“Then you’re the one who took it out from behind the sofa. You’ve had the brooch all the time. Daddy, what did you do it for?”
He didn’t answer, just slumped back into his chair and buried his face in his hands. Persis knelt on the floor beside him, clutching at his shoulder, needing somehow to prove he was still with her.
“Daddy, what’s the matter? Why did you do it?”
“What do you think? I’ve told her over and over. I just can’t make her listen.”
So that was it. All the complaints, the bickering, the yelling matches. Ever since Loni had broken the news that she and Chet were going to be married, they’d all revolved around the same thing.
“You mean you really can’t afford it. You don’t have enough money to pay for the wedding.”
“That’s the story, Miss Genius. I can’t pay for the churchful of flowers, the two hundred roast beef dinners at the reception, the goddamned fancy favors on the tables, that ninety-dollar dress you tore to pieces—”
He choked and couldn’t go on.
“So you were planning to sell the real jewels and substitute a copy, and nobody was ever supposed to know the difference.”
“Go on, say it. Your old man’s a thief. Satisfied?”
“Should I be? Daddy, you haven’t already sold the brooch?”
“How can I? The copy won’t be ready till next week.”
“Then where is it now?”
“In my attaché case, if you want to know. And the key’s in my pants pocket, and it’s damn well going to stay there. And you’re going to keep your mouth shut about it. Look, Persis.” He wasn’t belligerent now. He was pleading with her. “It’s for you as much as Lord. I’ve still got to send you to college.”
“No, you don’t.”
“The hell I don’t. You deserve the same chance your sister had. Maybe I’m not the world’s greatest father, but you’re still my kid.”
He groped for the glass Persis was still holding and took another swallow. “Not that I haven’t spent plenty on you already. Do you realize what those damned piano lessons have cost me, all these years?”
At last Persis had an opening. “Okay, Dad, you’ve spent plenty. But at least that investment’s starting to payoff.”
“How, for instance?”
“For instance, you won’t have to send me to college. The piano lessons are going to pay for that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Frederick Lanscome’s giving me a scholarship to his Master Class School.”
“Master Class School? What’s that? Some phony diploma mill in East Overshoe?”
“Daddy, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Frederick Lanscome? He’s a famous concert pianist. He plays all over the world.”
“So?”
“So he came to my recital, for God’s sake! You and Mama couldn’t be bothered, but Frederick Lanscome came on purpose to hear me play. And if you don’t believe me, call up Angela Folliott and ask her.”
Charles Green was staring at her. “No kidding? How did he know about you?”
“He’s a friend of Miss Folliott’s. Besides, he judged the interscholastic competitions last month, when I won the gold medal.”
“You did what?”
“I won the gold medal,” Persis repeated. “And I can prove it. Wait a second, I’ll show it to you.”
“I’d like to see it.” Charles Green sounded numb.
He was still sitting crouched forward, looking dazed, when Persis came down from her room with the little black velvet case in her hand.
“Here it is, Dad. It’s probably only plated.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t try to steal it.”
He picked up the shining disc by its bright red ribbon and fished out his reading glasses. “First prize, for exceptional merit. Say, Puss, that’s terrific. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Persis shrugged. “I didn’t think you were interested.”
“Are you kidding? A gold medal, just like in the Olympics. This is really something. Didn’t you tell your mother, either?”
“Do you think I could get her to listen? All she can think about is getting Loni married off.”
“Look who’s telling who.” Charles Green sighed, laid the medal back in its box, then reached over to take his daughter’s hand.
“Look, Puss, I know you think I’m a jerk for letting your mother go hog-wild over this wedding the way she has. Okay, I should have put on the brakes before she let things get out of hand, but I figured what the hell? I mean, what else has she got?”
“I don’t understand, Daddy.”
