Lost Melody

by Roz Lee

  “So this is it? You’re leaving?”

  She took a single step toward him, and he took an answering step back.

  “Please try to understand.” She held her hands out to him, palm up. “I’ll be back, I promise. I love you.”

  “How long? How long am I supposed to wait? I don’t understand why we can’t see each other while you get yourself together.”

  “I’m coming back. I don’t know how long it will take me, but I will be back. I know I don’t have any right to ask you to wait, so I won’t ask. But I will beg. I’ll plead. I’ll get on my knees if I have to.”

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I told you once, and I'll say it again so you know it still stands. When you’re through running and hiding, I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Hank felt like he was on autopilot. He ate because he had to. He worked because it was all he had. He tried to sleep, but his mind inevitably went back to the last time he saw Melody, and sleep eluded him. He lost count of the number of nights he walked the fields or sat under the big oak in the backyard until the sun painted the eastern sky. One day bled into the next, an endless cycle he could neither speed up nor stop.

  Through Jonathan, he learned she had left town, but if her guardian knew where she had gone, he didn’t say, and Hank didn’t ask. He concentrated all his flagging energy on his work. There were only a handful of tracks still to record. He cursed his decision to record “Melody” last, wishing it had been the first, or sometimes wishing it would go away completely. For years, he had anticipated the day he would record that one song, and now it hung like a crippling stone around his neck, dragging him down into an abyss of loneliness and despair.

  In the final week before tracking “Melody,” he sequestered himself in his office. Words and notes flowed from his soul, through the electronic keyboard, and to the computer program that transcribed his creation into sheet music. In the past, his music had kept him sane, but these days, he turned to out of desperation, purging the crippling emotions in the only way he knew how.

  Two weeks of hell.

  Musicians hired for the background work crowded the small studio. Hank studied the daily chart in his hands. Today would be the usual complete run through before breaking the song down into its various parts.

  “No. This is wrong,” he said, interrupting Randy’s read-through. “‘Melody’ was never meant to be sung this way.”

  All eyes turned to him. He pushed away from the wall, more sure of his decision since he’d made the first move toward implementing it.

  “What do you mean?” Randy asked. “We discussed the process and everyone agreed on the schedule.”

  “I changed my mind. The original recording was one track, and this one will be, too…at least for the piano and vocals. I want everybody out. I’m going to do the song one time and one time only. You can record whatever you want for the background, but the primary track is a single take only.”

  “Hank, do you think that’s wise?” Randy asked.

  Wise? No. “It’s the only way I’ll do it.”

  Chad rose from his position on the floor. “Okay, everybody out except BlackWing, Randy, and Sir Jonathan. Everybody else clear out, take a break.”

  When the room emptied, he turned to Hank. “Don’t we have a say in how we record the song? We have a lot riding on the CD, too, you know. We’ve been here all summer, working our butts off and putting up with your foul mood for most of it. Where do you get off making these kinds of decisions without us?”

  Chad had a point, but “Melody” was Hank’s song. He knew he was right—he just needed to make them see it, too.

  “Okay, you decide. Let me do it my way. You can stay in the control room and listen. If you don’t agree with the first take, I’ll do it your way. What have you got to lose? If I get it on the first try, we all get out of here that much sooner, maybe a week instead of two.”

  Hank waited while they put their heads together and discussed his proposal. When they reached a decision, Chad stepped forward.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said. “You have one shot to get it right. If it’s anything less than perfect, we start over, and you do it until its right. Agreed?”

  “Agreed. But if I get it the first time, I’m out of here. I’ll leave it up to the rest of you to finish the tracks any way you see fit. I trust your judgment.”

  Randy sent for the sound technicians who checked and rechecked the mic and equipment.

  “Do you want a click track?”

  “No. I’ll sing it live.”

  “Okaaay,” Randy said, clearly skeptical.

  Hank took his place at the piano. He pushed everything but the song from his mind. One take. One last chance to make her see.

  Randy cued him from the control room. “Ready when you are, we’re recording in three, two, one.”

  He closed his eyes and absorbed the complete silence for the span of a heartbeat. The melody came to him, sweet and haunting. His love for Melody filled his heart until it overflowed. The piano keys were cool to his touch. Love spilled across the keys and his heart sang.

  There was nothing in his world but the music and his love for the woman he had lost. He played as though in a trance. Eyes closed, his fingers flew across the keyboard, bringing the melody to life.

  His fingers slipped from the keys, and his shoulders slumped. The piano wires quivered their last, and silence once again filled the room. He opened his eyes and turned to the control room. “Am I done here?”

  In that breathless moment, Hank understood the plight of the accused awaiting the jury’s verdict. Life or death. Which would it be?

  Jonathan’s eyes met his through the glass. His lips edged up in a faint smile and delivered his verdict with a nod of his head. A measure of relief flooded his system. Jonathan knew or at least suspected what he had just done. In the poker game of life, he’d just gone all-in.

  Randy’s voice came through the speaker. “You’re done.”

