“No!” he nearly shouted. “You must never destroy this priceless piece of work.”
“We’d never!” Annie and Alice said together, breathlessly. Then Annie looked at her friend and added, “I don’t think Mike really meant for us to do that. He was just saying …”
“I’m sure you’re right, Annie,” Alice said. She looked at Papa Dexter. “Do you think you can get inside it?”
“I believe I can. Now let me see if I can just find the hidden key. Usually they are beneath the wing of a butterfly.”
“Oh?” Annie said. “I never saw a butterfly in the carving.” Of course there was a lot of carving, and it was possible she had missed it.
“Sometimes they are quite small,” he said.
The women rose from the sofa and went to stand near him as he examined the music box more closely.
“Ah ha!” he said after a while. “There’s the butterfly, … and there’s the hidden catch.”
He pressed with his fingertip. Annie heard the defined sound of a release click, and the music box suddenly was in two parts. A nearly invisible seam had kept its secret all these years.
Papa Dexter gently unfastened the unseen clasp on either side and set the top portion of the music box aside, revealing the music cylinder. More importantly, it exposed at last the mysterious contents to the light of day.
8
Well, now,” said Papa, “there it is.” He lifted out a roll of paper, about seven inches long, tied with a scarlet silk ribbon.
“Ooo!” Alice gasped softly. “Annie, look! What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know.” She stared at the roll of paper. “It could be anything.”
The old man smiled and tenderly offered it to her.
“You do the honors, Mrs. Dawson,” he said.
Annie stretched out her hand, and Papa Dexter gently laid the roll in it. She delicately ran the fingertips of her left hand over the thick, cream-color paper. She touched the silk ribbon and traced the discolored edges of the roll. She lifted it to her nostrils and sniffed the fragrance of wood, and paper, and days of long ago.
“What is it?” Alice asked again.
“I don’t know,” Annie murmured.
Her fingers shook slightly from the excitement of the find and from anticipation to see what was written on the papers. She sank into the nearest chair and untied the silken bow. She paused and looked at her two companions. Alice was nearly beside herself with eagerness, and in fact, her fingers clenched and unclenched as if she planned the snatch the roll out of Annie’s hands any moment. Papa Dexter watched, smiling, like an indulgent grandfather. He stroked his white beard.
“I feel as if I’m violating someone’s trust,” Annie said in a near whisper. “It’s almost as if I’m invading someone else’s home.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Alice cried. “Those papers have probably been in that music box for decades. It’s not like you’re opening someone’s private mail.”
Annie took a deep breath. “I know,” she said, “but it still feels that way.”
“Then let me open it!” Alice said, reaching.
Annie pulled back and gave her friend a reproachful look.
“I will open it. I’m just saying …”
“Indeed,” Papa Dexter said, “I understand how you feel, Mrs. Dawson. Believe me, I have felt the same way many times over the years. In fact, one time I found in an old dresser an entire stack of the steamiest love letters you can imagine. Those letters had been written in the 1880s, a hundred years before I laid eyes on them. I was conflicted for a little while, but did I read them? Yes, I did! It drew me close to a star-crossed young couple and helped me to understand that we humans are the same, no matter what century we live in.”
“What else could you have done other than read them?” Alice said. “Shred them, burn them—use them for lining the bottom of a birdcage? What kind of resolution would that have been? I think it was far more honorable to read them.” She turned to Annie. “Come on, Annie. Let’s see what’s written on those papers. Maybe you’re holding a cache of steamy love letters too.”
“It might be nothing more than a laundry list or some recipes,” Papa Dexter added.
“Tucked away in a music box?” Alice said.
He shrugged and smiled. “Old family recipes with secret ingredients, maybe.”
Annie hesitated only a moment longer, and then took a deep breath and gently pulled one end of the ribbon. As it opened and fell away, the pages loosened. With Alice virtually breathing down her neck and Papa Dexter watching with his bright blue eyes, Annie unrolled the paper.
