'For Forever', by Corinne O’Shaughnessy

“Hold onto my belt,” Annie whispered to Lisa in the blinding dark. Lisa waved her hand cautiously in front of her until she found Annie’s wide macramé belt and hooked her pinky through a loop.
Teo leaves the door on the street unlocked so he doesn’t have to go up and down the steps of his apartment over the Shirley Uniform Shops to let his piano students in. There used to be a light sitting impossibly high over the stairwell, but the bulb blew out weeks ago and the landlord still hasn’t sent someone over to replace it. 
Annie’s blue Ked tapped the floor and found the first stair and then her hand found the bannister above. They ascend smoothly enough until Teo’s large belly is a silhouette against the gray putty walls at the top of the landing. He must have heard them shut the door.
“Hi, girls,” he whispered, his voice hoarse from living alone. “Sorry about the light.”
“Oh, that’s ok,” they lied in unison. Climbing the stairs in the dark is freaky, but what can they say? Get it fixed, already? They pretend they’re brave, cause they’re 13 and shouldn’t be afraid of the dark, but their hearts are beating like crazy.
“Come in, come in,” he said, and led them into the kitchen. “Cigarette?”
He tapped a pack of Camels against his forearm so a few stuck out and held it in front of them.
“No, thank you.” They shook their heads casually, as though people offer cigarettes all the time. 
They dropped their music and homework on the formica table as Teo removed a cigarette and lit one up.
“Tea? Coffee?” he asked.
The girls looked at the floor, avoiding eye contact. They don’t want to laugh and seem like they’re laughing at Teo. It’s just funny, being offered coffee and cigarettes every week. He’s already insisted they call him by his first name, which was hard enough to get used to, since he’s as old as their parents. Coffee and cigarettes, they could still politely refuse.
At least he’s stopped offering them the black jelly beans covered with dust. For months, they’d pass the decorative dish in the living room, and he’d pick it up and ask, “Jellybeans?” They felt rude saying, “No, thank you,” repeatedly, but Lisa hates licorice and Annie couldn’t get past the dust. Finally, they told him they don’t eat sweets, a complete lie. Their weekly routine is to spend their babysitting money at the record shop—Annie just bought Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark. Blue is her favorite album, so far, and she couldn’t wait to hear Joni’s new one. Then they load up on caramels at the Fanny Farmer shop. But Teo didn’t know that.
“Who’s going first today?” he asked.
“I am,” Lisa said. Annie talked her into it on their walk over, because Annie hadn’t practiced much and she always felt horrible when Teo could tell. 
Teo softly dragged his hand through Annie’s long wavy brown hair as she headed to the living room couch. 
“Beautiful,” he said.  
“Thank you,” she replied automatically. 
Annie thought adults should only play with little girls hair, but Teo didn’t have kids of his own so maybe he does not understand that. Annie has seen him stroke Lisa’s long blond hair, too. Annie and Lisa have agreed they’re too old for that, but neither knows how to point out they’re not little girls anymore. 
Annie plopped down on the couch and splayed out her math homework. She loves algebra when she understands it. Solving for X in an equation is so satisfying. You get to get rid of things by doing the opposite operation, until all that’s left is the answer. Teo says music is math and wants her to transpose songs into different keys, in case you’re playing for a singer who needs a lower or higher one. He says things like fifths and sevenths. Fifth of what? she wondered. He tried to explain, but she was clueless. It was like trying to see the black stairs in the dark.
Annie heard Lisa begin her Beethoven sonata. She heard Teo stop her, then chatter, then Teo instructed, then Lisa played again. Lisa’s high-pitched laughter erupted when she finished the piece, her reaction to any happy, confusing, or scary event.
Annie heard the Flight of the Bumble Bee next, which she is also working on. Lisa’s precision is so much better than hers. No mistakes. No stumbles. Annie has trouble with her pinky fingers. They need to get stronger. Teo has shown her how to angle her hands and apply more pressure on her ring and pinky fingers and assured her they’ll get there. Annie absentmindedly started playing along with Lisa by tapping on her algebra notebook. Her fingers were the bees jumping from Black-eyes Susans to wild daisies, their fat, fuzzy bodies frenzied with pollen. The music stopped and Annie returned to her math problems as Lisa began a softer, mellower piece. 
Annie copied 2-step equations and was halfway through solving for X in problem 5 when she was startled to find Lisa and Teo standing over her, laughing. 
“Earth to Annie,” Lisa kidded.
“Ready?” Teo asked. His white bushy eyebrows rose and fell quickly.
