Musical Chairs

by Amy Poeppel

Bridget began to realize that she’d missed something. Gwen was not dressed for lunch, and what they were hearing from the speakers was only the first movement of the symphony. Edward wouldn’t be coming out of the living room anytime soon.

  “Our lunch was moved to tomorrow,” Gwen said. “You should check your email more often.”

  “My computer blew up, and I—” Bridget had to think before she could remember her very reasonable excuse. “I got electrocuted.”

  Gwen tilted her head, looking concerned. “Sweetie. Is that what happened to your hair?”

  Bridget ignored her.

  “Whoever the guy is in there, he’s clearly more important than us,” said Gwen.

  “That’s okay. Tomorrow’s better for me anyway,” Bridget said, relieved she could go home.

  Gwen picked up a turquoise Nalgene bottle and filled it with water. “Did you hear Dad hired a new assistant?”

  Edward’s assistants rarely stuck around. He hired smart, young people, usually with degrees in arts administration, and expected them to anticipate his every need, understand his every thought, and be quick about it. They needed a musical background, administrative smarts, and thick skin, an elusive combination.

  “Jacob,” Bridget said. “I met him already.”

  “Jacob’s gone. It’s Jackie now.”

  Bridget wasn’t surprised. “At least their names are similar,” she said.

  “I talked to her for a few minutes on the phone this morning, and she seemed nervous.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know,” Gwen said. “I said something about what it’s like here, bear sightings, lightning storms, psychotic composers, and she got very quiet.”

  “You scared her on purpose.” Bridget started to ask Gwen how she was doing, but the answer was as clear as the sparkle in Gwen’s eyes and the flex of muscle showing through her expensive patterned yoga pants. She’d never had kids, and Bridget wondered if that was why she looked so damn young and perky. Once a week she interviewed visual and performing artists, writers, and thinkers, on camera from her living room on Fifth Avenue; she made introverted men and women feel comfortable and extroverts feel deep. She brought out the most interesting parts of people and sometimes got them to divulge secrets. Her interviews were run in a segment each week as part of a popular program on Netflix called Influence. Everything she’d ever gotten from Edward—her contacts, her conversational skills, her ability to hold people’s attention, and her money—she’d put to excellent use.

  Bridget picked up her keys.

  “Don’t go yet,” Gwen said.

  “I have to take a shower,” said Bridget, feeling sorry for herself. “I slept terribly, and my morning got off to a rotten start.”

  “Same,” Gwen said. “I’m a mess.”

  Gwen was not a mess. Gwen was never a mess, not as a child, not throughout her bad marriage, and not since her divorce. Even now, she looked like she was auditioning for the part of a celebrity fitness trainer with her hair pulled back into a slick ponytail and her zip-up, fitted, white Nike sweatshirt. Bridget’s top was a stretched-out knit sweater she was pretty sure had once belonged to her son, and her mismatched socks had bright yellow stars on the left one and black and green stripes on the right.

  “But I’ll be better once my masseur arrives,” Gwen said.

  “How did you find a masseur around here?”

  “I asked Meryl Streep.”

  Bridget flashed a look: Are you kidding me? Gwen had a way of dropping names effortlessly into conversations in a way that made her life seem ideal and glamorous, which it hadn’t always been. Bridget liked to keep her circle small, whereas Gwen’s grew and grew over time, and she loved the idea, not of showing this fact off, but of introducing all of her favorite people to each other.

  “I injured my left shoulder yesterday,” Gwen said, “and since I promised I’d come this weekend, I asked Meryl for the name of someone local. I’m hoping I’ll be okay to go riding later. Are you hungry?” Gwen said with a quick lift of her eyebrows.

  Not only was Bridget hungry; she also knew exactly what she was hungry for. Gwen went to the fridge for skim milk, while Bridget got glasses and pulled two big chocolate chip oatmeal cookies from a jar on the counter. They sat on stools at the island, and Bridget pushed up her sleeves.

  “I can’t wait for you to meet Sterling.”

  “I’ve met him before, around five years ago at the New Yorker Festival.”

  “I mean get to know him. He’ll be here for eight weeks, and we’ve never spent this much consecutive time together.” The idea was both thrilling and mildly terrifying. Bridget got her phone and showed Gwen a bad selfie: Sterling’s face was too close for comfort, and her eyes were closed.

