get . . . Out . . . Of . . . Here, I think, trying hard to concentrate on the notes.

Nope, he says. I’m not goin’. You’re a fake, and it’s about time you realized it. Fake, fake, fake! You’re gonna massacre this piece big time and all these people will hear you do it. You’re nothing but a big faking faker. Fake, fake, fake, fake, fake.

He’s yelling at me from inside my brain, somewhere between my ears and the top of my skull, and he keeps getting louder and louder.

I try to argue back but I can’t get a word in edgewise.

This is awful.

I can’t locate the notes. Or if I find them I play them so slowly that I have no idea where I am in the piece. Everything I’ve learned is gone—out the window like bubbles blown through a ring on a windy day.

I steal a glance at the audience. Grandma Curtis and Grandma Rawsthorne are in the second row with Aunt Jean and Uncle Bill. They’re all smiles and don’t seem to notice anything wrong. That’s good. My parents are in the row behind them, but I look away before I can catch their reaction to my train wreck. Oh no. There’s Bill Chrystal, with a pained expression on his normally placid face, hovering on the side of the chapel, looking like he’s ready to dash out the fire exit if things get any worse.

I’m freezing and my hands shake. I’m having an anxiety attack.

Oh. Wait. Now I get it. I’m onstage alone and the audience is paying attention. I’ve gotten used to the chatter and the laughter of the cocktail lounge. Where are the clinking glasses and the waiters barking orders at the bartender? Where is the whir of the blender, where are the cheerful hellos and goodbyes and how are yous? Where is all the noise? And how come these people are listening? What do they expect to hear?

No, no, no, no, no! Don’t just sit there! Talk! Smoke a cigarette! Have an argument with your neighbor. Dispute the check with your overworked waitress, because you did, after all, only have two gin and tonics and you’re being charged for three. Order another round of Strawberry Margaritas or some of those tasty chicken fingers. Do something, anything, but please please please don’t listen to me. It is enough for me to listen to myself. Really, it’s enough.

Well, there you have it, says Voice of Doom. Another concert career comes to a screeching halt.

***

The next day I decide to audition to be a showgirl in the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Maybe I’ll be good enough for the circus.

No you won’t, says the Voice of Doom. VOD is pushy and he’s off to an excellent start.

Debbie McCloskey is going to audition, too. We get ourselves made up like a couple of teenage tarts, pack our dance bags with circus-appropriate items—blue eye shadow, little pots of glitter, hair clips with sequined fruit appliqués—and climb aboard the Fifth Avenue bus that takes us to the circus site, the Civic Arena in downtown Pittsburgh.

“Back door, please!” Deb yells at the bus driver. ”I don’t know about this bus stop,” she says to me. “Isn’t this a rough part of town? Deb is from Ellwood City. Every part of Pittsburgh is a rough part of town for her.

“Naw, don’t worry,” I say. I’d taken the bus down there every Saturday for years for flute lessons. By the age of nine I’d been using public transportation to get everywhere in the city. I’m not scared, not at all.

Of course I’ve never hiked through this particular corner of the city dressed like a hooker. Showgirl makeup, big hair, and high heels at 8:30 a.m. have a tendency to make a girl look like last night’s leftover, no matter how young she is. We endure and ignore the taunts and the leers, and run as fast as we can in our tight skirts and colorful heels. Out of breath, windblown, and short on composure, we drag our dance bags up to the guard at Gate B of the Civic Arena.

“Through the tunnel to the Center Ring, please, Ladies.” We tiptoe past cages of tigers and lions. They’re being fed huge chunks of raw meat on a hook. My feet feel like huge chunks of raw meat on a hook.

“You know,” Deb says to me. “We really should wear sensible shoes to these things and change once we get where we’re going.”

“But I don’t own a pair of sensible shoes.”

A camel spits at Deb.

“Don’t get too close to the cages, girls!” yells a very short (some might even say dwarf-like) man with huge arms. “These cats will have you for breakfast.”

Maybe being a concert pianist isn’t such a bad idea.

But you’re not good enough. Remember? says VOD.

