Exceptional I discovered this was not the optimum time for a piano lesso Lessons in the Key of Life : The Saturday Morning Curse by Rachelle Allen

For the longest time, the earliest lesson on my Saturday morning roster seemed jinxed. Perhaps it was just too early an hour on the first full day of a weekend for anyone to be expected to be good at anything, least of all piano lessons. Or, maybe, my own alacrity for teaching waned a bit as my family got to sleep in while I trudged off to work. I can't be sure. All I can say is that, for a number of years, my hair always seemed grayer by the time I returned home late each Saturday afternoon. A) Sammy Sammy was a red-haired, uber-freckled eight-year-old with a subdued manner that belied the tempest below. Not only did he rarely talk, he also made no eye contact at all. I learned to engage him in "conversation" by presenting our lessons in Twenty Questions format because he would be amenable to shaking or nodding his head. If his mother, a private school teacher, had even the remotest inkling about what I was sure was his autism, she certainly never shared it with me or acknowledged it in any way in front of him. Every Saturday, I felt as if I was Alice, their house was Wonderland, and I'd fallen down the rabbit hole again. Sammy did seem to like music, but we made the kind of progress an eye dropper does filling up a swimming pool. Nonetheless, progress is progress, and we managed to make our way by putting one finger in front of another, week after week. But, then came that awful day when his mother asked about the end-of-year recital. "Well, I do have one," I said, fearing the worst now that I knew her better. (She had been denied lessons herself as a child and so reveled in Sammy's). "But I never make the students perform if they don't want to." "Oh, Sammy REALLY wants to!" she gushed. My heart sank. "Hmm." I chose my next words with the utmost of care, hoping against hope to reach her. "I'm so surprised about that because my take on Sammy has been that music is an intense but personal joy for him. I've gotten the feeling that he loves it because it's all his own and he doesn't have to share it with anyone." "Sammy?" she laughed. "Oh, NOOO! Why, he plays CONSTANTLY for all of us all the time. He LOVES playing for LOTS of people!" (Hmmm. Methinks someone had been pilfering mass quantities from the stash of Wonderland mushrooms.) She gushed on, "He's VERY excited for the recital!" I felt nauseated for the remainder of the day as I envisioned how this was going to play out in a few months for this tortured, sweet child. Recital Day arrived and, with it, Sammy: the epicenter of a self-induced three-foot force field of horror and sullenness so acute it was practically palpable. In front of him, his father and grandfather were snapping photos and cajoling, "Atta boy!" and "Here's the little virtuoso coming for his first spotlight performance!" Behind him came his mother, flushed with glory, and equally oblivious to the agony of her progeny, who was trudging, head bowed, just three steps in front of her. Sammy sat in the assigned chair with quiet acquiescence. He even came up to the piano when I announced his name. But, when I took my seat in the chair next to the piano bench where he perched, he kept his hands at his sides and his head bowed. I waited a few beats for him to acclimate to his new surroundings. "Okay, ready?" I whispered, for his ears only, in my Perky Piano Teacher voice. Nothing. I waited another beat, feeling the audience's fidgety discomfort, which I'm sure he also felt. "Here's your first note," I whispered to him, my heart aching, as I put my fingertip on Middle C. And then the tears came in soundless torrents. I stood and addressed the audience with my brightest The Show Must Go On voice. "We've changed our minds," I announced with a charismatic smile that required my best acting skills to execute. While Sammy tore across the room to bury his face in mother's lap, she looked straight ahead, eyes expressionless but mouth stretched wide with a smile fit for a toothpaste ad. I blinked back my fury and gave a warm nod to my next student to come up and perform. Lesson: You should not attempt to construct Norman Rockwell fantasies at the expense of other people in your life.   B. Sammy, Part II The following September, when lessons resumed, I showed up on Sammy's doorstep bright and early again, and, like always, his bathrobe-clad Ward Cleaver father greeted me and escorted me to the piano. En route to the kitchen, he gave a sing-song call up the stairs, "Oh Sammy! Time for your piano lesson!" I heard Sammy's door open, then a pause. I instantly knew what was happening: reconnaissance. Sammy was Rambo, surveying his perimeter. Next came the sound of lightning-fast feet on hardwoods, the slam of a distant door, and a flurried, triumphant lock. Ward stopped dead in his tracks, did an abrupt about-face, and attempted father-like authority as he intoned, "Samuel Robert, you unlock that bathroom door this minute and come down here and take your piano lesson." By now, June Cleaver, in her fluffy blue gingham robe atop blue cotton jammies, had joined her man at the bannister. "I'M NOT COMING DOWN, AND YOUUUUUUUUU CANNNNNNNNNNNNNNN'T MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" June whirled toward me and gushed, "He really loves piano lessons." "I'm thinking he really doesn't," I told her, having had enough of her unabashed absurdity. "Samuel, I'm going to count to three." Ward gave another lame go as Serious Dad. "One...Two..." Nothing. "I'll go talk to him," June said. "Why don't you go take a lesson with Shelley." (Translation: "We have to pay her anyway, so we're damn well going to get something out of it.") "Splendid idea!" he said, and stepped forward six inches to cross into the living room, where I'd had my ringside view of everything that had just transpired. "Shelley! Good morning!" he boomed, as if I'd just arrived. "Sammy is a little under the weather today, so I'm going to take his piano lesson. How about if I take out my guitar and we jam?" Ward Cleaver. Jam. Somehow, I'd managed to get a heaping helping of June's Wonderland mushrooms, myself. "Oh, that would be great!" I said and managed to sound genuine. From the piano bench, Ward pulled out a Wynton Marsalis book, still in as pristine a condition as the day he'd bought it (this, no doubt, because he'd never once opened it), and began to strum some chords in a key nowhere even close to the music before us. Strum. Strum. "Um, Shelley?" said Ward. "Where are we?" "We're on measure two," I said in Perky Piano Teacher mode. "Oh yes." Strum. Strum. "Um, Shelley? Where are we?" "Middle of measure three." "Oh yes." Strum. Strum. "Um, Shelley?..." Twenty-six minutes to go. Lesson: No job on earth is ever worth the price of your sanity. NEXT TIME: The Saturday Morning Curse continues: An over-indulged boy and an achingly tortured one. Recognized

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