by Dee Ernst
Michael looked over to Diane. She smiled innocently. “How about ‘The Man That Got Away’?”
Michael’s mouth twitched. Jonelle cocked her head. “Two points for you, honey.” To Michael, “That would be good, right baby?”
He nodded, grinning. “Sure. But no intro, okay?”
“Sure, baby. But lose the hat. Ain’t nothin’ so sad as a rich white boy in a cowboy hat playing blues, okay?” She turned on her heel and left. Diane looked at Michael with her eyebrows raised.
“Oh, man, I’m going to be in trouble for this, I can tell,” Michael said, laughing and taking her hand. “Come on, let’s get back. I need another drink.”
Seth and David were at the table, Seth in deep conversation with the redhead he had been dancing with earlier. David was smiling and drinking heavily, watching the people around him. When Diane sat next to him, he immediately brightened and launched into a discussion of American blues. Diane sipped club soda and tried to hear through his thick, slurred accent as Michael watched, grinning. Then the band started up again, and they were back on the dance floor, now more crowded than ever.
Seth sang with the band a couple of times, to great applause. Finally, Jonelle waved the crowd quiet and invited her ‘good friend’ up to join them. Michael took off his hat and set it on Diane’s head with a long kiss. He went on stage and sat at the upright piano. The crowd was noisy and restless, but after he hit a few chords, they were silent, listening.
Michael played alone, the rest of the band members silent, and Jonelle sat beside him on the piano bench, her voice soft and sexy. When they were done, and the crowd was screaming, she whispered in his ear and he nodded, and they began another number, familiar to Diane, an old love song. This time, the bass player started in, and the drummer hit the snare. When they were done, Michael stood up and walked off-stage, grabbing Diane’s hand as he hurried out.
“Can you drive?” he asked her as they walked toward the truck. She nodded, got behind the wheel and watched him as he took off his hat and sank down into the seat.
“You okay?” she asked, pulling away from the curb.
“Yeah. Just tired. That last beer and shot didn’t help.”
“You could do that all night, couldn’t you? Just sit behind a piano and play for somebody like Jonelle.”
“Easily. I’d love it. If the band ever breaks up, that’s what I’d probably do, get a nice steady gig someplace, work weekends, no hassles.”
“What about writing music?”
“I’d always do that. But I write for myself. If somebody else plays it, or hears it, then I’ll get paid. But the fun is in the writing. I can’t wait to start this movie thing. I’ve got so many ideas. David is really sharp. He’s going to be a big help.”
“You’re pretty amazing, aren’t you? I’m used to smart people, and talented people. I work with them. But you are something special.”
“Shucks. Now I’m embarrassed.”
“Cut it out. You know how good you are.”
He looked at her, curious. “Do you think I’m arrogant?”
“No, not at all. You’re very comfortable with who you are. You’re one of the most self-assured people I’ve ever met. I mean, that guy tonight? Jackie? Most men I know would have had to make a point, somehow.”
“I did make a point. Bobby will fire him.”
“Really?”
“Not because he pulled that shit on me, but because he pulled that shit, period. When people pay money to listen to good music and have a nice time, they shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of asshole.”
She glanced over at him. His eyes were closed, his face looked very young and peaceful. He opened one eye.
“What?”
She grinned. “So, you and Jonelle were kinda close?”
He closed his eye and sighed. “You picked up on that?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I met her when I was just eighteen. She felt there were certain, ah, gaps in my education.”
“I see. So is there anything in particular I should have thanked her for?”
He chuckled. “Maybe. When I started my senior year in high school, the prettiest girl in the whole class, hell she was head cheerleader, asked me over to her house to watch ‘General Hospital’ after school. She made a pass. I was shocked. She had never so much as looked at me before, but her sister had seen us playing over the summer, and I guess she thought it would be cool to screw a guy in a band. She didn’t want anyone to know. Not only was I the shortest guy around, but I’d skipped third grade, so I was younger than everybody else. It really sucked. But two or three afternoons a week, we’d be at it. Unfortunately, she lacked imagination, and any time I suggested anything other than the missionary position, she freaked. When I met Jonelle, my technique was rather limited. Jonelle, on the other hand, had been hopping in and out of bed for years. Twenty going on forty-five, you know? She gave me a rather advanced tutorial.”
“Remind me to send her flowers.”
He yawned. “I’d like to think I’d have eventually improved on my own. There’s a Marriott just ahead. Pull in. We’ll get a room.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. It’ll take us at least forty minutes to get home. It’ll be fun. Besides, you’ve been getting me hot and bothered all night.”
She turned the truck into the parking lot. “I thought you were tired.”
“Not that tired.”
She shut off the truck and turned in her seat to face him. “And you can’t wait?”
“I’ve been waiting all night.” He got out and walked around to the other side of truck, opening her door and pulling her out.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she scolded, walking past him. He grabbed her and pulled her back to him, pressing her against the truck. He kissed her very slowly, one hand sliding up her skirt, the other against her breast. He kissed her again, more deeply, and her arms went around him, and she opened her legs as his hand crept further up her thigh. Abruptly, he pulled back, and she leaned back against the side of the truck, blood pounding, her lips swollen.
