Brinley stepped back. “We’re taking separate vehicles to the fundraiser tonight is all I can tell you right now, Mr. McArrogant.”
She stalked back up the porch, careful to avoid any soft and spongy boards. The boards were probably okay since they had been treated, but whoever had replaced those steps and their surrounding supporting beams had cut corners.
Ivan’s long strides beat her to the front door. He blocked her from entering the house.
Brinley stared at her own shoes. They were new and clean against the weathered pine beneath.
“Brin.” His voice was soft. “Look at me.”
She couldn’t.
“I’m sorry.”
She should say something, but she decided that she had done enough.
“I’m sorry, Brin.”
Well, at least he’s trying.
“I really am.” He reached for her again and wrapped her in his arms. “There’s much I can’t tell you. If you knew, perhaps you wouldn’t think so unkindly of me.”
“Unkindly? You’re the one being unkind.”
“Poor choice of words. I stand corrected.”
They said nothing for a while.
“What’s going on with you, Ivan?”
No answer.
“Why are you against everything I’m trying to do for you?” Brinley eased away.
“If you must know, Brin, I’ll explain.”
* * *
And so Ivan explained on his 1850 Vuillaume with an improvisation that pushed and pulled at Brinley’s heart, a mournful dirge entombed in his small basement studio, diminuendo measures fading into the old walls, then accelerating to a rabid presto that gnashed at her before it fell again into a sorrowful remorse.
Brinley listened, sniffled, and listened some more at Ivan’s acute enumeration of things past, things lost, things gone, and things never to come. She hoped she wasn’t somewhere in the recital, interlaced into his emotions of pain and fear and longing. The bow and string tore at her heart. Then finally it died away, repeats exhausted, the end of the pages in Ivan’s mind accomplished.
He put down his violin. “That is my life on earth.”
Brinley’s impuissant arms, body, and mind all suspended in a vortex of opacity, imploding into a heavy chest constricted with agonies she had not known since the day they buried Grandpa Brooks. She understood now that Ivan had opened up a window into his personal space, letting her in to see the difficulties of his life that she had never ever known or hoped to ever experience.
Poverty.
Adversity.
Suffering.
Loss.
Yet somewhere in there were strands of hope, measures in the key and time signature where bright silver linings had erupted, short-lived staccatos that fell back into the maddeningly funereal march toward death, that ending on earth that no human could avoid.
Ivan carefully placed the violin back into its case. “Don’t get me wrong. There is a grand finale in heaven, a rapturous joy like we will never know on earth.”
“But until then, this is how you view your life on earth?” Brinley asked.
“That was how my life is on earth.”
“What about the crescendos of hopefulness in there?” Brinley stepped forward and snuggled into Ivan’s flannel plaid shirt. And stayed there. She loved the warmth of his chest, the smell of fresh laundry and dryer sheets. She closed her eyes and tried to commit to memory this moment with him.
“Those are the times when I’m reminded that I have peace with God even if I don’t always have peace on earth. Someday when I get to heaven everything will be fine. No more troubles, no more losses.”
“No more termites or broken toilets.” Brinley’s voice cracked.
The light in Ivan’s eyes returned. “I have hope for the future. Do you, Brin?”
“Only for the here and now.” She understood now where Ivan was coming from. All the inheritance in the world could not compare to the promise of heaven in his heart. That space was reserved for God alone.
“But you can have hope for the future too, Brin.” Ivan kissed her forehead, accepting, welcoming.
“Maybe we can help each other.”
“We can?”
“Yes, Ivan. You tell me about the peace of God, and I help you with your peace on earth.”
Ivan groaned. “You want to fix my porch.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When the reproduction eighteenth-century boned stay dug into Brinley’s ribs again, she knew that she wasn’t going to be able to eat much tonight at the Oglethorpe Charity Dinner, colonial food notwithstanding. She placed a hand on her laced stomacher, its embroidery textured under her fingers. The salmon-colored robe à l’anglaise barely fitted her, but if she survived the evening with the gown and petticoat intact, she’d be a happy camper.
