by Noah Bly
I used to love this man more than my own life, and he loved me just as much. Now all our words to each other hang in the air like nerve gas.
I flinch a little, but I don’t look away from him. I refuse to give him the pleasure of winning this dispute.
“Join the club, dear.” I clear my throat. “But as long as we’re on the subject of telling lies, how’s Martha? Would you like to spread her out on our bed this afternoon for old time’s sake? I could go out for coffee and give you two kids the run of the place for an hour or so, if you’re too self-conscious to do it while I’m here.”
He straightens. “There’s no talking to you.”
He’s trying to hide his feelings, but shame is written all over him.
I drum my fingers on my chin and smile. “Or if you prefer, I’ll play the piano to help set the mood while the two of you are fornicating. Any requests? How about Stravinksy’s Polka for Circus Elephants? It might remind Martha of home.”
He glowers down at me. “That’s not even remotely funny. And for your information, Martha’s lost a great deal of weight recently. She looks stunning.” He rubs his temples. “Besides, I prefer my women to have a little meat on their bones.”
In truth, Martha Predel is a strikingly beautiful woman, and twenty years my junior. But she carries a few extra pounds on her small frame, and I can use this to my advantage. It may be petty, but at this point I’ll take whatever weapon comes to hand.
“A little meat?” I snort. “The woman is a walking delicatessen.”
From the corner of my eye I see Alex put his hand on the doorknob. He’s apparently decided to go outside again instead of braving the staircase.
Arthur heaves a sigh. “I’ve had enough of this. My lawyer told me it was a mistake to come over here until we’ve come to terms on the house, but I thought that just maybe you’d be capable of being civilized for a few moments while I collected the rest of my …”
Alex turns the knob and opens the door just enough to get out, but as he’s squeezing through the space he bumps into the metal milk can, and the handle of one of the umbrellas sticking out of it catches on the lip of his pants pocket. The whole can tips over and he makes a wild grab to catch it, but his fingers miss and it crashes on the floor, spitting out a purple and orange umbrella and a silver-tipped walking cane.
Arthur jumps about a foot in the air and spins toward the door. He looks Alex up and down, then swings his head to look at me again. He sees I’m not surprised, and his hands ball into fists.
“Who the hell is that?”
“He lives here, Arthur.” I wave Alex in. “Hello, Alex. Don’t just stand there. Come in and meet my extremely charming husband. Arthur, this is Alex Pearl. Alex, Arthur Donovan.”
Alex walks into the room (after shutting the door and righting the milk can) but when he extends his hand Arthur pretends not to see it. He drops his arm and looks at me for guidance. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.”
Arthur ignores him. “What do you mean, he lives here? You know damn well you weren’t supposed to get another tenant until the divorce is final and we’ve reached a settlement on the property. Tell him to get out.”
I look down at my hands and begin fiddling with my cuticles. “I’ll do no such thing. He’s already signed the lease.”
I’m lying. I haven’t had him sign anything.
Arthur gives Alex a black look and the boy takes a step backward. I can’t say I blame him. Arthur is overweight and seventy-two years old, but in spite of that he’s still quite strong, with thick, round shoulders and a broad chest, and at six-four he’s even taller than Alex. However, Arthur wouldn’t hurt a fly, physically; he’s actually a very gentle man—unlike our son Paul, who would pull the wings off the same fly, with glee.
But that’s another story.
Arthur crosses his beefy forearms in front of him. “I don’t care what he signed. Get rid of him.” He studies Alex with distaste. “I see my wife still has a soft spot for mangy strays. She took in a half-dead cat once that had to be put down for distemper. Have you at least had your shots?”
Alex recoils from the hostility in his tone.
“You’re being horribly rude, Arthur.” I turn my head to the boy. “Don’t pay any attention to him, Alex. He’s been suffering from mild hallucinations lately. For instance, he believes, oddly enough, that he still has some say in what happens in this house. Isn’t that ridiculous?”