We reach the center ring. This is amazing. In the first ring The Flying Zucchinis—or whatever they’re called—are practicing their trapeze act. I stand there, looking up, with my mouth hanging open, as a young female Zucchini releases the trapeze, hurls herself through the air, somersaults three or maybe even four times, completely misses the other trapeze, drops into the net, and laughs. In ring three is a leather-clad woman shouting commands in an Eastern European language at six stampeding horses. She has a whip and the horses are bolting around her in a circle. When she whacks her whip on the ground, the horses leap in the air, spin around, and gallop in the other direction. Wow! Heigh-ho Silver! Ride like the wind! I’m getting dizzy just watching. They make a lot of dust. I cough. The trainer looks over her shoulder at the large group of girls gathering for the audition, and her eyes narrow. She cracks the whip, three times, loudly, and turns her attention back to her animals.

“I love this,” I say to Debbie. “It’s like going to the circus for free!”

“Sign the sheet and go stand in the line, please. We’re eliminating girls based on appearance.”

Oh great! I have a lot of confidence in my ability to look like a circus showgirl. I’ve been practicing ever since my parents took me to Las Vegas when I was sixteen. We saw Sammy Davis, Jr., Gladys Knight and the Pips, Steve and Edie, and several hundred showgirls wearing nothing but feathers and sequins held together by dental floss.

Debbie and I shed our coats, brush our hair, re-apply our weather-worn fuchsia lipstick and do our best showgirl walks as we strut to the middle of the center ring.

I am wearing a white french-cut leotard and silver shoes.

“Robin,” whispers Deb, as we take our places in the line. “That leotard is completely see-through!” We stand there posing, grinning at the choreographer as he looks us up and down. After his gaze moves on to the girl on my right, I glance down at myself. Double drat. My nipples are standing at attention like twin lieutenants at a West Point parade. Merde. Who knew it would be so cold in the Big Top.

“You in the white! And you next to her in the blue,” shouts the choreographer. Debbie always wears blue because it makes her eyes stand out. My white outfit is having a similar effect, but not with my eyes, exactly. “Can you two dance?” he asks.

“Oh yes,” we say in unison. This is a big fat lie. Deb can dance a little; she’d been the star majorette at Ellwood City High School. But I am certainly not a dancer. My sister is the dancer. I am the piano player.

No you’re not, says VOD. You just think you’re a piano player.

“Yes,” I say again to the choreographer, “I’m a very good dancer.”

“Can you do a time step?” he asks.

“Yes! I can do a time step!” I say. I turn to Deb and whisper, “What’s a time step?”

“I can’t teach you that in 30 seconds, “ she says. “I barely know how to do one myself. Just move your arms around a lot and smile like crazy. In that outfit, they’ll never notice your feet.” She exits the ring to put on her tap shoes. I claim to have forgotten mine.

I notice a Channel Four camera crew setting up on one side of the ring.

Oh good—we’ll be on the news tonight!

“That’ll be a great story,” says Deb. “Nipple Day at Ringling Brothers.”

“Ah, come on, look, it’s not so bad now. I’m getting warmer. Maybe the lights are helping.”

I survive the time-step cut. I wave my arms around and smile and bounce and before I know it, I make it to the second round. So does Deb.

“And now for the ballet combination,” says the choreographer.

Oh come on.

You know, I honestly thought that all I would have to do for this job was ride an elephant or hang from a ring. I mean, no one goes to the circus to see a ballet. This choreographer fellow is going way overboard.

I stumble my way through the ballet combination without harming myself or anyone else. The final part of the audition is coming up. We’ll be required to do thirty chené turns across the ring, starting at one side and stopping when we get to the other. What is this, the Bolshoi? Sorry, but turning or spinning of any kind has never been one of my strong suits—I suffer from motion sickness, big time.

The assistant calls out the names of the girls who have made the third cut. I’m sure that I’ve failed the ballet combination and I’m already packing up my gear when I hear my name.

“Robin Meloy, you’re up second for the chené turns,” says the assistant. I look at Debbie for help, but she’s busy practicing, twirling and revolving and pirouetting like a crazed dancing doll in a jewelry box. I don’t want to rehearse—I’m afraid I’ll get too dizzy before I have to do the real thing. All around me girls in bright leotards and metallic shoes are spinning around, whipping their heads from side to side; whirling dervishes in high heels and lip gloss. I feel a little queasy. I stand perfectly still and try to focus on the horizon.

