“James, for pity’s sake, think. Okay, so the college gave you short shrift. But this community paper’s always full of sensational stuff, and more than half of it isn’t true. You’ve been the victim of bad press enough to know there’s nothing we could do about that!”
“Oh?” he said coolly. “Then why don’t you seem all that surprised? Or is that because you were using me all along?”
“Using you?” she retorted. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m tired. I need to settle this.” He nodded toward the door. “Mom…Dad…please do me a favor and excuse yourselves. I need to talk with Melody alone.”
Melody could tell neither one wanted to go, but at least James had unbent enough to use the word please. Maybe he would be reachable if she was alone with him to hammer this out.
“Go ahead,” she urged them. “We’ll be fine.”
“Always the cockeyed optimist, aren’t you?” he muttered, so low only Melody could hear him, but she ignored the shudder that ran up her spine and instead nodded emphatically to Mike and Angela to go ahead. They were barely gone when James shifted himself to look her in the eye.
“Mel,” he said on a long breath, “I don’t want to be cruel—”
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it,” she cut in.
“But you know I play things straight. I know what’s going on. It stops now.”
“There you go again. What do you mean? What’s going on?”
He bent toward the nightstand and took a drink from a tumbler of water. “Look. Okay. I know I’m not in the best position to make demands here. But the terms of your assistantship contract with the school are that you work for me. Within the bounds of legality, morality, and ethics, you are to do what I say.” He drew another ragged breath. “And I say that the premiere is cancelled…as of tonight.”
“What?” She gasped. “No. James. You can’t!”
“I can, and I’m going to. I won’t have my music premiered this way.”
Melody felt ill. “What way is that? You’re calling the shots, remember? And this is more than you’d get anywhere else, considering…”
His eyes became daggers. “Go ahead. Say it. I’m a has-been.”
She sank into the chair, her knees going weak. “I didn’t say that. I didn’t even think it. But the reality is—”
“The reality is, I’ve found out it never mattered whether I could play another note for the rest of my life.” He laughed coldly. “I was nothing more nor less than this school’s prime golden goose. Short of my going up in smoke on Christmas morning, nothing was going to get in the way of that. And it didn’t.”
“G-Golden goose?” she echoed numbly.
“Melody, wake up and smell the coffee. I’ve been used.”
“Used? By whom?”
“Dean Thomas, for starters.”
“No!” she cried. “Not the dean, James. He’s a fine man. He cares about you.”
“Dean Thomas is a fine administrator, Melody. He’s a fine academic. He’s a fine soldier for the cause. Or at least he was, until he forgot that some of us are not commodities. Some people can’t be bought and sold. I’m one of them.” He let go a breath. “I thought you were, too.”
Melody felt shell-shocked. Obviously, she wasn’t comprehending something here.
“James, I can’t make heads or tails of what you’re talking about. I don’t know what you think I’ve done. But if you really imagine I have any part in some kind of impropriety—”
“I don’t have to imagine it. It’s in black and white.” He glared at her. “I guess I was hoping for too much to have you actually admit it. But this isn’t the first time I’ve been wrong, is it? I couldn’t even manage to kill myself right. Probably would have been better for both of us if I’d succeeded. Would sure have saved us a lot of trouble—”
“That’s it!” Melody jerked out of the chair. “If you call this not wanting to be cruel, then I’m not going to stick around for when you start!”
But as she turned to bolt from the room, James reached out and grabbed her arm, and she cringed. For a man still under heavy-duty care, his grip was amazingly strong.
“You tell the dean one thing from me, and tell him fast,” he hissed. “Tell him if you perform my music Friday night, against my expressed wishes, I will sue you and the music school for every penny I can get.”
She gasped, horrified. “James, no. You can’t do that!”
“Sure, I can.” His eyes were troubled. “Melody, you’re preparing to do an illegal act. It has legal consequences.”
“But trying to change this now?” She shook her head, blinking back tears. “James, be reasonable. It’ll be a disaster.”
“That’s not my concern.”
“How can it not be?” She pulled her arm free. “This is no way to treat people you work with. It’s not right.”
His laugh made her stomach knot. “You’re right. It’s not right to talk up how humble and ‘honored’ you are with one side of your mouth and sell me out with the other.” He closed his eyes, seeming to need to draw more strength before he continued. “Okay. For the sake of argument, let’s say you really are innocent. It’s a cinch the dean could probably pull the wool over your eyes—”
“Thanks for nothing,” she choked.
His eyes snapped open, and their chill cut her to the core. “Hey, honey, I’m not so sure you deserve that much benefit of the doubt. Don’t push it.” He leaned back on his pillows again, his face bloodless. “Anyway, let’s play the game your way. Go to the dean and ask him. Ask him point-blank about the strings attached to this premiere. Then come back and tell me with a straight face how much this school cares about either of us.” He smiled, a thin line as wintry as the weather outdoors. “But don’t test me, Melody. I don’t make idle threats. And I always keep my promises.”
Bending, she picked up the papers from his bed again, as much to give herself time to gather her wits as because she actually wanted them. She would not break down in front of him, even if she felt splintered to a hundred tiny shards inside.
