Sutherland

by Karen Trailor Thomas

  Jane hadn’t expected such detail, but was not opposed to listening and prodding just enough to keep Benita going. “How long have you been catering the event?”

  “This is my eleventh year. Can you believe it? When the girls were little, my husband used to have to pitch in, and I’d hire a neighbor woman as well, but now we keep it in the family. And the Sutherlands are such a nice bunch, you wait and see, always praising the food and having such a good time. And it keeps getting bigger, of course. A whole generation has been added since they became my clients.”

  When the wall phone rang, Benita was still talking and Jane held up a finger to indicate a pause, then hurried to answer and discovered her husband out of breath and somewhat frantic. “Get Jennalee over here. I need her help.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The program went nuts, I’m not sure why, but we’re going to have to key in everything again and I can’t sit and do that and handle the desk. I know you’ve got Benita so send me Jennalee. She can put that computer class to use.”

  “Right away.”

  Jane called her daughter just as Jennalee ended a brief conversation with Donna Witherspoon. “Ass wipe!” rang through the room.

  “Jennalee!” Jane called again as she heard Benita Witherspoon gasp. “Dad needs you at the desk right away. Hurry.”

  “Let’s get the rest of those centerpieces,” Jane suggested to Benita as Jennalee flew by. The two women went out to the van while the girl ran toward the main building.

  * * * *

  “Hey, Dad,” Jennalee said when she reached the front desk. Her father was leaned back in his chair wiping his face with what appeared a page of his printout. “What’s up?”

  “I need you to key the reservations back in.” He set a stack of cards on the counter. “The data’s lost somewhere in the system so we’ve got to start over. Come around here. It won’t take long and it’ll be good practice for you.”

  Jennalee had hated her computer class almost as much as learning to type. Keyboards of this type were so twentieth century, but she dutifully sat and began the entries because her father’s flushed face scared her. She’d heard enough about heart attacks during the past year to recognize danger, so she set aside her objections and concentrated on the task. Gerald, in the meantime, took a much-needed break to attend to personal needs.

  Jennalee quickly grew tired of the endless stream of Sutherlands. When she reached the sole non-Sutherland card, the Laidlaws, she stopped to read the data as opposed to mindless transferring she’d been doing. Garden Grove. Beal Street. Those funny motorcycle license numbers and Harley written where it usually said Ford or Toyota. A Visa number. She thought ahead to the dinner, Garth in slacks and jacket, shirt open. She considered meeting him later, safe with her mother’s mistaken assumptions regarding her choice of partner. She smiled at the idea and went back to keying Sutherlands, nearly at the end of the fifty-five entries when Harley appeared at the desk. “You won’t play for me, but you play for them,” he said.

  “Command performance. My dad accidentally dumped the data and I have to key it back in, all you guys, all these Sutherlands.”

  “Hey, you just have to key them in. I live in that database.”

  She looked up at him. “But you’re not really a Sutherland.”

  “No, not really.”

  “Are you really a Laidlaw?”

  He smiled. “I try not to think about it.”

  When he turned, Jennalee raised up out of her chair. “Where you headed now?” she asked.

  “Practice.”

  “The bluff?” When he nodded she asked to join him.

  “Only if you play.”

  “Only if we do the Kreutzer.”

  “Deal.”

  Gerald Preece was impressed by his daughter’s enthusiasm for data entry and made no inquiries once she had completed the task and indicated an urgent need elsewhere. “Thanks for the help,” he said as he settled back in. Minutes later Jennalee had her keyboard and was hurrying toward the bluff.

  She wore cutoff jeans and a white cotton tank top and left her shoes behind, climbing the bluff in the kind of heat that undid things. Up top Harley was running some Vivaldi beneath the oak tree and Jennalee waited nearby, settling onto the warm ground to let all else fall away.