She was glad she had snacked on Yun’s gingerbread cookies before she came. Those cookies could hold her over for quite a while.
Hmm… Maybe those cookies are why my waist feels a bit tight right now.
She lifted the mineral water to her lips and looked around. She found Ivan chatting away with the harpist, who was in a pretty colonial costume herself. Ivan looked rather period-authentic and so did the entire SISO in their colonial garb.
Bravo, Conductor Petrocelli.
Someone waved to her.
Brinley waved back. Not the person she wanted to see tonight. But there he was in his three-piece hunter green silk damask colonial suit. “Jared.”
“Brinley Brooks. I’m surprised to see you here.” Jared Urquhart kissed her cheek lightly. “Is Phinn here with you?”
“No. We’re no longer together.”
Jared lifted her left hand. “I see you returned his ring. When did this happen?”
“Summer.”
“He doesn’t deserve you, you know.”
“Some best friend you are, badmouthing him.”
“We were best friends until… Water under the bridge.” Jared’s smooth, manicured fingers, went up her forearm. “You here alone?”
She pulled away. “I’m here with someone.”
“Right. She’s here with me.”
Ivan.
He came up to Brinley in his dark blue waistcoat that brought out the color of his eyes. His coat was off, and Brinley could see the ruffles on his shirt under his cravat. His sleeves were crumpled, but Brinley didn’t care. She felt his left arm going around her waist though the stiff stay prevented her from feeling his touch.
Ivan extended his other hand toward Jared as if he was parrying an opponent with his fencing sword. “Ivan McMillan. You are?”
“Jared Urquhart, an old friend of the Brooks family.”
Brinley could feel the tension as the two men shook hands, eyeball to eyeball in their staring-down. Jared was a bit more willowy than Ivan, but they were both about as tall as each other in their colonial stacked heels. And both looked spiffy in their costumes, from their cravats down to their breeches, white stockings, and buckled black shoes.
She tried to muffle her chuckle.
“Are you okay, Brin?” Ivan turned to look at her.
You blinked.
Brinley could imagine Jared saying that.
Jared had always been competitive even when they were kids playing in Grandpa Brooks’s backyard, though Brinley had never gone out with him. He seemed to find her refusal of him a missing notch in his totem pole, and had made it a point to remind her. They would always be in the same circles, it seemed, with Jared’s company hiring Brooks Investments for their many development projects all around the world. She wouldn’t be surprised if he offered to buy Brooks Investments someday.
“I’m fine.” Brinley stepped closer to Ivan.
Jared smiled. “I’m going to outbid you for the Strad, Brinley.”
“Who says I’m going to bid for it?” Brinley had put her West Paces Ferry house on the market so she could buy that oceanfront house that Tobias Vega was renovating for her on St. Simon’s
Island. There was no money leftover in that swap for her to do any frivolous spending. She was her father’s daughter through and through, and he had taught her never to spend what she didn’t have in cash. The lesson had been so ingrained in her such that even with liquid cash, Brinley was loathe to spend a dime. She’d rather keep the cash, thank you very much.
Except…
She would give Ivan anything.
Oddly enough, he hadn’t asked for anything at all. She had given him whatever she thought he needed except for this afternoon when Ivan had personally called pest control. He had insisted at the compromise or else she would have sent Tobias Vega to fix his porch. They settled in the middle. Ivan would get the termites exterminated, and she would stop asking to fix his porch.
She wanted him to have a nice porch.
And a nice house.
A home?
“Sure, Brinley. Point is, you don’t need another Strad.”
“You’re right, Jared,” Brinley said. “I don’t even play the violin. I’m only here at the Ball representing Dad.”
“Who is out of the country.” Jared smiled. “Maybe I could come over, have lunch, and talk about Brooks Investments. Hate to see you all by yourself in that big old cottage.”
Ivan cleared his throat. “She’s not by herself.”
