Superlatives, "Chapter One"

“Honey? I'm home!” Finn shouts into the empty hallway. His voice drifts up the stairs and winds through the rooms and seems to find its way back to him moments later, shrugging its shoulders as if to say “Sorry, no one here.” He smiles, amused with himself, and drops his backpack to the ground, letting the front door swing shut with a thump and a click behind him. Walking into the kitchen, a small room furnished with only the essential in culinary appliances, Finn heads toward the refrigerator. Having skipped both breakfast and lunch due to a lack of appetite, his stomach was twisting and gurgling in complaint. 1

Finn pulls a yogurt container from the fridge and leans against the counter to eat it. His gaze slides over the dark wood cabinets and the small table with only two chairs, staring into space. A post-it note stuck to the island counter catches his eye and he picks it up. It reads: “Finn, hope your day was alright. Don't forget I'll be home at 6 tonight to pick you up for the audition!” His stepfather's name - Matthew - is scribbled at the bottom. A shiver of anxiety passes through Finn's stomach at the thought, but he quickly pushes it away. The audition is Matthew's idea; Finn has no personal investment in it, and therefore has no reason to be nervous. 2

Finn eats his yogurt slowly, skimming small bites off the top of the spoon and swirling the taste around his mouth with his tongue, prolonging the moment when the plastic container will be empty and he'll have to face the empty afternoon. Finally he licks the last remnants of yogurt from the spoon, his tongue leaving streaky tracks behind on the stainless steel. With a sigh he deposits the spoon in the sink without washing it, and throws the yogurt container away. 3

This is the moment in the day that Finn dreads. The organized bustle of school – a relief in its structured busyness, though admittedly inane – is over, and there are no demands on Finn's time until Matthew comes home, which, despite his efforts to make it home in time for dinner, usually only occurs before nine o'clock once or twice a week. With his sister away at college in New York, Finn is alone in the house, and the silence is uninterrupted by neither the tossing and turning of a washing machine, nor the fidgeting sounds of a pet scratching, sleeping, or eating, or even the ticking of a clock. The house was perfectly still. The house was lonely.4

Finn had two options now. He could either do the responsible thing and retrieve his school bag from where he dropped it by the front door when he came in, to give his attention to his incomplete homework, or he could find something else to distract him from his shirked responsibilities. Without a destination or purpose in mind, he wanders from the kitchen into the adjoining living room, where the focal point is a sleek black grand piano, the single most expensive furnishing of the Cooper home. 5

Finn pauses in the arched doorframe between the two rooms and gazes at the piano with the pensive inscrutability peculiar to grey-eyed individuals. From the perspective of his intrepid height of nearly six feet, the piano was auspicious – posing, gleaming and elegant, not as an opponent, but as a talented duet partner. There could be nothing in that to offend, and it was not the piano itself that bothered Finn. It was, rather, the implications of the piano and its presence in both the room and in Finn's life that Finn found offensive. The expectations bouncing and reflecting off the piano's shiny surface eagerly sought Finn out, and he avoided them at all costs whenever Matthew was around to witness the phenomenon. When he was alone, however, he found himself softening towards the piano, succumbing to its allure. It really was a beautiful instrument, and Finn of all people could appreciate its more subtle achievements...6

He passed through the threshold into the room with one step, and made his way over the piano, sitting down on the bench and carefully arranging the balance of his legs, arms, and fingers with the instrument. With no sheets of music before him, and without engaging any melodies in his memory, he began to play. Not to practice for the audition Matthew had arranged for him, but for himself. His fingers flowed across and caressed the keys with the thoughtless grace of the fingers of two lovers intertwining. He closed his eyes and let the music flow from the pregnant corner of his soul that was always eager to unburden its sadness and elation onto the pliable keys of the piano. The music bubbled in the belly of the piano and floated in resonating clouds of sound into the room, slipping through his ears and massaging the tired, achy spots in his mind. 7

