The Promise Girls

by Marie Bostwick

  “Awesome,” he said in a softer voice, holding her captive in his arms and the heat of his gaze. “Amazing, and wonderful, and absolutely gorgeous,” he murmured; then he kissed her.

  Avery had known only two love relationships in her life; one unrequited, the other heartbreaking. She had been kissed but a few times in her life. And never like this.

  Owen’s lips were soft. His kisses were anything but. There was nothing tentative in the way he pressed his mouth to hers, as if he had no question about what he wanted and no doubts that Avery wanted it too.

  As he pulled her body even closer against his chest, Avery did want it. Or thought she did. As a mermaid, Avery was a sensual being, fully cognizant and in control of her own sexuality, a Siren. That was a part she played.

  But beneath the makeup and glitter, the persona she had honed so skillfully that she wore it like a second skin, Avery was a vulnerable and almost wholly inexperienced young woman trying to sort out urges that were simultaneously exhilarating and alarming.

  Owen lifted his lips from hers. His breathing was heavy and ragged, matching her own. “I have the rest of the day off,” he said, searching her face with hungry eyes. “Come home with me.”

  Avery opened her mouth to answer and closed it again. There were all kinds of reasons for her to decline his invitation. She hadn’t known Owen for very long or very well. Until this moment, he’d given no indication that he wanted to be anything more than friends. Either he’d been playing it cool or she’d misread the signals. Entirely possible. She hadn’t had much practice at this.

  Still . . . A handful of conversations, a shared sympathy for a wounded little girl . . . Was that enough for her to know if he was the kind of man to whom she could entrust her heart? Was she ready to take that risk? On the other hand, was she ready to miss her chance?

  “Kiss me again,” she said.

  He did, without hesitation, and though Avery could scarcely have believed it possible, his second kiss was even better than the first. He was so sure of himself, so unapologetic in his desire. His confidence was both arousing and reassuring.

  Avery let the weight of her head drop back onto his arm and parted her lips, feeling like she had fallen from a great height and landed safely, caught up in the sure embrace of a man who might, just might, turn out to be her hero.

  Chapter 17

  Meg looked out the passenger window of Asher’s truck. The neighborhood was busier than she had thought it would be, more urban. She didn’t know why she had formed the impression that they lived out in the country except that Asher looked like someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. And since he’d told her that he owned—that they owned—a home construction business, he probably did. But somehow she had imagined something with more trees and less traffic.

  They passed a building that looked like it had been a gas station in a former life, with café tables out front and a huge ceramic doughnut perched on the roof.

  “What’s that?”

  “Top Pot. Great doughnuts. You hardly ever let me take you there because you say you love them too much. That’s Grateful Bread,” he said, pointing to a storefront with brown siding. “Another of your guilty pleasures.”

  “Does the doughnut place have the old-fashioned kind?”

  “That’s right!” Asher enthused. “Maple glazed old-fashioned is your favorite! I knew you’d start to remember once we got home.”

  Meg didn’t remember ever having eaten a maple-glazed doughnut, but she smiled anyway. He wanted so much for her to remember. She hated to disappoint him.

  A couple of blocks farther on, they took a left and then a right. “This is our road,” Asher said. This street was considerably less busy, with trees and grass, spring flowers blooming in gardens, and people walking their dogs along the sidewalk. One of them, a gray-haired woman wearing a navy blue jacket and walking a schnauzer, waved.

  “That’s Mrs. LaRouche and Punkin,” Asher informed her. “They go for their walk twice a day, rain or shine.”

  “Punkin’s the dog, right?”

  Asher barked out a more enthusiastic laugh than her joke deserved. It occurred to Meg that he was just as nervous as she was.

  “Here we are. Home sweet home.” The narrow driveway was occupied by a silver sedan. Asher pulled the truck to the curb.

  “You have company?”

  “You didn’t think your sisters would let you come home without a welcoming committee, did you?”

