“It’s the money, isn’t it? The fifteen thousand. You said you’d have it this week and you don’t. What happened? Did your condo buyer back out?”
Hal put his bags down on the porch and reached into his wallet.
“Nope, everything went through. The seller’s check was deposited into my account last night. Here you go,” he said, and handed her a check. “And before you ask, that belongs to you and your sisters no matter what. At the end of three weeks, if you’re not willing to continue with the project on camera, I won’t ask for a refund.”
Joanie opened the check, read the amount, and looked at his signature. She lifted her head and stared at him.
“Is that from Cupcake Royale?” she asked, nodding toward the bag.
“I wasn’t sure what kind you liked so I bought one of each.” He smiled. “Just in case you were up for a late-afternoon snack. Or maybe an early dinner? I’m buying.”
Joanie pressed her lips together, thinking over his offer and what he’d said about the sale of his condo going through. So it was done. Presumably anything he’d made on the sale of the condo—and perhaps even his capital—had gone into the movie, the thirty-thousand-dollar fee Joanie had demanded plus the rest of the production costs.
How much could that be anyway? Another thirty thousand? More?
And he really expected her to believe that, after hanging out with him for a couple of weeks, she could just walk and keep the money?
“Thanks, but no. I’m still full from lunch and I already made dinner—shepherd’s pie. I’ll just heat it up later.”
Hal’s hopeful expression was replaced by one of defeat.
“Shepherd’s pie. Right. Well, okay then. It was worth a try. I’ll give you a call on Monday and we’ll . . .” He shrugged. “Well, we’ll just have to see.”
He turned and started to leave. But when he got to the top step, he turned around once again to face her.
“You don’t trust me,” he said. “And you know something? Maybe you shouldn’t. I haven’t been one hundred percent straight with you. First off—and promise you won’t get mad—”
Joanie felt her jaw set. Somebody warning you not to get mad is usually a pretty good indication that you should do the opposite.
“—but this wasn’t just my idea, it was Avery’s. So were the cupcakes,” he said, jerking his chin to the bakery bag he’d left behind.
“What! If she thinks . . . If either of you think—”
He raised his hands. “Just let me finish before you tell me to shove off, okay? Avery was just trying to help me out. And possibly you, too, but I’m pretty sure I’d have more to gain from this than you.
“Anyway, what I was trying to say was that I wasn’t completely truthful with you. Or with myself. After Avery told me what was going on, I went for a long walk to think about it and realized she was right. Avery is really very perceptive. Either that or I’m really obtuse . . .”
Joanie furrowed her brow. “Hal. What are you talking about? What did Avery tell you?”
“Hang on, I’m getting to that. Avery said that the real reason I wanted to make this documentary was you.”
“Me?”
He nodded. “You. She said that when I met you that day, twenty years ago in that green room, when we were both seventeen—Do you even remember? Because I’ve never forgotten it—Avery said I developed a crush on you and that my obsession with making this project is because I never got over it.”
“Wait . . . What? Is that true?”
Hal was quiet for a moment. He twisted his lips with a kind of weird, corkscrew motion, doing that thing Joanie noticed he did when he was thinking hard about something.
“Yeah. Maybe. At least partly. I know it’s hard to believe, seeing as I grew up to be such a Casanova and everything, but you were the first girl I ever really talked to. Up until then, the only figures I found interesting were numeric, not female.” Joanie made a face. “Yeah, sorry. That sounded a little pervy, didn’t it? My point is, I did have a crush on you and, yes, in a way, I never really got over it.”
“Okay . . .” Joanie said slowly. “But you’ve liked other women since, right? I mean, you’ve had girlfriends and everything?”
“Yes,” he said, his tone purposely patient. “Girlfriends and everything. I’m not that big a nerd. Even a couple of long-term relationships, including a short-lived engagement I was very lucky to slip loose of. But I gotta tell you, though, after a couple of dates, or occasionally a couple of months, those women bored the hell out of me. But, Joanie . . . you?”
