Kimberly Stuart

by Act Two: A Novel in Perfect Pitch

  “May I submit one final vote for a cab? It’s so much easier and not that expensive.”

  Jayne’s face betrayed no impatience, though we’d discussed this forty-five times. “Thirty dollars for a cab, but only two for the bus. The bus is far more interesting for people watching. And if I have any trouble, I can ask one of the transit people. Isn’t it their job to help people like me?”

  “Technically, yes,” I said, though they could also eat you, depending on their mood. I sighed dramatically and put my hand on my apartment doorknob.

  “Okay, then,” she said, reaching over for a final, quick hug. She pulled out the handle of her rolling carry-on and hefted her purse over her shoulder. The woman must have had a vacuum sealer in that suitcase because it would have fit no more than one complete ensemble for me and maybe a toothbrush. But she’d looked clean and pressed, though not quite fashionable, all weekend living out of that thing. Resourceful people, those midwesterners.

  “See you back in Maplewood,” she said, and with a wave, she was gone.

  I watched her until she disappeared in the elevator. With the door shut behind me, I stood looking at my empty apartment, feeling restless. The bus issue wasn’t what bothered me. Jayne had done quite a bit of wandering during her few days in New York and I was reasonably sure that she’d make it to LaGuardia just fine. She did have a cell phone and my number in case she needed it. No, it wasn’t public transportation that was so unsettling, though many in my city would disagree with that statement.

  I plopped down on the couch, still in my soft Egyptian cotton pajamas and pink slippers. Clouds had moved in overnight and blanketed Manhattan in a chilly shroud. It’s loneliness, I thought, and immediately hated myself for thinking the words. After two months of living in a house with constant action and then having Jayne stay with me for my first weekend home, I had become accustomed to people. I shuddered. Shrug it off, I said to myself, running a hand over my makeup-free face. You’re just readjusting to normal life, functional life, life away from small children and farm smells.

  I hopped up from the couch and scurried to the bathroom, hungry for the mental cleanse a hot shower promised. I made it a point to sing loudly enough to let my neighbors know I was home.

  “Let’s take it from the pickup to bar forty,” Maurice said, tapping that infernal baton so loudly I could barely hear his directions. We were forty-five minutes into our dress rehearsal, and the second Handel piece, the one that inspired a spiritual epiphany for Jayne, was causing a decidedly different reaction in Maurice. The orchestra sounded sloppy and anemic concerning the straightforwardness of the parts. And I sounded, well, provincial. My ornamentation labored instead of spun. I felt like my vocal chords were swimming through a swamp, fully clothed and gasping for a deep breath.

  By the time we’d run “Redeemer” three times, I was feeling incrementally better and Maurice seemed placated. After many years of singing, I’d become accustomed to having a temperamental instrument. Because singing required total physical engagement from a singer, vocal perfection could be elusive and fussy. A late evening, poor sleep, strange diet, even a low barometer reading could make one feel “off.” The professional developed techniques and survival skills to shake off whatever ailed or work through it so that no one but the singer herself noticed. You’re doing fine, I pep talked myself as I left the stage, water bottle and score in hand. You’re putting too much pressure on your reentry to the concert arena. I nodded, absorbed in the need to convince, willing my head to believe its own soliloquy.

  “Sadie.”

  I lifted my head from reverie. “Avi,” I said, dropping my score on one of the velvet-upholstered seats on the aisle. We exchanged cheek kisses and stood to take stock of one another.

  “Great haircut,” he said.

  I ran my fingers through one side. As of that morning, my hair had been shaped, textured, and highlighted, thanks be to God and Jack of Salon Noir on West Ninety-sixth. “You like it? Jack had some serious repair work after two months in the boonies.”

  Avi smiled. He’d bleached his teeth to a near-blue hue. “The boonies. That’s cute.”

  I sat down in one of the chairs and gestured for him to join me. “How are you, Avi? How’s business?” I thought I would proceed delicately, in case he wanted to come clean on his own regarding what Richard believed was his compromised fidelity.