  Pushing the piano bench back, Hank stood and faced the men on the other side of the glass partition. “The orchestration is on the computer in my office. I’ll call in a few weeks.”

  He left the barn, stopping long enough to pet Betty Boop and kiss her on the head. He climbed into his pickup and drove away. Cool air blew from the dashboard vents, cold against his sweat-soaked skin. He drove along the winding Farm to Market roads of North Texas, and with each passing mile, he breathed a little easier. Finding freedom in action, he turned toward the airport.

  Melody wanted time to find herself, and he intended to let her have it, but she couldn’t keep shutting him out. His actions today staked his claim. Now it was up to her.

  Would the song bring her to him, or was he destined to see her in court when she sued him for breach of contract? Either way, he’d done what he had to do.

  * * *

  Melody spent her last few weeks in Willowbrook in a frenzy of activity. She wrote for hours at a time, pausing only to eat so she could continue. She arranged interviews in Boston, and when she should have been sleeping, she laid awake, thinking of Hank. And in the deepest part of the night, she sat at the kitchen table with her laptop and made a list of questions she wanted and needed to ask her mother.

  She jumped for joy when an agent in New York called and asked to see her. She scheduled her trip to Boston via New York, turned the house over to Jonathan, and left Willowbrook.

  The trip proved even more difficult than she had imagined. In the small world of New York publishing houses, her name was instantly recognized, and it didn’t take long for the tabloid media to find her. Everywhere she went a horde of paparazzi and RavensBlood fans followed her. On the advice of her agent, she moved from her hotel to an apartment owned by the agency in a high-security building on the Upper West Side.

  She watched the daily spectacle with cool detachment. She’d done nothing to earn her celebrity status. But by accident of birth—and accid
ent it truly was—she was newsworthy. The fact she’d been virtually off the planet for the last sixteen years added to the insane curiosity surrounding her re-emergence on the world stage.

  Her book sold to a publisher quickly—perhaps in part because of her name. But as it turned out, an authorized book on BlackWing, and Hank Travis in particular, was marketable. If millions were willing to buy their music, it followed those same people would buy the book.

  She left the details to her agent and snuck out of the city on a commuter train headed for Boston. She took a cab from South Station to her hotel and from there, contacted the people on her list. Having sold the book, she needed to finish it.

  She spent the next several weeks interviewing Harvard professors and administrators who remembered BlackWing in their early years. She visited clubs and venues where they appeared, and interviewed other members of the fraternity where they got their start. Boston was unfazed by her celebrity status. No one alerted the media of her presence even though they were aware of the attention she’d drawn in New York. Her face was on every tabloid at every newsstand. If she’d seen it, she knew the people she interviewed had seen it, too.

  The last person on her list to interview was BlackWing’s agent and promoter, Guy Nichols, and he was in New York. She caught the midday train to the city. As always, when she stopped working, her thoughts were with Hank.

  He would be in the studio tracking “Melody.” A flutter of unease tripped through her system, but she fought for control and won. Closing her eyes, she rested her head against the seat back and remembered those panic-filled minutes in the studio months ago when he presented his two versions of the song for her. Her mind played the lover’s version over and over. The rolling rhythm of the rails lulled her, and she slept.

  She took a cab from Penn Station to the apartment where she greeted the doorman warmly before taking the elevator to her floor. She checked her watch and decided it was still early enough to contact Guy Nichols. To her surprise, he answered the call himself.

  “I’ve been expecting your call. Hank told me about the project and insisted I cooperate fully,” he said. He agreed to meet her at the apartment the following day and asked for her address, which she gave. “You’re not in the penthouse?”

  She laughed. “I wish! No, I’m in apartment 10D,” she reiterated. “Tomorrow at noon. I’ll provide lunch for your trouble.”

  * * *

  “Glad to have you back, Mr. Travis.” Jimmy, in his elaborate navy blue doorman’s uniform, held the heavy glass door open for Hank and followed him into the lobby. “I figured you’d be coming into town pretty soon.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “Word on the street is there’s a book coming out about you, and since you have an aversion to reporters, I figured you’d be here soon to put an end to it.”

  Whoa! Had he missed something? “How do you know about the book, Jimmy?”

  “The author’s been in all the papers, Mr. Travis. She blew into town a couple of weeks ago, and next thing you know, the rumor mill has it she’s shopping a book around about you. She says you authorized it, even cooperated with her. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. She’s a looker all right.”

  “Where did you see her? Did they print her picture?” Warning bells clanged in his head.

  “Yeah, she’s been in the paper, and she’s staying here in the building. She was gone for a week or two, but she came back a few minutes ago.”

  His heart skipped into an irregular beat. “You didn’t let her into the penthouse did you?”

  “Oh no, Mr. Travis. No one gets up there except the people on the list, and Ms. Ravenswood isn’t on it,” he assured Hank.

  “Which apartment is Ms. Ravenswood in?”

  “10D.”