As the paper unrolled, the notes and lines of a musical score revealed themselves.
“It’s a song!” Annie murmured. “A handwritten musical score.”
At the top of the score was written in antiquated penmanship, “For Olivia.” As she continued to unroll the music, she saw it was one long page, folded into several sections. The notes ended in the middle of page four.
“Rats!” Alice said with blatant disgust. She flopped back down on the sofa. “I was hoping it was something interesting.”
“You don’t like music, Alice?” Papa Dexter asked.
“I like it well enough, but I was hoping that,” she waved a hand toward the pages in Annie’s hands, “was something significant. Old money. A treasure map. A letter written by Abraham Lincoln.”
“I see,” the old man said with a smile. “But what if this is a piece of undiscovered music by—oh, I don’t know—Rachmaninoff, perhaps.”
“Mozart?” Alice asked eagerly, sitting up.
Papa Dexter chuckled. “Oh, I hardly think so. Someone more contemporary. Gershwin, perhaps. Or Porter. Maybe Kern or Berlin. Someone during the earlier part of the twentieth century when Malcolm Tyler built these music boxes.”
“Oh! Annie, is it?” By that time Alice was bolt upright on the sofa and had fixed her bright-eyed eager gaze on her friend. “Did Gershwin write that music?”
Annie scanned the document. She shook her head.
“The only name written is ‘Olivia’ in the title. There is no composer’s signature anywhere.”
“Olivia, eh?” Papa Dexter said.
“Yes. Do you know who that might be?”
He shook his head. “Not without a last name, no. Is there a date?”
Annie looked and said, “No. Nothing. Just notes and the title.”
She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice, but it wasn’t easy. She was not sure what she’d been hoping was hidden in the box, but a piece of music certainly was not it.
“I’m sure the historical society would like to have this,” she said as she carefully rolled the pages. “I’ll take it to Stella.”
“By any chance do you mean Stella Brickson?” Papa Dexter said.
Annie smiled at the old man as she neatly tied the fragile ribbon.
“Yes. Do you know her?”
“I’ve … seen her around. Fine looking woman. And a sharp business head on her shoulders.”
Annie and Alice exchanged a glance. Was there just a hint of hidden romance in Papa Dexter’s tone, or had Annie imagined that softening of his face, the quiet more-than-a-little interest in his tone?
“Are you and Stella friends?” she asked.
He hesitated just a moment before shaking his head. “No, not really.”
Again the two women looked at each other, and Annie plainly saw the light in Alice’s eyes. Her friend obviously shared the same notions. But Annie respected the old man and didn’t want to pry, especially since they’d only met that morning. She changed the subject.
“Papa Dexter, do you know how to fix the little apparatus so it will play music again?”
“I might be able to, Mrs. Dawson, if you’d like me to try.”
She gave him a warm smile. “On one condition,” she said.
“Oh?”
“That you call me ‘Annie.’”
“I’ll do it!” he said
, returning her smile. He glanced at the music box. “If you’ll trust me with this magnificent box for a few days, I’ll see what I can do to fix the mechanism.”
“Thank you so much! I think I like you, Papa Dexter.”
“And the feeling is mutual, Annie.”
Later, on their way back to Stony Point, Alice asked, “So you’re going to take that piece of music to Stella? Do you think it’s anything valuable?”
“I don’t know,” Annie replied, “but one thing I’m sure of, it surely has some historical value, if only because it’s so old.”
Alice wrinkled her nose. “I guess.” She grabbed up her purse and took out a pen and notebook, saying, “I think we better talk about a guest list and menu for that party.”
Annie forced her thoughts away from the music score that now lay carefully on the backseat of her Malibu.
“Ian mentioned games. What do you think?”
“Games! At a party for adults?”
Annie shrugged. “It might be a good idea. Get people warmed up, entertained.”
“So OK. We can at least think about it, but I’m not so sure people will want to play games.”
