Share with Me: Seaside Chapel Book 1

by Thompson, Jan

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” Brinley asked.

  “Charleston. We’ll be there two nights. Then I’ll be home for Christmas.” He sang the end of his sentence.

  “You can’t carry a tune, Ivan.”

  “That’s why I’m all instrumental. What are you doing the next few days?”

  Brinley seemed to hesitate telling him. Then: “I’m buying a house on St. Simon’s.”

  “A house? I’m confused. You said you don’t come to—I mean, go to—St. Simon’s much.”

  “For now. I can’t keep staying at my parents’ house whenever I come to town.”

  “What do you mean by for now?”

  Brinley hesitated again. “I’ll tell you later, okay? Family business and all that.”

  “Okay. You can trust me.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “A million worker termites say I shouldn’t.”

  Ivan groaned. “You’re not going to let me live that down.”

  “Nope. Not until my dying day.”

  “We’ll know each other that long?”

  Silence.

  “Brin?”

  “I have to run,” Brinley said. “Aunt Ella is getting into things. Mom’s things.”

  Ivan laughed. “May I call you again tomorrow?”

  “You can call me anytime.”

  The call over, Ivan looked out the window on the fifth floor of the hotel to overcast sky. Good thing they were playing indoors that night at City Hall. The next night they’d play at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. The two grand concerts in a collaboration with the Savannah City Orchestra should be fun. Word was that someone from ASO would be there, scouting for violinists.

  If he did well, would Brinley be impressed?

  Shouldn’t I be trying to impress God?

  Well, God already knew all about him. Brinley knew little about him. Music seemed to be their common language. Perhaps if they did more music together, they could get to know each other more.

  It was too bad that the SISO schedule was packed through Saturday and he would be either too busy or too tired to finish writing Pleasant Days.

  Then there was that Bach composition he had promised Brinley he’d play for her on her lost Damaris Brooks Strad, but it hadn’t been recovered. Would she be satisfied if he played it on the Schoenberg Strad instead? It wasn’t the Damaris, but it was a Stradivarius, nonetheless. Surely Brinley would approve.

  Why would I want her approval?

  In fact, why would she want to have anything to do with me?

  He had nothing to offer Brinley. He was struggling to make ends meet, and would probably continue to struggle the rest of his life if things remained the same as they were. Why would she want to date someone as poor as he was? Look at that guy at the Oglethorpe Charity Dinner Monday night. That was the sort of date more suitable for Brinley.

  I have nothing to offer her.

  Except these hands.

  Still lying on the bed, Ivan lifted his hands above his head.

  Give me a violin and I can play anything.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  When Hiram Jacobs walked to the lectern in the Brunswick Senior Living Community caféteria looking like the retired preacher that he was, Brinley was sure he was going to rain upon them a sermon of apocalyptic proportions. Perhaps even something rivaling that of Jonathan Edwards’ fiery “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” that had caused a revival in 1741.

  And then Hiram broke into an old folk song that everyone else attending the Wednesday evening service apparently knew, all except Brinley.

  She sat there quietly taking in the words and the mishmash of voices by people who could carry a tune and also those who were clearly tone deaf. As for her, her voice was silent. She neither knew the song nor wished to sing it. Instead, she wished to go home, for the song tugged at her heartstrings and beckoned her to see the woes of a poor wayfaring stranger waiting to cross over Jordan to see his savior.

  “How many of us don’t have problems?” Hiram said when the off-key singing ended with gusto. “When we keep having chicken for dinner every week, I can tell you we have a problem!”

  “We want steak!” someone shouted.

  “You can’t eat steak with dentures, Joe!” someone else lobbed back.

  Hiram spread out his arms as if to part the Red Sea. “Listen, folks. We all have problems. Bills to pay. Illnesses. Kids who don’t come to see us.”

  Brinley heard amens all around.

  “Yet, our biggest problem isn’t any of the above. Do you know what it is?”

