Perfect Pitch

By Chrysanthe Tan

We gathered around Jessalyn Kruger’s upright piano, and her father lifted the heavy wooden cover.

“What note is this?” Mr. Kruger asked me, striking a middle C. Why did he have to sound so chipper? — we weren’t his baby sixth graders. My friends held their half-eaten slices of Hawaiian pizza with mouths agape, eyes darting between the piano and me. Their excitement annoyed the hell out of me. A mere two minutes ago, we’d been only six minutes away from cutting the ice-cream cake, but no, the table discussion just had to meander to the topic of perfect pitch. Jessa’s dad, who was a teacher, swooped in to explain the rare phenomenon, which curses people with the ability to identify and conjure pitches from thin air, and he explained that perfect pitch is a gift that can burden its recipients with hyper-perception, letting them know when something is out of tune and precisely how out of tune it is.

“Chrysanthe has perfect pitch!” Jessa blurted. So we moved to the piano, and the test began.

At school, Ms. Norwick was also under the erroneous impression that I had perfect pitch. She would stop rehearsal often to consult me: “What do you think, Chrys, are the clarinets sharp? Was that an E-flat or an A-flat?” I always knew the answer, but I didn’t know how I knew, and this uncertainty made me nervous. Moreover, the orchestra hated me, because I couldn’t conceal my perpetual judgment of them. Whenever something was askew — which was 100% of the time — my body betrayed my social IQ in the form of involuntary twitches, goosebumps, and distressed micro-facial-expressions. I knew I wasn’t perfect either, but for some reason, no one ever noticed when I played a note ten cents flat. Ms. Norwick would just tell me to stop wrinkling my nose or my face would stay that way.

I never had perfect pitch. And I’m not just saying this. What I have, and had, ia extraordinarily good pitch. I could only tell how egregiously off people were because those people sucked. So Ms. Norwick continued to solicit my “perfect” ear, I continued to provide her with mysteriously accurate answers, she increasingly trusted me, and the facade of my “perfect” pitch increasingly weighed on my consciousness. The streak of perfection grew more burdensome every day, and I figured it was only a matter of time before I’d slip up and she’d realize I'm not special after all.

Now my friends were about to realize this too.

Mr. Kruger held the piano note with the sustain pedal, striking it again for emphasis.

“So?” he said.

So? my peers’ eyes said.

“I don’t know,” I lied. Middle C seemed too easy. It had to be a trick question. I couldn’t risk it.

“Come on; yes you do!”

“Is this really what you wanna be doing at Jessa’s birthday party?” I tried to shut them down with a saucy little head tilt/neck thrust combo. “This is boring. Let’s light candles and sing Happy Birthday.” Remembering the chocolate ice-cream cake, my friends ditched their pizza and headed toward the freezer. But Mr. Kruger lingered.

“You knew what it was, didn’t you?” he said, talking to me like a grown-up this time.

“Yeah,” I replied before running to the kitchen so I wouldn’t have to prove it. I guess I knew. I don’t know. I was probably wrong.

When the party got loud enough, I snuck back to the piano and tapped the Middle C just to make sure.