On the night of February 22, 1985, Laura sat in with the Mel Stevenson Trio for the first time. It was written inside a circle of what appeared to be faded red wine, on a coaster from the Village Vanguard in New York City, pasted on the front page of Laura’s scrapbook, the fastidious chronology of her life after she met Steve. Reviews, concert programs, the first recording contract Laura signed, and the last, the same year Steve died; and a lot of photographs. Everything neatly dated in handwriting not unlike that on those boxes she’d left behind. A photograph of the apartment in the Marais, where Steve and Laura would live for the rest of their marriage, dated “June 15, 1986”—Simon would have approved of the décor. That same year the trio performed at the jazz festival in Montreux, played gigs in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, and other large and not-so-large cities in Europe.
They came to the States in 1990, and again in ’92: Chicago and New York, the West Coast, that’s when Simon must have seen the trio in San Francisco.
This was not a collection of love letters and birthday cards, no Valentine’s Day poems and romantic keepsakes. It was the chronicle of ten years in the lives of two jazz musicians.
Ten years. The words filled my entire mouth, yet they filled fewer than forty pages in a scrapbook.
I was sitting in Laura’s living room. Alone in the house. I preferred to be by myself without Simon or anyone else around, while I looked at the record of Laura’s life. Content that there was no one there to explain my thoughts or my feelings, looking at Laura’s face in photographs, the face I remembered smiling back at me.
The week of her honeymoon when she and Steve played a five-day gig in Chicago. Steve standing behind the piano in a black jacket and white shirt, hair combed back, bowing slightly. Laura at his side, her violin tucked under her arm. Both of them circled in a narrow spotlight. Laura was twenty-two years old and exultant. It was an expression that appeared on both of their faces in all of the photographs, in photo shoots for magazines and CD sleeves, photos with friends, other jazz musicians.
Photographs of Laura when she was twenty-five, when she was thirty. There might have been changes in hairstyles and clothes, changes in venue, but there was no change in what her expression told of the thrill of being Laura Welles and what it must have been like to keep that feeling with her, to present it to an audience, and still be capable of bringing it back with her when the lights went down.
I imagined Laura and Steve rushing away from New York City trailing, not shoes and rice, but sprinklings of clef tones in their wake as they boarded the jet to make that date in Chicago.
I thought about Laura’s ten years arranged in that book, like decals on an old steamer trunk pressed with faraway places; and what Charlie had said about the difference between doing something and being something.
When I closed the last page, I left the scrapbook downstairs for Simon, and went outside to walk the quiet streets of Shady Grove. I was still thinking about Laura, why she put together those pages with such meticulousness, who they were intended for. She and Steve had no children, no heirs. Was her idea of posterity the two of them looking back on their careers?
I spent the next day avoiding Simon, and the denizens of Shady Grove, until just after six in the evening, when I arrived at Walter and Eleanor Ballantine’s home. I brought two bottles of a pretty good Burgundy I’d found in a local liquor store.
It was a large house on the corner of a street of large houses. Theirs was three stories, painted sage green, with yellow shutters, an enclosed porch, set back from the sidewalk on a wide lawn. Walter—once we shook hands he insisted that all formalities were finished—had thick white hair, wore a pink polo shirt, gray cotton pants, and worn leather moccasins. Eleanor was tall and slim, with dark brown hair tied in a knot and just enough gray to stave off pretense, above a long, straight neck. They must have both been in their seventies.
It was a first impression, I knew, but Eleanor seemed the kind of woman the word demeanor was intended for. It was the clothes she wore, a pair of black slacks and tapered white blouse, and the way she walked, back straight as though she might once have been a dancer, or else she still kept to her aerobics.
Walter moved like a slow truck, heavy body, thick arms, speaking as he walked us into the enclosed porch, with high windows, a view of the creek on the other side of the lawn, and chairs that were deep and forgiving—this was also an apt description of Walter and Eleanor, although it wasn’t something I immediately realized; that came later in the evening.
Walter waited for me to get settled in my chair before he offered me a cocktail. “We have just about everything,” he said.
“What do you two usually drink?” I asked.
“Wine,” Eleanor answered, “so what you brought is just right, but if you prefer something else, scotch or vodka . . .”
“This seems the perfect night for wine,” I told her.
Walter said, “What you brought is better than what I was about to open, so I’d like to pour one of those.”
I said, “I’d be honored.”
Walter uncorked and poured one of the Burgundies. “I hope Charlie didn’t give you the idea Eleanor and I are a couple of lushes. We just think every day deserves its proper send-off.” He made easy eye contact when he spoke, with me and with Eleanor, while Eleanor prodded the plate of cheese and bread in my direction, and made sure I served myself.
Walter was an architect, now semi-retired—Charlie was his partner—and Eleanor had been a high school physics teacher until she retired eight years ago.
