She found a vacant chair near the end of one of the long tables that ran the width of the large tent beside a couple she knew. “Pam and Harry, can I join you? How’s the chicken?”
Pam moved her plate a little. “Good. Like it always is. Somebody over there really knows how to cook chicken.” She looked more closely. “You aren’t eating?”
“I’ll be joining Miles for dinner.” She gestured toward the musicians. “The banjo player, the one on the right. He’s been boarding with my new neighbors and he asked if I’d come and listen to this group.”
“I’ve heard them before. Benefit program over in Easton. They’re pretty good, play all the old songs.” She studied the musicians for a moment, then raised her eyebrows in Althea’s direction. “He’s nice looking, too.”
Althea agreed. She tried to stay neutral, noncommittal, but she knew how gossip worked. “He is that, and he has a good voice.”
Her friend returned her attention to her meal, and Althea sat back to listen to the music, a spirited version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” In his opening, Sam had noted the Red Sox, the end of the regular season, and the upcoming playoffs.
Their next number was “A Bicycle Built for Two,” and she sat back to listen. Baseball was not her thing.
She thoroughly enjoyed the performance, singing along with the familiar songs, clapping with the others. She admired, with a little envy, Andy’s dexterity with his drumsticks, his ability to whirl them around while keeping the beat on a full set of drums and cymbals.
When her friends finished their meal, halfway through the set, they picked up their paper plates and napkins, wished her a nice evening, and left.
When the Madmen had finished playing, Miles joined her, a little out of breath but with a broad smile. “Let’s go get supper. I’m half starved. I’ve been smelling it all afternoon.”
With their filled plates, Miles chose seats at the end of a table with no one close to them. The others in the band had gone to another corner of the tent, apparently with people they knew, and Miles appeared to ignore them. Settled in his place, he asked without looking at her, “Did you like our little production?”
“Very much.”
When he didn’t comment, she asked, “How long have you been playing together?”
“About a year. I met Andy in college. We were in a couple of classes together and we both played in a band off campus.” He glanced at her and then back at his salad. “A way to make a little extra money.”
“Is he a professional? I mean, does he play for a living? He’s very good, quite clever.”
Miles shrugged. “We all have to do something else. Money to live on, you know. The fate of all artists.” He looked fully at her, his face sober. “Andy’s an accountant. He’s as good with numbers as he is with the drums.” He laughed shortly. “I think I told you in the beginning that I refuse to be a starving artist.”
She buttered and salted her corn and took a generous bite. Remembering what Glo had told her, she asked as casually as she could, “Is that why you changed your major from music to computers?”
He froze for a second, then picked up a chicken piece. “Who told you that?” His voice was hard, suspicious.
She regretted the disclosure and shrugged. “It was something Glo said. That maybe you had planned to be a teacher and then for some reason changed your mind. She thought you would be a good one. With your talent and all.”
He released his held breath and relaxed his stiffness. “She would think that, practical person that she is. She always was a sort of fan of mine.” He chewed a bite of chicken. “No. I never wanted to be a teacher.” He looked off into space. “My dream was stardom, I guess. Playing in big clubs, making records, Carnegie Hall, that sort of thing.” He shrugged, grimacing. “You know how teenagers are. Nothing ever comes of it.”
She felt the disappointment in his voice, his resignation to an unwelcome fate, and responded to it. She had felt the same way, but probably less so, and decided not to continue the line of thought. She asked, “So, why computers?”
“Computers are fascinating, in their own way. I tried doing some music with them, synthesizing, but that wasn’t for me. I want the real thing.” He paused again and shrugged. “The older the better. And no electronics. I get enough of that at work.”
“You do play very well.” He had returned to his chicken so she asked, “How did you get into the Musical Madmen?”
He laughed, again almost at ease. “I was at a pan pipe workshop, if you can imagine such a thing.”
She couldn’t and said so.
“There are small groups out there who do all kinds of neat things, mostly for their own enjoyment. Or amusement. I hadn’t seen Andy for a couple of years. He’d been playing with Sam and Bill for a few months, trying to get a program of old music together and they wanted another person. It sounded like something I might like, so I went.”
She waited.
“We fit together pretty good. We play for libraries and historical societies, places like that. Mostly just for fun. We certainly won’t get rich doing it.”
“But what a nice thing to do, keeping the old traditions, letting people hear something besides the current trend.”
“Yeah.” He turned toward her. “That’s why it was so unusual to hear ‘Greensleeves’ the first time I was in your stand. Nobody plays that sort of thing anymore.” He paused a moment, meeting her eyes. “Except at Christmas when they sing ‘What Child Is This?’” He added after a moment, “I found a copy of that CD you were playing.”
She could find no answer to that.
He returned to his meal. “So how did you get interested? In music?”
“My grandmother. She was the church organist but she liked to play other things, too.” She paused. “I have her reed organ and a lot of her sheet music.”
