Paperback Romance

by Karin Kallmaker

  Oscar passed that on and mentioned that the Maestro knew many people who would be shocked to learn that a hotel of this stature had double-rented a room—No, no it was not necessary to send the Maestro a bottle of wine. Correcting their folio, and the folio for Ms. Vincense next door, would be sufficient.

  Nick looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. If the barber had cut it any shorter you’d look like Yul Brynner. And you can just forget all about this unexpected meeting with a woman who probably looks even better when she isn’t sick—Nick silenced the thought with a wave of a mental baton. There was no future in it.

  ***

  “Another airmail from Paris,” Devon said, his voice thick with insinuation.

  “Oh, give me that,” Alison said. She snatched at the envelope, but he held it away. “Give it to me right now or I’ll tell your old man you keep a spare package of condoms in your desk.”

  “Oh!” Devon said in disgust. “Tacky, very tacky.” He handed over the letter. “Besides, when I work late sometimes he picks me up. Pun intended—you’d never guess what goes on after you leave for the night, to your solitary and sterile bed.”

  “Tacky, Devon. Have you faxed that stuff to New York yet?”

  Devon’s look left no doubt as to what Alison could do with her fax. If she didn’t like Devon so much she’d probably hate him. She retired to her office and opened the letter. Maybe Carolyn was realizing how much she missed Alison.

  Dear sane and sensible Alison:

  I know I should never have come back to Paris. When I leave the day after tomorrow it will be two days too late! Would you believe the second set of eclairs was bad? I’ve been sick all night and to make things worse I was subjected to the most appalling argument with none other than Nicolas Frost. I was trying to sleep after puking all night and he had a rehearsal in his room, which is next to mine. He made some lame excuse about the hotel making a mistake, and that no one was supposed to be in my room. Hah. I gave him a few choice opinions in German, then I almost lost it on his Italian leather loafers and it would have served him right.

  By the time you get this I’ll be all better, and well on my way to Munich. I hope I’ve recovered enough to do the Louvre tomorrow, after which you will receive a letter all about art. No more throwing up or Nicolas Frost whom I hope I never see again. You would have been quite proud of me. Green and lamentable—

  Carolyn

  Alison laughed. She adored Carolyn’s proficiency with German expletives, even though she never knew what the heck they meant. She folded the letter back into the envelope. She missed Carolyn.

  “Sam Beckwith is on the line again,” Devon called, interrupting the poor-baby thoughts Alison was sending in the general vicinity of Paris. “Maybe I was wrong about the solitary and sterile bed.”

  “Shut up, Devon,” Alison warned in a tone she knew Devon would ignore. “Hi, Sam,” she said sweetly. She could hear Devon laughing.

  “Ally, I think I may have found a wonderful b-e-d frame for Carolyn.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Sam. I—does she need a new one?”

  “The one she has now is adorned by a Barbie-like ballerina. It’s difficult to decorate around.”

  “Well—”

  “Meet me tomorrow to take a look and then we’ll catch some d-i-n-n-e-r somewhere. You pick a restaurant.” Sam’s voice was encouraging and Alison wondered, yet again, if Sam might be the cure she was looking for. They were good friends already.

  “Okay. Where should I meet you?”

  When Alison hung up, after settling the details with Sam, she could hear Devon whistling “Strangers in the Night.” She called out, “Shut up, Devon.”

  He changed the tune to “She Loves You.”

  ***

  Nicolas Frost was an unpleasant, uncivilized jerk. Carolyn’s writer persona had recorded useful physical details. The gray eyes, long eyelashes and smooth skin—well, none of it went with a personality that was about as endearing as boils.

  She ordered a cup of broth and bread and ate it with more success than the last batch. Feeling almost human she decided to take a bath. She had just finished setting out her bath paraphernalia and her book when there was a knock on the door. She peeked through the peephole, rewrapped her robe tightly around her and opened the door. It was the older man she had seen in the next room—the only one who had looked at her with anything like sympathy.

