Philip put down his glass of wine and stared. “You mean turned up, just like that?”
“No, of course not. She called last week and said she wanted to see me. I wasn't eager, but she really pressed. So finally I said she could come today.”
“You didn't tell me. Well, how does she look?”
“The same as on the posters. Even better. Still glamorous.
Very well cared for. The same faint remnant of an accent. I think she keeps it on purpose.”
“What did she want? I assume she wanted something.” Philip played with his fork, running his fingertips along the tines.
“She said . . . I hardly know how to tell you this.... She said a couple of passages in the Chopin ballades . . .” She had sliced the bread and brought the salad to the table; there was nothing more to delay her. Suzanne sat down, pushed her hair away from her face, and looked at him. “That very first recording we did, remember? She said passages were copied from hers. I'm sorry, I don't know how else to put it. You know, pasted in, or over, however it's done.”
She watched him carefully, but he revealed nothing. He looked blandly at her, began eating the cassoulet, and made appreciative murmurs. When he looked up, Suzanne was still gazing steadily at him. He remembered how shy she was when they first met, or maybe it wasn't shy, maybe simply an innate reserve, an instinct of vulnerability that kept her from meeting people's eyes. He had taught her, when she first began to play in public, that she must look at people straight on, that otherwise they would distrust her. She had learned her lesson well. She stared straight at him; it was he who had to look away first.
“And did she say how she came up with something so preposterous?”
“Well, she heard something on it that rang a bell, and then she listened to my CD and hers, one after the other. Hers was a few years older, also done in a small studio, maybe that same place on West Twenty-fourth Street you used to rent. She sounded very specific about what she heard, but I didn't
want to know the details. Still, I thought I'd better check with you. She didn't seem angry, only puzzled. Why did I do it? she wanted to know. Of course, I said I did nothing of the sort.”
“Of course not,” said Philip.
“I got flustered. I think I was kind of rude, at the end.”
“That's understandable. Who wouldn't be? It's a serious accusation.”
“It wasn't an accusation. I mean, she didn't threaten or anything like that. We're friends, she said. She just wanted to clear things up. But in the end I asked her to leave. I was in the midst of doing the cassouletâthat was the truth. It takes time.”
He grunted and continued eating.
“Well, Phil?” That steady gaze from her large dark eyes was making him flustered as well, so rare a sensation that he hardly understood what it was.
“Well what?”
“Well, did you do that? It doesn't sound like something she'd invent.”
“Okay, look,” he said after a long pause. So long that there was nothing else to do but admit it. She'd get it out of him eventuallyâwhy let it drag them into an unpleasant scene? “It was only a few seconds, not even worth mentioning. When I did the editing I could hear that you were tired. I didn't want to make you go through it again. You'd already done several takes. It was our first time, remember?” He knew each CD, each date, each recording session with Suzanne in the studio; they required so much patience. “You weren't used to recording. You didn't have the . . . the confidence you have now. A couple of secondsânothing really. It's a fluke that she caught it. I didn't want to bother you about it when you were off to
such a great start. Where's the harm? I mean, it's your performance, the whole thing. It's just a sort of . . . a Band-Aid.”
“A Band-Aid?” She laughed, a harsh brittle laugh. “You're calling part of a Chopin performance a Band-Aid?”
“Okay, I'm sorry. That was a stupid phrase. Just a little adjustment.”
“Did you do this âlittle adjustment' in any of my other recordings?”
“No! I certainly did not.”
“Do you do it with any of your others?”
“No! Well, maybe once or twice. No one realizes how hard it is to produce a perfect CD. It takes a hell of a lot of work. Musicians are all the same, all of you. No one wants to keep repeating a few bars that didn't come out quite right. Or they want to play the whole piece straight through again. Sometimes you get five, six, ten takes and you've still got a couple of doubtful patches. So . . . I'm not the only one, believe me.”
“I'm not sure I do believe you. Did you do it with any others of mine?”
“You just asked me that and I said no. Don't you trust me?”
