by Erica Abbott
Parsons stepped into the incipient argument effortlessly with, “Did you have a particular work in mind, Charlie?”
Boyers smoothed back the dark pompadour that made him look vaguely like an aging Elvis. “Yes. We should stage Einstein on the Beach. Philip Glass. American, twentieth century, provocative.”
“Provocative!” one of the other board members said. “It doesn’t have a freaking plot!”
Forrester frowned and said, “I’ve never heard of it.”
“You’d like it, Barbara,” Boyers said happily. “Very small cast. Two women, one man, one boy. And a small chorus.”
Caroline could see Barbara Forrester’s beady eyes narrow as she did the salary calculations in her head.
“For God’s sake,” another board member exclaimed. “The damn thing lasts five god-awful hours and it doesn’t have an intermission! You gotta get up in the middle of the stupid opera to go take a leak!”
General pandemonium ensued from this announcement, with everyone at the table except Caroline trying to talk at the same time. As near as she could tell, about a third of the board members had heard of or seen the opera, and the other two-thirds were expressing their opinions without the benefit of actual facts.
Parsons said loudly, “Ladies and gentlemen, please! Our new artistic director is going to think she stumbled into a catfight instead of a board meeting.”
Several people shot shamefaced looks at Caroline, who smiled reassuringly as the noise died down. She turned to Boyers and gave him the benefit of all the star power she could muster. It was much easier to capture attention when she could use her singing voice to do it, but she didn’t discount the effect of a sweet smile and her bright eyes.
“It’s a wonderful idea, Mr. Boyers,” she said, then added quickly before the mutineers could begin again, “but the opera does have some serious production challenges. I have a thought. Glass has written other operas. I’m thinking about Akhnaten. It’s a more traditional opera than Einstein or some of his other works, perhaps.”
Boyers seemed to roll the idea around in his mouth, like a boy tasting a lollipop. Caroline couldn’t tell whether he was considering it, or if he’d never actually heard of the opera.
She turned to the other board members. “To remind the rest of you who may not be the great Philip Glass fan Mr. Boyers is, I would say Akhnaten is a slightly more classic opera. It has a plot, and the music is more lyrical, even more romantic, than some of Glass’s other operatic works. The cast isn’t huge, although there is a large chorus, and it’s set in Egypt. The libretto is, interestingly, in ancient Egyptian and Hebrew, but there is a narrator who has commentary in modern English, and one of the major arias is always sung in the language of the audience.”
Caroline stopped, but the board members were attentive, so she continued, “There is a theme about religious tolerance that might be interesting, and with the King Tut exhibit returning to the United States recently, we might be able to capitalize on the interest in things Egyptian without resorting to Aida. As it happens, Tut was actually the historical Akhnaten’s son. The opera is more accessible than some other Glass operas, and it might be a wonderful addition to the season.”
Silence followed this speech. Caroline was nominally addressing the choice of opera, but she was really trying to reassure the board that they had made the right decision in selecting her as the artistic director, that she was someone knowledgeable who had the best interests of the RMO at heart. She had spent a lot of time brushing up on her knowledge of the literature, and was happy her efforts had proved fruitful so quickly.
From the corner, Loomis asked, “You said something about a theme of religious tolerance?”
Blessing Arthur for his pre-game coaching, she said carefully, “Yes. The title character tries to lead Egypt into the worship of One True God, but they reject his efforts and assassinate him and his family to return to the worship of their old gods.”
She noted with satisfaction his nod of understanding and approval. So long as it was tolerance of people he agreed with, he was happy. Caroline just barely managed not to roll her eyes.
Barbara Forrester said slowly, “I wonder if we could reuse some of the sets and costumes from Aida.”
Jack Parsons was beaming at Caroline from the head of the table. When Barbara started doing the cost analysis, he apparently knew they were done with the discussion. One selection for next season down, seven to go.
“Tell me, Ms. Prince,” he began, “what are your thoughts about a comedic opera for this season?”
