Nocturne

by Andrea Randall

  “No,” I said, only mildly concerned about my increased talking to myself. I set my phone down and took a breath. “Just … leave it alone.”

  Gregory

  “Oh, hello,” Karin said. She looked as surprised as I felt to see each other.

  I coughed lightly, then said, “Hello, Karin.”

  She gave me a sardonic smile, then said, “Don’t look so uncomfortable, Gregory. It’s all over.”

  “Indeed.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about seeing her. The New Year’s party at Joseph McIntosh’s house was in full swing, at twenty minutes to midnight. I’d had three drinks and had a warm glow going that even the sight of my ex-wife couldn’t kill.

  “You received the final check?” I asked. The sale of our house, which I’d mortgaged all those years ago to buy the Montagnana, had finally gone through. The tiny amount of cash left over from the sale was split between us, but the lawyers had handled that end of things.

  “I did,” she said. “And I’m all settled in my new place.”

  “Oh, good.” The words felt stiff.

  In the end, our divorce had been amicable, uncontested. All the same, I felt uncomfortable in conversation with her, unsure of what to say, especially in a social environment like this. We’d only been married three short years, but it was long enough to create an immense, complicated tie. I had my own plans, but part of me wanted to know that she was ready to move on with her life without me. But, of course, we didn’t talk about such things.

  She put a hand on my arm. “I heard about what you did. With your cello.”

  I nodded. That was something I didn’t feel comfortable at all talking about.

  “It was a good thing to do, Gregory.”

  I shrugged, unsure about how to engage in “normal” conversation with her.

  A tall man, in his early forties approached, sliding his arm around her waist. Surprisingly comfortably.

  She smiled, blushing a little. “Gregory, meet Richard Hightower. Richard, this is my ex-husband, Gregory Fitzgerald.”

  Richard—apparently her new boyfriend—reached out to shake my hand. I gritted my teeth for a second, then let it go. He looked like one of those guys who liked to test his manhood by squeezing the life out of opponents during handshakes. But I was surprised. His grip was surprisingly limp.

  “Pleased to meet ya, Greg.”

  Karin winced when she heard him shorten my name. His false familiarity was both grating and somehow gratifying. On the one hand, anyone who shortened my name and spoke to me in such a casual manner was extremely irritating. On the other hand? I was happy to see she’d found someone, especially someone so unlike me.

  Two could play that game. “Nice to meet you, Dick.”

  Karin actually looked amused as she said, “Richard is associate director of the endowment at Harvard.”

  “I see ... so you share a line of work. How nice.”

  My eyes were starting to glaze over. So it was a blessing when I heard Madeline’s voice across the room. “Gregory!”

  “Please excuse me,” I said. “Karin, a delight to see you. Dick.”

  We exchanged pleasantries and I escaped as quickly as I could, joining Madeline and James at the opposite corner of the large room. They were part of a small circle of men and women, mostly musicians, who stood near Joseph, our host. Madeline was drinking soda water. They were expecting a baby in June.

  Madeline leaned close and whispered in my ear. “I saw you cornered over there.”

  I shrugged. “It was really all right. Though her new boyfriend Bob is a little insufferable.”

  “I think his name is Richard?” Madeline said.

  I shrugged. At that moment I froze in place. Vita Carulli and her fiancé Malcolm Carroll had approached the crowd.

  I’d once admired Vita. She was a remarkable performer.

  She was also Savannah’s mother ... the mother who had hurt and abandoned her.

  “Gregory,” Vita said, nodded. One star of the music world to another.

  I turned away from her, taking a sip of my drink. I had an established reputation as an arrogant bastard; might as well monopolize on that by snubbing a world class opera singer. Her career was on a downturn anyway.

  James clapped me on the shoulder. “It’s time you moved on. I meant to tell you, I met a lovely young cellist the other day ...”

  Madeline rolled her eyes. “James, really ...”

  “Seriously. He needs to go out and—”

  “Don’t say it.” Madeline raised a disapproving eyebrow as he spoke.

