Measure Nine

Here is a story. As you read, ask what you would do.

Fiction, founded on truth. The people in this story are imagined; the choice they face is real.

Lena was ten, and she had been taking piano lessons for a year and a half. Every spring her teacher, Mrs. Ortiz, held a small recital in her front room. Parents sat on folding chairs, and each student played one piece.

Lena’s piece was one page long. She liked it. The first eight measures went well, and so did the last part. But measure nine had a jump in the left hand, a quick stretch down the keys and back again. Every time she reached it, her fingers tangled. She would stop, start over from the top, play eight good measures, and tangle again.

“Play measure nine by itself,” Mrs. Ortiz told her. “Slowly. Five times a day. Don’t play the whole piece until nine is easy.”

Lena tried. For a week she played measure nine slowly, five times a day. It was boring. It sounded like nothing. Some days it went right twice and wrong three times. By Friday it was a little better, but only a little, and the recital was two weeks away.

On Saturday, before her lesson, Lena stood by the piano in Mrs. Ortiz’s front room. The sign-up sheet was taped to the music stand. Six names were written on it in pencil. Hers was third.

Her friend Maya had quit guitar last month. “I just stopped,” Maya had said, “and now I have my Saturdays back.” She seemed happy about it.