Happy Any Day Now (22 page)

In the ensuing silence, pierced only by a single echoing sob, I returned to my place next to Geoff.

“Well done,” he whispered as I slipped into my seat. “Richard would be . . . what’s the word . . . kvelling. Ah, look at you.” He pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed tears from my cheek. “I’ll bet there’s not a dry eye in the house.”
His
eyes were glistening.

Limp with relief, back in the real world, I still needed reassurance. I whispered, “Was it too schmaltzy? Passion can edge into schmaltz.”

“It was perfect.”

“I didn’t know I was crying up there.”

“That’s what happens when you’re lost in the music.”

After the prayer for the dead and the final amen, Geoff was called as a pallbearer to hoist the coffin with its shell of a cargo down the aisle and out the door. Sundergard and Chumsky were honorary pallbearers taking up the rear, and when the procession had passed, the rest of us peeled from our rows to converge in a single stream flowing toward the exit.

Somehow I wound up shoulder to shoulder with Zigmund Manheim and we picked up Eloise on our slow shuffle. “We’re going to miss him,” he said. “One in a million. By the way, you played superbly.” That meant a lot to me coming from a musician of his caliber.

Eloise bit her lip and said nothing. She seemed to be waiting for Ziggy to move out of earshot. Honestly, with all the residual energy from the
Thaïs
, if she gave me a raft of critical crap, I wasn’t sure I could restrain myself from reaching over, grabbing her bow hand, and squeezing her fingers into long-term disability. Except that among them was the one that had been playing dig to China with her nose. Ugh.

And then, with Ziggy taking a detour to catch up to Landau, it was just us two surrounded by a crowd of chatter. Eloise turned to me and I got a close look at what the years had wrought. Time was a real bastard—it brought you to your knees and then you needed to replace them. We were the same age, she and I, but she’d already had a rotator cuff repair and treatment for thoracic outlet syndrome, classic cellist’s injuries, as well as some complicated ophthalmic surgery, according to the chapter in her bio titled “Falling Apart.” No wonder she had dark circles under her eyes. Once, those hollow cheeks had been plump and dimpled. No more. Could you lose dimples?

This wasn’t the pretty face that Charlie had looked into as they thrashed about in the Wendell Street bed. Well, I’d had him first, and I might have him last. And even when she’d had him—if he’d told the truth up in Maine—he’d been pining away for me. For the length of an eighth note, I felt sorry for her.

Her voice, when it finally emerged, was unexpectedly muted and barely abrasive so I had to crane to hear her. “He was right, Ziggy Manheim. The ‘Meditation’ seems easy, but it’s deceptive. I always rush the passionate spots. Your pacing was faultless. In fact, the entire piece was well done. Very well done.”

I was waiting for “You’ve come a long way, Judith” or some other snide tag. But no, that was it.
Finis.
After more than two decades of fuming over her laudatory reviews, switching channels when she was on PBS, and taking unwanted vacations to duck her when she played with the Maryland Philharmonic, my obsession with Eloise Flint
ended right there with a whimper, not a bang.

So what did you say when you got thrown a compliment from a longtime nemesis? I responded with a simple “Thanks,” astounded once more by the gifts life handed you if you lived long enough.

At the lobby doors, under the tablet crown that proclaimed “Teach Us to Number Our Days That We May Apply Our Hearts unto Wisdom,” Eloise Flint and I parted ways.

“S
uch sweet satisfaction.”

I didn’t know whether Marti McDowell was referring to my Eloise story or to the mocha rum brownie she was chewing, but the woman was in full-out ecstasy.

It was the following Thursday and we were spending the afternoon at the Belvedere’s caterers for a tasting session of the food planned for my birthday party. We’d worked our way through the hors d’oeuvres and were into desserts, heavy on the chocolate. All that caffeine had tuned Marti’s sarcasm to a twanging pitch.

“I, for one, am delighted you and Eloise played nice at Richard’s funeral. Very mature of you both. Of course, it helped that she buttered you up like a baguette about your performance and that Charlie Pruitt said she was the worst kind of skank going after him lo those many years ago and so defused your jealousy.” Marti licked her fingers delicately.

