The Mystery Trip

by Helen Naismith

  Claire loved her energetic friend despite their difference in age and background. Anne came from a blue-collar family of seven children. A high school honor student, she was eager to learn about people and places outside the small New England town where she was born. Family finances didn’t allow her to attend college, but that didn’t stop her from educating herself. She loved books and read constantly, both fiction and non-fiction, no doubt the reason she herself became a successful author.

  It was their mutual interest in community service that brought Claire and Anne together. They met at a music camp for underprivileged children at Tanglewood in the summer of 1972. A musical setting on 210 rolling acres in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains in Western Massachusetts, Tanglewood is one of the Bay State’s most popular summer attractions. It was the place to go to enjoy a pleasant evening of beautiful classical music. In addition to being the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood also hosted the Boston Pops and concerts by other classical music groups. On any given summer evening concert-goers enjoyed wine and picnic dinners on sprawling manicured lawns as they listened to the strains of Weber, Mozart and Tchaikovsky.

  But not all concerts at the site were high-brow. While the Tanglewood Music Festival featured symphony and chamber music, it also included contemporary, jazz and popular music, along with show tunes. On Labor Day weekend, the season closed with a jazz festival, featuring well-known contemporary jazz artists.

  Claire and Anne were brought together through their love for classical music when they volunteered to help with the youth music program that summer. They soon learned that sessions at these music camps were not all work and no play. By balancing instruction with recreation and personal and social growth, the program was designed to enrich the lives of children with promising musical talent.

  The camp was especially meaningful to young musicians from Boston’s inner city. Most were introduced to music through high school bands and trained on rented instruments, which they bought as their skills developed. Those who showed potential at that level were offered scholarships providing future training.

  Claire and Anne met for the first time that summer in 1972 as they sat together and watched a pretty Chinese girl playing the violin. Both were amazed at the teenager’s ability and stage presence. The piece was the Flight of the Bumblebee, which she played without background accompaniment. The women watched in awe as the young girl’s fingers and bow raced over the strings, not missing a note of the rapidly paced composition. They were captivated by her performance and felt they were witnessing a star in the making.

  Later Claire had an opportunity to ask the instructor about the gifted violinist. As head of the music department at Mattapan High School, Ralph Morrison knew the girl and her parents very well. She was one of his students and he was happy to discuss her accomplishments.

  He said her name was Joy Lin Chang, and she was a senior at the high school where he taught. He said that she had fallen in love with the violin when she attended a concert with her parents at the Half Shell at the tender age of five.

  “Her mother told me she got excited about the music from the violin section. Later that night when her mother put her to bed, she begged her for a violin.

  “Both her parents work in a restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown, and though finances are limited, they have sacrificed to provide for their two children. Her mother told Joy Lin’s brother, Ju-Long, to ask his teacher about music lessons at the school and she referred her to me. I give private lessons and have a summer music school for beginners and advanced students. Most are in marching bands, but I also teach string instruments, including the violin.”

  Claire listened carefully as he spoke, as interested in the man sitting beside her as she was in his talented student.

  “How many instruments do you play?” she asked.

  Laughing, he replied. “I guess it’s in my genes. When my dad and mother met, he was playing the cello for the Metropolitan Opera. My mother had a lovely soprano voice, but she didn’t pursue a professional career.”

  Then realizing he hadn’t answered her question, he added, “Let’s see; piano, organ, sax, flute, violin, bugle, bass guitar, dulcimer . . .”

  “My goodness, that many and that different!” exclaimed Claire.

  “As I said, it’s in my genes. Mostly I play by ear. I love music of all kinds and it just seems to come naturally to me, but I have a degree in music, as well as in education.”

  “How old was Joy Lin when you started giving her violin lessons?”

  “Actually, we began right away. Right after she attended that concert at the Half Shell. It was in the spring and I enrolled her in my next summer school. We use the Suzuki method and she caught on right away.”

  “The Suzuki method?” Claire asked.

