As she
continued chattering on, he turned his mind to the music in his head.
There was always something playing there, and
now it was today's rehearsal.
Something
about the tempo, in just that one measure, had seemed a bit off.
Had he rushed his entrance, or had the
conductor held back just a breath?
He
played it over and over, and each time he was more certain it had been his
error.
Nothing had been said, but surely
the orchestra had noticed.
He would have
to be sure to mention it to the maestro before the performance, make his
apology and see that it was corrected.
It would never do to have Milo hear it that way over the radio.
The lodge,
situated on a scenic crest, was ablaze with torches and strings of Christmas
lights when they arrived just after dark.
The party was well under way, judging by the cloud of smoke that hung
over the crowd.
Everywhere Stani looked,
there were bodies moving, dancing, pushing through the press, glasses held high
over heads.
Somewhere out of sight, a
live band was playing, the sound pumped through speakers surrounding the
room.
The volume was such that sign
language was the only effective means of communication.
He followed
Betsy to the bar along one wall.
They
ordered drinks, pointing to their desired selections, and then Betsy stood
scanning the crowd for whatever face she was hoping to see.
Finally, she nodded and waved, apparently
having located her target.
When she
pointed with a smile to the direction she intended to go, Stani waved her
on.
He quickly lost sight of her in the
crowd before she reached her mystery man.
Tossing down
his whisky, he ordered a refill, hoping he hadn't seen the last of her.
There wasn't likely to be anyone else in this
crowd he knew, or at least no one he would trust to take him back to DC if
Betsy disappeared.
He called down a
curse on his own head for letting her talk him into coming.
This was just the kind of place he hated,
loud and jammed with people already lost to their pursuit of oblivion.
He could either join them, or try to find
some place safe to wait out the evening.
He searched the
room for a less crowded spot, preferably near one of the open windows.
He would never have admitted it, but a room
full of reefer smoke always made him slightly queasy.
Setting his sights on a space along the wall
currently free of leaning bodies, he skirted the dance floor, holding his glass
a safe distance above his head.
He'd
gone no more than a few steps when a girl twirled out of the crowd, colliding
with him and clutching at his sleeve to maintain her balance.
“Hold on there,
love.
Are you all right?”
With his free hand he tried to steady her, no
small feat as she continued to dance even as she attempted to put her arms
around him.
Blonde, with huge blue eyes
already glazed by drink or drugs or both, she smiled vacantly up at him.
Her body, smelling of sweat and the odors
circulating in the room, pressed against his, not, he suspected, purely by
accident.
Squinting up at
him, as if she thought she should recognize him, she asked, “Aren't you
somebody?”
“Not
really.”
He tried in vain to disengage
the arm she had wound around his neck, holding the glass as far away from her
as possible.
“Ooh, but
you're British.
And cute.”
Her hand went up into his hair, and her eyes,
crossing slightly with the effort, focused on his face.
“Want to dance?”
“Not just
now.
Maybe later.”
Still attempting to free himself, Stani
smiled down at her.
“Why don't you sit
this one out?”
“You are
somebody.
You're too cute to be
nobody.”
She seemed to be developing a
fascination with his hair, her fingers winding deeper into the curls.
Obviously, she was not a girl to be easily
discouraged.
He knew the routine all too
well.
First she would hang on him, touch
him and coo over him, or she would just proceed directly to blatantly groping
him, as if there were no need for preliminaries.
She was stoned; he could smell it on her.
She had nothing more in mind than taking him
to bed, or the floor, or any other available horizontal surface, for a few
minutes of mindless copulation.
And he
was expected to be aroused by her overly accessible charms and perform to her
satisfaction on command.
“Here, love,
you're spilling my drink.
Why don't you
go find yourself another partner?”
This
time he managed to pull her hand free of his hair, not without losing a few
strands, and backed a half step away from her.
“Oh, but I want
to dance with you.
I just love men with
red hair.
And you're so cute.
Come on, dance with me.”
She was about to get a hold on him again,
this time sliding both arms around his waist, when a hand came to rest on her
shoulder.
Turning to look
up at the man behind her, she giggled.
“Oh, hi Benny.
This is. . .what
was your name again?”
But Benny
didn't seem interested.
“Come on.
I want something to eat.”
Completely ignoring Stani, and the fact that
the girl was otherwise engaged, he turned toward the buffet.
“Sorry.
Maybe later?”
Obeying some unspoken command, she started to follow, looking back over
her shoulder with a grin.
“You really
are so cute!
Call me!”
Brushing
droplets of whisky from his coat, Stani made his way to the empty space along
the wall.
Wary of another such attack,
he pressed his back in a defensive position against a window frame, where he
could feel the cold air blowing across his face.
He spotted the girl, now hanging on Benny's
arm, popping food into her mouth directly from the buffet table.
An involuntary shudder ran through him.