“So, you want to drive home or what?”
She licked her lips. Her skin felt on fire. She couldn’t catch her breath. “You son of a bitch.”
He grinned. “It’s the hat.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEY PASSED INTO the summer together. After Emily and Megan moved down with their father, they were together almost every day and night. Michael was working on the score for the movie. The band had decided to take on the project. Michael had been hooked when he saw the first rough takes of the film. Gordon Prescott was filming a version of the Canterbury Tales, with a script based on the original stories. His pilgrims were a group of people taking a bus trip to Atlantic City on the Canterbury Bus Line. During the course of the trip, various tales would be told, all in flashback. It was a fascinating idea, and beautifully acted. For Michael, it was a chance to develop distinct themes for each of the characters. And so it had been agreed. Michael would do the writing. Seth and Joey would produce the soundtrack. The band would record at least three original numbers, and Prescott would get other bands to contribute to the soundtrack.
They spent most of their time at Michael’s house. He would work all morning in his studio. David Go, the elfin Irishman who had been tapped to do the orchestration of the score, had moved into one of Michael’s guestrooms. Seth Bascomb had moved into another. Seth owned five different homes, but none in New Jersey, so he always stayed at Michael’s.
Diane started spending mornings on the sailboat. She had spent enough time with Michael that she felt confident enough to go out on her own. She would go over to Merriweather in the afternoons to prepare for her new class. A graduate level class, an analysis of three works by Arthur Miller, required at great deal of research. This was the kind of work she had not done since her doctorate days, and she enjoyed it thoroughly.
She was invited to Marie’s for the Fourth of July. Marie and S
teve had a beautiful 100 year old Victorian in Madison, with high ceilings and beautiful woodwork. Out back there was a large yard and a patio and pool. When she and Michael arrived, the place was already crowded with family, Marie’s friends and co-workers, as well as Steve’s family. Steve was a director for a major pharmaceutical house, and he had invited his whole department.
They mingled with the crowd. Diane had been accepted warmly by his family. Marie waved happily at them, and a few minutes later, Angela came running up to them, her face flushed with the heat.
“I have some hot news for you, Diane.” Angela said, giving Michael a quick kiss on the cheek “Guess who’s back in the States and planning on returning to Merriweather?”
“Not a clue,” Diane said, taking a sip of cold white wine.
“Quinn Harris.” Angela said excitedly. “He’s bringing his Coward revival, the one that did so well last season in London, to the St. James for a limited run, sometime in the spring. Sam told me all about it. So Quinn asked about taking on another class here, this fall. Isn’t that great? That would be such a coup for Sam, getting him back. We got a lot of attention last time, remember? And with your play going on while he’s here could mean some impressive coverage, don’t you think?”
Diane had to take a deep breath. Quinn Harris, back at Merriweather.
“That’s great. For Sam I mean,” Diane said. “Quinn is quite a catch.”
“Who’s Quinn Harris?” Michael asked.
Angela told him. “He’s a very famous director in England, and he was here a few years ago as a visiting Professor. It was very exciting for us drama types.”
Michael had been watching Diane’s face. “Did you know him?” he asked casually.
Diane met his eyes. “Yes. Usually I wouldn’t be hanging around the Merriweather drama department, but Sam had just decided to workshop my play, so I did get to know him.” She smiled briefly, then caught sight of Marie. “Your sister looks like she could use some help.” She gulped more wine and moved away from Michael.
Her heart was pounding. Quinn was returning. She never imagined she would see him again. She could hear voices around her, but they seemed to be at a great distance, and her hands and lips turned icy cold. Quinn.
She had been invited to a cocktail party to welcome Quinn Harris to campus, and she had not wanted to go. But Sam French had insisted, and from the moment she saw Quinn, she could not take her eyes from him. He caught her staring at him, and when she did not turn away, he made his way slowly across the room until it was just the two of them, standing in a quiet corner, talking for a few minutes that made all the difference in the world to both of them. They met the next day for coffee, early in the morning, and by dinner that evening she had fallen, so swiftly and surely that she could not even remember how she had felt about her life before she met him. That evening he told her about his wife. He would leave her, he said. They would be together. They were meant to be together. And she had believed him. But in the end she had said no. He was married. She said no, and her heart had broken.
Diane reached over to take a basket of grilled chicken from Marie’s hands, setting it on the table. Now Quinn was divorced and coming back. She had not thought about him in months, certainly not since Michael. Now, knowing she would see him again caused a powerful reaction, totally unexpected and unwelcome. Diane had no desire to face him again. She did not want any old wounds reopened.
Michael had come up behind her and put his arms around her waist, pulling her away from the table and against him.
“My sister has hired scores of people to help her with this stuff,” he said into her ear. “You‘re supposed to be a guest, remember?”
Diane smiled and leaned back against him. “Sorry. It’s automatic.”
“Yeah, well you’re depriving people of their gainful employment.”