“Well …” He was having problems finding the words. “See, here you are, sixteen years old and already winning prizes and scholarships and all that great stuff. A few years from now, maybe you’ll be up on a big stage in London or Paris like this Lanscome guy. Everybody will be yelling and applauding and handing you up bunches of red roses at thirty bucks a dozen, and where’s your mother going to be? Over at the club, playing bridge with the girls. And Loni’s heading straight down the same road, and don’t think she isn’t. This wedding’s probably the biggest thing that will ever happen to her. What was I supposed to do, take away their moment of glory?”
Persis had to think that one over for a while. At last, she was forced to agree. “No, I guess you couldn’t. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Ah, you’re still a kid. You don’t know what life’s all about yet. What the hell, what am I, if it comes to that? Just another Joe Schmoe who busts his butt at the office all week and has nothing to look forward to but getting out on the golf course Saturday morning and maybe breaking a hundred if he gets lucky. When I die, who’s even going to notice I’m gone?”
“Daddy, don’t talk like that!”
“Why not? It’s the truth.”
“It is not. Okay, I’ve made a good start with my music. But could I be doing it if you hadn’t been earning the money to pay for my lessons? You won this gold medal, just as much as I did.”
Her father looked up at her. “Is that really how you see it, Puss?”
“That’s how it is, Dad. Come on, what do you say we tackle that crummy casserole before it gets all dried up? Want me to serve in the dining room?”
“Why bother?” Charles Green was far from glum now. “If the kitchen’s good enough for a big star like you, I guess it’s good enough for her old man. Going to wear your medal to dinner?”
“Why not? Give us a touch of class.” Persis fastened the small gold pin to the front of her jersey. “There, how’s that? Oh, Miss Folliott called a while back. She says there’s going to be a rebroadcast of one of Frederick Lanscome’s concerts this evening on television. Want to watch it with me?”
“Sure, I’d be glad to. Say, Puss, I was thinking—” Charles Green hesitated.
“What, Dad?” she prompted.
“The thing is, I’ve been putting aside a sort of little private bank account for your education. It’s up around eight grand now. If you’re really positive about this scholarship—”
“Miss Folliott says it’s definite. She says Mr. Lanscome’s going to get in touch with you as soon as he gets back from New York and explain the details. It’s what he calls a working scholarship. I don’t just get a free ride, I have to do some accompanying and teach a few hours a week in their junior program to help pay my way.”
“That doesn’t sound unreasonable.”
“No, it’s an advantage because it’ll count as professional experience when I’m ready to start out on my own. I may not be ready for London and Paris in five years’ time, but at least I’ll have made some contacts and should be able to get work. Mr. Lanscome’s students usually do. So if you were thinking about spending that bank account to finance the wedding instead of selling Loni’s brooch, I frankly wish you would.”
“Are you sure, Puss? I saved the money for you.”
“I know, and I appreciate it. But you meant it to finance my education, and you’ve already don
e that. I can take over from here. What you can do, though, is provide me with board and room and carfare while I’m going to the Master Class School. It’s right over in Lowrey, and it doesn’t have live-in facilities, so I was thinking I could stay at home and commute. Would that make you feel better about the money?”
“Lots better. You can have Loni’s car to go back and forth in. If she puts up a squawk about parting with it, we’ll let her two rich grandfathers buy her another one. They might as well put their money where their mouths are. God knows I’ve had to listen to enough talk about it.”
“Daddy, that’s wonderful! Will you take me practice driving so I can qualify for my license?”
“My pleasure, Puss. Now, if I could only think of some way to get that brooch back without starting another big free-for-all.…”
“Easiest thing in the world, Pop,” she told him. “Let’s have it.”
“You’re not going to pin it back on the sofa?”
“That wasn’t such a smart idea, was it? No, I’ve got a better one. Maybe we ought to take care of it now, in case Mama’s feet give out and she comes home early.”
“If you say so.”
