“You can call it jaded. I’ll call it realistic.”
I took a step back, pain flaring in my chest. “What’s realistic about that? Making your decisions based on how the media treats you? You want to talk about what’s real? Our late-night composing was real. Oscar was real. We were real. Every minute I spent with you was real for me.”
“And then you looked me square in the face and said it wasn’t worth it.”
I took a step closer. “I was angry. And I was scared. And you said some hard things to me. You were right, by the way. About Ava, about Europe—all of it. But I didn’t know that then. I was speaking out of a place of hurt and confusion, and I was wrong.”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head, moving away again. “I don’t know if I believe you.”
Now, Emma. Say it now. “Elliott, I’m in love with you. I love you, and I don’t care who takes my picture because of it. I want to be with you. It’s my choice, and I choose you.” I love you. The words echoed inside my head, blatant, bold, completely un-take-backable. I’d just given Elliott every ounce of my heart. By the look on his face, he didn’t want to take it.
His shoulders hung low like there was an invisible line pulling them down, a force he had to fight to keep his body from sinking into the concrete beneath us. Even his eyes stayed down, glued to a spot somewhere to the right of my left shoe. “I’ve got to catch my flight,” he finally said. “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”
I stood there rooted in place for what seemed like an eternity, watching him walk away. He didn’t look back.
Chapter 27
With Elliott gone again, it was harder to follow through with my original plan. Everything I’d planned to do was for him. After his rejection, I wasn’t feeling all that altruistic. But I’d made a commitment to make this concert count, and I was too far in to back out now. I gave myself a couple of days to wallow; wore Elliott’s jacket, which he’d left on my person when he’d walked away; cried on Lilly’s shoulder through a therapeutic night of chick flicks and comfort food; then forced myself back into the land of the living and functional. Time was growing short, and I had to check off the few remaining things on my list of concert preparations. The first and most important item was the heart-to-heart conversation I promised Gram I’d have with Mom.
Gram was in the kitchen making bread when I arrived. She smiled at me over the bowl of dough rising on the counter and wiped her hands on her apron. “What are you doing here in the middle of the day?”
“I need to talk to Mom. Is she around?”
“She’s reading in her room. Everything all right?” She shot me a knowing look.
I nodded, then headed straight for Mom’s room.
She was reclined on the bed with her eyes closed, her book open and resting spine up on her chest. I climbed gently onto the bed.
“Hey, Mama,” I whispered.
She opened her eyes. “Hey! What are you doing here?”
I sat beside her, my legs crossed. “Can we talk about Europe?”
Her eyes turned up, and she gave me a faint smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”
* * *
Richard Schweitzer wasn’t the only person I wanted in the audience to hear Elliott play. I wanted someone who could write about his performance and get his name into the symphony circles in New York and Chicago. I started my research by writing the names of every person in the past twelve months who had written a review of a symphony performance for the New York Times. It wasn’t that long a list. There were tons of reviews, mostly of those symphonies local to the northeast—the New York Philharmonic, Boston Pops, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.—but some reviews were farther reaching. I found one on The Los Angeles Philharmonic and one on Cleveland, which, it was exciting to realize, mentioned me by name. The articles were written by several different writers, but one woman kept popping up more than all the others—Jeanine Whitaker.
I tried calling the New York Times directly, but they weren’t particularly obliging, saying they didn’t give out personal information about their staff writers. They suggested I write her an e-mail using their online contact form, an annoying repeat of what I’d been through with Spectral Media. Luckily newspapers were better at correspondence than talent agencies. An hour after I sent the e-mail, Jeanine responded with her cell phone number.
“So you’re telling me you’ll fly me to Asheville and all I have to do is write a review?” Jeanine hadn’t been hard to convince. It was more like she thought I was bluffing, like the deal I was offering was too good to be true. It probably was, but I couldn’t afford her not coming.
“An honest review,” I told her. “That’s all I need you to do.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal, honey.”
