The Chocolate Covered Piano Lesson

By the time I was a sophomore in high school, playing the piano was more than an extra-curriculur activity.  My piano teacher had usurped my childhood and taken over my life.  I was like an Olympic gymnast under the watchful eye of her unforgiving Romanian coach.  She dictated my sleep habits, my wardrobe and hair (always chosen strategically to make me appear as young as possible) and even which activities and acquaintances would not interfere with my development as an artist.  She was my mother pro tempore, demanding performance, silence, and obedience.

This is not to suggest that my own mother took a backseat to this woman, or to anyone for that matter.  Painstakingly detail obsessed in her own right, my mother’s agenda for her only daughter focused on deportment and other trappings reminiscent of Victorian England.  I was to sit up straight, keep my knees together, always wear a slip, and send timely, hand-written thank-you notes.  Most importantly, I shouldn’t be smart.  “Boys don’t like smart,” she said.  My mother secretly feared no one would marry me and that she’d be stuck with both me and the shame for all eternity.  As part of her plan, my mother tried to limit my food intake; if I could not be ladylike, at least I could be thin.

Rarely did these two most prominent women in my life interact in the same time and space.  My mother did not like piano-mom’s pet-ridden house and, I suspect, did not care much for the woman herself.   Had this been during the computer age, my mother might have learned to use email just so she could avail herself of its “asynchronicity.”   I, on the other hand, was hopelessly trapped between the piano pedagogue, whose favor seemed somewhat conditional upon compliance with her quirky demands, and my mother, who was and still is, my mother.

One particular Sunday, I was dropped off at the piano madame’s house for an extra lesson.  Another student and I were preparing for a particularly important performance with a local symphony orchestra where we were to be featured in two “double piano” concertos.  Due to the logistical difficulties of practicing on two pianos at the same time, we were to spend the entire day at her house working out our dynamics, our timing, our non-verbal cues, and our synchronized bows.  The piano teacher had promised my mother that she would feed us; not to worry about a thing.

After about two hours, the other pianist and I were allowed a break whereupon the teacher brought out an enormous assortment of foods.  Politely, I put a little salad and half a sandwich on my plate.  When directed to take more, I thanked her graciously and mentioned that I was watching my weight. She pushed and I pushed back.  “I really couldn’t,” I explained, adding with the bravado of a teenage drama queen, “My mother would kill me!”   I could not have anticipated what would follow.

I had survived a sharp-tongue lashing once for not practicing enough within weeks of a major performance.  I had been berated for failing time and again to retain the intricacies of a Beethoven passage in my overworked memory banks.  But apparently there was no more heinous a crime than for a teenage girl and aspiring concert artist to reject food.  She piled another sandwich on my plate and commanded, “Eat.”   Then she disappeared into her kitchen and emerged with two generous portions of Sara Lee chocolate cake, one slightly more generous than the other.  .  I tried to eat a reasonable amount, but she made it clear that before we could resume practicing my plate would be cleaned.

Reeling from a sugar high, we resumed our rehearsal, finding it nearly impossible to keep tempo.  We kept accelerating and accelerating, but apparently she liked the feistiness of our Mozart—although the Poulenc assumed a strange demeanor.   We became silly, wild, unruly girls.  Once back at home, I crashed for a few hours and then felt the need to jog around the neighborhood.  I skipped dinner, trying to earn a few saint points from my mother.

As the cake incident had fallen on a Sunday—a strict no-teaching day under ordinary circumstances—I considered everything about it to be an anomaly.  I figured, “what happened at that rehearsal stays at that rehearsal.”  I did not feel the need to inform my mother that I had been force-fed delicious chocolate cake; I thought my shame and silent penance were enough.

The following Wednesday I reported for my regular piano lesson, mentally restored back to my factory settings, blood sugar returned to normal.  I practiced extra hard the previous couple of days, even memorizing a new piece ahead of schedule for good measure.  Another lesson was still in progress when I arrived; I slinked silently toward the back room to wait my turn.  “Stay here,” she commanded, and pointed to the sofa—the forbidden sofa where students were never allowed to sit.  When she disappeared into the kitchen, my heart sunk.  As I feared, she emerged from behind the swinging door carrying another huge plate of Sara Lee chocolate cake.  Surely we must have finished the cake on Sunday! 

Blushing from embarrassment, I looked apologetically at the student at the piano who was not invited to partake.  His lesson now over, his mother came shooting from the waiting room at the back.  She looked at me and the plate, visibly disturbed by this scene as I tried to dispatch the cake.  The teacher turned to her and explained, “Her mother keeps her on a diet and that is no way for a growing girl to live!” I gave the nice woman a pleading look that must have said “please don’t tell my mother” because she never did.

Over the next couple of years, the chocolate assaults continued without mercy.  I had but a few lines of defense in my arsenal.  I skipped as many breakfasts and lunches as possible, particularly on the day of my weekly lesson.  Unfortunately, as my commitments for performances increased, the teacher began demanding additional lessons—first twice a week on a regular basis then sometimes as many as four or five times a week before a performance.  Each lesson began with its requisite Sara Lee chocolate cake, always perfectly defrosted and gooey in anticipation of my arrival.   I began to suspect that the lessons were more about feeding me than checking on my progress at the piano.

On concert nights, my teacher would put on her beaming public face and sit in the audience near my parents while her husband, who used the demands of his pipe addiction as a sort of beard, would sneak backstage and shower me with Reese’s peanut butter cups, pulling the iconic orange squares out of each pocket of his suit jacket.  He would stand there, making sure I consumed evert one. 

Horrified parents of other students would witness these “abuses” from time to time, but never my own.  The teacher’s stories of explanation became more dramatic as she bragged about saving me from certain starvation.  She laughed openly at the notion that my mother was forcing me to diet, and at how baffled she must be that I did not lose an ounce.  The various parents never ratted her out to my mother; they just stopped coming into the teacher’s house, turned a blind eye, and perhaps sighed with relief that their children were merely average.

I realize only in adulthood that I had the means to resist; this woman had a command over the young me because I perceived a link between my future and staying in her good graces.   It is an apt reminder of how threatening an adult’s will can seem to innocent children.  Incredibly, my mother never got wind of these shenanigans.  When I tried to tell her this story recently she thought I was making it up.  I wanted her to understand the difficulty I faced serving the demands and expectations of these two dominant women in my life.  I guess you really can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Tomorrow's blog:  Split and Recycled Genes  (Part One)