Arthur snatches his coat from the chair behind him. “We’ll see how ridiculous I’m being at the pretrial conference.” He levels a finger at Alex. “The lease you signed isn’t legally valid because this property is under dispute. No matter what Hester tells you, you’re going to have to move out immediately. Do I make myself clear?”
Alex drops his head and stares at the floor. He didn’t take his shoes off when he came in and there are little clumps of snow melting on the carpet by his feet. Arthur gives me a final look a few seconds later, then sweeps out of the room, smelling like English Leather and pipe smoke.
I stare after him, then look up at Alex again and lower my voice to a stage whisper just as Arthur opens the door. “The doctors think his hallucinations are linked to an overdose of secondhand lard. It’s quite sad.”
Alex’s eyes become huge. I can hear Arthur breathing heavily in the entryway, and I feel a cold draft coming in from outside.
“Go to hell, Hester.” His voice is almost civil, but I get ice up my back listening to it.
“You first, dear.” I smile brightly. “And do remember to give my love to Martha.”
A long silence. “That’s very sweet of you, but completely unnecessary. Why give her your love when I can give her this house instead, in just a few weeks?”
My breathing quickens, but all I do is nod. “If that’s the case, I’ll begin stocking the pantry with Ring Dings and corn chips, so the poor dear won’t waste away before you have a chance to get to the grocery store.”
The door slams.
For a few seconds Alex and I don’t move. We stare at each other in silence as Arthur’s car door bangs shut in the driveway, and a moment later we hear his engine rev to life.
Alex lets his breath out with a whoosh. “Jesus.”
My lower lip trembles a little. “Quite.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m a bit confused. Arthur left without taking the things he came for.” I look up at the boy. “Why do you suppose he did that? I think he’s losing his mind.”
I get to my feet and jab at the fire with a poker. “I apologize, dear. I had no intention for you to witness that unpleasant little scene.”
His forehead is sweating a little. “That’s all right. I didn’t mean to walk in on you like that.” He wipes his hands on his shirt. “Are you okay?”
I set the poker down and adjust my hair. “Why wouldn’t I be? That’s the most enjoyable conversation Arthur and I have had in ages.”
I turn my head, distracted, and scan some of the familiar titles on the bookshelf closest to me: A History of Western Music is sandwiched between Sophie’s Choice and a worn copy of The Scarlet Letter. I run my hand over the spines, feeling the dry leather under my fingertips. There’s no order of any kind to the books, but there are thousands of them, wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling. Everyone in my family is an ardent reader, and I don’t believe we’ve ever thrown out a single book.
When I face Alex again, he’s waiting for me. “When do you want me to move out?”
I shake my head with energy. “I don’t. Arthur doesn’t have a leg to stand on in court, and he knows it.” I bend down to straighten the armcover on my chair. “You mustn’t mind Arthur, by the way. He behaves like that toward everyone these days.”
He looks puzzled. “Then why’d you marry him?”
“I have no idea.” I make a face at his expression. “Oh, all right. That’s a lie. I adored him, once.”
He frowns. “Why?”
I walk past him, toward the kitchen. “I believe I need a dr
ink to answer that. Want one?”
He nods and follows me into the kitchen. I keep talking while fishing through the liquor cabinet next to the pantry. “I met Arthur at a summer music festival in upstate New York in 1958.” I dig out a bottle of Black Bush and two crystal highball glasses. “I’d come in third at the Tschaikovsky competition in Moscow that year, and he’d just won some unpronounceable thing in Paris. Anyway, we were both touring a lot in those days, but we’d never met.”
I’m standing in front of the window and the sunlight is making a dust curtain in the air between the counter and me. I move over beside the sink and set the glasses down. “We were scheduled to perform the Franck Sonata in D together the first night of the festival, so the plan had been to arrive the night before to rehearse it. But Arthur’s flight was delayed in Paris and he didn’t get there until less than an hour before the performance, so we had no time to even run through it before we had to go out on stage.”
