by Ann Cristy
MYSTIQUE - ANN CRISTY
CHAPTER ONE
Misty Carver, known professionally as Mystique, enjoyed playing the piano in the Edwardian Room of Manhattan's Terrace Hotel, but she didn't like playing for private parties there, especially during the Christmas season. In the eight months since she'd begun working at the posh midtown hotel, she had discovered that private audiences tended to be more boisterous and undisciplined than regular guests. Tonight was the third party she had played for that week, and she was exhausted.
During her break, Willis, the maitre d', told her, "The Manhattan Stuyvesant Bank always holds its employee Christmas party here. One of the directors of the bank is part owner of the hotel."
"Really?" Misty asked with mild interest, rising from the piano bench.
Willis placed a hand on her arm to stop her and spoke in a hushed voice. "Well, what do you know? The man himself is here."
Flexing her tired hands and arching her aching back, Misty followed Willis's gaze around the richly decorated room hung with maroon velvet draperies and bordered with oak wainscoting. "Who?"
"Lucas Stuyvesant Harrison, director of the Manhattan Stuyvesant Bank and part owner of this hotel... and half of the real estate on this island," Willis added under his breath.
"By island, do you mean Manhattan?" Misty asked. Willis nodded, and they followed Luc Harrison's tall, elegantly dressed figure as he threaded his way past tables clustered around the small dance floor. Pausing in the doorway, Misty watched the striking man stride into the opulent lobby.
As Willis turned to a newly arrived couple and asked to see their invitations, Misty took a deep breath and proceeded down the wide corridor past the powder room to the Elm Bar, where she often had a drink between sets. She had just reached the bar when a rich baritone voice coming from behind her sent a shiver up her spine. "Mystique?"
She fixed a smile on her face and turned. "I'm sorry, I'm in rather a hurry. I'm..." Her voice trailed off as her eyes traveled up Luc Harrison's tall, masculine form and encountered a pair of deep brown eyes.
"I know. You're taking a break. I've been waiting for a chance to speak with you. I'm Luc Harrison, and I wondered if you would join me at my table for a drink."
His hair was ash blond, almost silver. The short, tousled locks fell with a casual artistry that could have been achieved only by a master barber. His tuxedo was of dark brown silk. The pleats of his cream silk shirt had been sewn with matching brown thread. His eyes roved over her, lazy, calm, self-assured.
Anger rose unbidden in her at his slow perusal. Luc Harrison oozed arrogant male confidence. Obviously few women ever turned him down. But Misty had promised herself seven months ago never to let herself be a shadow in any man's life. No more giving herself away to greedy takers. She was her own woman now, and she liked it that way.
"Sorry. I'm on my way to the ladies' room." She flashed her most professional smile, whirled away, and strode back down the hall, nodding to staff members who greeted her and listening with half an ear to the hum of conversation coming from the nearby Terrace Restaurant.
Misty used the bathroom, washed her hands, and began to repair her makeup in front of the wide mirror. She paused after glossing her lips and stared at herself. "My, my, wasn't Mr. Harrison impressive?" she asked her mirror image, noting casually that her long red-gold hair was properly tousled and that the skintight green satin dress clung to every curve.
She never needed to wear heavy clothing when she was working. Energy and excitement bubbled through her, warming her, allowing her to lose herself in the music and forget for a time the emptiness of her life. There was no way she'd take on a man like him again, Misty told herself silently. She'd had enough of them. She was just beginning to climb out of the pit. She glanced up as another woman entered the powder room.
The woman flicked her a nervous smile. "You're Mystique, aren't you?" Misty nodded and smiled. "You play so well."
"Thank you." Misty smiled again, pleased by the compliment. It gave her a lift to know that her music, which meant so much to her, also gave enjoyment to other people. Music was her lifeline, the one thing that could chase away the shadows.
