Strings

by Megan Edwards

  “No, Jacob,” she said emphatically. “I don’t care. That’s how it’s going to be. Listen, I’ve got to run, but I’ll call you in the morning.”

  After she hung up, she turned toward me. She was smiling, but her face was pale. I had the fleeting thought that she might have been crying.

  “Teddy,” she said. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  I didn’t say anything as she fell into my arms. I just held her, kissed her hair, breathed her in. Suddenly Olivia pulled away.

  “I’m alone,” she said, and I smiled. I’d have her to myself for a little while before—

  “No, I mean I’m here alone. Teddie and my mom didn’t come.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Oh, God, Ted,” Olivia said, running both hands through her hair. “I don’t know how, but Jay found out I was bringing Teddie here. He showed up just as we were leaving for the airport. To keep the peace, Mom stayed home with Teddie. So here I am. Not exactly what I had in mind, but—”

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d been dreading my first meeting with Teddie, and now it wasn’t going to happen after all. Why didn’t it feel like good news?

  “That was my lawyer on the phone,” Olivia went on. “Jay’s making it sound like I was trying to take Teddie out of state to hide her from him. It’s ridiculous, but all’s fair in war, I guess.”

  “Olivia, I’m sorry,” I said lamely.

  “Not your fault, Ted. Not your fault.”

  “So—?”

  “So what’s going to happen?” Olivia finished my question. “God, I don’t know. I’ll have to go back tomorrow, but we still have tonight to ourselves.”

  She was only partly right. We were together, which was what I had dreamed about for the last six months. But Olivia had to change her plane reservations, and her lawyer called again with a few more questions about Jay’s latest gambit. Then, just when it seemed as though we’d reached a moment of uninterrupted silence, Eleanor called. Teddie was upset, and Olivia spent half an hour reassuring both of them she’d be back tomorrow in time for a late Thanksgiving dinner. The whole time, I just sat there, wishing we really were alone instead of trapped inside Olivia’s toxic marriage.

  “Thanks for the roses, Teddy,” Olivia said when she finally got off the phone. “They’re beautiful.”

  I looked at the red long stems in a glass vase next to the bed and nodded. They reminded me of the champagne I’d put on ice in my room. I should go get it, I thought, but somehow this didn’t feel like a celebration.

  “What do you want to do about dinner?” I asked.

  “Why don’t we just order room service?” Olivia said.

  The phone rang again while I was looking at the menu. It was Eleanor, and Olivia spent another fifteen minutes explaining where to find Teddie’s cough medicine and how to turn off the outdoor lights.

  “I chose that house because I wanted Mom to live with us,” Olivia said when she hung up. “It has the most perfect guesthouse, but—” She paused and looked at me. “She doesn’t like Jay, and she’s made a point of never making herself at home in what she thinks of as ‘his house.’ God, it makes me so mad. It isn’t Jay’s house. It’s my house.” Olivia sighed heavily, and I moved to the phone.

  “Is chicken okay with you?” I asked.

  “Whatever you want, Ted.”

  The phone rang just as I was reaching for the receiver, and Olivia rushed to pick it up.

  “Jay!” she said.

  I fled.

  Chapter 26

  I was fifteen feet down the hall before I remembered my violin. I’ll go to my room and get the champagne, I told myself as I picked up speed. And then I’ll go right back. I had never forgotten my violin before, and the thought of losing it made beads of sweat pop out on my forehead. I was practically running when I reached the elevator, and I probably would have made a dash for the stairwell if it hadn’t been standing open.

  Why am I so upset? I asked myself as the elevator descended two floors far too slowly. My violin wasn’t going anywhere, and Olivia had a right to talk to her husband. I knew before she came that things were getting nasty. She didn’t even want to come. She was here only because I insisted, and she got on the plane even though Teddie and Eleanor had to stay behind. It would have been perfectly understandable if she had cancelled altogether.

  By the time I was in my room, I was calm enough to call room service and order dinner for two to be sent to room 927. Then I retrieved the boxes containing the enamel music box and the Sachertorte from my suitcase, toweled off the champagne bottle, and headed once again for the elevator. When Olivia answered my knock, she smiled.

  “I’m sorry, Ted,” she said, and she kissed my cheek. “I know this is rough on you.”

  “I’m the one who owes an apology,” I said. “I can’t begin to know what it’s like to—”

  “Shh. Come on,” she said, taking my hand. “We’ve got the evening to ourselves now. I told the desk to hold all my calls unless it’s—”

  “Teddie,” I said.

  “Yup. Teddies get to interrupt.”

  I smiled and felt my shoulders loosen.

  “I brought champagne,” I said, holding up the bottle. “I brought things for Teddie and Eleanor, too.”

  I set everything down next to my violin case. Olivia found two glasses, and I popped the cork.

  “To us,” she said, clinking her glass against mine, “and a happier future.”

  We both drank, and I set my glass down on the dresser.

  “I brought your mom a Sachertorte,” I said, picking up the wooden box and opening the lid. “Maybe you can have it for dessert tomorrow night. Have you ever had it before?”

