She put on a beef roast for supper and pressed her long, black gabardine skirt and the collar of the basic long-sleeved white blouse that completed the orchestra “uniform” worn by its female members. The blouse was made of a slick knit jersey, and there’d be no sweaters to hide behind, no bulkiness to disguise the way the slippery fabric conformed to her frame.
She was at the piano, limbering up her fingers with chromatic scales, when the shopping trio returned.
Jeff was bellowing her name as he opened the door and followed his ears to the living room. He reached over her shoulder and tapped out the melody line to “Jingle Bells,” then sashayed on through the living room with two crackling sacks on his arm, followed by Amy, also bearing packages. By the time the pair exited to hide their booty, Brian stood in the opposite doorway, his cheeks slightly brightened by the winter air outside, jacket unzipped and pulling open as he paused with one hand in his back pocket, the other surrounding a brown paper sack. His eyes were startlingly attractive as the dark lashes dropped, and he glanced at Theresa’s hands on the keyboard.
“Play something,” he requested.
Immediately she folded her palms between her knees. “Oh, I was only limbering up for tonight.”
He moved a step closer. “Limber up some more, then.”
“I’m limbered enough.”
He crossed behind her toward the davenport, and her eyes followed over her shoulder. “Good, then play a song.”
“I don’t know rock.”
“I know. You’re a classy person.” He grinned, set his package down on the davenport and drew off his jacket, all the while keeping his eyes on her. She pinched her knees tighter against her palms. “I meant to say, you’re a classical person,” he amended with a lazy grin. “So play me a classic.”
She played without sheet music, at times allowing her eyelids to drift closed while her head tipped back, and he caught glimpses of her enraptured eloquent face. When her eyelids opened she focused on nothing, letting her gaze drift with seeming unawareness. He had little doubt that while she played, Theresa forgot he stood behind her. He dropped his eyes again to her hands—fragile, long-fingered, with delicate bones at wrist and knuckle. How supplely they moved, those wrists arching gracefully, then dropping as she weaved backward, then forward. Once she smiled, and her head tipped to one side as the pianissimo chords tinkled from her fingertips while she inhabited that captivating world he knew and understood so well.
Watching the language of her hands, her body, was like having the song not only put into words but illustrated as well. He sensed that within Theresa the music acted as bellows to embers and saw what passions lay hidden within the woman whose normally shy demeanor never hinted at such smoldering fires.
By the time the song ended and Theresa’s hands poised motionless above the keys, he was certain her heart must be pounding as heavily as his own.
He laid a hand on her shoulder and she jerked, as if waking up.
“That’s very nice,” he praised softly, and she became conscious of that warm hand resting where the strap of her bra cut a deep, painful groove into her flesh. “I seem to remember an old movie that used that as its theme song.”
“The Eddy Duchin Story.”
The hand slipped away, making her wish it had stayed. “Yes, that was it. Tyrone Power and ...” She heard his fingers fillip beside her ear and swung around on the bench to face him, again tucking her palms between her knees.
“Kim Novak.”
“That’s it. Kim Novak.” He noted her pose, the way she rounded her shoulders to minimize the prominence of her breasts, and it took an effort for him to keep his eyes on her face.
“It’s Chopin. One of my favorites.”
“I’ll remember that. Chopin. Do you play Chopin tonight, too?”
He stood very close to her, and Theresa raised her eyes to meet his gaze. From this angle, the shoulder-to-shoulder seam across his white jersey made his torso appear inordinately broad and tapered. His voice was honey smooth and soft. Most of the time he spoke that way, which was a balm to her ears after the affectionate grate of Jeff’s clamorousness and her mother’s usual bawling forte.
“No, tonight we do all Christmas music. I believe we’re starting with ‘Joy to the World’ and then a little-known French carol. We follow that with ...” She realized he probably couldn’t care less what they were playing tonight, and buttoned her lip.
“With?”
“Nothing. Just the usual Christmas stuff.”