Charles Green was quite willing to hand over the responsibility. He unlocked the somewhat battle-scarred attaché case he’d been guarding so furiously a little while before and took out a small brown envelope “There it is, Puss. Ten thousand dollars’ worth of headaches.”
“And here it goes.”
Persis lifted the lid of the baby grand, took the glittering bauble out of the envelope, and dropped it down among the strings. Then she reached in and nudged it with her finger until it disappeared from sight.
“Where did it go?” her father fretted. “I hope we won’t have to take the piano apart to get it out.”
“Oh, no. You could even see it if you looked hard enough.”
“But how’s it supposed to have got down there?”
“Don’t you remember what happened Saturday night? As soon as they noticed the brooch wasn’t on the tray where Mama had left it, she and Loni started throwing my music around, trying to find it. Our story is that it got knocked off the tray and mixed in with the music, just as they’d thought. If they’d searched carefully instead of flapping around like a couple of windmills, they’d no doubt have found it right away, instead of letting it fall down inside where it couldn’t be seen.”
“And it’s all their fault for giving us a hard time? Puss, that’s what’s known in the trade as playing dirty pool.”
But Charles Green was laughing his head off as he followed his daughter out to the breakfast nook.
Chapter 17
The casserole was no more appetizing than Persis had expected it would be, but she couldn’t have said when she’d ever enjoyed a meal in her own home more. Her father was interested in everything she had to say, or at least willing to pretend he was. He kept asking questions about her playing; some of them two and three times, but Persis didn’t mind repeating her answers.
They finished their scratch meal with ice cream out of the freezer and cookies from a box Mary had tried to hide behind the cornflakes, then went back to the family room. At eight o’clock, Persis switched to Channel Two for the concert broadcast. Charles Green tilted back in his easy chair and shut his eyes.
“I can concentrate on the music better this way,” he explained.
“Sure, Dad,” Persis replied. “I’ll wake you up when Mr. Lanscome comes on.”
He only smiled and kept his eyes shut until Persis prodded him.
“Here it is, Pop, the sweet sound of money.”
“Pretty funny, aren’t you?”
He sat up straight, though, and gave his full attention to the television screen when Frederick Lanscome walked on stage. The pianist didn’t look fattish and baldish in his white tie and tails, with the black-suited orchestra massed around him and the applauding audience in front, and the splendor of the vast concert hall above and beyond them all. He looked magnificent. Persis felt shivery.
“Make believe that’s me up there, Daddy, wearing my red gown and that gorgeous gold locket Gran Green gave me for winning the medal. I’m going to wear it for luck from now on, every time I perform.”
“Rather have your grandmother’s locket than a diamond brooch, would you?”
“Much rather. I’m off diamonds for life. Sh-h!”
Frederick Lanscome sat down at the piano, flipped the tails of his coat back across the bench as he’d done that night on the empty stage at the Community Arts Auditorium. He looked up at the conductor, waiting for his signal. Then he was off, darting in and out among the woodwinds, sending a cascade of notes over the violins, a crashing of chords above the horns, letting those magical hands fall quietly into his lap until the conductor’s baton told him to pick up his next cue.
What must it be like to play with so superb an orchestra? Would she ever make it? Why not? Right now, this minute, everything seemed possible Persis forgot to notice whether her father was still awake and paying attention, forgot everything except the music and the man who was making it, the man who’d thought well enough of her musicianship to stand up and clap for her. She felt as if she’d been kicked in the ribs when a voice behind her shrilled, “Shut that thing off, for goodness’ sake! How can you stand such a racket?”
“Quiet, Muriel!” That, of all persons, was Charles Green. “I want to hear Persis’s teacher.”
“What do you mean, Persis’s teacher? Her teacher is Angela Folliott, who happens to be a woman, in case you can’t tell the difference.”
“Not any more. Sit down and listen.”
Muriel Green was so astonished that she actually did sit down, for about half a minute. Then she couldn’t stay quiet any longer.
“Charles, whatever are you talking about?”