Annie nodded and pushed her homework aside and picked up her music. She followed Teo through his bedroom in the railroad flat and glanced at the king-sized bed pushed into the corner. She guessed he’s slept in the giant bed alone since his wife left months ago. They never met her, but used to stare at her beautiful portrait next to the jellybeans. After she moved out, the portrait lay face down next to the dish. Now, only the jellybeans remain, the dust growing thicker each week. Teo never mentions her and the girls don’t ask. 
“Let’s start with the Chopin,” Teo said, as Annie took her place on the piano bench and spread her music out. 
She began playing Prelude #20 in C minor, putting strong pressure on the keys as she saw a king bask in his knights’ admiration, then switched to a light touch when he made a bad decision and lost their loyalty. Music has always created stories in her head. She had begun the last few bars, the king quiet and defeated, her foot pressing the pedal, when Teo said, “Stop.” 
He slid next to her on the bench and hovered his hands over hers. Annie would swear his wide fingers could not press one key at a time, but she has watched him do exactly that, flawlessly, wonderfully, each week. “Curve your fingers like so. Your wrists are here,” he demonstrated, his hands on top of hers, hers forming into his. When he was satisfied she understood, he stood up and paced. “Off the pedal,” he shouted.
“Off the pedal. More pressure on the keys.”
Annie gave the final chord extra pressure from her fingers when she imagined the defeated king crying out in his dark, empty castle.
“That’s it!” Teo smiled, and returned to the bench. “How did that feel?”
“Much better,” she agreed, basking in his approval.
“All right, now, did you memorize Nola?” Teo asked. 
“Um, I think so,” she answered.
“Wonderful,” he said. He took her music away and placed it on a table by the window. He has been pushing her to commit her songs to memory, but she thinks it’s so much easier to have the score in front of her, even if she’s not completely reading it. “When you memorize it, you can just feel it. Your body takes over and your mind can relax.”
Annie made her way through the whole piece and Teo was right. She thought she’d panic without the music in case she got lost. But she didn’t. She just played and it felt great. 
Teo returned her pile of music. She played a few more songs and he corrected her hands, her wrists, and spoke again about sevenths and a different key and she got lost, but soon they were done and heading through the bedroom to the living room.
Annie and Lisa gathered their things and at the top of the stairs, Teo left them with his weekly good-bye. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”
“Practice!” they sing song in unison.
Annie went first again, her books in one arm, her other hand on the bannister, Lisa’s pinky returned to her belt loop. The dark enveloped them until Annie found the front door, searched for the knob, and they burst out onto the street in a wash of nervous laughter. 
Lisa fished out a caramel from the paper sack in her patched leather purse and took a tiny bite, as her eyes adjusted to the light. She eats her sweets in strict progressive increments. 
“Coming bowling Saturday?” she asked.
“Can’t,” Annie answered, popping a square of walnut fudge into her mouth, then covering her mouth with her hand. “Going to Connecticut to visit the McCarthy’s with my sisters.”
“All of them?” Lisa asked. Annie has a lot of sisters.
“Nope, just Callie and Bobbi,” she answered. 
“Your parents aren’t going?” Lisa takes another miniscule bite.
“Kind of. They’ll be an hour away in Hartford. They’re meeting Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy at a college reunion thing.”
“No parents are going to be there?”
“No. No parents. Ryan is 27. Everyone is an adult. Except me.” Callie is 22 and Bobbi is 10 months younger—"Irish twins.”
“My parents would never let me do that.”
“No, your parents wouldn’t,” Annie agreed.
Annie loved Lisa’s house where everything is organized and there are rules about what can go on a table
and games have to be put away as soon as you’re done. But she couldn’t imagine living like that all the time. 
Annie hasn’t seen Ryan since way before he left for a fishing season in Alaska. And before he was building houses in Ecuador. A couple of years ago, Lisa saw a Polaroid picture of him. Ever since, they’ve called him Ryan McDreamy.

Callie drove the sky blue VW bug, while she and Bobbi sang Peter, Paul and Mary and Simon and Garfunkel tunes. Annie hummed along, her long legs stretched as much as possible across the cramped back seat. By the time they arrived at the McCarthy’s, she couldn’t wait to jump out and get the blood circulating again. Ryan bounded out of the back door to greet them in the driveway. He was even taller and dreamier than Annie remembered. 
“Kodiak,” Callie yelled as Ryan picked her up and twirled her around. As soon as he put her down, he picked up Bobbi and gave her a spin.
Then he looked at Annie and said, “Wow, you really grew up,” and smiled widely as he opened the trunk.