He turned his head to one side and let out a frustrated laugh. Joanie couldn’t tell if he was laughing at himself or at her.
“Since I came up here you have irritated me, aggravated me, and occasionally infuriated me. When I’m trying to come in for a close-up and you purposely drop your scissors under the table for the third time, do you seriously think I’m not going to figure it out? For the last four weeks, you’ve made me ten kinds of crazy! But what you have not done, not once, is bored me. For reasons I’ll probably never completely understand, I find you endlessly fascinating.
“So, yes. Avery’s right. Part of the reason I’ve been so fixated on making this movie stems from my unrequited personal interest in you—a schoolboy crush. But it’s not just about you,” he said, looking her in the eye at last, a thing Joanie didn’t realize she wanted him to do until he did it. “It’s about me too. About what you did for me.
“If it was just that encounter in the green room, I still would’ve had a crush on you, but I’d have gotten over it. It was what you did after that stuck with me. When you sat down to play the Liebestraum and I saw it—that defiance in your eyes . . . When you made a break for freedom and the right to determine your own future, you changed my life.
“It’s true,” he said, responding to the doubtful look Joanie gave him. “If not for you, I’d probably be holed up in some moldy math department today, rehashing other people’s research and trying to pass it off as original and my own. That’s the best-case scenario. Worst case is I might have gone round the bend and stayed there, the Ludwig Boltzmann or Alan Turing of my time.”
He smiled.
“Okay, now I’m flattering myself. I wasn’t good enough to become a full-blown Mad Mathematician. So, there I’d be, miserable in the math department, fighting for tenure, publishing and perishing. By inches. One thing is certain; I’d never have become a filmmaker. And that would have been a waste because, as it turns out, I’m much better at making movies than I ever was at doing math.
“So. There it is,” he said, taking in a big breath and letting it out in a whoosh. “The truth. I wanted to make this movie more than anything because, from the moment I saw you, I couldn’t get over you. I’ve been waiting twenty years to finish that conversation that never really started back when we were teenagers.
“And then, after I solved the puzzle, understood your story, understood you, I wanted to share my findings with the world. Because that’s what I’m good at. Because I’m convinced there is something in your story that the world needs to know. Maybe even something that you need to know. Who knows?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets, looked down at his feet. Joanie ducked her head, trying to see his face. She thought he was doing that thing with his lips, making the corkscrew face, but she couldn’t be sure. He popped his head up again.
“Sorry. I seem to be making a lot of speeches these days. I’ll call you on Monday,” he said, and started down the steps.
“Hal! Wait!”
He stopped at the bottom stair, looking up at her.
“You said I’d get a chance to talk. Are you done?” He nodded. “Good. What I was going to tell you was . . .”
She stopped herself, frowned.
“Let me start over. If you’re being honest, then I should too. I was going to say exactly what you thought I would—shove off. But that was a pretty convincing speech.
“So here’s the deal—I�
��m really not hungry right now. I wasn’t making that up. I had this huge bowl of peach cobbler and cinnamon ice cream at lunch. I should have split it with Meg. Anyway,” she said, seeing his look of confusion and realizing she needed to get to the point, “I’ll be hungry in a couple of hours—I always am—and I have a shepherd’s pie ready to go into the oven later. So if you’d like to come inside and talk until then, you’re welcome to stay for dinner.”
Joanie opened the door wider. Hal climbed the steps, two at a time.
Chapter 29
“You don’t have to do that,” Joanie shouted from the dining room.
“I know,” Hal shouted back, opening and closing kitchen cupboards. “You already told me twice.”
“I did?” Joanie’s voice sounded surprised. “Guess I had too much wine.”
“We both did. That’s why I’m making tea. Hey, where do you keep your trays?”
“China hutch. Breakfast nook.”
“Found them.”
