Tallis' Third Tune

by Ellen L. Ekstrom

  My hand went up to touch the stones that caught fire in the light. I’d never owned anything as beautiful as this.

  “I saw this and I thought of you. It was in an antique jewelry shop in Oxford near my apartment. Couldn’t pass it up!”

  “It’s gorgeous! Quinn, thank you! I’ve never owned real gemstones. And this is so beautiful, so perfect…”

  “That look says it all,” he murmured in my ear.

  “I don’t have anything as nice.”

  I slipped away and reached for my school bag, retrieving a clumsily wrapped package. “I made these – sorry about the packaging; I can choose the paper and ribbon, the colors, but putting it all together and making it look like something from The Emporium or Capwell’s, that I can’t do,” I confessed and handed over the Christmas gift.

  It didn’t matter to Quinn. He laughed happily and hurled himself on my bed to attack the package greedily, gasping in delight when he discovered a small teddy bear made of white silky fur and a sweater I’d spent all summer knitting. The wine-colored wool was a perfect choice, given his dark good looks.

  “You said you’d never had a teddy bear or a pet, so, I had Dennis help me make one – but I knitted the sweater myself.”

  “I have a pet! What do we call him?” Quinn said delightedly.

  “I kept thinking of Frodo from Lord of the Rings when I was making it; guess it’s the hairy feet.”

  “Frodo it is. Is that bow tie he’s wearing some of the fabric from our prom?”

  “The same. Dennis’s idea – make the magic last forever, he said, or something like it. I told him not to, but he said go along with it. You know Dennis…”

  “Let’s see this sweater!”

  He pulled off the expensive sweater he’d had on and replaced it with my poorer offering. It fit, though a bit long, and a bit wide in the shoulders, but he did look handsome wearing my gift.

  “Wow, so soft. And you made both of these,” Quinn said thoughtfully as he studied the bear first, and then ran a hand lovingly up the left arm of the sweater. “I’ll sleep with both tonight,” he whispered between kisses. “It’ll be like you’re with me.”

  After a long, lingering kiss and an embrace, he said, “C’mon, I have another surprise,” and took my hand. We went into the backyard where a little fir tree planted in a ceramic pot was dwarfed under pine and eucalyptus trees. It was sweet for all that it looked like something Charlie Brown would have decorated. All of the ornaments were photos of us, and pictures from Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet glued to wooden disks with decoupage. Some were embellished with gold leaf and pasted-on colored glass beads. Velvet ribbons of very kind from the notions counter at the local fabric stores were tied on the branches and draped like tinsel. On the top of the tree were a medieval lady with a harp and a knight with a sword and shield.

  “Quinn!” I exclaimed in delight. “How long did it take you – and how did you?”

  “Well, Dennis was Santa Claus for both of us this year. I told him what I wanted and picked out the photos and the colors. You like it, then?”

  “Love it!”

  “Maybe you’ll put it in your dorm room when you get back to Cornell?”

  “I hope there’ll be room for it – I hope I don’t kill it.”

  Quinn leaned in and whispered, “Thought of that. It’s not a real tree, but every thought that went into it is very real.”

  I crowed and giggled at every ornament and decoration, especially the lady and knight crowning the little fir.

  Quinn wrapped me in his arms and we kissed. There was something different in that kiss and I looked at him questioningly. He touched my face and said softly, “I’ve been thinking, Alice; let’s get married after school. I love you and I hope you feel the same way about me – it’s three years away for you, but I know it’s possible. I want it to be. I could get work in New York after college, maybe teach at the School for the Performing Arts, or audition for the New York Philharmonic. That way we’d be closer. I’ve always wanted to live in New York,” he rambled. “I think we can do this.”

  “So do I.”

  “That’s a yes?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I guess that wasn’t a traditional kind of proposal, either.”

  “Well, feel free to get down in the mud if you want to,” I quipped.

