Sparkling Water

After I missed out on the 10-year high school reunion, Dylan and I scheduled to meet up personally, just to reminisce. He invited me to attend his concert, after which we would meet up at dinner. I have been waiting at the restaurant ever since the concert started. The waiter came twice to take my order, and after refusing him and being surprised by his politeness, I realized that the formal restaurant and concert resembled the way Dylan would approach me: reserved, sophisticated, rather courteous like that waiter, and with a mild caution of stranger danger at the back of his head. We were to start anew, and he hoped to replace my impression of teenage Dylan with successful, adult, solo pianist Dylan, who is finally the attention-absorbing protagonist of his own concert, which I did not attend. Instead, I stare at the blatant aloofness of this restaurant and especial table; the way cloth napkins are wrapped around dangerously sonorous cutlery in the triangular shape that they make with toilet paper in hotel rooms; the way salt and pepper are packaged like travel-size shampoo and conditioner, with only the minimalistic 'S' and 'P' imprinted on the ceramic containers; the way I felt that I should have worn a dress and come with a coat so that the waiter could hang it up for me. 

In high school concerts, Dylan always wore a black suit and white shirt to match his piano. Afterward, he’d unbutton his suit once he sits down so that the streak of his black tie would split the white undershirt in half, and he’d point to the right of his suit—my left—and sing in the exact pitch: G-flat and F-sharp. Then he’d move from his right to left—my left to right—and sing G, A-flat and G-sharp, A, and B-flat and A-sharp for his right white undershirt, black tie, left white undershirt, and left black suit respectively. He thought that was a fine joke. I don’t think I can envision pianists dressed in any other way. He played a monopoly over all piano concerts hosted by the school and dominated community concerts, so as long as he was there—he always was—the piano stool and keys received only the butt indents and fingerprints from him. I went to them all, sat in the front row, and now remember how I secretly anticipated the end of his performance, just to see how hard he gripped the rounded edge of the piano as he bowed, not for the victory felt in the connection—as I imagine sports players would do with their ball or bat or racket; nor for the sake of stabilizing himself in fear of trembling knees—no, his pride and composure practically gleamed from his bland face, though there was a sense of shock and disappointment in how ephemeral the moment was. I could tell that he sought attention but could find no other method of receiving it than the few moments on stage and more fleeing moments lived off of it. Normally, compliments promptly followed for two days, as even tone-deaf people knew that he was the musical prodigy, but people simply couldn’t squeeze out any more flattering remarks about the gentle lilt of the melody and several barely-remembered harmonic notes that seamlessly dissolved together. But the stiff grip, so unlike the fluidity of his fingers throughout the solo, looked as if it held two duologue partners together as they bowed. They were a collaboration, and the two determined each other’s worth. With it, he was the piano soloist. And without, a teenager dressed pretentiously in a suit. 

The aftermath of those concerts was the worst. I could feel his hard work, skill, and talent radiate across the room as he struck every key; the notes that would accumulate and jumble together to a climactic point where I was convinced that ten fingers could not control the ongoing chaos. But those ten fingers were his, so promptly the notes would magically fuse together like musical puzzles and sink down into a lulling harmony. The tension was relieved, people were impressed, and there was a mix of barely perceptible sighs and gasps, including one violent nudge from my mom, meaning: hark! Hear that! These nudges would turn into exhilarated congratulations towards Dylan’s family—‘what an exceptional son that you have! You must be so proud!’—then translate to her disappointment in my lack of talent, skill, commitment, passion, mental strength, whatever. In a nutshell, my lack of Dylan-ness. I am not him, because I aspire to be at best, a content amateur of the arts. But even that cannot be satisfied. When skill grows, so does greed to overtake your past self and the work produced by her. You are competing with yourself all the way along the journey. The pleasure derived from a good piece of work is just as ephemeral as the standing ovation and the compliments that last two days. Then, you get to the job again, and think: boy, how am I going to beat that. Before you know it, you are almost at the professional level, and all your initial excitement of learning an instrument just to play your favorite song on repeat, or learning slam poetry to make your audience laugh or feel chills down their spine once or twice, all that, becomes even more momentary and is eventually lost in the toil between your present and past self. Now, where did all my passion and love for this art form go? What is left of this hobby, but the pressure from the past? Some think this cycle promotes self-improvement, but I think it is rather unhealthy. Maybe I am just too cowardly to start or create anything of purpose. 

Have I asked Dylan if he likes playing the piano? No. But I have seen him enter a state of flow several times in his high school career, where this transcendent genius takes over. Bravo! Allah! Encore! Do it again! Again! were the response. I had the privilege once to ask him how he felt at that time, and he answered breathlessly with ‘unhuman’. Definitely not at god-tier now. Yes, he was not, and felt low about that, sitting in the gutter like a fallen angel waiting for his elusive Peter Pan to swoop him up. Those who have touched heaven would of course be intoxicated with it. And those who can only see others enter it would just be jealous. Everyone has a sort of self-centered heroism—an ambition to create something of great significance to the world—and narcissism—a desire to preserve a part of themselves in their creation that would transcend time. Some choose to express it in the form of art. It’s just easier, with fewer rules to adhere to. Others inhibit the pursuit.

The same waiter was directing Dylan to my table and shadowed him from my view. It was admittedly intimidating to encounter anyone a decade later, let alone a whole group of matured high school classmates. This was why I didn’t go to the reunion—I did not want to see people older than they were, or smarter, dumber, richer, or poorer. I dreaded hypocrisy, over-maturity, and the condescendingly grateful attitude of underdogs. The last I’d seen any of them was in my head, in a structured dollhouse with positions I pigeonholed each of them in. They were safe and intact; my credible memories harbored them from any future actions of their own. But Dylan looked the same. The aftermath of horrific pimple squeezing and scratching rippled across his porous skin in red marks. He did wear a black suit and white shirt but sat down with only a smile, which could be either polite or awkward as he recalls his piano shirt joke.