  He then explained that it was a program based on the teachings of world-renowned Japanese violist, Shinichi Suzuki, which instills the love of music in children while at the same time emphasizing the development of their character.

  “It’s done by involving the parents in the child’s musical training through responsibility, loving encouragement, and constant repetition. There could not have been more willing parents than Choi Lin and Peng Chang to fulfill these basic requirements. They bought Joy Lin a mini violin and folding music stand with carrying bag, and her mother brought her to the studio every day on the bus.

  “As she grew physically and musically, they bought her a larger violin. You see, the size of the violin depends on the size and age of the child. At age six, Joy Lin had a mini violin size one-quarter; from a novice package. But she’s been playing on an adult Mendini Rosewood for some time now.”

  “She appears to have a promising future,” said Claire. “Do you know what her goals are?”

  “She told me she wants to get a degree in both music and education and teach others to play the violin, but I suspect that will change. I’m sure she’ll receive scholarships and offers to play professionally when she finishes her training.”

  Looking at his watch, Mr. Morrison stood to leave. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see her with a first-class symphony orchestra sometime in the future. She’s really that good.”

  He was right. Several years later Claire and Ed attended a Beethoven Festival in San Antonio, and met her during the reception that followed. Anne also saw her playing in a chamber music series on PBS. As they followed her career, neither was surprised at her musical success. Watching the concert on the final night of that camp session years earlier, they knew Joy Lin Chang would one day be a prominent name in classical music.

  Their admiration for the young violin student proved to be the first of many things Claire would share with Anne. They kept in touch after the summer camp ended, and found they had much in common when they saw each other at social and fund-raising events on the North Shore. Soon they became close friends, a friendship they had both enjoyed for more than twenty-five years.

  Early in their relationship, Claire had wondered what caused her attractive, mild-mannered friend to divorce and why she never remarried. One day, as they sat alone on Claire’s deck in Marblehead watching a sailboat race, Anne revealed much about herself and her seventeen-year marriage to Charles Ferguson.

  “It never should have happened in the first place,” she began. “I should have been strong enough to end the engagement despite Charles’ public proposal.”

  She told Claire it took place in the dining room of a bed and breakfast inn in Waterford, Vermont, on her thirty-first birthday. Charles’ parents had been staying at the inn during the summer and invited the young couple up for the Labor Day weekend before they returned home to Weston. When Charles mentioned that Saturday was Anne’s birthday, Mrs. Ferguson, the consummate hostess, immediately made plans for a special luncheon in honor of the aspiring young writer who had captured her son’s heart.

  “I will forever remember that luncheon in minute detail,” she told Claire on that summer afternoon. />
  “We arrived at the inn shortly before noon on a beautiful September day. When we walked into the dining room, we were greeted with applause by a roomful of elderly diners who appeared to be waiting for us. I didn’t know anyone, not even Charles’ parents, Dr. and Mrs. Robert Ferguson. When Charles ushered me to their table, I was surprised to see it laden with gifts.

  “When I was seated, Mrs. Ferguson turned to me said, ‘Why don’t you open your gifts before lunch, Dear?’

  “I was surprised at the suggestion, but felt I had no choice. If food was going to be served at the table, the gifts had to be removed. When I reached for the first present, I realized that every eye in the room was on me. It made me uncomfortable to be the center of attention among all those people I didn’t know. And here they were giving me birthday gifts. It was so embarrassing. Besides, I knew that everyone’s meal was being delayed until I opened them. All eighteen of them.

  “As I opened each one, Mrs. Ferguson would smile at me and say, ‘That’s from Dr. and Mrs. Lawson from Hartford, sitting over there,’ nodding in the direction of a smiling gray-haired couple. ‘Oh, that’s lovely!’ she’d exclaim as I opened another. ‘That’s from Dr. and Mrs. Richardson from Newburyport over there by the window’; and ‘That’s from Dr. and Mrs. Henderson . . .’ and on and on until all the gifts were opened.