  “With Maestro Frost’s compliments,” he said gravely, in his cultured English voice. He sounded like Ralph Richardson. He carried in a huge basket of yellow roses. “He is very sorry about the inconvenience and hopes you are feeling better.”

  “These really weren’t necessary,” Carolyn said. Roses were not her favorite flower, not anymore.

  “They are just a token. Maestro Frost is very sorry you were subjected to that brawl. He has arranged for the hotel not to bill you for this room since they should not have put you in it in the first place.”

  Carolyn was astounded. “It wasn’t necessary, but thank you.”

  “I would like to inquire,” he went on as if Carolyn had not spoken, “if there is anything I could arrange that would speed your recovery? You do appear a little less pale.” He smiled faintly.

  “I think I ate some bad eclairs. I’ve had some broth. It’s not Mom’s chicken soup, but I’m recovering.”

  “Very well, I will leave you to rest.”

  “Thank you for bringing the roses, Mr.—I don’t know your name, I’m sorry,” Carolyn said.

  “I am Oscar Smythe,” he said. He said his name as if it should be familiar to her—it tugged at Carolyn’s memory.

  “Did you conduct a complete recording of Brahms with the Vienna Philharmonic? A long, long time ago?”

  “I’m not sure I would have repeated the adjective, but yes, I did do that recording some years ago.”

  “It’s still my favorite. I’ve been listening to it since my mom bought it for me when I was a little—”

  “Please,” he said, holding up one hand with great dignity. “Thank you. For an American I must say you show remarkable judgment.” His voice was devoid of irony, but Carolyn saw a flash of it in his eyes. He bowed like David Niven, tipped an imaginary hat and left.

  Carolyn closed the door. “What a character,” she said to the roses.

  She had a long soak in the tub, turning the pages of The Mists of Avalon as she swished her toes in the hot water. When she went back into the bedroom it reeked of roses. She sneezed twice, then dialed for a bellman.

  The sooner she got out of Paris, the better. Her train to Munich was scheduled for the day after tomorrow. She couldn’t wait to put some distance between herself and the problems Paris seemed to cause her.

  The young man who came for the roses was overwhelmed and thanked her profusely. “Good riddance,” Carolyn muttered as she closed the door.

  ***

  The next morning, Carolyn ate a bland breakfast and took a cab to the Louvre. She lingered as long as possible over the Da Vincis, only to stop in a daze before the raw magnificence of Van Gogh’s Flowers in a Copper Vase. Around every corner was art she’d only seen photographs of—all the painting and sculpture she would have seen on her last trip if only romance hadn’t gotten in the way. She edged forward toward the Van Gogh, vaguely aware that she was nudging another woman.

  The blonde woman gave ground with a sarcastic “Pardonnez moi.”

  Carolyn blinked, clearing her eyes of the violent, overwhelming hues. “My fault,” she replied in French. “I was so struck by the work—”

  The woman’s blue eyes softened and she gave Carolyn a toothy smile. “I understand.” Her smile broadened as she glanced past Carolyn. “There you are, Cherié, where have you been?” Another woman, as dark-skinned as the first was fair, stepped around Carolyn and the two women exchanged kisses on each cheek in French fashion, and then they stepped away from the painting.

  Carolyn took advantage of the extra room and leaned closer to examine the painting.
She made a mental note to make time in Amsterdam for the Van Gogh Museum.

  “Cherié, not here,” Carolyn heard the blue-eyed woman say. Some note in the woman’s voice made Carolyn turn. The black woman was toying with the collar of the blue-eyed woman’s shirt, her long fingers slipping inside the collar and brushing tenderly against the pale skin. The hair at the nape of Carolyn’s neck prickled and she shivered.

  “Let’s go back to the hotel, then,” Cherié said. Her voice was low, personal, husky—suggestive of promised delights. Carolyn found she couldn’t swallow. The blue-eyed woman swayed as she nodded.

  Carolyn realized she was eavesdropping. She was uncomfortably warm—her clothes felt tight. It was the strangeness—she’d never seen two women—it was just different. She made herself move, forcing her attention to another Van Gogh. She studied it as if her personal safety depended on knowing every brush stroke.

