Confessions: The Paris Mysteries (13 page)

The mysterious blue door opened into
a long, chilly hallway with awards and photos of recording superstars from several continents jam-packing the walls.

I recognized almost all the names and faces: CeeLo Green, Flo Rida, Celine Dion, Meshell Ndegeocello, Zazie, Adele, Selah Sue, and Sens Unik. And there were others, too many to count. I thought I could feel a vibration in those walls. But then, I was kind of a human tuning fork today.

I could feel everything, especially total awe that I was standing in a gallery of all-stars—and they had all probably come through the hallway where Harry and I were walking now.

I looked up as a door opened at the end of the hall and a tall man in black with dreadlocks and sunglasses came out.

“Heyyyyy, Harry.”

Then he opened his arms and wrapped Harry in a huge hug, rocked him a little bit, and said, “How ya doing, muh man? You ready to show your stuff?”

Harry grinned and gripped the man’s hand before turning to me. “Tandy, this is my agent, Michael Pogue. Michael, this is my twin sister, Tandy.”

Agent? Mystified, I shook hands with Monsieur Pogue, who said, “
Enchanté
, Tan-deee. Very wonderful to meet you on Harrison’s big, perhaps life-changing, day. Come in, come in. Meet some good people.”

Harry and I followed Pogue into the “mix room” and were introduced to three men arranged in comfy chairs around a plank coffee table. They were all wearing sharp business suits and had good haircuts, and one had an interesting sculpted beard. They were talking to one another, but when Harry and I came in, they all stood up. Each gripped Harry’s hand and clapped him on the back.

I could see curiosity in their faces. And naked hope.

I was also introduced. I was an afterthought, but I didn’t care. These men were all here for Harry.

I switched my attention to the wall-to-wall console at the front of the mix room, with its hundreds of sliding
levers and dials. When the two men sitting at the controls swiveled around, I recognized them as the famous producers and recording engineers Yves Creole and Winter Knight. They were the brains and the engine of this first-class international chain of mix rooms called the Smart Blue Door.

They shook my hand—well, actually, Mr. Knight took both my hands in his and mumbled praise for “the great Harry.”

This was a huge moment for Harry, and I was so glad to be there for it. I watched him step through the door to the “live room.” I could see him and the entire studio through the window in front of the mixing console.

Harry took his seat at right angles to a Fender Rhodes piano and a Hammond B-3 organ, both of which had been set up just for him.

Sitting behind the drums was a thin, balding man wearing denim and checkered black-and-white eyeglass frames that had been tattooed onto his face. He began speaking earnestly to my brother, who looked both younger and older than his sixteen years.

Monsieur Pogue led me to a seat with a view, saying, “Tandy, I know you’ve heard Harry play many times, but do you know the new piece he played for us yesterday? He calls it ‘Montmartre.’ ”

Monsieur Creole had put on his headset and was speaking through his microphone to Harry and the percussionist. No one else spoke, not even the important-looking men sitting around me.

All eyes were fixed on my brother.

And then, looking right at me, Harry leaned into the microphone and said, “I wrote this for my sister Katherine. Actually, it’s for all the lost girls in Paris.”

There was a hush in both rooms.

Then Harry put his left hand on the keyboard of the Fender Rhodes piano, placed his right hand on the Hammond B-3 organ, and began to play.

From the first notes, I knew that Harry had the “it” factor, the rare and genuine real genius thing. This music of his was entirely original and entirely Harry, but with some new quality I’d never heard before.

No one had.

I rubbed my arms from the chill of witnessing his greatness unfold. But still, I listened with a critical ear to the introductory chords from the piano as they set the stage
for a series of arpeggios—broken chords where the notes in a chord are played one at a time within one octave.

And somehow, tucked beneath the chords and arpeggios, Harry’s melody slowly came alive.

Oh my God, Harry. How did you do this in two days?

The melody was quiet, haunting in a sweet and beautiful way.

Sometimes, while he played, Harry seemed to be missing, lost in the folds of his mind. At other times, he swiveled on his seat to play two-handed on one or the other instrument while his drummer kept time on the skins. That was when Harry smiled. After all he’d been through, he was happy.

More than happy.

He was transported to a magical place he’d created on his own, and now the music itself was filling me up.

I
felt
Paris in his music. I
heard
Paris. I
saw
in the chords the grand stone buildings flanking the sumptuous boulevards while the arpeggios signaled the action: the musical embodiment of people and taxis dashing and darting about.