  “Finally, one unopened gift remained, but it didn’t have a card. I unwrapped it to find a box of chocolates and looked around to see who might have given it. Then Charles asked with a smug grin, ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

  “I was a bit confused and said, ‘Before lunch?’

  “‘Yes.’

  “‘Before lunch?’ I repeated, stressing the word ‘before.’

  “‘Yes,’ he repeated. ‘Open it and pass them around.’

  “I was a bit irritated at his request. Why would anyone, especially these elderly couples, want candy before lunch in this charming country inn? Besides, there wouldn’t be enough chocolates for everyone. And it was my gift. But, since he insisted, I didn’t protest further.

  “I removed the top of the box and pushed back the foil flaps, revealing a beautiful gold diamond ring in the center chocolate. I was shocked. And there was Charles grinning up at me like a mischievous Cheshire cat. I didn’t know what to say or do. I don’t know how I managed to smile and lean over to accept the kiss he planted on my cheek.

  “Everyone in the dining room was smiling, applauding and shouting congratulations to Charles. Everyone, that is, except Dr. Ferguson. Seated directly across from me, he saw the look on my face when I saw the ring and he knew I wasn’t happy. Shock, fear, anger? Perhaps he saw them all, I don’t know. But I do know that later he told Charles, ‘That was a mistake, Son.’”

  “Oh, my goodness, Anne,” Claire asked, “What did you do?”

  “What could I do? I did not love Charles, not then and not ever. In fact, for several weeks I’d been thinking about ending the relationship because he just wasn’t for me. I knew that. He lacked ambition and was a poster child for a mama’s boy. When I received Mrs. Ferguson’s invitation to join them in the mountains for the Labor Day Weekend, I hesitated but decided to accept as a courtesy. But I fully planned to have a serious talk with Charles when we returned, to break it off and hopefully remain friends.”

  “What made you go through with it?” asked Claire. “If I’d been placed in that position, I don’t know what I’d do. But I don’t think I’d marry the guy. Why did you?”

  Anne then told her the rest of the story.

  On a drive through the mountains after lunch, Anne said her thoughts were in turmoil. How long should she keep the ring before returning it? she asked herself. Perhaps a few months, she thought.

  “How soon can we get married?” asked Charles, intruding on her misery.

  “How about next June?” Anne answered, vying for time to end it without causing too much embarrassment to him and his family.

  “How about Thanksgiving Day?” he said, “Mother suggested a private wedding at their place on Cape Cod.” Thanksgiving was in two months.

  Anne was miserable. She didn’t love Charles. He was certainly the kind of man she’d like to marry: although not especially good looking, he was well-educated, from a prominent New England family, honest to a fault, and especially important to Anne, he actually lived his Christian faith. But there was no chemistry, none at all. That night she prayed, “God, if you want me to marry this man, at least let me love him.”

  Troubling thoughts churned in Anne’s head during the many sleepless nights that followed. Should she marry Charles? “Why not?” she asked herself. “But I don’t love him,” herself responded. Then reasoning took over. No, there were no butterflies when she saw him or heard his voice, no physical attraction, but maybe that will come with intimacy, she thought. Many people marry for companionship and security, she argued; is that what I’ll be doing? He’s a good man, well-respected, has a good job, and will always provide for me and any children we might have.

  “Besides,” she told Claire, “I was thirty-one years old; it was time I got married.”

  The wedding took place in the Fergusons’ oceanfront summer home in Yarmouth Port on Cape Cod on Thanksgiving Day with Mrs. Ferguson in complete charge.

  “None of Charles’ or my friends from the city were invited; only a few close friends of his parents. On that day I learned that my mother-in-law’s word, gracious though it was, was law in the Ferguson family. And it continued throughout my seventeen-year marriage.

  “Following a brief honeymoon in the Bahamas, we rented a condo in Wakefield. Charles became a claims adjuster with a large insurance company and I found a job in administration at the military base.