Finn started playing the piano when he was eight, after a trip to his grandmother's house. Bored with the exhaustive chatter of adults, he'd slipped off the couch where he'd been sitting tucked under his mother's arm and wandered into a back room of the house. Furnished with several large, overflowing bookcases and a couple weary armchairs, the room held a point of charmed fascination for eight-year-old Finn: a piano. The piano was a simple instrument, nothing like the audacious grand gracing his current living room, but in his young and uneducated eyes it was a concert Yamaha. It was as if cupid had slung an arrow through his young heart; from that moment on he and the piano were enveloped in a tumultuous, ongoing love affair. His parents, intrigued by the purring sounds of the piano keys beneath surprisingly nimble and talented young fingers drifting from the back room, found him performing uncharted melodies with an enchanted and single-minded focus. 8

His parents, thrilled by the sudden manifestation of their son's amazing talent and determined that he should be a modern Beethoven, made calls to potential teachers in the car on the way home and ensured that he spent two nights a week in lessons from that moment on. The lessons initially embittered him towards the instrument, because he hated the structured process of plodding through scales and arpeggios; he simply wanted to be left to his own devices with the instrument, to play whatever melodies flowed from his heart out though his fingers, without regard for the – as he saw them – constraints of technique and form. As he grew older and mastered the “basics,” he began to grudgingly concede to the genius of the great composers and fell in love with the complicated patterns of dots and lines that were the compositions of his favorite artists – Haydn, Bach, and Chopin. He spent countless hours making love with the piano – to the point of neglecting his academic studies, which had never held much interest or importance to him anyways. His parents didn't make much of a fuss about it either, because they were so dazzled by the miracle of their son's talent and felt that his promise lay there – in music – rather than in academics anyways.9

But then, when he was twelve, his mother left unexpectedly, and things changed. He quit piano lessons, his eyes lost their childlike glow, and he spent more time alone in his room than he did anywhere else. He entered his teenage years with disillusionment and detachment weighing heavily on his heart, the rival of any sixteen year old cynic.10

Now, sitting on the cushioned bench at the grand piano, Finn's fingers stilled and his eyes, which had drifted open at some point during the melody, were vacant and focused on something within him rather than something in the tangible world. Then he blinked and shook his head slightly, pushing back from the piano and standing up.11

Passing though the kitchen on his was to retrieve his schoolwork from the front hall, he noticed the illuminated digital clock on the oven blinking 5:00 in its broken, green light. With silence reigning again now that the ephemeral notes of the piano music had soaked surely into the walls, Finn walked into his room with resignation, making more noise than necessary with each step on the wood floors, and slamming the door behind him with a practiced petulance that went unnoticed by the empty house. 12

He set his backpack down on the dark blue comforter covering his unmade bed, pulling out a couple of notebooks and a textbook, and crossed the small room to sit down heavily at his desk. The room was not exactly light or airy; the only light came from a small overhead sconce and a single window above his desk, and the dark blue walls – crowded with dozens of posters, pages ripped from magazines, and photocopies of sheet music – did not contribute much to lightening the atmosphere of the room. Already small-scaled, the room felt further cramped by the clutter of clothes strewn haphazardly, the racks of CD's, and the saturated bookshelves lining nearly every open space against the walls. With a sigh and a hand pressed against his temple, propping up the weight of his heavy mind, Finn opened the textbook and began to make sense of the complex puzzle of eleventh grade mathematics. 13

“Finn?” His stepfather's shout was muffled by the flight of stairs and several walls that stood between them. “Finn? Can you come downstairs?” Finn dropped his pencil and followed the sound of Matthew's voice which, from the sound of it, was heading towards the kitchen. “I stopped at Bagel Deli,” Matthew continued, his voice getting louder the close Finn got to the kitchen, “and got you one of those salami bagel sandwiches you like so much.” He was being bribed, Finn realized. He was being bribed to be pleasant about this audition tonight.14

