Blue Notes

by Lofty, Carrie

  But just before I stepped into the room to face my father, Jude’s was the love I craved the most. I don’t care anymore why he loves me or that it doesn’t seem possible. If he loves me, he’ll take me back when I’m through with this nightmare. Right? I’ll grovel. I’ll beg. I’ll hold out my hand and hope he takes it. I’ll hope he never lets go, because I won’t be able to walk away from him again.

  I was a fool to do it at all.

  “Miss Chambers? Take a seat.”

  I’m flanked by the six lawyers or DAs or Martians. Whoever. The good guys. At the head of the wide oval conference table is a man in a black suit, with a stenographer beside him and a digital recorder by his pad of notepaper. My words are that important.

  A door on the other side of the room opens. Greg Peter Nyman is ushered in. He’s flanked too, but by armed guards. He’s wearing prison orange and looks like hell warmed over—not at all like the spiffed-up version who once glared at me in court. Chains connect handcuffs to a pair of manacles around his ankles.

  It’s been six years.

  He looks like he’s aged twenty.

  If anyone held up a picture and said, This is your bio dad, I’d have denied it. No way. My dad was tall, robust, intimidating. He had full jowls and dark blond hair. This man is slightly stooped, weighs twenty pounds less, and is half bald. What remains is going gray. He was young when I was born. Only seventeen. He’s no more than thirty-eight now. I’d have denied that too.

  “Rosie girl. Been a while.”

  I shiver. His voice is nearly the same—just rougher and fiercer, if that’s possible. And his eyes . . . His eyes haven’t changed a bit. He stares at me with contempt and so much anger. Snakes’ eyes look more human. His expression is as dangerous as venom. The manacles and armed guards are all that keep him from lunging across the table and twisting my neck until it snaps.

  He killed one woman in our sick little family. Maybe he killed two other people. I don’t care right now. I only want to say my piece and get the fuck out of that room.

  “Quite the woman now,” he says. Guards shove him by both shoulders onto a chair across the table from mine.

  “That’ll be enough,” says the man at the head of the table. He introduces himself as something something, independent arbiter. There are lawyers on the other side of the table, but I class them as enemy combatants. I suppose it’s their job. That doesn’t mean I have to like them. There are shrinks on both sides—more independent parties, but from Social Services. That I might need a shrink to get through this seems laughable. Don’t they know counseling was as much a part of my youth as high school classes? The woman at my side, though, sitting next to me, takes my hand beneath the table and gives it a squeeze.

  I’m not alone. Not here, not in Louisiana. No matter the people paid to represent him, the shriveled man in front of me is very much alone.

  Speaking to me, the arbiter asks, “Would you please state for the record your name and occupation?”

  “My name is Keeley Chambers. I’m a pianist and junior at Tulane University.”

  “Your name is Rosie Nyman and you’re my daughter,” comes that goose bump–inducing growl.

  “Mr. Nyman, you will refrain from comment or you will be removed from these proceedings. A judge would hold him in contempt,” he says. “My authority extends to confining him to a cell where he can watch and listen via video monitor. Keep him quiet, or that’s the next step.”

  I like that he’s so blunt on my behalf, but I want to tell him that it isn’t necessary. That man is a liar, I want to say. I’m not Rosie Nyman, and he gave up any right to call me his daughter a long time ago. In fact, staring at him across that wide table, I feel the fear soak down through my new dress flats into the concrete floor.

  This man is nothing. He has nothing. He’ll be nothing for the rest of his miserable life.

  By contrast, I have an amazing life yet to lead. It’s waiting for me in New Orleans. And I have a man—a wonderful man—who dearly deserves my apology.

  “Continue, please, Miss Chambers. How do you know the defendant?”

  “He was my father,” I say with strength enough to make Greg Peter Nyman flinch. “And he was convicted of killing my mother.”