Ryan’s brother Donald and sisters Mary and Bridget grabbed suitcases and groceries and carried them inside. They spend the night listening to stories about Eskimos who drink too much in bars right next to the docks and fall into the water and freeze standing up. 
“They look like they’re waiting for the boats to come in,” Ryan said. 
When Callie asked him about Ecuador, he regaled them with stories about parasites that eat your brain, snakes that curl up inside your boots, and scorpions that fall off the ceiling onto your bed. 
They munched on Tater Tots and hamburgers covered with sliced pickles fished out of Vlasic jars and then the girls cleaned up the kitchen. Annie helped clear the table, but didn’t know where anything went so she sat awkwardly with Ryan and Donald and listened as they joked about people she didn’t know. The packs of cards come out and they played Pinocle and War and Crazy Eights for hours. 
“Let’s get some shut eye,” Ryan said finally and yawned. They squeezed into the two bedrooms off the living room and slept two to three in a bed, except Ryan who got a bed all to himself.

In the morning, they headed out for a day of hiking to the gorge through the woods behind the house to swim in the icy pools in shorts and T-shirts. Ryan climbed to the top of a giant boulder and Donald followed him. 
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Ryan announced, “Do not try this at home.”
As he leapt from the boulder, Annie emitted a loud gasp, convinced he’d hit something on the way down. But his body entered without so much as a splash and he emerged with a whoop, and flipped his copper hair out of his eyes.
Donald jumped after, arms flailing, a wild splash drenching Callie and Mary. They immediately slapped their hands across the water as he reemerged and a splashing war erupted. When the cold became too much, Ryan wrapped his flannel shirt around Annie. Then he shouted, “Let’s head back,” and grabbed the hair at the base of Annie’s neck and pretended to lead her like a horse. “Make a nice rope to tie off a fishing boat.”  Her stomach felt weird and a tingly feeling spread to her crotch. She thought she was supposed to smile, so she turned back to him and smiled, and he dropped her hair quickly and moved in front of her to lead the way back through the woods.
They took turns showering and changing into dry clothes, then Ryan brought up beer from the basement and grabbed a bottle of Blackberry brandy from the parent’s bar and they danced to Sly and the Family Stone and the Beach Boys. Even Annie had a beer. Callie and Bobbi told her one was fine. Two was better, they laughed. Donald and Bridget returned from town where they picked up pizzas and after a few beers and a full stomach, Annie said she was going to bed.
“Sleep in my parents’ room,” Ryan told her. “It’s quieter.” Annie didn’t get much sleep the night before being nose to toes with Callie, so a bed to herself was welcome even if it was a little weird crawling into Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy’s bed. She was writing in her diary and was just about to turn off the light when Ryan stuck his head in the doorway. He entered the room slowly, wearing only boxers and a T-shirt. “Do you have enough blankets?” 
She realized the music has been turned off and the house was much quieter from here.
The orange sweatpants and Mickey Mouse sweatshirt she was wearing weren’t keeping her warm under the blankets, but she said she was fine, because she hated to be a bother. Ryan sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Want some company?” he asked. 
“Sure,” she said.
She pushed over toward the wall and Ryan slid in next to her. Annie could hardly believe her luck that she got to be in bed alone with Ryan McDreamy. Maybe, she thought, he’ll even kiss me! She’d been kissed once before, a few months back at her 8th Grade graduation dance. The whole tongue thing was a complete surprise and gross, she thought, but Callie and Bobbi assured her it was not always like that. 
Ryan turned on his side and said softly, “You’re beautiful,” which Annie had never been told before. He moved closer and she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he whispered, “Take your shirt off,” and placed his hand on her waist, startling her. He pulled her sweatshirt over her head, but it got stuck, so she lifted her shoulders, and he pulled it off all the way. His hand moved to her breast and his mouth planted onto the nipple of the other, and through the side of his lips, she heard, “The pants, too.” He moved his hands to her hips and tugged on the elastic waistband. She lifted up and he slid them off. Those two movements—lifting her shoulders and then her hips—will be what she remembered the most.
She started shaking as Ryan poked his long hard thing with the shockingly silky skin between her legs. He droned “incredible” and “climax” and “ecstasy” in her ear, her trembling escalating. He took his thing from between her legs and placed it on the flat of her stomach and rubbed it back and forth. Then he shook, too, and that made her shake more. She thought she might crack into tiny bits leaving Callie and Bobbi to find a pile of calcified dirt with tuffs of hair in the bed in the morning.
She remembered Ryan breathing funny for a while, then asking her again if she was cold, her teeth clacking together, and she managed to nod yes. Yes, she was very cold. He brought her an extra blanket and whispered, “I better sleep upstairs.” The floor creaked and his long horizontal periscope thing led his way to the door. She felt both relief and abandonment and something sticky near her belly button that left her ashamed. She found a box of tissues next to the bed and wiped it off. 
