Daybreak by Belva Plain

backyard, and now—”
    “You’re monopolizing Laura,” said Dr. Alcott, “and I want to ask a favor of her. Will you go inside and play something for us? A party needs music to liven it up.”
    The interruption was provoking, but she responded with enthusiasm. “I’d love to. Just tell me what you want.”
    “Some show tunes. Or jazz?” the old man asked hopefully. “Can you play it?”
    “Well, I did take a class this year, and I can manage. I’m not really good, though, I warn you. No one’s invited me to New Orleans to play.”
    “Let me warn you that the piano’s not all that good, either. It needs tuning.”
    The music floated out onto the lawn, so only a few people, chiefly teenagers, went into the house to hear it. After a while as they lost interest, they drifted outside again, leaving Francis standing alone in the curve of the piano.
    He was watching her face, not her hands on the keys as one usually does; with his head held in the listening posture that she suddenly remembered, he studied her face. There was no way of telling what his thoughts might be.
    “Are you tired?” he asked when she paused.
    “Just tired of jazz. It’s not what I like to play. And it doesn’t fit this night, anyway.”
    Outdoors, voices had faded under an incessant wave of sound, the monotonous throb and chirp and tick of a thousand hidden insects, a wave as languorous as the lapping of low tide.
    “Wasn’t it Henry James who said that ‘summer afternoon’ are the two most beautiful words in the English language? But I think ‘summer night’ will do as well.”
    “Then shall I play
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
?”
    “Yes, do.”
    And while her fingers moved across the keys, and while he stood there, still with the slight watchful frown that drew two vertical creases between his eyes, a question, in rhythm with the music, kept repeating itself in her head: Can this mean anything?
    “That was perfect,” Francis said when she came to the end.
    “No, no, far from it. If I had a record here, I’d have you listen to a real pianist, and you’d hear the difference.”
    “Maybe so, but I’m not a musician. You touched my heart, and that’s enough.”
    “You and Francis had a long talk this evening,” Cecile remarked as they picked their way across the dark lawn going home.
    “Yes, we stayed in the house. It was quiet, away from all the kids.”
    “His father’s disappointed that he’s not going to practice here in town.”
    Lillian said, “Well, he’s aiming high, and he’s got every right to, but still it’s too bad. I hope you’ll never get it into your head to fly off to New York or someplace, Laura.”
    “I’m not thinking about it.”
    This was the answer they wanted. But suppose—justsuppose Francis were to ask her? The way he had looked at her tonight … And they had stayed indoors talking for two hours … Was it possible?
    The little chime clock across the hall in the upstairs sitting room struck half-past one. When the clock chimed three, her thoughts were still running forward and backward: I want him to love me, I
know
he doesn’t, I don’t
know
it, his eyes, I want him to love me … And the clock chimed four.
    “My, you slept late,” Aunt Lillian remarked in the morning.
    “I was awake half the night, that’s why.”
    Cecile shook her head, reproving, “You had coffee at eleven o’clock, and it wasn’t decaffeinated. I asked. You should always ask.”
    The sun poured over the grass, turning its tips brown. The morning was loud with the drone and drill of locusts, and although it was not yet noon, the heat was already enough to take one’s breath away.
    “So nice of the doctor’s cousin Claire to invite us to their lake house,” Lillian said. “After all, we don’t know her that well.”
    Cecile said, “Don’t forget a plastic bag for your wet suit, Laura.”
    She had been reading the newspaper, not paying attention. Now she looked up. “Oh, am I included?”
    “Well,