  Hank peeled a hundred dollar bill off the stack of currency in his pocket and, smiling, pressed it into Jimmy’s palm. “Thanks for the information. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone I’m here, especially Ms. Ravenswood.”

  He received the assurance he expected and headed for the private express elevator that would take him to his apartment. As the cubicle ascended to the top floor, he cursed his luck. He knew Melody had planned a trip to Boston, but he’d never considered she would come to New York.

  The elevator door opened into the apartment. He went straight to the telephone and rang Jimmy.

  “Is everything okay in your apartment, Mr. Travis?”

  “Everything’s fine,” he assured, “but I need a favor.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I need everything you can dig up for me on Melody Ravenswood since she came to New York. Maybe you could find some old newspapers lying around? There’s an extra hundred in it for you, and did I mention I want it all ASAP?”

  “No problem, Mr. Travis. I’ll get right on it.”

  Hank took a hasty shower and donned clean clothes from the wardrobe he kept there. Jimmy delivered a stack of papers, promising to bring more as soon as he found time to go through the ones in the basement destined for the recycler.

  Later in the evening, he brought up another stack of back issues, and Hank made the grateful doorman another offer. “I’ll make it worth your while if you’ll keep me informed of the comings and goings from Ms. Ravenswood’s apartment. I want to know who comes to see her, when she leaves, where she goes, and how long she’s gone. I want to know anything you can find out.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Travis,” he agreed.

  Hank made a mental note to see the doorman received an extra large holiday bonus, including tickets to their next New York concert. He could even throw in a few backstage passes for good measure.

  The next day Jimmy called to tell him his agent was on the way to Melody’s apartment.

  “Did you tell him I was here?”

  “No sir, but he asked if I’d seen you today.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I didn’t exactly lie to him. He asked if I’d seen you today, and I told him I hadn’t, which is true. I haven’t seen you today.”

  Hank laughed. “Good job, Jimmy. I don’t want you to have to lie, but evasion is okay, I guess. If he asks point blank if I’m here, don’t lie.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Melody arranged the sandwiches and pasta salad on the dining table and tweaked the flatware into soldier-straight lines while she waited for Guy Nichols. She planned to feed him first—her preferred method of interviewing—and ask questions after his stomach was full.

  The doorman called to announce Mr. Nichols was on his way up, so, when he rang the doorbell she was prepared to meet him. She wasn’t prepared for the thunderstorm he carried on his shoulders.

  “Ms. Ravenswood.” His voice was cold, far from the friendly person she’d spoken with less than twenty-four hours earlier. “Where’s Hank?”

  Her mouth dropped open, and she stared at the middle-aged man bellowing in the entryway. He was well dressed in a charcoal gray business suit with a striped tie. His thinning hair was cut in a typical boardroom style. If not for the angry flush of his face, he reminded her of Hank in an older sort of way. He could easily pass as Hank’s uncle.

  “I don’t know,” she stammered. “Willowbrook, I suppose. Why?”

  He took a step closer and wagged his finger at her. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but if you know where he is, you better tell me. You won’t get any interview out of me until I know what’s going on.”

  She edged around him cautiously and closed the door before they drew attention from the neighbors. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Hank is supposed to be at the farm tracking ‘Melody’. Isn’t he there?”

  “No, he’s not. He left yesterday, and no one knows where he went.”

  Her heart skipped a beat before it lodged in her throat. “Why did he leave? Where did he go?”

  His shoulders slumped, and he seemed to crumple before her eyes. “I’m sorry, Ms. Ravenswood. I thought you would know where he was. Apparentl
y, Hank finished his part of the tracking and just walked away. He said something about calling in a few weeks. I need to find him, make sure he’s all right. I don’t know what’s going on, but I feel responsible for these guys. It worries me he just disappeared like that.”

  He was right to be worried. It wasn’t like ultra-responsible Hank to walk away from the recording, even if he personally, was finished. “Do you have any idea where he went?”

  “My first thought was he’d come to the penthouse, but the doorman says he hasn’t seen him. He could be anywhere in the world. With that gosh-awful haircut of his and his nerd clothes, he can go anywhere he pleases without anyone giving him a second look.”

  She smiled. “Don’t forget the reading glasses.”

  They shared a moment of laughter. “Are you talking about the penthouse in this building? Is that why you asked me yesterday if I was in the penthouse, because Hank owns it?”

  “BlackWing owns it. When you gave me the address, I thought he might have let you use the place.”

  “I didn’t know about the penthouse. Hank never mentioned it to me. My apartment belongs to my literary agency. They suggested I use it because the paparazzi have been hounding me since I came to the city.”

  “I understand. Under the circumstances, I can’t stay for lunch. I’ve got to see if I can find Hank.”

  She walked with him to the elevator. “Please let me know when you find him.”

  “I will. Don’t worry. I’m sure he’s fine. We’ll reschedule the interview once I find him.”

  Guy stepped into the lobby. A delivery boy walked past him and approached the doorman.

  “Delivery for Hank Travis.”

  He changed direction and told the boy, “I’m Hank Travis. How much do I owe you?”