A Farewell to Yarns jj-2

by Jill Churchill

  She found Thelma and the kids, and between them they managed to hold onto an empty place and flag down Uncle Jim when he finally came in. Thelma studied the program and started to point something out to Jane, who hastily said, "No, I'm not supposed to know what's on it. I promised Mike.”

  Huddled like a row of roosting chickens on the bleachers, they watched as the kids started to file in and take their places. Front and center were the two grade school groups. All the little girls had on their Christmas party dresses, and the little boys looked pink and shiny, like they'd been plucked from their baths only moments before.

  Flanking these groups were the two junior high orchestras. The little guys had bounced into the gym; the junior high slouched self-consciously. The girls were well dressed in a terribly trendy, too-old way, and the boys were pretentiously underdressed. They were, as always, a funny mix of "shrimps and giants" as Jane had mentally dubbed this age group years ago. Some were still babies, others (usually the girls) had already shot up to adult height.

  Finally, after these groups had settled into place, the high school group filed in. They were the only ones in "uniforms." The boys all woreblack trousers and light green blazers with the school emblem on the breast pocket. The girls wore white blouses with a dark green vest and floor length skirts. True, a few of these skirts showed sneakers at the bottom, but on the whole, they were a spiffy group that came in with brisk, breezy self-confidence. They took their places in the semicircle of chairs set up behind the grade schoolers—more or less benevolent big brothers and sisters of the kids in front.

  Mike took his place at the back, and as he looked over the audience, Jane managed to catch his eyes. She waved, and he nodded slightly in acknowledgment.

  After a few inevitable announcements—"A silver-blue Oldsmobile Cutlass by the front door has its lights on,”

  “Last chance for ordering a Fruit-A-Month from the fund-raising committee,”

  “Cookies and punch in the all-purpose room after the concert," the program commenced.

  The youngest went first, and Jane let her mind drift. Virtually the only way to recognize what they were playing was by consulting the program, and Jane wasn't allowed to look at one. How many times over the years had she sat here waiting for Mike's turn, wondering how it must feel to be the parent of one of those beautiful young adults at the back—and now she was one. And she'd discovered that these kids were as neat as they looked. She knew the band kids were often considered the nerds—Mike and his friend had rented a copy of Revenge of the Nerds one night and laughed hysterically at the last scene when the main character asks everybody at the high school assembly to bravely step forward if they're a nerd and the entire band comes forward in a group.

  Still, they were good kids. She'd come to believe that if somebody took a national survey of the incidence of teenage crime in general and compared it to the incidence of teenage crime among those who were in musical groups, there would be a clear difference. Maybe certain kids got into such things because they are basically law abiding, but she preferred to believe they became that way because of the nature of the group effort. Even more than in team sports, a favorable performance resulted only from each one doing his assigned part as well as possible without anyone trying to hog the spotlight. If only boys like the late and not-very-lamented Bobby Bryant could be in school bands, they might turn out very different.

  The grade schoolers got their just applause, and the junior high groups began. The contrast was impressive. This truly sounded like music—not good music all the way through, but it had its moments. They did a credible "Jingle Bells," which brought smiles to everyone.

  Finally it was the turn of the high schoolers. Jane didn't recognize the first two numbers. They were the sort of thing teachers like better than audiences—pieces that were technically challenging to the students and made the director look good in the eyes of his peers, but nothing to hum along with. The third number was a light classical piece that Jane recognized but couldn't have named. Chopin, she would have guessed. When they finished, there were a significant pause. What could the last piece be that Mike thought she'd like so well?

  The violin section raised their bows, staring as if hypnotized at the director for a long moment and at his signal began the initial slow strains of the "1812 Overture." Her favorite piece of music in the world! Jane looked at Mike, who was gazing back at her from behind his tuba with a wide grin. Dear God, if she were not feeling sappy enough already, this would finish her off before it was over.

  She listened, mesmerized by their expertise. A musical expert would undoubtedly have found plenty of flaws in the performance; Jane found none. It was magnificent. The cannons were done on the big drum by a boy who had practiced playing as Scottish marching drummers did, with a string from the drumstick around the wrist to allow for fancy, dramatic twirling between beats. By the time the bells started—a very small girl bent over the xylophone—Jane was openly weeping, and so were many other mothers in the audience. Even the parents who had no high schoolers were stunned by the performance.

  When the last low note faded, there was a long, electric silence before the entire audience surged to its feet, applauding wildly. Mothers pulled Kleenexes out of purses and wiped their eyes; fathers clapped for all they were worth; little brothers hooted and cheered approval. A few parents spilled onto the floor and looked like they could hardly resist the impulse to run and hug their kids, who would shrivel and die of embarrassment if they did.

  Jim Spelling put his arm around Jane and hugged her close. "God, I'm proud of him," he said, his gruff voice sounding a bit choked.

  Jane wondered how a day that started out with a funeral could possibly have finished so wonderfully. How could ugly, mean things like murder happen in the very same world where high school orchestras played the "1812 Overture"?

  Twenty-two

  Jane got out of bed humming.