  I chuckled. “I think you can let it go,” I said.

  “So ... what are your plans?” she asked.

  I shrugged. I didn’t have an easy answer to that.

  “Whatever it is,” James said, “you look ... relaxed. Happier than I’ve ever seen you.”

  “I am happy,” I replied. And in truth, I was. I had a cello still, but somehow giving up the Montagnana had freed me. Freed me of the kind of expectations that I’d put on myself. The house was gone. My divorce was final. I no longer had a million dollar instrument weighing me down like a chain around my neck. “I’m very happy, in fact ...”

  As I began to expand on that, someone in the crowd began to shout, counting down the seconds until midnight. I trailed off. They didn’t really need to know where I was headed, anyway. But as everyone shouted “Happy New Year!” my thoughts turned, far off to the east, to a woman I’d loved and lost.

  And hoped to win again.

  Savannah

  One of the lovely things about attending the Bolshoi Christmas Ball is the dancers; several of whom were twirling in circles in extravagant ball gowns as I stood on the sidelines watching. I’d always been a confident dancer, but in front of these women? Hardly. I sipped my champagne and let my eyes scan the crowd.

  It was a lavish setting without a hint of pretense. It was a celebration. Polished white marble columns that climbed to forty-foot ceilings. Four hundred or more people were in attendance. Musicians, dancers, businessmen and women, politicians, and diplomats. A small contingent of soldiers were led in a dance by the beautifully gowned dancers of the Bolshoi.

  Like many of the women in the crowd, I wore a ball gown and felt unabashedly like a princess. The dress was a soft gold, all the way from the fitted silk bodice, down to the tulle-covered oversized skirt. Gold rhinestones covered the bodice and trickled down throughout the skirt, creating a dazzling effect under the lights. I chose black opera length gloves to compliment my mask. Ah, the mask. It was a deeper gold than my dress and adorned with scrolls of black music notes and black, silver, and gold feathers along the outer edge. Thick jewels circled my eyes. While it paled slightly in comparison to the rich opulence around me, I felt like I was in the middle of a fairytale. The vodka, the music, the dancing … it was choreographed with breathtaking precision.

  My evening had begun by playing for an hour with a small ensemble, but others had taken over, and I had the rest of the night to avoid the politics and infighting and enjoy my evening.

  As I watched a group of dancers make choreographed turns across the room from me, Aldo approached. He wore a black mask that bore a long nose. I hated those, but his tuxedo was far more elegant than the one he typically wore for shows.

  “Good evening, Savannah,” he said, taking my gloved hand and bending over it, brushing it with his lips.

  “Good evening, Al.” I couldn’t help but smile.

  “You will dance with me,” he stated. I think he intended it as a question or an invitation, but his garbled English came out as an imperative.

  I thought about it for just a moment and then said, “I’d be delighted.” Although I didn’t particularly want to make a fool of myself in front of the most advanced dancers in the world, I wasn’t a bad dancer. And not a single one of them was a world class musician. So I took Aldo’s hand and allowed him to lead me out to the floor.

  I tried to ignore the undercurrents as we began to dance. Serge
i Danshov, the ballet director, held court at one end of the hallway, surrounded by many of the younger and more aggressive dancers and cast members in a raucous circle.

  At the opposite end of the room, Nikolai Timoshenko stood with his own smaller and slightly older group. Last year, when the previous director retired, probably due to the stress of all the politics and vicious infighting, Nikolai had been a candidate for ballet director. He lost out to Sergei after a struggle that I sometimes thought wasn’t over.

  In between the two camps, the rest of us watched and enjoyed the spectacle of the evening. Of course, I’d spent much of my life around musicians, the symphony and opera. But the Bolshoi operated like no other outfit, and put on balls like nothing I’d ever seen. In the dead of the Russian winter, this was a night filled with exuberance.