“That guy up there, the one playing the piano. He’s giving Puss a scholarship because she won the gold medal. She’s going to study at his Master Class School. Right, Puss?”
After that, there was no hope of hearing any more of the glorious music. Muriel Green’s high-pitched voice easily topped the woodwinds, the brasses, even the tympani. She had to ask a million questions, to examine the gold medal fore and aft, to wail over and over, “Why didn’t you tell me the recital was so important? I’d have stayed.”
“I didn’t know it was until after it was over,” Persis told her mother. “Anyway,” she added cruelly, “it’s just as well you didn’t get to meet Mr. Lanscome that night. He was furious with you.”
“With me?” Mrs. Green shrank back, as if Persis had threatened to hit her. “What did I do?”
“Made me cut my hair. He says I’ve got to let it grow back.”
“But Miss Liss insisted! Didn’t you explain to him about the maid-of-honor gown?”
“He says my career’s more important.”
A sustained fortissimo of applause dragged Muriel Green’s attention back to the television screen. Frederick Lanscome was taking his bow, shaking hands with the conductor and the concert master, walking off, being called back to a standing ovation.
“They gave me an ovation at the recital,” Persis told her parents complacently. “After my concerto. And Mr. Lanscome stood up and clapped with the rest of them.”
“No kidding!” her father exclaimed.
“I suppose he felt he had to be polite,” said Muriel Green. She still wasn’t ready to accept all this.
“It was pretty damn polite of him to offer Puss that scholarship, if you ask me,” her husband retorted. “When did you say we were going to meet him, Puss?”
“As soon as he gets back from seeing his agents in New York, Dad. Around the end of the week, I guess. He wants to get everything settled so that I can enter the summer program the first week in July. After that’s over, I start classes with the junior program once a week.”
“But what about Miss Folliott?” her mother demanded.
“Oh, she and I are all through, as far as my lessons are conc
erned. From now on, we’re just friends.”
Muriel Green sniffed. “Naturally she’ll cling to you like a leech, hoping you’ll give her an in with Mr. Lanscome. You’d better watch your step.”
“Mama, Miss Folliott doesn’t need anything from me. She and Mr. Lanscome are old friends. We all three went out for pizza that night after the recital, and they were going someplace after they dropped me off.”
“You never told me he took you out to eat.”
“You never gave me a chance. You were too busy tearing me apart for having to take the sleeves out of that stupid dress. You should have realized they were too tight to play in.”
“That’s right, Muriel,” said Charles Green. “You’ve got to remember a performing artist has special needs.”
“What do you know about peforming artists?” she snapped back.
“Not much, but I guess I’m going to have to learn. How about it, Puss?” He gave his daughter a fast wink. “Care to give us a sample of how you wowed ’em at the recital?”
“Sure,” she told him. “I’ll play you my overture.”
All innocence, Persis sat down at the piano and launched into “The Whiffenpoof Song.” After a few bars, she stopped short. “What’s wrong with this piano all of a sudden?”
“It sounds perfectly all right to me,” said her mother.
It did to Persis, too, but she wasn’t about to say so. She played the passage again. “Hear that, Daddy?”
“Yes, I hear it,” he obliged her by agreeing. “Sort of a—like a funny little ting.”
“What ting? I don’t hear any ting,” Mrs. Green insisted.
“That’s okay, Mama,” Persis told her kindly. “You’ll develop an ear when you get into it more. You just have to train yourself by listening quietly. Daddy, could you bring me a flashlight?”
“Sure, Puss. Just a second.”
While her father was gone, Persis fussed around the piano, propping up the lid as far as it would go, trilling up and down the keys, striking one note, then another, saying, “Hear that?” every so often, finally getting her mother to reply, “Oh yes, now I hear it. Sort of a funny little ting.”
Her father came back with the flashlight, looking happier than she’d seen him for months. “Want me to hold it for you, Puss?”
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