One Fine Day

by Erica Abbott

  Caroline drank the water and grumbled, “What is the problem with everyone? I’m an opera singer, so I’m not allowed to know about sports, or television, or—”

  Arthur held up a hand. “Whoa, I’m on your side here. Now tell me what’s going on with you. Is it anything to do with the doctor’s appointment that showed up on your calendar for next week?”

  Oh, God, she didn’t want to even think about that. “No,” she lied automatically. “That’s just my annual physical. No, I just had a…difficult weekend.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Broken heart,” he said. “I recognize the symptoms. Anything can set you off, even something good like someone saying thank you for chocolates. I’m sorry.”

  “My heart isn’t really broken, yet. More like chipped, perhaps.”

  “Ah. Hope is still lingering, is it?”

  “There’s always hope. Thanks, Arthur. I’m fine, really. Back to work.”

  He eyed her. “Okay. If you’re sure. But I’m right outside if you need me.”

  She fought down the new surge of tears at his kindness. “Thank you. It does mean a lot to me.”

  He stood. “Let me know if you need something. The budget reports are still on your desk, so that should be distracting enough.”

  But as hard as she tried, Caroline couldn’t focus on numbers. She gave up after an hour and leaned back in her chair to look out at the mountains, bright in the spring morning sunlight. Clouds were building over the back range, and there might be rain by afternoon.

  All she could think about was Jill and the look on her face when Caroline told her to leave. Why had Caroline sent her away? she wondered. She knew, with complete certainty, that she could have had Jill in her bed on Saturday night. She had felt Jill’s desire in her kisses, in the warmth of her body next to hers. It was like it had always been for them, sexual desire made indescribably sweeter by the feelings they had for each other, feelings she’d never have for anyone else. One more kiss, one more touch, and Jill would have taken Caroline back into her arms.

  But it wouldn’t have been any good. Oh, the sex would have been wonderful, but Caroline wasn’t going to risk seeing a look of regret on Jill’s face afterward. She knew she was right about Jill—it wasn’t love that she’d lost, it was trust.

  And they couldn’t rebuild trust with sex, as much as Caroline wanted to make love with Jill again. Trust only came back an inch at a time, one day followed by another and another.

  They just needed time. She knew, for certain, how much Jill still loved and wanted her; they had to take the time they needed to mend the hurt and misunderstandings of the past, and find their future together.

  That was all well and good, except that Caroline wondered how long she’d be able to refrain from dragging Jill to bed. Being with Jill made her feel like singing did, filled with light and joy.

  Time, she reminded herself. Give it time. Sighing, she returned to her budget reports.

  When her telephone rang, she jumped and looked at her watch. It was after noon, which explained the grumbling in her stomach.

  “Yes, Arthur?”

  “Your lawyer is on line one.”

  She took a deep breath before punching the line on. “Jill,” she said.

  “Hello, Caroline. How are you?”

  “Who’s asking?” She couldn’t help but wonder aloud. “My attorney? Or my dinner guest of Saturday?”

  After a pause, Jill said, “I’m both. You can give me two answers if that would be more accurate.”

  “All right. Your client is worried about what’s going on with the opera house. And your hostess is worried about whether we’re still friends.”

  There was another hesitation at the other end before Jill said, “We’re still friends, and I think we’re going to have to have a talk sometime soon. But at this moment, I need to have a professional conversation with you.”

  “I think I can do that,” Caroline said cautiously.

  “I’ve been working on the Appelbaum matter since we talked last week,” she said. “I think it’s time for a meeting with Bill Emerson. I’m going to ask him to bring his client with him, or at least some representative of the Foundation’s board. And I’d like to do the same.”

  “Why? I mean, is that usual?”

  “No, it’s not. But I have some hope that we might be able to settle the entire issue, and I want Emerson to have his client there to approve the resolution. And I want to be able to do the same.”

