| |
“YOU REALIZE YOU HAVEN’T said more than two words to me since you got home, don’t you?” Greg set down his fork and eyed Katrina.
She’d stayed longer than she’d planned at the school and had come home in time to boil some water and heat up a jar of spaghetti sauce. Since Greg couldn’t last a single meal without some sort of meat on his plate, she’d also microwaved two polish sausages for him.
She filled her mouth with a forkful of spaghetti so she wouldn’t be expected to talk as much. “Not much to say.”
“You were there for over an hour,” he remarked. “What’d you do that whole time? Do you think the lessons are going to help? What’s your teacher like?”
“He’s fine. We did mostly warmups. I have a few exercises I’m supposed to practice at home.” For all the meals that Greg spent staring at the wall or stuffing his face without any regard for conversation, he was sure chatty tonight.
“Yeah?” he asked with a mouth full of noodles. “What kind of exercises?”
“Just singing warmups. I might go over and do them at the church with the piano.”
Greg shrugged. “You’re welcome to use it any time. Just make sure the lights get turned off when you’re done.”
She wouldn’t forget.
“So you think the lessons are going to help you with the pageant?”
“We’ll see.”
He frowned. “You’re not very talkative.”
What was she supposed to say? It had taken all her emotional energy and fortitude just showing up at that stupid school this afternoon. And then singing in front of a perfect stranger. Miles hadn’t been discouraging, but she could tell from his reaction to her first warmup that he’d underestimated just how bad she was. Her mom was right. She simply couldn’t sing.
Instead of meeting twice a week like they had initially planned, Miles suggested she come back daily so they could make the most of Christmas break.
She wasn’t offended. She knew her voice needed work. She also knew that singing had far more to do with genetics than with discipline. Sure, she could do his silly exercises, meet with him twice a day for the next two weeks for all she cared, and she might make some slight improvements if she were lucky.
But in the end, she’d just be the shy pastor’s wife with an off-key voice. How many times had her mom told her? The only real music she could ever make, the only real music she would ever make, was on her violin.
Her Dmitry, who lay abandoned and neglected in his velvet-lined case. It wasn’t right. She thought that once she and Greg moved to Orchard Grove, she’d have more time to play than she had in Long Beach. Even if she found her muse again, it would take her months to make up for all the lost practice time. Months to fire her fingers back into shape.
Greg was looking moody in his seat at the table. She shouldn’t have been ignoring him and thinking so much about her voice lessons. The more she could keep them out of her mind, the happier she’d be.
“Is dinner all right?”
He looked up from his plate. “Huh? What?”
“Dinner,” she repeated. “Does it taste ok?”
He smiled and gave her a thumbs up before replying with a full mouth, “It’s great. This sauce is terrific.”
It was a good thing she sprang for that extra eighty cents to buy something besides the generic brand. Oh, well. At least he wasn’t interrogating her about her singing anymore.
“What was your day like?” she asked. “You’ve hardly told me anything.”
“It went fine.” He dumped some more Parmesan cheese onto his plate. He’d used up nearly half the canister in this one meal. “The elders are having a meeting tomorrow. Want to know why we haven’t gotten more kids showing up for youth group.”
She didn’t respond. After a lifetime spent in church, she had no idea how much drama went on behind the scenes, how the elders who were supposed to be the spiritual servants of the congregation could gang up against a young pastor like her husband. That’s something she’d have to remind herself of when the Missionary League women like Mrs. Porter got on her nerves. At least she didn’t have to answer to an entire board that got together two or three times a month to tell her every single thing she was doing wrong with her life and ministry.
It could always be worse.
She studied her husband, the weary crease lines across his forehead that she’d never noticed in California. He looked a full five years older than he had in their wedding pictures, the ones Greg still hadn’t hung because he’d never bothered to get permission to put up one nail in the parsonage.
One nail.
Well, everyone had to pick their battles. Just like she did. She wouldn’t fight against her voice lessons. Initially, she planned to show up just to get Mrs. Porter and anyone else with a stake in her training to shut up, but after her first meeting with Miles, she decided she might as well take advantage of the free training. It’s not like she could have gotten a deal like this in Long Beach. And Miles, for all the times he could have made her feel bad for her breathy, insecure voice, acted like she at least possessed a shred of potential.
Why else would he have offered more lessons? It wasn’t like he was getting anything out of it.
Greg looked at the time. “You about ready?”
Katrina had been thinking about those vocal warmups and arpeggios that had been running through her head all afternoon. Was there a business meeting tonight she’d forgotten about? “Ready for what?”
“For rehearsal.” He stood up, leaving his plate of leftover spaghetti on the table. “Christmas pageant practice starts in ten minutes.”