  “Adorable,” said Gwen flatly. “How old is he?”

  “Fifty-six.” Bridget took a bite of her cookie and swiveled on her stool. “But,” she said with her mouth full, “he looks like he’s in his forties.”

  “My producer sent me his new novel.”

  “Are you inviting him on your show?” Bridget asked, excited about the possibility. Sterling and her sister collaborating, becoming friends.

  Gwen made a gesture with her hands that said, Not so fast. “I don’t know yet,” she said. “It’s not up to me.”

  Bridget was pretty sure that wasn’t true.

  “Wait, fifty-six?” Gwen asked. “Didn’t you say he has a little kid?”

  Bridget could feel Gwen slipping into interview mode, and she didn’t mind one bit; she was happy to share the details of her new relationship, the first serious one she’d had in years. “He has an eleven-year-old named Madison. And he gets along fantastically well with his ex-wife. They could write the book on co-parenting for divorced couples.”

  “The ex must be young.”

  “Thirty-something.”

  “What’s Madison like?”

  “I haven’t met her. Mallory thinks we should wait until the fall.”

  “Mallory’s the ex?” Gwen made a face. “Is she controlling? Because that sounds a little controlling.”

  She was controlling; there was no question about it. But she was also treating Bridget as though she were part of the patchwork family picture and, therefore, as someone who needed to be looped into plans, and Bridget appreciated that. “I like to think she sees me as…” She was going to say an experienced ally, but Gwen cut in.

  “Are those pajama bottoms?”

  Bridget looked down and patted herself on her thighs. “They’re sweatpants. I wouldn’t normally wear them out of the house, but I got zapped when I plugged my computer in an outlet today. I went to the ER to make sure I wasn’t dying.”

  Gwen said, “I would have to be dead already before anyone could make me put on those pants. I would retire them before Sterling gets here.”

  “But I love them,” Bridget said. She tended to get sentimental about her favorite things; the longer she had something, the longer she wanted to keep it.

  Gwen took Bridget’s hand, pulled her up, and turned her around. “They make your butt look saggy.”

  “I’ve had these since the kids were born.”

  “I can tell,” she said. She took a sip of her milk. “I talked to Isabelle last week. I got confused about the time change, and I called her at three in the morning. You think she’s doing okay?”

  “She’s adjusting,” said Bridget.

  “Because she sounded exhausted.”

  “At three in the morning?”

  “Apart from that. She sounded… unwell.”

  “She’s homesick,” Bridget said. “And she has a toothache.”

  “What do you think’s going on with Dad?” Gwen said, lowering her voice. “Something’s up with him.”

  “I had lunch with him a few weeks ago, and he seemed fine. He was talking about the controversy over the costume budget at the Metropolitan Opera and that embezzlement scandal with the orchestra in Santa Fe.” In fact, he’d been especially engaged
throughout their tasting menu at Jean-Georges, asking Bridget personal questions about everything from her trio’s future with Caroline Lee to her relationship with Sterling. His interest had surprised Bridget.

  “Did I tell you,” Gwen said, standing up and tying her sweatshirt loosely around her waist, “that I’m interviewing Mikhail Baryshnikov next week for the eightieth anniversary of the American Ballet Theatre.”

  “Can you get Will an autograph?” Bridget said.

  “I’ll see if I can introduce them,” Gwen said, sitting back down. “I had no idea Will liked the ballet.”

  “He doesn’t especially,” said Bridget, “but after he got divorced, he found out that Baryshnikov didn’t believe in traditional marriage, and he joined the club.”

  Gwen looked confused. “But Baryshnikov is married.”

  “He betrayed the cause; Will has been disappointed in him ever since. You’ll have to tell us what he’s really like.”

  “I’ve met him before,” said Gwen. “I don’t mean, like, I know him or anything. I only met him once when I was maybe fourteen or something. Dad had a performance, and Baryshnikov came backstage.”

  “Big deal,” Bridget teased. “I was there when Elton John came backstage.”

  “Braggart,” Gwen said, pushing her shoulder. “We should plan something sensational for Dad’s ninetieth.”

  “I need to wait until I’ve seen our concert schedule,” Bridget said. “His birthday’s months away.”

  “I can’t believe you got Caroline Lee to join your trio. I’ve tried to get her to come on my show, but she’s very hard to pin down.”