  “Never,” Olivia said. She leaned forward to breathe in the aroma of dark chocolate. “Mom will love this. She’s been a chocolate junkie for as long as I can remember. Teddie’s not a big fan, though.”

  “That’s okay. I have something better for her, anyway,” I said. Opening the other box and removing the top layer of excelsior, I carefully lifted out the music box.

  “It’s from France, but I bought it in Vienna,” I said.

  “Ted! It’s a work of art!” Olivia ran her fingers over the iridescent enamel and gold filigree. I set the box on the dresser.

  “Turn the key,” I said.

  Olivia opened the lid, Tchaikovsky tinkled forth, and the little porcelain ballerina began to twirl.

  “Ted, it’s too much—” Olivia began.

  “Do you think she’ll like it?” I interrupted.

  “It’s absolutely gorgeous.” Olivia closed the lid. “You spent too much.”

  There was a knock on the door, and soon dinner was set up in front of the window.

  After all that had gone before, it seemed almost unbelievable that Olivia and I were alone in the room at last. We sat for a while across from each other, linen napkins in our laps and candlelight dancing on our faces. But soon, dinner forgotten, we moved to the sofa and snuggled together. As we held each other and talked, I couldn’t help thinking back to the old beanbag chair in Bill Cross’s light booth. Olivia and I were soul mates again, understanding each other almost without words.

  “You’re always with me, Ted,” Olivia said, stroking my hair. “And I owe you everything I have. You’re the one who taught me how to stand up for myself.”

  “I owe you everything, Olivia,” I said. “You always expected the best of me. In Camelot. At the music festival in Santa Barbara.”

  “Uncle Chase was pretty hard on you,” Olivia said.

  “I could have blown him off, Olivia,” I said. “It was you who wouldn’t let me off the hook that day. You were the best music teacher I ever had.” I kissed her.

  “I’m no music teacher,” she said.

  “You’re right,” I replied. “You are my muse.”
<
br />   Olivia laughed and stood up. She stretched out her arms and spun around.

  “I like the idea of being a muse,” she said, and she reached her hand toward me. “But tonight—” I stood up, moved close, and kissed the top of her head. She unbuttoned the top two buttons of my shirt and laid her cheek on my chest. “For once, we’re not phantoms and dreams.”

  She unbuttoned another button.

  “Tonight we’re just plain old earthbound bodies.”

  I laughed. “Plain? Old? Speak for yourself!”

  But Olivia was done talking. Silently we undressed each other, touching and caressing until we stood together naked. When I took her face in my hands and kissed her, I tasted tears.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She nodded, silent for a moment. Then she turned her face up to mine, and tears welled in my own eyes when she spoke.

  “I’m never happier than when I’m in your arms.”

  All night long, we were the only people in the universe. The telephone remained miraculously mute as we made love, talked, then made love some more. All bitterness vanished in the presence of unutterable sweetness, and for one more perfect night, Olivia and I were one.

  Chapter 27

  We awoke in each other’s arms. Wintry sunlight streamed through a narrow slit in the drapes. I had no idea what time it was, and I didn’t care. Olivia was breathing rhythmically against my chest, and the only thing wrong in the world was that she had a plane to catch, and I had three more days in New York without her.

  But not the rest of my life, I reminded myself. Soon everything would be resolved, and we’d be together for good. That last thought must have made me tighten my arms around her, because Olivia stirred and moaned in her sleep.

  “Teddy?” she said.

  “I’m here.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to go.”

  “It’s okay. This will all be over soon.”

  “Not soon enough.”

  Later, we had breakfast by the window, and as we ate I thought about the marching bands and the big balloons making their way along the parade route. It looked cold outside, but I couldn’t help wishing I was out there, maybe even holding Teddie’s hand.

  “Ted,” Olivia said, shaking me out of my thoughts. “The music box you brought Teddie is beautiful. I really wish you hadn’t spent so much.”

  “It was important to me,” I said. “It took me a long time to find it, and it seemed so perfect.”

  “It is perfect. Too perfect.”

  “What do you mean, too perfect?”

  “I wish I didn’t have to tell you this.” Olivia looked away from me, out the window. The white sunlight lit her face and two tears that were standing in her eyes. She shook her head and looked at me again. “Teddy, I can’t give her the music box. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You hit the nail on the head when you picked it out for her, but—” Olivia reached across the table and took my hands in hers. “Teddie already has a ballerina music box that plays a tune. It’s her most prized possession. Every night, I wind it up for her, and she falls asleep to the theme from Love Story.”

  “Why can’t she have two?” I asked.

  Olivia was silent for a moment. “Because Jay gave her the one she has. And it’s not nearly as nice as yours. It’s just a cheap little—” Her voice trailed off.

  I pulled my hands from hers and pushed my chair back. I couldn’t put a label on the feelings that were rushing through me. I had brought the perfect gift, and it still wasn’t good enough. The longer I stood there, staring at the box that held the present Teddie would never receive, the more confused and angry I became. When the phone rang, it gave me an easy excuse to grab my violin case and leave.

  I headed down the hall, but I slowed down before I got to the elevator. I can’t keep running away every time the going gets a little tough, I told myself. It’s only a music box, after all, and someday, when the war is over, I’ll have a chance to give it to Teddie myself. I headed back to Olivia’s room, ready to apologize.

