Miller's Secret

by Tess Thompson

  Walt closed the newspaper without making a sound, like he was trying not to spook a wild horse. He stood, folding the newspaper under his arm. He had a slim build and wore wire-rimmed glasses. Receding light brown hair made his forehead appear more prominent than it once was. Despite his ordinary appearance, women flushed and giggled when he spoke to them. “Never, in five years, have you had folks up to your room. Much as I’ve asked you to.”

  “I know,” Nathaniel said, shrugging as if it were nothing important. “You know I can never think of anything to say to people.”

  Walt’s eyes were already at the door. “You want me to bring the music promoter I was telling you about? He’s keen to get after you with some ideas.”

  “Fine.”

  Walt rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I’ll make sure no one stays too late. We leave for the West tomorrow on the early train.” He pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. “Why the sudden interest in sociability?” He raised an eyebrow and punched him on the shoulder. “Could it be the young lady I saw you with earlier?”

  Nathaniel straightened his bow tie. “How did you know that?”

  “I was checking into the hotel when I happened to see the two of you at the bar. I saw her again at the restaurant tonight. Dining with her mother, if I make my guess. They’re almost identical.”

  Nathaniel wanted to ask more but kept quiet. He took his pocket watch out of his trousers and set it on the table. His pockets must be empty when he played. He stretched his fingers.

  “You do know who they are, don’t you?” Walt’s forehead glistened. He took off his glasses and waved them in the air. Nathaniel couldn’t decide if he only imagined the movement was in the shape of a dollar sign.

  “Last name’s Bellmont.”

  “Yeah, that’s Frances Bellmont you bought a soda for, my friend. The Bellmont family’s old money. Used to own half of Georgia. He’s a vice president over at Coca-Cola.”

  “I see.”

  Walt waggled his fingers, teasing. “I know you don’t care about such things.”

  “Just be at my room at ten,” Nathaniel said, chuckling. “Before anyone else arrives. I’ll need you to do the talking.”

  “My mama always said I was a good talker,” said Walt.

  “One of us has to be.”

  “I’ll get hold of some champagne. From what I hear, Frances Bellmont likes her champagne.” He slapped Nathaniel on the back.

  “What do you mean?” A dart of something, almost like fear, pierced the bottom of his stomach.

  “Just rumors. Nothing to worry over.”

  “Tell me.”

  “She likes parties. That’s all.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It’s my job to know these kinds of things.” Walt put up his hand, like a command. “Stop. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you interested in a woman. Don’t ruin it by talking yourself out of it.” He left through the greenroom door, calling out behind him, “Good luck tonight.”

  After the concert, Nathaniel went back to his suite and bathed the perspiration from his body, using a scrub brush and soap he imagined smelled like a woman’s inner wrist. He washed his thick, dark hair and slicked it back with pomade so that the waves that sometimes fell over his forehead were tamed. Using a straight blade to shave his face, he scrutinized his looks. Would he ever be appealing to a girl like Frances Bellmont? His eyes were brown and on the small side, if he were truthful. And his lips were thin, now that he really looked at them, although he had straight, white teeth. That was something. People were always telling Walt that Nathaniel came across as intense, and sometimes even the word frightening had been used. I’ll smile, he assured himself. Easy and fun, like Walt.

  He hung his tuxedo in the closet and smoothed the bed cover from where he’d rumpled it during his earlier nap. Then he straightened the sitting room, disposing of a newspaper and moving several music sheets marked with his latest composition to the other room. Would people sit, he wondered? Or stand? He looked about the room. He hadn’t noticed much about it upon his arrival. All hotels began to look the same after a while. A crystal chandelier hung in the middle of the room, cascading like fallen tears and casting subdued light across a dark green couch with scalloped legs. A round table stood between two straight-backed chairs with cushions decorated in a complicated red floral design. Would there be enough room for everyone? How many did Walt invite? He should have asked. Despite his recent bath, he began to perspire.