“Martha, it’s Dylan again.”

“You want to order?” I handed him the menu and motioned for the waiter to finally take our order. That must have broken him into a sweat—he dreaded delaying other people’s time by waiting on him. He never allowed anyone to watch him practice piano because it would just be a “fat waste of your time”. But he needed everyone to be there at his concert when he was best at playing the composition, when there was a fine balance between being challenged and being bored. That was when he was most focused, and what he wanted everyone to see. He’s a bit of a contradiction, really. 

“You like the concert?” He said after the waiter left.

“Yeah, you’ve gotten so much better. Surprised me, really.”

“Yeah? Which one was your favorite? You might not remember the names, but…”

“Got me there, I sure don’t. But you were very skillful in all of them.” I am beginning to feel sorry for him by now. He must have been really sick of all these generic compliments. I could spit them out half-consciously even if I didn't go. Just this truckload of the same compliments arranged differently, or substituted with a different synonym, or said with a different expression, festering in the back of my head right beside the dollhouse for my high school classmates. I meant all of it though, fully. I knew he was going to be good. That was quite boring.

“I have another concert I’ve been preparing for. Got a ticket for you too. Come if you like, I don’t want to force you to, but come.” he says, his lanky fingers sliding the black glossy slip across the table. I receive it and nod.

We exchange the past ten years of our lives while eating the appetizer. After highly dramatizing mine to avoid discussing high school, I fail—we were to reminisce, after all.

“People thought we were a good match,” he says, smiling. There was a bare patch of teeth where his ceramic braces once were. “I mean you were…I…”

“I supported you in your concerts, and you were a music prodigy.”

“Right…No! But you weren’t only known for that,’

“No,” I smile. What a lie. I was known for being unexceptional and mediocre as much as he was known for being a piano genius. ‘Still, we wouldn’t have lasted.’

“You think? At the time? You think? Despite being a good couple?”

“Because.” The appetizer was removed and the main course was served. There was a light clatter of cutlery and Dylan’s shortly-trimmed nails tapped against the glass as he reached for his soft drink. My glass of sparkling water was still untouched. I had nothing else to say; my answer was complete.

“Because…” he waited. “What? Ten years, Martha, and you still think I went behind your back?”

“Not that,” I said.

“You really only tend to remember bad things about me. I had no interest in Celeste and I never allow anyone in the practice room, you knew that.”

I took a sip of the carbonated water and felt as if I had plunged into it. From the tip of my tongue to the convolutions of my gut, I was fizzing like an Alka-Seltzer tablet, dissolving, and being changed by this different medium. I was completely sane on the outside, pouring more sparkling water into the glass, and sticking my tongue out as I drunk to feel the burn of the distortions. It felt like the insides of my body were swept through by pelting rain. I drank until I was beginning to feel numb to the bubbling. Or rather it had stopped completely. The effervescent layer of my teenage years, composed of fossilizations of my mom’s tantrums over my lack of Dylan-ness, crystallizations of my fear to begin anything of purpose, and condensed preservations of stale compliments, all bubbled away. I felt as bare and as free as Dylan’s unrestrained set of teeth. 

“I did, I knew.” At least I knew the latter fact.

“You set me up? Wh—”

“You won’t get it.”

“Phhh. And that’s an excuse?”

“We were,’ I said. ‘I was a good match.”

“You were,” he grunts. “What do you mean you were a good match. Of course, you were a good match for me. You came to listen to my concerts in formal dresses, your mom adored me, and I…I—oh. That was me to you? A bit of a narcissist?”

“Differently. Just banging your keys all the time.” He smiles tersely, this time, at my piano joke.

Up comes dessert, and I realize that the reunion is coming to an end. I wanted to leave on a high note—pun intended—, to create an impression so good and firm that he would hopefully forget within a decade because of how tritely average it was. I am rather good at that. But also to prove to him that I did, in fact, recall good things.

“Remember Chiang Mai? At one point in the cave, we turned our flashlights off in utter darkness? And you could hear the wings of bats and at times their echolocations?”

“I believe we had to turn our flashlights on for safet—” 

“The butterfly you tried to chase away while it was in the midst of extracting pollen to show me how beautiful the inside pattern of its wings looked as it fluttered? The transmission wires that were a story high which we followed with our fingers during the bus ride? The soccer goal still in use that had flowers sprouting out of the poles? Kind of like a funeral? The hands-clapping game we played? That you said was akin to chopping vegetables? The clouds after sunset? That were half gray half orange?”

“Why, Martha, you’re wild!”

“Can’t you tell? Can’t you remember?” I was out of breath.

“No, it was rather one of the worst-rated trips. I had like, a single star.”

“Sirius! We learned that!”

“What?”

“Why do stars matter?”

“Why—stars? They tell you how good a trip was.”

“That’s very generalizing.”

“Well—”

“No, real stars. They tell you how good a trip was. And there were many.”

“No. We weren’t that far from the city. The skyscrapers were the size of small mountains.”

“Oh, please. Believe it, Dylan! You know! It’s true! And there were birds that flew so high they looked like flies above our heads.”

“But, hey, remember my concert? That was real. You were there. Listen, I booked you a front seat ticket for the next one. Come, why don’t you? Goodnight.”

He left a tip, payment for his full course meal, his concert ticket, and me, fumbling in a state of utter confusion. I tasted the sparkling water, and my tongue was fizzing again.