No wonder everyone here was drunk.
Watching this crowd while sober was enough to
turn one's stomach.
He searched the
room for Betsy, finally locating her swaying in the arms of a man he recognized
after a moment as Mark Stevenson.
He
flinched at the realization that this was the man she'd come all this way to
meet.
She’d been right when she said
he'd been in trouble.
Although he rarely
paid attention to such things, even Stani knew of Mark's recent arrest for
cocaine possession.
The son of a New
York state senator, and the grandson of a state Supreme Court justice, his
notorious conduct made for the ugliest kind of headlines.
Despite the attempted intervention by his
family, this offense, added to the long list already on his record, had very
nearly earned him jail time.
Stani
wondered why Betsy was so anxious to date this man.
He was bad news, not the sort of publicity
she needed.
Still, she looked happy,
gazing up into Mark's face.
Maybe she'd
actually fallen in love with him.
From what
little he knew of falling in love, Stani was convinced that logic rarely
entered into the process.
People seemed
to attach themselves to one another based on a random formula involving equal
parts of fantasy and chemistry.
Even his
own mother must have succumbed to love's illusions when she and his father had
married.
As a small boy, he had
overheard a neighbor describe his father as a lazy drunkard who had never done
an honest day's work.
He’d asked his
mother if that were true, and with a strangely sad look on her face, she'd told
him no, his father had been a lovely young man, but he hadn't finished growing
up before they had married and Stani had come along so soon after.
While she rarely spoke of him, she never went
out to the pubs with the men who invited her, and Stani had wondered if she
hoped he might yet come back.
Perhaps Betsy
was blind in the same way.
Perhaps she'd
fallen in love with Mark Stevenson and thought she could make him better by
loving him, save him from himself.
Rather, Stani suspected, she was letting herself in for a bad time of
it.
Mark's vices were not limited to
recreational drugs, if all that was said about him was true.
There had been an ugly story about a girl
he'd gotten pregnant.
She had made a big
scene in a Manhattan restaurant, threatening to cut her wrists right there at
the table where Mark was dining with his family.
Word was Mark's father had paid a large sum
of money to send her away to have the baby.
Looking at them now, Betsy's arms draped around Mark's neck, her face
pressed close to his, Stani felt something close to pity.
It was most likely Betsy would end up getting
her heart broken at the very least.
He stayed there
by the window, nursing his whisky, for what seemed a long time.
He was hungry, but unwilling to give up his
relatively quiet spot.
If he made a run
for the buffet, would he make it back before someone moved into his space?
Before he could make a decision, he noticed a
girl slowly making her way through the crush in his direction.
He watched her, trying to recall if she was
someone he should know.
Small and
slender, she seemed too young for this crowd.
Wearing jeans and a white tuxedo shirt, in comparison to most of the
other guests, she was markedly under dressed.
In her hands was a loaded plate, and she was carefully threading her way
toward his wall.
When she came
to a halt in front of him, she looked up with serious, dark eyes.
“You're Stani Moss,” she said, as if he might
not be aware of the fact himself.
He
couldn't help grinning.
“Yes.
Is there a problem?”
To his surprise, she thrust the plate toward
him.
“Oh, no.
I just would never have expected to see
someone like you at a thing like this.”
The wave of her hand took in the whole of the smoke-filled lodge.
“I have all of your records,” she went on as
if by way of introduction.
Turning, she
tucked herself against the wall beside him.
He wasn't sure what to make of her.
She was pretty in a way that made him think of open green fields and
sunshine.
Her thick dark hair, curling
softly around her face, and those searching brown eyes brought to mind a
Spanish Renaissance princess—Goya or Velasquez, he couldn't remember
which.
She was completely out of place
here, as if she had wandered in from another dimension.
She seemed to
have nothing more to say, so taking a cue from her last comment he asked which
of the records she listened to most.
“The
Mendelssohn, for sure.
You were
brilliant, you know.”
Again, he
grinned.
“Thank you.
Does that mean you don't care for the
others?”
He'd made the recording just before
the first tour, at seventeen.
The sales
had been very good through the years, even after the release of several
subsequent recordings.
He still had
copies thrust into his hands after concerts.
He'd developed a rapidly scrawled autograph, “All my best, S.M.” which
seemed to please most fans.
“Oh, no, it was
just the best,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“Aren't you hungry?”
He began to
eat, asking between bites, “Are you into classical music, then?”
So many of the girls who approached him
didn't seem to know anything about what he actually did.
They assumed he was in a rock band, or a
Broadway show, although it never seemed to discourage them once they learned
otherwise.
It was rare to meet someone
who even knew Mendelssohn from Mozart.
“I'm a viola
student at the conservatory near here.
I
suppose you never had to study the way most musicians do.”
Her tone was vaguely accusatory.
“That's true, I
guess.”
For a moment, he felt he should
apologize for his success.