  Quinn took the bait and when I tried to stop him from kneeling on the rain-soaked lawn, we both lost our footing and skidded to our knees. We hugged and laughed the laughter that came from anxiety being dispelled, from joy realized. Our laughter now haunted me as I sat in my corner of the Curiosity Shop, tears welling in my eyes.

  I reached into my purse and took out a little cosmetic bag that held a tube of lipstick and the cross. So many years later, the garnets had not lost their beauty, the silver findings and chain still brilliant. I slipped it around my neck and meditated on it, watching the sunlight spark off the stones. Joan of Arc slid into the chair next to me and touched the cross with a delicate finger as if the stones were either too sharp or they might scorch.

  “So very beautiful. Aren’t you glad you kept it?”

  I nodded and tried a smile. Out of my book bag I took a notebook and flipped through sketches of clothing and costumes, drawings of medieval villages and tomb sculptures, turning to the page on which I’d drawn my idea for a wedding dress.

  “I had a dress like this once.”

  The woman’s voice was unfamiliar – it was soft and low, almost like my mother’s. I glanced up and was taken aback by the cool, patrician beauty of this medieval lady who smiled down at me. She tapped the drawing with a bejeweled finger, her hands as equally beautiful as she.

  Joan deferred to her as she sat down, pulling her New York Times Book Review closer and trying hard to ignore the stunning woman, calling her “La Reine Eleanor.”

  “What would you use to make this dress? A silk brocade or velvet? Perhaps velvet bands on the sleeves, and the dress sewn of a rich fabric in red.”

  “It was my wedding dress. I thought silk and lace – shades of ivory and iridescent pearl gray, the underdress in silk with heavy French lace over it. Pearl buttons on the sleeves, a small train,” I said, feeling quite comfortable explaining my design to her.

  “And did you wear it?” she asked kindly.

  From behind her counter the Proprietress guffawed and then excused herself. She took out little volumes as customers approached, the sheets of gold stars coming out of a drawer and disappearing out of sight just as quickly. The lapis-colored book stayed on its shelf.

  “Nothing to say?” I spoke up now, glaring at her.

  “I beg your pardon?” Joan of Arc asked, looking up from her reading.

  “I wasn’t speaking to you,” I snapped. “You all know it was my wedding dress!”

  “But it was the wrong groom,” sighed Marie Antoinette as she joined us.

  “This is what happens when you give yourself completely to a man,” the lady said. “Let me tell you Alice, had I known what Henry Plantagenet was going to put me through, I would have stayed with King Louis, but then, history would have been written differently, and you would know about that, wouldn’t you? I’m Eleanor, a queen of England.” Eleanor of Aquitaine now glanced over at the Review and tapped an advertisement. “Didn’t you write this book, Alice?”

  “In one of her better years,” Joan offered and shrank back when I gave her a look.

  “Thank you, by the way, for portraying me in such a favorable light,” Eleanor continued and winked as if we had a secret between us. “I’m not the fast and loose harlot some historians make me out to be.”

  Again the Proprietress guffawed. She composed herself and now took to making entries in her ledger.

  “One of the problems of writing about the past and living in it,” the Proprietress spoke up, “is not seeing how important today and the future are. Sometimes, we are so afraid of making changes for the better, the opportunity slips away.”

  “I think w
hat she’s trying to say, Alice, is that you need to get back on that train before it’s too late,” Joan offered.

  “Don’t forget your map!” Eleanor of Aquitaine said as she followed me across the Shop and took a map out of the brochure rack.

  I ignored it and her, all of them, as I went out the door and crossed the street to Post Street in San Francisco and walked up to Dearmont’s, the antiquarian bookseller off Union Square where I’d worked since college. The shop owner, Percy Dearmont, glanced up from his reading when I entered and slid behind my desk in the office we shared.

  “Late…”

  “And in five weeks you’ll be dead,” I muttered, slamming the desk drawer on my purse.

  “Sorry, didn’t hear you.”