The camera crew positions itself on the far side of the ring, in the spot where we’re supposed to stop. The first girl jumps gracefully off the edge of the ring and spins her way, in a perfect line, to the far side. She stops suddenly, strikes a perfect “live at Caesar’s Palace” showgirl kind of pose, and ambles out of the center ring. I hope she’ll be trampled by one of the stampeding horses, but alas, she is spared.

“Miss Meloy, you’re on!” There is weird mazurka music playing—hoopa, shoopa, shoy, yoy, yoy! I have no idea if I’ll make it to the other side—I’ve never tried this many turns—but I figure I’ve got nothing to lose. I leap from the border of the ring and start spinning. I try to “spot” my turns, snapping my head back and forth to prevent dizziness, but I can tell, after seven or eight revolutions, that it isn’t helping.

You wouldn’t want to throw up, now would you? says VOD.

As I approach the other side of the ring, I remember the camera crew. Oh no! I am hopelessly out of control by now, reeling toward the Channel Four news people like an albino bat with nipples who has lost its sense of direction.

I trip on the camera tripod and lunge into a rotund cable man.

“Whoa, lassie!” he yells. Together, we tumble onto the dusty floor. Down, down, all the way down.

Everything is spinning around me, there’s a 250-pound union technician on top of me, electrical cable around my ankles and sawdust in my hair.

See? says VOD. I told you. You’re not even good enough for the goddamn circus.

The cable guy takes his time getting back on his feet, helps me up, and brushes the straw off my leotard, an activity he seems to enjoy.

Deb, though not perfect, manages to execute her turns without knocking over the news crew. The audition is over.

“Thank you, Ladies!” says the choreographer. “Those of you who have been chosen will be notified in four weeks! We will only be selecting eight showgirls this year, and we’ve been holding auditions in every major city in the United States of America. So don’t be sad if you don’t get in. You’ve got some very stiff competition!”

The cable guy laughs, a little too loudly.

“Thank you for coming to audition for the greatest show on earth!”

“Well, that’s that,” says Deb. “I really think we need to finish college anyway, don’t you? You know, interim semester in England and all of that. It would be a shame to toss it all aside to join the circus.”

“Yeah. And I don’t think I could deal with living on a train with all those animal smells.”

“And the costumes. They look pretty from far away, but I’ll bet up close they’re really cheesy.”

“And Lord only knows what they give you to eat. Slop or something.”

“Right. And they probably make you clean up the elephant crap when the show is over. And you know that horse lady with the whip is some kind of S&M freak who is really nasty to everybody.”

The choreographer walks past us.

“Excuse me, Sir!” I say. “I just want to tell you that we’ve had a fabulous time and that it would be a dream come true for us to work in the circus!”

“Oh yes,” says Deb, batting her big blue eyes. “A dream come true! If a genie popped out of a magic lantern and gave us three wishes, being in the circus would be the first one!”

“Why, thank you, girls! You’ll be hearing from us.”

***

Later that same afternoon, I go to play a piano job at LeMont, a half-tacky-half-fancy restaurant with a great view of Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle. The event, a public-relations spectacle for a fashion company, will be attended by a large crowd of glittering guests. I hustle into the restroom, wipe off my excess circus-showgirl-hooker makeup and brush the lacquer out of my hair. Whew. That feels nice. I change into the little black Audrey Hepburn dress I’d thrown into my circus bag earlier this morning. As I make my way to the piano, I hear the welcome sounds of conversation and laughter. I play my first notes, relieved that no one is paying much attention. Voice of Doom won’t find me here, I’m sure. I feel a tap on my shoulder.

“Hey there, lassie! You certainly do get around town, don’t you girl?”

It’s the cable guy I’d toppled at the circus audition. He’s at the restaurant to videotape the fashion event.

“You won’t be doin’ any dancin’ here, will ya? Let me know if you get the urge and I’ll see if I can track down a helmet.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry about that accident at the arena,” I say. “Don’t worry. I’m not at all dangerous while seated at the piano.”

