"We can't promise perfect quiet," Margaret said. "Airports don't do perfect quiet. But we'll give her the best room we can."
Nia studied the sheet. "You wrote all this down?"
"I did. I make lists when I want something to go right."
For the first time Nia imagined Margaret as a person who might be nervous, too. It did not make what happened yesterday acceptable, but it made the woman less like a locked door. Nia thanked her, and this time the words arrived without the strange feeling that she had apologized for existing.
The technicians set a camera at a fixed distance from the piano so the panel could see Nia's posture and both hands. They tested the microphone with scales, then adjusted the gain so the loudest passage would not distort. Mrs. Whitaker joined briefly by phone, listened to the recording, and requested one change to the camera angle. The technician made it without complaint. At ten fifty, Daniel closed the door connecting the quiet section to the service corridor, and the room fell into a hush that was not quite silence but was close enough.
Nia sat at the piano with her score beside her, though she would play most of the audition from memory. Camille waited just outside the camera frame, holding a small bottle of water and refusing to look at her watch. On the screen appeared three panelists, two women and a man, seated in a plain room with a window behind them. None looked astonished to see a young girl in a cream cardigan. They knew her age, had read her application, and had invited her because of what they had already heard.
The chair of the panel, Professor Helen Shah, introduced herself and explained the order of the audition. Nia would begin with a technical study, continue with the sonatina, and finish with her own composition. She would then answer a few questions about how she practiced and what she hoped to learn. There would be no audience applause, no applause at all, and Nia found she was grateful. The people on the screen were there to listen carefully, not to decide in the first glance whether she belonged.
She made one mistake in the technical study. Her fourth finger caught the edge of a black key, and for an instant she felt the old urge to start again. Instead she continued, holding the pulse steady until the next measure. In the sonatina she remembered to breathe before the second theme and to let the final passage unfold without rushing. Professor Shah wrote something on a sheet of paper. The man beside her leaned forward, listening intently, and Nia reminded herself that a serious face did not always mean disappointment.