  Y It was only eight o'clock, but she felt refreshed and wide awake, still in the afterglow of the band concert. She fixed a cup of coffee, fed the pets, and padded in slippered feet to the living room to have a quiet half hour of working on the afghan before she got the kids up for Sunday school. She became so engrossed in working on the last few rows that she lost track of the time. She wove the last loose thread into her creation, then spread it on the floor to admire it. What a shame she hadn't finished it earlier so she could enjoy it longer before having to sell it. It brightened not only the room, but also her spirits. Willard looked at the afghan and barked. She took it as a compliment.

  “Do we get the morning off?" Mike asked, staggering in and sprawling bonelessly on the sofa. Max minced along the sofa back trying to determine what part of Mike's prone body he'd settle on.

  “What do you—oh, quarter of ten! I don't suppose you'd go to the ten-thirty service with me, would you?"

  “Nope. Do we have any orange juice?"

  “Mike, in all your life have you ever known me to run out of orange juice? Toilet paper, yes. Butter, shampoo, light bulbs, cat food, clean sheets, yes. But never orange juice.”

  Jane let the other kids sleep in, and she and Mike enjoyed a quiet morning together. Passing sections of the Sunday paper to each other and gorging themselves on sweet rolls, they didn't really talk much or about anything important, but Jane felt the time with him was probably more beneficial to both of them than a hectic race to church would have been.

  Quality time vs. quantity. One of those trendy pop-psych phrases that sometimes meant a great truth and most often were used as a cop-out by parents who couldn't bother to make time for the kids. Like nature vs. nurture. That was the most recent one, Jane thought as she stacked up the rumpled newspapers and the glasses that the orange juice crud was drying on. It was an interesting concept. For years, if not generations, mothers had been made to feel every fault a child showed was truly their parents' failing. Recently the women's magazines had been running pieces on the opposite theory—that none of a child's problems we
re the parents' fault, that people are born being what they are, and nothing in their domestic environment can change that basic character.

  The truth had to be somewhere in between, or different for different people. But there must be something to the nurture theory. How else could you account for somebody like Bobby Bryant being Phyllis's son? Nobody ever mistook Phyllis for an intellectual, but at the same time, there wasn't a mean or selfish bone in her body. Bobby's creepy character certainly couldn't be attributed to her genes. But that wasn't entirely fair to some unknown adoptive parents. They wanted him and, while Joan Crawford's daughter might dispute the point, most people didn't go out of their way to adopt children in order to mistreat them.

  Then, too, it took two people to make a baby. Maybe it wasn't Phyllis's genes, but those of the boy she'd been married to so briefly. Jane wished now that she'd asked more about him. What sort of kid was he? Phyllis had called him "ambitious and smart" or some such thing. Of course, from her sweet, simple vantage point, practically anyone could qualify for those adjectives. But could he have been a boy of strong character to let himself get swept into playing house? Hadn't he even the wit to wonder if Phyllis might have been pregnant—or didn't he care?

  “Aren't you going to the door, Mom?" Mike shouted down the stairs. She'd been so deep in thought that she hadn't noticed her son leave the room, nor had she registered Willard's frenzied barking.

  She opened the door to a blast of cold air and a Suzie Williams she'd never seen before. "Good God, you look like you've been stepped on by the cavalry," she said graciously to her guest.

  “Thanks," Suzie croaked. Her face was pale but with hectic red circles on her cheeks, like a little girl who's been playing with her mother's rouge. Her hair, straggling out from a knitted hat, was lank. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she was mopping pitifully at a Santa nose. "I feel like shit," she said unnecessarily. "Could I come in, or are you going to watch me like a biology experiment while I die on your front porch?"

  “I guess you might as well be in my house, since you haven't the common sense to be home in bed at your own.”

  Suzie staggered through to a chair in the kitchen. Collapsing in it melodramatically, she said in a voice that hurt to listen to, "A branch fell on the phone lines. I couldn't call. Jane, I need help."

  “You need a doctor."

  “I've called him and picked up the medicine already." She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out an orange plastic bottle full of capsules as proof of this statement. "But I'm supposed to sing in the church choir concert tonight."

  “You not only can't do that, I'm sure you wouldn't even be welcome to try. You're spreading germs like Typhoid Mary."

  “The point is, the physical arrangement of the choir is as important as the voices. We're standing on risers in a sort of pyramid. All I need is somebody to stand in my place."

  “Oh, no—not me, Suzie. I can't carry a tune, and the director despises me."

  “You don't need to carry a tune. Just silently move your mouth and stand in my spot. Jane, I'd do it for you," she added pathetically.

  This little favor turned out to be a bit more trouble and a great deal more interesting than Jane anticipated. The sample items from the bazaar had been set up in the morning and then put away again, so she was there early to put them back out, which was a good thing. The choir director, a music major turned insurance salesman named Ed Shurran was understandably upset when she informed him that she would be standing in Suzie's spot but not—she assured him—singing.