The Channel Four news runs footage of me twice on the evening broadcast. In the first story, I’m spinning like a madwoman trying to get a job in the circus. In the second segment I’m sitting at the piano, perfectly content, playing “My Funny Valentine.”

I hardly recognize myself.

***

Four weeks later Debbie and I get letters welcoming us to the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, Red Company. On the top of the stationery is a chain of elephants, linked together trunk to tail. We are to report to circus camp in Florida for training two months later.

The job pays $175 a week, thirty-five of which I’ll have to pay back to them for weekly rent on the circus train. Circus food, or slop, is included in the rent. The contract covers a six-week probationary and training period, and then eighteen months on the road wearing scanty costumes—probably posing in a feather headpiece and a magenta sequined bikini while surrounded by lions, horses, and tiny people flying through the air with the greatest of ease. Predictably, my parents aren’t thrilled about me ditching my college education to join a highfalutin version of the carnival. Debbie says no to the circus without a second thought. It takes me a little longer to make up my mind. I turn down the offer. But at least I know I’m good enough.


Robin Meloy Goldsby is a Steinway Artist. She is the author of Piano Girl; Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl; and Rhythm: A Novel.  

New: Manhattan Road Trip, a collection of short stories about (what else?) musicians.

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Beach Song by
10
(19 Stories)

Prompted By The Beach

/ Stories

I love the ocean. The most musical of earth’s components, its pulse—rhythmic yet unpredictable—floods my soul with hope, quenches my desire for a wider perspective, and washes away the grit and grime of a landlocked life. In my fifty-seven years, I’ve spent time on beaches all over the world, not because I’m a Birkin-toting, stiletto-heeled jet setter with beach side chateaux in Malibu and St. Tropez, but because I’m the daughter of a musician, I’m married to a musician, and I’m a musician myself. Music, for most of my life, has provided me with prepaid tickets to the destinations of my dreams. Coastal concerts, harbor happenings, beach bashes, seaside shindigs—we’ve played for them all. Short of being the world’s oldest Baywatch lifeguard, I can’t think of any better way to finance my addiction to salt water and sand. Here are a few of my waterlogged memories.

1966: Miami Beach

By the end of my first summer, the subtle pulse of the waves syncs with my own rhythm. I am hooked. The sand shark never gets me.

My father plays drums in a Dixieland band for a Teamster convention in Florida. He takes us along for a two week vacation. I eat frogs’ legs at an outdoor luau at the Americana Hotel, with a picture of Jimmy Hoffa projected (eight stories high!) on a wall of the hotel. My dad’s band wears red and white striped shirts and straw hats. I like the tuba player.

“Who is this Jimmy Hoffa?” I ask my dad.

“He’s the boss,” says my dad. “He’s the reason we’re here.”

I become a big Jimmy Hoffa fan. After all, he got me to Miami. Frogs’ legs, it turns out, really do taste like chicken.

During the day I hang out on the beach with my brother and sister. Because we spend so much time underwater, my mother dresses us in matching neon tank suits so she can see our pert behinds on the surface of the bright blue sea. After two days of this, even my eyeballs are sunburned, and I have to go to dinner in the fancy hotel wearing eye patches. Fearful of looking like a pirate, I place my mother’s big black sunglasses over the patches—a Jackie Kennedy meets Bluebeard look that I’m sure will pass for Miami Beach-chic. I am temporarily blind and cannot enjoy the 4th of July fireworks that night. It doesn’t matter. All I care about is getting back into the water the next day. My sister and I play a game at water’s edge. We hold hands as the waves break over us, determined to cling to each other no matter what. We roll back and forth, as sand scrapes our private parts and salt stings our eyes. We laugh and hold on tight. A lifeguard yells at us for pretending we are drowning. We’re perfecting our synchronized swimming skills. Some might call it synchronized drowning. We’re having fun.

My father catches a fish while we’re flipping over each other in the water and throws it at us. It tangles in my hair. I develop Fear of Fish and will spend the next few decades terrified of underwater critters.