“You didn't have to do that.” He told Matthew as he stepped into the kitchen.15

“I know” said Matthew, resting his hands on the countertop and appraising Finn, “but I wanted to. You need to be properly fed to be fueled for tonight.” Finn rolled his eyes and sat down at the kitchen table in front of the multi-layered bagel concoction. Bribe or no bribe, Finn loved salami bagel-sandwiches. He bit a large mouthful off of it, letting the condiments ooze across his cheeks and slip out from between the two round slices of bagel, knowing the sight would be disgusting but more concerned about filling his mouth the with flavorful delight than about appearances or manners. When it came to bagel sandwiches, he was easily bought. The only time he'd ever found a better bagel sandwich than the ones from Bagel Deli was when he'd visited his sister in New York, the bagel capital of the United States (and probably the entire world, considering that Finn was pretty sure that bagels were something of a rarity anywhere else).16

Matthew looked at his watch. “We have to leave in 15 minutes or else we won't make it with rush hour traffic, ok? So eat fast. I'm going to go change.”17

“Yeah, ok.” Finn finished his sandwich in a few more large bites, fetched his trademark leather jacket and beat-up black chucks from the hall closet, and went to wait in the car outside. Matthew joined him a few minutes, wearing a casual but nice outfit of khakis and a button-up.18

“That's what you're wearing?” He asked Finn, buckling his seat belt and starting the ignition.19

“Yeah. So? This was your idea, not mine” replied Finn defensively.20

Matthew sighed. “Finn, this school is nationally renowned, and you've impressed them enough already to even have gotten this audition. You might have made an effort.”21

“I'm coming to this audition – which you signed me up for – without fighting you about it, and I don't have any black-eyes or facial piercings. What more effort do you want? A suit? A tie? Hair gel? What would make me presentable enough for the oh-so renowned Chicago Academy for the Arts, huh? It's not like I'm going to get in, anyways. I don't have anything prepared, and I haven't had a lesson in years.”22

“Come on, Finn. As if you've ever needed someone else's compositions to impress people on the piano. If you play like I've heard you do, they'll accept you on the spot. Even if you did have a black-eye. Even if you had two. And seven eyebrow piercings.”23

“Yeah, right.” Finn stared intentionally out the window. Except for the quiet strain of music trickling from the radio, it was silent in the car for a few minutes until Matthew merged onto the highway.24

“So, how was school?”25

“A waste of time.” Finn replied noncommittally. “I'm taking Kylie Fisher out on Saturday.” He added after a moment. 26

Matthew turned his head to give Finn a brief look before turning back to the road. “I thought you were seeing that other girl. Alexa?”27

“I wasn't seeing her. We went out a couple of times.”28

“Yeah? And is that how she felt about it as well?” Finn frowned and didn't reply. “Aha” mused Matthew, knowingly.29

“She'll get over it. Girls get too worked up over a couple of dates.”30

“If you say so.” Finn narrowed his eyes at his stepfather, then turned back to the window, just as they were pulling up to the school.31

The Chicago Academy for the Arts was an impressive brick building, brown with age and a survivor of a different era of the city. Finn's bitterness towards the school subsided slightly at seeing the exterior, though he didn't say anything outloud that might give Matthew the wrong impression. They emerged from the car into the biting and infamous wind of Chicago winter, crossed the street, and entered the tall double-doors that were the front entrance of the school. 32

“He's here for an application audition” said Matthew to the secretary inside, gesturing towards Finn.33

The woman smiled and nodded in Finn's direction. “Lovely. Just take a left out of the office here, and the stairs are at the end of the hall. You'll want to go up to level three.”34

The halls were grand and old-fashioned, refreshingly distinctive in comparison to the generic linoleum paved hallways of the public school Finn had been walking for the past three years. Finn found, in spite of himself, that he preferred this somewhat darker atmosphere of intellect and character to the loud and forced enthusiasm particular to public schools. 35

The third floor was lined with identical classrooms, but it was clear by the warbling of a clarinet emanating from the second door on the left which room they were meant to approach. They waited until the music stopped, and a couple minutes more until a stylishly dressed girl emerged clutching a clarinet case, before Finn followed his stepfather into the room. 36

