Strings

by Megan Edwards

  I loved him, Ted, and he loved me. Lots of people thought I could only be interested in someone so much older because he had money. But I have enough money, and I didn’t need his. I made him promise to leave his estate to his six children before I accepted his marriage proposal.

  No one was more surprised than I to discover that my name appeared in Arturo’s will. He kept his promise about money and real estate and stocks and bonds, but he bequeathed me the entire contents of his study. It was a room where we had spent a lot of time together, especially toward the end, when his health was failing. I couldn’t believe the bequest would be taken literally, but two months ago, the crates started arriving at my house in Malibu.

  It’s all here now: four Persian carpets, an inlaid mahogany armoire, two massive chairs, hundreds of books, a dozen paintings, three bronze statuettes, marble bookends, a Tiffany lamp, an antique French desk, a collection of meerschaum pipes, three Mont Blanc pens, a crystal inkwell—you just can’t believe it. Even the overhead light fixture and an umbrella stand upholstered in ostrich leather.

  My insurance agent has been helping me get everything appraised, because some of the items are museum pieces, and I feel I owe it to Arturo to take proper care of them.

  This afternoon, when an appraiser was examining a teakwood chest, he discovered a compartment behind a false wall. Packed tightly inside was a violin wrapped in wool batting and foam rubber. It surprised me, because I’d never seen it before, and Arturo didn’t play. It’s in beautiful condition, and apparently quite old. The label inside reads: ‘Joseph Guarnerius fecit Cremonae anno 1742 IHS.’ I wish I could tell you it says ‘Stradivarius,’ but more than likely, it’s a violin Arturo played as a child.

  And now for the irony. I just sat down at my computer to check my e-mail before going to bed. On impulse, I typed the words ‘violin appraiser’ into a search engine. I didn’t really expect to find anything useful, and I certainly didn’t expect to find anyone I knew. But there you were, and your e-mail address was only a couple of clicks away. Kismet.

  Ted, would you be willing to take a look at this violin? You’d be doing an old friend a great favor.

  Yours,

  Olivia

  Chapter 36

  I don’t know which was more surprising, the letter from Olivia or the words on the label she had transcribed within it. Joseph Guarnerius “del Gesu” may not be the household name Stradivarius is, but there are many who prefer the instruments he crafted at his Cremona workshop. A label is no guarantee of authenticity, of course, but this violin had emerged from the estate of an Italian nobleman. Arturo Ricciardi was not only worth millions, he had roots back to the Caesars.

  I wrote back immediately, and I found myself breathless as I typed.

  Dear Olivia,

  It is wonderful to hear from you. Please accept my sincere condolences on your loss of Arturo.

  I am living just north of New York City in Westchester County—Sleepy Hollow to be precise. As you discovered when you searched the Internet, I have indeed become a violin collector, appraiser, and broker.

  If you say the word, I’ll be on a plane to Los Angeles. Your violin may well be something very special, and I would be honored to assist you in any way I can to establish its provenance.

  Yours truly,

  Ted

  (914) 593-8941

  “Sincere condolences!” “Yours truly!” I hated the triteness of those words even as I gave the command to send them. “I would be honored” was awful, too, especially since “ecstatic and terrified” were closer to the truth.

  And it wasn’t the violin that was making my forehead damp. As exciting as a rare instrument can be, not one has ever increased my heart rate. It was Olivia. Foolishly, I had begun to believe over the years that my feelings for Olivia had faded. Time and distance had allowed me to lull myself into thinking she was nothing more than a memory.

  What an idiot I was to think I’d excised Olivia from my soul. Emotion tore through me like a flash flood in a narrow canyon. I shoved my chair back and spun around to rise. As I did, my elbow caught my coffee mug and sent it flying. It smashed as it hit the hardwood floor, exploding coffee and ceramic shards. Yo Yo, who had been dozing in the bay window, leapt to his feet with an outraged yowl and stalked out of the room.