1.Beach

1969: Conneaut Lake

My father books a summer job in a resort area a few hours away from home. We spend three months in a lakeside cottage next to Conneaut Lake, a dark blue body of water in Western Pennsylvania. Not an ocean, but it might as well be. I live on a sand-covered pier, swimming back and forth to a raft anchored twenty meters away. Too many speedboats churn the water and rock the raft. My sister and I smear ourselves with baby-oil and iodine so we can tan faster. By August, I resemble a rotisserie chicken with strong triceps. My hair turns silver. I hope that Davy Gallagher, the bronze lifeguard who looks like Ivy League Tarzan, will notice me. He does not. But a boy named Timmy Catcher catches me. We dance around each other and play splash games in the lake. Despite rumors of snapping turtles I learn to water ski and get pretty good at it, except for one instance when my hair gets caught in a tow rope and I almost drown.

I worry about those snapping turtles.

In the evenings, I brush pier sand out of my hair and string tiny love beads into necklaces that no one will ever wear. Timmy Catcher kisses me. Just once.

 1976-1983: Nantucket Island

I arrive on Nantucket Island with a dozen suitcases, packed mostly with books and bikinis. I plan to be a waitress, but, two weeks before Memorial Day I land a job playing the piano in a bar. What a thing! I can spend the summer on a New England beach and get paid to play the piano. During the day, I bask in the sun on beaches called Madaket or Dionis or Nobadeer. As far as I’m concerned, any beach named by Indians is the real deal. At night I put on a glittery tube top and a long skirt and play Carole King songs. I’m wave-tossed, sun-kissed, and boy crazy. A swain named Joe steals my heart and teaches me how to surf fish. I am the only female member of the Kamikaze Water Ski Club, a Nantucket Yacht Club sub-group founded by the stoned teenage children of various Titans of Industry. I worry about sharks and other fish with large teeth. This motivates me to avoid falling when I’m water skiing. I perfect a one-ski beach landing after I spot a sand shark swimming too close to shore.

My favorite bikini is white.

I will return to Nantucket every summer for many years. The romance with Joe fades, but my love affair with the island hangs tight. The rhythm of the waves seems like an external heartbeat, nature’s metronome, an urgent throb that counterpoints human instinct.

By the end of my first summer, the subtle pulse of the waves syncs with my own rhythm. I am hooked. The sand shark never gets me.

Photo by Julia Goldsby

Sligo, Ireland: Photo by Julia Goldsby

1983: Haiti

I travel now and then to Haiti where I play the piano for upscale visitors to a fancy-pants hotel—I’m the featured entertainment in a Third World cocktail lounge. Baby Doc is still in office and the atmosphere feels tense, the resort air smug and sticky. When I’m lucky, I get a lift to Ibo Beach. The  road to Ibo is lined with potholes, rocks, scrambling chickens, and artists attempting to sell colorful paintings for a dollar or two. It makes me sad.

After an hour-long dusty ride in an old Cadillac, I take an African Queen boat to Ibo Island—a slice of sun-drenched wonder in a ravaged country, a place where I can stare at the sea and imagine I live in a fair world.

A jellyfish stings me and a Haitian woman treats the sting with vinegar and shaving cream. It burns, but not for long.

I eat too many mangoes.

Muscat, Oman Photo by Julia Goldsby

Muscat, Oman
Photo by Julia Goldsby

1984: Cat Cay, The Bahamas

I fly from my Third World gig to a private island populated by rich Republicans and wild turkeys. Between piano sessions at Bloody Mary brunches and Happy Happy Happy Hour whiskey tastings, I walk pristine beaches, stare at sparkling water and try to figure out who I am. I belong on a beach, but maybe not this one.

Photo by Julia Goldsby

Photo by Julia Goldsby

1991: Princeville, Kauai

After being fired from my seven-year piano engagement at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan (and replaced by a tuxedo-clad mannequin at a player piano), I fly to Hawaii with my husband, John. Kauai seems a little distant, but my sister has offered us a place to stay. I cash in my American Airlines frequent flyer miles (all those trips to Haiti) so we can fly for free.

