Phyllis had played the violin professionally for seven years. She first began studying the instrument when she was six years old and her uncle Weston, who was also a musician, gave her a one half sized violin for her birthday. His intention was simply to expose her to musical possibilities and he hoped she might try and play with it a little, though he fully expected the instrument to become a decoration on her bookshelf in a short amount of time. What was least expected was that she would take to the instrument like a fish to water and even showed an initial aptitude for it.
This of course pleased Weston, as well as her parents, quite a bit and he offered to pay for private lessons for the young Phyllis. Her parents were slightly hesitant at first as they didn’t want to put undue pressure on her and knowing that Weston was a professional pianist, they thought it might be his natural inclination to do so. However, they used their better judgment and realized he was simply offering her a gift and they let her take the lessons.
Phyllis thought about those early days of playing and how awful she must have been at the time without realizing. She sipped her coffee in the small café located in one of the Malibu hotels in which she was staying. She was in town because she had an audition for the Malibu Symphony, which was later in the afternoon. Auditions never seemed to make Phyllis nervous and she wasn’t sure why because everyone else she knew dreaded them. She suddenly started to chuckle a bit to herself as she realized she was probably just unaware of how bad she was at them, just as she must have been unaware of her lack of abilities so many years ago. Oh well, she thought as she bit into her raspberry croissant, ignorance is bliss. Then she went back to her Sudoku puzzle and enjoyed her coffee.
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