She gave him a lovely smile and said, “How about a classic crowd-pleaser? You haven’t done The Barber of Seville for several years.”
They went happily on to discuss Rossini and opera buffa generally, and Caroline sat back, satisfied with the result, but with a little twinge of disappointment. Was this her future, arguments about one opera over another? She wondered if, like Floria Tosca, she had the option of hurling herself over the parapet of the building if things got really bad.
Caroline discreetly checked her watch. She hoped they would wrap up the meeting on time. She wouldn’t want to be late for Terry Royce’s surprise this evening.
Chapter Three
Terry and Jill alternated their once-a-month dinners, each choosing a restaurant and paying for the meal. When it was Jill’s turn to choose and pay, she selected expensive places she knew Terry loved but would normally never be able to afford: Elway’s, The Fort, the Palace Arms at the Brown Palace Hotel downtown. Terry’s choices were more eclectic and much less expensive. Tonight they were going to Gaylord Street, to one of Terry’s favorite places, Varga.
Old South Gaylord Street was unique to Denver and one of the oldest commercial shopping areas in the city. It was a few blocks of shops and restaurants nestled in the midst of an older residential district, well-enough hidden that an unsuspecting driver could come upon it by surprise, like Hansel and Gretel stumbling onto the witch’s cottage in the forest. There were no franchises or mega-chain retailers, just local merchants and funky bars or cafés.
Terry loved Old South Gaylord, primarily because it was within walking distance of her tiny house. She arranged to meet Jill at six, barely able to contain her excitement at the upcoming surprise visitor.
Jill, to Terry’s shock, was waiting in front of the restaurant when she arrived.
“Hey, you.” Terry greeted her with a hug. “You’re never on time. I usually get a call about now telling me how late you’re going to be.”
Jill laughed at little. “That’s true,” she admitted. “I decided to cross you up by beating you here. I actually found a parking place only one block over. Did you walk, I assume?”
“Yes. Although I admit I was hoping for a ride home later.”
Jill said easily, “Of course,” but Terry knew this was a delicate point. A few times a year, depending on the status of Terry’s usually turbulent love life and how alone Jill was feeling, the dinner date wasn’t over until the next morning.
Terry knew they weren’t in love, that they never really had been, and she tried to feel guilty about ending up in bed with Jill, but the truth was that she cared for Jill, and the sex was always good. Not a fireworks spectacular, but comforting and satisfying. It had gotten her through a couple of bad break-ups since she and Jill had split, and she hoped it made Jill feel a little less lonely.
She’d never really figured out why Jill was such a loner. An unkind characterization would have been that Jill was emotionally unavailable, but Terry knew that the person who seemed to suffer the most was Jill herself. She had never been anything but kind to Terry, and it was Terry who had finally figured out that she needed more for herself. Still, her relationship with Jill was more than friendship, if less than love.
Varga was a Hungarian restaurant sporting a red, white, and green horizontal flag outside the door. Inside the room, paneled with dark wood, the hostess greeted them by name, and they sat at their usual table near the back. Terry caref
ully maneuvered herself into the seat facing the front door.
The shelves above the tiny bar were filled with hand-painted Herend porcelain, white backgrounds overlaid with delicate fronds of pink, yellow, and green, Chinese-looking butterflies, and flowers. The china had been brought over by the owner, Julia Varga, when she immigrated after the Soviets left in 1989. Julia still presided in the kitchen, and the dining patrons knew only authentic Hungarian dishes would be permitted on the tables.
A middle-aged blonde named Helena, one of the regular wait staff, approached them. She wore a white apron, beautifully embroidered. She stood over them, menus in hand, and said, “Good evening, Ms. Allen, Ms. Royce. Do you need these?”
Jill smiled and said, “I think we’ve got the menu memorized by now. I’m finally going to try the chilled sour-cherry soup, and then the chicken paprikash.”
“Very good. Ms. Royce?”
“Hmm,” Terry said, pretending to consider her options.