The Kauai beaches, manicured but still rough around the edges, remind me of everything I’ve been missing. My husband and I slide down a steep hillside to visit Secret Beach, where huge boulders interrupt long stretches of white sand. We do secret things on Secret Beach. Then we almost kill ourselves climbing back up the hill.

I attempt to overcome my fear of snorkeling when I watch small children and old people frolic in shallow water, chattering about the colorful varmints swimming among us. I hate knowing there are living things in the water with me, but it’s time to overcome Fear of Fish and get with the program. I don a mask and flippers and force myself to enjoy the lovely residents of the sea as they glide past me.

I hate this. I do. Oh look. Electric blue, bright yellow, there’s one with stripes. Isn’t this fun? What if I see a stingray? Or a shark? Or, God forbid, an eel?

Something that looks like Karl Lagerfeld with gills drifts under my right hand.

Very nice. God, I hate this. Look there—a group of tiny orange fish with spikes. Are they following me? Do they bite? Are there Piranha in Hawaii?

While my rigid body tries to enjoy the underwater fin fashion show, a huge dog—I will find out later it’s a Great Dane named Junior—jumps into the surf and begins swimming towards me. When Junior swims into my line of vision, I panic, lose all sense of reason, and imagine I am being attacked by a Kauai Monster Dog Fish. I take one look at his large choppers and churning paws, and I’m sure I’m about to die one of those long, slow, Jaws kind of deaths, where my body flies into the air, the ocean’s froth turns bright red from carnage, and everybody screams and vomits. I forget how to swim and try to run out of the water on my flippers. Junior continues to have fun.

My husband and sister laugh for hours. I swear I will never snorkel again.

My sister makes a bra out of coconut shells and does a dance we call the “Big Butt Hula.”

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Tel Aviv: Photo by Ruben Bauer

1993: Montauk

John plays for an upscale summer party in Montauk, Long Island. We use his salary to finance a few days in a seedy hotel on the beach and hang out with our nine-month old baby, Curtis. Perched on a blanket, we encourage him to play in the sand. He hates sand. He throws it and cries and stays on the blanket. The only thing that soothes him is his father’s baritone version of “Blue Skies,” accompanied by me doing a stupid dance. We have buckets and shovels, but he’s not interested in toys. None of this sandcastle stuff for him. In an effort to get away from the beach, he learns to walk. One step, then two. Not running towards the water, but away from it. Clearly he does not take after my side of the family. Or maybe he already has Fear of Fish.

Montauk, Long Island

Montauk, Long Island

*****

We move to Europe in 1994. Our kids each learn to swim at an early age and, in spite of our son’s dislike of sand, we take occasional seaside holidays whenever we can afford it, or whenever someone pays us to go. We scald our feet traversing the dunes of Grand Canaria, and teach the kids how to body surf in the freezing North Sea on the Belgian coast. We encourage them not to stare at topless sunbathers on the Cote D’Azur, and to wear sturdy swim shoes when navigating the rocky shores of Cornwall. Carrying on with the Goldsby-Rawsthorne-Meloy tradition of “singing for our supper,” the kids have visited some of the world’s most impressive beaches while taking part in educational trips, volunteer opportunities, or music exchange groups. They’ve walked on beaches I’ve never seen, beaches that belong in their memories, not mine.

Slathered in sunscreen and decades past my best bikini years, I remember sitting on the sand and watching my kids when they were little, holding hands and leaping through the surf into deeper and deeper water. I remember the game I once played with my sister. Never let go, no matter what.

Respect the water, dive under the waves, and when you’re older, wiser, and more tired than you want to be, remember there’s magic at the beach. Fall in love a few times. Get a suntan. Feel the salt in your eyes. Encounter a Dog Fish. You might avoid the frogs’ legs buffet, but by all means, do secret things on a stretch of sand where the roar of the water is louder than your own voice.

“Get to the beach,” I tell them. “As often as you can.”

IMG_20150427_122634

Mykonos: Photo by Stacey Papaioannou and Julia Goldsby

*****

Robin Meloy Goldsby is a Steinway Artist. She is the author of Piano Girl; Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl; and Rhythm: A Novel.  

New: Manhattan Road Trip, a collection of short stories about (what else?) musicians.