  It took me fifteen minutes to clean up the mess, and just as I sat back down at my desk, the phone rang.

  “Ted? It’s Olivia.”

  So soon?

  “I just read your e-mail,” she said. “Thanks for writing back so promptly.”

  I glanced at my watch. Eleven o’clock, which made it eight in L.A.

  “It was great to hear from you, Olivia. It’s—it’s been too long.”

  A pause on the other end of the line. Was she still angry with me?

  “It has been a long time, Ted. A lifetime in some ways.”

  Now it was my turn to pause.

  “Thanks for offering to help me with this violin.”

  “I can be there tomorrow night, Olivia.”

  “No! I mean—I’d rather come to you.”

  “Oh. Well, okay, but really, I’d be happy to—”

  “I’ll come there. Is Wednesday all right?”

  Wednesday was two days away, and I had nothing out of the ordinary planned. I agreed, and after I’d given Olivia my address—she refused my offer to pick her up at the airport—I gave her some pointers for keeping the violin safe while traveling.

  “I’ll see you Wednesday night, Ted,” she said just before hanging up. “There’s a flight that gets into Kennedy around five. Thanks again for helping me out.”

  I sat silent for at least ten minutes, though my mind was anything but quiet. Olivia had been brief and businesslike. All she seemed to want was a free violin appraisal. But if that were the case, why was she coming all the way to New York, and why had she insisted on making the journey all the way to my house? When I’d offered to meet her at the airport or at a hotel in the city, she told me she would be renting a car anyway.

  “It really will be easiest if I come to your place,” she’d said.

  Her plan left me with nothing to do but sit tight for two days and answer the door when she arrived. What could be easier?

  Playing a violin with boxing gloves on! My comfortable complacency was gone with the maple leaves down Hanford Road. My peace of mind had been shattered just as thoroughly as my favorite coffee mug, and I had only two short days to reassemble it.

  That task was futile, but in my unglued state I at least had the sense to ask for help. I called my housekeeper and asked her to come in for an extra day. Mrs. Adams is an elderly but energetic Jamaican lady who worked for the previous owners of my house. She was happy to transfer her loyalties to me when I took up residence, and my life has been improved greatly by her talents.

  When I explained that I had company on the way, Mrs. A. aired out all the rooms I seldom enter and remade all the beds. She ironed a linen tablecloth and eight matching napkins. She polished the family silver. She smiled when I burst in the door with an armload of flowers, and she helped me arrange them.

  “I’m available tomorrow evening, Mr. Spencer,” she said before she left on Tuesday, “if you’d like me to prepare and serve you and your guests dinner.”

  I noted her use of the plural with appreciation for her natural diplomacy. I had divulged nothing about who was scheduled to arrive Wednesday night, but I had no doubt that Mrs. A. had divined at least part of the truth from my adolescent awkwardness.

  “Uh, no, thank you,” I replied. “I—I really don’t know precisely what our plans will be. But thank you, Mrs. Adams. And thank you so much for coming today. The house looks wonderful.”

  “Your mother would love all the flowers,” Mrs. A. said as she left. As usual, she was right. Next time Mom visits, I promised myself, I’ll fill the place
with roses.

  The only thing left to do to prepare for Olivia’s arrival was to set up my fiber optic camera. The device is a dream come true for violin appraisers. Its raisin-sized camera is mounted on the end of a narrow, flexible probe. When inserted inside the sound box of an instrument, it displays images of the interior on a monitor.

  Violin makers have always placed their labels inside their instruments, and although they’re visible through the sound holes, they can be hard to see clearly. With my little high-tech periscope, I can look inside an instrument and see not only the label, but also construction features and other identifying marks. I plugged the camera cable into my computer and arranged the probe next to it, and with that my preparations were done.

