The Promise Girls

by Marie Bostwick

  “And the mother . . . already she was putting too much pressure on the girl. I believe in holding my students to a high standard, the highest. I encourage them to push themselves beyond what they believe they can do. But there is a difference between pressuring and encouraging. Encouragement lifts. Pressure smothers. I feared this was what the mother would do to Joanie in another year or two, extinguish her spark. I hoped to protect her from that. I failed.”

  The old man fell silent, listened. So did Hal.

  It was strange for Hal to hear the melody he had come to know during the course of his research simply as a piece of music. Before, he’d always heard it while watching the infamous talk show tape, more tuned in to the visual than the music itself, looking for that crucial moment. Joanie’s eyes shifting toward Minerva, showing a gleam of rebellion. A breath later, her fingers stumbled on the keyboard.

  It was an act of deliberate defiance. Even at the time, he knew the error was intentional, a purposeful declaration of independence. But he only knew it because he had been watching her face so carefully. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have noticed her mistake; most of the people in the audience didn’t. The fact that they believed Joanie had given a flawless performance made Minerva’s response all the more shocking.

  That episode never aired. The other prodigies, including Hal, were ushered from the set and back to their hotels and regular lives with no discussion of rescheduling. But somehow the videotape of Joanie’s performance and Minerva’s attack was leaked and played, over and over again. The publisher pulled The Promise Girls from bookstore shelves within days of the incident, but people kept talking about it for weeks afterward.

  On the surface it seemed so small, the sort of thing that happens at any given hour on any given day: teenage rebellion and parental overreaction. If it had taken place in private, no one would ever have known about it. But people had known about it, all kinds of people. The public outcry became an explosion that, rightly or wrongly, splintered a family and irrevocably altered the course of four lives.

  No. Not four lives. Five. Including mine.

  Liebestraum No. 3 was nearing its end. Hal’s ears were practically twitching in anticipation, waiting for the mistake. He’d heard it that way so many times before that he’d almost come to think of it as part of the original composition.

  He closed his eyes, pictured twelve-year-old Joanie, sitting at Boehm’s piano, with lanky limbs and hair hanging to her waist. Her nimble fingers fluttered up the keyboard and down again, conquering arpeggios as easily as if she was born to do that very thing, which she was. When it came to the fateful moment, the tricky transition from arpeggios to chords, a juncture at which any pianist might easily muddle her fingering, the spectral presence of the younger Joanie played flawlessly.

  The final chord faded away and for a moment the two men sat silently, as if wishing for its return. Boehm poked a button on the CD player. The silence brought Hal back to the present, reminding him why he was there.

  “She played it perfectly,” Hal said, still surprised. “Is that when you realized she was a prodigy? A genius?”

  Boehm returned to the piano bench and reclaimed his teacup.

  “I don’t believe in genius, not in children. Joanie had a great love of music. She had stamina and the right physique for a pianist—strong arms and hands, long fingers. And she had desire—to learn, to please, to prove herself. And, of course, she is very intelligent. Capable of mastering things which others would find difficult. She had that spark. That thing no teacher can teach.

  “But genius is more than this. Genius requires maturity, an emotional sensitivity that comes from experiencing life fully, in all its divinity and devastation, and having not only the skill but the courage to express this through art. Genius is the willingness to stand on the stage, drop the kimono, and let the world have a good long look, to allow oneself to be completely vulnerable. You see the difference?

  “A child may be vulnerable, yes. Vulnerability and youth are inexorably tied. Children by their nature lack the ability to protect themselves. But to be a genius is to consciously forgo that right of self-protection, to express your full humanity through your art, in all its glory and all its shame, holding nothing back.

  “No matter what Ms. Promise claimed in her book,” he said, lifting his chin to a haughty angle, “geniuses are not born. They become.”

  Hal continued the interview. Boehm was forthright in his answers, but after a half hour Hal noticed that Boehm’s posture was not as erect as before. Looking more closely, he saw that the old man’s clothes hung loose on his body and realized that what he had taken for the fading glow of a California tan might be yellowing of the skin. Hal wrapped up the interview.

  Boehm rose slowly from the piano bench. “Will you do something for me? Will you give this to her?”

  He took the silver CD from the player, slipped it into a white paper sleeve, and handed it to Hal. He shuffled to the wall and removed the photograph of himself and his former protégé. “And this?”

  “Are you sure? It leaves a big hole in your collection,” Hal said, tilting his head toward the vacant space on the wall.

  “I’m sure. I won’t be able to keep it much longer in any case. I had hoped,” he said, gazing at Hal with eyes that said everything, “I might see Joanie again. If that is never to be, I hope this will remind her of who she was and is. And of the time we spent together. Happy times, I think. Will you do this for me?”

  Hal accepted the photograph from Boehm’s now-trembling hand.

  “I’ll tell her everything you said.”

  * * *

  Sitting in his car, Hal took another look at the photograph of Joanie and her teacher and noticed something he’d missed at first glance.