  Bridget wouldn’t exactly say they’d “got” Caroline, since having her in the trio was on a trial basis, but she didn’t feel like explaining that Caroline was, in a sense, auditioning them. “Do you think Will and I are insane to have our whole future riding on the whims of a twenty-six-year-old?”

  “I heard her interviewed on Terry Gross, and she sounded very mature. How does Sterling feel about you traveling so much?”

  Bridget had to think. Travel was simply part of her job, so what could he have to say about it?

  Before she could respond, the door to the kitchen swung open, and Marge, their nanny of two generations, housekeeper, and all-around fixer of forty years, came in with a Greek god of a man who was holding a portable massage table as easily as if it were a tote bag. He’d been instructed to remove his shoes, and Bridget admired his tanned, muscular feet. Edward’s homes, wherever they were, were shoes-off; he couldn’t abide the idea of the outside making its way in. When she was young, Bridget would wear her Stan Smiths in her bedroom of the family’s Park Avenue apartment as an act of rebellion.

  Gwen greeted her masseur as Marge came over to ruffle Bridget’s already messy hair and give her a hug. She was a plump, short, direct woman who wasn’t into small talk. She was also the closest thing Bridget had to a mother since her own had died when she was a girl.

  “How many people for dinner tonight?” Marge asked.

  “Not me,” Bridget said.

  Marge looked doubtful, saying, “You got a better offer?”

  Gwen was openly disappointed. “Why can’t you have dinner with us?” she asked.

  “Too much to do.” Bridget clapped her hands together. “I’m turning the loft in my house into a quiet, peaceful writing retreat.”

  “Are you working on your memoir?” asked Marge wryly. “Am I in it?”

  “Her boyfriend’s a novelist,” said Gwen.

  “Marge met him already,” Bridget said.

  “Oh, him,” said Marge with a shrug. “I forgot.”

  “Oh, please,” said Bridget, thinking of Sterling’s piercing blue eyes and gruff voice. “Sterling is not forgettable.”

  “Why’s he taking over Will’s loft?” said Marge. “What’s wrong with the desk in the living room?”

  “The loft has a better view, more privacy, and its own bathroom,” she said. “Will won’t mind.” She took the last bite of her oatmeal cookie and swept up the crumbs. “Outstanding cookie.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Marge.

  Gwen turned to her masseur—“Do you have time to do us all?”—and gestured toward Bridget and Marge. “My treat.”

  “Hell, no,” said Marge, as if Gwen had suggested something lewd.

  Bridget stood up. “Me neither.”

  “Tony, this is my big sister.” And Gwen came over to put her arm across Bridget’s shoulders. Gwen always, always had to mention that she was younger.

  “Cool,” he said. “So where do I set up?”

  “Sunroom?” Gwen asked.

  “Fine,” said Marge.

  Tony backed out of the door, bumping the table into the doorjamb, and before following him, Marge pulled a cloth from her apron pocket and leaned over to inspect the damage. She rubbed the spot vigorously.

  Just as she straightened up, the door swung open again, narrowly missing her head. Edward, his wild gray hair standing out in cheeky contrast to his dignified cardigan sweater and slacks, entered the room in search of Marge.

  He acknowledged Bridget’s greeting, giving her a quick kiss on her cheek, but then turned to Marge, saying, “You didn’t hear me.”

  “I didn’t hear you what?” she asked.

  “You didn’t hear me… madam.” He smiled at his own humor.

  “Funny,” said Marge without expression.

  “I was calling for you,” he said.

  Marge sighed. “What can’t you find now?”

  “A photo album.” He had an elegant scarf draped around his neck and his old pair of worn embroidered house shoes on his feet, the overall effect being elegant, aristocratic even. Bridget felt proud of him and simultaneously grateful that he was too preoccupied to notice how slovenly she looked in comparison.

  “Narrow it down,” Marge said.

  “Circa 1972.”

  “I’ll bring it to you,” said Marge.

  He bowed in mock seriousness, straightened his glasses, and said, “I just saw a man wandering about who appears to be a stripper.”

  “He’s a masseur,” said Gwen.

  “Well, he’s loose in the house, in case anyone’s looking for him.” He then turned to Bridget. “Are you ill?”

  “No, I—”

  “You have the look of Mimì in La Bohème right before she dies of consumption.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, and instead pushed open the door and exited before Bridget could ask who he was with in the living room.

