Eli Navarro had a morning ritual that looked like choreography to anyone watching: the rub of a lint cloth across brass tuning pins, the soft tap of a hammer to find a pitch, the patient turn of a ratchet that coaxed a string closer to an agreed frequency. He liked to think of it as making small promises keep singing. The shop smelled of lemon oil and old felt, and on wet days the doorway fogged with the neighborhood's damp breath, carrying the buttery scent of the corner bakery's custard puffs. Pickle, a mottled cat with a talent for landing on whatever surface had the most keys, was already in residence across the keyboard like a critic in repose.
This morning a beginner's teacher, Ms. Garza, arrived with a cluster of students. Eli worked between their lessons and his own job list, sliding the music desk closed so Pickle could sun himself on the exposed keys. He adjusted the damper, put a new felting on a wobbling guide, and straightened a warped key with his palm like a potter coaxing clay. ‘‘You always make them sound like they mean it,’’ Ms. Garza said, half joke, half thanks.
Eli shrugged, wiped his hands on his apron, and replied, ‘‘They mean it when the action doesn't fight them back.’’ His fingers were stained with a tiny constellation of grease spots; he kept his fingernails short so they fit around capstans and screws. A little boy banged an enthusiastic scale, and Pickle reacted with a disdainful twitch, then decided the scale was an acceptable background to a nap. That tiny absurdity — a cat sleeping on the supposed instrument of precision — made Eli smile in a way that loosened his shoulders.
Outside, the street vendor with the accordion set up near the market stall where people sold spiced pears and hand-painted postcards. It was a detail of the world that had nothing directly to do with pianos: the city announced the weekly market with a brass bell at nine sharp, and people queued for flaky pastries wrapped in wax paper before they came to tune their instruments. Eli liked the bell; it marked time in the neighborhood better than his phone did. He had the shop's window propped open despite the drizzle, letting a ribbon of city sound in — a bus braking, a laugh, an argument about a football score — so the room felt like part of the street rather than a sealed box of wood and wire.
As he rehung the action on an upright a student had left for a minor repair, his phone pinged. The message was formal in a way that made his chest tighten: an invitation to audition at the city concert hall for a resident technician post. It arrived as a polished PDF, the kind of neat, polite thing that promised prestige and steady hours in the sort of place where silk gloves and stage lights made people move differently. Eli read it twice, then a third time, feeling the words coldly practical against his palm. He closed the file and put the phone face down, like a paper he might one day accept or refuse.