The Lost Songs (16 page)

He said nothing.

They walked down the hall together. She glanced at him. His face had nothing on it and his eyes had nothing in them.

Although they had ordered Doria to be exactly on time, of course she had to wait. The waiting room had posters of colleges, leaflets with scholarship tips and a dedicated computer to search college websites and take virtual campus tours.

Following Pierce’s suggestion, she picked a really big school. The University of Texas.

Doria did not know what her conference was supposed to be about. Schools loved conferences. It could be anything. Now she thought, I could ask about graduating in May.

Could
she ask, when she had not even let her parents know it was on the table?

Was
it on the table?

The story featured on UT’s home page was “Geophysicists help Haiti prepare for the next big earthquake.”

Yes! thought Doria. I’ll be a geophysicist and help Haiti prepare for the next big earthquake!

“Doria Bell?” said a young woman. She was beautifully dressed. Very high heels. Excellent haircut. Probably sorry to be hidden away in a warren of tiny rooms and big files.

Doria, who tended to judge fast and harsh, did not think this woman would understand that Doria’s life plan had just changed and that she needed to become a geophysicist right away.

The counselor sashayed into a tiny office. Her back was to Doria as she said, “How are you today?” Not the tone quality of a person who cared how Doria was today.

The woman did not introduce herself, but sat behind her desk and gestured Doria into a chair. Her name had probably been on the messages, and Doria should probably have read that far. Oh, well.

The woman looked serious. She pursed her lips in a tight little smile and handed over a list of Doria’s outside activities.

How had she gotten all that information? And how was it the school’s business what Doria did on weekends?

“Doria,” said the counselor, “we’re worried that you’re overscheduled.”

What was the “over” part?

Doria was never late for her obligations. She never did poorly. She was outstanding in class. She was holding down a job as church organist and was a far better accompanist for concert choir than the adult Mr. Gregg had previously paid.

“It’s a lot,” said the counselor, tapping the paper as if it showed a series of flaws and failures.

A Southern girl would fill time by saying “Yes, ma’am,” whether she agreed with the counselor or not. But Doria hadn’t pulled off a Southernism with the professor, and the whole “ma’am” thing sounded like housemaids. So Doria stayed silent. She knew what the counselor was thinking now: Rude
little Yankee. Why did they all have to move down here anyway?

The counselor frowned. “Do you think you’re too busy?”

Doria frowned back.

“Just think about it,” said the counselor, nodding in a satisfied way.

Doria stood up. She had not said a word. Had the woman noticed? Would she jot on Doria’s folder: “Subject lacks verbal skills.”

Doria left the office and headed slowly to her last class. The bell rang, and in a moment the halls were flooded with kids, and she was buffeted by their speed and sound. Suddenly she knew why kids quit school. They just got too tired one day.

“Hey, Doria,” said Lutie, as they reached the chemistry classroom.

Doria found a smile.

“You’re upset,” said Lutie sharply, as if she had made other plans for Doria’s day.

Doria chose to reveal the least of her problems. “The guidance counselor says I’m overscheduled.”

Lutie giggled. “They never call in kids to say, ‘You’re underscheduled. You do nothing. You’re a loser.’ No, they call in the achievers. ‘You do too much. We’re worried! You might succeed!’ ”

Lutie told everybody in chemistry about Doria’s encounter with the counselor. Everyone thought it was a hoot. Doria basked in the attention. Keep it up, she thought. Don’t stop now.

But of course the teacher wanted to teach, and that was the end of Doria being the center of anything.

A few minutes before the final bell, the office called. “Doria, it’s for you,” said the teacher. “They want you to
hurry. Nothing’s wrong. Some church needs a substitute organist.”

The class roared. “A church organ emergency?”

“It’s probably a funeral,” Doria explained, embarrassed. “Funerals can’t be scheduled. Probably they couldn’t find an organist. Probably they’re desperate.”

“It’s a little thoughtless not to plan your funeral in advance,” said one of the boys.

“But good to know that Doria can come to the rescue.”

“Doria! Church organ hero!” Everyone laughed.

Doria was laughing too, and did not explain—because it was impossible—that she was already looking forward to playing an unfamiliar instrument. An organist cannot carry her instrument with her like a trumpet player. She has to work with whatever is in the church. No two organs are alike. Each sanctuary is different. Does it echo? Is it dead? Will the congregation belt out the hymns or just stand there?

The principal met her in the foyer. Sure enough, it was a funeral. “The minister will pick you up out front,” he said. “I’ll walk you out. I know him; I’m not sending you off with a stranger.”

The final bell rang. A thousand kids poured out, paying no attention to anything in their path. Doria and the principal barely made it outside.

“Over here!” The man waving wore a clerical collar, unusual in this part of the world. Pale red hair, freckles, looked twelve years old. “Dane Haverford,” the minister introduced himself. “You come highly recommended, Miss Doria.”

“What happened to the regular organist?” she asked, expecting to hear that the regular organist couldn’t leave work or had the flu.

“A horrible accident!” cried the minister.

Kids turned, wondering if they knew the person who had been in a horrible accident, and just how horrible it had been.

“The poor man was opening a tin can,” said Dean Haverford, “and the lid slipped and he sliced his palm right down to the bone. He’s at the hospital right now with surgeons trying to reattach the tendons.”