  Harley was amusing to watch, the obvious contrast between punk and classical, but more because he gave it some undefinable spin of his own. She understood that the haircut and earring and clothes were mere reflections of something deeper, that he didn’t subscribe to convention yet respected the masters even as he stretched their intentions. She’d heard Vivaldi a million times but never like this. The one violin sounded so clear, like a musical high wire, and then Harley was waiting for her and she switched on the keyboard, nodded, and he took off on the Kruetzer.

  When she made her entrance seconds later, it felt both familiar and unfamiliar because it wasn’t Mr. Mendel and because Harley was doing things to the piece, making it come after her, and also because once her fingers found the keys, it seemed they’d never been away.

  When Harley’s violin grew resonant, towering with the oak, Jennalee responded, balancing, building, following as he quieted, growing almost tentative, and then came the eruption she so loved, picking up speed, crashing along, fingers flying over the keys until they lost their way in the thicket and pulled up trembling. The violin continued, stopping only when Harley glanced down and saw her drop the keyboard and start to flee.

  He caught her just as she reached the edge and pulled her to him where she fought briefly, then cried without restraint. And when she tried to offer an explanation, he wouldn’t have it because he knew this time it was the Kreutzer.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him when they sat at the base of the oak. “I didn’t know that would happen.” Again he didn’t ask when she needed him to.

  “I always played it with Mr. Mendel and I guess…” Tears began again. “Shit,” she said as she rubbed them away.

  “Guess what?” Harley asked.

  “Tell me about your teacher,” Jennalee asked, because Mr. Mendel belonged to her alone.

  Harley didn’t answer at first. She heard him take in a breath and hold it and he waited until long after the exhale to speak. “Carroll Fraser.”

  “How long?”

  “Eight years.”

  “So you know how it is, how, I don’t know, attached, I guess. It’s not like love or anything, but in a way, he’s my whole life. Mr. Mendel taught me everything. He’s like, not my idol, he’s too real for that, but, I don’t know, just the influence, this huge influence. Like he’s inside me, you know?”

  “And you miss him.”

  “They took him away from me.” She wiped away more tears and Harley offered his handkerchief. “He’s so wonderful,” Jennalee managed. “You’d like him, I know you would, but now…everything is so empty, like I’ve been lost at sea except I’m trapped in this place. When I played, it was like it all came down at once.”

  “Ludwig would appreciate that.”

  “They offered me some teacher in Malvern.”

  “Maybe he’s an eccentric genius who’s turned his back on the world.”

  “Mrs. Pruett. All I see is a shriveled old witch.”

  Harley left it alone. When Jennalee returned his handkerchief, she ran her long fingers over his. “Is your teacher like Mr. Mendel? Is she everything to you?”

  “Actually it’s a he, Carroll Fraser, two r’s, two l’s. He’s important, but ultimately your teacher has nothing to do with it all. They give you mechanics, tone, interpretation; they take you a long way and try to fire you, but it’s really about temperament and emotion and intuition and you end up ultimately discarding a lot of what they said.”

  A sputtering engine sounded below, the motorcycle missing a beat, and Jennalee jumped up. As the rumble wound up and down, she could picture Garth’s hand on the throttle and asked Harley without looking around how he stood it.

 
; “What?”

  “Being marooned. Isn’t that what it’s like for you with them all bikers?”

  He came up behind her. “They’re marooned,” he said and he began another Vivaldi sonata, leaning into it with such force, he overpowered the chaos below. “Music is a constant,” he added when the piece ended. “The rest is just…the rest. Music can get you through anything.”

  “Even this?” she asked with a wave of her arm.

  He sighed. “I would kill for this.” And he went back to his music as the motorcycle popped and silenced.

  “You did it!” Jennalee squealed. “You won!”

  Harley stopped playing but kept the violin at his chin, Jennalee trying to fathom his expression until the motorcycle roared to life and he returned to his accompaniment. Jennalee did not, however, return to her keyboard. It sat nearby like some small desert creature desperate for invisibility while she simply listened, while the engine below rose and fell and Harley—and Vivaldi—carried her along.

  “So do you perform?” she asked when both motorcycle and violin were silent.