But I couldn’t ignore a sadness in the chords that made me think of Katherine. Of loving her, of the giant void she’d left and the tragedy that she only got to live for sixteen years.

And to tell the truth, I didn’t want to go there.

If I’d given in to that feeling, I might have had a really
ugly cry, and I couldn’t do that to my brother. Just as I was biting my lip to hold back the tears, here came Harry’s delightful dancing notes, like bursts of hope and optimism that also reminded me of the Katherine I’d known and loved so much.

My sister.

And it occurred to me that Harry was also reaching into both sides of himself in this piece. Showing the sadness and the rising light. To be able to write something this strong from the heart, to be able to convey it in music, was Harry’s gift in full. And it was a gift to everyone who was hearing him play.

I looked at the men sitting around me, as well as the seasoned pros at the console; they all looked as moved as I was, and more—as though they’d been truly swept away. One of the men wiped tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. Another lay back with his eyes closed and his arms opened, taking in the sound of the music entirely.

When Harry took his fingers from the keys, the live room filled with praise from the recording execs, who couldn’t wait to tell my brother what I knew he’d been waiting to hear forever.

“Harry, you’re
fantastic
. That’s seriously good stuff, man!”

Monsieur Pogue came over to me.

He said, “You must be so proud. We think your brother has got something—I have to say—unique.”

I looked into Monsieur Pogue’s face and was afraid to speak. I nodded, and Monsieur Pogue saw the magnitude of what I was feeling. He put his arms out and hugged me.

He then joined the others in the live room, but I stood outside the glass and watched Harry’s triumph. I could still hear the melody of his portrait of Katherine.

Harry hadn’t been allowed to go to his friend Lulu’s funeral. And so I wondered if Lulu, like Katherine, had been one of those lost girls of Paris.

Maybe I was one of them, too.

We weren’t very graceful as we
stumbled down the stairs to the street. We were whooping and yelling and my arms were around Harry’s neck and I was jumping up and down and squealing like a groupie, telling him how freaking
great
he was,
monster
great. When just at the edge of my vision, I saw a black SUV down at the corner of the block.

“Harry!” I shouted, turning him around so he could see what I saw.
“It’s that car.”

The headlights came on, and the car began to move off the curb. It was coming straight toward us. Again I screamed, “Harry!” I ran back to the Smart Blue Door and jammed down all the intercom buttons with the flat of my hand.

Harry was tugging at me. “Tandy, no. That’s a
limo
.”

By then the limo had cruised up to the curb and stopped. A man in a black jacket and chauffeur’s cap stepped out and opened the rear door for us. That’s when I saw the discreet Smart Blue Door logo on the car’s door. Yeah, I felt like a complete and total fool.

Harry spoke into the building’s intercom.

“Sorry, Michael. No, everything’s fine. Talk to you soon.”

We got into the limo, and Harry told the driver our address. Then he fell back against the seat.

“So this was maybe the best hour of my life.”

“I don’t have enough
words
to describe what it was like hearing you. But we can just start with
a-maz-ing
.”

He
was
amazing, but was it within the human high-genius range of amazing?
Or was it something else?

I took Harry’s hand and asked once more. “You have to tell me the truth, Harry. Are you using the pills again?
Are you?
Harry? The truth.”

“Tandy? I’ve told you the truth. Don’t ever ask me again.”

“I didn’t mean to insult you, bro. I’m afraid, and I have good reason to be afraid.”

I looked at the back of our driver’s neck through the Plexiglas transom. I flipped the switch to shut off all communication between the front and back compartments.

And still, I spoke in a murmur.

“Get ready,” I said softly to my twin.
“I have to drop some bombs. I went through the rest of the papers in the basement and found
love letters
from Uncle Peter to Kath.”

Harry drew back. My gentle brother looked shocked and disgusted and completely
horrified
.

“Are you
kidding
me?”

“I have the letters. You can read them yourself.”

“No freaking way. Kath wasn’t just sixteen to his what—forty? She was his blood relative! Uncle Pig is a perv. I’ve hated him my whole life. I really want to throw the hell up.” Harry buzzed down the window and let air blow over his face for a while.

I wasn’t finished. I had to confess to Harry what I’d
done
.

“Last night,” I said. “I was feeling
too much
, Harry. Like I was lying on train tracks while a hundred-car train rolled over me. So I took Num.”

“Ha!” Harry shouted. “So that’s why you keep accusing me of using the pills. Because
you
’ve done it.”

“I made a mistake. All Num did was make me process every dark feeling even
faster
. I need to slow this bullet train down, Harry. For some very good reasons, I think you should do the same.”