Turning to me, she put her arms around my neck and kissed me gently on the lips. “There’s a girl, Myra, who’s not much older than I am. She’s at my beck and call, and she takes care of anything I need.” She gave me a grin. “You’ll like Myra. All the men do. But only look, don’t touch, at least when I’m around.”
“I won’t have eyes for anyone but you,” I said.
“If you don’t notice Myra, and look more than once, I’ll have serious doubts about you,” she said, the grin growing larger. “If you look in the dictionary, her picture is right there next to the definition for eye candy. She’s an ex-model, and she’s really nice. Shall we go?”
We took the limo to the Kennedy Center, and went to the restaurant on the top floor. We were conducted to a table next to the window, with a view of the Potomac River. Georgetown, and beyond it Capitol Hill, could be seen in the distance.
I was a bit disappointed that we wouldn’t be dining alone. Her agent, Marcus Neuberger, and the afore-mentioned Myra Cromwell were waiting for us. Cecily hadn’t exaggerated. Myra was beautiful, tall and slender with large breasts and dark brown hair. Next to her, Cecily would fade into the background for most people.
As I held her chair for her to sit, Cecily murmured, “I told you so.”
I whispered back in her ear, “Does she sing arias when she climaxes? I’m kind of hooked on that.” Cecily giggled like a schoolgirl.
My seat in the theater was front-row center, with Myra sitting next to me. Every time I took a deep breath, I smelled her perfume. It wasn’t unpleasant. To my great surprise, on the other side of her was Donald Kerrigan, who nodded to me.
Cecily’s harp sat in the center of the stage, near the front, with a single straight-backed wooden chair and a low table with a glass of water next to it. A hand-held microphone also sat on the table.
The house lights dimmed, and a single spotlight found her at the left wing of the stage. She walked out, stood in front of the crowd and bowed. The applause seemed heavier than I would normally expect for an entrance. She picked up the microphone.
“Thank you for coming tonight,” she said. “It’s been a long time since I performed, almost three years. I’ve had some personal difficulties, but those are now past, and I’m sure they would bore you. I’m a little out of practice, so I hope that you’ll be gracious and forgive any bobbles I may make. But I promise, I am going to give you my heart tonight. I never thought I would stand on this stage again, and seeing all of you here makes me feel more wonderful than you can imagine.”
In the silence that followed, she took her seat. Lightly strumming her fingers over the strings, she picked up the microphone again.
“If you have taken a look at the program, and you’re puzzled that you don’t recognize any of the selections for harp, that’s because I will be performing all of these numbers for the first time. I’ve never played my own compositions in public before. I do hope you enjoy them.”
I looked at Myra. This was the first that I had heard of this. I didn’t know Cecily composed classical music. Myra leaned close and whispered, “She insisted. She has total artistic control. It was part of her contract, you know. If she wants to play nursery rhymes or the Beatles, or change the entire program at the last minute, it’s entirely up to her.”
“Have you heard any of these pieces?” I asked.
Myra looked nervous. “No one has. Literally no one. She wouldn’t allow anyone to hear her practice.”
The first piece started with two strings being plucked, over and over like a heartbeat. And then a trickle of sound from the highest register, like a waterfall of silver bells that made me think of her laughter. The sound grew, and grew, until it filled the chamber, and as I sat and listened, I realized that she was telling a story. The music grew to a frantic climax, and then softened into a languid interlude before picking up again and sparking images of running through a meadow on a bright sunny day. When the harp fell silent, she mouthed, ‘I love you.’
And then the hall erupted. Everyone was on their feet clapping, and calls of ‘bravo, bravo’ came from everywhere. Cecily rose, and bowed, and raising her voice, called, “Thank you! Thank you so much!”