  By the time she reached her hotel that evening she had mostly forgotten the two women in the Louvre. Her feet ached and she wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, but she still had to pack and get ready for her early train departure the next morning. So she ordered room service again—just crepes without any sauce and a dish of vanilla ice cream. She hoped her stomach could handle that meal.

  The waiter was gone before she saw a large bowl of soup on the tray. She double-checked the bill she had signed, but the soup was not on it. Then she saw the florist’s card discreetly tucked under the saucer.

  I doubt anyone named “Mom” made this, but perhaps it is what the doctor ordered—N. Frost. “Well!” Carolyn exclaimed. She sniffed. Chicken soup. Her stomach growled. She devoured the soup, then wrote out a tactful and brief thank you note to Oscar Smythe because she was sure that Nicolas Frost hadn’t arranged for the soup. He was probably still bullying violinists.

  ***

  Nick sighed and looked at her itinerary. Paris was only the second stop of her guest conducting tour and she was already tired. To make things worse, she had had a dream last night about a woman with blue eyes who swore at her in German while Nick made passionate love to her. Boxer shorts were comfortable but lately they’d seemed irksome. Did she really want to spend the rest of her life dressed as a man? Didn’t she have any other options?

  “What is bothering you?” Oscar asked from behind her.

  “You’re a mind reader,” Nick said. Oscar always knew. “What always bothers me when I’m tired.”

  “Ah. So, sneak out the back way. This is Paris—lesbian bars abound, darling.”

  “It’s too risky. I might be seen out of these damnable boxer shorts.”

  “Then go in drag,” Oscar said. “I’m told it’s all the rage.”

  “And who told you that? Some little number at the local La Cage aux Folles?”

  “I do not interest myself in little numbers,” Oscar said, at his haughtiest. “And I have not sampled the local—cages—in many years. I’m getting too old for it.”

  Nick smiled fondly. Oscar’s favorite role was the aging and forgotten conductor. “You know perfectly well that your gray temples still turn heads.”

  “Yes, but that child who was here yesterday—”

  “What child?”

  “Carolyn Vincense—the American girl next door. You sent roses and chicken soup, by the way.” At Nick’s snort, Oscar continued, “She did remember who I was. She’s been listening to my Brahms since she was a little girl.”

  “So have I, for that matter,” Nick said. She bit her lower lip to keep it steady.

  Oscar sighed. “Go ahead, laugh. I just hope that when you’re my age people will know you for what you’re working on at the time, not something you did thirty years ago. And when you’re my age maybe being gay won’t stand in your way.”

  “Maybe not, but being a woman probably still will. If they find out I’m a woman and gay it’ll be double the fun for the paparazzi. I can’t go within a hundred meters of a lesbian bar.”

  “There’s always a sex change operation,” Oscar said. He went back to studying his correspondence.

  Nick said nothing. It was both his age and his sex that kept Oscar from understanding that turning into men was not the way to combat discrimination against women. But who was she to talk—that was exactly what she had done. She might tell herself she was just a part of a long tradition of cross-dressing women in the arts, but her choices weren’t anywhere near that clear-cut. And she wasn’t just cross-dressing, she was passing as a man.

  There were, according to Oscar, quite a few members of the Royal Academy who were gay, but most were completely closeted. Of the women members—and women were far in the minority—Oscar suspected one was a lesbian. A few of the gay men were so gifted or powerful that it ceased to matter. If you were Bernstein, for example, no one picked someone else over you for a recording contract. She knew the label “probably a pouf” had kept Oscar at the very edge of fame. When he had stayed in the role of the critic he had been left alone. But every time he had reached for the baton the whispers had started up again and the offers faded away.