  A tiny bubble of hope rose in Caroline, floating up as if from the bottom of a champagne flute. “A settlement? This soon? There isn’t even a lawsuit yet.”

  Jill laughed a little. “That’s the best time to settle, believe me. There’s a Chinese curse that says ‘May you be involved in a lawsuit in which you know you are right.’ Right or wrong, going to court is something to be avoided if at all possible.”

  “And you think we can avoid losing the opera house?” she was afraid to hope.

  “I don’t know, but it’s worth a try. So do you want to call Jack Parsons, or do you want me to do it?”

  “I’ll call him, if that’s all right. I’d like to ask him to let me be the one to go to the meeting. Would that be all right with you?”

  “Yes,” Jill said. “That would be fine. Whatever he wants.”

  Caroline realized she was gripping the phone so tightly her fingers were hurting. “Jillian, thank you for this.”

  “For what?”

  “Giving me hope.”

  “Are we still talking about the case?”

  “Yes. But not only the case.”

  Jill cleared her throat and said, “Is there some way I can access your calendar to set up the meeting if Jack is okay with you attending the conference?”

  “Yes,” Caroline said. “I’ll call Jack this afternoon, and if he’s all right with me going to the meeting, I’ll have Arthur email you with my schedule for the next couple of weeks.”

  “That’s fine. Caroline, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m going to do my best.”

  “I know you will,” Caroline replied softly.

  Chapter Eleven

  Terry was angry. Or perhaps it was righteous indignation, she amended. She jabbed the button in the elevator and waited impatiently while the doors slid shut.

  She used the ride to try to calm herself down, but she was still mad when the elevator doors opened and she stalked over to Arthur’s desk.

  She said abruptly, “Is she in?”

  “And good afternoon to you, Ms. Royce,” Arthur lifted both eyebrows this time. “I don’t see you on her calendar.”

  “That’s because I’m not on it. But I need to see her. Is she in or not?”

  “She’s in a meeting.”

  “In her office?” Terry demanded.

  Arthur said, “I think you need a cup of tea to try to calm down. Yes, she’s in her office, and I’ll tell her you’re waiting if you go and sit down and relax for a few minutes.”

  Terry stomped over and threw herself into a visitor’s chair, glaring at Arthur as he rose gracefully, performed ministrations at the tiny coffee bar, and brought her a cup with the tea bag still in it.

  “Herbal,” he said. “You are not allowed either caffeine or sugar in your condition.”

  “Who are you,” Terry grumbled, “my mother?”

  Arthur stood over her, hands on hips. “If I were your mother, I would remind you that the one person you never want to piss off is the secretary, assistant, or clerk who controls access to the person you need or want to see. In the case of Ms. Prince, that would be me. Whoever you’re mad at, it is not me, so taking it out on me with your cranky little snit is a serious mistake. Now, you want to tell me who you’re so angry at, or do you just want to continue with your little baby dyke sulking?”

  Terry snarled, “I am not a baby dyke.”

  “Oh, really? What are you, all of twenty-five?”

  “I’m thirty-two, for your information.”

 
; “Well, pardon me.” Arthur bowed slightly from the waist. “In about fifteen years or so, you’ll be thrilled that someone got your age wrong by half-a-dozen years. Are you going to answer my question?”

  In spite of herself, Terry felt herself calming down. She drank some tea and said, “I don’t think I should tell you who I’m mad at, actually.”

  “Ah. Then it would be about our resident diva, I imagine.” He sat down next to her. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me all about it—I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your first name, Ms. Royce.”

  “It’s Terry.”

  “Yes, Terry. Ms. Prince is really a nice person. What did she do to make you so irritated?”

  “It’s not what she’s done, so much,” Terry answered, “as what she hasn’t done.”

  “Interesting. I’m surprised. She seems very conscientious. In contrast, her predecessor was the laziest man I ever met. I did about three-fourths of his work for him, and even at that, the board fired him. I was almost insulted.”