“Oh, a live-in.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Ivan’s face turned red.
“Then what do you mean, Ivan?”
“It means that we need to go.” Brinley started walking, pulling Ivan along. “See you later, Jared.”
Moments later, they were far enough away for Ivan to vent. “Who is that jerk?”
“He’s not a jerk.”
“Are you defending him?”
“No. I’m saying don’t worry about him.” Brinley placed a palm on his chest. She could feel his heartbeats underneath that white shirt.
“I saw him kiss your cheek and touch your arm.” Ivan reached up and held Brinley’s hand in place with his.
Now Brinley felt his heartbeat increase. “Are you jealous, Mr. McMillan?”
Before Ivan could answer, the harpist he had been talking to earlier appeared out of nowhere, holding his navy blue coat with gold buttons. Brinley watched her hand it to Ivan, telling him in a dulcet twang that Conductor Petrocelli had given them a two-minute warning.
“Thanks, Em.” Ivan threw on the coat.
“Em?” Brinley asked. Their familiarity with each other bothered her a bit.
Only a bit.
Not!
“Are you jealous, Miss Brooks?” Ivan countered.
* * *
Ivan couldn’t believe his ears when the professional benefit auctioneer rattled off increasingly bigger numbers for the 1736 Guarneri del Gesù violin after he had played the fastest Flight of the Bumble Bee he’d ever played on any violin. The Guarneri held flawlessly against Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s original composition.
But that was over now. The Guarneri had been taken away from him forever, laid down to rest in that old case before the bids had begun.
He knew that Brinley’s table was somewhere away from his line of sight in the large ballroom, but he was glad she wasn’t at the same table as Jared Urquhart. Ivan watched Jared flick his bid paddle, smirking as he showed off how much money he could burn on that Guarneri. Ivan would like to take that paddle and swat that smirk off Jared’s face.
Very unchristian-like.
Grandma would be disappointed.
When the frenzy died down, the hammer price was over three million dollars. The Guarneri was sold to someone from out of state. Ivan was happy—so happy—it wasn’t that Jared fellow.
Three-point-two million dollars.
Ivan was stunned. He couldn’t even count that high. To think he had played the Guarneri before it was auctioned off. What a privilege.
His eyes darted to the violin in his hand. This would be the last time he’d play this one too.
The lights dimmed in the ballroom as a video flashed across a big screen, a woman’s voice adulating the 1721 Schoenberg Stradivarius violin about to be sold off to another highest bidder. The sound of that Strad was bold on the video, but Ivan didn’t think it could compare to hearing it live.
After the video infomercial was over, Petrocelli nodded to Ivan.
He walked to the front of the podium like he had rehearsed countless hours before, the Schoenberg Strad in his hand. Somehow it felt different this time. He wasn’t sure why. He breathed in and out slowly as there was silence in the entire ballroom.
Silence.
Somewhere in the ballroom, Brinley Brooks was listening to him play. He still couldn’t see her for the bright lights on him. He could feel her presence in the room. The more he thought of it, the worse it got.
Lord, I shouldn’t be this nervous.
All eyes were on him as if saying, “Any day now.”
This is for Br— No.
Lord, this is for You. Thank You for the gift of music.
Nothing else mattered now as Ivan plunged wholeheartedly into executing Niccolò Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 on that old Stradivarius that he also would never see again after tonight. Better make it good. Make it memorable. He thought of nothing else but to get to the end of the piece without missing a note. All four years of Juilliard came to the fore, wrapped up in that almost three-hundred-year-old violin.
His left fingers danced nimbly on the strings, his right fingers sure and steady. He could see the music in his mind, the triplets, the slurs, pizzicatos, the rise and fall of sixteenth notes, and the sadness that filled his spirit when he reached the finale.
The ballroom shook with whistles and applause. Ivan’s fingers trembled as he took his seat. A gloved assistant yanked—no, firmly took—the violin from him, bow and all.
Goodbye, Strad.