  “Nothing,” I sighed.

  I didn’t like knowing the future; I especially didn’t like knowing I could change my share of it either if I so desired and the opportunity lent itself.

  The vase of flowers on the coffee table caught my attention. You could tell the time of year by whatever Percy plucked from his Marin County garden and put in that vase. Camellias were stuffed among holly and ivy, some greens – it was winter still, and I knew the date and the hour – I knew what would happen that day.

  The morning passed uneventfully. Two customers, no more. I often wondered how Percy managed to keep the doors open and pay the generous salaries he offered. I learned after his sudden death in a cable car accident that he was obscenely wealthy and he wanted the shop to amuse himself and his clientele – who always managed to be friends of the family, or acquaintances from one of the high end restaurants or bars he frequented. Every day was the same: Percy would read The New Yorker and I would unpack books delivered from all over the world and appraise and catalog them, longing for my lunch hour when I could actually read some of them while seated on a bench at Union Square.

  That day had a twist.

  The doorbell rang and neither of us looked up to see if it was the morning delivery or a customer. Percy was still engrossed in The New Yorker, and I was cataloging the week’s latest acquisitions: late nineteenth century folios of Audubon illustrations. The receptionist was too cheery in her greeting and I supposed the bottled water guy had arrived and was flirting. Then I heard her say, “She’s right there – where the door is open. Just knock.”

  “Hello, Alice.”

  I looked up sharply from the typewriter and saw Donovan standing in the doorway. Percy had come to attention, making an assessment of this tall, dark and handsome stranger. He glanced at me and from behind the magazine made the ‘okay’ sign with his fingers.

  Another bouquet of white flowers was offered sheepishly and I handed it off to one of the assistants passing through with a stack of books. “Put them in water, would you?” I asked sweetly.

  “It isn’t hard to imagine you in a place like this,” Donovan said. “It fits you perfectly.”

  “Then you can guess where I imagine you,” I muttered, returning to my work.

  Donovan stood there for the longest time watching me type and Percy kept giving me looks that said ‘be nice to the gorgeous man.’

  “I tried to stay away – I know you made it clear,” Donovan started, but I gave him ‘the look’ and let my eyes slide toward Percy who was watching as if it was a soap opera (which it was).

  Percy coughed and made an excuse to check inventory.

  “You went by my brother’s?”

  “Well, yeah – it was the only address I had for you.”

  “That’s the only way you could have known where to find me.”

  “I don’t think I’m wasting my time, but would you at least look at me, talk to me?” he asked. “Just tell me – something.”

  I took off my reading glasses and looked up as he asked. The expression on his face I remembered from our first night together in Florence. A pang of longing and remembrance shot threw me and I began to feel pity for Donovan.

  “Not here. Not now,” I said quietly and with control.

  “Meet me for dinner. I’m at the hotel across the street, the Saint Francis.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t give up easily,” Donovan whispered in my ear as he retreated. I was glad that he didn’t see how it affected me, how I blushed and felt like I did in Verona on our first date.

  He was back the next day.

  And the next.

  Finally, I gave in, more out of curiosity than a real desire to hear what he had to say, what excuse he could conjure up for the weeks of silence after the breathless, romantic promises whispered in Florence when I was almost ready to believe again, hope that love was possible, and my broken heart had mended at last.

  Donovan was waiting on the doorstep when I arrived at the bookshop that particular morning.

  “All right!” I sighed, not letting him speak. “I’ll see you at seven.”

  “Thanks. See you then,” he said quietly, a bit surprised. “Uh, do you have time for coffee now?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Sorry – see you tonight.”

  “Donovan!”

  He turned, his face shining with expectation of the best kind.

  “No promises.”