Hal placed two mugs of hot tea, cream, sugar, spoons, and a plate of cupcakes on the largest wooden tray and carried it into the dining room. Joanie was sitting at the table, resting her chin in her hand, staring sightlessly into the flame of a beeswax taper, now half the height it had been at the beginning of the meal.
“Listen to that!” she exclaimed when the piano concerto coming through the stereo speakers began a new, faster, and more vibrant movement. “Edvard Grieg. Concerto in A minor, Opus 16. So beautiful. Did you know that Liszt was the first person to play this? Not on the stage. The two composers met in Rome; Grieg wanted an opinion on the new concerto and Liszt sat down and played it, even the orchestral parts. Sight-read the whole thing! Can you imagine? Me either.
“Listen,” she said once again, more reverently. “So lovely. A waterfall.”
She closed her eyes, enraptured, her face bathed in candle glow, her features soft and her skin luminous. Hal placed the tray on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down across from her, moving quietly, giving himself time to study her face.
An angel’s visage, he thought. She swayed ever so slightly along with the music. The flickering flame caught the highlights of her hair and deepened the blush of her lips. For a moment, he let himself imagine what it would be like to kiss her, to hold her, to . . .
No. He’d had a lot to drink, but not so much that he couldn’t see that getting emotionally involved with Joanie would be a really, really bad idea. He was a documentarian. His job was to observe objectively and from a distance, not to insert himself into the scene.
It was a fine line he was trying to walk and he knew it. He had to be open and honest enough so that Joanie would trust him with her story, but not so involved that he was unable to maintain his status as dispassionate observer. If he didn’t, then he couldn’t make this movie, and if he didn’t make the movie, he’d end up losing his home and his business for no reason.
Joanie opened her eyes and smiled, as if she was happy to see him.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For bringing music back into my life. I didn’t realize how much I missed it.”
“You’re welcome. Dessert?” he asked, shoving the plate in her direction.
“Oh. I shouldn’t.”
She bit her lip, then reached across the table and plucked a coconut cupcake from the pile. He chose a chocolate one with green mint frosting, peeled off the paper, and broke it into pieces, eating them one at a time.
“Do you know why I decided to let you in? It’s not because of what you said about having a crush on me. Or the part about never having the guts to give up math for moviemaking if you’d never met me. That was sweet, but that wasn’t the reason,” she said, moving her head slowly back and forth.
“No? Then what was it?”
“Hang on,” she said, tipping her head to one side and lifting her hand to silence him, listening intently as the Grieg concerto ended and another piece began.
The first notes were hesitant and darkly ominous. Hearing them, Hal pictured someone standing outside a closed door, fingertips on the knob, heart racing, afraid of what was waiting on the other side. A few measures later, it was as if the door burst open, releasing the fearful thing. As the notes raced and rippled over the keyboard, Hal could imagine that same someone, a woman, running down corridors that led to other corridors, lined with door upon door, chased by the thing she feared most.
“That is why I let you in,” Joanie declared, pointing toward a speaker in the far corner. “ ‘Gaspard de la Nuit,’ by Ravel. Specifically, the third movement, the Scarbo. One of the most technically challenging solos ever written for piano.”
She was about to reveal something important. Hal could tell. He’d seen that look on the faces of other subjects over the years. There was a way that people had of leaning forward, fixing you with their eyes, and choosing their words when they were about to share a secret they’d kept hidden for a very long time. Whatever it was she was about to say, Hal was sure she wouldn’t be saying it if she hadn’t consumed three quarters of a bottle of Pinot all on her own.
For a moment, he wondered if that was quite fair and if he should stop her before she revealed anything she would later wish she could retract. But she was inebriated, not drunk, consuming enough to relax her tongue, but not so much that she didn’t know what she was doing. And he hadn’t forced the wine on her. She’d filled her own glass, not once but three times. Perhaps on purpose? Joanie obviously wasn’t a drinker, but maybe she became one that night so she would have the courage to unburden herself to him.
He sat there quietly, saying nothing, part of him wishing he’d brought his small video camera, another part relieved he hadn’t.