  Terry laughed a little. “Well, gee, if you’d done all of his work for him, it probably wouldn’t have happened.”

  “It wasn’t my work that got him canned,” Arthur said haughtily. “He had a bigger ego than any prima donna I’ve ever met. And he was always bragging about who he knew. Luciano this, Renée that. What a name-dropper.”

  “He sounds like a menace.”

  “He was that. But you haven’t answered my question about Ms. Prince.”

  Terry eyed him. “Let me make sure you’ll be sufficiently indignant. You are gay, I assume.”

  “You may assume, indeed,” Arthur said, with dignity.

  “So how do you feel about the closet?” she asked.

  “Depends. If you’re using it to store your cashmere, I recommend cedar lining. If you’re using it to hide out, it’s probably dark and lonely in there.”

  Terry began to reply when the inner door to Caroline’s office opened, and a middle-aged man hurried out, saying good-bye over his shoulder. Arthur stood and said, “Good afternoon, Maestro.”

  The man waved a hand and left as Caroline stepped in to the outer office. “Arthur, call Paulo for me and see if you can set an appointment with him next week sometime, will you? We’re going to need to chat a bit about the orchestra rehearsal schedule.”

  Arthur went to his desk and made a note. “Union problems?”

  “Not yet,” Carline smiled. “But as I’ve been reminded lately, it’s better to try to prevent problems than to have to solve them.” She shifted her attention to Terry and said, “What a pleasant surprise, Terry. I didn’t know you were coming. Did I?”

  The last question was directed at Arthur and he shook his head. “No,” he confirmed. “She just dropped by to yell at you.”

  Terry gave him another glare, and Caroline said to Arthur, “I thought I told you to schedule all people yelling at me on Thursdays only.”

  Arthur shrugged and said, “Occasionally they slip in under the radar.”

  “This isn’t funny,” Terry growled, and Caroline immediately frowned.

  “In that case, come and in and we’ll try to solve it. Do you need anything else?” she glanced at the tea cup in her hand.

  “Not from Mr. Tattletale,” she groused at Arthur.

  Arthur gave her his most charming smile.

  * * *

  After they were seated in Caroline’s office, she said, “Terry, what’s wrong? Why are you angry with me?” She hesitated, then said, “This isn’t about Jill, is it?”

  “Nothing to do with her,” Terry said shortly. “It’s about Naomi Snow.”

  “Naomi?” she said in surprise.

  “I finished up the interviews with your three new singers yesterday,” Terry said. “I sent the copy off to McKinney for Anna and Robert—who is just as big an ass as you said he was, by the way—but I haven’t sent them the stuff on Naomi yet. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  Caroline was deeply puzzled. “You’re mad at me because of Naomi?”

  “You could put it that way.”

  Caroline sighed. “Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me what happened?” she suggested.

  “What happened is that it took me several days to get Naomi to agree to see me. She works two jobs to support herself while she takes classes at the Opera, did you know that?”

  “I didn’t. But it’s not unusual for a young singer.”

  “Really? Did you have to do that, too?” Her voice sounded challenging.

  Caroline, a little exasperated, “I did, in fact. I gave private voice lessons to several high school students in addition to a job as a secretary at the Conservatory while I was there.”

  And Jill, she remembered, had waited tables all through undergrad school. She had a scholarship for her tuition, but they had to pay rent on the tiny studio apartment, and eat.

  To Terry she added, “But you don’t really want to hear my starving-artist stories, do you? Tell me about Naomi.”

  Terry said, “I finally got her to meet me at a local coffee house last night. She really didn’t want to talk to me. At all. I finally got her to open up around the third cappuccino.”

  “And somehow this led to you being angry with me?” Caroline asked.

  Terry snorted. “Naomi came from a rotten home. She’s from New Mexico, and she’s part Native American. Did you know that?”