Misty left the powder room and headed back toward the Elm Bar. Suddenly she felt a hand cup her elbow. She stiffened and turned, her eyes widening at the sight of Luc Harrison. His eyes pinned her sharply. A muscle tightened in his jaw. "Mr. Harrison, if you'll excuse me," she said coolly. "I only have a few minutes."
"Of course." He released her, but his voice and eyes remained cold.
She entered the Elm Bar and went at once to a stool at the very end of the bar next to the pickup station for the cocktail waitresses. "Hi, Steve."
"Hello, Mystique. The usual?" When she nodded, Steve plunked down in front of her an icy cold glass of mineral water and lime juice.
"I'll have an Irish whisky on the rocks," said a deep voice behind her.
Without acknowledging Luc Harrison's presence, she sipped her drink and watched his silk-covered arm lift the glass of dark liquid and glistening ice. All at once, without reason, she felt a frisson of panic—as though someone had brandished a weapon under her nose. She shivered.
"Cold, darling?" The soft query shot through her, stiffening her spine.
She set the glass down on the bar, making sure it was dead center on the cocktail napkin, and swung off the stool to her feet.
"Stay. You haven't finished your drink," Luc Harrison said.
"I've had enough."
The muscle in his jaw jumped again. His mouth tightened into a thin, hard line. "As you wish."
A shudder ran through her as she wended her way past small tables crowded with people, many of whom recognized and spoke to her. Moments later, she was back at her piano in the Edwardian Room.
For the rest of the evening; as the staff of the Manhattan Stuyvesant Bank danced, drank, and laughed, Misty played the piano like an automaton, aware the whole time of Luc Harrison's cool dark eyes riveted on her.
The party began to break up at three in the morning. As Misty watched a man stagger out to the lobby, Willis leaned toward her and said, "The big boss has arranged for all his people to be sent home in taxis."
"That's a blessing." Misty tried to smile, but her face felt stiff with tension and fatigue. At least Luc Harrison hadn't made any attempt to approach her again.
Once the crowd had dispersed, she shot a quick glance around the room. Luc was gone. Relief... and disappointment ... flooded through her.
Soon she was stepping out into the chill December night and inhaling the clear, frosty air. The doorman waved down a cab for her. "Thank you, Frank," she called, slipping inside.
"See you tomorrow night, Mystique."
Relaxing against the seat cushions as the cab shot forward, she sighed deeply, welcoming her weariness. Only when she was deeply tired did sleep come easily to her.
As she closed her eyes, Richard and Leonard appeared like ghosts in her thoughts. She knew she was remembering them because of her encounter with Luc Harrison that evening.
Richard Lentz had come into her life during her last year at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. A shared love of music had drawn them together. Richard had been majoring in clarinet. She'd attended school on a piano scholarship.
At first they had talked for hours about their music, the subject uppermost in both their minds. Misty had been delighted to meet someone with the same consuming desire to excel. Music had deepened their interest in each other and formed the primary bond that tied their lives together.
During their last semester at school, when they had become inseparable companions, though not lovers, Richard had said, "I'm amazed that you don't live at home and commute to school, Misty. It would be so much cheaper."
"I just pref
er to live near the school," she had said, hedging. "It's more convenient." She had hesitated to tell Richard that she was glad to be away from home, away from her parents. How could she explain that, after her happy childhood, her parents' attitude toward her had subtly but dramatically changed? She prayed she would never again feel about herself the way she had during the last few years she had lived with them.
Not until just before graduation had she told Richard that she lived with her aunt and uncle, not with her parents. "When I was sixteen I asked if I could live with Aunt Lizabeth and Uncle Charles, and they said yes."
"Didn't your parents mind?"
"No, not really. They have three other children to raise, and my aunt and uncle don't have any." Misty had smiled as she'd remembered the loving, strictly disciplined life she'd lived with her aunt and uncle before going to the Eastman School.
"Oh, I see. You did it to make them happy." Richard hadn't seemed to notice that she didn't actually agree with him. Nor had he questioned her further.