  Joanie stood in the foreground of the photo, on a stage and near a grand piano. Boehm stood next to her, beaming. Joanie was smiling too. On her neck she wore a bronze medal hung on a bright blue ribbon. Standing in the wings of the theater, far in the background, Hal saw a woman. Her face was turned slightly away from the camera and her mouth was open, talking to someone, but even from that distance he knew it was Minerva.

  She was standing next to someone, a man. His hair was iron gray and he wore a black suit. His face, partially hidden behind the black velvet stage curtain, looked like it had been cut in half. Minerva was talking to him. Nothing unusual in that. Joanie had just won a prize and Minerva was always eager to brag about her daughter’s accomplishments to anyone who would listen.

  What was strange was the way she was looking at him, fixedly, and with a kind of desperate determination. And that she had hold of the lapel of his suit, almost as if she was clutching at him.

  Hal picked up his cell phone, dialed Lynn at the office.

  “Do you have Minerva Promise’s number? I want to see if she’s still willing to give me an interview.”

  “Why? I thought you said letting her tell her story would be a waste of time and that anything she’d say would be self-serving and predictable.”

  “Still true. But what I care about is what she’s not willing to say, the stuff she’s never told anybody.”

  “And you think she’s suddenly going to tell you about it?”

  “Maybe she’ll drop a few breadcrumbs.”

  “Okay, but I don’t think you have time. She’s probably at work already and your flight leaves for Seattle tomorrow morning, remember?”

  “Right.” He clucked his tongue a couple of times, thinking through his options. “What’s the name of that restaurant she works at? Wildfire . . . Wildwood?”

  “Wildfish Seafood Grille. Hal, you’re not going to drive all the way to Newport Beach tonight, are you? It’s rush hour. The traffic will be terrible. Plus, she’ll be at work. She might not have time to talk to you.”

  Hal turned the key in the ignition. “Don’t worry. If it means a chance to get her daughters in front of a camera, trust me, Minerva will figure out a way to make the time.”

 
Chapter 19

  With bleached-blond hair and eyebrows that had been tweezed into two perfect arches, then outlined with a dark brown eye pencil, and wearing a gold choker with chains thick enough to restrain a Doberman, Minerva Promise was definitely not Hal’s type. But she was an attractive woman, no doubt about it. Looking at her flat stomach, tanned and toned arms, relatively unlined face, and curvaceous figure, no one would ever have guessed her age as sixty-three.

  Minerva pulled aside one of the restaurant’s younger assistant managers and asked if she could take over for her at the hostess station for fifteen minutes. Hal, she explained, was her only nephew, a photojournalist who was about to leave on a three-month assignment in a very dangerous part of Syria, and he had come to say his good-byes. Her performance was convincing and confirmed Hal’s earlier impressions of her. Minerva was not only manipulative, she had a flexible, possibly nonexistent relationship to the truth.

  The tables were full so they grabbed two stools at the bar. Minerva gave a high sign to one of the bartenders, who brought over two cups of coffee.

  “Thanks, Joey,” she said with a wink, then turned her attention to Hal. “Is this all right? Unless you want something stronger?”

  “No, I’m driving. Coffee’s fine.”

  He took a drink and started to cough. Minerva smiled.

  “Irish coffee.”

  “Yeah,” Hal said, choking his response. “With how much whisky?”

  “As much as it takes.” Minerva took a ladylike sip from her mug and sighed. “I never thought I’d be back doing restaurant work at my age. But with Jerry gone . . .”

  “Jerry was your boyfriend?”

  “Fiancé. We had a beautiful condo near the beach, a million-dollar property. His son sold it right out from under me. Jerry hadn’t changed his will yet. Story of my life. So . . . here I am, working my tail off, trying to make rent on a one-bedroom apartment in Costa Mesa with a view of the parking lot and the manager’s Winnebago.

  “But,” she said in a deliberately cheerful tone, “this is just a temporary setback. Things are starting to look up.” She leaned closer, resting her chin in her hand. “You know, I talked with Meg just a few weeks ago. I think she’s getting ready to start painting again.”

  “She told you that?”

  “We talked about her work and getting around creative blocks. She’s ready to make a change, I’m sure of it. She got sidetracked for a while, but what woman doesn’t? It’s hard to balance family and a career. No one knows better than I do. But I have no regrets. When Meg starts painting again, people will finally see what she’s really capable of and that I was right all along. And once Meg is back on track, maybe the other girls will follow.” She paused and took another sip from her cup. “Anyway, you’re here to talk about my girls. Go ahead. Ask me anything.”

  Hal pretended to take a drink, giving himself time to think.

  Joanie hadn’t been kidding when she said she didn’t speak to her mother anymore. From the way Minerva was talking, it was clear she still hadn’t heard about the accident or that Meg had lost her memory and only recently been released from the hospital.

  If she didn’t know, he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. Nor would he tell Joanie or the others that he’d come to see Minerva. He’d seen the look on Joanie’s face when he’d mentioned his previous phone conversation with her mother.

  “Actually, I’m here to talk about you. I read your book for my research, and watched every television interview I could get my hands on—”

  Minerva sat up straighter, increasing the distance between them. Her smile disappeared. “That was the only time I ever hit Joanie. Or any of the girls. It was one terrible mistake that I’ll always regret. Joanie was deliberately trying to push my buttons and it worked. But I was under a lot of pressure. And exhausted.