  Olivia answered the door with the phone to her ear, but as soon as I was in the room, she ended her conversation and hung up.

  “I’m glad you’re back, Ted,” she said.

  “I’m sorry I left.”

  “That was my lawyer on the phone.” Olivia looked at me, and it was easy to see that whatever he’d called to tell her wasn’t happy news. “Jay’s making things very tough.”

  “He wants Teddie?” I asked.

  “Good question.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Olivia sat down on the edge of the bed and looked toward the window. “I’m not sure, Ted,” she said. “I’m not sure.”

  I set my violin back down on the dresser and turned to face her.

  Olivia’s green eyes bore into mine. “You’ve always had money, Ted.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I’ve worked hard for everything I have,” Olivia said, “and now Jay wants to take it all away.”

  “That’s the deal?” I asked. “You get Teddie if you give him everything else?”

  “He’s been careful not to put it that way, but—”

  “Just do it,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Just do it. Give it to him. Take Teddie.”

  Olivia was staring at me now, and I couldn’t read the feelings behind her eyes. Then she stood up, walked over to the dresser, and picked up my violin case.

  “Would you let someone take this away from you?” she asked.

  “You know it’s not the same thing,” I said.

  “How is it different?”

  “It’s who I am, Olivia. It’s what I do.”

  “It’s your life.”

  “It’s my career.”

  “That’s what Jay wants to take away from me. He wants all the proceeds from everything I did while we were married. All the residuals, too.”

  There was nothing left to say, but there was no time left for talking anyway. It was already eleven, and Olivia’s plane left Kennedy at two.

  •••

  “I promise this will all be over soon, Teddy,” Olivia said before she vanished through the departure gate. “All I’m asking for is a little more time.”

  Chapter 28

  A blizzard swept across Europe two days before Christmas that year. When the storm subsided into a quiet freeze, Vienna was cloaked in a giant snowdrift. As a favor to a colleague, I had agreed to take his place in an ensemble for a vespers service in St. Stephen’s Cathedral on Christmas Eve.

  I was doing my best to ignore the holidays, a difficult task in a country that revels so thoroughly in Yuletide. Even though I fought to ignore it, the hectic Christmas cheer reminded me too much how slowly and painfully things were going for Olivia and me. Nothing had changed since we parted at Kennedy Airport at Thanksgiving, and as her battle with Jay dragged on, I wondered why she was fighting so bitterly over what had happened in the past. Jay couldn’t take her future career, and he really didn’t want their daughter. I found it harder and harder to understand why Olivia found it impossible to walk away.

  After the service, I watched the cavernous nave of the cathedral begin to empty out. Wrapped in fur coats and face-concealing mufflers, family groups were leaving arm in arm to make their way home to celebrate in the warmth of glowing hearths and candlelit trees. I, on the other hand, would be returning to a dark and empty flat. I hadn’t even thought about what I’d eat the next day, and suddenly it dawned on me that most restaurants would be closed. I’d probably end up in a deserted hotel dining room.

  I was still lost in my dark thoughts when a smiling face framed in white fur moved in front of me, a woman I had never seen before.

  “Edward Spencer?” s
he said with only a hint of German accent.

  “Yes!” I replied, surprised. “I—”

  “I am Sophie Reinhardt,” she said, pushing back her hood and revealing a halo of blonde hair. “A friend of Karl Maurer.” Karl was the one who had asked me to play for the vespers service.

  “Oh, I—”

  “Karl told me you have no family here in Vienna,” she went on. “I, too, have found myself alone in the city for Christmas. I came to Vienna to attend the funeral of an old teacher of mine, and now the blizzard has delayed my return to Düsseldorf until after the holiday.”

  Pulling off a kid glove, she held her right hand out to me. I shook it, noting the strong Germanic grasp.

  “Would you care to join me at my hotel for a glass of Christmas champagne?” she asked. “I know it is not traditional, but—”

  I found myself fascinated by her perfect English, her precise pronunciation, her forthright confidence. Her firm handshake seemed to yank me out of my self-absorption, and I couldn’t think of a single reason not to accept her invitation. Moving my violin case to my left hand, I offered her my right arm. Together we braved the cold for a few blocks on foot, and soon we were surrounded by the elegant warmth of the Hotel Sacher.

  After depositing our coats with the cloakroom attendant, we made our way to a table in the bar. While Sophie consulted with a waiter about which champagne to order, I took stock of my unexpected companion.

  Her pale blonde hair swirled in soft, unruly curls to her shoulders, a charming contrast to her precise aristocratic features. She was about my age, I estimated. Who was she? I wondered, and why had she sought me out? I looked again at Sophie, who met my gaze with confident blue-gray eyes.

  “I have been wanting to meet you, Edward Spencer, ever since I heard you play Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole here in Vienna. In 1985, I think.”

  “1984,” I said, “but thank you.”

  If only things had been different. If only Sophie hadn’t named my favorite violin piece. If she had been a little less capable, intelligent, and determined. If her hair hadn’t floated around her face like spun gold. If her smile hadn’t been so warm, or the weather so cold.