“Thank—thank you, Ms. Ellsworth,” I said, coughing to relieve the pressure she was putting on my neck. She relented and I patted her back in gratitude. She inhaled a few of those convulsive breaths one has to endure after tears have subsided.
“No,” she said. She pulled away but kept her hands on my shoulders. “Thank you. Our students simply glowed after spending time with you. Especially Mallory Knight.”
I smiled at the thought of Mallory, the student I’d first thought most qualified to inspire an Aaron Spelling television series but who ended up showing me why people languished on in the field of education.
“She’s applying to Juilliard, Eastman, and Curtis for vocal performance. Did she tell you?”
I felt my heart surge and my eyes widen in pleasant surprise. “No, she didn’t. But I’m very, very pleased.” I watched a mother and her small child cross the street and giggle as they turned in the revolving door. “I wouldn’t say it about many people, but Mallory will be able to make a career out of her singing and do it well.”
“She was lucky to have you come along at just the right moment. The day before you arrived, she was headed to the registrar to change her major to accounting.”
I laughed. “I’m glad I got there in time.”
Ellsworth turned to me abruptly. “Well. I’ll help you with your luggage.” She bounded out of the car, black pumps in motion, and popped the trunk. We wrestled together to get my two suitcases into standing position on the asphalt.
I hugged Ellsworth gently and quickly, said a cheery good-bye and pulled my gear toward the check-in. It occurred to me that four months before, when I’d looked at Ellsworth, I had seen merely a bad perm, worse shoes, and a sequestered midwesterner in need of an urban experience. That final morning in Maplewood, though, I knew the sinking feeling in my chest was one of genuine affection—for Ellsworth, for my students, and quietly but stubbornly refusing to go away, for a veterinarian whom I hadn’t called to bid farewell.
“Destination?” The redhead behind the counter continued typing madly on the black keys before her. Her eyes had not left her computer monitor. Apparently, airline behavior was standardized across time zones.
I stood for a moment, lost in thought.
“Ma’am?”
I focused on the redhead’s face. She waited, hands poised above the keys.
“LaGuardia Airport, New York City.”
27
There’s No Business
The sound of my three-inch strappy summer heels clicked through the otherwise empty corridor. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my heart rate after a particularly hectic morning. Four months in Maplewood had numbed me to the fact that getting places in New York required an amount of time defying spatial logic. I’d been back in the city for three weeks and was gradually finding my way back to my old routine. After two meals at Jasmine, daily trips to my beloved grocery where I purchased four types of hard cheeses from Holland, and a ballet at Lincoln Center, I was feeling at home once more. Some things, though, had taken a bit of acclimation. The caking of city grime on my face and feet caused a twinge of longing for the clean—though pig-infused—air of Iowa. The complete lack of silence at any time of day, in any part of the city, was an adjustment I hadn’t anticipated. I’d taken up scouring menus and grocery stores for a real pork chop. And the need to leave one’s apartment an hour before an appointment, even if the meeting place was less than a mile away, had caused me to be late to the first meeting of the rest of my career.
While still in Maplewood, I’d received from Judith a broad outline of the schedule for the Pasione tour, beginning with that morning’s initial meeting. Judith and I had been playing a very long game of phone tag since I’d come back to New York, but I hadn’t worried, as I knew I’d see her at that first meeting. I stopped to powder my nose and reapply my lipstick when I came to the closed door of the conference room. I could hear muffled conversation from the other side. I smoothed my skirt, fluffed my hair, and turned the knob.
My eyes swept the room, taking in the singers, noticeable for their colorful wardrobe choices and their dramatic speech mannerisms. Interspersed among the singers were dark and stuffy suits and dresses draped on agents. I scanned these and found Judith at the end of the table, sandwiched between two pretty girls, one with dark short hair and the other with a long curly blonde mane. The blonde nudged Judith when she saw me striding toward them, smiling and feeling the world was my new Italian language oyster.
“Good morning,” I sang out, feeling all the tension and worry of the last months dissipate in the face of this new job, the perfect job for this time of my life.
Judith looked at me, and her face paled. “Sadie. You’re, ehm, here.”
“Of course I’m here,” I said. My smile spread to the others in the room when I realized they were watching us with interest. “I got your e-mail and found the place with no problem.” I pulled up a chair from the perimeter and scooted it in between Judith and the blonde. “When do we start?” I asked, my voice hushed to encourage all the silent people to go back to their own conversations.
The dark-haired woman sitting next to Judith snickered and then put a hand over her mouth.
“Sadie,” Judith said carefully, “I’m not sure what e-mail you’re referring to.”
“The one you sent about a month back. The preliminary schedule for the Pasione gig.” I took a sharp breath. “Oh, no. Did I read it wrong? Is this meeting for something else? Like support staff? Chorus singers?”
The blonde sat back in her chair and smirked. Honestly, these people were starting to annoy me.
Judith pushed back her chair. “Sadie, can I see you out in the hall?”
I felt my heart drop to my stomach. “Of course,” I said, following her out of the room and trying to ignore the flock of stares and giggles that accompanied me.