She didn't answer that directly. “Don't do it again with my work, Phil. I mean it. It's not right. You know it's not right.”
“It's not any worse than plenty of other stuff that goes on.”
“I don't care what else goes on. If it's not me playing, then it's not me . . . it's not my . . . I mean, how can I feel any sense of accomplishment? How can I read the reviews without feeling sick?” She remembered when she entertained her parents' guests, the Woodsteins, with that section of the Rachmaninoff prelude she passed off as her own composition. And her mother's stern disapproval, and Richard's. It must be tempting for
someone like Phil. It was easy to understand how, with so much technology and skill at his command, he might be tempted.
“Oh, I bet you can.” He looked wily, and this time it was she who couldn't meet his glance. “I know what you want. I've always known what you want.”
“I don't want it that way.”
“And if that's the only way?”
“Just don't do it, okay? Besides the fact that it's wrong and it's . . . it offends me, it could get us into a lot of trouble.”
He didn't reply, and she pressed him no further. The meal was over. They'd barely eaten, and they cleaned up in silence. Suzanne was about to throw out the rest of the cassoulet, but Philip put it carefully in a plastic container, a habit he had learned from his aunt Marsha. “It was very good. It'll be fine for another night,” he said. “I've got some work to finish.” He washed his hands at the sink, went into his studio, and shut the door.
Suzanne stretched out on the sofa in front of the TV. It was another of those crime shows. A suspect was being grilled in the small cell-like room by two detectives. It involved an international counterfeiting schemeâpolitics and terrorism were part of itâbut as the scenes continued she couldn't follow the intricacies of the plot. The commercial was even more obtuse: A car slammed to a sudden stop, perched precariously on the edge of a cliff above a roiling sea. She should be working instead of sitting and staring at nothing. She was too tired to practice at this hourânearly nineâbut there were scores to go over. Phil wanted her to work on the Schubert Impromptus. She'd studied them in school, they were a staple of the repertoire, but that was a long time ago. Still she didn't move.
It felt good to hear voices in the house, even the harsh voices of the detectives and the district attorney. Voices that smothered the voices in her head, her own and Elena's.
She hadn't told Philip the whole truth about Elena's visit, only the bare minimum. Least of all how much it had shaken her. The phone rang when she was at the piano a week ago, practicing the Impromptus. The machine was turned down low so as not to disturb her, and she nearly forgot about the call. Later, when she saw the blinking light and heard Elena's unmistakable voice, she felt a shiver of apprehension. The voice conjured Elena's image. Suzanne hadn't seen her in ages. She and Phil had received an invitation to her wedding but they had invented an excuse. And Richard had mentioned something about a baby, but Suzanne never got around to calling.
She had followed Elena's musical endeavors more attentively than her domestic ones. Elena generally played in New York several times a year, with the Philharmonic just a month ago, then with a chamber group at the Ninety-second Street Y, and she toured and made recordings with one of the large corporate studios. She was leading the life Suzanne had expected for herself, and she couldn't help feeling Elena had stolen it from her. Just as she had stolen Richard and, years ago, Philip. She couldn't get over the notion that her own life would have been entirely different had Elena never come from Russia and turned up in high school. It was as if they were characters in a fairy tale and Elena was the fortunate sister who wins the prince and the kingdom, while the other sister, not as lucky, is hustled offstage to a hovel in the forest. Although Snow White and Rose Red, as Mme. Kabalevsky used to call them at school,
had both wound up happy in the end. Snow White married the prince and Rose Red got his brother. Suzanne had actually looked up the Grimm story to remind herself.
“Suzanne?” The voice on the message was low, softened by trepidation, not at all like the usual Elena, bold and sure of herself. “I know it's been ages. I hope you're feeling better. The last time I ran into Phil he said you weren't feeling well. Listen, I'd really like to see you. There's something I need to talk to you about. Can you give me a call?” Aside from the faint accent, her English was perfect, colloquial, no more of those quaint textbook constructions. Those had disappeared long ago, by the time she got to Juilliard. She was nothing if not adaptable.