  I still had all of Wednesday to kill. If Olivia arrived at Kennedy sometime around five, she’d be stuck in rush hour traffic on the Sawmill Parkway. I figured eight o’clock was the earliest she could possibly get to my place. Would she be hungry? I didn’t want it to look as though I’d made too many plans, so I stocked up on a few deli items and retrieved three bottles from my wine cellar: a white, a red, and a champagne. We might have something to celebrate, after all. The violin might be a treasure.

  Teddy and Olivia together again! That was what I really wanted to celebrate. But I knew all too well that it takes two to make a reunion, and I struggled to remind myself that Olivia might want nothing more from me than professional expertise. Our relationship had been so painfully unresolved all these years that it was foolish to expect she would hold a single friendly feeling toward me. But it didn’t matter what the hard truth might be. My hopes resisted all attempts to quash them.

  Around nine, I drove into the village and got a haircut. Returning home, I retired to my practice room. Everything was ready for Olivia’s arrival, and the only way I could spare myself an agonizing day of anticipation was to play my violin.

  I lost myself in the music, and the hours drifted by. The practice room has windows on opposite sides, and the sun shifted from one to the other as morning gave way to afternoon. The first golden rays of sunset were beginning to rake across my music stand, and I had just finished the Beethoven Violin Concerto when the doorbell rang.

  My doorbell rings so infrequently that I barely recognize the sound. Mrs. Adams has a key, and my mother never arrives on her own. If visitors arrive when I’m working at my computer, I see them before they get to the door. But visitors rarely arrive. I don’t entertain, and this isn’t a drop-in kind of neighborhood.

  I set my violin down on the piano and hurried into the hall.

  Chapter 37

  When I opened the door, my first thought was how little Olivia had changed, not from the last time I saw her, but from when I knew her in high school. She was wearing a dark blue V-neck sweater, and a delicate gold chain disappeared in a point between her breasts. A light breeze caught her long smooth hair and blew it back from her face. She shivered a little and smiled.

  “Brrr,” she said. “It’s a little chillier here than in L.A.”

  “Oh—come on in,” I said, recovering as quickly as I could. Olivia walked through the door I was holding open for her and turned to face me in the hall.

  “I should have called to let you know I’d be getting in earlier, Ted,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s—it’s fine, Olivia. I was just practicing.”

  This wasn’t starting any too well, and Olivia wasn’t even wearing a coat I could offer to take. The only thing she was carrying was a brand new black violin case. No purse, no suitcase. As I had feared, she only wanted a free appraisal, nothing more.

  Get a grip, Ted. She’s just a client.

  “Well, come on in,” I said awkwardly.

  “Ted, your house is lovely,” she replied as she followed me toward the study.

  “I bought it a couple of years ago, after my father died. My mother—”

  “I’m sorry about your father.”

  “Thanks. He went out the way he wanted, though. Heart attack on the golf course. It was all over very fast.”

  “How’s your mom doing?”

  “Pretty well. She moved to a condo in Newport Beach, and I bought this house to hold all the rest of the family stuff. She visits often. How’s your mom?”

  “She’s fine. She loves living at the beach.”

  We were standing in the south end of my study. Yo Yo suddenly announced his arrival with a long, whiny yowl, and Olivia bent to pet him.

  “He’s beautiful, Ted.”

  “He’s company.”

  We were silent again, and I watched Olivia take in her surroundings. God, she was beautiful, and even though I hadn’t seen her in over ten years, she was still so tantalizingly familiar. And yet, there was something different about her, too, something deeper, a richness I longed to lose myself in.

  At last she looked at me.

  “I’ve got this violin,” she said.

  “I’m sorry about Arturo.”

  Olivia set the case on the desk in front of her. It was exactly the kind I had suggested she buy to transport the instrument safely. I switched on the light directly above it. Snapping open the catches, she lifted the cover. Inside, surrounded snugly by soft gray insulation, was a violin. Its surface was smooth and flawless, and I was pleased to see that it was perfectly strung.

  “May I?”

  “Of course!”