She was becoming rattled by his nearness and the studied way he seemed to be itemizing her features, as if listing them selectively in credit and debit columns within his head. She suddenly wished she knew how to apply makeup as cleverly as Amy, picturing her colorless eyelashes, and her too-colorful cheeks, knowing Brian could detect her many shortcomings altogether too clearly at such close range.
“I have to peel potatoes for supper.” Having dredged up that excuse, she slid off the bench and escaped to the kitchen, where she donned a cobbler’s apron to protect her white blouse as she worked.
A short time later her mother and father returned from work, and in the suppertime confusion, the quiet moment with Brian slipped to the back of Theresa’s mind. But as she prepared to flee the house with violin case under the arm of her gray coat, she came to a halt in the middle of the kitchen. There stood Brian with a dish towel in his hands, and Amy, with her arms buried in suds, having uttered not a word of her usual complaints at having the job foisted on her.
“I’m sorry I had to eat and run, but we have to be in our chairs ready to tune up by six forty-five.”
Jeff was on the phone, talking with Patricia. “Just a minute—” He broke off, and lowered the receiver. “Hey, sis, do good, okay?”
She gave him a thumbs-up sign with one fat, red mitten and as she headed toward the door, found it held open by Brian, his other hand buried inside a dish towel and glass he’d been wiping.
“Good luck,” he said softly, his green eyes lingering upon her in a way the resurrected the closeness they’d shared at the piano earlier. The cold air rushed about their ankles, but neither seemed to notice as they gazed at each other, and Theresa felt as if Chopin’s music was playing within her heart.
“Thanks,” she said at last. “And thanks for taking over for me with the dishes.”
“Anytime.” He smiled, grazed her chin with a touch so light she wondered if she’d imagined it as she turned into the brisk night that cooled her heated cheeks.
__________
THE ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CONCERT
of the Burnsville Civic Orchestra was held each year at the Burnsville Senior High School auditorium. The risers were set up and the curtains left open as the musicians made their way to their places amid the metallic premusic of clanking stands and metal folding chairs. The conductor arrived and tuning began. The incessant drone of the A-note filled the vaulted space of the auditorium, and gradually, the room hummed with voices as the seats slowly filled. The footlights were still off, and from her position at first chair Theresa had a clear view of the aisles.
She was running her bow over the honey-colored chunk of resin when her hand stopped sawing, and her lips fell open in surprise. There, filing in, came her whole family, plus Patricia Gluek, and of course,
Brian Scanlon. They shuffled into the fourth row center and began removing jackets and gloves while Theresa’s palms went damp. She had played the violin since sixth grade and had stopped having stage fright years ago, but her stomach drew up now into an unexpected coil of apprehension. Amy waggled two fingers in a clandestine hello, and Theresa answered with a barely discernible waggle of her own. Then her eyes scanned the seat next to Amy and found Brian waggling two fingers back at her.
Oh, Lord, did he think I waved at him?
Twenty-five years old and waving like her giggling first graders did when they spotted their mommies and daddies in the audience.
But before she could become any further unnerved by the thought, the footlights came up, and the conductor tapped his baton on the edge of the music stand. She stiffened her spine and pulled away from the backrest of the chair, snapped her violin into place at the lift of the black-clad arms and hit the opening note of “Joy to the World.”
Midway through the song Theresa realized she had never played the violin so well in her life, not that she could remember. She attacked the powerful notes of “Joy to the World” with robust precision. She nursed the stunning dissonants of “The Christmas Song” with loving care until the tension eased from the chords with their familiar resolutions. As lead violinist, she performed a solo on the compelling “I Wonder As I Wander,” and the instrument seemed to come alive beneath her mocha-colored fingernails.
She began by playing for him. But she ended playing for herself, which is the true essence of the real musician. She forgot Brian sat in the audience and lost the inhibitions that claimed her whenever there was no instrument beneath her fingers or no children to direct.
From the darkened house, he watched her—nobody but her. The red hair and freckles that had been so distracting in their brilliance when he’d first met her took on an appropriateness lent by her fiery zeal as she dissolved into the music. Again, there were times when her eyelids drifted shut. Other times she smiled against the chin rest, and he was somehow certain she had no idea she was smiling. Her sleeves draped as she bowed the instrument, her wrist arched daintily as she occasionally plucked it, and the hem of her black skirt lifted and fell as she tapped her toe to the sprightlier songs.