An hour later, I e-mailed Jeanine her flight and hotel information and convinced myself I could more than handle charging $973 to my credit card to cover her trip. It was only money. And life wasn’t about money. Life was about people. And zero percent interest for eighteen months.
After confirming plans with Jeanine, I got in the car and headed to Biltmore Forest. Grayson had given me pretty good directions, but I still managed to drive past the imposing English Tudor that was the home of his brand-spanking-new in-laws. I backtracked and finally found the large stone pillars he’d mentioned, a lion perched ceremoniously on each one, the name Rockwell carved into the imposing stone. The house was surrounded by huge trees and sprawling yards, with a circle drive that wrapped around a gurgling fountain. I shouldn’t have been surprised by the opulence of the house. When I’d talked to Grayson, he’d been in Hawaii, still on his honeymoon. His eight-week-long honeymoon. People who could afford to fund an eight-week honeymoon—it had been their wedding present, I remembered Grayson telling me—could definitely afford a family estate in Biltmore Forest.
Agnes Rockwell was wearing a silk robe and bedroom slippers when she opened the door. “Oh, Emma, I’m just so glad you called. Greg told me everything.”
“Thank you for seeing me. I realize this is a lot to ask, especially when it’s so last minute.”
“Nonsense. This is the kind of thing that makes life exciting!” She led me into a large sitting area at the back of the house, faint winter light streaming in through large floor-to-ceiling windows. She motioned for me to sit but stayed standing herself, her hand resting on the marble mantel above the fireplace. “Now, I’ve already begun to make some calls,” she said. “Greg tells me he’s bringing Schweitzer, which is just perfect. And you said on the phone you’ve got a Times reporter coming?”
I nodded. It was Greg’s idea that I call Agnes. With her clout as a big-time symphony donor, she’d be able to get the tickets I needed for the concert—actual good tickets, not just the comps I was planning on begging off of friends. He’d mentioned her name within minutes as soon as he heard what I was trying to do.
“She’s a huge patron of the arts,” he had said. “She has an apartment in New York and flies up at least three times a year to hear the Philharmonic. She’s very well connected in the city. Plus, she loves this kind of thing. She’s just the person for the job.”
I’d been hesitant to be honest with Greg about what I was trying to do, remembering the almost tense moment when he and Elliott had been sizing each other up, but Schweitzer in the audience was only going to work if Greg was on my team. Luckily telling him the truth had been a good call.
Agnes walked across the room to a table behind the sofa and poured herself a large glass of orange juice. “Would you like some?” She held up the glass.
I glanced at my watch. 11:30 a.m. Still early enough to be wearing silk pajamas and drinking orange juice, right? I nodded, silently hoping it was just juice. “Sure.”
She handed me the glass and sat beside me. “I have another idea if you’re open to it.”
“Um, sure.”
“I met Yvonne Spzilmann at a dinner in New York a few months back, and we just really hit it off.”
>
“Yvonne Spzilmann, as in married to Jakob Spzilmann?”
“Oh, lovely. You know who they are! They’re both the most wonderful people. Yvonne talked of wanting to visit Asheville, but we’ve just never gotten around to doing it. It’s a shame, really, now that the leaves have all fallen. I should have had her down months ago, but there’s nothing to be done for it now. I suppose the mountains are still pretty, even in January. Anyway. I’ve given her a ring and asked her if she’d like to come down for the weekend, and she’s delighted to come. She and Jakob are both coming. Won’t that just be lovely?”
I hardly knew what to say. “You’re bringing Jakob Spzilmann to the concert.” Jakob Spzilmann was a cellist, a senior professor at Juilliard, and an emeritus conductor for the New York Philharmonic.
“It’s all but official. I told them about you and your pianist. They’re looking forward to the show. Have you ever met him?”
“Once, a long time ago, at a series of workshops I attended while still in school. He’s phenomenal.”
“I do so love the work he did with the Philharmonic. He always put on such lovely concerts.”