  Unlike our first date, I didn’t take care with my appearance. I merely pulled my hair up into a chignon and walked across the street in my safe navy blue ‘dress for success’ business suit and prim ivory blouse with sensible pumps, and passed like a drab nun or a corporate attorney under the Christmas lights and decorations, the ebullient shoppers pushing their way and being carried through one department store to the next. The doorman at the Saint Francis tipped his hat and opened the door for me as I approached. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I inhaled the spice-scented air of the lobby and took in the warmth from the fireplace. As a child, my mother took me here to stroll the lobby to admire the decorations and have a cup of hot chocolate in the lounge after we saw Santa Claus at Macy’s. It was our one extravagance, she used to say.

  But Donovan was nowhere to be seen.

  “Are there any messages for Alice Martin?” I asked the desk clerk after fifteen minutes had passed.

  “No, Miss.” The clerk made a thorough sweep of the counter and boxes behind him and shook his head. Nodding, I paced another circle.

  I kept glancing at my watch and pacing the carpet until the concierge invited me to the lounge where I took a table near the door to watch, nursing a gin and tonic. An hour passed before I decided I’d made a fool of myself. Just as I was leaving, Donovan entered the lobby, strolling leisurely towards the elevators.

  “Hello,” I greeted. “Did you forget?”

  He looked up when he heard my voice and frowned, reached for the elevator buttons.

  “Donovan?”

  Now his face drained of color and he forced a smile. “Alice!”

  Pivoting on my heels, I left the hotel. Outside on Powell Street I hailed a taxi and was taken directly to the Curiosity Shop.

  “Well done, you!”

  I glanced up wearily, and saw Richard the Third sitting at my table and pouring himself a glass of champagne.

  “Something’s changed,” I muttered, looking around.

  “Indeed. That would be you, Alice Rose. I wish I had had the ability to choose my friends and lovers wisely,” Richard was saying.

  “But you know what happens!”

  “Yes, some things can’t be prevented – but you can make some events work to your advantage. Of course, had I known then what I know now about my circumstance, well…”

  “You had your chance,” the Proprietress sniffed, violently stamping a page in a book. “It isn’t about you, Your Grace. This week is for Alice.”

  “The week is almost up!” Richard protested.

  “What happens at the end of the week?” I wanted to know, looking around. Everyone, from Tyrone Power with his volume of Shelley, to Joan of Arc still poring over The New York Times Book Review, became very interested in what they were reading or doing and igno
red me.

  The Proprietress snapped her fingers and pointed out the door and to the street where a taxi waited.

  I was taking the door handle when I heard Donovan’s shout and was back in Union Square.

  “Alice, please wait!” he shouted, and almost knocked an elderly couple down the entrance steps as he vaulted from the hotel lobby.

  “Drive on,” I said to the cabbie. I watched my ride home disappear into the traffic on Powell Street, and then turned questioningly on Donovan.

  “People make mistakes,” he said, and took from his coat pocket an envelope upon which my name was written in his hand. He gave it to me, adding: “It would have helped and done me a world of good if I’d remembered to give it to the desk clerk!”

  It was a moment before I took the envelope and removed the note from it.

  Please don’t think I’m a jerk or asshole – I had a last minute meeting. Wait for me in the lobby and I’ll make it up to you. D.

  After a long moment during which I stared at my shoes and my cheeks burned, I muttered, “I was in the lounge.”

  “And I was looking for you in the lobby.”

  We stared at each other, hands in pockets, until I started laughing, and Donovan joined in.

  “Do you want to get something to eat?” he asked. “I can get us a table upstairs at Victor’s.”

  “Victor’s? I’m not dressed for it.”

  “Well, how ‘bout my room? You won’t need fancy dress for that – or a dress at all!” he murmured, leaning in for a kiss.

  “Remember – I’m still mad at you,” I jibed. “You’ll have to earn that privilege.”

  “And it will be,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist. “Have you lost weight?” He glanced up and down Powell Street. “You know the neighborhood better than I do; any ideas?”

  “Are you in the mood for French cuisine? There’s a bistro in the Financial District not far from here – Le Central.”