  “During the first two years, our social life consisted of Sunday dinners with Charles’ parents, a few Red Sox baseball games and two real nice vacations. The first was a trip to Canada and a week at the beautiful Hotel Frontenac in Quebec. That’s where I ate coq a vin for the first time and loved it. I coaxed the recipe from the chef and served it often at my dinner parties when we entertained. The other was spending the Twelve Days of Christmas at Colonial Williamsburg, which included wonderful seven-course meals at Chowning’s Tavern, a beautiful candlelight concert at the Governor’s Palace, and midnight mass at historic Bruton’s Episcopal Church. I loved every minute of it.

  “But ‘love and marriage’ in their true meaning was not to be. We were married four years when our daughter, Valerie, arrived. As far as the marriage was concerned, that was the beginning of the end. Soon after her birth, months actually, the relationship became a marriage in name only. We lived together as brother and sister, sleeping in separate bedrooms. It was not a happy situation for any of us.

  “Then, although I didn’t realize it at the time, little Valerie forced me into making the decision to divorce,” Anne continued.

  “Valerie was often invited for dinner at her little friend’s house across the street. One day she said, ‘Mommy, why don’t you and Daddy kiss like Melissa’s mommy and daddy do?’ It was obvious even to my little six-year-old that ours was not a normal marriage.

  “But it would be another seven years before the pretense ended. One evening after dinner when Valerie had left the table to play with her little Chihuahua, I quietly asked Charles for a divorce. He, too, had not been happy for some time and readily agreed.”

  Claire sat quietly as Anne recalled that period in her life.

  “The divorce was a turning point in my life,” she went on. “I knew it would be. It was high noon when I walked out of the courthouse that Friday. I was so happy I felt like taking the whole world to lunch. But I didn’t. Instead, I ate alone in a little tea room on the square, and began planning my life as a single mother. Charles was very generous with the settlement, giving me the house and providing child support above and beyond what the law required. The first Christmas he brought gifts for both Valerie and me. Unlike most couples, we remained friends. I even met seve
ral of the women he dated, signaling my approval of those I liked.”

  Claire continued to hang onto Anne’s every word. As her story unfolded, she gained more insight into her friend’s character and personality. She admired Anne’s tenacity and abilities, and her sense of decency, and hoped that one day she would find happiness with the right man. But Anne, way back then, assured her that she found personal fulfillment in her faith, her family and her many friends, and had no desire to remarry. Not that she was bitter; she really wasn’t. She simply preferred a life of complete independence.

  Anne Ferguson did, in fact, remain single by choice, pursuing a successful career in the culinary field. She served as a consultant to the New Orleans Food Festival and St. Paul Winter Carnival, judged culinary competitions with experts in the field, including Julia Child and Henri Haller, then executive chef at the White House, and wrote two cookbooks.

  When Valerie finished college, she accepted a job in marketing at one of Atlanta’s luxury hotels. Anne, with her only child now on her own, bought a condo in Rockport, a picturesque coastal village on Cape Ann. Dubbed “the other Massachusetts Cape,” the first being Cape Cod, Cape Ann is a scenic headland north of Boston sticking out like a thumb hitching a ride into the vast Atlantic Ocean. Just over fifty-five square miles, it included Rockport, Gloucester, Lanesville, Essex and Manchester-by-the-Sea, and was as different from Bean Town as one could get and still be in the Bay State.

  There was no hustle-bustle there, not even a traffic light. It was vintage 17th century New England, with small seaside cottages that contrasted with large colonial homes. But there was one thing these residences had in common: pretty rose-covered white picket fences. Rockport’s population swelled from 7,500 to thrice the number during the popular summer tourist season. The only “noises” that disturbed the peaceful community were church bells on Sunday morning and foghorns from the lighthouse warning ships at sea away from the rocky peninsula. A promotional brochure read, “In the beginning, there was rock,” which told how this quaint little Massachusetts town got its name.