  Just then there was a knock on the door. It was Walt, looking newly shaven and dapper in a tan linen suit with a blue tie. With him was a man about Walt’s age, whom he introduced as Ralph Landry. “How do you know Walt?” Nathaniel asked him, feigning interest, trying to keep his gaze from wandering to the door.

  “Knew one another growing up in Montevallo, Alabama.” Ralph’s accent sounded like a foreign language to Nathaniel: slow, elongated vowels, twice as many, it seemed, than words usually had, and no “r” sounds. “Moved out to New York together for college, and I went on to med school. Now I’m headed back to Montevallo to start my own practice.” Ralph’s face, pink and fleshy, looked like the underbelly of a sow, and he had a particularly thick neck that seemed about to pop open his bow tie.

  “Best of luck to you.” Nathaniel cleared his throat and glanced over at Walt, who was taking bottles of champagne out of an apple crate. He forced himself to look back to his companion.

  “How’s your younger brother doing?” Walt asked.

  “Half-brother,” Ralph corrected him. “He calls himself Mick now.” Ralph’s face turned serious. “He’s at loose ends since graduating from high school.”

  “Send him out to California,” said Walt. “Didn’t you tell me he lives for moving pictures? He could get a job out there.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” said Ralph.

  “We can thank Ralphie here for the illegal suds,” Walt said, slapping his friend on the back.

  Ralph took a big sip. “Well, let’s just say being able to stitch folks up after a gunshot wound in the middle of the night provides some benefits.” He laughed and took another gulp of champagne. “Have to get a little wop blood on my hands sometimes, but it’s worth it.”

  Nathaniel felt a blast of revulsion, knowing Ralph meant the New York underworld of organized crime. One of the head crime bosses had asked Nathaniel to play at his daughter’s birthday party several years ago. He booked an overseas tour to get out of it, fearing his hands might be crushed if he refused.

  “You want a drink, Nathaniel?” asked Walt.

  Nathaniel shook his head, no.

  “Don’t drink, Mr. Fye?” asked Ralph.

  “I do not,” said Nathaniel, stifling a sigh. This was a mistake. Frances probably wouldn’t even show, and he’d be trapped here all night while these derelicts went through the half-case of champagne.

  “Nathaniel here is looking for sainthood after his death,” said Walt. “All he does is work. So you and I’ll have to drink his share.”

  Before Walt could answer, there was another knock on the door. It was John Wainwright, the music promoter, and his wife. Walt had told Nathaniel the wife’s name, but he couldn’t remember it. The palms of his hands were damp. His throat tightened. The pulse at his neck was rapid, yet his breathing felt shallow, like he couldn’t get enough air. He caught a glimpse of the bed in the other room and felt a sudden, intense longing for the feel of the cool sheets on his skin.

  To his relief, John Wainwright came over to him and held out his hand, introducing himself. Mr. Wainwright had the kind of face no one would remember in the morning and a limp, clammy handshake, like a faded, damp cloth on a clothesline. His wife wore a black evening gown that clung to her wide hips and large breasts. Her copper red hair was cut in an unflattering blunt bob above the ears. She stared at Nathaniel with eyes rimmed in charcoal-colored liner, grasping in her gloved hands the program from tonight’s concert. “Autograph for me?” She blushed, t
he fat of her upper arms straining against the elastic of her long white gloves.

  He did so, avoiding her gaze. My God, the room was stifling. He reached inside his jacket for his handkerchief and wiped the palms of his hands and then mopped his brow.

  “I’m just absolutely thrilled to meet you.” Mrs. Wainwright’s high-pitched voice reminded Nathaniel of one of those yappy lapdogs he saw with wealthy New York socialites. “Oh, the excitement in the theatre tonight when your hands hovered over the keyboard before those last notes. I thought the woman next to me might faint. How do you do it?” Her eyes bulged as she leaned forward, so close to his face that he caught a whiff of onions on her breath.

  “It’s just my job.” His voice sounded like a rusty gate. He tried to smile, feeling as if his lips were caught against his teeth. “Same as anyone.”

  Another knock on the door. Walt, setting down his glass of champagne, moved to answer it. Nathaniel held his breath. He wanted it to be her. And he didn’t want it to be her.