She was not sure if she slept, but the dishes clinking in the kitchen and the smell of bacon hours later told her it was okay to get up. She heard Ryan laughing. She got dressed and for a moment, as she entered the kitchen, she thought he would announce his love for her and declare her as his girlfriend. She thought this at the same time she knew that, of course, it would not happen. Instead, he smiled a quick Good Morning, then ignored her until it was time to pack into the car and head home. Everyone got a good-bye hug. Her hug was no different. 
“Want to ride shotgun?” Callie asked. 
“No, back seat is fine,” Annie said. “I’m going to sleep.”
“You’re tired?” Bobbi asked. “You got a big bed to yourself and you’re still tired?”
“Yup,” Annie said.
“Maybe you need some iron pills or something,” Bobbi said and pushed the seat forward so Annie could crawl into the back.
They waved out the windows and Bobbi and Callie looked silently at each other for a second too long.
“Where did Ryan sleep last night?” Callie asked. 
Annie is hunched against the window. “I guess the attic.” She’d seen a bed up there before when Bridget asked her to get towels.
Callie popped the stick into 4th gear while Bobbi looked at Annie’s blank face, so Bobbi turned back to look at the road. 

“So what’s the big secret you couldn’t tell me?” Lisa asked on their walk to Teo’s that week. They can’t tell secrets on the phone because both of them live in houses with the phone in the kitchen and someone is always in the kitchen. “What happened?” 
“Psyche,” Annie said. “Just kidding. Nothing to report.”
Lisa laughed. “What? I couldn’t wait to hear! You said you had big news.”
“Nope, just joshin’ ya.”
Lisa stared at the face she’d known since they were 8. Annie knew her voice wasn’t matching her words. 
“How was Connecticut?” Lisa looked closely at Annie, squinting one eye. “How was Ryan McDreamy?”
“Fine,” Annie said, looking at the sidewalk. “Soooo McDreamy.” She had been planning to tell Lisa that Ryan had kissed her. But then she realized, he never did. Kiss her.
Lisa stared for a few more beats, then turned and walked toward Teo’s. Annie trailed behind. The lightbulb over the stairwell had finally been replaced and Lisa jogged to the top. Annie walked step by step. Her lesson was first. She started to play the Maple Leaf Rag, a jovial, tricky number. But she couldn’t see anything. All she saw were the notes on the glossy paper. The man she usually saw skipping and tap-dancing complicated steps was gone. 
  Teo stopped her. “Let’s warm up with some scales.”
She did what she was told, but she was getting angry. As her fingers went up and down the octaves, she cursed herself. Piano was too complicated. There was too much math. She did not care if she made Teo proud. She heard Teo talking, but she stared ahead, not hearing the words, her own voice drowning them out. Quit. You Suck. You Suck at Piano. You Suck at Piano You Filthy Slut. 
Teo whispered, “Are you okay?” His large fingers combed gently through her ponytail. 
Her back would have flinched, had she not been too heavy to move, but his touch made his words louder than hers, even though her ears pounded with her own heart beat and her arms weighed 100 pounds each. Her mouth finally managed, “I. have. a. headache.” 
“Do you want to quit for today?”
“Yes.” Her voice barely audible. “For. Forever.”
Teo didn’t respond. Maybe she didn’t say it.
She struggled to push away from the piano and Lisa was confused when she and Teo returned so soon. Lisa offered to skip her lesson if Annie was sick.
“Take your lesson,” Annie said. “I just need to shut my eyes.”
“You sure?” Lisa asked again.
“Yeah,” Annie kind of snapped.
Lisa picked up her music and as she and Teo headed to the piano room, Annie shoved her hand into the dish of jellybeans, scooped as many as she could into her fist and blew on the dust. She struggled to push them all into her mouth without dropping any. Then she sat down and chewed, not tasting them at all. 

Corinne O’Shaughnessy is a retired New York City public school teacher. Her essays have appeared in the FeminineCollective.com, Oldster.substack.com, HerStry.com, dorothyparkersashes.com, TwoHawksQuarterly.com, TheManifestStation.com, and sadgirlsdiaries.com, among others. She has also participated in live readings with WritersRead.org, including their Ten Best of the Year event in 2023. Her short story Secret Spot was nominated for a Best of the Net in 2022 by BookofMatchesLit.com. She divides her time between the Bronx and Oaxaca, Mexico. You can find her at: corinneosh.com.

Photography by Charles Parker