After graduation she and Richard had decided to move to New York, live together, and look for work in their chosen field. Their determination to succeed had been fired by mutual enthusiasm. They were sure that plum jobs would fall into their laps. Misty had been relieved when Richard had informed her he wasn't interested in getting married or starting a family. When she'd left her parents' home, she'd made a firm promise to herself never to have children. The fear that she might treat her own offspring as her parents had treated her gnawed constantly at her.
Misty's initiation into physical love with Richard had been a somewhat painful and disillusioning experience, but she'd hidden her feelings and told him she was content. Occasionally, she'd had the uncomfortable feeling that their relationship should be based on more than a shared interest in music, but she'd shrugged her doubts away.
Misty had found a job at a piano bar almost immediately, but Richard had held out for orchestral work and remained unemployed. Sometimes it had irked her to come home from work to find that he hadn't even made the bed or washed the breakfast dishes.
"You're just feeling superior because you have a job and I don't," he had stormed at her, his slight frame quivering with rage, his horn-rimmed glasses falling askew on his nose. "Well, let me tell you, Misty, I'll never waste my classical training by playing in a bar."
"It beats starving," Misty had shot back, furious.
Afterward, she'd spent an hour apologizing to him.
When Richard had finally landed a job, he'd helped out even less in their apartment. They'd quarreled about it.
"You never stop denigrating what I do," Misty had argued, "but you don't mind using my money to buy concert tickets for you and your friends."
"Concerts are an important part of a musician's education," Richard had retorted.
"I'm a musician. Why didn't you get a ticket for me?"
"You play piano in a bar," Richard had scoffed.
The next day Misty had found a tiny studio apartment just two blocks away and moved out. She and Richard had lived together for one year, yet she had felt only relief at their parting.
After that, Misty had dated other men, but she hadn't become seriously involved with anyone until three years later, at the age of twenty-five, when she'd met Leonard Glassman, a rising account executive with an advertising firm. After they had dated for three months, Leonard had insisted that she move in with him. He had been very caring, eager to shower her with gifts, and willing to help clean the apartment. She'd told herself she really didn't mind when he woke her up each morning to make love—even though she usually didn't get to bed until three or four in the morning. "For God's sake, Misty, I thought we cared about each other," he'd exclaimed. "Isn't that why we live together?"
"Yes, but caring goes both ways," she'd answered. "We have to be considerate of each other."
"You have a great place to live, I give you money for your clothes..."
"I don't spend your money. I have my own," she'd muttered as she'd let him make love to her exhausted body.
Leonard had also wanted her to meet his co-workers and entertain them at home occasionally. Although she'd done her best, she'd begun to chafe at his constant demands.
"Lord, why are you always so tired?" he'd complained.
Misty had felt confused and unhappy about what was happening to them. She'd gone to see a therapist and had begun to learn that, despite her anger and resentment at being taken for granted—first by her parents, then by Richard and Leonard—she was still worthy of being loved.
Misty and Leonard had stayed together for a year and a half, and Misty had to admit that she preferred a man like Leonard to one like Richard. But since neither man was a prize, she decided that men weren't for her. In her opinion, love didn't liberate; it enslaved. Frequently she pondered the thought that her parents' love for her had begun to fade when she'd become a teenager and demanded control of her own destiny.
Sometimes she could still hear her father shouting, "Slut! That's what you are—a slut! It's after midnight, young lady."
"Hey, lady, what's the matter? You sick or somethin'? This is your address."
Misty clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a groan. "Ah, it's nothing," she told the cab driver. "Just thinking. Here you are." She handed over some money. "Keep the change."
Misty climbed out of the cab and trudged up the stoop to the front door of the brownstone she owned with four other people. She'd been delighted when, after leaving Leonard, she'd learned that the small stock investment her uncle had made for her had grown into enough money to buy a good-sized co-op apartment. At a time in her life when her problems had loomed large, owning her own home had given her a sense of security. But tonight she was too weary to appreciate the joys of ownership.