When she sat back down and put her hands to the strings, the applause died down and she began her next number. She played four compositions. I was sure the third one told the story of Eddie’s death and her flight across the country. It was dark, and dismal, with an early loud, heavy crescendo that morphed into a fast, frantic movement, leading in turn to another dark climax. It didn’t repeat itself, but you could feel the progression. It was one of the most stirring and yet depressing things I’d ever heard.
The final number that followed evoked images of flying, a joyful paean to life and freedom. The contrast was so huge, that I felt as though I was floating out of my seat. The rest of the audience seemed to like it, too. The ovation when she finished, stepping away from the harp and bowing, was tremendous, going on and on for over five minutes. Other than stepping back on stage once to take another bow, she did not stay until the applause finished.
Myra clasped my arm. “I need something to drink,” she said. I nodded and escorted her out to the lobby.
“My God,” Myra exclaimed after we each got a glass of wine. “I knew she was talented, but that was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever heard. She plays the harp as though it was an extension of her soul.”
“I don’t know when she wrote those,” I said. “Until three weeks ago, she hadn’t touched a harp in almost three years.”
The violin portion of the program consisted of her standing alone on the stage in a spotlight, with the orchestra in the pit. She played two concertos, a complex piece by Brahms first, and finished with a sensuous concerto by Max Bruch. I knew both pieces and her renditions were not only flawless, but passionate and inspiring. Again, the applause was thunderous.
For her vocal performance, she pulled out the stops. Not playing it safe, for her finale she sang Casta Diva, or Pure Goddess in English, from the opera Norma by Bellini. It was an aria closely associated with Maria Callas, and also sung by Beverly Sills and Joan Sutherland. For a young singer to invite comparisons to those immortals was a daring gambit. I was sure every person in the audience must have a recording of the aria by one of those three. I did.
It brought down the house. Cecily walked to the front of the stage, tears running down her face and ruining her makeup. She bowed and waved and threw kisses to the audience, over and over again. Flowers rained down on her. I felt a tug at my elbow. Looking down, I found that a smiling Myra was trying to hand me a huge bouquet of roses. I took it and walked toward the stage.
Cecily bent down and I handed the flowers to her, along with a handkerchief. “You’re destroying your makeup,” I shouted over the din.
“I don’t care,” she shouted back.
~~~
Chapter 18
Cecily
I was sure I had played and sang better, but I knew I had never put so much passion into a performance. When the last note of Casta Diva died out, the room was totally silent. I dropped my chin to my chest, completely spent. The silence seemed to stretch, and I wondered if I had chanced too much.
And then an avalanche of sound rose up out of the audience and rolled over me. I looked up, and everyone was on their feet, clapping and stamping their feet and cheering, calling ‘bravo’ and ‘encore’, calling my name. An encore was out of the question. I felt like a used dishrag.
Walking to the front of the stage, I bowed and raised my hands in the air and bowed again. The applause increased. I had never given a performance where the audience was so loud. I looked down at Jake. He was clapping and had a huge smile on his face. I could barely hear him as he shouted, “Fantastic! You nailed it!”
I looked back out at the audience and a flower hit me in the shoulder. People were coming down the aisles, throwing flowers on the stage, and then someone placed a bouquet on the stage. Something tickled my cheek and w
hen I brushed at it with my wrist I saw a black stain. I realized that tears were running down my cheeks and my mascara was running.
Jake brought me a bouquet and I took it from him. He also handed me a handkerchief to wipe my eyes. I started to back up, in preparation for leaving the stage, but the ovation went on and on. The house lights came on, but the people continued to clap and cheer. Hardly anyone was reaching for their coat or looking like they wanted to leave.
Completely overcome, I fell to my knees and held my arms out to them. The clapping intensified again. Finally, Myra and Jake appeared beside me out of nowhere and helped me to my feet. They led me away, but just before I walked off stage, I turned and waived one last time.
Take that, Mommy dearest, I thought to myself.