  “Terry, you can assume I know nothing about Naomi Snow except what kind of voice she has.”

  “Both of her parents were alcoholics,” Terry continued. “Her father died when she was thirteen, ran his pickup off the road. She has no idea where her mother is. Her grandmother raised her, as well as she could with no money to speak of. The only thing that kept her going was some community music program she got involved in, starting in junior high. Once she started singing, she knew what her ticket out was going to be.”

  Caroline said sympathetically, “A sad story, but not really unique. I’m still not clear on—”

  “I’m not done yet,” Terry snapped. “I finally got her to go to a late dinner with me, on the McKinney expense account. They’ll be billing you for that, I’m sure.”

  Caroline waved a hand. “That’s fine. So what happened?”

  “When she was seventeen, her grandmother threw her out of the house, and hasn’t spoken a word to Naomi since. She managed to finish high school staying with the family of a school friend. Then she went to work until she could save enough money for a bus ticket to Denver, to audition for the Young Artists Program. When you guys took her, she didn’t have a place to live, no car, nothing except a few clothes in a backpack.”

  Caroline was trying to restrain her impatience. “Are you saying we should have done more for her, found out what her circumstances were and given her support?”

  “You did, in a way,” Terry admitted reluctantly. “Her teacher, Madame Somebody—”

  “Petrovski,” Caroline supplied.

  “Yeah. She helped her out, set her up with some friends until she could find a place to live and a job.”

  Caroline made a mental note to express her official gratitude to Madame Petrovski. “All right, Terry, I give up. Why are you so angry?”

  The glare was back. “Ask me why her grandmother threw Naomi out.”

  “Why did she?”

  “Because Naomi Snow told her she liked girls instead of boys.” Having made this pronouncement, Terry sat back in angry resolution.

  Caroline was mentally scrambling. “I’m sorry. I’m not clear why Naomi being a lesbian is somehow my fault.”

  Terry snorted again. “You know it isn’t. But Naomi is terrified that someone is going to find out, and throw her out of the program, or out of opera, or something, all over again. And you know why? Because she’s never heard of any gay opera singers.”

  Well, at least now I see why Terry is so hostile.

  “And you think,” she said slowly, “that if I were out, somehow this would make Naomi Snow happy and well-a
djusted?”

  Terry shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t mean that, exactly,” she said.

  “No? And how is it that you got Naomi to disclose her deep, dark secret to you?”

  “I…” Terry swallowed. “Over the course of the evening, I sort of thought she might be. So I drove her home and…I kissed her.”

  “Not exactly maintaining your professional objectivity,” Caroline said mildly.

  “Look,” Terry said, trying to regain the offensive, “this isn’t about me. This is about you, and how you could have been a role model for young women like Naomi and God knows who else if you’d just been open about your orientation.”

  Caroline sat back. At length she said, “You’re probably right.”

  “I…what?” The concession obviously was unexpected.

  “I said, you’re probably right. I was always thinking about my career, what it would mean to me, personally, to be out or not. It never occurred to me that I had a responsibility to anyone else. And perhaps we’re both right. Early on, before I was a big name, keeping my orientation private might have been the right decision. But now, at this point, it really doesn’t make sense. So thank you for this. I do need to figure out what to do next. But don’t worry, Naomi will be reassured that no one at the RMO is going to interfere with her career over this.”

  Terry tapped her fingers against the arm of the sofa. “Do you mean that?”

  “I do.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.” Caroline was genuinely puzzled.

  “Last week you defended your decision to stay in the closet. Now I tell you one true, sad story, and you’re willing to come out.”

  Caroline smiled a little. “It’s not quite like that.”

  Terry looked at her, apparently expecting an explanation, but Caroline had none to give—or, at least, not one she intended to give to Terry. The truth was that she knew part of the price she would have to pay if she and Jill were ever going to be together was to be open about their relationship, and she was more than ready to be honest.

  About this aspect of her life, at least.