  Someone put up her hand.

  “Yes, Sue?”

  “You’re taking too long, Hiram. Food’s gonna get cold.”

  “Easy, Sue. Don’t tempt him.”

  Brinley grinned at the banter among the seniors.

  Hiram put up his arms again to calm the masses. Brinley could imagine a long stick, a la Moses, in his hand. “Glad you brought that up, Sue. Someday these bodies of ours are gonna get cold. Real cold. We’d better address the biggest problem our soul ever faces: sin. Sin separates us from God. Sin permeates every cell of our being and poisons us from the inside out.”

  Brinley wanted to shut him out but somehow Hiram reminded her of the way Grandpa Brooks talked. That southern gentleman drawl. That lost language.

  Hearing Hiram talk was like stepping back in time to her Grandpa talk to the grandkids. If Grandpa Brooks were still alive he would’ve been Hiram’s contemporary.

  “What is sin?” Hiram asked to mumblings among his congregation. “I can name you three sins: lying, cheating, stealing. What’s lying? The other day I heard someone say she was ninety. Truth be told, she was ninety-four and a few months more.”

  The mumblings lessened.

  “Cheating. If you had an extra tile in the Scrabble game this afternoon but nobody noticed and you didn’t say anything, better own up.”

  All quiet now.

  “Anyone took a third hush puppy at the Seaside Chapel luncheon Saturday when all we were supposed to have were two? That’s stealing food!”

  Why couldn’t they have all the hush puppies they wanted? Brinley wanted to just go out and buy these people food.

  “So there. Our soul has a problem. The problem is sin.” Hiram looked around the room. “But God has a solution. He sent a Savior. That Savior is Jesus Christ. Let me read Matthew 1:21.”

  With a deep voice that harkened to old-time revival preachers, probably like those circuit riding preachers that had visited Brooks Plantations back in the antebellum South, Hiram read with such a reverence for the Bible that it put Brinley in awe.

  “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.”

  Throughout the entire sermon, Hiram hadn’t looked at Brinley at all, for which she was grateful. She wondered if everybody else knew what sin was except her and whether Hiram was really preaching to the choir for the benefit of outsiders like Aunt Ella.

  And me.

  “Do you want peace with God? If you have Jesus, you have peace. He is the prince of peace, not only at Christmas, but all year long,” Hiram concluded. “Let me tell you, folks. No matter what happens in this world, no matter how ravaging my cancer is every day or how painful my grief is over my sweet Camilla whom I’ll see again soon in heaven, I have peace in my heart. Do you?”

  Cancer? Hiram has cancer? He looks so… at peace.

  The thought lingered in Brinley’s mind throughout the turkey dinner and afterwards when she drove Yun and Aunt Ella back to her parents’ home on Sea Island. She had to take one of Dad’s SUVs since the Bugatti didn’t have room for three people.

  After sending her guests off to bed, Brinley found that she was thirsty. Too much sodium in the dishes at dinner? Minutes later she was downstairs in the kitchen, drinking a small bottle of San Pellegrino.

  Looking around the chef’s kitchen, Brinley knew her f
amily had everything, and yet they had nothing.

  They had nothing compared to Hiram and Yun. Even struggling Ivan had something she didn’t have. Brinley knew she hadn’t meant it completely when she made the deal with Ivan over his then termite-infested porch.

  You tell me about the peace of God, and I help you with your peace on earth.

  Had she dissimulated? Ivan hadn’t known then that she didn’t really want to know about the peace of God.

  Tonight, though, she wondered.

  Something about what Hiram said.

  If you have Jesus, you have peace.

  The ping of the elevator made Brinley turn to look. It was Yun McMillan.

  “You thirsty too?” Brinley asked.

  “No. I thought I should come downstairs.”

  “God told you?”

  “Well, I would say God led me, not necessarily in an audible voice. You see, God and I have a relationship through Jesus.”

  Jesus.

  Peace in my heart.

  All year long.