While we drank our first glass, we talked about New York City, what part of town did I live in . . . And what sort of work did I do . . . Walter and Eleanor liked to drive down a few times every year and spend a week going to the theater and concerts, seeing the museums and galleries. They talked about their favorite restaurants, and asked me about mine, and the conversation never moved too far from these topics until Walter refilled our glasses, and Eleanor said that Charlie had told them why I was in Shady Grove, that both she and Walter thought it was a good idea that Simon had come back to see his sister’s house. But that was all they said about it. Then, in a tone so warm it made me think she was going to tell me that they’d made up the guest room for me, Eleanor asked, “Now, what would you like to know about Laura? Charlie seemed to think you wanted to talk to us about her.”
“I did,” I said. “I do. And I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted you to tell me. But that’s changed.”
“In what way?” Eleanor asked.
I told them about looking through Laura’s scrapbook, that I’d found it troubling.
“But I don’t think you really want to talk to me about that,” I said. “Or if I have any business having that conversation with you.”
Walter and Eleanor looked at each other.
“There were several things about Laura that were troubling,” Walter said. He leaned forward, just a little. “Laura didn’t come back to Shady Grove because she missed her hometown. She wasn’t a small town girl at heart who wanted to go back home.”
“Both of her parents had died,” Eleanor told me, “so it wasn’t family she was coming back for, either. She just couldn’t stand being in Paris without Steve. And not only Paris, anywhere in Europe. We thought it was just a temporary move. That Laura would stay here for a year or two. Just to get her legs under her, and then she’d get involved in her music again.”
Walter said, “She could have put another group together in Europe, or in America, or joined one. She had the chances.”
“But what she wanted, needed, actually,” Eleanor said, “was to stay as far away from that part of her life as she could.”
“She lost her taste for it,” Walter said. “No, not her taste.” He turned to Eleanor.
“Her passion.”
“Her passion,” Walter agreed.
“It was the life she believed in
,” Walter said. “And one day, Steve’s walking down the street and drops dead. Forty-five years old.”
“And just like that. Gone.” Eleanor snapped her fingers. “Laura was only thirty-two.”
“There wasn’t much left for her to be passionate about,” I said. “Considering— That was a huge decision she made marrying Steve. Anyone that confident when they’re that young usually ends up miserable, divorced, or disenchanted. But Laura knew, and she was right. It makes sense,” I said, “doesn’t it? That she wouldn’t want anything more to do with that?”
“And yet,” Eleanor said, “if she hadn’t gotten sick, she might have gone back to performing. She talked about doing it.”
I thought for a moment before I decided to tell them, “She told Marian that she wished she could fall in love the way she’d been in love with Steve. Just once more. She said she just wanted to feel that way again.”
“Marian told you that?” Eleanor asked.
I said, “That’s right.” When they didn’t say anything, I said, “Did I say something out of line?”
Walter shook his head. “Nothing like that. It’s just—”
“Did Marian have an answer?” Eleanor asked. “For Laura, I mean.”
“Marian said she wished she had Laura’s courage.”
There was another quick glance over at Walter before Eleanor said, “We knew that Marian talked with you, but she never indicated that it was with such—”
“Candor,” Walter said.
“If we seem taken aback,” Eleanor told me, “it’s because Marian is not that forthright with most people.”
“Did she just come out and tell you that?” Walter wanted to know.
“She couldn’t have just blurted out something like that,” Eleanor added.
“What we’re saying,” Walter explained, “is that we assume it was part of a longer conversation. And that she must have been quite at ease talking to you.”
“Look,” I said, “you’re Buddy’s parents and Marian’s in-laws, and I’m not all that comfortable talking about this.”
“We’re comfortable talking to you,” Walter said. “So please. For one thing, we’d like to know how you got Marian to talk about Laura so honestly. And about herself. All she told us was that she met you and you seemed to know what you were doing.”
“She’s more than just a daughter-in-law to us,” Eleanor said. “She’s like our own daughter. She always was. And when we lost Buddy it brought us even closer together. It’s been ten years and she’s still so unhappy. And that’s very upsetting.”
“What I told you before,” Walter said, “that there were some things that troubled us about Laura, we feel the same about Marian. They were like, well, two peas in a pod, as far as their sorrows were concerned. And that probably wasn’t very good for either of them.”
“Like they’d found a kindred spirit in each other.” Eleanor got up and walked across the room to close the window. “Laura should never have come back, and Marian should never have stayed. It was the worst thing. For both of them. Of course, Geoffrey, there’s all kinds of death. Laura in her little house. And Marian out there in the country all alone. That’s no way to live.” She came back to the couch.
Walter started to uncork the second bottle of wine, but Eleanor stopped him and smiled.
“If you’re going to open that one,” she said, “Geoffrey’s going to have to stay for supper.”
I said I’d like that.
“Don’t be so sure.” Eleanor said, “Walter does most of the cooking and we can’t guarantee anything better than just all right.”
Walter got up. “That second bottle of wine can only make dinner better,” he said and left the room.
We didn’t sit in the dining room, but at the small table where we’d had our wine and cheese. Eleanor put out place mats, with linen napkins, yellow and white plates, and what looked like their good silverware.
