Endless Possibility: a RUSH novella (City Lights 3.5) (15 page)

The concierge gave me the address of a boutique in walking distance from the hotel. I spoke it into my phone, put in one earbud, and then followed the directions. The sun was out but a cool breeze took the edge off. I found the boutique easily: women’s clothing stores have a distinct perfume, and this store smelled expensive.

I smiled.
Good.

“Kann ich Dir helfen?” said a saleswoman. “Or…American? Can I help you?”

“Yes, thank you,” I said. “Do you sell ladies’ dresses?”

It amazed me how easy it was to ask, and the only embarrassment was how it all could have been so much easier had I only let go sooner. But I think we learn things—life-altering things—in our own time, through our own experiences, and nothing else. The rehab place
told
me I could do this. Europe proved it to me.

The saleswoman led me to several dresses and described their shape and color, all with a simple, professional courtesy.

One felt silky and rich; the material slipped through my fingers like melted butter.

“And this one? I want it be beautiful for her, but not too fancy.”

“This one is perfect then, for a stroll through Salzburg or a nice dinner, perhaps,” the woman said.

“Yes, both. Exactly.”

“A tasteful floral patter in pale violet and yellow, draping to the ankle.”

“I’ll take it.”

“But…shall I tell you the price, sir?”

I smiled and shrugged. “If you have to.”

I returned to the hotel room, and smiled like a madman as Charlotte gasped over the dress.

“It’s beautiful,” she cried. “Oh, Noah, but it’s too much! So much silk…” A pause. “Wait. Where’s the underwear?”

I held up my hands, the poster-boy for innocence and virtue. “I looked all over but didn’t see any.”

She burst out laughing. “You. Are. Terrible.”

I wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her close. “You’ll have nothing on underneath that dress, but no one will know it but me.”

“Damn you, Noah Lake,” Charlotte said, drawing me down to the bed. “We are
never
going to get out of this hotel room.”

But we did. Eventually. We ordered room service, and ate and talked and laughed, and kissed until the kissing led to other activities, and a
second
round in the shower.

Finally, we kept our hands to ourselves long enough to put some clothes on. I had my jeans and a black henley. Charlotte put on her new dress, and I slid my hands over her contours to see how it looked.

“You’re stunning,” I told her.

“Speak for yourself,” she purred. “You shouldn’t be allowed to wear any color but black. Ever.”

By the time we finally stepped out onto the street, it was near four o’clock in the afternoon.

“I have to be back by six,” Charlotte told me as we strolled the streets of Salzburg’s small downtown. “Let’s eat dinner, then I’ll take you over to meet everyone before the concert. Oh! Do you have a ticket for tonight’s show?”

“Of course. Haven’t missed a single one.”

“I don’t even know how you did that,” she marveled and cleared her throat shyly. “But the reason I ask is that Sabina told me that tonight’s show sold out first thing this morning. Word of my solo last night kind of…spread.”

I stopped walking. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “And a local—and very picky—music critic was in the audience last night. He stopped Sabina last night to tell her that…um, he was going to write a review for today’s paper, and that he liked me. Quite a bit.”

“
Liked
you,” I laughed, my heart bursting with pride. “You mean he was fucking mesmerized by you, right? We all were. The entire audience was enthralled. I felt it.”

She pressed her face to my shoulder. “Well, maybe. But he probably won’t use your colorful language in his article.”

“He just fucking might,” I said, taking Charlotte by the shoulders. “This is it, baby. Your career is going to skyrocket after this tour.”

“We’ll see,” she said, but I could hear the excitement burning behind her words. And why not? She was a genius and it was about time the world knew it.

We ate at a little bistro where Charlotte ordered her favorite Austrian dish for me: a chicken breast that had been baked with a thick coin of pepperoni on top, its juices soaking into the chicken.

“Holy shit, this is amazing,” I said.

“What’s amazing is watching you eat and drink, and buy clothes and maneuver your way through a crowded city with such ease.” Tears choked Charlotte’s words. “I’m so proud of you, Noah. And so happy to see you like this…you have no idea.”

I reached across our small table and she put her hand in mine. I didn’t know what to say, except I love you, and those words were rapidly beginning to sound insufficient.
Marry you. I’m going to marry you, baby…

Out on the street, we strolled leisurely toward the Vienna Touring Orchestra’s hotel where Charlotte had been staying.

“Every shop has Mozartkugeln,” Charlotte told me, describing the little city as we walked. “And up ahead is the Geburtshaus. That’s where he was born.”

“What about another dress shop? Have you something to wear tonight?”

“I do in my hotel room,” she said, and gave my arm a squeeze. “And
underwear.
It’s all good and sexy to walk around
au naturale
for you right now, but I’m not going commando for tonight’s performance. Uh uh, no way.”

“Are you nervous?” I asked, because I sure as shit was. A pleasant buzz in my chest that she’d have a packed house waiting for
her.

“Not really,” she said. “Except now I know you’ll be there. But that makes it better, not worse. And you were always there, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, baby. Always.”