The room contained only a music stand, a stool, and a table behind which sat a man and a woman, scribbling furiously what Finn guessed were notes on the previous audition and whispering to one another. After a moment, the woman set down her pen and looked up. Her companion continued to write. Glancing expectantly from Finn to Matthew, she said simply, “Hello.”37

“Er, hello” replied Finn, when it became clear that Matthew was not going to do the talking for him. “I'm Finn. Finn Cooper?” She picked up the stack of papers she'd been scribbling on a moment before and shuffled through them, mouthing “Cooper... Cooper...” Finn half-hoped she wouldn't find his name, and would tell him she's so sorry for his trouble, but there's been a mistake...38

“Ah, yes.” She said at last. “Finn, of course.” She smiled at him, then looked at the man next to her. “Greg, you almost finished?”39

“Yes, just a moment... and, yes. Ok.” The man put down his pen and craned his neck to look over the woman's shoulder at Finn's paper. “Piano player? We'll have to move to the auditorium for that. Unless you've got a portable piano?” Finn gave him a skeptical look, and he laughed. “Only joking, of course.” The two of them rose from their table and came over to where Finn and Matthew were standing just inside the door. There was a round of handshaking then, and they introduced themselves as Ms. Nash and Mr. Williams, the directors of admission. Ms. Nash looked about twenty-eight – certainly no more than thirty – years old, and Mr. Williams looked to be about ten years her senior. Her coarse brown hair was pulled into a messy bun at the nape of her neck and her magenta, lipsticked lips were spread in a friendly smile. Mr. Williams was disheveled, with a burgeoning pot belly and a newly receding hairline.40

“So, if you'll follow us?” Ms. Nash led the way out the door and back down the flights of stairs to the auditorium. 41

As they passed by the office again the secretary waved and Matthew said “Finn, I'll wait here 'til you're done, if that's alright.” Finn nodded in acknowledgment.42

The auditorium was dark when they entered. Mr. Williams ran off to get the lights and Finn followed Ms. Nash blindly toward the stage. The lights, when they came on, caused red spots to bloom inside Finn's eyelids at their abrupt and violent contrast to the dark. As his vision cleared, his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open before he could remember to disguise his emotions. On the stage posed the most beautiful piano he'd ever seen. In comparison to the instrument he'd been playing that afternoon at home it hardly seemed adequate to call this work of art by the same name. It was a glorious, full-scale concert piano, glossy and as impenetrably black as midnight. Finn walked up to it as if in a trance. His heart beat heavily in his chest in adoration and his cheeks flushed as he circled the instrument, admiring its every surface. When he came full-circle, back to the keyboard, he finally remembered he wasn't alone in the room and looked up at his two companions. They were watching him with amused expressions.43

“This... is what I'm to play on?”44

“Yep. Quite an instrument, isn't it?” replied Mr. Williams.45

“Yeah... quite an instrument” Finn echoed, at a loss for words.46

“Why don't you situate yourself there, and we'll just have a seat here in the front row. You can play some scales, or whatever you need to do to warm up. Just tell us when you're ready.” 47

Finn nodded and sat down on the piano bench. His hands hovered above the pristine keys; he was almost afraid to touch such an exquisite instrument, as if his hands could mar the quality of the instrument just by their inadequacy. His fingers arranged themselves in the pattern of his favorite chord, and he pressed down on the keys. He was startled by the full-bodied and pure note that resonated throughout the auditorium, ringing with sweet perfection. He glanced at his audience in amazement. They nodded encouragingly. He pressed again. And again, playing a few chords before stopping this time.48

“Ok. I'm ready.”49

“Excellent. We'll start by listening to whatever you've prepared for us. What piece will you be playing?” inquired Ms. Nash.50