I was completely overwhelmed. I thought I was asking Agnes for help securing extra tickets to a sold-out performance. I had no idea she would go so far as to bring one of the nation’s finest conductors to the concert. “Agnes, I don’t know how to thank you. This is so generous of you.”
“Well, I’ve always believed one good turn deserves another. You made Greg a very happy man.”
I looked at the floor.
“Plus, if this young man is as good as you say he is—”
“Oh, he is. I promise he is.”
“Then let’s hope he doesn’t disappoint. It looks like he’s going to have quite the audience. Now. Let’s talk about tickets. We need two for the Spzilmanns, one for the Times reporter, one for Greg, and one for Richard Schweitzer. Is that all?”
I shook my head. “One more if you can spare it. There’s someone else I’d like to bring as well.”
She nodded. “So six total? No problem. I’ll make some calls. I’m sure I can manage that many.”
After Grayson’s wedding, I’d looked up the Rockwells’ name on the list of symphony donors. They were season underwriters, which meant annual donations of ten thousand dollars or more. I was more than willing to trust her connections and her influence. That she was even willing to use her influence on my behalf was a tender mercy I hadn’t expected.
Agnes fed me chicken salad sandwiches and lemonade, which felt so much like a rich-person meal I almost laughed when she brought me my plate, then sent me out the door with kisses on each cheek and a promise to wear her best for the concert because “surely it was going to be an event to remember.” I honestly didn’t even know what hit me until I was back in my car, my head reeling from everything that had happened in such a short amount of time. My plan was actually going to work.
Before heading home, I stopped by the box office at the performance hall to drop off a check for an undisclosed amount from Agnes—“Don’t open it, child. It hardly matters to you what’s inside”—and to pick up a press pass and a concert ticket Agnes promised would be waiting for me. From there, I went back downtown to a tiny basement office on the south side of Broadway in between a dry cleaner that specialized in leather restoration and a used electronics shop with a sign in the window that said “Scooter repair. We’ll get you going again.”
I opened the glass-paned door etched with the words “Asheville News and Culture” and headed down the narrow wooden staircase. At the bottom of the stairs, a small reception area opened into one room, two rows of desks lined up in the middle. There were eight desks total, but only three were occupied. Everyone looked up, surprise on their faces. Apparently they didn’t get many visitors.
I recognized Najim Berkley from his online profile picture, so I walked past the empty reception desk and stopped in front of him. “Are you Najim?”
He grinned. “For you? Absolutely.”
I rolled my eyes. “Do you want to sell another story about Elliott Hart?”
His eyebrows went up, recognition dawning on his face. “Ah, I remember you. That was a good sale.”
It was all I could do not to punch the guy or even just scold his glaring lack of decency. I’d debated whether I should turn to Najim for help. I mean, I had someone from the New York Times. I didn’t need bottomfeeders like this guy. Except, I did. Because he was the one who would sell to gossip columns, and the gossip columns were the ones that would get Elliott’s name trending. And that was what I wanted.
I wanted to believe Elliott’s brilliance as a performer would be enough to wow Richard Schweitzer into signing him on the spot, but seeing that his name still had star power and still generated online interest couldn’t hurt. For once, I actually wanted the paparazzi to help me out. And Najim was the closest thing Asheville had to paparazzi.
I took a deep, steadying breath, forcing it out through my nose before dropping a list of names and phone numbers onto his desk, along with a ticket to the Prokofiev concert and the press pass I’d wrangled from the concert hall that would allow him to bring his camera to the show.
I motioned to the ticket. “A week from tomorrow, he’ll be there. It’s . . .” I hesitated. “The concert is a really big deal. And that list is every single reporter or tabloid that contacted me after you sold the wedding photo, some with a lot bigger names than the trash column you sold to last time. If you get some good shots, I’m sure they’ll be interested.”
He looked at the list with interest. “Celebrity Weekly, huh? Not bad.”
“Will you do it?”