  Thirty-Eight

  I sit in Clair and John’s living room, having talked to Janey and Adelaide several times since returning from California. Two days of TLC from the people I consider my real parents—my forever parents, from this day forward parents—have done me a world of good. I talked and talked, cried and cried, and in the end, now I’m okay. This was the safest place for me to return to after the torturous hours I spent in that room, which kept getting smaller and smaller no matter how confident my words sounded. I was confident. But it’s unnerving to be stared down by so much hatred for so long.

  I’ve missed four days of classes. I need to head back. The Fall Finish is Friday night. Sure, it might seem like just another public performance open to the whole campus. Those of us in the department know what rides on the night. Basically, our futures as musicians.

  I could put my hopes on a second chance next year. Seniors are going to perform too, after all. But I’m not in the mood to put off anything important.

  Not ever again.

  Clair and I had a heart to heart about my split with Jude. After another gentle grilling that echoed a lot of her concerns from a few months before, she said what I already know. That he sounds one in a million. That he’s just the right man to have in my life.

  Only, he isn’t in my life anymore.

  I have to fix that. If it’s not too late.

  I return to campus and a flurry of hugs from Janey. More crying and talking, but less frantic this time. I’m tired of the topic. I’ve purged what I needed to.

  Working up my courage, I text Jude. Will you be at the Finish?

  He doesn’t reply. I check my phone about seven hundred times in two days. I even reset it and do that thing where you take the battery out and blow on it. I don’t know if it helps, but I’m willing to start talking to voodoo priestesses if it means hearing just a word from Jude. I’ve been tempted a thousand times to use Adelaide as a go-between—and I know she’d do it—but it feels unfair to her and completely cowardly of me. I either deserve him, or I don’t. I have to find a way to reach him that doesn’t mean dragging his sister into the mix.

  The night of the Fall Finish, I’m a shaky wreck until my friends get hold of me.

  Janey is dressed in the most figure-hugging gown I’ve ever seen her wear. It’s bombshell red, about a hundred and eighty degrees from her usual sweats and T-shirts. I keep trying not to stare, but that’s out of politeness. I bet any guy who sees her that night won’t be so reserved.

  She’s eager to go, partly because of the music and partly because I need her so much. Adelaide arrives just as we’re getting ready to leave. She’s gorgeous in a little black taffeta and toile cocktail dress that looks like something from an ’80s prom. Even her hair is teased out, New Wave style. I don’t get it, but as always she pulls it off.

  “Addie,” I say, just before we hug. “Meet Janissa.”

  I’m a little bewildered when they embrace too. “Janey, I’m glad you’re coming.”

  I must be letting flies in. They’re both staring at me where I stand, mouth agape. I’ve never introduced them.

  My nerves take on an extra dose of puke worthy when I realize what happened. They met when they gathered in our room, worried sick over me.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. I’ve said it to them each before, in the hours before I flew to California, but this feels stronger and more devastating. “What if I can’t do this? What if I used up everything when I faced off against my dad? I’ll freeze and that’ll be it.”

  “Don’t talk shit,” Addie says. “You told me once that you worried about the people in the audience who might
be watching. Did you ever freak yourself out and think he might be there?”

  I nod, feeling pried open. “There at Yamatam’s.”

  “Is that possible now?”

  “No,” I say with more strength.

  She smiles, crooked and cocky. “And if you pull any punches, I’ll know and I’ll give you hell for it. Worse yet, I’ll threaten to blow off this whole thing. I’ll behave like it’s a big joke. What would you think of me if I behaved like a bratty little show off tonight?”

  “That you’d wasted the chance to be awesome.”

  “If you can’t see the flipside of that, then you’re playing dumb on purpose.” She looks me up and down. “And you’re about a million miles from dumb.”

  I sniffle, but Janey practically assaults me with a tissue. “If you cry, you’ll ruin an hour’s worth of my best makeup skills. And Opal will be pissed too. Those fake eyelashes took forever.”

  The primping had seemed like forever, at least. I was hella nervous already, but it was good to have a mini swarm of fashionistas keeping my mind off things. They’d bickered about eye shadow colors and whether I should wear nude or black stockings. I wound up in a long black evening gown made of heavy jersey that drapes elegantly to the floor. The bodice has wide straps and a deep V-neck that plunges even lower to the base of my spine—that flapper look I’d second-guessed at Halloween.