“All right, James. You win.” She tucked the papers into her purse. “I will go to the dean. I’ll lay this whole smarmy thing in front of him. And when he stops laughing, I’ll find out the real story. But don’t pat yourself on the back too much about keeping your promises.” She raised herself taller. “After all…you promised me your concerto.”
With that, all the oxygen seemed to leave the room, and she couldn’t stay another second. She stumbled down the hallway, to the elevators, and out the front entrance of the hospital in a blur, so desperate for fresh air she didn’t care that that fresh air was now turning bitterly cold, with a pelting sleet and snow mix that stung her eyes.
Only after she was back on the bus, rubbing her hands together to try to warm them, did she wonder if Mike or Angela had been anywhere nearby when James dressed her down. Melody hoped that they weren’t, that they’d been far enough away to be spared hearing their son raking her over the coals, then driving a blade through her heart.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Can he do it?
Back at home, she worried the question in her head as the evening ticked on, as Hattie plied her with peppermint tea and made phone calls she hardly heard. Finally, Dean Thomas agreed to meet with her and Eric Matthews, the college legal counsel. Melody brought John Wilson along, old family friend and “legal beagle” for the Rowlands as long as she could remember. Hattie excused herself, pleading that her arthritis couldn’t take the cold and she “couldn’t understand all that fine print, anyway.” Melody wasn’t sure she could, either. But she owed it to Hattie — to all of them — to give it her best shot.
That was how, as the dean’s credenza clock struck eight, she was huddled at his desk with one lawyer on either side, sipping herb tea made from Barb’s stash, poring over contracts and newsprint.
“The good news,” Wilson said at last, “is that although Goodwin can make a lot of noise, he si
gned the performance agreement and it was never amended. If he tries to stop it, he’s the one in violation.”
“But James says there are ‘strings attached’ to this performance.” Melody smoothed out the wrinkled newsprint stories. “If there are, doesn’t that make the whole contract moot?”
“Only if we actually breach specific agreements we signed with him, which we haven’t.” Dean Thomas patted her hand. “You shouldn’t have been brought into this. It was unprofessional of James to do that to you.”
“It’s hardly unprofessional when it concerns me, Dean Thomas.” She felt a flare of irritation. “James is accusing me of being in collusion with something improper. He didn’t come up with that notion out of thin air.” She picked up the community clipping. “What’s true in this story…if anything?”
For a moment no one said a word. Then one long, wary look passed between Matthews and the dean, and she heard the legal counsel swear under his breath. “Don, you mean she’s totally in the dark? You told me—!”
“With all due respect, Counselor, shut up.” The dean looked as if he’d aged ten years in the space of ten minutes, and when he turned to Melody, he seemed to have trouble meeting her eyes.
“Melody, there is a degree of truth to that story. There have been some strings pulled behind the scenes of this premiere. But they’re nothing sinister, I promise you. If anything, they’re to James’s benefit and with all good intentions…”
“The road to perdition,” Wilson cut in. “Quit tap-dancing, Don. Get it out.”
The dean sighed. “I advised Heinrich that he should have at least told you, Melody. But he refused. He didn’t want you burdened.”
“All this has something to do with the Professor?” She was aghast. “Then let’s get him in here!”
“This has everything to do with the Professor,” Dean Thomas put in sadly. “But I won’t bring him in on this tonight, not at this late date. He’s not a well man, Melody. His heart couldn’t take this.”
Icy fingers walked her spine. “Good grief. What could be that bad?”
“It’s not bad, in and of itself,” the dean shot back. “Let me explain it.”
“Please do. I’ve about had it with trying to guess.” Melody took a sip from her cup and leaned back in her chair.
“James told me,” the dean began, “that you and he talked about that master class incident and settled things between you…”
She nodded. “We did.”
“…so we won’t dwell on it. But Heinrich has, all these years. It’s gnawed away at him and it still does. Thought he couldn’t have known James at the time, he still feels guilty for not doing better by him. Can you understand that?”
Melody nodded again. She understood guilt, whether it made sense or not. She’d been tortured enough by it on Christmas Day.
“When James survived his suicide attempt, that’s when the family all found each other at last. Heinrich came to me at that point and told me he wanted James to be his successor when he retired.”
“That early?” Melody frowned. “But that was two years ago!”
“Heinrich knew his day was coming, and to him it was a perfect way to make up to his grandson for everything.” The dean gave a rueful chuckle. “We became aware shortly after Heinrich’s offer that James could no longer play to the caliber expected of a piano instructor.”
Melody felt a sudden sick clench in her stomach. “Wait a minute. You already knew he couldn’t play? So why did you hire him?”
“We had incentive.”
I’m nothing more nor less than this school’s prime golden goose. Unbidden, James’s words came back to her, and Melody shivered despite the warmth of the room.
“We struck a deal,” Dean Thomas explained. “Heinrich knew James was months, maybe weeks, away from finishing a second piano concerto. He was also undergoing treatment to restore the use of his hands. James really did think there was a chance he could play that concerto himself as a last farewell to the stage. Heinrich saw the school as the perfect place to premiere that concerto.”