  Walt opened the door, and there stood Frances Bellmont. She wore a pale blue gown with rows of fringe all the way up the skirt, which reminded him of the spikes of sea anemones. Fair hair curled around her face, and her stormy eyes were made up with black mascara. They sparkled even from across the room and were, for an instant, the only things Nathaniel could see. He tore his eyes away from her. Yes, he thought, that’s what it felt like to turn away, like a ripping away from something life-giving. Her mother was equally lovely, and Walt was correct, they looked remarkably alike, except Mrs. Bellmont was several inches shorter and wore her hair in longer curls.

  The room had gone silent, like an enchanted breeze had woven its way among everyone, rendering them speechless. Walt recovered first, taking the Bellmont ladies’ hands in turn and introducing himself. Nathaniel could do nothing but stare at his shoes and wish for a piano where he could play and hide. And then, like walking in a strong wind, he came forward and put his hand out to Mrs. Bellmont. She took it, and he brought her gloved hand up to his lips in the way he’d seen Walt do many times to young ladies after concerts.

  “Mr. Fye, I’m pleased to meet you.” Mrs. Bellmont’s eyes were identical to Frances’s, except without any makeup. She was virtually unlined, but her face was thinner than her daughter’s, showing evidence of her age. He imagined, for a brief, insane moment, that he saw his future, but then her lovely resonant voice, like a stringed instrument, brought him back to the present. “The concert was simply lovely. What a privilege to meet you in person.”

  “Mr. Fye, good to see you again.” Frances tugged at her gloves as her eyes shifted about the room. “Are more guests expected?”

  “I’m not sure. Walt arranged this.”

  Frances’s gloves were off now, dangling in her left hand like discarded snakeskins. “Oh, I do hope so. It’s wonderful to be out. You must have such a glamorous life in New York City.” She held out her left hand.

  He took the offered hand, but instead of kissing it properly as he intended, his shaking hand seemed incapable of bringing it to his mouth; instead of making contact with her soft skin, he kissed the air just above her knuckles, resulting in a smacking from his lips that sounded like a baby suckling. He felt his ears turn red.

  Frances smiled at him and removed her hand, which was the texture of a rose petal. Dazzling, that’s the only way he could think to describe her smile. It reached him someplace deep inside, stirring feelings he didn’t know he had. Was it possible that a man like him could get a woman like Frances Bellmont to love him? If only he were less awkward, less confused.

  She stuffed her gloves into the small, black purse she carried. “Do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Do you have a glamorous life in New York City? I imagine you know actresses and singers. Think of that, Mother.” Without waiting for an answer, she continued, her eyes bright, “I suppose there are hundreds of parties?”

  “I’m unsure. I travel much of the time. In fact, I leave for the West tomorrow. I’ll be gone eight weeks.”

  “The West? Do you mean California?” asked Frances.

  “Yes. All the western cities, including San Francisco and Los Angeles.”

  “Hollywood?” Frances clapped her hands together. “How exciting.”

  “I suppose.” He wanted to tell her how lonely he was, how comforting it would be to have a wife by his side, but, of course, he could not. Even he knew this was not appropriate cocktail party conversation.

  Ralph Landry brought champagne to both the Bellmont ladies and then guided Mrs. Bellmont over to the Wainwrights, leaving Nathaniel alone with Frances. For the second time in less than a minute he wished for a piano, and then he simply wished for music, but there was not a gramophone in the room and no piano at which he might sit and transform into the man featured on posters and programs. Instead, in the glow of the beautiful Frances Bellmont he was merely a large, awkward man in an expensive suit.

  He remembered then, as if it were only yesterday, standing at the side of the Grange hall when he was in his late teens, home for a brief visit before he left for New York City to begin another chapter in his tutelage, dressed in a suit made by his mother. For days, while he practiced in the other room, he’d heard the stop and go of the sewing machine, between his scales and notes; his mother unconsciously matched the rhythm of whatever he played—relegated, for her son, to seamstress from her own seat at the piano bench.