Finn fidgeted. “Well, it doesn't exactly have a name... per se.”51

“An original composition, then?”52

“Yeah” Finn agreed in relief. “An original composition, exactly.”53

“Let's hear it then.” Ms. Nash nodded expectantly. Finn turned back to the piano. Again his fingers hovered over the keys, though this time it wasn't out of hesitancy to touch the piano but rather him waiting for inspiration to grip him, but nothing was surfacing. Nerves bloomed in the pit of his stomach. He closed his eyes and tried to prod that corner within him in which music was usually bottled up, waiting for him to release it. He played a chord experimentally, hoping more would follow. The chord crescendoed, echoing throughout the room, then faded and died. The beginnings of panic tingled in Finn's fingers; he opened his eyes and snuck a concerned glance at his audience. They were regarding him with patient expectation. He closed his eyes again and took a deep breath, pushing from his mind everything but himself and the exquisite instrument he was coupling with. His fingers twitched above the keys, and, ready now, he lowered them, letting them flow across the keys uninhibited. Melodies and harmonies rose measure after measure out of the musical cavity in his chest, through his fingers, and exploded from the piano itself in a glorious symphony.54

At last, when he was finished, Finn sat for a moment, his ears ringing in the sudden silence, before turning to his audience. Expecting pens scribbling and heads bowed, Finn was surprised to find Mr. Williams and Ms. Nash sitting, pens still, staring at him. Finn could read nothing in their expressions of how his performance was received.55

“That was.... impressive, Mr. Cooper,” said Mr. Williams at last. “Thank you. If you could just run through the minor scales for us? And then we'll have you fill out a short written examination and you'll be free to go.”56

“So how did it go?” asked Matthew, as they were walking to the car twenty minutes later. 57

During the written examination Finn had composed himself; he was no longer visibly smitten or awed by what he'd just experienced, and was therefore able to return to his customary and comfortable air of apathy. Hope was a dangerous emotion. Hope meant disappointment, and Finn had had enough of disappointment. “I don't know. Fine, I guess,” he said. “My improv piece was kind of shit, though.”58

“I doubt it.”59

“Whatever. The judges didn't even seem that impressed that I wasn't playing from a composition. They were just like 'Oh? An original composition? How unique.'” Finn's voice was cruel with sarcasm, and he shook his head. The truth was, Finn really was displeased with his performance. Even when he'd finally gotten started, the piece wasn't up to his usual caliber. And his judges hadn't given him any signs of encouragement, or the slightest assurance that he might have impressed them slightly. In a sudden rush, embarrassment welled up behind Finn's eyes and his cheeks flushed, blotchy and red on his pale skin, with the effort of holding back tears. He clenched his fists in anger over falling apart so easily over an audition he didn't even want. 60

“Finn? You ok?” Matthew's voice was concerned, and the care grated against Finn like a piece of sandpaper, exacerbating his stinging mood further.61

“I'm fine,” he spit, hoarse, pointedly not looking at his stepfather and doing his best to hide his eyes. “Let's just get home.”62

At home, Finn raced ahead of Matthew into the house, taking the stairs two at a time with his long legs. He spilled into his room in an agitated desperation, grabbed his iPod and, securing his headphones over his ears, lay on his back on the bed, starring blankly up at the ceiling while translucent grey tears slipped in a silent and unrestrained stream down his face. He didn't actually have the music turned on, but when Matthew called his name he pretended not to hear. A sob sucked at the inside of his throat and he gagged with the effort of holding it in, wailing silently into the palm of his hand. 63

This sort of episode was not unprecedented. Sadness was a storm that wreaked its havoc on Finn on a weekly, if not daily, basis. It would sweep into his chest with no warning, at the slightest provocation, with a gust of Chicago-force wind. It invaded his lungs and his blood, saturating his whole body. Within minutes he was incapacitated by it, only able to let it tear through his body, the rain pouring from his eyes, the lightning seizing in his heart, and the thunder ripping from his throat. And afterwards he was left damp and exhausted by the sheer fury of the storm, with no energy to do more than relax into the current of his days. He drifted along in a carefully balanced state of practiced apathy, a superficial protection to keep the storm at bay as long as he could, all the while aware that the sun had not found a weak point in the cloud coverage and was still hidden by their grey mass. 64

Finally the downpour trickled off into periodic hiccoughs of woe, and Finn slipped with relief into the soft nothingness of sleep.65