  “I want Jesus, Yun.” Brinley put down her mineral water.

  “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Yun walked to the island where Brinley was still standing.

  “That’s all?”

  “By believing in Jesus it means you acknowledge that Jesus died on the cross to save you from your sins and rose again from the grave to give you eternal life. By believing in Him it means you recognize Him as your personal Lord and Savior. Would you like to pray to accept Jesus into your heart?”

  “Yes.”

  Divine timing was something unexplainable. Brinley echoed Yun in the simple prayer, asking Jesus to live in her heart, believing that He had died on the cross to save her from her sins, and that He had risen from the grave to give her eternal life.

  Brinley thought that the heavens would send angels to carry her up and away, but alas, no such epiphany, though who knew if they were cheering her on at the moment.

  All she knew was that for the first time in her life, her heart felt light, as if the burden of a thousand years had been lifted from her chest, the weight of it gone.

  Gone!

  A pure, unadulterated peace swept through her soul. And then she felt a whisper descend on her heart like a gentle feather. Three quiet words.

  Pray for Ivan.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Classically trained, Ivan had to fall back on his crossover days to pull off his string contributions to the collaboration between SISO and the Savannah City Orchestra, in the holiday pops concert Thursday night at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to fall too far back in time as everything came back to him as if the last six years of detour had never happened. He was back again on the world stage, showing off his range as a concert violinist and ability to play in a large and loud orchestra. He could keep playing the old-time Christmas carols and traditional songs all night long, but alas, the concert was over in two hours.

  Tomorrow morning, they’d pack up and go on the next leg of the SISO coastal tour. Up to Charleston for two evenings, then it would be Saturday and time to head home to St. Simon’s Island, where he had left a big piece of his heart in the hands of a lady he had only gotten to know for a week but whom he wanted to love for a lifetime—

  What did I just say?

  “Yes, what did you just say?” Emmeline’s voice cooed in his ears.

  Ivan straightened up and tried to regain his bearings.

  Oh yes. Cathedral. Mingling. Meeting fans.

  Not. They were waiting for the bus.

  The crowd chattered around him in the center aisle and the old wooden pews of the tall cathedral. They might have been talking all this time, but he hadn’t noticed. He wished Brinley were here, next to him. She would feel right at home in this glittery crowd and this old cathedral built on a cornerstone set in the late eighteenth century, probably when the Brooks family had lived in Savannah. Ivan thought that Brinley had an interesting family history.

  Instead of Brinley, it was Emmeline O’Hanlon beside him, the harpist in a black clingy gown who had stuck to him like chewing gum on a shoe since he held that elevator door open for her to roll out her harp that Tuesday morning before they left St. Simon’s. If she thought they were going to rekindle whatever it was they didn’t quite have those six months they had been an item, she was sadly mistaken.

  “Smile for the camera, Ivan.”

  The blinding flashes brought back memories of Jade Strings and their blitz through Europe and Asia. They would have produced another CD if his life hadn’t come to a grinding halt. Now six years trapped in time on an old island he hadn’t expected to return to, six years of lost earnings and opportunities to make something of his career that could put him on the same plateau as Brinley.

  Well, not exactly the same plateau, but it would get him into the doors of the rich and famous, that circle that Brinley was in.

  Pipe dreams are for kids.

  Emmeline was still posing up against him, her thin satin gown slithering up the outside of his left thigh as she leaned her torso against his chest. She looked like a puppy that rubbed its nose against someone’s leg. It would be funny if people from church saw the pic—

  Brin!

  What if Brinley sees this?

  Ivan stiffened up as if to shake off Emmeline. “Excuse me.”

  He hurried away before she could pull him back to the camera. Enervated from the two-hour concert, Ivan wanted out of here.

  The central door went under the ornate pipes of the cathedral organ. Out there was the foyer and steps to where the bus was supposed to pick up SISO. He was at the door to the men’s restroom when someone approached him.

