The Sigma Asset 🏳️‍🌈 (bxb)║AMBYS WINNER 2022

22: Sabrina

"I'm so glad that you could confirm at short notice, Mr Park." The woman bowed as she shook my hand, as if being a piano teacher, or being Korean, had imbued me with respect that I didn't deserve.

"No problem, Veronica. And please, call me Zeph. But I'll only be in the States for a few weeks, so we can take our classes online once I get back to Korea. Or Sabrina will hopefully have the basics by then, and you can find her a local piano teacher."

Sabrina, the little girl who'd skulked into the house with Veronica, had already abandoned us in the living room and was gazing out of the porch doors at the beach beyond. She'd walked past the piano as if it had been invisible. Good start.

"I'm Sabrina's nanny. Her Mom gave me a list of things to that she wants, here." Veronica offered me a creased piece of paper with a list written in elegantly-flowing script.

Learn Practical Piano Grade 1 by Dec 21. Learn Piano Theory Grade 1 by Dec 21. Learn half-hour classical repertoire for recital by Dec 21.

I pinched my fingers to the bridge of my nose. I'd had this conversation with a few parents recently. "Um, Veronica? Sabrina's eight. She's gonna take up to eighteen months to learn Grade One practical. Longer for theory. She could do a pretty good recital by December though."

"So, what do I tell my employer?" Veronica asked, her face scrunched like she was already rehearsing the conversation with what was sounding increasingly like a Korean Mom.

"Tell her that we'll go at Sabrina's pace," I replied, summoning the air of the esteemed teacher that I totally wasn't. "And that Sabrina is gonna choose what she plays in the recital," I added in for good measure.

"Of course, Zeph," said Veronica with a tone so reverential that I got worried that she was gonna curtsy.

"Let's go have a piano lesson," I said, to nobody, since Sabrina still had her face plastered to the porch doors.

Veronica had picked up the TV remote controls and was bowing in my direction again, this time with a pleading look, like she was desperate for the season finale of some shitty telenovela.

"You wanna watch TV?" I asked.

Veronica straightened out of her bow and fell to the sofa with a beatific expression as the opening credits of La Asesina Hermosa[1] sprung out of the TV speaker.

"Ugh, Gloria and Clive watch this all the time."

"No, don't tell me what happens!" Veronica put her hands over her ears. Then her features twisted. "Gloria and Clive, as in, Clive Walker?"

"Oh yeah, of course you'd know Clive," I laughed. "You got a boat too?"

"Yeah! Sea kayaks!" she said, with the same puppy-like excitement that I'd seen in Clive at the barest mention of any seagoing craft. "My boyfriend and me kayak Arenosa Bay at weekends."

Kayaking the bay. That sounded even more awesome than going to Pelican Island with Clive. I couldn't wait to tell Jules that I'd gotten more dirty boats in my life.

The piano lesson was actually pretty good; Sabrina picked up the concepts quickly, and her hands seemed to move independently with ease. She'd gotten bored easily, but I guessed that it was because of her age more than anything else. Maybe shooting for a practical exam in eight months' time was pushing it, but even after one lesson Sabrina seemed like one of my better students.

By the end of the hour we'd packed a wad of staff paper with theory, scales, and a few bars' worth of arpeggios to practice at home. Sabrina seemed somewhat happy with the lesson, but she stuffed the staff pages unceremoniously into her school bag and went to the porch doors again, like a dog itching for a walk.