Part 4 (1/2)

Hallie looked at me. Which was quite something to behold. Her dark eyes rarely landed on a single location for any amount of time.

Mrs. Edwards, whose face had turned a funny shade of pink, said, ”Hallie should understand that everything she gets is icing on the cake. She should show some grat.i.tude.”

I looked at Hallie. ”Are you grateful for your music lessons?”

Hallie shrugged, looked away from me again, as if I were the enemy.

”You see?” Mrs. Edwards asked me.

”Please wait downstairs,” I told her.

And Mrs. Edwards left.

Hallie was left standing there, holding her violin case. She was staring a hole in the worn-out carpet, which couldn't really use any more holes.

I told her to take out her instrument, and she did. She stood there while I tuned it, then checked the rosin on the bow. Everything was in order.

I said, ”This instrument holds its tune very well.”

Which was unusual, I didn't add, for an instrument of such poor quality.

Hallie said, ”Yeah, I keep it tuned.”

”What do you mean?”

She shrugged. ”I tune it.”

I wasn't sure how to respond. I had not taught her how to tune the instrument for a few reasons. One is that it is extremely difficult to tune a violin. If you don't know what you're doing, you will break a string. A violin string is expensive- nine bucks a pop-so I don't encourage my kids to try this until their parents (or whoever is paying for the lessons) are firmly committed.

The other is that unless you have an electronic tuner, a tuning fork, or another tuned instrument at hand, you simply can't do it. Unless you have a perfect ear. Perfect pitch. Something like 2 percent of the population has that. I have relative pitch, the next best thing, but I don't tell anyone. It makes people crazy. It's like telling someone you can see the future.

And so when Hallie said that, I knew she was 2 percent of the population, and I knew it was a secret she had been keeping, to ensure her own survival.

”Sit down, Hallie,” I said.

She sat. She turned her ankles on their sides as she looked at me.

”Close your eyes,” I said.

She blinked at me. Her eyebrow ring glinted in the light.

”Why? That's weird.”

”Just indulge me,” I said.

She closed her eyes.

I played the open-string D.

”What note is that?” I asked.

She hesitated, her eyes still closed. ”How do I know?”

”Just guess,” I said.

”Play it again,” she requested.

I did.

Without opening her eyes, she said, ”D.”

I tried it again all over the scale, notes out of order. She got them all right. I told her to open her eyes. She might have noticed that the color had drained from my face.

I said, ”How did you know that?”

She shrugged. ”I read it in a book.”

”Read what in a book?”

She said, ”What the notes are.”

”Yes, but how do you hear them out of relation?”

She grew agitated, started chewing on a hangnail. She wouldn't answer.

So I said, ”How do you know it, just by hearing it?”

She sighed, let her hands drop to her lap. ”I hear stuff, all right?”

”What stuff?” I asked.

She looked me in the eye, and it was scary. There was something about her gaze that threatened to expose everything. I didn't look away, but I could imagine why most people did.

She said, ”There's this department store my mother used to take me to, when I was little. It made me crazy. It made my head hurt. Because I could hear this high buzzing sound. I asked her what it was. She couldn't hear anything. But I just kept bugging her about it till she asked one of the clerks. The clerk said, *There's a high-frequency security system in here. n.o.body can hear it. But it gives some people headaches. Maybe that's what's happening to your daughter.' ”

I just stared at her. But because I didn't look away, she kept talking.

She said, ”My mother explained about the headaches, but I said, I don't have a headache. It just hurts my ears. I can hear it.”

”All right,” I said slowly. I had never had an experience like that, but when I was little, I had had a similar problem. I could hear people talking at great distances. I could hear my parents talking in another room, downstairs. I could hear our neighbors talking. Which was quite a feat, if you consider that we didn't live in a cheap apartment building with thin walls. We lived in a house, with several yards separating one house from another.

I tried telling my mother once, and it frightened her so much I never mentioned it again. She told me in no uncertain terms that what I was suggesting was impossible. So I went along with her version of reality and made it impossible.

After that, I started to hear people's thoughts.

But I had never, ever told anyone that.