“Do you play?”
She shook her head. “Sometimes.” She clarified that a little. “I love to play, but I was never good enough to take her place.” She hoped her disappointment didn’t show. “I guess I was one of those few children who really liked piano lessons. But I don’t have the required whatever-it-is that you have to have.”
“That’s what one of my teachers told me. I might have the technique, if I worked at it, but I don’t have the dedication. Sort of makes us two of a kind, doesn’t it?”
She raised her eyes and met his, and was drawn into their depths, but she hesitated. Are we two of a kind? Do we fit together? Or does his lack of ambition keep him from doing anything? “That depends.”
“On what?”
She kept her eyes on his, trying to read what was there. “I don’t know you, Miles. I love your music, but . . .”
“But not me.” He sighed and looked down at his plate. “And that is probably my fault.” After a long moment, he added, “You don’t trust me.”
“Should I?”
He picked up his ear of corn. “I guess you have to answer that. Don’t you?”
She couldn’t find an answer to that, either. She wanted to trust him, to know him better. She wanted his arms around her, holding her close. The taste of his lips on hers, filling the empty places in her heart. But he kept holding her at a distance, drawing away at the last moment, never letting himself be wholly involved. She needed all of him, not just the pieces he seemed willing to give her. She said, “I can’t go on blind trust. I need a little more than that.”
“Yeah.”
She recalled Glo’s warning. He only wants the pursuit, not the capture. “I need assurance,” she said softly. “That you will come back.”
He closed his fingers over hers. “You are my Bonny. There’s nobody else. Not like you.”
That didn’t really answer the question.
She pulled her hand away and picked up h
er salad bowl to finish the chopped lettuce, cucumbers, and onion pieces in the bottom.
He apparently realized his evasiveness. “Tomorrow,” he said slowly. “We, Ted and Glo and I, we have to go to some family thing in Massachusetts. I told them I would go with them. We will be back late in the afternoon. Ted has to go in to work early on Monday.”
“You’ve never mentioned any family.” Glo had said there was no one else Miles was close to.
“I don’t see them unless I have to.” He glanced at her. “I don’t have many close relatives, an uncle and some cousins. My father died young and I have no idea where my mother is.” He hesitated a moment, keeping attention on mashing the center of his baked potato. “She left us, my Dad and me, when I was in junior high.” He kept his eyes on his plate. “I never had any siblings. About all I have is Ted and Glo.”
Althea wondered, is that why he won’t get close to a girl? Thinking about his mother leaving them? He can’t trust us? She closed her hand over his. “I’m sorry, Miles.”
“Don’t be. I got over all that.”
She wondered if he had, and felt that he hadn’t.
“So, tomorrow.” He met her eyes again, gazed into them. He said softly, almost crooning, “When the sun has set in its blaze of glory, and the purple shadows fill the arbor, when the sliver of the silver moon rises above the silent pine trees, I’ll be waiting there for you.”
She smiled at him, liking the poetry, envisioning that meeting, and wanting it.
“You will be there, won’t you, when you’ve finished all those things you have to do?” His voice was wistful, gently pleading with her, but still not offering the commitment she wanted.
She didn’t want to, but she said, “I’ll see.”
“I have to get together with the guys,” he said, pushing back his chair. He got up and started gathering up their empty plates. “They’re waiting for me.” He looked down at her. “Thanks for coming to listen.”
She could say honestly, “I really enjoyed it.”
He grinned at her, but with sadness still in his eyes.
She watched him stride away, drop the plates into the trash can, then join the rest of the band.
She stood up, glanced around to see if there was anyone around she knew and should talk to. There was no one. She went home with a mixture of emotions. She perhaps understood Miles a little better now. She didn’t desire him any less, but how could she go any further when he was so evasive?
She would, however, see if he really was in the rose arbor when the sun had set. His poetry rang in her ears and resonated in her heart.
IN THE ARBOR
Sunday was pleasantly warm, partly cloudy with fluffy cotton ball clouds in a bright blue sky. The gentle breeze was just enough to musically stir the yellowed leaves of the poplar trees behind the pumpkin field. Truly bright October weather, sharp and full of promise. Althea spent the day in the stand, talking with customers about recipes and jack-o’-lanterns, wondering about the Red Sox’s fading chances of making the World Series and listening to the usual local gossip and political complaints. She tried to not think about Miles, whether he would be in the arbor if she decided to go there at dusk. She knew she would, if only out of curiosity as to what he might have in mind. She was almost positive he would come, envisioned several intriguing possibilities if he did. But he almost always surprised her. That was both the problem and his charm. She didn’t want to be continually surprised and disappointed.
There was more to consider than just this evening, whatever it would bring. What exactly did he have in mind beyond the present moment? She didn’t know and could not be sure of anything. She knew, with a growing certainty, that he was what she wanted. At least right now. But just how much should she encourage him with no assurances on his part? Was it time to invite him for coffee? Or maybe more than that?