Classical venues can’t survive on ticket sales alone. The balance of the money they need to operate comes from donations from wealthy benefactors. For that performance, the tickets ranged from a hundred to three hundred dollars. But the theater had less than three thousand seats. One of the things big donations give you is an invitation to an after party, where the privileged audience members meet with the cast and the stars. It was a solo show, so I wasn’t done yet.
Myra took me back to my dressing room and we fixed my makeup. Jake came in and hugged and kissed me, and then Myra helped me fix my makeup again.
Marcus handed me a glass of champagne when I arrived at the party. He looked really happy. I was hungry, so I hit the buffet and downed half a dozen toast points with caviar. I fed one to Jake, and he made an awful face.
“Don’t you like it?” I asked, laughing at him.
“Not at all,” he said, washing it down with champagne.
“That’s great. I can keep it in the fridge and know you won’t eat it,” I said, eating another.
I shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with a couple of dozen people, most of them old enough to be my grandparents. Several commented on the harp music, and several asked if the music was intended to tell a story. I said yes, it was about my personal journey the past three years.
As the crowd thinned out, I was chatting with Jake, Myra and Marcus when Jake asked, “What was the story you were telling with that first piece? I think I understood the others.”
I grinned and winked at him. “That was the first time we made love.”
Myra blushed, Jake turned beet red, and Marcus guffawed. “Are you going to explain that in the cover notes when you record it?” Marcus asked.
It was my turn to blush a little.
When we got back to our room that night, Jake asked, “When did you compose the harp music you played tonight?”
“When I was in jail. Oops, I mean protective custody. The first three, anyway. The last one I played I wrote this week. I don’t sleep very well when we’re not together.”
“You wrote it this week? How many times have you played it?” The look on Jake’s face was priceless.
“All the way through? Twice. Once yesterday and once tonight. Why?”
He just shook his head.
I laughed. “Jake, how would anyone know if I made a mistake? No one ever heard it before.”
We stayed in the room the next day until noon, eating a room service breakfast. I sent Jake down to the lobby, though, to get the morning papers. I didn’t know if there would be a review since the concert ended so late, but I was hopeful. He came back with the local paper plus the one from Baltimore.
I picked up the Washington Post, and searched for the entertainment section. The review was on page three with the headline ‘Buchanan Conquers Kennedy Center in Triumphant Return’. It was a glowing review, filled with praise such as ‘a tour de force on the Celtic harp’, ‘a virtuoso performance on violin’, and ‘challenging Callas, Sills and Sutherland, Miss Buchanan claimed a place among that exalted pantheon with her rendition of Casta Diva’.
“My God, Jake. I have an admirer,” I breathed.
Chuckling, he said, “He can look, but he can’t touch.”
Jake flew out the following day, and my little company moved up to New York, with a week until a performance at the Met. We had a Wednesday concert there, then a Saturday concert in Boston and one the following Friday in Toronto. Then it was on to Europe. I wouldn’t see Jake again until my final performance in Vienna.
Marcus and Myra lived in New York. She took me out to dinner the first night, then asked if I would like to go dancing. I had been too young to go clubbing when I toured before. Indeed, I was too young to go out drinking when I was in college in Baltimore. The only bar I had ever hung out in was the Roadhouse. So I said sure.
Myra was a man magnet, so I got to dance as much as I wanted. I was exhausted when we got back to the hotel at two o’clock in the morning. The next morning, I ate breakfast, set up the computer, and practiced while I waited for Jake to call. I was two hours ahead of him, an issue that would only get worse when I went to Europe.
When he called, I took off my clothes, purposely positioned the camera to aim at my chest, and answered.
“Hi Jake. I’m a mess. I miss you already.”
“Good morning to both of you,” he said, laughing. “May I speak to Cecily?”
I angled the screen up. “I thought you wanted to talk to me nude. Aw, no fair. You’ve got your clothes on.”
We chatted and he told me what was going on back in Colorado. I told him about going dancing the night before.
“Doing the whole nightclubbing celebrity thing, huh?” he said with a smile. “I’ll have to look in the scandal rags in the grocery store to see what you’re up to.”