I put the bottle on the counter and it catches the light and acts as a prism, projecting a rainbow-colored bar on the floor by my feet until I open the freezer door and block the sunlight with my body. The freezer is stuffed with boxes of Wolfgang Puck’s pizzas and Shelton’s free-range turkey sausages, and in the door itself is a big bottle of Bombay Gin and another of Beefeater Vodka.
I take out an ice tray and return to the counter. “The way Arthur played the Franck was the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Or I should say the way we played it, if you’ll excuse me for boasting. We were recorded live, incidentally, and …”
He interrupts me. “What instrument does he play?”
I drop the ice tray in the sink and round on him. “You’re not serious.”
He blushes and I stare at him in amazement. “Arthur Donovan is one of the premier violinists in the world. I can understand you not knowing who I am, but how in God’s name have you never heard of Arthur? He’s been on everything from cereal boxes to The Tonight Show.”
He shakes his head, clearly embarrassed. I study him for a minute, baffled. “Unbelievable. Someone who’s unfamiliar with the great Arthur Donovan. You’ve lived a charmed life.”
I turn back to the sink and retrieve the ice tray. I pry a few cubes out in silence before speaking again. “Anyway, I was telling you about our performance at the festival.” The ice lands in the glasses with a few high-pitched clinks. “It was uncanny. I felt like he knew what I was going to do before I did it. We matched each other, nuance for nuance, as if we’d been lovers for years, like Jacqueline du Pre and old what’s-his-name. Half the audience was in tears when we finished, and I felt the same as they did. It was so exquisite it nearly broke my heart.”
I glance over my shoulder. “I know how immodest that sounds, but I don’t mean it that way. I only mean it was a privilege to be part of that performance.”
He shrugs. “That’s cool. So that’s why you married him? Because of how he played?”
I face him again. “Only partly. He was funny and sweet in those days, too, believe it or not, and he was also very, very beautiful. He had this splendid mane of black hair that came down to his shoulders, and these big gray eyes, and his skin felt like silk. I hopped into bed with him almost the instant we left the stage.” I smile. “I could barely walk the next day, and neither could he. Dear God, that was a fun summer.”
He grins at me but I barely notice. I fall silent until he prods me along. “Then what?”
I start. “What? Oh. Then the festival ended and I cancelled my fall concert tour to move to Bolton and marry him the following September. End of story.”
I look down and pick up the open bottle of whiskey. I pour about three inches into each glass and hand him one of them. “Well, almost the end. Two years after that I broke my wrist and had to quit performing. Then along came Paul, our gifted and spiteful first son, and Jeremy, our sweet, wasted second, and Caitlin, our dear deranged daughter—and before you knew it, forty years passed by, and I never got out of here.”
I raise my glass. “Oh, well. Cheers. Here’s to callow, stupid young women and the choices they make early in life.”
We both take a drink and he winces. “That’s pretty strong.”
Half of what I gave myself is already gone. “Damn straight.” I knock the rest back and pour myself another double shot. “Drink up, Alex.”
“I can’t. I have a lot of homework to do tonight.”
I shake the bottle at him like a policeman’s truncheon. “I said drink.”
He sighs and takes another sip. “So when did he move out?”
“Less than a year ago. Arthur mourned our relationship for all of two seconds and then shacked up last spring with one of the voice teachers from the Conservatory. Martha Predel is her name. Or Martha soon-to-be Donovan, I should say, since they plan to marry as soon as our divorce is final. Martha and Arthur were lovers for years, it turns out, but I never knew about it until recently. I had my suspicions of course, but I was a trusting fool for well over a decade.”
I tug on a thin silver chain hanging around my neck. “I hear they threw a lovely dinner party to announce their pending engagement, but for a while there was an ugly rumor floating around town that Martha got hungry before the main entreé could be served, and was forced to eat the caterer to keep up her strength.”
He wanders over to the tin-paneled wall and touches the metal with his finger. “You sound kind of bitter.”
I bray laughter. He cringes a little as the guffaws echo around the room.