Everybody flinched. Except one. Train mimed a slice through his own palm, let his hand and wrist dangle uselessly, and then laughed.

Lutie Painter was horrified.

Train had been handed a new idea. One quick slice and he could cripple somebody. An organist, a football player, a chef—well, anybody, when you thought about it—needed both hands.

Train grabbed the hand of some poor kid standing near him, and played Slice the Tendons. The kid tried to laugh. Train’s friends did laugh.

Train might do it, too. Think what he had done to poor Nate. Well, sure, he claimed that he’d only cut the wire and that DeRade had cut the boy, but did anybody believe that? DeRade had had his brother in tow. Train would have been only steps away. And Train certainly had done nothing to prevent it, or he’d have barbed wire scars too.

DeRade had given himself a big gaping wound in his right palm. He’d been proud of it. Showed it to people. Didn’t want a doctor. Didn’t want stitches. Left the wound open.

What with the hole in his own fence and the hole in his own hand and the threats he’d made toward Nate to start with, the police didn’t have to work all that hard to find the perpetrator. First thing they did was take DeRade to the ER
for a tetanus shot, and after he started bragging about how Nate had learned a lesson now, DeRade was history. He went to prison grinning.

Doria Bell got into the car with the little-boy minister and drove away.

Train turned and caught Lutie’s expression of contempt before she could wipe it off.

But maybe that’s a good thing, thought Lutie.

He needed to know that he was despised.

The organ in Dane Haverford’s church was in a pit, so the organist could see what was happening out in the church only by looking in mirrors. Doria edged down three tiny steps and maneuvered herself onto the organ bench. She opened her Mendelssohn.

Nobody would actually listen. People had important things to think about, like the dead person, and his life. Their own future deaths, and their lives.

What they wanted from Doria was filler. Something soothing and harmonious.

Bach could be grim and dark and intellectual. With Bach, you had to choose carefully. But Mendelssohn was always just right.

“We expect several hundred people,” said Reverend Haverford.

How wonderful. Doria loved an audience.

She checked the rows of organ stops, chose an eight-foot flute and a four-foot flute for her right hand, a krummhorn for her left, what she hoped was a soft pedal stop (although she wouldn’t know until she heard it), and a sixteen-foot diapason, and began playing the Mendelssohn G-major prelude, with its comforting lilt.

“Perfect,” whispered Dane Haverford.

But it was not Mendelssohn she found herself playing. Chords formed, soft and round, rolling and repeating.
Mama, you sleep
. She moved from one key to another, changing manuals and stops. She segued into “Ain’t Got No Sword,” making it sad and slow, and wrapped up with “Take Me Home, Lord.”

Afterward, the family came up to thank her for the beautiful music. What were the hymns? they asked.

“Um. Mendelssohn arrangements,” said Doria.

When the funeral was over and Doria and Reverend Haverford left the church, the air had changed. The day was almost chilly. It smelled and tasted of fall. There was no hint of summer left in the brisk wind.

She had him drop her off in town. At the bank she cashed her check and smiled at the crisp bills. Who didn’t love money? You felt as if you could go anywhere, do anything.

The weather said that Thanksgiving was coming, and frost, and that the time for jackets was here. Doria felt energized. She even felt athletic, as if she could have tried out for any varsity team and done well. But enough of all that fresh air. She let herself into First Methodist to practice.

Fridays were not a busy day at the church. Meetings were not held. Classes were not taught. The secretary and the minister had gone home.

She practiced a huge Bach prelude in C. It opened with a short pedal solo that required a leap of two octaves. She didn’t look down at her feet, but got the right notes by memorizing the distance her knee and foot had to travel, putting the toe of her shiny organ shoe against the adjacent black note, and then pressing down on the correct white note.

She would never play this at St. Bartholomew’s. They liked short little flutey things and quick sprightly trumpet things.

It was the most difficult piece Mr. Bates had given her. She worked and worked, while outside it grew dark and inside it was darker.

Her cell phone rang but she couldn’t hear it. She had set it on top of the organ and saw the blinking red light. “Hi, Mom,” she answered.

“Doria, honey, where are you?”

“Practicing.”

“Doria! It’s seven-thirty!”

“Oh. Sorry. Do you want to come get me?”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” said her mother, although it would take her ten.

Doria turned off the organ and rolled down the wooden lid. She slid off the bench, unlaced the black ribbons of her patent leather organ shoes, dropped them into their velvet shoe bag, slid her music into the ugly yellow plastic case and left the sanctuary.

Outside, it was very dark. The black asphalt of the parking lot reflected no light. The nearest streetlamp was far off.

The air was so crisp Doria felt as if she could see through the universe. She remembered what Mr. Amberson had said to Lutie’s class, about stars and harmony. She stared up at the first handful of winking stars and thought of Mabel Painter, child of God.

Out on Hill Street, a car slammed on its brakes. Then it honked and turned hard into the church lot. It didn’t slow down. Doria was caught in the headlights, frozen as a deer.

Her mother would never drive like that. She couldn’t have gotten here that fast either. Doria made a fist around her key chain, so that an inch of shiny metal stuck out from between her knuckles.

The car braked hard and lurched to a stop. The window
came down. “Doria Bell,” yelled Mr. Gregg. “What are you doing here, alone at night?”