  “Recitals, competitions, the usual. Ribbons, cups, a few checks, not enough according to Dad, but Mom hangs in pretty good. I’ve got a big competition in New York next week.”

  “You’ll nail it.”

  “I better.”

  When he said nothing more, Jennalee persisted. “So do you still take lessons?”

  “No.”

  “What’s it like on your own?”

  He put violin and bow into their case, closed the lid, and avoided her. When she prodded, he looked at her as if she’d struck him and told her, “It’s fine,” and started down the bluff.

  He didn’t ask her what she was doing next, but she told him anyway. “I have to help out for the dinner tonight, work with the caterers and stuff. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

  He nodded and left her on the path where she found herself weighted by some remnant of his music.

  Chapter 6

  Except for Marian Sutherland, the woman in the aqua jumpsuit, the Oak Room was deserted when Jennalee returned. She stopped at the door to watch this family matriarch cast a final gaze over the preparations. Tables and chairs were in place, flowers, linens, and service for one hundred forty-three in order, while up front a blue-on-white banner stretched across the paneling: SUTHERLAND FAMILY REUNION. Affixed to its lower edge was an addendum: 22nd Year. To the left stood a lectern, to the right an easel supporting a large diagram. Marian Sutherland lingered there, traced a finger down its length, then slowly crossed to the door. As Jennalee stepped back to avoid discovery, she noted the older woman’s energy seemed to have fled.

  Alone in the room, Jennalee found the diagram an elaborate family tree. She traced the Laidlaws back to Claude Sutherland, Lizann’s father who’d married Zara Mills and produced four sons and the sole daughter. Above Claude was Adair, the musician, who’d married Emily McBeath who bore three sons, and before him Grant, son of Timothy and nephew of Todd who had broken ranks in the previous century by changing his name to Southerland. The tree branched repeatedly, going off into dozens of families, and Jennalee soon tired of it and went to the piano which stood off to one side. For the moment she was content as the only child of two only children.

  She listened for footsteps and took a long breath before settling onto the bench, and even then remained hesitant, fingers descending slowly to rest on cool white keys. She made no music initially, adding up her day instead, prompted somehow by this return, this crossing back over a bridge she’d never intended to set upon in the first place. She saw Garth making love to her, felt him hard up inside; she heard him say how good she was. She saw Harley’s knowing look, which brought with it what he’d said about teachers, which called up Mr. Mendel who in turn allowed in the Witherspoons and the Sutherlands, all of them crowding around to set Jennalee squirming, and she sailed into a Chopin prelude to escape conscious thought.

  Whenever Jennalee added up her heroes, she placed Frederic Chopin a close second to Mr. Mendel. This gentle, chronic genius had provided the broad base on which Mr. Mendel had built her repertoire, and as she gave herself to the pieces now, as she sat in her cutoffs and tank top, hands moving automatically and quite independently of each other, she became his vessel as much as she had been Garth’s. But this time there came the emotional payoff, Chopin’s passion fusing with her own.

  When the wall phone rang, she was midway through the twenty-four preludes and she ignored it until she realized it was not going to stop and must, therefore, be her mother. “Where have you been?” demanded Jane Preece when Jennalee put the receiver to her ear.

  “I was doing Dad’s keying.”

  “And then what?”

  “I came back here, but the caterers are gone. That old lady was here, though.”

  “I was there, Jennalee, and you weren’t. Who were you with?”

  “Why do I have to be with somebody? Why can’t I just be on my own?”

  “Were you?”

  As Jennalee searched for an answer, Donna Witherspoon came in. “No,” Jennalee said and hung up. She then leaned against the wall to eye her adversary. Donna appeared to be searching for something and Jennalee contented herself with the idea that the girl had lost a valuable, then offered, “He’s not under there.”

  “I’m looking for my mother’s clipboard, if you must know.”

  “How you gonna fuck that?”

  Donna continued to look under tables, but after a dozen or so turned to Jennalee. “You didn’t see it, did you?”

  “Nope.”

  “You could help, you know. You’re supposed to be doing that, helping us.”