I gave her an offended glare. “I was never jealous, just ticked off. It was a vile thing she did, going after a dormmate’s ex. And ‘skank,’ by the way, is not a word Charlie would ever use.”

“Yeah, well, shut my lower-class mouth because The Judge is presiding. Speaking of whom, you haven’t been making puss-in-heat noises about him for a while. Has the sizzling romance cooled? I thought by now you’d at least be pinned. Sig Chi, of course.” She gave me a snarky smile. “So the final Jeopardy question is: Where’s Charlie?”

I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of admitting I was a little miffed at what I interpreted as his neglect. I’d phoned the afternoon of the funeral to tell him about the service and Richard’s gift of the Goffriller and ended up mortifying myself by sobbing and babbling into his voice mail. Out of control was not the best approach with Charlie, but I’d been keeping the grief tamped down so far and just lost it.

There had been no answer from him that night, but the next one, as I was about to sit down to a solitary dinner, my doorbell had rung. I’d opened it to find a delivery person just about hidden by a suffocatingly enormous bouquet of yellow roses and purple irises.

“He’s flower fixated.” Marti dabbed crumbs from her lips. “It’s the easy way out, you know, to say it with flowers. You tell your administrative assistant to write something appropriate on a card and you don’t have to deal with all that messy back-and-forth that we call communication. So what did his AA have to say?”

I’d memorized the card. “‘Ju-ju. Forgive not calling. Swamped here. Major case exploding. Sorry about Richard. What is Goffriller? We need to talk. See you soon. All best, Charlie.’”

“
All best
. Well, if that isn’t ‘as dictated to.’ Okay, soon is when?”

“Tomorrow night.
Need
to talk.” I gobbled the mini cannoli in my right hand followed by the mini éclair in my left. “I hate that. Waiting for the shoe to drop.”

“Hmm. Could be he’s ready to go exclusive and invite you to move into that house in Georgetown he’s considering buying.” She licked a dribble of chocolate from her finger with her gossip’s tongue.

I’d made the mistake of sharing Charlie’s e-mail with her, the one asking me to take a look at the listing of a $4.2 million house with a conservatory and an indoor lap pool because I might live there someday. About as likely as my relocating to Mars, but Marti, being a writer and a drama queen to boot, always put the most sensational spin on any story.

“That’s just Charlie doing his pie-in-the-sky, toe-in-the-water routine,” I said. “I pay no attention. Besides, I’m nervous about the prospect of sharing the beltway with him, let alone a house. Don’t even want to think about it.”

“Really? Why? You want to try Charlie out for another twenty-five years? Most women would snap up this guy faster than Coach on clearance. This is a long-lost love returned, the dumpee’s triumph, the stuff that Jennifer Aniston films are made of. So let’s have a happy ending, please. And don’t tell me you haven’t thought about Charlie long term.”

“Honestly, Marti, the performance anxiety and then having to play at Richard’s funeral used up all of my obsessing time.” I shuddered at the memory. “I was really on the tipping edge of crazy.”

“Well, that’s finished, right? The stage fright?”

“Don’t I wish. I was back to my normal, such as it is, at Richard’s funeral, but those were special circumstances. His vote of confidence with the Goffriller was still fresh. Sarah Tarkoff broke the news only ten minutes before I went up there. I was in a kind of shock that overrode the nerves, I guess.”

“And now you’ve had time to work yourself up again.”

“Auditions are stressful under any circumstances. And this one is a nightmare. I feel my whole life depends on how I do up there. My future is hanging in the balance. I could have another panic attack in front of the judge’s panel. I could sit there like a frozen lump.” My fingers were tingling just talking about it.

“Or you could sail through the nerves and knock ’em dead,” Marti retorted. “Of course, after that you’ll seamlessly cruise into whatever neurosis is next in line. Personally, I hope it’s sexier than wanting to throw up into your cello. My prediction is something in the love department. I’m not saying now, mind you, but maybe down the line a piece, the judge will show up with something pear-shaped in five carats. And then—” She spun her voice into a sugary soprano and began to sing, “Sadie, Sadie, married lady . . .”

