Perfect Harmony

by Lodge, Sarah P.

  “I know,” says Melody. She glances at the bar. “Chase, look who’s here.”

  I follow her line of sight and see Sidney Remington staring our way. What the hell is he doing here?

  “Who’s that?” asks Liz. “He’s staring at this way.”

  “He’s staring at you, Liz,” says Melody.

  “Well, I’ll be.”

  “His name is Sidney Remington,” I say. “CEO of Boomstick Pictures.”

  “CEO?” asks Liz. “What, a rich billionaire like yourself?”

  “He’s got a good twenty years on me,” I say.

  “Good for me, then. I happen to like older men,” says Liz with a devious grin.

  “What about Richard?” asks Melody.

  “Nothing wrong with keeping your options open.” Liz marches off towards the bar.

  I hold Melody closer. “He’ll eat her for breakfast.”

  “She can handle herself. And besides, I thought you’d be happy?”

  “Happy about what?”

  “Well, he’s obviously not after me.”

  I cup Melody by the cheek and bring her head up to look at me. “Then he’s a fool.”

  “Shame, I was hoping you’d get jealous again. The last time was a lot of fun.”

  I bring her closer, until our faces are in inch apart, the sweet scene of her perfume driving me wild. “Who knows where the night could lead?”

  We lean in for a kiss.

  A buzz of static slices through the ballroom like a saw, interrupting us.

  “Hi, hello? This working? Great. Where are Mr. and Mrs. Strong? Anyone?” crackles a voice over a microphone.

  We hold each other in our arms, as the warmth of a spotlight suddenly looms overhead.

  “Hey, great to see you two,” says the MC. “Don’t worry, everyone. I’m not gonna bore you all with some stupid jokes. Instead, let me introduce the man we all came here to see. Everyone, give you hands up for the man who holds all the records.”

  The drummer taps out a rim shot and everyone chuckles.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Chase Strong.”

  The room is lit up with applause. I smile and wave, guiding Melody by the hand to the stage. Melody lets go of my hand and stands to the side, beaming from ear to ear. I mount the microphone.

  “Thank you, everyone, thank you. I’m not one for long speeches either. You all know why I’m here, and you all know why you’re all here; to celebrate my beautiful and amazing wife Melody becoming a part of this company that everyone in this room helped build with their own hands. When I started Harmony Records, I had nothing. To see what it has become now, it fills me with such pride and admiration. This business is everything to me. And that’s why it humbles me to welcome my own wife into the fold, and have her beautiful voice send us to the stars. And of course, make everyone in this room a lot more money.”

  Everyone chuckles.

  “Here, here!” says a voice from the back.

  “Thank you for your time.” I say. Applause fills the room once more, but a voice pierces the crowd.

  “Sing! Give us a song!”

  I’m about to agree when I turn to Melody. She’s shaking, the smile now faded and the nervousness once again present in her eyes.

  “If I let her sing for you now,” I say, “then who’s gonna buy the records?”

  Everyone chuckles once more. I take Melody’s hand in my own and we descend the steps and enter the throng of well-wishers.

  When we finish, we take to the dance floor, arm in arm, every eye on the two of us.

  As the music serenades, Melody places her head on my shoulder.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “Why didn’t you want to sing?”

  “I just can’t, not now. This whole thing has happened so fast. I’m not prepared.”

  “You know you’ll have to sing eventually.”

  “I know.” She’s silent for a moment. “Maybe I’m just kidding myself. Maybe I’m still that scared little girl from Iowa.”

  I stop dancing.

  She raises her head and looks at me quizzically.

  “You’re wrong,” I say.

  “What? But what about how I was shaking in the limo-“

  “And what about after that? What about when you stood tall and proud to the press? What about how you captivate the room with your words and stories and your laugh? What about how you make friends wherever you go? What about how you never back down? You, Melody Strong, are a powerful vibrant woman. Never think anything different. That girl you may have thought you were, she’s gone. Now, there is only you - my wife. Mother to my child. You’re not scared or ordinary or boring. You’re spectacular. And I couldn’t imagine myself with anyone else.”

  An effervescent glow takes her over, and she beams with immeasurable joy. The look blinds me, and my body and soul melt.

  “Chase,” she says. “I want to sing. But only if...”

  “Name it. If it is in my power, it is done.”

  “If you’ll sing with me.”

  A pang hits my gut. “Melody, I...”

  “I know, you don’t sing, but you used to, didn’t you?”

  I say nothing.

  “I don’t know why you stopped, or what happened since then.”

  “The person that sang, the one that had music in their heart, it’s not the person I am now.”

  “People can change.” She takes my hand and holds it to her cheek. “I did.”

  I stop and stare into her eyes, lost in her words. I don’t want to admit the truth, but the way I feel for her blinds me at every step. She is my world, my everything. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I can only hide from the truth for so long.

  “Melody,” I say. “I love y-“

  Screeeeeeeeeccchhhhhh.

  “Chase Strong,” calls an angry voice from the microphone. “Where the fuck is Chase Strong?”

  Mercedes. She’s on the stage, swaying back and forth.

  Silences swallows the room as everyone stares at her on the stage.

