The Piano Teacher Who Would Not Quit

The conversation in the hardware store

I went next door to the hardware store the same afternoon, because I believe in saying a thing to a man’s face.

Boyd was behind the counter cutting a key, and he did not look up when the bell rang, though he knew my step by then.

“Mr. Boyd,” I said. “Six hundred dollars.”

“Market rate, Frances.” He blew the metal filings off the key. “I had it looked at.”

“You’ve had this building forty years and you never once had it looked at.”

“Times change.” He finally raised his eyes. He is not a cruel-looking man. He coaches the Methodist boys’ softball and he always gives to the food pantry at Christmas. “I’m sixty-nine years old. I got a chance to sell and retire. You can’t ask me to turn down the only real offer this block has ever had so you can play piano for eight dollars.”

“I’m not asking you to turn it down,” I said. “I’m asking you not to break my door down to help it along.”

“It’s business,” he said, and there it was, the thing men say when they have decided to do a thing they would not want done to them. “It isn’t personal. You’ve been here a long time. Nobody’s saying you weren’t a good tenant.”

“Thirty-eight years,” I said.

“I know how long,” he said, and for just a second something moved behind his face, and then it closed up again like a till drawer. “First of the month, Frances. I’m sorry. I truly am.”

And the strange thing is that I believed him. He was sorry. He was going to do it anyway, and he was going to be sorry the whole time, and sorry does not pay a child’s way through a scale.

I did not raise my voice. I have never once raised my voice to that man.

I said, “All right,” and I walked out, and the bell over his door rang behind me, cheerful as anything.