  “But you're a good five inches shorter than Mrs. Williams!" he said in a tone that verged on hysteria. "It'll spoil the whole look. And what about your robe? You'll be tripping over it in the processional.”

  Most of the church offices were closed and locked, and a hurried search didn't turn up needle and thread but did reveal a stapler and cellophane tape. Jane managed a decent job of temporarily shortening a robe while Ed Shurran stood over her, wringing his hands. She then draped and started arranging the display table as the choir members started arriving. As she was stashing the last empty carton under the table, Albert Howard came over to her. "I hear you're standing in for Suzie Williams. Poor old Ed has his knickers in a twist about it.”

  Jane chuckled at the English phrase. "With great reluctance, which is growing greater every second."

  “Nothing to it. You're behind me in the processional and beside me on the risers. Come on. I'll walk you through it."

  “That's awfully nice of you."

  “No, it's self-defense. If I hang around the robing room, he'll try to sell me insurance. He always does.”

  They practiced their measured walk down the aisle and onto the stage. Albert showed her a list of the songs, all of which were familiar to her. She wouldn't have too much trouble mouthing the words. "... And you just follow me out," he finished. "Want to run through it again?"

  “No, I think I've got it. Albert, I'm so grateful. This isn't going to be half as complicated as I thought.”

  They retired to the robing room with the others. Ed Shurran was talking to someone about collision and liability, and Albert Howard winked at Jane. When it was time, they lined up, and Jane had a momentary urge to hang onto the back of Albert's robe so she wouldn't lose him. "I'll get Suzie for this," she muttered under her breath.

  Despite stage fright, Jane made it down the aisle and onto the risers without disgracing herself or the choir. Once they were into the second piece, she had calmed down. By the fourth, she was actually enjoying herself. As little talent as she had, she loved music, and it was downright thrilling to be standing in the center of all those lovely, powerful voices. It was especially nice that she was next to Albert. He had an awfully good voice. She'd always enjoyed his singing.

  What a silly thought that was, she realized. She'd never heard him sing alone. Only as an anonymous part of the choir. And yet, there was something so familiar in the tone, it was as if she'd listened to him many times before. How perplexing. When would she have heard him?

  Perhaps he'd had solos in church—no, she couldn't recall one.

  “For unto us a child is born...." the choir sang.

  Jane was growing more puzzled. It was almost like knowing something once well understood but not being able to quite reach out and mentally grasp it. She concentrated on listening. The slight throatiness on the low notes, the infinitesimal quaver in the higher range, the continuity of the notes, without any obvious breaking for breath.

  The choir paused between songs. The director, his back to the pews, grinned hideously, reminding them to smile. Jane grinned back.

  “It came upon a midnight clear....”

  She stared at the back wall of the church, the better to focus her sense on listening. Maybe he just sounded like someone else. It would drive her crazy for days if she didn't figure it out. Somebody famous, maybe. She started mentally perusing a list of her favorite vocal tapes she had all over the house and car.

  “...to touch their harps of gold ..." Suddenly Jane knew. He sounded just like Richie Divine!

  But how absurd! Why would—how could Fiona's second husband sound so much like her illustrious first husband? Had he worked for years at sounding that way or—!

  Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, Jane studied those nondescript features. The hair was the wrong color, but that didn't mean a thing. Hair could be dyed or bleached. The pot belly? Age. The receding chin? The mustache added to the impression, which might have had help from plastic surgery. The mustache itself completely concealed the upper lip.

  Albert Howard didn't sound like Richie Divine.

  He was Richie Divine.

  Twenty-three

  It took all the self-control she had to keep from turning and saying, "I know who you are! I love your records." Had they not been on stage in front of a lot of people, she would have.

  As the last piece dragged on, however, she started having second thoughts. It was impossible. Richie Divine had been dead f
or years and years. He died when Katie was a baby. Fifteen years ago this month. Everybody knew that. But did they? Everybody knew his plane had crashed. She remembered her conversation with Mel about it. He'd said the plane and passengers were blown to so many pieces that nothing was identifiable. Was it possible that Richie Divine hadn't been a passenger on that plane?

  If the man standing beside her actually was Richie Divine, he obviously hadn't died over the ocean when the plane exploded.

  But why? How?

  She almost missed her cue to step down. Albert Howard jiggled her arm, and she came to with a start and followed him down the risers. Trailing him, she noticed he was getting a bald spot on the top of his head. How sad that this golden idol of youth should have become paunchy and middle-aged in the obscurity of his own shadow. That was what he'd done--lived all these years as the pitiful second husband of Richie's wife. How terrible that must have been for him, to go from being an international superstar to an unknown nerd.

  She almost spoke to him in the robing room, but didn't know what to say. It crossed her mind, too, that she had no business questioning him or even revealing that she'd inadvertently caught on to a very private secret. As she hung up her robe and went to repack the sample sale items, she recalled something Fiona had said about someone trying to get Albert to contribute to a project. The gist of the story was how insulted Albert had been at the implication that it was really Richie Divine's money, not his. Jane now understood the painful irony of the incident. Poor Albert must have felt the insult doubly.