  He unbuttoned his light gray Euro-trim suit and lowered himself onto the velvet. Crossing one long leg over the other, he leaned back in the chair, comfortable with himself and his gleaming Bruno Maglis. “I’m well, business is very good. Too busy, but that’s a good problem to have, am I right?” He smiled at me, watching my face.

  “I supposed that depends on whom you ask,” I said carefully. “Busy is probably as good as you let it be. Too busy and someone or something important gets neglected.” My turn to peer.

  His eyes held mine. He cleared his throat. “How did you feel about the rehearsal?”

  Did I detect a certain snippiness in that tone? I rolled my shoulders back and forced a smile. “Fantastic. I’m excited about tomorrow. Julian has done a fine job promoting and the music will be exceptional.” If I can throw off my molasses voice by then, I added internally.

  “Right. About that,” he said, shifting slightly in his seat. “I’m so sorry but I won’t be able to make it to your concert. Sasha is singing at Avery Fisher and you know how difficult she can be.” He rolled his eyes. “A diva among divas, if you can imagine.”

  I felt an uneasy prick in my stomach. Sasha Von Tassel, twenty-six-year-old chippy who had wowed audiences and critics throughout the past year as much for her impossibly large bosom and revealing concert attire as for her coloratura.

  “But,” Avi said, taking my hand, “I know you don’t need me here anyway. You’re the pro,” he said lightly, his shoulders shrugging in deference to the crone before him.

  I leaned toward him, hoping concern emitted from my eyes. “Are you all right, Avi? You seem, I don’t know, distracted. Not like yourself.”

  “Really?” He cocked his head and made a casual search of the stage lights for an answer. “No, I feel like the old me. Maybe you’re just used to your new life. You know, the slower pace.” One side of his mouth edged up.

  “My new life.” I sighed. “Avi, why didn’t you tell me about the Pasione tour?”

  A quick shadow passed over his face but he recovered quickly. “I was still feeling out the logistics to see if it would be a good fit for you. Why? Have they contacted you directly?” He’d begun tapping one finger on his knee, the only betrayal of any nerves.

  “I thought your role was to present the options to me, the one who writes your check, and then I can decide what’s ‘a good fit.’” I could feel my heart racing and my cheeks getting warm. “Avi, I have to assume you are trustworthy. Otherwise …”

  He smirked. “Otherwise you’ll find another agent?”

  My breath caught in my chest. I retreated. “Let’s just assume the best of each other, shall we? I, for one, have been nothing but pleased with our relationship thus far and would like to keep it that way.”

  “I’m doing my best, love,” Avi said, the sap returned to his voice. He leaned over to kiss me good-bye. “You just get back to the city after you’re done in cow country and we’ll hit the ground running.” He hugged me quickly and strode up the aisle to the lobby exit.

  I watched the doors swing in his wake. All the orchestra members had packed up and left during my conversation with Avi. The sudden and complete silence of the auditorium disturbed me. I began gathering my things to go but stopped when my cell began to ring. I checked the number. “Unknown” blinked on the screen. I stared, letting it ring again, my mind still half-immersed in Avi’s words. At the last possible moment, I answered, more out of reflex than the desire to talk with another human being.

  “Hello?”

  A pause, then a sonorous voice. “You coming home or what?”

  My shoul
ders relaxed slightly. I sighed. “Mac.”

  “Miss Sadie. I’d appreciate it if you answered the question.”

  “When am I coming home?” I pulled the strap of my bag onto my shoulder and walked to a side exit. “I am home, Mac.” My full weight employed, I pushed open the heavy door and stepped into a chilly March evening. The night sky over Manhattan struck me as artificial, like bad lighting on a movie set where the guy in charge of “stars and moon” had neglected to turn off the pale orange light of the afternoon scenes. Not even the brightest star or fullest moon could compete with the wattage illuminating this city at all hours.

  “Where are you right now?” he asked.

  “I’m walking south on Lexington in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.”

  He chuckled. “Are you kidding me, lady? I wouldn’t know my upper east from my lower south. I wasn’t asking for street names, just if you were in your apartment, at a restaurant, in a subway train. You New York people must assume the rest of us sit around at night poring over maps of your city.”

  I smiled wryly and wished I could slug him. “All right, smart aleck.”

