Little Disquietude

Little Disquietude

C.E. Case

* * *

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales
or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2011 C. E. Case

Smashwords Edition

Supposed Crimes LLC

Falls Church, Virginia

* * *

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author.

Leah went to Adam's apartment because he had
a piano and because he had invited her. He had invited her because
she had what he wanted--the high cheekbones and gaunt figure and a
smoky alto voice that let her land semi-leading roles as mysterious
femme fatales Off-Broadway, even though it never got her anything
in
Beauty and the Beast
.

Especially not since she'd turned thirty.

At the apartment, all he had was the piano. A
full grand sat magnificently in the center of the room. A twin
mattress lay in the dining nook. Leah settled herself in the lawn
chair and waited for Adam's cat to leap into her lap, but Adam took
her hand and pulled her to her feet. He thrust sheet music at her.
He peered intently, as if he'd never seen her dark brown eyes and
her limp, lighter brown hair pulled back in quite that way before.
He tsked while examining the faint laugh lines that creased her
pale skin around her eyes.

Like he was some prize, a barely-twenties
choirboy with a shiny, bald head and a quintessentially angelic,
narrow face that said, "I am a young, black, gay composer. Envy my
beauty and talent."

He was some prize.

Despite the career-stalling tragedy of Leah
turning thirty, he still considered her his favorite muse. He
insisted he would compose the musical that would win her a Tony.
She always thought that would happen in her fifties, when she
outgrew her gangly stage and became the next Patti LuPone. But
maybe, considering his scrutiny and the unnaturally crazed look in
his eyes, a star would be born right now.

"Sing this," he said.

"What is it?" she asked, annoyed he'd made
her stand up but already reading the notes, licking her lips and
humming along, trying to find the tempo.

"You'll know when you sing it."

"Adam."

He promised her lunch in exchange for her
voice and since Care Bears in the Park ended last week and she was
out of work she couldn't quite turn down turning tricks for
food.

"We'll go someplace with waiters," he
said.

She glanced at the lawn chair, now occupied
by cat, and did her breathing exercises, ignoring the delight in
his eyes as her diaphragm tightened. He began to play the piano and
she watched him, letting the melody, a bit haunting but with a
little flourish in the upper register, seep into her. When he
nodded, she sang. She missed the timing on the first note. Then it
was a scramble to get each word out on each beat, without knowing
the words or the beats. He urged her on, his notes carrying her
upward, until she found the song.

Or the song found her.

"Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers of
sculptured ivy and stone flowers... Up many and many a marvelous
shrine..." The words were archaic to the point of tacky. They
stumbled out of her mouth to fill the apartment. Adam smiled. "The
viol, the violet, and the vine," she sang to him.

Despite the corniness, so far from Adam's
usual soulful, light compositions, the imagery evoked was immediate
and tangible. She could feel the light and the turned earth of a
garden around her. And something more elusive that she wanted to
discover.

She reached the end of her sheet and Adam
stopped playing. "Not bad."

"What is this?"

"I've only sung it for myself. A woman
singing this instead of a man--yes, I think that works better." He
hadn't really answered her question, but he prompted another
one.

"I'm the first person to sing it?"

"Yes."

"Adam, tell me."

"You like it enough to want to know?"

She loved it. She traced the names of the
flowers with her thumb and turned the sheet music sideways. And
then, with a sinking sadness, realized, "You didn't write
this."

"No."

"But it's lovely."

He smiled. "Edgar Allen Poe did. I'm setting
his poetry to music."

Dark, gothic images came to her from school
English classes and movies she'd seen. She considered them, and
then asked, "Like 'The Raven'?"

"Yes."

"Like, a concept album?"

"Yeah, maybe." He folded his arms and leaned
on the piano.

"Adam," she said. "I want to sing them. All
the songs."

He smiled, closed his eyes, and looked for a
moment like a bashful little boy. "Let's talk about it over
lunch."

Three Years Later

Adam's phone call woke Leah up well before
noon. "Meet me at Zarth's."

"Garth's?" Leah, eyes still closed, sprawled
on her back with the phone somewhat near her ear, tried to remember
the Garths she knew. Garth Brooks? He didn't live in New York City.
Unless he’d moved recently and she'd just forgotten to read the
right tabloid. Who was he seeing? Was he--

"Zarth's," Adam said impatiently, stressing
the Z, bringing to her mind the tiny, indistinctly European
restaurant that required reservations weeks in advance, even for
lunch.

"Now?" She rubbed her eyes. Her bedroom came
into view. Theater posters, wood paneling, and boring cotton
sheets. She'd bought the second floor one bedroom condo six years
ago, earning the down payment via a series of six corporate
training videos where she played a clumsy secretary. She loved her
bedroom. But it was not Zarth's material, and neither was she.

"Tonight at eight. Wear something fabulous,"
he said.

"So you can drool at me? How does that work?"
Leah imagined reading in
Time Out
: Unknown stage actress and
freelance songwriter caught in tryst at a restaurant they couldn't
afford. Maybe she was still dreaming. She was too sleepy to pinch
herself.

"Because they have a dress code," he
said.

"Oh."

"See you then."