“What’s going on?” I demanded once the door was closed. “Who are those people and what is their problem?”
“Sadie, I don’t know how this got miscommunicated, but you have not been asked to be a part of Pasione.”
“What?” I sputtered. “But you said—”
Judith shook her head. “In the very, very early stages, I inquired about you as a possibility. But the producers were looking for something different. New talent, up-and-coming, fresh faces. You were just too …” she searched for the word, “old establishment.”
“Old establishment?” I shrieked. “I’m only forty years old!” My hand felt for the wall near me and I leaned on it for support.
“I know, I know.” Judith’s voice took on the well-practiced tone of a woman who knows how to placate people. “It’s entirely unfair. But it’s a business decision and they have their ticket sales to consider.”
“But I moved back to New York …” I trailed off. My head was spinning and I worried I might be sick.
“Listen, there will be other things.” Judith peeked in the window on the door of the conference room. “I have some calls in to area churches for their spring concert series. And we can try to rebuild your opera presence through some smaller venues.”
I concentrated on breathing in, breathing out.
“I’ll call you,” she said. She leaned over to kiss me on both cheeks. I didn’t even bother reciprocating. “So sorry about the confusion.” She heaved open the door and I caught a glimpse of a few snickering children before the door slammed behind her.
“Sadie, honey, pick up the phone.”
Richard’s voice on the answering machine cut through my fog and I tried in vain to open one eye.
“Sadie, pick up, babe. I’ve tried your cell and it goes to voice mail. I know you’re home and avoiding me. Pick up.”
I flopped over to my other side and pulled the covers more tightly around my chin. Still he prattled on.
“That’s it. I’m coming over. Pick up, or I’m coming over.”
I could feel my numbed head slipping back toward sleep.
“This is yo
ur last chance,” I heard through the blankets that draped over my ear, right before I spiraled downward once more into a colorless dream.
When I opened my eyes again, the room was washed in the ochre of an early summer evening. After a moment of gathering my thoughts to my room … my building, twelfth floor … Upper West Side … Manhattan, I realized someone or something was pounding on the apartment door.
“Sadie, open this blasted thing!” Panic poured out of Richard’s voice and under my covers. I pushed myself up and willed my legs over the side of the bed. My socks padded over the tile in the entry way and my hands protested the sudden need for strength as I fumbled with the locks on the door.
“Oh, thank God,” Richard exhaled when I opened the door. He threw himself into my arms, which were in no condition to be catching a melodramatic ex-husband. “I thought you’d given up.” He sniffled into my hair. “The Brooklyn Bridge, the tracks of the A train, Empire State.”
I pulled away and stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Suicide!” he said, exasperated at my daftness. “I thought you just couldn’t take it anymore.”
“So you’ve heard,” I said. I pulled away from his sloppy embrace and shuffled to the kitchen. I lifted my teapot from the stove and let it fall to my side as I dragged it and my body to the sink.
Richard perched on one of the barstools on the other side of the counter. “Roxanne at the Met called me. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
I looked up at him from the gushing faucet. “Roxanne at the Met? How did she know?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Judith? Mary? Steven Michaels is the artistic director of Pasione and he’s an old friend of Roxanne’s husband.”
I slammed down the faucet handle. “Fantastic. Mr. Roxanne, whoever he is, knows I am once again snubbed for a good role. Perhaps I should just get it over with and rent an ad in the Times declaring myself a formerly successful singer in search of work.” I banged the teapot down on the burner and flipped on the gas flame. “But beware, I would say. I’m one heck of a liability, now that I’m forty. I fire my agents on a whim, I’ve lived in Iowa, and I’m part of the ‘old establishment.’” I made violent quotation marks with my fingers as I spoke.
“Darling, calm down.” Richard bit his lower lip and glanced at the teapot warming on the stove. “Your tea will be ready soon and we’ll just sit and have a chat.”
“I don’t want to sit and have a chat.” The emotional fatigue from the last few months collapsed within me and reformed into a wild, frustrated volcano. “I’m tired of chatting. I want to have people like my singing again, dang it!”
“We do, we do,” Richard said, coming around the counter. He came to put an arm around me where I stood glaring at the teapot. “We do love your singing.”
“Who loves my singing?” I furrowed my brow in a pout.
“I do, for one,” Richard turned me toward him and I put my head on his shoulder. “A legion of loyal fans. Scores of musicians. Judith.”
“Judith betrayed me,” I said into his shirt.
“Are you sure?”
“No, but she could have returned my calls.” I felt tears sting my eyes when I pictured again the smug looks on the faces in the conference room.
“She could have and she should have,” Richard said and then sighed dramatically. “At least we always have each other.”
I studied his face and felt my pulse quicken. “Not really.”
His smile drooped. “Pardon?”
“We don’t really have each other, do we, Richard?” I asked softly. “We tried once, it didn’t work, and I think I’ve been putting everything on hold since then.”
“What are you talking about?” he said, worried. “We date other people.”