“Everybody thinks—the world thinks, my sisters think, and you think—that I quit playing at seventeen, that the talk show was my last public performance.” She shook her head. “Not true.
“After I aged out of the foster care system I stayed in Los Angeles for almost a year. Actually, I lived in Pasadena. Maestro Boehm took me in. I didn’t have any money, or a job, or anything. But he housed me, fed me, and taught me. Or tried to teach me—that. The Scarbo.
“I wanted to go to a conservatory, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Julliard is the name everyone recognizes, but Curtis is excellent as well, one of the best in the country, but has fewer students. Also, tuition is free.
“The competition is incredibly tough. The most gifted musicians in the world apply, but only four to ten percent are accepted. It was always going to be a stretch and I hadn’t played a note for the seven months I was in foster care, so I was rusty. Plus, I’d muffed a piece of only moderate difficulty on national television. There was no way the admission committee wouldn’t know that. Everyone in the country did. The only chance I had of getting in was to tackle a famously difficult piece and perform flawlessly—the Scarbo.
“We worked on it for months, all day, every day. Even now, if you gave me staff paper and a pen, I could copy out every measure, every note. The maestro put a piano in the guest room and extra insulation in the walls so I could practice on my own, seven or eight hours a day, not counting the hours studying with Maestro Boehm. He worked with me every night, even though he’d already spent a whole day teaching. He even paid for my plane ticket to the audition.”
Joanie lifted her chin, looking at the ceiling, blinking back tears. “He’s such a good man. And I let him down. He wasted months on me, years.”
Hearing her words, Hal had to battle to keep still and stay silent. He wanted to reach across the table, grab her hand, and tell her it wasn’t true, to hold her in his arms and tell her about that day in Boehm’s studio, the affection he’d seen in the old man’s eyes, that her old teacher had marveled at her resilience and strength, that he was and always would be proud of her.
But he was there to observe, not intervene. And even had it been otherwise, Joanie needed to speak. You can’t wrestle a demon that stays hidden in the sh
adows.
“I didn’t get in. You probably guessed by now,” she said, laughing mirthlessly and swiping at her eyes. “And it wasn’t because I froze. Or because I got flustered and muffed the piece. That would have been some comfort, thinking I was just too nervous and had a bad day.
“The truth is, I played it as well as I ever had. Getting up from the bench and bowing to the audition committee, I remember feeling very good about how it had gone. I’d given a solid performance.
“I waited in the wings while the committee conferred, then was called back onstage for their verdict. The director of the program congratulated me on having taken on such a challenging piece and performed it admirably. That should have been my first clue. If you’ve truly done well on something as difficult as the Scarbo, you should be hearing adjectives like ‘brilliant’ and ‘stunning,’ not ‘admirable.’ In that situation, telling someone they’ve done admirably is like awarding an A for effort but a C for execution, which was pretty much what they were saying.
“They’d seen the video—just like everyone else in the country—and told me that they’d had doubts about even letting me audition. But a personal letter from Maestro Boehm persuaded them to give me a chance, explaining my ‘extenuating circumstances. ’ The letter, he informed me, was very heartfelt. It was clear that my teacher had a very real affection for me.
“The director said I was a capable pianist and technically skilled, but lacked the emotional sensitivity that is the mark of a world-class musician. ‘You are a very, very good pianist,’ he said, ‘and you can certainly make your way as a professional, teaching or perhaps playing with a regional orchestra. But the gap between the craftsman and artist is a vast chasm that cannot be crossed by any other means than God-given genius. We feel that Mr. Boehm’s fondness toward you has blinded him to this fact.’”
Joanie’s eyes were dry now. Her speech was clearer and her posture less relaxed. Perhaps the wine was wearing off. Or perhaps the cold draught of memory had shocked her back to sobriety. The dull edge in her voice touched Hal more deeply than tears. He didn’t know why.
The Promise Girls Page 21