“Music!” Annie said. “I nearly forgot about that! Ian mentioned a local band, the Nocturnal Loons. What do you think?”
“I think that’s great! Games maybe, food, guests, music.” Alice wrote in the notebook while they rode along. “Let’s be sure to invite Papa Dexter. Maybe he and Stella will get together.”
Annie slid her a sideways look.
“Tsk, tsk, Alice,” she said. “Are you matchmaking?”
“Why not? Those two aren’t getting any younger.”
“Alice!” she said, and burst out laughing.
“Oh!” Alice exclaimed a minute later with considerable excitement. “I have the best idea ever!”
“And that is?” Annie said with a smile.
“What about that fellow from Cooper City, Arkansas? The one you don’t seem to want to talk about. I think you should invite him!”
9
“Oh, Alice! What a crazy notion. Get real, please.”
“I am getting real. You have his phone number, Annie. You could call and invite him!”
“Alice!”
“What?” Alice gave her a wide-eyed stare of faux innocence.
“Invite someone to come all the way from Arkansas?”
Alice smiled beatifically and said nothing.
“What’s with you?” Annie asked. “Why are you so interested in everyone’s love life all of a sudden?”
“It’s not all of a sudden,” Alice countered. “I just think if someone is interested in a certain someone, and that certain someone is interested back, or at least might be interested back, it’s a nice thing to encourage that interest.”
“Oh, good grief!” Annie all but rolled her eyes. “You don’t know if anyone has any interest in anyone else. It’s all in your head.”
“Annie Dawson, you cannot tell me Papa Dexter didn’t express interest in Stella. You saw and heard him as well as I did.”
“That might be, but you don’t have the least idea if she’d be interested in him.”
“And you can’t deny that hearing from an old boyfriend has not stirred some old feelings in you. You’re human, after all. At least I think you are.”
Annie sniffed, ignoring that last remark.
“All that business with Grady and me was a long time ago, and he was not an old boyfriend. We were kids. There is no interest, believe me. And besides all that, he hasn’t called again, so there!”
“Huh!” Alice said grumpily. She folded her arms over her chest and stared out the car window.
After a while, she said, in an offhand way, “So that’s his name, is it? Grady. This boy from a long time ago.”
Annie paused, and then said, “Yes. Grady Brooks.”
“Grady Brooks,” Alice repeated. “Hmm. I like the sound of that. Sort of artistic and virile at the same time.”
“Oh, good grief!” Annie groaned again. “Please turn down the flame of your imagination, will you?”
They rode in silence until they reached the city limits. At that point, Alice jerked, as if someone had poked her in the back.
“I know who he is!” she shouted so suddenly that Annie nearly drove off the road.
“Alice! My goodness!” she said.
“I remember!” Alice yelled. “Annie, I remember Grady Brooks. You came up to visit Betsy one summer and spent a good part of every day moaning and groaning about not getting to see him, or mooning and sighing about his beautiful gray eyes, his curly dark hair, or his soft deep voice. Oh yes! I remember now!”
Annie huffed loudly.
“Forget all about that, would you? I was fourteen years old, and it was a silly crush. To him, I was just the girl next door.”
“Must not have been ‘just the girl next door’ if he remembers you after all these years and calls you.”
“He has not called me,” Annie said stiffly. “He dialed my phone number, but he did not talk to me, and he did not leave a message.”
“Still.”
“Still, nothing! He’s just a boy from a long time ago, and there is nothing to it, and that’s it. I wish you’d just drop it.”
“But, Annie, if he’s trying to get in touch with you after all these years—”
Annie sighed, loudly this time and with considerable exasperation.
“OK, OK,” Alice said. “I was just trying to help.”
“Help what?”
She shrugged. “Just help.”
With great relief, Annie recognized the signs of her friend dropping the subject. Or so she believed. Alice proved her wrong.
“It’s another mystery for you, Annie.”
Annie waited, knowing Alice would continue this line of thought.