  Jennalee had already spied the clipboard atop the piano. “I am. I’m supervising. You’re very cold, no colder, oh, super cold. You’re freezing your tits.”

  “You know, don’t you? Where is it?” Donna moved toward her.

  “Now you’re getting warm, warmer, whoops, cooler.”

  Donna stopped and turned. “This is so lame.”

  “Warm, warmer, hot, scorching, blazing. Jesus, asshole, can’t you see it or is the piano in the way?”

  Donna grabbed the clipboard and started out. “Cunt,” she said as she passed Jennalee.

  “Fuckface,” Jennalee responded.

  She couldn’t go back to Chopin after this. He was distant now, as distant as her own life seemed so much of the time, and she stood at the massive window, her audience now silent.

  When she left the Oak Room, she detoured past Building Eight, where a Laidlaw motorcycle remained unattended out front. This set her wondering as to the whereabouts of Garth and Harley. After picturing them at various locations—pool, patio, lobby—she had to consider they might be inside, that Harley might at that very moment be talking to Garth or worse, Garth talking to Harley.

  Since there were no Sutherlands about, she crept near to listen and had her ear to the door—and absolute silence—when she saw Kendall Sutherland peer around the end of the building. As he ducked back out of sight, Jennalee realized he’d been following her much as she had Garth. She listened at the door a moment more, decided no one was inside, then started toward her young admirer. He jumped back when she rounded the corner, stammering and blushing as she moved in to stand face to face. “You’re following me,” she said and he bit his lip until she told him, “It’s okay.”

  “It is?” His dark eyes grew wide.

  Jennalee noted long lashes and thick brows, which prompted her to decide manhood might lie below this deceptive surface. “Yeah, why not,” she said. “C’mon.” They sauntered along the path, Jennalee in no hurry to arrive anywhere. “So how old are you?” she asked Kendall.

  “Fifteen.” After a few more steps, he added, “In September.”

  “Then you’re a sophomore?”

  “At Prior Academy.”

  “What’s that, some private school?”

  He nodded. “Beverly Hills.”

  “Which one is your dad?�
�

  “Dean.”

  “Is he related to the Laidlaws?”

  “Aunt Lizann, yeah. She’s his sister.”

  “So you know Garth and Harley.”

  “Harley I do, some. Garth not really. He’s into his bikes and stuff, but Harley’s pretty cool.”

  “And what do you do besides follow older girls around?” They were near the pool and Jennalee scanned the area, half-listening to Kendall’s reply.

  “Swimming, chess, computers, lacrosse.”

  Neither Garth nor Harley was in sight. “Lacrosse?” Jennalee said. “How about fucking? Do you do that?”

  The pause was so long, Jennalee turned. “Yeah, sure,” Kendall said.

  “With who?”

  “A girl.”

  “Jeez, I hope so. What’s her name?”

  He chewed his lower lip, then pressed on. “Lisa.”

  “And where exactly did you do it with Lisa?”

  “Uh, a car.”

  “Whose car?”

  “Her dad’s.”

  “And how’d you get her dad’s car without her dad? Does she have a license or did you do it in the driveway or maybe you didn’t do it at all. That’s what I think. I think that flash I gave you was the first one you’ve seen and that’s why you’re back, you want another look, maybe a feel, or if you’re super lucky, a fuck. Is that it, Kendall?” She faced him now. “Do you want to fuck me?”

  He hesitated and she saw anticipation light up his eyes. “C’mon,” she said, and he followed her along the path to where it curved around a cluster of seemingly impenetrable oleander shrubs that she yanked him into.

  “Are we gonna?” he asked.

  “Gonna what?”

  He flushed so brightly that Jennalee decided he’d never said the word to a girl.

  “Gonna what?” she prompted.

  “Fuck,” he managed.

  “We’ll see.” Jennalee moved in and pressed her lips to his, finding not only an urgent tongue, but a fierce erection hard up against her. She eased back and lifted her tank top. “Get it out and you can have some tit.”