The concert ended with a reprise of “Joy to the World,” and the final thunder of applause brought the orchestra members to their feet for a mass bow.
When the house lights came up, Theresa’s eyes scanned the line of familiar faces in row four, but returned to settle and stay on Brian, who had lifted his hands to praise her in the traditional way, and was wearing a smile as proud as any on the other faces. She braved a wide smile in return and hoped he knew it was not for the others but just for him. He stopped clapping and gave her the thumbs-up signal, and she felt a holiday glow such as she’d never known as she sat to tuck her instrument back into its case.
__________
THEY WERE WAITING
in the hall when she came from the music room with her coat and mitts on, her case beneath an arm.
Everybody babbled at once, but Theresa finally had a chance to croon appreciatively, “Why didn’t you
tell
me you were coming?”
“We wanted to surprise you. Besides, we thought it might make you nervous.”
“Well, it did! No, it didn’t! Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying, except it really made the concert special, knowing you were all out there listening. Thanks, all of you, for coming.”
Jeff looped an elbow around Theresa’s neck, faked a headlock and a punch to the jaw and grunted, “You did good, sis.”
Margaret took command then. “We have a tree to decorate yet tonight, and you know how your father always has trouble with those lights. Let’s get this party moving home!”
They headed toward the parking lot, and Theresa invited, “Does anybody want to ride with me?” She could sense Amy reserving her reply until she heard what Brian answered.
“I will,” he said, moving to Theresa’s side and taking the violin case from her hands.
“I will too—” Amy began, but Margaret cut her off in midsentence.
“Amy, you come with us. I want you to run into the store for a carton of milk on our way home.”
“Jeff? Patricia?” Theresa appealed, suddenly feeling as if she’d coerced Brian into saying yes, since nobody else had.
“Patricia left her purse in the station wagon, so we might as well ride with them.”
The two groups parted, and as she walked toward her little gray Toyota, Theresa suddenly suspected that Patricia had had her purse with her all along.
In the car she and Brian settled into the low bucket seats and Theresa put a tape in the deck. Rachmaninoff seemed to envelope them. “Sorry,” she offered, and immediately pushed the eject button. Without hesitation, he reseated the tape against the heads and the dynamic Concerto in C-sharp Minor returned.
“I get the idea you think I’m some hard-rock freak. Music is music. If it’s good, I like it.”
They drove through the moonlit night with the power and might of Rachmaninoff ushering them home, followed by the much mellower poignance of Listz’s “Liebestraum.” As its flowing sweetness touched her ears, Theresa thought of its English translation, “Dream of Love.” But she kept her eyes squarely on the road, thinking herself fanciful because of the residual ebullience of the performance and the occasional scarlet, blue and gold lights that glittered from housefronts as they passed. In living-room windows Christmas trees winked cheerfully, but it wasn’t just the trees, it wasn’t just the lights, it wasn’t just the concert and not even Jeff’s being home that made this Christmas more special than most. It was Brian Scanlon.
“I saw your foot tapping,” he teased now.
“Oh?”
“Sure sign of a dancer.”
“I’m still thinking about it.”
“Good. Because I never get to dance much anymore. I’m always providing the music.”
“Never fear. If I don’t go, there’ll be plenty of others.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Rhythmless clods who’ll abuse my toes and talk, talk, talk in my ear.”
“You don’t like to talk when you dance?” Somehow she’d always imagined dancers using the close proximity to exchange intimacies.
“Not particularly.”
“I’ve been led to believe that’s when men and women whisper ... well, what’s known as
sweet nothings
.”
Brian turned to study her face, smiling at the old-fashioned phrase, wondering if he knew another woman who’d use it.
“Sweet nothings?”
She heard the grin in his voice, but kept her eyes on the street. “I have no personal knowledge of them myself, you understand.” She gave him a quarter glance and lifted one eyebrow.