  Marge started to follow him out but turned back, pointing at each of the girls in turn. “I like having my girls under the same roof.” She winked and left them alone.

  Gwen put the glasses in the dishwasher. “When’s Will coming?”

  “I’m not sure.” Bridget was sort of hoping Will would wait a few weeks before coming so she and Sterling could establish a routine together and have a chance to be alone. For the first time ever, Will would be staying in the guesthouse.

  “Does he like Sterling?”

  “Of course.” Will hadn’t said much about him, but they seemed to enjoy their man-banter when they saw each other. “How often are you coming up this summer?”

  “I’ll get here when I can. My job is crazy right now.”

  The music coming from the living room got louder for a moment, and over the orchestra, they could hear the intensity of their dad’s voice. “He’s on overdrive,” said Gwen, “and I’m finding it unnerving.”

  Bridget thought of the reaction she’d gotten in the emergency room at the mere mention of her father’s name. “If we’re half as popular and youthful as he is at that age, I’ll throw us a party.”

  “Liar,” said Gwen. “You never have parties.” Smiling, she went off to the sunroom for her massage.

  * * *

  Before leaving, Bridget’s curiosity got the best of her, and she decided to find out who was visiting her father. She went to the library and leaned into the adjacent living roo
m, catching sight of the back of her dad’s wing chair. His foot was tapping the floor like a metronome. Sitting beside him was a dignified-looking man whose head was tilted upward in profile, eyes closed, fingers laced together over a Moleskine notebook, lips in a smile, one gray-socked foot resting on the opposite knee. Bridget recognized him right away: Nicholas Donahue, a musicologist from Oxford. They’d met a couple of times over the years, at parties and events, but one time stood out in particular when she, Jacques, and Will were at a music festival in Salzburg. They went to a cocktail reception and were getting a lot of praise for the Brahms piano trio they’d performed earlier in the day when Nicholas and his wife, Miriam, approached them. Nicholas seemed interested in only one thing: what it was like to be the daughter of the great Edward Stratton. Bridget, wanting to celebrate her trio’s performance rather than her dad’s accomplishments, had excused herself as soon as she could do so politely, taking Will’s hand and fleeing to the bar.

  It seemed now from the blissful look she saw on Nicholas’s face that there was no place on earth he would rather be. She could imagine what he was thinking: Someone take a picture! I’m at Edward Stratton’s country estate, listening to Mahler with the master. He opened his eyes suddenly, and Bridget quickly stepped out of his sight line.

  Behind where Nicholas was sitting and in front of the bay window was her father’s seven-foot Bösendorfer piano, moved to this spot thirty years earlier after Edward sold their beautiful tenth-floor home on Park Avenue and bought a smaller apartment on Central Park West, where he’d lived ever since with a baby grand. But in the prewar apartment Bridget grew up in, her mother, Sophia Stratton, and her father hosted an annual winter party, during which she and Gwen would slip away from Marge so they could get a better view of Edward when he made his annual toast, a presentation really, from his seat at that piano. Past the Christmas tree and the roaring fire, Gwen and Bridget would sneak through the crowd to watch their father improvise off Christmas songs as their mother, dressed in dark green or burgundy velvet, stood nearby, smiling when he asked their guests to raise their glasses to her. Then he would tell stories (as his rapt audience listened, forgetting even to sip their champagne) about his celebrity encounters, his travels, or, Bridget’s favorite, about the origin of the piano itself. He’d bought it at auction in London from the great-grandson of a wealthy socialite, pianist, and singer named Elizabeth Vogel, who had shocked British society when she took off with a Venezuelan businessman, leaving her husband and four children behind. Months later, she’d written her husband, telling him he could keep the kids but asking him to send the piano to her in Caracas. It had been his wedding gift to her, after all. Her husband agreed, a shocking concession given the circumstances, but when the time came for the instrument to be sent across the ocean on a Blohm und Voss ship, the movers found letters from past lovers stashed in the body. One of the letters detailed an encounter that happened on the very instrument itself. The piano never made it onto the boat. Edward would end the story by saying it was no wonder the keyboard had such excellent “action.” Bridget hadn’t understood the joke until many years later, but that line always went over well with the audience, including with her mom, who would laugh as if she were trying not to, shaking her head at him in a way that said, You’re incorrigible, but go on.