  He hopped out of the truck, then jogged around to open her door, as if they were on a date, trying to make a good first impression on each other. In a way, she supposed they were.

  “It’s cute,” she said, looking at the house. And it was.

  The story-and-a-half house was built in a cottage style. The vertical siding was painted a soft sage green with wood-cased windows trimmed in white. The simple rectangular footprint was made more interesting by the addition of an alcove that jutted from the front of the house with four windows at the front and two on each side.

  “Really cute,” she said again. “It’s like a dollhouse.”

  “But it feels like a house twice its size,” Asher said with obvious pride. “We make use of every square inch.”

  The lot could easily have accommodated a much bigger house, but Meg was glad that the little cottage sat so far back from the street, with flowerbeds and a big lawn in front and just as much space in the back. There was no foyer, just an entry door on the side. But a covered porch extending to the right and flanked by two white pillars gave the impression of a grander entrance and was roomy enough to accommodate two white wicker chairs.

  Stepping onto the porch, Meg experienced something strange, something between an impression and a vision.

  She saw herself sitting in one of those chairs, wearing a T-shirt and pajama pants, knees pulled to her chest, cold fingers wrapped around a hot cup of coffee, staring blankly at the garden in the half-light of early morning. The picture was so vivid that, for a moment, she thought it might be a memory. But she felt detached from the woman in the chair, as if she was watching a movie or a reflection in a mirror, an exact replica of someone who looked just like she did. She couldn’t tell what the woman was feeling, or indeed if she had any feelings at all.

  “Meggie? You okay?”

  The sound of Asher’s concerned voice startled her.

  “It’s a nice porch.”

  “Your favorite place to sit when you’re trying to think something through.”

  Asher opened the door. Meg took a deep breath and passed over the threshold of the sweet and unfamiliar house she’d been told was her home.

  Her sisters meant well; everyone did. She’d known that from the first moment of her awakening in the hospital. Everyone wanted her to be happy and whole and well. That was why she tried so hard, because their intentions were so good. They were trying just as hard as she was, perhaps harder. But it was an awkward homecoming just the same. Of all those people present—her sisters and nephew, her husband and her own daughter—she felt truly at ease only with Avery.

  But she tried. They all did.

  Meg smiled deliberately in response to the chorus of welcomes and hugged them back when they hugged her first. She initiated an embrace with Trina, who hung back from the rest, hesitant, looking the way a cat does when it stands by an open door and can’t quite make up its mind to go through or stay put.

  While Joanie and Avery fussed over food in the kitchen, Trina and Walt set silverware on the dining table in the sunlit alcove. Meg was still in some pain from her broken ribs, so Asher helped her to the sofa and made sure she was comfortable. She listened as they talked about the documentary, which would commence filming in a little over a week.

  Avery was excited about the prospect, joking that this might be their first step on the road to stardom, or at least a reality show on cable TV.

  “Really, I can’t believe it’s taken this long for us to be discovered. Those shows specialize in oddball families. W
ho’s odder than us?”

  Walt and Trina shared her enthusiasm; Trina wondered aloud if the crew included a hair stylist and, if so, would they give her some highlights. Joanie was cautious to the point of suspicion, but resigned to the financial necessity of their cooperation. Asher was mostly silent, but when he did speak, it was to thank Joanie for negotiating the fee and the sisters for going along with it; he seemed both relieved to be getting help dealing with the hospital bills and embarrassed that he needed it.

  Meg felt . . . uncertain. She wasn’t excited about the prospect of being followed around by cameras and microphones like Avery. Nor did she dread it like Joanie. Maybe because she was convinced that the filmmaker, this Hal person, would quickly lose interest in her.

  Over the previous days she’d been told all about her childhood, the test tube genius father and the narcissist mother, the book that catapulted them to fame, the day it all came to a crashing halt, and everything that came after. But to Meg, it was just a story about three characters with whom she felt no more connection than she did to the reflection who sat huddled on the porch, drinking coffee and staring at nothing.