Suzanne didn't return the call. She had a good enough life now, thanks to Phil. But if she couldn't have Elena's world, she didn't want to be reminded of it. When the phone rang two days later, she picked up because Phil had said a reporter from a French magazine might be calling.
“Suzanne, I'm glad I got you. Maybe you didn't get my message. How are you?”
They exchanged banalities as if the gap in their friendship had been accidental, as if they'd simply lost touch and were cheerfully catching up.
“Look, I really need to see you. Can we arrange something? If you're in the city, maybe we could haveâ”
“I'm seldom in the city these days.”
“Well, okay, then I'll drive up. Where is it, Westchester somewhere?”
“Nyack. It's in Rockland County.”
“Nyack. Fine. I can get there.”
“I'm not sure it's a good idea. I'm so busy right now, and you must be, too. . . .”
But Elena persisted, and Suzanne was no match for her determination. Elena always got what she wanted, she thought as she hung up. And now she wants me. For what, she could not imagine. She brooded about it for days.
The appointment was for late afternoon. Suzanne purposely occupied herself with the cassoulet, but nonetheless she was watching from the kitchen window as the car pulled up. A small black foreign carâshe couldn't tell the make, but an expensive car. She would have expected something more gaudy. Nor, when she came in, was Elena gaudy. She was dressed soberly. She didn't need flashy clothesâsuccess was a glow surrounding her. She was slim and her hair was slightly darker, with coppery tones in the blond, cropped short now and with that billowy, recently washed look usually seen only on TV commercials. She wore narrow black slacks and a gray silk blazer, and Suzanne immediately wished she had thought to dress for the occasion. She was wearing jeans and a black turtleneck, as she used to as a student. She felt older, dowdy, although Elena exclaimed about how wonderful she looked.
“You're as stunning as ever,” Elena said.
“Me, stunning? I never was.”
“Oh, come on, Suzanne. You know you always had that mysterious, secretive look, like, who knows what's going on behind that face? You still do. Anyway, so here I am. I never thought you'd move to the suburbs. You always used to say how you loathed visiting your brothers when they moved out of Brooklyn.”
“That was Long Island, all that tract housing. This is different,
it's a real town. We can walk to shopping, the bookstore, the cafés.” Why was she accounting for her house, her town, her life? Already she was on the defensive.
“Well, it's a lovely house, and right on a corner, too. And that beautiful garden out front. Who takes care of that? Is Phil the gardener?”
“I am. I learned. I love it, and it's not hard, really.”
“Aren't you afraid of hurting your hands?” Elena spread her own hands out on her lap, the thin fingers splayed. The hands were pale and perfect, articulated and alive even in their stillness.
“I wear gloves. I'm careful.” Suzanne wanted to spread her hands out as well. They were every bit as good as Elena's, if not quite so white. But she restrained herself. Enough competition. “And you? You're still in the city, aren't you? And you have a baby?”
“Not such a baby anymore. Petey's almost three,” and she smiled with the irrepressible joy parents always have when speaking of their young children. Suzanne had seen it on their other friends from schoolâTanya, Rose Chen, even Simon Valentiâall of them now teaching and raising families. “We bought a town house in the East Seventies, room for the baby
and
the nanny. And not far from Paul. He's getting on, you know. I don't like to be too far away. Also because of Petey. Our boy.”
“Your boy?” Suzanne repeated, puzzled.
“Yes, Petey is Paul's child. Oh, don't look so shocked. You must have known. We never tried to hide it.”
“I . . . I suppose I did. I was never quite sure, though. And I certainly didn't know about the boy.”
“Well, it's nothing we needed to advertise. And it's fine with
Oliver. My husband. He can live with it, and in fact soon we'll be having one of our own.”
“That's great,” Suzanne said. So, the rumors about Elena and Paul had been true. Of course they were true. Rumors about love affairs generally were. And now Elena had everything, plus a baby from each man. “You're not showing yet.”