Semblance Read Free Page A

“We’re just sitting here enjoying a nice glass of wine from what I can tell.”
    Calisto smiled. “I’m part of a very secretive club whose members are very influential and powerful people. Don’t ask me to name any names or go into further details, but I can tell you this: if they like you, they can seriously make your career. You can have your pick headlining Vienna, the Metropolitan Opera, or Carnegie Hall. I’m sure you get the picture.”
    She definitely knew how to throw a good sales pitch.
    “Go on,” I said. “The wine has made me very impressionable to your sweet talk.”
    “In three days, my organization is having a…” Calisto seemingly paused, trying to find the right words for it. “…celebration. It’s possibly one of the biggest events our secret little organization has had in the past decade. I’ve been tasked to take care of all the little details, including entertainment. Aria Valencia, I’d love for you to play at this very important and very hush, hush event.
    It sounded almost too good to be true. There had to be a catch. There always was a catch to these things.
    “I don’t want to sound like an ungrateful skeptic, but why me?” I asked. “I’m just a nobody who knows how to hammer out a few good pieces on the piano.”
    Calisto laughed. “You’re modest to a fault. A few months back I heard you practicing in the university concert hall. You were playing Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody number two, a piece that has great sentimental value to me. You played it with such a passionate fire and beautiful grace that the music resonated from the auditorium and straight into my heart, holding me like a mother holding her newborn.
    “My father was a huge Liszt fan and listening to you play the rhapsody took me back in time, when I was still a little girl. I remembered sitting in my father’s lap one night and listening to that beautiful piece, just before his unfortunate death. It was the last moment we shared together as father and daughter. Your music unearthed that precious memory for me, a gift that’s absolutely priceless. I’ve been a huge fan of yours ever since.”
    I was taken aback by her story. “You actually liked my version of the Hungarian Rhapsody?” I asked. “I thought I was playing it like shit. Hell, I still don’t have it all figured out. My fingering is still a bit stiff on some parts of the song.”
    “It was beautiful Aria; absolutely beautiful,” Calisto replied. “I know this will sound a bit stalker-ish but sometimes I listened to you practicing from outside the hall. I’ve also attended a couple of your recitals that you had for your classmates. Creepy isn’t it?”
    I was flabbergasted. I actually had a fan, and she was a woman of impeccable taste.
    “It’s not creepy at all,” I replied. “I’m thrilled that someone appreciates all my hard work. Sometimes as an artist it’s hard gauging your own performance. It’s great to have a little validation once in a while.”
    “So here’s the deal,” Calisto said. “I want you to play for us at this celebration. I’m willing to pay you ten thousand dollars for a single night’s worth of music.”
    I choked on my wine.
    “Aria, are you alright?” she asked.
    When my airways were finally cleared of fluid, I responded.  “Did you just say you’d give me ten thousand dollars for a single night?”
    “Yes,” she confirmed, “Ten thousand dollars. It’s a very good offer. Try finding that kind of money without having to take your clothes off in some sort of fashion.”
    I had to be dreaming. I should have been ecstatic, jumping on the tables while doing fist pumps, but once again the skeptic in me strangled my excitement.
    “If this party is as important as you say it is, why don’t you get someone famous, like Marc-Andre Hamelin or Krystian Zimmerman?” I asked. “I’m seriously a peasant who can barely afford a Kit-Kat for lunch.”
    “Because I don’t want either of those two,”