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The Notes That Got Away by
10
(19 Stories)

Prompted By Father's Day

/ Stories

My father, drummer Bob Rawsthorne, age 82, still hitting the drums.

“See that Burger King? I played there once, before it was a Burger King.”

In just one trip to the Giant Eagle grocery store I hear about a drunken host with a mynah bird that spewed racial insults, a greedy nightclub owner with a drawer full of stolen watches, and a girl singer with balloon boobs who would always blank out when trying to remember the words to "Accentuate the Positive."

I’m in the car with my musician father and he’s pointing out places where he used to perform. “The Burger King used to be a Moose Club. Before it was a Moose Club it was a Masonic Lodge. I played there, too. And down the highway, over by the Southland Shopping Mall? That used to be the Ankara. Big night club. Six nights a week, live music, different acts all the time. I was in the house band in the sixties. Mr. Cenemie was the manager. Called him Mr. Centipede. He hated me. I’m telling you, beautiful dancers from the Philippines in that place. Made no sense since it was called the Ankara, but whatever. And up on the hill? That nursing home? I played there for about two years, when it was still a hotel. They had great shrimp cocktail.”

“Was that the place with the singer of small stature and the Desi Arnaz look-alike?” I ask.

“What? The singing dwarf? No, that place was across from the nursing home. And the dwarf worked with the stripper, not with Desi. The Desi impersonator usually worked with the ice skater, but sometimes with a ventriloquist.”

“Wait, the nightclub had an ice skating rink?”

“Back in the day they spared no expense.”

“Jesus.”

“I worked for him, too. That Catholic Church over by Wendy’s? Al Dilernia was extremely popular at that church. I used to play with his band for church events. The priest liked jazz. Al used to listen to Pirate games on his transistor radio during prayers. He once yelled ‘Goddamnit, you assholes’ during the blessing when the Cleveland Indians hit a homerun. He usually had spaghetti stains on his shirt.”

“I remember Al,” I say. “And the spaghetti sauce. He tried to kiss me on the lips once when I was, like, sixteen.”

“Which Dilernia was that? Albert or Alfred? There were two brothers, both named Al. Both great players. Both liked spaghetti. Either one would have tried to kiss you.”

“The guitar player.”

“That would be Al. I always said they should start a band with Edmond and Edward Manganelli. Al and Al and Ed and Ed.”

Driving anywhere in the greater Pittsburgh area with my dad, eighty-two year old drummer Bob Rawsthorne, means listening to dozens of stories pulled from over six decades of gigs in vanished venues. We can hardly cross a strip-malled intersection without him pointing at a corner and blurting out a tale that involves skullduggery, musical madness, or management idiocy.

“Ah, there’s the VFW, Post 5111,” Dad says as we drive on Pittsburgh’s Mt. Washington. “I hated playing there. Rotten piano. Rotten manager—that guy actually snapped off the TV during the moon landing. We had taken a break to watch it. The damn moon landing! ‘I ain’t payin’ you guys to watch television,’ he said. I’ll never forget the bartender’s reaction. He went outside and looked up at the stars, hoping to see Neil Armstrong live. Sad. So sad.”

In just one trip to the Giant Eagle grocery store I hear about a drunken host with a mynah bird that spewed racial insults, a greedy nightclub owner with a drawer full of stolen watches, and a girl singer with balloon boobs who would always blank out when trying to remember the words to “Accentuate the Positive.” Dad’s stream-of-consciousness tales of smoky nightclubs, Burlesque palaces, concert halls, and after-hours dives would make one think the live music culture of the sixties and seventies offered a non-stop, sophisticated—and often silly—soundtrack to our unencumbered, simple lives. Maybe it did.

“I used to work there! And there, too. I think I played across the street too, but it looks different now with the Tiki-Tiki torch on the outside. Sometimes I get inside a joint I think I’ve never been in before and I see something that triggers my memory—and, bam!—I remember a gig I thought I had forgotten. Nice.”

***

My father was, and is, an accomplished musician, a big fish in Pittsburgh’s smallish pond of high-quality players. He stayed in Pittsburgh because the city’s many nightlife outlets once rewarded good musicians with plenty of work. For most of his career he stayed busy. Crazy busy.