  Aldo spun me around in a circle as we danced, and I felt lightheaded from too much vodka and champagne. After my third twirl, I stopped in place at the sight of a man who had his back to me. Even among the sea of black tuxedos, I would recognize him anywhere.

  Aldo stumbled and said, “Are you thriving?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He smiled and said, “Um ... are you well?”

  Aldo had been studying his vocabulary, apparently. “I’m thriving,” I replied. “Excuse me.”

  There was no question it was him. He didn’t see me yet, so I slowed my pace as I crossed the floor. And watched him.

  He wore a simple tuxedo, and his shoulders were pulled back and tense. His head was moving fractionally back and forth, as if he were scanning the crowd. Gregory’s hair had grown enough to reveal a slight wave that I didn’t know existed. He bore a relaxed look I’d never seen before.

  As I stood in what felt like the center of the room, but was far off to one side, he turned around. He was twenty feet from me, but from the emotion that passed between us, he might as well have been touching me. Unlike most of the men at the ball, he wore no mask. His eyes, startling blue in this light, arrested me.

  And I froze.

  Impervious to the ballerinas, their dates, and people who thought they ought to be ballerinas circling around me in vodka-sponsored jubilance, I fought to hang on to some sense of composure.

  Gregory took a deep breath, his shoulders rising, then lifted his chin slightly and walked directly toward me. I was in a trance, afraid that if I looked away even for an instant he would disappear.

  “Savannah.” He reached out a confident hand and ran the tips of his fingers along the jewels of my mask.

  I nodded and then shook my head. Yes. No. Contradictory actions mirroring my emotions. “What … how … why?”

  Slowly, his other hand came to the other side of my mask and with painful deliberation he lifted it until it rested on top of my head. He slid his hands down the sides of my face, stopping when he reached my jaw where he held them there. Held me there.

  “What are you doing here? Don’t you have shows this week?” I continued, as his eyes fell on my lips.

  “There are no more shows for me. I resigned, Savannah.”

  Of course. I knew that, but it still didn’t explain what he was doing here, holding my face. Or tracing my bottom lip with his thumb.

  Snapping back to reality for a moment, I was again aware of the party surrounding us. I reached up to my face and grabbed his hand and led him out the nearest door, which spilled us out onto a narrow balcony. I barely noticed the icy wind that blew along the outside wall of the building. “You left? What the hell do you mean you left?”

  “It was time for me to make some changes in my life.”

  I stopped my unattractive pacing and held out my hands. “And the cello?”

  “I have another cello ... one that isn’t so priceless that it becomes more valuable than the people in my life. I sold the Montagnana—”

  “Auctioned it,” I cut him off, “and gave the money to the conservatory. For the new program you’re funding. I read the article in the Globe. You can’t leave the BSO, Gregory.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve already left.”

  “It makes no sense.” I was breathing faster, sending small white clouds of frozen breath into the space around us. A chill ran through me and I wrapped my arms around my body.

  “It makes perfect sense, Savannah.” He shrugged off his tuxedo coat and wrapped it around my shoulders, leaving his hands on my upper arms. “I can play the cello anywhere.”

  I didn’t want to bring it up, but for once I had to. “But, your wife …” I swallowed the pain of that phrase and stared straight ahead.

  “We divorced. It was final a few days before Christmas.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and took a step back.

  “So … you didn’t leave because you stayed with Karin and decided to have children?” I’d intended that to be more of an internal, rhetorical thought, but it spilled out anyway. Gregory’s eyes bulged as he leaned his head forward as if he hadn’t heard me properly.

  “Children? Savannah—”

  “I know,” I cut him off, “I know you said you don’t want kids, but there was no reason for you to leave the BSO, or to sell your cello … or to come here.”

  I sniffed as the wind bit at my eyes and nose. Finally directing my eyes back to him, I said, “What are you doing here?” My teeth chattered in the pause before his answer.

  “I came here to ask for your forgiveness.”

  My forgiveness? “I don’t ... forgive what?”

