Miss Post was my piano teacher. I thought she was about seventy-five, but I was seven; she might have been forty. Her hair was reddish, kind of poofed up,her face powdery white. She always wore a dark brown skirt and matching sweater. She'd lean over me as I played, her voice raspy and deep, counting 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. My nose crinkled at her breath: stale coffee and cigarettes. Her long, skinny hands with long, skinny fingers pencilled notes on my music in long, skinny letters: 'Practice this daily;' and 'First work on each hand separately, then put them together."

Her piano room was small, with heavy red curtains and needlepointed chairs, dark tables with velvety runners and big green ferns. It smelled musty and dusty. Her huge white cat lounged on the one thing that was shiny - a black baby grand. I'd meet the cat's eyes as I peered over the music primer, bonding with it in boredom. 

I struggled through scales, hating sharps, anxious to be done. The highlight was the end of each lesson, when Miss Post let me play "Wig Wam" my left hand proudly pounding a repeated C chord in an Indian drum beat while my right hand thumped a war chant. I saw the canoes and teepees as I played - so much more exciting than "Yankee Doodle" or "Country Garden."

I moved away the next year, and had a new teacher for the next four. I barely remember her.