We’ve often talked about the roller coaster lives of working musicians—the way a five-star gig on Tuesday turns into a dumpster-dive engagement on Wednesday. Here’s an actual conversation from 1986:

“Hey, Robin, guess where I’m playing this week? The White House.”

“Great, Dad. Is that the new restaurant in Bloomfield?”

“No, man.” (Jazz musicians often call their wives and daughters “man,” which manages to be slightly insulting and endearing all at once). “No, no, man. The White House. Like where President Reagan lives. I’m going with the Johnny Costa Trio from the Mister Rogers show to play for Nancy Reagan. Dig that.”

He went. The trio played “Nancy with the Laughing Face,” but the First Lady didn’t recognize it. A little jazz goes a long way—I guess Costa didn’t hammer out the melody enough. The next night Dad was back in town, playing for a drunken sing-a-long at the Swissvale Moose Club.

The day after that, he returned to the television studio. Dad held on to that Mister Rogers gig for over thirty years.

My father also had a thirteen-year steady engagement in a popular pizza and beer joint called Bimbo’s, a warehouse-sized restaurant that catered to gaggles of fun-loving folks celebrating life with oily pepperoni slices and mugs of watery swill. “Don’t eat there on an empty stomach,” he used to tell us. Dangerous food, fun music—an unbeatable combination. Dad also subbed occasionally in the percussion sections of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Opera, and Ballet orchestras, often racing from the beer hall to the concert stage and back in one evening.

Bob Rawsthorne has played a lot of notes in his life. “You know how many times I have to hit those drums to pay for a semester of college?” he used to ask me.

Now that I have my own college-age kids, I can guess it was quite a few.

Dad recounts an endless number of stories in locations that ranged from seedy to suave. Remember the time the chimpanzee in the Burlesque show slapped Red French (the pit drummer) on the forehead and left a palm-shaped welt that took days to fade? I listen and try to catalog and edit his words for my selfish, writerly purposes. But the dime store philosopher in me—the halfway serious woman who occasionally questions the meaning of a life in the arts—starts to wonder about the music itself.

Where did all the notes go? Where does the magic of any live performance go? Perhaps that’s the attraction of real, live music—that it fleets and falls exactly where it’s welcomed or needed—in a dancer’s happy feet, in the heavy heart of a jilted woman, in the romantic soul of an aging poet, in the noisy mind of a student hoping to restore order to a chaotic life.

Or maybe the notes land on the beer hall floor, and that’s that.

Talking around the music feels easier than talking about the music itself. To do that a player must talk about musical technique. Or beauty. Or love. And that gets personal. So instead, musicians like my father reminisce about nasty nightclub owners or foolish F&B managers or knackered brides who insisted on singing “Summertime” in a key that was way too high. Or a drummer with a chimp paw print on his forehead. Or the White House, man.

After four decades in the music business, I have my own stories, my own list of vanishing venues and lost gigs, my own kind-of-funny, slightly sad narratives that prove I am part of an era that seems to be slipping away. Where have all the notes gone? I played here, I played there. Does live music fill the world with light and optimism? I don’t know for sure. But I don’t think anyone would argue that we’re better off without it.

Today we’re in Cranberry Township, near Pittsburgh. As my father’s drummer-friendly SUV reaches the top of a rise and descends into the valley, we pass an Olive Garden, a Starbuck’s, a Wal-Mart, and a KFC. At the bottom of the hill is a scrappy field, the last vacant lot on a congested strip of potholed concrete. Grass grows. Wild flowers stretch their faded heads toward the blazing sky.

“There!” my father says, pointing to the empty lot. “I played there once. On that very corner.”

“Nothing there now,” I say.

“No. But there used to be,” he says. “I’m telling you, man, there used to be.”

***

Robin Meloy Goldsby is a Steinway Artist. She is the author of Piano Girl; Waltz of the Asparagus People: The Further Adventures of Piano Girl; and Rhythm: A Novel.  

New: Manhattan Road Trip, a collection of short stories about (what else?) musicians. Go here to buy Manhattan Road Trip!

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