  He stepped closer to me ... an inch? More? I have no idea how close. Then he said, “I wasn’t there when you needed me. I couldn’t put you first. I had … too much … weight in my life. The cello, the career, Karin ... all of it. I … I’m asking you to forgive me for not doing what I should have done five years ago. Because I love you.”

  “You—” I wasn’t given the opportunity to finish my thought as he pulled me to his body.

  For months I tried to forget the feel of his shoulders and chest, but they felt the same. Just as I’d remembered. He smelled the same, felt the same, and, most disturbing of all, made me feel the same as he always had. Not only could I not look away, not fight him. I didn’t want to. One of his hands slipped around the back of my neck, causing me to lean my head to the side.

  “No … you.” His hand gently led me forward, and as I watched his lips part, mine did, too. Then our lips were touching, tentatively at first, and then he pulled me tight against him, his lips insatiable against mine.

  I couldn’t have fought it even if I'd wanted to. My lips molded with his so effortlessly, it was like they hadn’t missed a day. Only, they had. They’d missed the last four months and most of the five years before that. Just as the tip of his tongue grazed my bottom lip, I pulled away.

  “Wait.” I planted my palms against his shoulders, keeping him at arms’ length. “You can’t leave because of me. You’ll resent me for it. I’ve seen it happen, Gregory, and I can’t let you do that to yourself. Or me.”

  “I’d never resent you. I didn’t leave because of you, Savannah. I left because of me. Because of the person I’d become, and the one I want to be. I’m no longer willing to spend my life walled away with just my music. You’ve taught me that life can mean so much more than that.” He leaned in to begin kissing me again, but I turned my head.

  “I live here, Gregory. I have an apartment, and a job that fulfills me, and a life that’s mine. I don’t know,” I paused and looked to my left and right before whispering the rest of my sentence, “I don’t know if I’m going to stay with the Bolshoi, but I plan on staying in Europe for a while.”

  He gently grabbed my chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned my head so I’d look at him. “Savannah, haven’t you listened? I’m … I want to be with you. I can play anywhere. Or not. Even if I never join another symphony I’ve had a career I can be damn proud of. I want to support you and love you and … be with you.”

  “That’s what my dad said to my mother.”

  “Jesus,” he sighed, pulling me in
to a hug once more and resting his lips against my neck. “This isn’t the same thing. You know that. There’s nothing else I can say to … hey, dance with me?”

  “What?” I wiped a stubborn, and slightly frozen, tear from my cheek.

  “Come dance with me. Inside.” Gregory stepped toward the door and held out his arm, saying no more.

  Wiggling out of his tuxedo coat, I said, “You’re going to need this.”

  After fastening the button and adjusting his cufflinks, he placed his hand on the door handle, but paused and took my hand in his. “Before we go in, I want you to know how absolutely stunning you look this evening, Savannah. Now and every other evening since I’ve known you. I never said it enough, because you struck me speechless more than I care to admit.”

  My cheeks welcomed the blush overcoming them, and I kissed him softly before opening the door myself. “Thank you.”

  Inside he took my hand, pulling me toward the still crowded dance floor. My chest tightened a little as I followed him. Despite his words, the fear of ending the night, once again, with a broken heart, pulled me back. I would dance with him. But I needed more. I needed to know I could depend on him. I needed to know that this was actually going somewhere.

  My trepidation ceased as he took my right hand in his left, and put his other hand on my waist. Seconds later we were dancing, and it was as seamless as it had ever been. He stayed quiet, but his eyes said everything. He still loved me, but I wasn’t sure that was enough.

  Neither of us really led, because we didn’t need to. Just as we responded to each other without words on the stage, communicating with the notes, the tempo, the harmony, so we communicated on the dance floor with our bodies. Our feet and legs and bodies moved together in unfaltering rhythm, and the longer I looked at him, the longer I felt his body against mine, the longer I smelled him, the less I could imagine letting him leave when the song ended.

  As the band played its final note, he leaned close, his lips near my ear, and he whispered, “Savannah, I want you to be mine.”