“Me? Bitter?” I come up next to him and lean my shoulder on the wall while watching the side of his face. “Just because I lost the only career I’ve ever wanted, and no one in my family will speak to me, and the husband I loved more than anybody I’ve known in my life traded me in after forty-five years of marriage for a wheezing, horse-faced soprano who intends to take my house away from me?”
I swish the whiskey around in my glass. “Don’t talk nonsense, boy. These things happen.”
I hum a few notes and stare out the window. It’s starting to snow, and flakes the size of rose petals are sticking to the roof of the carriage house and slowly covering up the asphalt driveway. I watch them fall for a minute and the pain in my chest eases a bit, in spite of everything. “That’s rather pretty, isn’t it?”
I take another swallow of my drink. “In retrospect, I don’t know which hurt worse. Losing my ability to play piano, or losing my family.” I look down at my left wrist and flex it. “I suppose the only difference is the timing. I destroyed my wrist in an instant, you see. Both feet slid out from under me on a patch of ice, and the deed was done. But with Arthur and the children, I was falling for decades, and didn’t even know it.”
My voice is getting hoarse. “But of course I’m not bitter. Don’t be silly. I’m Hester Parker. Hester Parker doesn’t succumb to base human emotions like bitterness. Hester Parker is a ray of sunshine, a comforting melody to those in need, a chuckling cherub to all who know and love her. Haven’t you noticed?”
He turns to me. My eyes are full of tears, and I reach up to pat his cheek when I see the helpless look on his face. His skin is warm, and dry.
“It’s all right, dear. I’m fine. Really.” I drop my hand and walk away. “Just don’t let me anywhere near a gun.”
CHAPTER 4
Alex is outside shoveling the sidewalk when I wake in the morning. I can hear the shovel grating on the concrete as I come down the stairs, and when I look out the front door I see him working. He has his back to me, and all he’s wearing, yet again, is sneakers, a pair of jeans and that ratty blue flannel shirt that seems to be the only jacket he owns.
I open the door and in spite of the bright sun a wave of cold air slices through my robe. I yell his name and he jumps and turns around.
I step out on the porch in my slippers. “Come inside this instant and put on some heavier clothes, you idiot!”
He grins at me. “I’m fine. I’m almost done.”
�
��At least wear gloves. You’re going to get frostbite, and they’ll have to amputate everything on your body except your shaggy little head. You’ll spend the rest of your life as a bust on a pedestal.”
He shoos me back inside. “Stop worrying, Hester. I’ll be right in.”
Feebleminded child. I glare at him for a minute but then the wind hits me again and I retreat into the house and slam the door behind me. I make my way to the kitchen to boil water for tea. When the gas is lit on the stove I stare out the window while the kettle pops and hisses.
It must have been quite a storm last night. The porch rail has at least seven inches of new snow piled on top of it. There was a lot of wind, too, it seems; St. Booger is buried in a drift up to his waist.
The front door bangs open and Alex comes in, stomping his feet. His face and hands are almost blue from the cold. “Whew.” His glasses are steamed over and he tips his head to look at me over the top of the frames. “That’s a lot of snow.”
I grunt. “Booger’s sporting a new white skirt today. He looks like an aging drag queen.”
He laughs and kicks off his shoes. He’s not wearing socks again, and his feet are the same color as the rest of his exposed skin. He closes the door behind him and pauses in the entry hall to wipe his glasses on his shirt, then he puts them back on and looks in at me.
I growl at him. “Don’t just stand there freezing, you chuckle-head. Come in and get warm. I’m making tea.”
He glances at the clock over the sink. “I would, but I need to take a shower and get over to Pritchard. I’ve got a class with your daughter in less than an hour, and she’s kind of strict about being on time.”
The kettle starts to whistle behind me and I turn off the stove. “Caitlin’s strict about everything. She’s in favor of bringing back the pillory for people who don’t floss.” I stuff a tea ball with some loose-leaf Darjeeling and drop it in a mug. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll give you a note explaining the only reason you were late was because you were helping me clean out the underwear drawer in her old dresser. I’m sure she’ll understand.”