  As I reached to grasp the violin by the neck, my fingers brushed one of the strings. A single, clear note rose in response to my unintentional pluck, and as I listened to its perfect sweetness, a thought burst into my mind.

  Slowly I turned the instrument over in my hands, and I stared in amazement at what met my eyes.

  There was no mistaking the design. There were the roses, inlaid around the back edge of the violin in place of the usual purfling. I’d seen too many drawings not to recognize them, and I’d read too many glowing descriptions. Could it be?

  I expelled a breath and forced myself to remember that the likelihood this violin was the genuine article was practically nil.

  “I hope this is something good, Ted,” said Olivia, smiling. “I’ve never seen an inanimate object strike you dumb before.”

  “Let’s take a look inside.” I picked up my fiber optic camera and inserted the probe inside the violin’s body.

  “Watch the screen,” I said, and Olivia moved closer to me as images appeared on the monitor.

  It wasn’t long before a label appeared in front of us. It was yellow with age, but still perfectly legible: “Joseph Guarnerius fecit Cremonae anno 1742 IHS.”

  I held my breath as I moved the camera slightly. The roses and the label were two out of three. Would I find the third identifying mark?

  Suddenly, there it was. Burned into the wood just below the label was a coat of arms, and just below that, one word: MERINO.

  This time I really was dumbstruck.

  “What?” said Olivia after I had remained mute longer than she could stand. “What is it, Ted?”

  I picked up the violin, and Olivia followed me as I moved to the coffee table in front of the fireplace and laid it gently down.

  “Let’s sit down, Olivia,” I said. “I’ve got to tell you a story about a violin.”

  Chapter 38

  Having a story to tell was a real blessing. It helped untie my tongue.

  “Olivia, your violin was made in 1742 by Joseph Guarnerius. His name isn’t as well known as Stradivarius, but many violinists prefer the stronger character and tone of his instruments, and many of them are equally valuable.

  “We don’t know who commissioned this particular violin, but we do know that a man named Luigi Tarisio bought it from a Benedictine monk in 1844—”

  “Wait, Ted,” interrupted Olivia, laying her hand on my arm. “How do you know so much about my violin—right off the top of your head?”r />
  I looked at her for a moment before answering.

  “Because every violin lover knows about this violin,” I replied at last. “This violin is probably the most sought-after violin in the world. And one of the most valuable. Olivia, it’s worth millions.”

  It was Olivia’s turn to be speechless.

  “Tarisio,” I continued, mostly to fill the vacuum of her silence, “sold it to a wealthy Florentine aristocrat, Giuseppe Merino, who thought so highly of the instrument that he branded it with his family coat of arms.” I gestured toward the computer monitor, and Olivia nodded her understanding.

  “An Englishman named Phillip Kendall was the next owner. He was a wealthy textile merchant who bought the violin from the Merino family sometime around 1860. He gave the violin a name: the Merino Rose.”

  I turned the violin over, and Olivia ran a finger over the inlaid flowers.

  “I wondered about those roses,” she said. “I’ve never seen a violin with that kind of decoration before.”

  “It’s somewhat unusual,” I replied, “but it doesn’t always mean that the instrument is a fine one. What it usually means is that someone wealthy commissioned it, but in this case, we don’t know who.

  “Anyway, Kendall was the man who made it famous, not only by giving it a romantic nickname, but also by lending it to the leading violinists of his day. Musicians all over Europe played the Merino Rose, including a very famous German one, Joseph Joachim.”

  I paused and looked at Olivia. For a split second, I was angry at the violin for being so wonderful. If it had been some ordinary instrument, we’d have been done with it by now, and talking about more important things, like being together again. But this violin had stolen center stage. It was demanding all of our attention, holding us hostage.

  As if she read my mind, Olivia grabbed my hand. Gazing straight into my eyes, she said, “Oh, Teddy, it’s so good to hear your voice.”

  Oh, Olivia. It is so good to hear yours. And to feel your hands on mine.