Virtuoso

Gio Manetti looked around nervously as he watched the evening news and his wife prepared her infamous spinach ravioli.

"Where are you, Gio? " she asked as she pinched the dough with her fingers until the indentations reminded her of piano keys.

Gio moved out of the living room and stood behind his wife in the kitchen and tightened the apron that was coming loose around her waist. He looked over her shoulder, smelled her hair. He remembered when they first met, and she smelt of lilacs and talcum powder. Now those scents had been replaced by garlic and basil. He wasn't complaining -- garlic and basil certainly tasted better, but he knew lilacs suited Liana better.

"Sit down, Gio!" Liana exclaimed. "There is barely room in this tiny kitchen for one to turn around let alone two."

Gio obeyed. The news was over, and Wheel of Fortune had come on. Gio shouted letters at the television like alphabet soup. "T! S! Buy a blessed E for heaven's sake!"

Liana laughed, "Any minute this phone will ring and it will be Mister Say Jack offering to let you play games on the television." She arranged four ravioli's in a cascade and spooned marinara sauce over them as if she were playing an Arpeggio. Carefully, she picked out four spears of freshly steamed asparagus and laid them beside the ravioli, she sprinkled freshly grated Parmesan over the meal and poured a half glass of Merlot. , She sighed before fixing the identical plate for herself.

Gio would not leave Mister Say Jack, and so she brought him his meal before going back into the kitchen to retrieve her own. She sat beside Gio, and the two of them sipped their wine, ate their supper, and made believe that there was something to win.

Liana fell asleep in the crook of Gio's arm, and smiled as she dreamed of concert halls and Chopin. They had met while they were both working in the wings in a Community Theater production of Fiddler on the Roof. Gio got to hold the violins, all three of them, until the fiddler was ready to play them. Liana sat in the pit and played the score on the piano. It wasn't Chopin, but Liana was happy to play anything. She and Gio were trying to be frugal. One day, they would have a larger apartment, and a real piano, and she would no longer have to settle for the small keyboard she kept under the bed. It was little more than a child's toy, but it was hers and Gio never looked there.

Gio managed to move Liana without waking her. He propped a pillow under her head, positioned her feet on the ottoman. He left for his evening walk where he looked at the stars and the moon until he reached the back of the abandoned theater and crept into the cellar to see that they were safe -- three violins lain across a white sheet, gone missing from the theater company long forgotten. One day they would be worth something, perhaps enough for a down payment on a house outside the city and a real piano for Liana. He could hear their rich tones in his mind without so much as touching them. They sounded better there-- Gio didn't have a clue how to play. But Liana could never know. She could never know any of it, not even after she got her piano.