She says she'll help coordinate your practice schedule. There's a church in her neighborhood that has a piano in the basement. The pastor says you can use it in the evenings before your lessons. Mama, you don't have to.
Yes, I do. She finally looked up at him and her eyes were fierce. Marcus, you got this chance. I don't know if it'll lead anywhere, but you got it.
And I'll be damned if we're going to waste it because I didn't do everything I could to support you. Marcus felt his throat tighten. What about Mr. Hastings? What about our jobs at the Grand View?
Already quit, Janet said simply. Called him first thing this morning. He wasn't happy. But honestly, baby, working for people who look at us like we're invisible wasn't doing either of us any good.
I've got another cleaning job lined up already. Mrs. Chen connected me with a family she knows. Better pay, better hours, but No buts. She stood and walked over to him, placing her hands on his shoulders.
Marcus, I need you to understand something. When your father was dying, the thing that killed me wasn't the cancer. It was watching him give up on his dreams. He wanted to be an engineer.
Did you know that? Smart as a whip with numbers and machines. But his family couldn't afford college. And by the time he could have gone back to school, we had you and bills and responsibilities.
He never regretted choosing us. He told me that every day. But I saw something in his eyes. Sometimes a kind of loss.
She took a shaky breath. I won't watch that happen to you. I won't let you get to 50 years old and wonder what might have been. So, you're going to work harder than you've ever worked in your life, and I'm going to support you every step of the way. Understood. Marcus hugged her tight. Yes, ma'am.
Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Chen arrived at their apartment with an enormous bag full of sheet music, books on music theory, and a metronome that looked like it had survived at least three wars. Sit, she commanded, settling herself on their threadbare couch. We need to talk about what happens next. Marcus sat obediently. Mrs. Chen was a small woman, barely five feet tall, but she had the presence of someone three times her size.
She'd been teaching piano in Chinatown for forty years, and her students included several who'd gone on to conservatory programs, though never anyone quite like Marcus. Vincent Harrington is not a kind teacher, Mrs. Chen said bluntly. I trained at the San Francisco Conservatory with people who studied under him. He is brilliant, yes, but he is also ruthless.
He will find your weaknesses and expose them. He will push you until you break, and then he will push harder to see if you can put yourself back together. I can handle it, Marcus said. Maybe, maybe not.