Ivan sat there, breathless.
He had never, ever been this nervous his entire life, and he knew it wasn’t because of the violin. He felt that he had given the performance of a lifetime to show his worth as one of the best violinists in the region. Playing violin was all he ever knew and ever wanted to do. He wanted to make a living off playing the violin, support a family on it, and now he felt he had proven he could. The rest of his life hinged on this piquant fact. Without the violin—
Lord, don’t let me be without a violin.
* * *
“The bidding war did me in,” Jared Urquhart told Brinley after the auction.
She was waiting at the ballroom entrance for Ivan to bring his pickup around. He had insisted they drive one vehicle. Then when they had arrived at The Cloister, he didn’t want to pay for valet parking. Now he had to walk across the parking lot to get the pickup in some forty-degree winds, leaving Brinley standing there by the door waiting and getting accosted.
“The Guarneri, we know who bought it.” Jared didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave. “I guess the Nashville Symphony will put it to good use. But the Strad?”
“An anonymous telephone bidder. What do you care? Try again next time, Jared.”
“For a long time in there, I thought it might be you.”
“Don’t you think five-point-four mil is overpriced for even a Strad?” Brinley asked. “It’s not even the Lady Blunt.” Or the Damaris.
“It’s for charity. I suspect the buyer wanted to make sure nobody else had it.”
Brinley nodded only slightly.
“But even if it weren’t, I would pay that much myself.” Jared stroked Brinley’s hair before she could stop him.
“You would?” Brinley changed position on her heels to move her head away from Jared’s roving fingers.
“For love, I’d pay any price.”
Love?
At the corner of Brinley’s eye, that old Chevy pickup came into view. “Oh, my ride is here. Bye, Jared.”
“That old piece of junk?” Jared’s jaw dropped. “You should let me take you home. I bought a new 458 Spider convertible.”
“Y
ou can keep your new Ferrari.” Brinley walked away, looked back and smiled. “As for me, I like old things.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Dude, that can only end badly.” Matt emphasized badly as if it were the end of all things.
Ivan knew Matt was serious. But what did Matt really know about such things? He couldn’t even keep his own marriage together.
“I’ll take that under advisement.” Ivan folded his arms across his chest and sat back.
The Scrolls bookstore was eerily silent this morning save for the occasional hum of the heating unit. They almost cancelled their Bible Study this week because almost everyone was out of town save for Matt, Sebastian, and Ivan. But since they wouldn’t meet until the first of the year, Matt decided they’d have one more this Tuesday morning before Ivan went to Savannah with SISO for the rest of the week.
Maybe Ivan shouldn’t have come. He was exhausted from last night’s fundraising event. It had been a mixed bag of emotions for him. Exuberance at being able to hold the Stradivarius and Guarneri in his hands. Exasperation that it was over and he was back to borrowed violins. Cheaper violins.
Such is my life. Always stuck with cheap.
He chided himself. The Vuillaume wasn’t cheap. He couldn’t even afford it.
It wasn’t the violin. He was cranky because he was exhausted. And the week wasn’t even over. Waking up at four o’clock with Brinley on his mind and being unable to sleep was already a bad start to his long day. After this Bible Study he had to go home, pack up his bags, and head for the SISO studio for a final rehearsal. Later this afternoon they had to catch the bus for their string of holiday concerts in Charleston and Savannah, wrapping up Saturday night.
Long week.
So. The last thing Ivan needed now was for his old buddies to excoriate him and intervene in his relationship with Brinley Brooks.
“Didn’t you hear a thing Pastor Gonzalez said?” Matt asked.
“Yep. What he said.” Sebastian didn’t look up from his iPad.
“Better yet, what the Bible said.” Matt threw his arms up.
“Yep. What the Bible said.”
“Stop echoing Matt, Seb.” Ivan hadn’t been more irritated with his friends than this morning. Maybe I need more coffee.
Share with Me: Seaside Chapel Book 1 Page 16