  “How’s this?” he said, interrupting his own laughter. He made his voice even deeper. “Hi, there, Sadie. I’m just calling from the corner of Main and Dogwood in downtown Maplewood, heading southwest into the feedlot district.” I thought I heard him slap his knee.

  I cleared my throat dramatically. “I get it. You can stop now.”

  Still laughing.

  “People who laugh this hard at their own jokes need to socialize more,” I said loudly to compensate for a bus that roared by.

  “Hooooo,” Mac said, coming down from his self-entertainment. “Sorry about that. See now, girl? You need to get yourself back here. I’m getting punchy about nothing at all because, as you said yourself, I need to socialize.” He drew out that last word in his best Barry White, suggesting a kind of socializing that a girl could get used to.

  “Well,” I said, more sharply than I intended. “I’ll be home, um, back in Iowa soon enough. For now, I’m busy with this concert.” I crossed the street and nearly got clipped by a cab. I scowled at the driver, who shouted something offensive regarding my mother.

  “Who’s talking to you?” Mac’s voice had a hardened edge.

  “Some insane, rabid cab driver who was raised by wolves,” I shouted away from the phone and toward the disappearing cab.

  “The men from your city have not impressed me with how they treat women.” Mac’s voice sounded gravelly. I thought I detected a sprinkling of pique in those words.

  “Cab drivers have their wretches among them, just like any other profession, I suppose.”

  “Not large animal vets. We have no wretches.”

  I snorted. “Besides, do you know a fair sampling of male New Yorkers?”

  “Just your agent, whose calls make you cranky, and that Richard.” He stopped abruptly.

  “Have mercy,” I said, my voice light. “Heaven forbid you judge the men here by Avi Feldman and Richard LaSalle.” I laughed at the thought. “I just happen to know some rare birds.”

  “Jaynie got back okay,” he said, veering sharply to a different subject.

  “Good,” I said. “She insisted on getting to the airport alone.”

  His quiet laugh contrasted beautifully to the delirium drifting out to the street from a packed underground jazz club. “That Jaynie still surprises me with her stubborn streak. You’d never know it looking at her.”

  I stopped to look into a store window. Fantastic leather handbags beckoned me from within. My budget likely sighed in relief that the store was closed but all the much more important parts of me, like my intellect, my spirit, my unerring fashion sense, mourned the glass that separated me from the large black bag on the left.

  Mac had remained silent during my episode of purse lust. I realized our lapse in conversation and was about to chime in with something witty when Mac said, “She told us about hearing you sing. In fact, we couldn’t get much else out of her tonight.”

  “She’s kind to me,” I said, ever a sucker for adoration.

  “Here’s a sampling of her adjectives: magnificent, inspiring, and my personal favorite, spiritually moving.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Tell her I’ll cut a check when I get back.”

  Mac laughed and I felt a sharp pang of regret that I wasn’t there to see his eyes light up. “When do I get to hear the illustrious Sadie Maddox and her ‘spiritually moving’ voice?”

  I smiled. “I’m sure we can arrange something.”

  “My people should call your people?”

  “For you, I’ll make an exception. You can call my direct line but on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I get to pick the song.”

  “Ah,” he moaned. “I was all ready to request ‘I Like My Women a Little on the Trashy Side.’”

  “That is not an actual song.”

  As punishment for my ignorance, Mac burst into the chorus.

  “I’m leaving now,” I said over his singing. “See you back in the land of corn.”

  He finished a phrase with a very awkward octave jump. The man had moxie, singing like that for a person who’d recorded with EMI. “Take care, Miss Sadie. And watch yourself around those New York wolves.”

  “Speaking of wolves,” I said, “thank you, Mac, for calling when you did. I had a run-in with a wolf right before you called and you have redeemed what was to be a very discouraging walk home.” I waved at Tom as I headed toward the elevator. “So thank you.”

  “You are welcome,” he said, so softly I could scarcely hear him. “See you soon, girl.”

  I hung up and watched the lights above the elevator float down to me.

