Her Husband's Favorite Guest novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Hands That Wrote It

At the empty festival stage, the headliner hears Lydia play and names the stretch in the bridge that Brandon cannot reach.

The festival grounds were empty on Thursday morning, except for the crew pulling cable across the grass.

I had not slept, and I had not told Brandon where I was going.

I told him I had a doctor's appointment, which was true, just not for another hour.

Margo Penhallow stood at the side of the main stage with a clipboard and her reading glasses on a cord.

She taught me piano from the age of nine until I left for college, and she ran the Lantern Fields Festival now.

"You look terrible," she said, and hugged me anyway.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Your husband's people called me twice this week about the program. Do you want to tell me why?"

"They put Piper's name on my part."

Margo's face went still.

"I was hoping that was a typo," she said.

"It isn't. Margo, is there any way to see the piano? Just for ten minutes."

She looked at me for a long moment.

Then she pointed her clipboard at the stage. "It's tuned. The headliner's soundcheck is at noon, so you have until then."

I climbed the steps.

The grand piano sat alone in the middle of the stage, with its lid up and nothing behind it but empty rows of grass.

I sat down and put my hands on the keys, and my shoulders came down for the first time since Wednesday.

I started with scales, and then I played the first verse of "Basement Light" softly, the way I wrote it.

When I reached the bridge, I played the stretch the way I had always played it, with my thumb on the low note and my little finger reaching a full tenth above it.

My hands were long.

That was the only reason I could do it.

Someone behind me said, "That's the part."

I stopped.

A man stood at the foot of the stage steps with a guitar case in one hand and a paper cup in the other.

He was tall and about my age or a few years older, with dark hair gone grey at the temples and a denim jacket worn white at the cuffs.

I knew his face from the posters.

Gideon Ashe, the headliner.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I heard it from the parking lot and walked over like an idiot."

"It's fine. I'm just using the piano."

"You can use it as long as you want." He came up two steps and stopped. "That bridge. You hold the tenth."

"Yes."

"Brandon Keats doesn't."

I kept my face still. "Brandon plays it however he plays it."

"He plays it a step down, and he rolls the interval instead of holding it. I've watched him do it four times this year." He set his cup on the amp. "I always figured whoever wrote it couldn't have played it that way themselves. It's too wide for a normal hand."

I looked at my hands on the keys.

I thought of Brandon at the dining table, trying the stretch with his thumb and little finger, laughing, giving up.

"Brandon wrote it," I said.

"Maybe." Gideon looked at me, and it was not unkind. "But the song's got a woman's hand in it. Left hand, low, patient. The right hand does the work and doesn't ask for credit."

My throat tightened.

"I think you wrote it," he said. "I think you've been playing it for years, and he's been playing the cover."

I did not answer.

I could not.

Behind him, the crew had stopped to watch, and Margo stood at the edge of the stage with her clipboard against her chest.

She did not say anything either.

"Whoever you are," Gideon said, "you shouldn't be sitting alone at the piano on a Thursday morning, playing it like it's a secret."

"I'm not anyone," I said.

"That is a hard thing to believe." He picked up his guitar case. "I'm on at noon. Stay for it."

Then he walked off toward the green room tent, and the crew went back to their cables.

I played the bridge once more, slowly, with the full stretch.

It sounded the way it was supposed to.

Margo came up beside the bench and set a bottle of water on the lid.

"I've been teaching long enough to know when someone's lying about their own hands," she said. "Tell me everything. Start with the cousin."

My phone buzzed against the wood.

It was Brandon.

The message said: Where are you? Piper's in the car. We're coming to the grounds. Don't make this weird.

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