She rubbed her hands against his arms. “Sorry.”
Diane could feel the question hanging in the air before he asked it. “What about this Quinn Harris?”
Diane chewed her lip. “Did you ever meet somebody, and in like, three minutes you’re thinking, wow, this is who I’ve been waiting for my whole life?”
Michael stepped back away from her. When Diane turned around, his face was blank.
Diane continued. “Well, that’s how I felt when I met Quinn. But he was married. So nothing really happened. Then he went back to England.” She reached out to touch his face, tracing the line of his jaw, running her fingertips over his lips. “It was a long time ago. Things are different now.”
“There was something in your face, when Angela was talking about him,” Michael said.
“It was a long time ago,” Diane repeated. “I’m hungry. And I need to cool off.”
He kissed her. “Okay.”
By the second week of July, Sam French began casting for ‘Mothers and Old Boyfriends’. Diane began spending time at Merriweather in the mornings. She was enthralled by the whole process. They were casting ten male and eight female roles, and because the Merriweather program had been so well received for a number of years, the caliber of people auditioning was high, many known theater and television actors from Manhattan.
In ten days, they had a cast, and they began to read through her script. It was then that her real work began. She and Sam discussed which lines were working, which sounded hollow, where the laughs were. Diane was not a good collaborator, but she knew Sam was thinking only of the best for her play, and she made extensive notes on his suggestions, as well as suggestions from the cast. It was difficult for her to see characters that she created and felt belonged to her become absorbed by the actors, and the line between the character and the person portraying the character became blurred.
Michael listened to her, nodding in sympathy as she tried to articulate her frustration. They were sitting in her back yard, and she was pacing her patio, trying to explain. He grabbed her, pulled her into his lap, and kissed her soundly.
“I know exactly how you feel. There were times I’d write a song, spend all this time on, it, agonizing over each note, and the band would hear it, and they’d be, like, ‘that’s the best song you’ve ever written, man’, and I’d be thinking how fuckin’ great I was, then Seth would say, ‘hey, maybe we should do this’, and Phil would say, ‘let’s change this chord’, and in fifteen minutes, the best thing I ever wrote would be completely different. It sucks. I know how hard it is to turn this over to somebody else. But unless you want to act all the roles yourself, you’ve got to allow for a little, well, freedom of interpretation.”
“I know. I guess the whole time I was writing, I never thought it would be actually performed, so what’s been in my head for all this time is hard to shake loose.” Diane kissed him right behind the ear, then began taking small bites on his neck
“Your neighbors are watching,” Michael murmured as she slid her hand under his shirt.
“Are they holding up scorecards?” She asked. “I think we deserve at least a 9.2.”
“I think we deserve even more, but we either have to wait ‘till it gets darker, or maybe go inside.” His hands were moving up the inside of her thighs.
She stood up, grabbed his hand, and led him into the house.
“You don’t text.”
“Neither do you.”
“Yes, I do. I text the girls all the time, especially now that they’re down the shore.”
“Who would I text? All the people I need are right here.”
“You don’t Tweet, either.”
Michael laughed. “Seth is in charge of all that. He’s the maven of all Social Media.”
“And you don’t have a Facebook page.”
“My life isn’t that interesting. What would I put on a Facebook page?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Isn’t yours the generation that must be in constant contact with everyone and everything?”
“Maybe. I’m an old-fashioned guy at heart. I don’t even like talking on the phone all that much. My
cell is five years old. I’m not even sure I can text.”
“Your fans must be disappointed in you.”
“If they knew I was spending the morning naked in bed with you, some of them would be very disappointed.”
“True. Do you think if people found out about us, it could hurt your career?”
“Are you kidding? You sexy older women are very in right now. I’d be the envy of all my fans.”
“Ah. Is that why you keep coming around?”
His hand, which had been resting lightly on her stomach, suddenly moved.
“That’s one reason. Here’s another.”
They fell into a pattern as the summer wore on. The nights they spent at Diane’s, they would cook out on the grill, often asking Sue Griffen and her husband Pete to join them. Michael and Pete were both Mets fans, and after dinner, Diane and Sue would take a walk around the neighborhood and the two men would watch the ball game together. Sometimes, Sharon and her husband Richie would come by and the four of them would go out to Richie’s favorite pub. Richie played darts, and he began coaching Michael, who was a quick study and became fairly proficient. Sometimes, all three couples would meet at one home or another for drinks. Michael liked her friends. They liked him as well.
At Michael’s, there were a string of guests that came and went even if Michael was not at home. Mark Bender would come by to sail into the middle of the lake, then spend the day fishing. Theresa Milano, Michael’s first childhood love, would drive in on days off, swim laps for an hour, then fall asleep on Michael’s shady, perfectly mown lawn. His family came by often, to sail or to fish, often staying for dinner and far into the night.
Members of the band dropped in and out, checking on the progress of Michael’s work. They were starting to lay down tracks for the singles on the soundtrack. The Martone brothers did not want to spend any more time away from home, so the band decided to do as much work in Michael’s studio as possible. The band worked quickly together.