  “If you’ve never been on a national book tour, a new city every day, interview after interview, never sleeping in the same place two nights running, and constantly having to be ‘on’ and to keep your cool and hold your tongue in the face of those so-called psychological experts they kept trotting out to say that I was a bad mother, selfish, making up for my own failures and inadequacies by pushing my children to achieve the things I couldn’t . . .”

  She picked up her cup, drinking a little deeper this time.

  “I just wanted to give them the opportunities I never had, to do something meaningful with their lives, to contribute something important. . . .” She drank a little more. “If I was as selfish as all those quacks claimed, I would never have had children at all. I’d have focused on my own career—”

  “Exactly.” Hal nodded deeply as he interrupted her tirade, which Minerva seemed to take as an expression of support. Her posture relaxed and her expression softened.

  “That’s what I want to know about—your career, your past. In the book you didn’t really talk about what you brought to the mix. Half of your children’s DNA came from you, right? I’d like to know more about that half and how it influenced your children’s artistry.”

  “Well, I really think it was my day-to-day presence that had the greatest influence. From the moment they were born, I made certain they were exposed to great art.” She smiled. “When I was pregnant with Joanie, I bought the biggest pair of headphones I could find and put them on my stomach. Even before she was born, Joanie was listening to Mozart, Bach, Rachmaninoff.. . .”

  “Yes, I remember that story from your book. But you grew up in the South, right?”

  She narrowed her eyes and gave him a sly, almost flirtatious smile, then lifted her cup to her lips again.

  “How did you know that?”

  He looked past her toward the bartender, Joey, lifted his eyebrows, and pointed to Minerva’s now-empty cup, silently requesting a refill.

  “You’ve still got just a touch of an accent. I had a girlfriend once upon a time; Meliss Claypool Jensen. She was a Tennessee girl, a Tri-Delt from Vanderbilt. You?”

  “A Tri-Delt from Vanderbilt? Lah-di-dah! But I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that you’ve found me out. Three years of elocution lessons right down the drain.”

  Joey replaced Minerva’s empty cup with a fresh beverage. She left it sitting on the bar while she examined Hal’s face.

  “But you’re not going to talk about me in your movie, are you? This is just for background? People have always accused me of being out to elevate myself through my children’s accomplishments, but it’s always been about the girls. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for them.”

  “Just for background,” he echoed. “Your personal history influenced the choices you made, which, in turn, influenced your daughters. I can’t understand them unless I understand you.”

  Minerva pulled her cup closer, studying the caramel-colored contents for a long time. Finally, she looked up. “All right. What do you want to know about me?”

  “Everything,” he said. “As much as you’re willing to tell me.”

  Chapter 20

  When the doorbell rang Joanie didn’t get up from her sewing machine. Instead, she pressed her foot harder on the pedal, the needle racing down the seam. The bell rang again.

  “Answer the door, will you? I’m in the middle of something.”

  A couple of minutes later, Walt, his backpack slung over one shoulder, poked his head into the sewing room.

  “Mom? Mr. Seeger is here.”

  Hal walked in, dropped two black duffle bags on the floor.

  “Big day, huh? You ready to get started?”

  Joanie looked at Walt. “You better get going or you’ll be late. Are you ready for your calculus test?”

  “Ready enough.” Walt shrugged. “Can we go driving tonight? I’ll never pass my license test if I don’t get more practice.”

  “Oh, honey,” she said wearily. “Not tonight. I’ve got two more uniforms to finish, then a ball gown with cartridge pleats and six rows of piping in the skirt. I’m just so far behind. I’m sorry.”


  Walt shrugged again. “Okay. Maybe this weekend? Or we could ask Uncle Asher?”

  “Maybe. He’s framing a house and needs to get the roof on before it rains. Let me see how far I get today with all of this, okay? See you tonight.”

  She pursed her lips and made a kiss noise. Walt hurried off, his big feet thumping across the wooden floor. The front door slammed behind him as he raced to make his bus. Joanie went back to her sewing.

  “Bull in a china shop,” she muttered.

  “I could take him driving.”

  Joanie lifted her head and looked at Hal, almost as if she was surprised to see him there.

  “I’m just saying, I wouldn’t mind. The place I’m staying makes my old college dorm room look palatial. I’d just as soon have something to do in the evenings.”

  “Oh . . . that’s nice of you, but I—”

  “Never mind.” Hal waved off her excuse. “Just wanted to help if I could. You did remember that we’re supposed to start filming today, right?”

  “How could I forget? I woke up thinking about it at three this morning. Couldn’t go back to sleep so I decided I might as well get some work done. I wasn’t expecting you this early.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep either. I’m always wound up on the first day of a shoot. The crew will be here later, but I thought it’d be good if we talked before they showed up. I brought you something.”

  He bent down, unzipped one of the duffle bags, and started digging around inside. “I saw Gerhardt Boehm before I left LA. He asked me to give you these.”

  Hal handed her a big padded envelope. Joanie reached inside, pulled out the picture frame, and felt her breath catch in her throat.

  “Oh . . . I’d nearly forgotten . . .”