“Come on,” Jill urged with a small smile. “You know you’re having the meatloaf.”
“I could have something different,” Terry protested.
“Are you?”
“Nope. Meatloaf it is.” She asked the waitress, “Wild mushroom soup tonight?”
“Yes, it’s excellent.”
“I’ll have that, then. Thanks.”
“Wine with dinner, ladies?”
Jill said, “Terry?”
Another delicate moment. Sparkling water meant Jill was planning on driving home tonight, alone. Sharing a bottle meant that she would be going home with Terry.
“Whatever you’re having,” Terry said bravely.
Jill said, “Just a glass for me, I think, with the éntree. The Tokaji Furmint. Terry, how about the Egri Cabernet Franc? You liked it with the meatloaf last time.”
“Great idea. Yes, I’ll have that.”
The waitress went away, and Terry looked across at Jill speculatively. What did wine by the glass mean? Terry wore her usual jeans and sweater, but Jill had obviously come straight from work. At least Jill had left her suit jacket in the car, leaving her in black light-wool slacks and a deep lavender blouse.
Terry discarded the first three things she would normally have said to anyone else. You look tired. Are you sleeping at all? Are you still working, like, eighty hours a week? Have you lost weight?
She already knew the answers anyway: No, yes, and I don’t keep track. Instead, she asked, “How have you been? Is work still crazy?”
Jill sat back and said, “Yes, and it’s going to get crazier soon.”
“Why is that?” Terry broke off a piece of bread and began to nibble.
“Walter is retiring. No, make that ‘stepping back.’ His phrase,” Jill sighed.
“Oh, wow,” Terry’s eyes widened. “Walter, your managing partner? You thought he was going to work forever, didn’t you?”
“I did, frankly. And everything’s probably going to be in a mess for a while.”
“Power vacuum,” Terry nodded wisely. “You’re not, um, in line to succeed him, are you?”
Jill laughed ruefully. “Hardly. I’d have to be a good decade older for that. No, there are a couple of candidates with the right combination of age and experience. I imagine the campaigning has already begun.”
“Campaigning? Is it an election?”
“Essentially, yes. The partners get to vote.”
“So at least you’ve got a say in it.”
“Sort of. The way it usually works is that the candidates each start lining up votes from the various departments: real estate, litigation, corporate, and so on, so that by the time of the actual election, it’s a foregone conclusion. The trick is for the candidate to get enough votes outside his—or her—own department to get a majority.”
“Everybody in their own department is supposed to vote for them?” Terry asked.
Jill grimaced. “Oh, yes,” she said. “There would be hell to pay otherwise.”
The soup arrived, Jill’s sour-cherry soup a light pink, Terry’s wild mushroom a deep brown. As she picked up her spoon, Terry said, “I didn’t really think they could do anything to you once you got to be a partner.”
“If only that were true,” Jill remarked. “My God, this is good. Cherries, sour cream, and a touch of cinnamon, sweet and sour flavors. How’s yours?”
“Spectacular, as always. It always tastes earthy, woody to me. Kind of like eating a forest.” They swapped spoons to exchange a taste, and then Terry asked, “So what can they do to you?”
“Most of the firm’s clients are just that: clients of Worthington and Steele, rather than one particular lawyer. The attorneys who are the heads of the departments control a lot of the work flow to the other partners and associates in their sections. The other partners are supposed to bring in work, and we do, and everyone has some clients who prefer a specific attorney, but most of our big clients are not particular as to which lawyer they get.”
“Ah,” Terry said, slurping soup happily. “If you don’t play by the rules, you don’t get enough work.”
Jill nodded, carefully touching her mouth with the corner of her napkin. “The billable hour is still the graven image we all worship,” she said dryly. “Very few of us have enough clients of our own to survive very long without work flow from the department heads. And my department head will be responsible for lining up votes for the new managing partner candidate he wants.”
“Your department head,” Terry repeated. “That’s Mortenson, right?”