  “There he is. Or should I say, there’s the happy fucking couple. Kudos, by the way, darling. You snagged yourself a rich one, let me tell you. And that’s not all, the sex - wow. He really knows his fucking stuff.”

  “Get off the stage, Mercedes. You’re drunk.”

  “Of course I’m fucking drunk,” she says. “Wouldn’t you be when the man you love throws you to the gutter like an old shitty magazine?”

  “Please, Mercedes, I’m sorry,” says Melody.

  “Oh, do shut up, you stupid fat whore.”

  “How dare you speak to her that way!” I bellow.

  “Standing up for her? You wouldn’t be if you knew the truth.”

  “Get off the stage, Mercedes. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  “Maybe, but it’s worth it to see the look on her smug face wiped away when I tell it all. How you gonna look Chase, baby, when you realise how foolish her lies have made you look.”

  “That’s enough,” I thunder. “I will not have you insinuate Melody hasn’t been honest with me. She’s a better person than you’ll ever be. She would never lie to me.”

  I turn to Melody to grab her and hold her close, but the look in her eyes stops me in my tracks: it’s dread.

  “Melody? What is it?”

  “Cat got your tongue?” says Mercedes. “Not surprised. She looks like him, doesn’t she, Chase?”

  “Looks like who?” I ask.

  “Like her brother, silly. Duncan Callaghan.”

  “That’s preposterous. Melody is not-“ I turn to Melody, but she’s speechless. “Melody?”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m so so sorry.”

  The world falls away.

  No, this is impossible. It can’t be true - it just can’t. How could she love me and lie to me, every day since we met? It’s not possible.

  “Chase,” she says. “Please, let me explain. Please. When I came here, I changed my name, and I saw a job going at
your company, and I applied but I knew I’d never get a chance if you knew who I really was. I didn’t think it would hurt anyone. And then you met me in your office and everything else happened, and things just spiralled out of control, and I wanted to tell you, I did, but I was so scared that I’d lose you.”

  “Bullshit. You were scared for you. Nothing else.”

  “No, that’s not true. I-“

  “How can I believe anything you say?”

  She’s silent.

  “The Taiwan deal,” I say.

  “What?”

  “You knew about it. You were the only one who knew about it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You’re a corporate spy, admit it! You were sent here by that bastard brother of yours to torpedo my company.”

  “No, no, of course, not-“

  “Is that why you made your way into my bed? Is that why you got pregnant? To force me to marry you? You’re nothing but a cheap lying whore.”

  “Chase...” she says, tears filling her eyes.

  “Is the baby even mine?”

  “What?”

  “I’m a fool. I knew I should never have let myself get attached to you, have you trick me into falling for you. I want you gone. From my life. From everything. All this - it’s no more.”

  She falls to her knees, sobbing.

  Five minutes ago, such a sight would have destroyed me. But now, my heart is stone.

  “To think, after everything I gave you, it was built on nothing but a house of lies.”

  “Who are you, to lecture on the truth?” she asks through sobs.

  “What did you say?”

  She stands up, her eyes bloodshot and her cheeks stained crimson. “I said, who are you, to lecture others on the truth?”

  “You speak to me this way, after everything I’ve done for you?”

  “You didn’t do it for me, you did it for yourself. All this time, it’s all been about you. My dream, as you call it, you didn’t do this because it’s what I want, you did it because you couldn’t stand someone else being responsible. You dressed me like a doll, told me how to act among people you despise, all so they wouldn’t look down on you, judge you, think you’re less than them. You’re an insecure child ruled by his superficial loves - this business, you’re friends. Nothing can come close in your heart. And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of letting you control my life in the desperate hope you’ll open your eyes to what’s in front of you. That maybe, even for a second, you were capable of feeling the same way about me that I feel about you.”

  Melody dusts herself off and wipes the tears from her eyes. “You were right, you know? All this time, you were right. You can’t love anything. And I pity that.”

  She spins around and marches out the door into the frosty November air.

  And out of my life forever.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Melody

  My feet hit the Iowa mud and a cloud of dirt billows in the biting wind.

  “Thanks for the lift,” I say.

  “Are you sure I can’t take you any farther?” ask the middle-aged woman in the front seat. “Nothing but fields and farms here for miles.”

  “It’s actually the fields and farms I’m after.” I point into the distance at the gigantic mansion looming over the cornfield.

  “I’m sure they’ve got a driveway. Come on, let me take you the rest of the way.”

  The breeze rustles my hat and I hold it still until the wind passes. “I could use the walk. Fresh air and all that. Plus, some time to prepare myself, mentally - it wouldn’t do any harm.”

  She nods. “If you insist. What are you hoping to find out here, anyway?”

  “Somewhere to belong.”

  I slam the door shut and watch as her rusty Ford chugs into the distance, disappearing over the emerald horizon.

  And with that, I brush through cornfields, on my way to the mansion. To my father.

