Mark said, “This is the deal, Gabe. I don’t demand one hundred percent perfection in your playing. But I do demand…one hundred percent dedication. If I make time for you, you’d better be prepared.” He took out his BlackBerry. “I can only see you once…no, let’s make it twice a week at…ten in the morning at USC. I have no other time. I don’t know how that affects your schooling.”

Rina said, “We can work around that. What days?”

“How about…Tuesday and…and if I move this and move this appointment there…” He played with his PDA. “Let’s try out Monday and Thursday at ten—sharp.”

“I teach,” Rina said. “I have to be in school by nine—”

“I can take the bus,” Gabe said.

Rina ignored him. “My husband or I will drop him off early. I’m sure he can figure out something to do.”

“It’s a university with a major music department,” Mark said. “There are practice rooms.” He regarded Gabe. “You don’t drive or you don’t have a car?”

“He’s too young,” Rina told him. “He’ll be fifteen in June.”

“Younger than I thought. Even better. What kind of piano do you have?”

“We don’t have piano,” Rina said. “Do you have a recommendation?”

“A good piano is tens of thousands of dollars.”

“That would be very pricey,” Rina said.

“I’ll see if I can loan you something from the university,” Mark told her. “But no playing until your hand is completely healed and you get the okay from Dr. Birenbaum.”

“It should take about a week before all the bruises are gone,” the doctor told him.

“So let’s make our first lesson a week from today if you’re still around.” He entered some data in his PDA. “What etudes do you know?”

“All the Chopin ten Etudes, some of the twenty-fives, and some of the Liszt Transcendental. I have the sheet music for those and the ones I don’t know by heart.”

“Bring them with you. We’ll start with that.” He offered him a business card. “You did a pretty good job with ‘La campanella,’ but I definitely want you to lay off that until we do some of the etudes. Call the night before if you can’t make it.”

Gabe took the card. He was beaming. “Thank you so much, Mr. Mark, for this opportunity.”

“Of all of your teachers…the only one I know is Ivan Lettech. I’m going to give him a call. Anything you’d like to tell me before I speak to him?”

“He taught me for almost a year. I think it went okay. He told me I needed to enter more of the major competitions to make myself known.”

“Did you?”