  In revenge, Oscar Smythe had become a respected and somewhat feared critic. Nicola Furst had listened and believed when he told her she had talent and then, in the same breath, told her it was a pity no one would ever know—because she was a woman and an intimidating figure of a woman at that. She’d informed Mr. Know-it-All Smythe that he was wrong, but within a few short years she had learned he was right. As a solo violinist she gained only nodding glances and utterly forgettable reviews that never failed to mention her height. No one had expressed anything except boredom when she had conducted. Her attempts at orchestration were “weak” or “shrill.” In the meantime, less-talented men she had been at Trinity College of Music with secured First Chair positions, assistant directorships and even Royal Academy memberships.

  Nick glanced over at Oscar’s disciplined profile. No one would believe her if she told them that the staid and proper English gentleman had been the one to suggest the masquerade. He’d only agreed to hear her because he’d had an affair with one of her mother’s uncles (she hadn’t known that at the time). She would never have dreamed the interview would result in his urging her to don male attire. Her parents had been killed in a plane crash when she was an infant and the elderly aunt and uncle who raised her had since passed away. The trust fund administrators had ceased all interest in Nicola when she had taken control of her money at the age of twenty-five. Who remembered her from boarding school? Some of her chums might, but only as the gawky girl who never wore skirts and spent every spare hour in a study room with her violin.

  Sister Patrick Rose might realize that a photo of Nicolas Frost was also a photo of Nicola Furst, but it was unlikely that a missionary would be attending a European symphony. Yes, indeed, Nick was sure Patrick Rose would remember Nick as vividly as Nick remembered her and her lesson about why a seventeen-year-old Nick was suddenly interested in becoming a nun. Their affair—Nick’s first—had been short, tempestuous and delicious, then terminated by Patrick Rose’s decision to go to Central America. Nick actually couldn’t remember what she had felt like in those days, thinking a nun’s life would suit her. She didn’t remember being seventeen.

  Who would remember her from Trinity? If anyone did, it would be as the woman with a chip on her shoulder. Who cared if Nicola Furst disappeared off the face of the earth? No one. If her trust fund hadn’t covered her fees, Trinity would have shown her the door after her second year.

  She’d resisted the whole idea. She didn’t care that her mannerisms and appearance had always been masculine. She’d told Oscar she loved women and she loved being a woman. And he’d told her how his own variation from the norm had kept his performing career from ever flowering. He’d named more than two dozen gay men in “serious music,” as Oscar called it, whose talents were all on the same plane. The ones who were in the closet were a lot richer and more famous than the ones who were suspected or out. Bernstein didn’t count.

  W
ith Oscar’s sponsorship, she’d entered the competition, and when Oscar Smythe sponsored a talented young man, the musical world had listened. Nick won the competition, receiving glowing praise from people who hadn’t given Nicola Furst a second thought, and became Oscar’s protege. The press ate up the “orphaned son of an old British family” story Oscar fed them, in which Oscar implied he’d raised Nick from childhood, and paid for his schooling and conservatory training abroad. Nicolas Frost’s height was never mentioned, but the short, slicked-back hair had attracted a number of comments. Nicolas Frost was courted for his talent, praised for musical sensitivity, and shunned for his reputation as a temperamental maverick. The Royal Academy had indicated interest in Nick, though they had ignored all of Nicola’s attempts to get their attention. Now she couldn’t afford to answer all the questions on the standard biography form. Besides, at this stage in her life she didn’t feel like giving the Royal Academy of Music or its affiliates the time of day.

  But critical praise and a flood of eager students had made Nick hungry for more, and more is what she got. Always wearing boxer shorts had seemed a small price to pay, and Oscar was a genius at feeding the press. They staged opportunities for Nick to be photographed with women, and cultivated a reputation for Nick as a heartbreaker. Oscar’s greatest fear was not that Nick would be discovered as a woman, but that anyone would think Nick’s association with Oscar meant Nick was gay. They had both been hysterical with laughter when a London tabloid had printed a story about a woman who claimed Nick was the father of her baby. Fortunately, it had been her fourth claim in less than ayear and no one had even bothered to ask Nick about it. At thirty-three, Nick was famous in London; fifteen years of study and twelve more of hard work had made it so. This tour was supposed to cement her fame in Europe, lead to an American tour and bring Nick to the attention of recording companies.