“I don’t think any of the people in that club had a clue who I was. You saw the average age of the people at the concert in DC.” I hadn’t thought about how my going out might look to other people.
“Jake, you don’t mind if I go out, do you? I mean, you know I’m not looking to pick someone up.”
The way his face relaxed into the tender look that always made me melt gave me my answer.
“Of course not. Hell, I’m out at a bar every night. I’d feel guilty if I thought you weren’t having a good time because you were worried about me.”
The concert in New York felt better, to me at least. I was more comfortable, better rehearsed, and a lot more relaxed knowing that the harp section wasn’t going to make people get up and leave in droves. Even on a Wednesday night, we sold out, and again the reviews were fantastic.
Boston and Toronto went smooth as glass and as we flew over the Atlantic, I looked forward to spending a week in each of my favorite cities. There had to be some way to get Jake out of Colorado so that we could spend some time in Europe together. He said he’d never been there, and I longed to walk in Paris with him, to show him the English countryside, take a gondola ride in Venice—a romantic gondola ride. The only time I was in Venice, I watched a couple riding in a gondola, wrapped around each other, occasionally kissing, sometimes pointing things out to each other. I had wanted that with an aching a fourteen year old barely understood.
~~~
Chapter 19
Jake
When I got back to Greeley, I had some sleepless nights. I missed Cecily more than I could have ever imagined. I would wake up and reach for her, and sometimes panic before I was fully awake.
The fear was always the same, that a faceless someone had taken her away from me.
As happy as she was to see me in Washington, and as happy as she was to be performing again, the next night she thrashed and whimpered. I had become used to her nightmares, but after sleeping alone for a couple of weeks, it was jarring to see one of them seize her in the middle of the night. I held her close, and eventually she quieted. I thought the dreams might go away once she was through with the Feds, but obviously that wasn’t the case.
I never woke her when she was having her nightmares, but I wondered if that was the right thing to do. I wondered a lot of things. I did some web surfing with the new computer, and did a lot of reading about the drug gangs in Bal
timore. I also read about rape survivors.
Jeri dropped into the bar one night when business was slow.
“I haven’t seen this place so quiet in a while,” she said. I noticed the same thing. When Cecily wasn’t playing we saw a drop in traffic and revenue.
“My star attraction is entertaining elsewhere,” I said.
She gave me an appraising look. “Star attraction in more ways than one.”
“Yes, I miss her.”
“Is she doing okay?” There was something in the way Jeri asked that made me pay attention.
“She’s doing all right. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “I just wondered how she’s doing back out in the big bad world without Jake McGarrity there to protect her.”
“Why do you think she needs protecting?” I wasn’t sure what Cecily might have told Jeri, and I didn’t want to violate Cecily’s privacy.
“Come on, Jake,” Jeri said. “I may not be a psychologist like my sister, but I’m not stupid. She shows up here as a starving hitchhiker and then we discover that she’s a famous opera singer. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that something seriously screwed up happened to her. She isn’t an alcoholic or drug addict, so it had to be something else.”
Jeri took a long pull from her beer. “I’m probably stepping way over the line, but I’m guessing she was running from an abusive boyfriend. I looked her up on the internet, and she had a promising career. Then she completely dropped out of sight for two years, and the next time anyone sees her is when she walks into the Roadhouse. To me, that sounds like boyfriend problems. The kind of guy who locks a girl up and controls her.”
I looked at her, weighing what to say. Jeri’s older sister Connie was a psychologist and ran the Rape Crisis Center at the university in Fort Collins.
“Jeri,” I said, “her story isn’t something I feel comfortable sharing with people, but I won’t tell you that you’re wrong.”
She nodded. “Honey, I wouldn’t hurt her, or you, for anything. And you know I’m not one to gossip. Hell, there’s more damn gossip about me in this town than I can deal with sometimes. I hate it.”
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