“You just said he couldn’t play,” Melody replied. “How did he think James was going to pull it off?”
“Until this past fall, we all still had hopes that James might regain his abilities. I think Heinrich hoped for it almost more than James himself did, to tell you the truth.”
Melody closed her eyes, remembering those medical forms in James’s office. Dr. Jerome had doubtless been on campus for more than a social visit. No wonder James’s temper had frayed so badly.
“Of course, no one needed any incentive to choose you as James’s substitute,” the dean went on. “James had nothing but praise for your talent, and Heinrich was obviously tickled.”
She knew that was meant as a sop to her ego. It didn’t work.
“But mounting an international premiere,” Dean Thomas continued, “takes money. This school simply couldn’t foot that kind of bill without a benefactor, or a group of them. Our incentive came in when Heinrich proposed he be that benefactor.”
“The Professor?” John Wilson put in, whistling. “I didn’t think piano professors made that kind of money!”
Eric Matthews gave a wry laugh. “I see all the contracts come through, and they don’t. I told Don the Professor didn’t know what he was talking about, and to tell the old man thanks, but no, thanks.”
“Turns out, though, that Heinrich knew better.” The dean smiled faintly. “We all know he was always a thrifty soul. Here he had saved for years, invested wisely, and he was worth way more than anyone ever suspected.” He finished his tea. “Enough that he could step in and underwrite this entire premiere, plus James’s faculty salary.”
“That had to take a huge chunk of his reserves.” Wilson shook his head. “Does he still have enough to live on?”
“With his usual thrift, yes.” The dean sighed. “When he called our bluff, we didn’t know what to say. He asked for none of the gate receipts, nothing at all. He told us to consider it a gift, and if we gave him that one privilege, he could die happy.”
Melody felt choked. “He made you an offer you literally couldn’t refuse.”
“Exactly.” Dean Thomas extended long hands in a gesture of helplessness. “What were we going to say? That we didn’t want to help this old man have a clear conscience after all he’d given to this school? That he’d have to find some other way to do his penance? I could hardly turn him down. And with the proceeds, we’d be able to offer James the option of staying on as Composer in Residence. Can you imagine what that would do for our enrollment?”
Melody didn’t have to imagine much. “It would double overnight, with all the comp majors who’d be standing in line to study with him.”
“Right.” Matthews gave a sly smile. “When Don showed me indeed, the Professor did know what he was talking about, I didn’t need an engraved invitation. I drew up the contracts.”
“But all this was still with conditions, right?” Melody asked. “Conditions James knew nothing about?”
“Heinrich insisted it look like a normal hiring,” Dean Thomas replied. “James was told his performance history spoke for itself, and not to worry about the rest. And he did need a chance for a new start, after all. He wasn’t in a position to refuse his grandfather any more than I could—”
“—since he’d been so awful the first time they met.” Melody cradled her head in her hands. “So bottom line is, he never knew his position here was bought and paid for.”
“And he wouldn’t have, either…” The dean picked up the newspaper and tossed it aside. “…if it hadn’t been for this reporter wheedling it out of somebody. When I find out who leaked that information…!”
Melody thought instantly of Cynthia but held her tongue. It didn’t matter who’d spilled the beans; what mattered now was that both James’s integrity and the music school’s reputation were open to question.
“Well, now James apparently knows enough of the truth,” she said carefully, �
�that he’s fighting mad, and I don’t blame him. I don’t want to go into court against him.”
“The school will deal with that on your behalf,” Matthews rejoined.
“But does it have to go that far?” she pleaded. “Isn’t there some kind of compromise we can reach? An out-of-court settlement?”
“What kind of compromise is possible in less than twenty-four hours?” the dean asked. “It’s too late to undo what’s in motion now.”
She’d told James that very thing, but now, she was a lot more inclined to try. “Maybe not. If enough of the ensemble is down with this flu bug, we could have what’s in effect a pickup band trying to hack their way through a major premiere. This isn’t standard repertoire. It’s not like we can pull people in off the street at the last minute and have them know the piece already. Artists postpone gigs all the time for reasons of illness. Under the circumstances, why can’t we put that out in an official press release, and—?”
“And let Heinrich down?” Dean Thomas put in. “Do you want to be the one to tell him that, Melody?”
“We wouldn’t be letting him down,” she insisted. “We wouldn’t be canceling it, only postponing it. Maybe in time, James would be willing to see it through. Surely waiting a few months won’t hurt anything?”
“Only our reputation with the Musicians’ Union,” Matthews countered dryly. “By the time we get done paying the penalties for the cancellation and rescheduling, we’ll be lucky if there is enough left for a pickup band. I don’t think the Professor can cover that contingency, either.” He drained his mug. “Goodwin’s got nothing to gain with all this saber-rattling, and everything to lose. He’s unable to play his own music. He lucked out getting you to play it for him, and his grandpa’s doing him a favor. Seems to me he’d be laughing all the way to the bank, not worrying about technicalities.”
Melody hung her head. “But this is more than a technicality,” she whispered. “He’s being reduced to a charity case. To — to—”
From the Ashes Page 15