“Right. I like Murray, but he’ll have his own candidate to back, I’m sure. Though I have no idea who it will be.”
Helena came to take their empty bowls away, and then Terry carefully asked, “So you’ll be supporting whoever Mortenson tells you to vote for?”
Jill had apparently given this more than a little thought. All she offered Terry was a shrug and a noncommittal, “Maybe. Probably. It will certainly make my life easier if I do.”
Terry said reassuringly, “Don’t worry, Jill. You’ll be fine, whoever it is. And won’t Walter will have some say in who his successor will be?”
“No doubt.”
“Then you’ll be fine!” she repeated. “Walter loves you.” At Jill’s look, she added uncertainly, “Well, doesn’t he?”
Jill answered hesitantly, “I am his protégé of sorts, but it’s too soon to tell. What happens depends on some other factors.”
“Like what?”
Jill sighed. “I haven’t been able to stop wondering what’s going to happen to Gary Watson’s partnership prospects.”
“Watson? Is that the homophobic son-in-law?”
“The very same.”
Terry said in disgust, “I don’t think I need to comment further.”
“No. But at least Walter passed one of his best clients on to me.”
“Oh? Who’d you get? The stock show, I hope. I know how much you’re into cattle, you city girl, you.”
Jill smiled. Terry had grown up in rural southeastern Colorado, and she felt she was entitled to kid Jill about not knowing which end of a steer was which. “Not the stock show. Better. The Rocky Mountain Opera.”
Helena returned at that moment with their wine and said, “Entrées coming up.”
Terry grabbed for her glass and took a serious gulp.
Jill said, “Take it easy. What’s up with you?”
“I really, really love this Cabernet Franc.”
“You might want to consider drinking it more like wine and less like Pepsi,” Jill said mildly.
Terry shot an anxious look at the front door.
“What?” Jill asked again.
“I’m fine,” Terry lied.
Helena set a plate of chicken paprikash in front of Jill, and one with the slices of meatloaf before Terry. The hardboiled eggs in the middle of the meatloaf, making white and yellow rings, were Terry’s favorite part. She grabbed a knife and fork and tried to think of a way to change the subject.
&nb
sp; Jill did it for her. “So,” she said, a forkful of red-sauced chicken hovering over her plate, “How’s it going with your veterinarian? Have you actually asked her out yet?”
“Oh,” Terry said sadly. “Good news and bad. Good news, she is gay. Bad news, she’s taken.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Jill said sincerely. “You sounded pretty smitten with her.”
“I was. Until I saw the girlfriend.”
“Ah. Too gorgeous to compete with?” Jill kidded her gently.
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” Terry mused. “More like, ‘make a pass at my girlfriend and I’ll pick you up with one hand and crush you without breaking a sweat.’”
Jill was trying not to laugh. “Lifted a few weights in the gym, has she?”
“She could play linebacker for the Broncos, I kid you not.”
“Well, that’s not saying much. Have you seen the Broncos play defense lately?”
“You know I never pay attention to stuff like that. I was exaggerating for humorous effect,” Terry said loftily.
“Thanks for letting me know.”
As they ate, Terry got more and more nervous, glancing at the door every minute or so. She caught Jill looking at her quizzically once over the rim of her wineglass, and she smiled noncommittally.
The dinner plates had been cleared when Helena returned to offer dessert.
“Not for me,” Jill said.
Terry had to delay the proceedings somehow. Where the hell was Caroline Prince? “I’m feeling like something sweet,” she said. “Do you have the Dobos torta?”
“Certainly. Coffee, ladies?”
“Yes,” Terry answered.
“I will have some as well,” Jill said.
“You take cream, don’t you, Ms. Royce?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Maybe she wasn’t coming, Terry thought. Maybe she forgot, or maybe something more important came up.
She shifted her focus back to Jill. She’d been as clear as she could be about her currently single status, and Jill hadn’t really pursued it. The direct approach was obviously called for. She asked, “Are you seeing anyone?”