  “Yeah, don’t mess it up,” Addie tells me. “You look like a model, all willowy and elegant.”

  I can’t help but beam and pull her into another fierce hug.

  “I tried to drag him along,” she whispers. “Seems I’m about as good at herding him as he is at tempering me. I mean, we’re still siblings. Bickering and power games come with the territory.” She lets me go, briefly adjusting a black velvet bow nestled in her bleach blonde updo. “But he’ll be there. I know it.”

  I’m not so confident as we step out of the elevator. The night is cold. I’m wearing a floor length coat of delicate velvet to complement the dress. I’m glad I have it when we face off against Brandon in the lobby. I’d feel on display without it, when the last thing I want is his eyes on me.

  He starts to speak. I don’t know what. I don’t care.

  “I didn’t know you had a knack for photography,” I say. “You couldn’t have captured that moment any better. Good thing you were there right when it happened. Lucky, I guess.”

  His ears turn pink and he crosses his arms. He’s built. I should be intimidated. I sure as hell am not. “What are you saying, Keeley?”

  “Oh, I thought it would’ve been Rosie to you.” I take Janey’s hand. I take Addie’s hand. “But never mind. Bygones and all that. I hope you spend whatever cash you made on something other than ramen.”

  “Peanut butter and jelly,” Janey says. “Live a little.”

  Adelaide nods earnestly. “In the meantime, we have places to be.”

  “He won’t have you,” Brandon calls as we walk toward the exit. “No one would.”

  His words cut right to my most sensitive, fearful place. But I’m dressed to the nines and flanked by my two best friends. I laugh when they both flip him the bird over their shoulders.

  The recital hall is on the ground floor of Dixon. It’s a theater in the round, with a harp, piano, organ, and other big-ass instruments set up for the docket of performers. The program list looks like the entire department, plus another couple dozen they dragged off the street. I count forty in all. Adelaide is number six. I’m number twenty-two.

  She and I are backstage, with Janey somewhere out in the audience, meeting up with her friends from the haunted house night. Clair and John are out there too. God, so many people I want to impress. I want to show them who they’ve known—but haven’t known—all this time.

  “Number twenty-two,” I mutter. “Just enough time to work myself into a tizzy. Is the middle good or bad? Will everybody be ready to go home by then?”

  “Quit talking.” Addie cracks her knuckles. “You’re making me nervous. And I never get nervous.”

  “Liar,” I say with a smile.

  “Yeah, totally. C’mon now. Air kisses. I gotta go get ready.” She looks at me, her hazel eyes bright and hopeful. “It’ll all work out. And in case I forget to say it, you’ve been one helluva mentor.”

  I snort with laughter. “That can mean so many things.”

  “I know!”

  Watching her head toward the lineup where other performers wait, I wish I could be in the audience when she wows them flat on their asses. But I don’t have to be. I’ve seen her come into her own throughout the semester. She adores the spotlight and soaks it up, but she can play to an empty room now and be happy with the results. She can, but lucky for the world, empty rooms aren’t her style.

  I wring my hands backstage as performer after performer does their thing. It’s such an eclectic mix. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own drama and anxieties that it’s a treat to hear what the rest of the department has been working on. There’s Dixieland, stripped-down Philip Glass–style minimalism, a really amazing soprano, and some stuff that sounds remarkably rockabilly. I wonder if the crowd is loosened up enough to boogie in their seats, at the very least.

  I’m still nervous, but it feels . . . bearable. It’s the kind of nervous that happens when I deliver a presentation in front of a class or meet a stranger for the first time. I’m not drowning in it, and it’s not going to change anything about what I do onstage. I’m bolstered with happiness and cheer like mad when Addie brings down the house. “She’s only a freshman,” I hear people whisper, and my heart swells with pride.

  That’s right, I think. You just wait. She hasn’t gotten started.