  She felt badly for Asher. She, too, was embarrassed that other people were stepping up to help take care of her bills, and relieved that they had. When Joanie had named the figure owed at the family meeting, Meg’s jaw dropped. It was a staggering sum. But what bothered her most was that Asher felt saddled with the responsibility of settling the bill. He wasn’t the one whose car had slammed into the cement wall and racked up tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills. Why should he have to carry that load?

  She posed the question when they met to discuss and vote on doing the documentary and had been met with a simple answer: “Because we’re married.”

  Right. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

  She was married, to Asher. She had been married to him for seventeen years. They had a daughter. They’d built a house and a business together. Everything they did, they did together. Everything that happened—sickness, health, good times and bad—was something that happened to both of them.

  But if they were as married as everyone said they were . . . why did it feel so awkward between them? Especially after the dinner was done and the Capitol Hill contingent went home and Trina climbed the ladder to her loft, leaving them alone? Why did Meg wish he’d quit staring at her when he thought she wasn’t looking?

  And why was she so relieved when he took her to the door of their bedroom but not through it, then escorted her outside to a miniature, perfectly appointed house in the backyard that was to be hers alone?

  On the other hand, unless they really were married, how could he have read her tangled thoughts when he said good night, leaning forward and kissing her on the forehead and saying, “I know. It’s confusing. But give it time. Give us time.”

  And why, after she crawled into the bed built for one and turned out the light, did she lay awake so long, looking out the window and seeing nothing, crying about nothing, feeling like nothing?

  Chapter 18

  Approaching his ninetieth birthday, Gerhardt Boehm still cut an imposing figure. He was tall with a full head of white hair that shone like spun silver and was nattily dressed in a crisp white shirt, a linen sport coat, and toffee-colored trousers pressed to a knife-edge crease.

  “Very good,” Boehm said, standing in the doorway of his 1928 Spanish Revival bungalow as Hal came up the walkway. “I tell my students that if they come late, they should not bother to come at all. But you are most punctual. Come in. Come in.”

  It was one of the more modest houses in an expensive neighborhood, but elegant and well cared for. Following Mr. Boehm through the formal living area, Hal made a comment about the beautiful barrel ceilings and arched doorways.

  “Ah, yes,” the old man replied. “All original. I haven’t changed a thing since I bought it in 1975, a gift to myself. I had just completed a successful but exhausting concert tour and recorded an album of the Mephisto waltzes. Very difficult.”

  “That’s right. You like Liszt.”

  Boehm looked over his shoulder. “Yes. Doesn’t everyone? I was tired of traveling and had a bit of money in my pocket. It seemed a good time to retire. I came to America in search of someplace sunny, found Pasadena and this house. I couldn’t afford it now, though; the neighborhood has gotten so expensive. Not a month goes by without a Realtor calling to say they have a client willing to pay a lot of money for my house. But of what use is money to me now? I have no one to leave it to. And where would I go? This is my home. And this,” he said as they entered a large, open room at the back of the house, “is my studio. May I get you a cup of tea?”

  Hal accepted the offer. Boehm went to the kitchen.

  Hal had decided to film the interview himself with a single stationary camera. He quickly set up his equipment and started investigating his surroundings.

  The room was a good size, but seemed smaller owing to the presence of a massive grand piano placed near a set of French doors that overlooked the garden planted with pink bougainvillea. The piano, lid lifted high, was a thing of beauty, shining as brightly as a pair of new patent leather shoes, showing not a speck of dust. The same could not be said for the rest of the space.

  Stacks of sheet music were piled on every flat surface and in every corner, as well as on the seats of chairs. The wall shelves opposite the piano held papers, memorabilia, and many, many haphazardly stowed books. One of the shelves was so overloaded that a bracket had fallen under the weight, causing books to slip and heap at the lower end, like children left unsupervised on a playground slide. Everything except the piano was covered in a thin veil of dust, including the framed photographs hanging on the back wall. Hal walked closer to examine them.

