milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Edward walked in casually, and toward the bar not too unconventionally for habit. At the bar, he simply cleared his throat, removing something from where it had rested inside the front breast pocket of his long grey, and black accented, pea coat.

He laid it on the bar, with only "I'm certain you know what to do with this."

There is a relatively slim volume, wrapped in brown pack paper and tied in beige cord, with a folded paper beneath two, sideways, bearing the simple inscription Mrs. Reynolds.

I don't believe that you are missing this,
but I do think, perhaps, you might enjoy it.
Consider it something borne of both our pasts
being given a possible future.

Edward

That done, he left the bar and in walking across the room was sidetracked by the piano. When had he last played that was not at Bella's behest since Volterra and James?

Edward reached out and ran a finger in a small scale on the end closest to him.

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And Sallie's not good at prodding, so she pulls up a chair.

One final attempt, with, "Do I get to have a hint? A crumb?"

His hands moved up one side, and he let his eyes follow them.
"Following subtle clues is habit, frequently, lost on the young."

Which Sallie might be young, but he wasn't referring to her at present.

"I had an edition-" a first, which she hasn't noticed yet "-that received no attention, you had an interest that hadn't received any either yet." There's a semblance toward a shrug, without reaching one. Posture and distance were important, and she would miss it entirely if he did it between the seconds of notes or sound waves.

"Well then. Thank you. Again."

I really will have to show it to Charlie. Maybe when I make a riding lesson.

"Paper is expensive at home sometimes. I keep most of my books here, to tell the truth."

"Take it home," Edward says, between and with the notes. Because of her words. "It's modernist. Unconventional for it's time frame."

Each time and every time for those writers. At least more cohesive than postmodernist poetry or prose. Edward had appreciated it at the time. But it was no longer than space in time, that decade.

"If it goes missing, there are others."

It's rare that Edward is so ardent. Sallie smiles down more at the book than to Edward himself, nodding assent and sliding the book in an apron pocket.

Edward kept playing, moving slowly as he went into the Introduzione. Some things were easier points than others to get across. A book given in the end of the universe for a mutual interest just a few decades out of place.

It's small compared to other things.
That those could be near that easy ever.
As easy as a book, or the notes from his fingers.

But no -- Edward's fingers stopped, singular and sudden, discordant -- he has too many innumerable reasons why that shouldn't and couldn't, why deserving anything to be simple wasn't a part of his equation.

"What's wrong?"

"It's been a while since I played."

It's not exactly a lie.

"Dare I ask why?"

There are a million reasons that come to mind.

The premiere of imports he thinks, to the side of the others, is that if he played at home he knows Alice or Carlisle or Esme would figure it out too quickly. That something was still very wrong.

For the same reason as the first that stays on top.

The thing he debates saying for seconds in row.

He feels too old. "Because the music doesn't lie."

"I can understand that a little."

Just a little. Sallie's not in Edward's head after all.

"You do play."

It's a conceding statement.
If there's a beat or wryness in there.

"Not like you do. My soul comes out other ways."

He's had time. It's his response to the first.
And the reason he doesn't cringe at it.

His fingertips, and gaze, don't leave the keys. "Elucidate?"

Hopefully not on the first one. He lives with people who do.

"Mine comes out with people. I think so, at any rate. Talking to folk teaches me about myself. Makes my 'verse a little less stark."

Carlisle put it so well decades ago.

About how he already had words everywhere in him.

Edward nodded, silently. His head the only part that moved.

"And -- " I try to make things easier. Serve some. " -- apparently now I read poetry."

Edward's lip quirked at the edge for her spoken words.
He pressed down a single key. Twice. Paused.

"You could certainly do worse."

"'There once was a man from Nantucket -- '"

Edward, mockingly, cringed.

And pressed all his fingers down on keys. Disharmonious.

"You know what's funny? I don't even know that whole poem. Mike just likes to say the first line like I know the joke it means."

"Ribald limericks." Beat.

He glanced over, chagrined bemusement from golden eyes fringed black. "Almost as old as I am."

"Clearly the dust mites pale in comparison to your bounteous age, Mister Cullen," Sallie snickers, trying to be boisterous and cracking wise.

Edward doesn't mind too much.

"One of the first ones went along the lines of;

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.

But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man

And as for the bucket, Nantucket."

But of course, as says the curl of his lips. That one obvious isn't ribald. It's just a literary motif and a play on words.

"But there's no way Mike would find somethin' that tame funny."

Edward chose a middle scale.
His lips curled toward something like a wry smirk.
Tapping a very juvenile single note set with one finger.

His voice really shouldn't allowed to be velvety,
Nor for the golden seventeen to never change;

There once was a man from Nantucket
Whose dick was so long he could suck it.
And he said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin,
"If my ear were a cunt I'd fuck it."

Somewhere at the opposite end of the bar, Carlisle snaps a pen in half trying to keep back a hysterical bout of laughter.

Sallie doesn't notice or overhear over her own chittering laugh.

"That is supremely awful."

Whereas Edward hears even the spring in the pen which groans and then breaks. The individual pieces of plastic splintering. The riot of differing amusements (and reason for it) from both of them.

Edward only tilted his head, with something like a shrug.

"The very reason it's referenced as the poetry people know."

"Lowest common denominator?"

Edward's thought on it is far more pointed.

"In education, understanding and taste."

"Not all of us can be connoisseurs like one Mr. Cullen.'

Edward half rolled his eyes, gaze never shooting much further up than the shadowy under-bronze of his far too long bangs. Ending it with a glance toward her that was something smug and teasing.

"At least you've started well."

"Never too late for an old dog. Or some such poetry."

On that note.

"Thank you again. For the book. You didn't have to."

Edward nodded, while looking back to the piano.

There really wasn't much more to say about that one.

So he reached out his hands flat again and start to play.

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