When she closed the stand, she picked up two bottles of root beer and went home.
She waited until almost dark. She had done little actual work all day, and decided she didn’t need a clean shirt. He’s used to me the way I am. Garden dirt and all. He has to accept that.
She heard the flute before she reached the arbor, and stopped outside the arch to listen to the sweet notes of an old love song. She had never heard him play the flute and wondered why. Glo had said it was his favorite instrument, the one he had studied in college. What happened to make him change?
It was too dark in the arbor to see his face clearly, but he was sitting on the right-hand bench, his legs stretched out, ankles crossed, relaxed against the cushions. She slipped in quietly and sat across from him, enrapt in the music.
He ended the song, put his flute aside and looked her way. She couldn’t tell if he was smiling, but his voice was warm, welcoming her. “You came, my Bonny Thea.”
“Didn’t I tell you I would?”
“Not exactly.”
She said truthfully, “I wasn’t sure that you would be here. It was all poetry. You are all music and poetry.”
“Skeptic that you are.”
“Have you given me a reason not to be?”
He sighed dramatically, a reaction she had come to expect, but he didn’t answer.
She asked, seriously but mostly out of curiosity, “Have you ever done any acting? On the stage, I mean? It seems like a natural thing for you to do.”
“Are you implying that I’m acting now?” He huffed.
“I don’t know, Miles. I’m never sure.”
He sat up straighter, brought his feet closer to the bench. “Some,” he said, “in junior high. After that, being in the music program, I was part of whatever orchestra was accompanying the play.”
She waited but he didn’t continue. She asked, “In college, in musical productions?”
“A couple.”
She heard the sadness in his voice, the disappointment that he had not continued that path. “Glo said the flute was your instrument back then, in college.”
“It was.” He picked up the instrument and regarded it. “It’s still my favorite.”
“So why did you give it up?”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I didn’t really. I just don’t play it very much where somebody can hear me.” He paused. “But I have a couple of friends I play with sometimes. Some older guys, retired, who used to play with orchestras. They’ve helped me a lot.”
She waited.
“I brought it today,” he said slowly, almost haltingly, and in a serious tone she had not heard before. “I have been asked to maybe play in a chamber group, sit in with them at a practice session. Give them a try. I’ve never done that. Not since college.”
“Why not? Is that a kind of music you don’t like?” The idea was intriguing, Miles was being serious about something? Maybe it would keep him here. Make him settle down into something. She was surprised at the thought, how much she wanted that.
“There is very little music I don’t like.” He stopped and she imagined him grinning lopsidedly. “Excluding rap and heavy metal and all that other noise.”
She knew that, he had said it before. “What you were playing when I came, that was lovely. I didn’t recognize it.”
“‘Oh Promise Me’? They used to play that a lot at weddings. That and ‘Indian Love Call.’ Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald duets.” He released another long breath. “I’ve never played at a wedding. Except Ted and Glo’s.”
“Any reason why?”
“Weddings aren’t my thing.”
The finality of that left her numb. What had I been thinking? That he really was interested in me as more than a fling in the dark? Is he really just like Ward was? Am I just another conquest? She found no comment, nothing flippant to say.
“I mean other people’s weddings. So many of them don’t last.�
� He picked up the flute again and this time she did recognize the melody, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”
She almost laughed. He had, once again, managed to change the mood, break whatever spell he had wrapped her in, even this one of sadness and farewell, giving her a spark of hope.
He put the flute down and moved across the aisle to sit beside her, close, barely touching her leg with his thigh, his hands clenched. “I haven’t played anything serious, like chamber orchestras and weddings, because that seemed to be something that wasn’t for me. Not my thing.”
“Have you changed your mind about that?”
“I don’t know.” He paused again. “You’ve made me think about a lot of things. I’ve never told anyone, even Ted, why I dropped the music courses, that I had to leave it completely to keep my sanity.”
She wanted to ask the reason, but didn’t quite dare. She said softly, “But you didn’t. You never really gave it up.”
“No. I couldn’t. But I changed. To the guitar and the banjo. And folk music, songs from the Civil War.” He moved against her. “No more Bach and Beethoven.”
“And this chamber orchestra offer has made you think about it again?”
“I don’t know.” He turned suddenly, caught her in his arms and held her against him. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
“Just let it be.” It was advice she should take herself, just let the future develop around her, see what happened. “Don’t fret about it. An answer will come.” She waited but he didn’t comment, just tightened his arms around her. “I’d go and try the chamber music. You used to like it.”
“I loved it.” There was sorrow in his voice. “I always thought it was part of me.”
She wondered again just how much of his dramatics were real, how much was acting, or, as Glo had said, part of his fantasy. And just what was that fantasy? She leaned against him, relishing his nearness, his maleness, and felt her own desire. “So go back to it. At least give it an honest try.” But just how honest can you be?
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