  “Ivan McMillan?” The fifty-something male with a bow tie and a female companion was shorter than Ivan, but he exuded authority.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Bradley Whitfield. I spoke with Petrocelli about how much I enjoyed your solos.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Ah, another fan.

  “Such refreshing clarity. I particularly appreciated the precision of your double-stop trills and left-handed pizzicatos in the Christmas medley.”

  Ivan nodded. He wanted to say that any classically trained violinist could do that. Then again, he had a Stradivarius. That might have tipped it in his favor. And he had SISO to thank for it.

  And God.

  Note to self: Don’t forget to thank God.

  “I’ve heard many technical musicians, but these days it’s hard to find up-and-coming violinists who have both mechanics and musicality.”

  Such effusing compliment. On what basis?

  “It’s nothing, sir.” Ivan shrugged. “Christmas music. Well, I don’t mean that Christmas music is nothing, but that it’s not that difficult—”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean your musicality tonight. Someone emailed me the link to the Oglethorpe Charity Dinner videos on YouTube. I saw your execution of the Flight of the Bumble Bee. Mechanics is one thing, but mechanics plus musicality—you know what I mean.”

  Ivan nodded. In his mind he wondered. Who is that someone who emailed this man the video links?

  “That didn’t impress me as much as Paganini. I’m a big fan of Paganini. Your Caprice tone—exquisite. Juilliard, right?”

  “How did you know, sir?”

  “A little bumble bee told me.” The man pressed a business card in Ivan’s hand. “Call me when your SISO season is over. Don’t call me before then, as we obviously don’t want to interrupt your season and make Petrocelli unhappy.”

  Ivan looked at the card.

  Whoa! National Pops Orchestra!

  He could hardly speak. Ivan whirled out of the cathedral foyer. All he could think about was that his career was finally taking off again.

  “Hey, man.” The straps to the backpack hanging off Art’s shoulders fitted a bit tightly on the big man. “I see the harpist has a thing for you.”

  “Huh? What?”

&
nbsp; “Focus, Ivan.” Art popped a chewing gum into his mouth and offered Ivan some. “I was referring to the woman with you earlier. You know, the one in front of the camera inside such a sacred house of worship.”

  Ivan groaned. “You saw that too? We dated once. Briefly. She doesn’t understand it’s over.”

  “Tell her.”

  “I did. Plenty of times.” Ivan went out the front door, where two short flights of steps would take them to the brick sidewalk. “You giving relationship advice now?”

  “For a fee I can give any advice. I’m heading back to the hotel. If you want, I can give you a ride in my rental. It has a nice sound system. And fine music.”

  “Unlike tonight’s delicate numbers?” Ivan looked around. The tour bus was nowhere to be found. He could go back inside and wait for those introductions that hadn’t come. He had thought that he might meet some ASO people after the concert. He had been hoping for some introductions. A few pats on the back about their performances.

  Well, he did get a compliment from that representative of the National Pops Orchestra. That was big, wasn’t it? Maybe. Maybe not. It wasn’t Boston or London or Vienna.

  I can’t get my hopes up too high.

  The other people who had run into him before and after the concert and during the intermission had mostly been SISO members and a few patrons who couldn’t tell the difference between principal second violinist and first violin.

  Ivan hadn’t talked to Conductor Petrocelli since the concert ended. Ivan doubted if Petrocelli had him in mind if he ran into any ASO bigwigs.

  “I need some sleep before we head out to Charleston tomorrow. Let’s go.” Ivan motioned. “Where are you parked?”

  “On the other side of Lafayette Square. Only place I could find parking.”

  “Hope it doesn’t rain harder.”

  It didn’t. The drizzle dissipated as Ivan and Art crossed East Harris Street. It might’ve been quicker if they cut through Lafayette Square, but it was covered with trees. The streets had lights. Ivan followed Art down Abercorn and then he couldn’t remember the streets beyond that. They climbed into Art’s SUV and headed toward River Street.