  19

  Network

  “Sadie!” Margot Sheffield air-kissed both of my cheeks. “Mmmwah, mmmwah,” she intoned with each smooch. An overabundance of Chanel assaulted my nose and I struggled with the impulse to sneeze into her blonde extensions. She pulled back and held me by the shoulders. “Wednesday night. I was there, you were divine, I adore you.”

  “Thank you, Margot,” I said, leaning against the wall, hoping to convey with my body language an ease I didn’t feel. “I’m glad you were there.”

  “Would not have missed it,” Margot said, as if the thought was offensive to her. Margot and I had known each other for many years. She came from the oldest of old money and had been my first friend among the wealthy patrons after my debut at the Met. We moved in the same circles, knew the same people, freely name-dropped each other when the occasion rose. And yet I wouldn’t have called Margot a friend, mostly because I’d seen her wax and wane in her “adoration.” During that exchange, for example, I chose not to mention her conspicuous absence at Rigoletto two summers before, the chamber series at First Presbyterian, and the Pops concert last Valentine’s Day, not to mention a vicious rumor I’d suspected she’d started regarding my alleged bout with vocal nodes. Even with her indiscretions and flaky loyalty, Margot was not a person with whom I wanted to trifle. Besides, why dig up old bones, as it were, when she’d spent so much getting hers synthetically chiseled?

  We were standing near the swanky bar at Deseo, me nursing a martini and Margot a gin and tonic, as we waited for the rest of our dinner party. Richard had asked a slew of people to meet for dinner the evening before I was to fly back to Maplewood. One last hurrah before returning to casseroles and cream of mushroom soup in its myriad incarnations.

  Marcos and Isabel Ruiz came toward us, Isabel’s slender and sculpted arms held open wide. She enveloped me in a hug and Marcos went straight to the bar.

  “Sadie, you look beautiful,” Isabel said. She stood at just under five feet, though she did an admirable job making up at least four inches with her impressive collection of slinky heels. “I love your dress.”

  “Thank you. It’s perfect, isn’t it?” It was true. I looked ravishing. That very morning I’d done some A
merican Express-aided therapy in efforts to raise droopy spirits. The blues were exacerbated by rain that had pelted the city since the previous day. In a gem of a store in TriBeCa, I’d happened upon the sleek black number I wore to Deseo. Hourglass shape, tailored from bust to hem, the dress evoked an era in which women with curves were not only tolerated but sought after. The overlying fabric was a peekaboo lace through which showed a soft blonde-gold lining underneath. I felt every inch woman, from new dangly earrings to a pair of dangerously high Blahniks. Nothing in my ensemble had been purchased at a discount, per se, but I defied a woman to feel this good at fifty percent off.

  “Welcome, welcome.” I heard Richard’s voice before I spotted him through the gathering crowd. “Phenomenal jacket, Suzanne. Have you lost weight? Jules, great to see you.”

  He reached my side and raised his eyebrows before burrowing me in a hug. “Vavoom, ex-wife,” he said into my ear. “Remind me why we got a divorce?”

  I pulled away and was about to enumerate a few of my favorite reasons but a woman materialized by his side. If she hadn’t been within striking distance, I would have assumed she were an airbrushed creation for magazine production only.

  “Sadie,” Richard said, stopping to kiss the woman on her hand. “This is Ama. Ama, meet my oldest and dearest friend, Sadie.”

  “Emphasis on oldest,” I muttered. Ama looked to be no older than twenty-three. Her skin was the color of cocoa and had clearly never known acne. A wild mane of hair began at a high and regal forehead. I was sure Margot would spend the next hours envying the child’s cheekbones and jawline.

  Ama took me in with mournful brown eyes. “Hello, Sadie,” she said softly in delicately accented English. “Richard speaks highly of you.” She neither smiled nor frowned, and did not betray how that observation affected her, if at all.

  “Have you dated long enough to know he is a compulsive liar?” I asked, hearing the words sound more like an affront than the joke I’d intended.

  “Ah, Sadie,” Richard said. Ama stood at least six inches taller than he. “Let’s get to celebrating you, shall we?” He spun me around by the waist and led me to a table off the main dining area reserved for us. I looked over my shoulder and saw Ama falling into line, clomping along in that bizarre foot-in-front-of-foot amble models seemed to favor.