Supper was more than just all right, although Walter said, “In New York City you call for some kind of exotic takeout. In Shady Grove you have to settle for defrosted leftovers.”
I told him I’d take the defrosted leftovers.
Eleanor said my good manners did not go unappreciated and any and all compliments, true or politic, were welcome.
A little while later, Walter told me, “You’re not a very judgmental person, are you, Geoffrey?”
“Because I like our supper?”
“Because with all you’ve seen and heard,” Eleanor said, “you don’t seem terribly critical.”
“If you’re talking about how Laura or, for that matter, Marian chose to live their lives, I find it hard enough to imagine those lives let alone criticize them.”
“I can certainly understand that.”
Walter said, “I don’t know what Charlie and the others told you about that first year after we lost Buddy.”
“My God,” Eleanor said looking first at me, then at Walter, “we all walked around like we were in trances.”
We were all quiet for a moment or two after she said that until Walter asked me, “Do you know Eliot?” Which seemed an odd segue.
“I’ve met him,” I said.
“One of the kindest people you’ll ever know,” Eleanor said. “I’m not the only person who’ll tell you that.”
“One of the most generous,” Walter said.
“I can see that,” I said.
“It’s doubtful Marian would have gotten through that first month—that first year,” Eleanor said, “without him. Now, this was before Laura moved back. And Marian felt that she couldn’t impose herself on her friends, or us, to come out there and help her. Which wasn’t the case of course.”
“Marian has a way of seeing things that challenges explanation,” Walter added. “Eliot’s been married once, and divorced, but he’s been in love with Marian since high school. Hasn’t he?”
Eleanor nodded her head. “But that’s not why he did what he did for her. There was no agenda.”
“No,” I said, “Eliot doesn’t impress me as someone who’d have an agenda.”
“And that would have been fine, for a short while,” Walter told me, “but . . . whatever you’ve heard about Buddy was not an exaggeration. And it’s understandable that Marian would have found Eliot the least—”
“Threatening.” The word seemed to break out of Eleanor’s mouth, then in a gentler tone, she repeated, “threatening. To her love of Buddy and his memory. Her memories. The Marian you’ve met, Geoffrey, is not the Marian who was married to our son.”
Walter said, “The two of them together were incandescent,” and I recalled the first time I heard Marian’s laugh.
Walter shifted his body, and the movement beneath his shirt was more muscle than fat. “We thought Eliot was just helping her get past the loneliness while she came to terms with what happened to Buddy. But the two of them staying together like this and for so long. It’s just not healthy.”
“And then Laura—Marian and Laura—just reinforced each other’s grief.” Eleanor smoothed her napkin and fitted it along the edge of her plate. “If it was only for a year, maybe, then it was just a normal time of mourning, but after that, it’s the way you’re living your life.”
I said, “And when Laura died, I suspect Marian’s sadness only grew deeper and more intractable.”
“I just don’t think Marian ever saw her way out.” Eleanor was looking at Walter.
Walter put his hand on my shoulder. “And now, you’ve come along.” He held his hand there a moment longer, before he picked up the plates and walked out of the room.
I started to speak. Eleanor lifted her hand to stop me, got up to turn on a few lights, looked past me in the direction of the kitchen, said, “You don’t mind if I leave you alone for a minute,” and walked out.
I sat there thinking about the expr
essions on the faces in the photograph Marian kept at her nursery; and the faces in Laura’s scrapbook; the way couples know each other’s conversations; and the things they keep framed on the wall, sealed in a book, and when that can’t ever be enough.
I heard Walter and Eleanor talking in quick, muted voices as they came back to the porch. Walter was carrying a tray with coffee and a setup. After he and Eleanor sat down and while Walter poured, Eleanor leaned forward and put her hand on top of mine. “In the ten years since Buddy’s death, the two children who weren’t already married got married. Charlie, as you know, stayed here in Shady Grove, and our other son and both daughters have moved away. They all have their own children, we have grandchildren. And all Marian’s done in those ten years is grow ten years older.”
“Coming here every week for dinner . . .” Walter said.
“Keeping herself and, to a lesser degree, the rest of the family in a state of grieving,” Eleanor put in.
Walter spread out his hands and turned them palms up. “Robert Frost said he could state what he knew about life in three words: ‘It goes on.’ Marian has got to allow her life to go on.”
“It can’t stay like this,” Eleanor said. “It’s driving the whole family crazy. And that includes Marian. It’s time she had a real relationship instead of—”
“I’m either missing something,” I said, “or I’m just dull.” I was speaking to Eleanor, but it was Walter who answered.
“Dull is not the word that springs to mind.”
“Do you think Marian’s ever been as candid with Eliot about anything as she’s been with you? So, if you want to—what, Walter?”
“See where it might lead?”
“Where it might lead,” Eleanor repeated, “we’re all for that.”
“There’s Eliot to consider.”
Walter asked me, “When are you expected back in New York?”
The First Warm Evening of the Year: A Novel Page 15