"Wait--"

The phone clicked off. She listened to the
silence until her bladder, her hunger, and her hangover told her
she wasn't going to fall back asleep. The phone's clock read 11:06.
She had nine hours to figure out what Adam meant by fabulous. Maybe
she should buy a new dress. A dress would cost less than a meal at
Zarth's and she knew Adam, who lived in an efficiency basement with
a piano and lawn furniture in the Lower East Side, would only be
paying if it were worthy.

New dress worthy.

She did have that thing she wore to the
Off-Off-Broadway benefit luncheon last month, but Adam had been
there. He would complain. Nothing like trying to dress to please a
gay composer.

* * *

"What?" Leah asked over the amuse bouche.

Adam obnoxiously crunched what she'd
tentatively identified as squid. She ate her own with more grace.
Zarth's décor seemed too kitschy for the elegant, expensive food.
She stared at a caricature of Ronald Reagan on the far wall, to
keep from staring at the red and white checkered table. No
tablecloth. Just squid.

"Why are you wearing a suit?” he asked.
"Didn't we discuss a dress?"

"I looked at my bank account." The black suit
she wore was ill-fitting. To match it, she'd pinned up her dyed
driftwood-blonde hair back. She had been hoping for a severe
corporate shark style. Adam, though, was mismatched. He wore a
sports coat and a dress shirt with the top three buttons
unbuttoned. He actually looked stylish.

"And you traded up?"

"And I couldn't afford a new dress. Even for
you."

He pouted and examined his fingernails.

"So, this." She gestured at herself.

"Is that your interview suit, Leah?"

"Yes."

"How long have you had it?"

"My father brought it for me."

"Of course."

She kicked him under the table.

He grinned. "Well this is an interview, so I
suppose it's fashion-appropriate."

She put down her napkin.

The waiter appeared. "Drinks, ladies?"

Adam giggled. Leah kicked him again.

"Champagne," Adam said.

Leah shrugged when the waiter looked in her
direction, so he left. Adam's drink order didn't necessarily mean
anything; the man loved champagne. She leaned across the table.
"Adam, please don't tell me you got a television deal and you're
abandoning me for Los Angeles."

"No, but close."

Her stomach sank.

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her
knuckles. "North Carolina."

"What's in North Carolina? Are you writing
the sequel to
Shag
?"

"That was South Carolina, darling, and no."
He squirmed giddily in his seat and said, "They're producing
Poe
."

"What?"

"They're producing
Poe
. Our baby,
Leah. At the Durham Playhouse. We're the token premiering musical
and the token modern piece, between
South Pacific, Macbeth
,
and
Side Show
.

"
Side Show
? Really?"

"No, darling Leah. You cannot be in
Side
Show
."

"Because that would require me going to North
Carolina. I don't even know where that is, Adam. Is that near
Virginia? Or like, down by Alabama?"

She'd wanted
Poe
ever since singing
the first song in his apartment with just him and the piano and no
furniture and no food. He'd let her read the drafts of scripts and
short stories and record two songs on the demo that went nowhere,
and made her read biographies of everyone in Edgar Allen Poe's life
until she'd wanted to live in his world.

Adam released her hand. "Darling, you're not
going to be in
Side Show
because you're my leading lady for
Poe
."

"Me?"

"You."

Ronald Reagan's eyes followed her as she
studied the far wall, trying to process. She hadn't realized that
his world was out-of-state. He was asking her to pay up for the
dream he'd given her and it seemed, as her hopes of the drafty
Hilton or the intimate Roundabout burned in her mind, completely
unfair to go away from New York. She wanted to beg him to hold out.
She wanted to tell him that his dreams should not become such a
small reality. That she liked the story better when it was just a
story.

Adam just frowned at her.

Leah shrugged.

"Champagne?" The waiter asked, appearing with
a bottle and two glasses. He uncorked the bottle and Adam demurred
to let Leah taste. The bubbles fizzed up her nose. She coughed. The
waiter remained impassive. Adam smiled. She took another little
sip, and let the dry tingling invade her tongue.

To the waiter she said, "Whatever he's paying
for this, it's not enough."

"Perhaps you would like a case," the waiter
said.

Leah grinned and glanced at Adam.

"I can't take you anywhere," he said.

When the waiter was gone, Leah leaned
forward. "Adam, don't I have to audition?"

"No."

The word thrilled her. She was chosen. She
took another sip of champagne and let the alcohol fall into where
the joy pooled in her stomach. "North Carolina?"

"Leah."

"I can't. I can't leave. I have a schedule,
and commitments."

"You're an actress."

Her commitments were fleeting. She had a two
week gig to dub secondary voices for an anime series--36
episodes--and after
Care Bears
, she'd finished a three day
Off-Broadway play where she sang in the chorus. She had two
readings lined up next month, one workshop, and in April she would
be doing backup singing for a friend of Adam's first album at an
independent label in the Bronx.

She sighed. "I have readings, Adam. They
might turn into something."

"You had this reading. It turned into
something."

She studied her fingers curled around the
champagne glass.
Poe
had been a crazy idea, a public reading
that no one attended at a non-profit theater in New Jersey. Poems
set to music hadn't been that crazy an idea, but Adam's
orchestrations were wild--Electric guitar to mimic gothic melody,
and then moments of light that made her cry when she sang for
him.