“This Grady Brooks wanting to get in touch with you after all this time. Let’s say he isn’t interested in romance …”
“Yes, let’s say that. Please, let’s keep that in our minds, Alice!” Annie was beginning to feel twitchy. She hoped this conversation did not end in a heated quarrel.
Alice held up one hand. “Just hear me out. Let’s say Grady is not interested in romance. Then that begs the question: Why did he call you after all these years? How many years has it been?”
“A long time,” Annie replied crisply.
“Well, he wants something,” Alice said, ignoring Annie’s exasperation. “That much is obvious. But what is it that he does want? That, my dear friend, is the mystery.”
“For all I know, he might be looking for me to ask if I know the whereabouts of a mutual friend, or to find out when Aunt Susan died,” Annie told her. “Maybe he wants some information about missionary work. You know my parents were missionaries while I was growing up, and a lot of people have asked me about that. Truly, Alice, you are making a far bigger deal out of a mere phone call than you should.”
Alice ignored this observation in favor of something more provocative.
“Maybe he wants a loan.”
“A loan?” Annie squawked. “Why on earth …?”
“Or maybe he’s adopted and thinks you might know his birth parents.”
“He’s almost fifty! It’s a little late in the day for that, don’t you think?”
“Or maybe he has a deadly disease, and he’s been deeply in love with you all these years and wants to make sure you know his true feelings …”
Gratefully, Annie pulled into Alice’s driveway. She stepped on the brake with considerably more force than she intended.
“Will you puh-leeze just get all these wild and crazy—yes, crazy—notions and what-ifs out of your mind, Alice? You’re going to drive yourself—and me—insane.” She winced inwardly at the crabby tone in her voice. More gently, she added, “Besides, you need to spend your time coming up with the guest list and menu. Ian put in a request for cream puffs, by the way.”
“And that’s another thing!” Alice said. Her eyes stil
l had that faraway expression of being lost in thought and totally oblivious to Annie’s irritation.
“Be sure you bake plenty of them. I’ll help.” Annie hoped bringing the conversation back to the party would reorient Alice to their original topic.
A flicker passed over Alice’s face. “What? Oh, no, that’s OK. I’ll make plenty. They’re easy. I was just thinking about Ian and Grady, and them being rivals for your hand.”
Annie had had enough. She forced a smile and calm demeanor, but it wasn’t easy. In fact, it was almost impossible, and she was pretty sure her facial expression more resembled a gargoyle than a frustrated friend.
“Goodbye, Alice. I’ll talk to you later.”
Alice nodded and got out of the car. For the time being, she seemed content to be living in her own little world of romance and mystery.
“’Bye, Annie,” she said absently as she closed the car door.
As for Annie, when she got back to Grey Gables she went straight to the medicine cabinet and got two aspirin. The conversation had given her a headache, and she was determined to dismiss Alice’s foolish notions from her mind.
She fetched her plaid tote, her current work-in-progress, the cordless phone, and took them all out to the porch. The midafternoon sunshine was golden and warm, drawing the scent of fresh growth from the earth. The Atlantic offered its rolling ocean vista, and the cries and calls of seabirds.
In times of stress, as well as for simple relaxation, Annie enjoyed crocheting. While her yarn and hook worked in synchronicity to create a lovely piece that had not existed until she made it, she found herself unwinding. Prayer always came easily; crocheting always gave her a sense of meditation almost as quieting as being in church.
Annie sat in the old wicker rocker and took her crochet from the tote. Putting the chair in motion with a gentle shove from her foot, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. For a while, she allowed her overdrawn brain to lie dormant while she absorbed the sound of the ocean, the quiet comfort of her home, the familiar feel of the hook in her fingers, and the soft heap of yarn resting in her lap. The soft outdoor air caressed her skin, and Annie soon found a calmer place within herself.
This is what life is, she thought. This awareness of life, the sights and sounds and smells, the feel and taste of it. From time to time, it’s necessary to let all else fall away and simply be.
The Unfinished Sonata Page 7