His eyes ran up and down my body in such a blatant way I felt like I needed to shower to get the feel of him staring off my skin. How had he and Grayson ever become friends? “You play too, right? Will you be on stage?”
I sighed. In reality, with the position of the piano and my seat as concertmaster, I’d likely be in the background of most of the photos he took of Elliott. “I’ll be there.”
Najim shrugged and picked up the ticket. “All right, you’ve convinced me. I’ll see what I can do.”
It wasn’t a perfect answer, but I was out of time. It had to be good enough.
Chapter 28
“So really, truly, you think it’s over for real?” Lilly paced around the living room while I sat on the couch and folded a basket of towels. “I think you need to talk to him one more time.”
“Lilly, I said I love you, and he walked away. I think he made his feelings pretty clear.”
“Does he know you’re going to Europe?”
I shook my head. “When would I have had the chance to tell him? Plus, I don’t want him to know.”
“Why? Because then he might realize just how much you actually love him?”
Well, yeah. “I don’t want to put him on the spot like that—like, now, because I’ve done this big thing for him, he’s obligated to, I don’t know, love me back.”
“You’re completely crazy.”
I put the last towel on top of the stack and stood to carry them to the linen closet. “No, I’m trying really hard to not be crazy. I need to be a grown-up about all of this.” Also, I needed to not cry. And if I let my guard down even for a second, the tears came hard and sure and fast. Any little thing set me off: seeing (or wearing or sleeping in) his jacket still hanging in my bedroom, listening to the song he’d written just for me. A constant “I am a grown-up” inner monologue was the only way I was keeping myself together.
“I wish you didn’t have to leave,” she called down the hallway.
“It’s not like you wouldn’t be leaving this summer anyway. Unless you were planning on having Trav move in here with us after the wedding.” I stored the laundry basket on top of the washing machine in the hall closet and went back to the living room, where Lilly sat admiring the diamond sparkling on her finger.
“I still can’t believe it’s actually going to happen,”
she said.
“I can, and it’s going to be great.”
A knock sounded on the door, followed by Trav’s deep voice shouting a greeting. “Hello! I’m coming in!”
Lilly smiled but didn’t move from her seat on the couch. “Hi.”
Trav bent down and kissed her hello. “You ready to go?”
“Yep. You sure you don’t want to come, Em? It’s supposed to be a good movie.”
“Um, so I’ve got a big concert this weekend? Have you heard? We actually have to practice if we’re going to be any good, so rehearsal tonight.”
“Don’t be getting all sassy. We know about your concert.” Trav pulled a pair of tickets out of his pocket and waved them around. “In fact, I just picked up these puppies today. It’s a good thing I ordered them ahead of time. They’re saying the performance is sold out.”
“Look at you planning ahead and being all thoughtful. You really are a changed man, huh?”
He beamed. “I’m doing my best.”
I smiled. “I’m glad you guys are coming.”
“Are you kidding?” Lilly said. “We wouldn’t miss it. We’ll probably be downtown after the movie if you want to meet us after rehearsal. Want me to text you where we are?”
“No. Ava’s coming over to watch the rehearsal, and then we’re heading to The Chocolate Lounge.”
Lilly gave me a quick hug good-bye. “I’m happy you and Ava are on Chocolate Lounge terms. Bring me home a macaron?”
* * *
It was past eleven when Ava and I finally made it back to my apartment. Ava carried a big box of French Broad truffles, while I hauled two to-go cups of steaming hot chocolate, a piece of pumpkin torte, six salted caramel macarons, and two different kinds of brownie. It was more than we could eat on our own, but choosing had been impossible. Also, a night out with my sister, free of the tension that had plagued our relationship for almost a year, felt like a good reason to celebrate. Dropping thirty bucks on dessert was nothing.
Ava giggled while I tried to pull my keys out of my purse without toppling one of the hot chocolates. “I’m not sure we got enough,” she said. “I think there’s an extra inch of space in our box. We should have had them put in another brownie.”
Love at First Note Page 25