As she often did, Misty climbed the four flights of stairs instead of using the tiny elevator, which made her feel claustrophobic. The exercise was good for her heart, she told herself. Besides, it made her tired, let her sleep.
Her apartment was on the top floor, a sunny studio with a wall of windows at the back. Best of all, a previous occupant had soundproofed the walls and floor so that she could practice her piano at any hour of the day or night without disturbing the other tenants. She'd bought the piano at a household auction in Connecticut and paid a king's ransom to have it hoisted up the rear of the building and through a window. She'd been broke for months afterward.
That night, instead of going straight to bed, she decided to play the piano before trying to sleep. After locking the door and slipping off her shoes, she crossed her frugally furnished apartment, sighing with pleasure as her feet sank into the soft Oriental rug covering the hardwood floor. Except for the rug and piano, the only other piece of furniture was the king-sized water bed she had purchased from the previous apartment owners. It had taken her weeks to adjust to the bed, but now she enjoyed it.
At the floor-to-ceiling windows Misty had hung a green curtain of plants. Across the floor she'd scattered colorful throw cushions. She could lower the rope blinds over the windows when she wanted privacy, but more often she pulled them up to let in as much of the scarce Manhattan sunlight as possible.
It was still dark, however, as Misty sat down at the piano and played every piece of classical music she knew from memory. She played to exorcise both Richard's and Leonard's ghosts from her life. In the last few months she had come to realize that in many ways both men were like her father. They had seen her not as she was or could be, but as a reflection of their own desires.
Misty's hands came down on a discordant arpeggio. She wanted no more men in her life! Lucas Stuyvesant Harrison was just like all the others, and she wanted no part of him.
Her fingers were once more poised over the keys when an image of the man rose before her. His brown eyes glittered with the hardness of granite. His ash blond hair flashed silver under the artificial light. His impeccably tailored tuxedo conformed to every muscle in his tall, lean form.
"St
op it. Stop it, Misty," she admonished herself. "Wipe him out of your mind. He's trouble. Your life is just beginning to be your own. You have a good job. You can pay your bills. You're playing the piano every day, and you get occasional orchestral jobs." Reciting the familiar litany of blessings in her life helped her to feel less anxious, less alone.
When the orange light of dawn filtered through the windows, Misty went to bed, falling instantly into a deep and dreamless sleep.
She awoke thinking the building was coming down around her. A terrible noise filled her ears. As her eyes popped open, it took her a moment to realize that someone was banging on her door.
"Misty! Misty, did you forget the twins' lesson today?" Aileen Collins called out. Aileen and her husband David lived on the parlor floor with their ten-year-old twins, Mark and Mary.
"Huh?" Misty sat up in bed, blinking and running a hand absently through her tangled hair. "Oh, wait, Aileen. I'm coming." She jumped out of bed, her flannel nightgown falling to her ankles as she staggered over to the door and unlocked it. "Sorry. I overslept."
She smiled groggily at her friend and the exuberant twins, who called out "Hi, Misty!" and bounded past her into the room. Heading straight for the water bed, they tumbled into the center amid squeals of laughter.
"Stop that, now!" Aileen called, rolling her eyes in exasperation. "I should have kept them downstairs. I'll bet you haven't even been to bed yet."
"Yes, I slept for several hours. Why don't you make me some coffee, and I'll start Mary on her scales?"
"Done." Aileen grinned, but she couldn't quite mask her concern for her friend.
"Now, don't start mothering me again," Misty protested. "I'm fine. I don't need much sleep. I told you that." She laughed, moving toward the piano bench.
"But there's a great deal you've never told me about yourself, Misty," Aileen said softly. When her friend didn't answer, she shrugged and went into the small kitchen to fill the electric drip pot with coffee.
Misty showed Mary where to start in the Dozen a Day book of finger exercises for beginners and listened attentively as her pupil began to play. Misty was grateful for the income from these weekly lessons, which helped pay her bills each month. She also knew Aileen was delighted that her children didn't have to travel for the lessons she and David wanted them to have.