  It’s been over two weeks since I last spoke to Chase, if you could call what happened “speaking”. That night felt like the world had come crashing down around me, like there was nothing else to lose. But I was wrong. It was one thing to lose the man I loved, and the father of my baby, but the spectacle had caused waves to spread through the community. With no job, I had no way to pay the rent. I tried to apply for jobs, but no one would employ a pregnant woman six months before her due date. Either that, or they didn’t want to get on the bad side of Chase Strong. They knew what he did to his enemies and they quivered in their boots.

  But who am I kidding? This is my fault, the whole mess is. If I had told the truth to Chase in the beginning, none of this would ever have happened. But then, if Chase had known who I was, would he have rejected me at first sight? Would this child I’m carrying even exist?

  Instinctively, I stroke my pregnancy bump.

  At least in all this immeasurable pain, there’s something to be thankful for.

  I spent the first three nights crying my eyes out until I thought I’d faint from dehydration. Liz kept calling from Richard’s place, desperate to see how I was doing. When I ignored every call, she even came to our apartment, but as soon as I heard her fist rapping on the door, I crawled up into ball and cried. I just wanted to be alone.

  I lost everything that ever mattered to me all because of my own idiocy.

  I deserve to be alone.

  The first week, I tried everything I could to get Chase to talk to me again. I tried calling but he never answered, his secretary taking great pleasure in instructing me that he was in a meeting and would be for a very long time. I tried turning up to his penthouse, but the security turned me away at first sight. I even tried turning up to Harmony Records, but without an employee pass, I was shown the door. His friends wouldn’t speak to me, and I considered asking Liz and Richard to pass a message on, but I didn’t want to draw them into my nightmare. They’re didn’t deserve to be on Chase’s shit list.

  When the realisation dawned on me that I was being completely stonewalled, I just gave up. Then and there. I’m pregnant, and alone and everything I touch turns to shit. Why make things worse? I was so tired of fighting.

  So I booked a ticket on the first plane to Iowa. I’m not sure why I did it, but the idea of returning to my family seemed like the only option I had left. Out there, far away from my life in New York, maybe I’d be able to find some solace, even if it’s in the arms of the man I despise most in the world.

  My father wouldn’t be happy to see me, I knew that. We hardly left on the best of terms after I shunned his decision to marry me off to that old man Philip Wrenwick. But that was almost a year ago. Father never treated me well, always criticising my dream of a singing career, that I was too soft for that world.

  Turns out he was right. And here I am, right back where I started, with my tail between my legs and ready to fall on my knees and beg forgiveness. I’ll do whatever it takes.

  Anything so I won’t be alone.

  The cornfields end and I make my way down the gravel driveway. The grounds stretch for miles upon miles, yet there’s an ominous silence in the air. No cars, either.

  It’s very peculiar.

  My father built this mansion for his young secretary turned lover Eve Galway. It was after he left my mother, and the painful memory still sears at my heart like a branding iron. This is the man I’m returning to - the one who caused me nothing but a lifetime of memories I long to forget. How did it come to this?

  Eve always had a love for spending as much of father’s money as she could and as quickly as possible. As such, the mansion always had an entourage of gardeners and servants littering the grounds, so much so that there wasn’t a moment of quiet.

  But the place is like a ghost town.

  I trundle up to the enormous oak front door and rap my fist for two hard knocks.

  Nothing.

  I knock again.

  “He’s not here,” says a voice. I spin around and see heavyset man with a dark aubu
rn tan lugging a lawnmower. “No one is, actually.”

  “Oh. Do you know when they’ll be back?” I ask.

  He chews a wad of tobacco and I can see the cogs spinning. “Who are you, miss? Pardon the abruptness, but whys a lady like yourself, with the child, all the way out here?”

  “My father. He lives here.”

  “Your father?”

  “Yes, I’m Melody. Melody Callaghan. Or, should I say I was. In another life.”

  “I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t know. My name’s Rupert. I tend the grounds here.”

  “Just you? No one else? I remember Eve loved her entourage.”

  “She did. I guess that’s why she took ‘em with her.”

  “She left?”

  “Packed her bags not sixth months past when she heard the news. Glad to be rid of her, to be honest. Glad Mr. Callaghan kept me on too. Hard to find work nowadays, ‘specially with no fancy degree and that. But Callaghan, he’s a kind hearted one he is. Even though he ain’t here at this house no more, still kept me on and paid me good money. Kind man, Mr. Callaghan.”

  “Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”

  He spits the tobacco on to the mud and rubs his bristly chin. “If ya be needing a lift into town, I got old Bessy out by the woodshed. She’s not much, but she gets ya from A to B.”

  “No, thank you. I’ve come a long way from New York to see my father. Do you know where he’s staying?”

  “You two, ain’t talked much, have you?”

  “No, we haven’t.”

  “Talked about you a lot, he did. Melody this, Melody that. Apple of his eye or however the expression goes. Probably why he never mentioned nothing to you. Spare your feelings and that.”

  “Rupert, please. Where is he? What’s happened?”

  He shuffles his feet idly. “Saint Holloway Hospital. Been there, oh, a few months now.”

  “Is he alright? What’s wrong with him?”

  “Not my place, Miss. I’m sorry, but fathers and daughters and all that.”

  I pace down the steps. “Please, tell me. He’s my father.”

  He nods. “Come, Bessy, she’s just round there.