Even attached to Charlie, the M-word made me wince. It wasn’t as if that particular state of the union had a brilliant success rate in my nuclear family, what with my mother and Irwin’s ill-fated fiasco and my short, strange marriage to Rebound Todd.

Ending her song on a high note, Marti chirped, “How did that sound?”

“Off-key,” I responded. “And from the quality of Charlie’s attention, highly unlikely.”

“His flowers starting to wilt?” Marti asked, archly.

“Holding up so far,” I said.

“And you?”

“Ask me after this weekend.”

• • •

My mother, had she been around, would have helped me sort things out. Pre Irwin’s return, she’d been a reliable source of relationship wisdom. She dosed me with semi-Buddhist stuff about acceptance and patience, and with a calming cup of tea it usually set me on the right path.

On the other hand, she’d been a living example to me of what was in store for women who put all their eggs in one man’s basket.

Amazing that despite her experience with Irwin, she never bad-mouthed him in particular or the gender in general. Even when her pain was fresh and she wasn’t allowing him to wriggle his vermicular self back into our lives, she didn’t say a word against him.

In my adolescence, when I cursed him with Bed-Stuy-groomed eloquence, she’d say, “Wash nasty mouth, Judith. Your father have reasons I don’t know. Know only, you can’t argue heart.”

After I’d left Todd, she’d said, “Sure from start that marriage never last. You try to forget Charlie so pick up Todd. You can’t argue heart, Judith.”

I suppose her Can’t Argue Heart theory proved out when Irwin made his encore appearance. This week, the two lovebirds were off on a gamblers’ trek up the East Coast. They’d packed up the Jaguar (I’d begged her to rent something closer to a tank after I’d found out he’d memorized the eye chart to get his Arizona license) and stopped first in Atlantic City for a warm-up—at the craps table for him, baccarat for my mother. Next on to Foxwoods in Connecticut for an Elvis impersonator festival. Last stop was New York for the Belmont Stakes, third jewel in horseracing’s Triple Crown. They’d be back in B’more Monday night.

Geoff was also mostly off my radar. We were onstage together that week with no solos for me. We mouthed hi from a distance, chatted briefly a few times about the upcoming audition, but that was all. He felt we’d pretty much perfected the selections and he didn’t want to move me from sublime to stale. Practice on my own for a few hours a day would be more than enough to keep me in top form.

We wouldn’t see each other at all the following week. Neither of us was on the roster for the all-Mozart program. Wolfie composed for the limited number of instruments available in the 1700s and that’s the way our philharmonic played him: with a reduced orchestra.

So the coaching sessions were finished, the Phil’s season was almost over, and Geoff was taking the summer off. Which meant for two months we could steer clear of each other. By next fall, whatever we’d had beyond “hi” would be past tense. I’d be good with that, I told myself. I harbored no deep-seated need for someone who’d follow a ski whim to Colorado or take off last minute for a balloon ride over the Napa Valley. This was a man who only flirted with commitment, though he seemed to have perfected an annoying version of flirting with Deena, the blond goddess of the harp. Maybe she was the instigator, but he wasn’t fighting her off. Admittedly, that smarted. And that wasn’t me being jealous. Just me being my natural competitive self. No Geoff, no problem.

• • •

And then, a blip on the radar. At Friday evening’s intermission, I wandered into the musicians’ poker game to ask him a question about a tricky bit in one of the pieces we’d been working on one-on-one. He waved off my approach, eyes on the cards, mouth set to grim.

No big mystery what was pissing him off. He’d spotted Charlie Pruitt out front in the first half. Seated row D center, silver hair shining like a beacon, yellow bow tie flashing “caution” in the houselights, Charlie was hard to miss.

I never did get to ask my audition question because the second half ran late and then I had to rush to meet The Barrister at the artists’ exit.

I did see Geoff later, though.
We
did. Charlie and I.