ivories

on public space pianos

“Who’s next?” my son asks, his hands splayed out by his shoulders in an exaggerated question. A man has just stood up from the padded stool next to the glossy black Steinway that stands in Terminal E of Boston Logan Airport - surrounded by a swagged red velvet rope - and put the iPad with a score on it back in his neat little backpack. His partner has been looking intently at the departures board for the past two pieces. He borrowed one more from her.

The pianist looked like the type to not be intimidated by a Steinway. Tufts of curly white hair, little round glasses, dressed in the expensive athleisure of long haul travel; all black. We didn’t know the pieces. M thought one of them may have been in When Harry Met Sally, but they were the kind of elegant things played before dinner in a cocktail bar; light staccato interspersed with swathes of emotion. An empty expanse of carpet stood next to the piano, rimmed by an architectural curve of ergonomic seating. My son danced on it, twirling and bobbing, making faces and pointing to his ears. Dancing like nobody was watching, I suppose, although we both were. When the man left - to go to his gate, to get a drink, to find a snack - the resulting silence seemed to balloon before filling with the sounds of the airport. The rhythmic hump of security trays on piles, tannoy announcements. American accents, other ones.