“No, you date other people. Adolescents. Whatever. But I don’t. I’ve defined myself as what I do, rather than whom I love, the family I create. And you, Richard, are my only family.”
“Is that so bad?” His tone was injured.
“It wouldn’t be if we were still a couple.”
“You want to get back together?” Fear streaked across his face.
“Good gracious, no,” I laughed and he relaxed. “No need to repeat bad history.” I looked away and shook my head. “He was right,” I said quietly.
“Who was right?”
“Mac.”
Richard paused and then, “Mac the pickup truck man?”
I nodded.
“Right about what?” he asked.
I shifted my gaze back to Richard. “Lots of things. But one of them was that I need to move on. From this.” I gestured from myself to Richard.
He leaned back on the counter and shook his head. “I think Iowa screwed you up. No,” he said, thinking twice, “I think it started even earlier. It was the John the Baptist Christmas Eve, wasn’t it?” He nodded knowingly. “You’ve been loopy ever since.”
I thought a moment. “You might be right. John did have an effect on me, though I think I’m just now starting to figure it out.” I stepped forward and hugged my dear, sweet, narcissistic but endearing ex-husband. “We’ve been good friends, in our own, self-absorbed, needy ways.”
He snickered into my hair.
I pulled back. “And I’ll always love you for your many, many years of friendship, thick and thin. But,” I took a deep breath and exhaled. The corners of my mouth curved upward and I said, “I think it’s time for act two.”
That night, I sat on my bed, my room lit only by two muted bedside lamps. I held in my hands the small, leather-bound Bible Jayne had sneaked into one of my suitcases the day I’d jumped ship to the hotel. I’d left it in the outside pocket of that bag until this very moment. I opened the cover carefully, as if nervous that John the Baptist himself would come barreling out if I moved too quickly. The smell of new pages lifted up from the book. I ran one hand slowly down the title page. On the inside of the cover, Jayne’s handwriting bore a blessing.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11–13.
I shut the book and held it to my chest. After a cascade of minutes spent staring out the window by the bed, I let myself fall onto the pillows and blankets, still clutching the book to me, still clinging to hope.
28
Curtain Call
The sun had set by the time we pulled up. A gradual wash of dark blue to pale yellow stretched from one horizon to the other, exuberant purples, reds, and oranges playing in between. I held a twenty over the front seat.
“Thanks, Tom. Keep the change.”
His eyes widened slightly and he nodded. “Thank you.” The door creaked as he leaped out to retrieve my small suitcase from the trunk. He rolled it carefully over to where I stood, eyes trained on the flowered front porch in the distance.
“You in town for long?” Tom asked softly. It was the longest sentence I’d ever heard from him.
“Hmm.” I looked at the sky, pondering the weight of that question. I turned my gaze to Maplewood’s only cab driver. “I’ll let you know.” I smiled at the knowing look on Tom’s face as he walked back quickly to his side, tipped his cap, and coaxed the station wagon into a slow lumber back down the highway.
I started down the long driveway toward the house and hoped those plans to prosper and not to harm me were just about ready to kick in.
I left my bag at the foot of the porch stairs and tiptoed up. The house was darkening right along with the sky and I wondered if I’d have to wait on the swing. I knocked softly on the front door. Through the open windows I could hear strains of music lilting out to the front yard. After another round of knocking, louder this time, I tried the doorknob and wasn’t one bit surprised to find the door unlocked. I let myself in.
The music seemed to be coming from th
e kitchen, which was near the back of the house. I walked through the living room, past the oak staircase, down a short hallway and into the kitchen. The room faced west and so still enjoyed the warm light of a sun not yet set. My voice filled the air from the speakers of a Bose on the counter. A stack of Sadie Maddox CDs sat on the counter, recently opened by the looks of the cellophane wrappers littering the space in front of the stereo. The speakers pointed out a gaping window, my voice carrying Copland’s “Simple Gifts” out of the house and into the open air.
The kitchen door led to a brick patio surrounded by more of the lush green and Technicolor planted on the front porch. Mac sat in a teak patio chair, ball cap on and arms folded, his legs stretched in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He sat with his back to the window, looking down into the small valley that yawned behind his home.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before pushing open the screen door.
Mac looked up.
I stood near the door, waiting for his reaction.
“Hi,” he said. I thought I saw a softness in his eyes before he clenched his jaw and looked back toward the valley. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Oh, dear.” I walked slowly toward him and gestured toward an empty patio chair sitting next to him. “May I?”
Mac nodded. “Of course.”
We sat without speaking, watching the greens deepen as the sun dipped below the trees.
“Nice music,” I said, nodding toward the open window.
“Like that?” he said. A twinge of mischief in his voice made me relax a little. “I got them on deep discount.”
“You get what you pay for.” I allowed myself a small smile. “What happened to ‘I Like My Women a Little on the Trashy Side’?”
He grinned, though still not in my direction. “Still got it. I can put it in after this, if you’d like.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I realized I was worrying my watch and bracelet with my fingers. “Mac,” I said, turning to him. “I’m so sorry.”
Kimberly Stuart Page 19