  That night, at the Grange, a band of the variety Walt had once been part of played as entertainment. There was a fiddler, a banjo player, and a pianist who had no feel for the subtlety of music. The singer was a young woman with a clear, crystal voice; thick, shiny, brown hair arranged in a loose bun at the nape of her neck; and round, blue eyes the color of the sea on a sunny day. She wore a cheap cotton dress, loose like it belonged to an older sister, but Nathaniel could see the roundness of her hips and breasts, could imagine what her thighs might feel like in his hands. And the desire for her rivaled even his ambition, so that for nights afterward he thought of her, staring at the ceiling in his childhood bedroom, which was no bigger than a closet, with walls so thin he imagined he heard the wood rotting in the sea air. He prayed for the thoughts to go away, even while imagining himself as the moderately skilled piano player next to her. He wondered, should this be his small life instead of the large one his mother imagined for him, that he, indeed, had imagined for himself?

  But he’d gone away, to live with his mentor, and it would be years before he acted on his base desires with a prostitute in New York. While he thrust into the half-used-up immigrant girl who spoke only the romantic, lyrical Italian of her native country, he closed his eyes and imagined the singer. It was only after he was done that he truly looked at the girl’s face and saw her humanity. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s sister. What had he done? Sickened, his lust was immediately replaced by a terrible feeling of regret and shame that lived in his gut for months afterward, like a flu from which he couldn’t recover. But he was a man, and there were others from time to time, all women who traded pleasure for money. It shamed him, each one, and yet he was a slave to his desires. Without a wife, he must turn to these destitute women and then repent on Sundays and ask for forgiveness. How lonely it was, this life that was his destiny. The feeling of desolation lessened only when he played. And so he did. Day after day. Night after night.

  Now, at this makeshift party, Frances drank her champagne as if it were water. Think of something to say, he commanded himself. Cigarettes. Offer a cigarette. Women liked that. Did they like that? He had no idea what women liked. “Would you like a cigarette?”

  “No thank you. Not in front of Mother. She has this ridiculous notion it’s bad for a woman’s complexion.”

  He put them back in his coat pocket without taking one for himself and then stuffed his hands in his pockets. Under his jacket, he drew his stomach to his backbone, cringing inside. He caught Walt’s eyes and silently begged him for rescue. Walt
understood, apparently, because he brought Mrs. Bellmont over to where Nathaniel stood with Frances and offered his arm to the younger woman. “Miss Bellmont, come with me. I’ll introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright. And my old friend, Ralph Landry.”

  After they had gone, Mrs. Bellmont smiled up at Nathaniel. “Frances was awfully happy to be invited to a party. We don’t have nearly as an eventful life as she wishes.” Her accent was slightly different from Frances’s, clipped with more distinct “r” sounds.

  This was something, he thought. Something to ask. “Are you from Georgia originally?”

  “A small town in Mississippi, but I’ve been in Georgia for more than twenty years now.” She paused, glancing over to where Frances was now talking with the Wainwrights. “Frances tells me you’re from Maine. I’ve read it’s beautiful there.”

  “I’ve never been anywhere prettier.” A surge of pleasure exploded inside him. Frances had spoken about him to her mother. Perhaps she liked him a little. “If you can stand the winters.”

  “How does your father earn his living?”

  “Lobster. Worked the cages almost every day of his life, pulling up those crates with his bare hands, often to find only one or two lobsters at a time.”

  “He’s passed, then?”

  He nodded, feeling the ache in his chest that had taken a year to subside. “Three years ago.”

  “He lived to see your success?”

  “Yes.”

  “He must have been quite proud.”

  “I believe so. He wasn’t one to talk much. My mother told me he used to listen to my recordings every single day before he died.”

  His mother had been his first teacher, but after several years she decided he’d surpassed her ability to teach him and found a teacher of considerable reputation in the next town over. He remembered, vividly, his father taking the boat out on Sunday afternoons, even though it was the Sabbath, to catch additional lobsters to pay for Nathaniel’s lessons. “You can’t imagine what they gave up for me to have this life.”