  When my name is announced, a strange, welcome calm washes over me, as if I’ve just stepped into a hot shower. Tension eases out of that spot between my shoulder blades. My fingers don’t feel numb, but nimble and eager. The last minute changes I made to the sonata feel so very right. I’m going to perform a piece about a woman who’s lost two men from her life—one for the best, and one for the heartbreaking worst.

  The extent of control I feel over my own body is astonishing. I’m charged up like the moments when Jude and I are just starting to get serious, naked, playful, at ease with one another during such intimacies. Despite the heartache those memories cause, I think that ease has helped me.

  God, I wish he was here.

  But he’s not. He’s gone, and this is what I’ve been working for a lot longer than I’ve loved Jude Villars.

  The spotlight that had been so intimidating and blinding at Yamatam’s is like sunlight. It even feels like sunlight, shining on the skin bared by my gown and making me feel like summer has arrived for me alone. I hear the clicking of my heels and the welcoming applause as I cross the gleaming parquet floor. The piano at center stage is magnificent, like the one in Jude’s mansion—a concert grand, polished to such a radiant black shine that I can see my reflection in the wood.

  I don’t recognize the woman I see, but she’s lovely and strong.

  She’s me.

  The ache in my heart and the happy memories and . . . everything. It’s all there, ready to burst out. Keeley Chambers, whoever she’s becoming. Unlike some comforting figment I made up in the backseat of a stolen car, just trying to get myself through another night, I am real. I’m not a scared, hurt rabbit. I’m ready to play to a crowd of several hundred, to open up and show them my soul. My music won’t be pretty or coy. I’d be a fraud if I tried to pass off something so tame. This will be a raging storm, but I won’t be.

  Sharps, flats, blue notes and all . . . I’ll control every moment.

  Middle C. I stroke it once.

  Hello.

  And then it’s me and my music.

  At its heart, the sonata owes a lot to the improv that began on that long ago night, under Jude’s watchful, brazen gaze
at Yamatam’s. I’d busted out something wickedly unrestrained—the product of that night’s confusion and excitement. Now it’s an introduction. It’s the start of something great, with the underlying backbone of the changes yet to come.

  I increase the tempo. My heart is beating fast and hard, out of rhythm with what I’m playing, but I’m aware of every intake of breath. I don’t just play the notes. I glance toward the crowd, I sway, I let myself be transported by the music while still keeping my enthusiasm in check—like letting a horse run free, knowing full well that I hold the reins.

  With the increased tempo, I weave in my first motif. It’s simple, really. Only four words, but so full of uncertainty. This is anticipation in E major, lively and edgy: Will Jude Be There?

  Another motif follows, slowing to an adagio, taking place of the first. In the days following our first argument, I layered in darker notes into the sonata: Whoever Said We’re Dating? It’s the sound of my near silent sobs and what it felt like to have my heart broken for the first time. Rather than cry myself, I put all that emotion into the press of key and pedal. I want the audience to feel that pain, to be moved by what changed me forever. It feels right as I play. It feels like the whole auditorium is breathing with me.

  The third motif is brief. Do I love him? Of course I do. But that feeling, that bubbling sense of belonging to him, there in Chicago, or as simply as sleeping in his bedroom, is only a bridge to the finale. It’s an interlude, like the moments before jumping off a platform diving board.

  The final draft—my finishing touches—drained more out of me than I thought possible. I dredged it up from the bottom of my heart while flying back from California, scared shitless, but no longer about my dad. The work had been powerful and hard to face, but it is also some of the most flawless music I’ve ever written. It came to me, flowing, a gushing waterfall of all I kept inside. The motif . . . That was obvious.

  Can You Forgive Me?

  I didn’t notice they were all questions until I launch into the final few measures. Then again, what is a relationship if not questions? They’re the blue notes that hover between yes and no, maybe and definitely, the present and the future. So many doubts. It took missing Jude so badly and facing the man who’d warped my life to realize I possess the power to answer those questions. I possess the power to shape my own life, and to inflict hurt on others. That’s pretty hard to admit.