We stopped and I bent to kiss her. The wind carried a promise of winter in it that evening and I’d forgotten to put my sunglasses on after dinner. I felt a gust sweep of chill wind sting my eyes. My
open
eyes. I pulled away.

“Charlotte, am I kissing you with my eyes open?”

She made a perplexed sound. “Uh, I guess?”

“Do I do that a lot? Kiss you with my eyes open? Or when we…when we’re in bed together? And when we’re making love? When I lose myself…am I just staring at you? Or…?”

“Sometimes. It’s not a big deal.”

“Oh Christ, why didn’t you tell me? Why
don’t
you tell me?”

“I have
my
eyes closed. I don’t always notice, you know.”

“Well, check will you? God, isn’t that creepy? I can’t fucking tell if my own eyes are open or closed.”

“So what? That’s who you are. I would never tell you something like that. Ever.”

“I’m going to start wearing my sunglasses, twenty-four/seven.” I pulled them out of my jacket pocket and started to put them on.

Charlotte stopped me. “You are not. I love your eyes. I love looking at them, admiring them. I count the little gold flecks in them. Eight in your left eye. Six in your right.”

“Very mathematical,” I said, my ire melting under her touch, her words.

“I’m in love with your eyes. I’m in love with all of you, including your blindness, so I don’t care if you kiss me with your eyes open or closed so long as you kiss me.”

Oh damn, this woman. I kissed her and forgot to care about what my damn eyes were doing.

Charlotte broke away with little laugh. “God, Noah. I love you. Just…all of you. I love that you’re still a grouch and that you swear like a sailor…I love everything about you. And it’s not like anything I’ve ever felt. But it doesn’t scare me. I feel so safe.”

“You are safe, baby,” I said, pressing a kiss into her hair. “What I feel for you…it’s not going to go away. Ever. It’s in my bones. It’s in my damn
molecules
.”

She snuggled closer. “I missed you so much some nights, I could hardly eat or sleep. My heart ached. But I get it now, Noah. I really and truly do. And I’m so happy for you. And for me, and for us.”

Certainty and peace. She felt it now, and I smiled.

“Me too, baby,” I murmured against the soft silk of her hair. “Me too.”

Charlotte’s career blasted off after Salzburg. The music critic who’d heard her that first night wasn’t just the small-town columnist she’d made him out to be. He was Viktor Peltzer, a renowned former conductor, violinist, Mozart historian, and notoriously impossible crank. His review of Charlotte’s Concerto No. 5 was no less than a miracle, according to Sabina Gessler, who read it to me the first night I met her.

Conroy’s vibrato is resonant. Her musicality, vital and aggressive. Every note and nuance lands with tremendous impact. Her accenting, bowing, slurring, and swells are highly individualized; as if she were making these two hundred-year old, oft-played notes her own. Mozart himself likely never expected the violin soloist to play like Conroy, but I believe he would have been as enchanted by her as I was. It gives me great pleasure and—if I may—no small amount of pride, to be the first to experience this soloist and sing her praises, for I am quite certain that there will be a very loud, very vociferous chorus in the near future.

And there was. A chorus, not only of ecstatic reviewers, but a glut of invitations. The world’s biggest and most prestigious symphonies called on her to solo for them, and Sony Music wanted to record her, ASAP. She was immediately too big for the Vienna Touring Orchestra, and Sabina Gessler, being the professional that she was, let Charlotte go with class, and a recommendation for a reputable agent which Charlotte suddenly desperately needed. She would leave the VTO after a final, triumphant performance in Vienna, with happy tears and standing ovations that I know resounded louder for me than they did for her. Her focus was to be as true to the music as her heart and soul would allow. Mine was the pure joy that came with knowing her talent was no longer jailed by grief, but singing for the entire world to hear.

“The Philharmonie de Paris has a spot in their season next week and they’ve invited me to solo,” Charlotte told me in our Vienna hotel room on our last day. “You up for another trip? Or maybe you want to go back to New York…?”

Paris had hardly registered on my own solo journey. The city should have been easier for me, given that I spoke the language, but I’d lost it in the quagmire of apathy and depression. And Charlotte was excited about Paris. She’d fallen in love with the city on her tour, and beginning the next phase of her career there seemed like serendipity.

“Of course I’m up for it. Let’s go to Paris.”

“Are you sure?” I could feel her study me. “You still look so tired, Noah. If you need a break, we should take one.”

“I don’t need a break,” I assured her.
I need you to be happy.
And I sure as shit didn’t go through the hell of the last six weeks learning to function blind just so I could turn around and put the brakes on her career. Fuck that. Sleep when you’re dead, as the saying went. There’d be plenty of time to rest after Paris.

Her kiss was sweet and electric; full of optimism, and I had no regrets. But that night, after making love with her and falling languidly into sleep, I had another migraine---my fifth in two weeks, judging by the number of pills I had left in the bottle. It woke me with a jolt, glowing molten at the back of my skull. I sat in the bathroom holding my head, waiting for the Azapram to kick in while Charlotte slept, oblivious.