  Some of the photos showed Mr. Boehm alone as a much younger man, his hair as black as the swallowtail tuxedo he wore, playing the piano on stages of different concert halls, his hands on the keyboard, his expressions intense, displaying passion, fury, rapture. Most, however, showed him with other people.

  Some had been taken in that very room as Boehm leaned over a student to give an instruction, pointing at a particular spot in the music or reaching out to correct a hand position. Others, taken in various concert halls or theaters, showed him with arms draped protectively over the shoulders of beaming students who were obviously relieved at the completion of successful performances.

  There were also pictures of Boehm standing next to musical peers, formally dressed men and women with faces as lined and heads as gray as his own, familiar faces of famous musicians, conductors, and composers. And there were younger famous faces, too, of Boehm’s former students, people who were unknown commodities when they began to study with him but who went on to brilliant futures in classical music. Of course, many of his unknown students continued to remain unknown, had careers that either never took off or fizzled before they began.

  What would it be like, Hal wondered, to enter this room as a young student of the legendary Gerhardt Boehm? To wait alone while the maestro prepared you a cup of tea and look at these photographs, the famous alongside the failed? Would you feel inspired? Or intimidated?

  Hal found Joanie’s picture among all the scores of other photos.

  Her hair was long then, reaching the waistband of her long black skirt. She was a child when the picture was taken, or a young teenager, probably not long after she began studying with Boehm. Her white lace blouse lay flat and smooth over her then-nonexistent chest, but her hands were the same, fingers long and slender. The expression on her face was the same, too, determination and earnestness overlaid by anxiety, the face of someone who was afraid to be afraid.

  “Ah. You have found her, I see.”

  Boehm entered the room, carrying a silver tea tray.

  “Clear a space for this, will you? Take those papers off the ottoman. Oh, and off the chair as well. Lay them anywhere. The floor is fine. Yes, that’s right.”

  He poured tea for Hal a
nd himself, then took a seat on the piano bench. Hal clipped a small lapel microphone on the maestro’s jacket, started the camera, and sat down. Boehm raised the teacup to his lips before setting it delicately back down on the saucer.

  “So . . . you want to talk about Joanie Promise. What do you want to know?”

  “How old was Joanie when she began studying with you?”

  “Twelve. She was talented. There was no mistaking it, even then.”

  “Is that usual? For you to take on a student who is so young?”

  “No, but a friend asked me to give her an audition.”

  “A friend?”

  “A fellow musician. He heard her play and thought that she might benefit from studying with me.”

  Boehm set his teacup down on the piano bench and sprung to his feet with the enthusiasm of a much younger man. He went to a shelf loaded with CDs.

  “I used to have a big, old-fashioned tape player. What do you call them? Reel to reel. But a few years ago I put all of my tapes onto discs. Much more convenient,” he said, placing the CD into a dusty black player. “I was listening to this again before you arrived. It was recorded on that day, when she auditioned for me.”

  Boehm pressed a button on the CD player. He stretched one arm over his head, resting his hand on one of the upper shelves, and leaned forward, eyes closed, his body swaying slightly to the strains of a lovely and familiar melody.

  “That’s the Liebestraum,” Hal said, his voice registering surprise. “She was already playing this when she was twelve?”

  Boehm nodded his head deeply, eyes still closed. “Yes. Not as well as she would play it later, but very well indeed. Do you hear that?” he asked excitedly.

  Boehm cocked his head to one side, listening intently to an especially fluid phase of the music, the notes flowing one into the other with grace and purity, like clear water tripping over stones in a mountain stream.

  “That is what I was talking about. That spark. That brilliance and bravura! Even at twelve, the music flowed through her freely, without inhibition, like blood coursing through the body. That’s why I decided to take her on, because this is something you cannot teach. It is also something that often disappears with age. The doubts and worries of adulthood squash it.