Kimberly Stuart (15 page)

Three servers, clad entirely in black, entered the room with steaming rounds of
paella
and lined them up like obedient Von Trapp children down the center of the table. Richard stood, glass of tempranillo raised. He looked at me and said, “A toast.”

Glasses lifted, everyone turned toward our end of the table, hushed and waiting.

“To Sadie Maddox, a woman of class, style, and infinite talent. We miss you, Sadie, we congratulate you on the new and wildly successful stage of your career that awaits you, and we look forward to your return to us from the culture vortex, the black hole, the great Midwest.”

Hearty laughter sprinkled the table. I smiled as Richard kissed my cheek, lifted my glass to the group and said,
“Salud!”
That toast went down as smoothly as any I could remember.

Dangerous Promises

Mac met me at the airport. He sat with his long legs crossed and an arm draped along the back of an adjoining chair in a waiting area where gated passengers emptied into the main airport. He stood slowly, ball cap in hand, and watched me walk to him.

“Miss Sadie,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you, Mac Hartley.” I handed him my carry-on. “Are you the resident cab service here in Maplewood?”

“For you, I am,” he said. He dropped my bag on a chair behind him and enveloped me in his arms. I buried my nose in his jacket and inhaled the scent of him, feeling my heart beat erratically for one sweet moment. I'd given myself many stern instructions over the previous week, all of them involving not letting myself get attached to men who had intimate knowledge of cows. We were an impossible pair, I'd said to myself. It would be hopeless, a dead end, unnecessary hurt in the making. I tried retrieving the force of this argument as my nose was pressed against his chest.

“Well,” I said when he released me. “That's much better than waiting for Ms. Ellsworth to show up with her clipboard.”

He chuckled softly and lifted my carry-on. We walked toward baggage claim. “How was the big city?”

I sighed. “Lovely. Busy, vibrant, full of good food and interesting people.”

“Why, that sounds just like
my
hometown.” He smiled at me and it occurred to me he thought he was right.

Two weeks later, I was fully back into the swing of Maplewood and my work at Moravia. Things at the Hartley home were revving up as spring was breaking and Cal was preoccupied with a large and risky purchase of sows. Jayne and I had lingered over tea several evenings after the kids went to bed and Cal had disappeared to tinker in the barn. We began by exulting in our New York adventure but soon drifted to stories of our childhoods, how we came to think what we did about men, God, and work. To my great surprise, I found Jayne to be a layered and thoughtful person, even with her abysmal turkey tetrazzini and questionable choice in jeans. We laughed quite a bit and I suspected we might even be friends.

In addition to my work with students, I'd been roped into serving on a faculty committee convened to brainstorm ways to reach “a more ethnically and geographically diverse student population.” I had a few things to vent regarding this very topic so I'd welcomed the opportunity, though every Monday at seven when our meetings began, I questioned the depth of my altruism. Kent Johannsen served as cochair and was forever trying to embroil me in a discussion of how musical studies suffered neglect in the general college curriculum. I did my best to ignore his wild hinting for me to take up arms, unwilling to ally myself with a man who insisted on referring to his one summer waiting tables in New York as a tie that bound us together. “Of course,
you
know, Sadie,” he'd say, fingering his ribbed turtleneck. “New York is just
like
that.” He'd shrug and sigh happily, musing on how
like
that New York really was.

Above all, it shocked me the amount of chatter those academic types could kick up, all of it articulate and well-spoken, but none of it resolving a darn thing. I spent much of the time checking the clock on the wall and wishing they provided something more interesting in the way of refreshments than weak coffee and stale doughnut holes. Get that spectacled, bearded man on the end a little lubed up on a friendly cosmo or two, I thought, and maybe his references to the postmodern ideal in higher education would get more interesting. I'd have to keep Kent sober and turtleneck-ed, but a cocktail theme might do us well to get through to the end of the year.

My studio work spiraled into busyness as well. Several of my students were preparing senior or junior recitals, which was sapping much more of my time than I'd anticipated. Mallory, in particular, could have used more lesson time due to her abruptly intense work ethic to make her junior recital the heavy hitter of the season. I'd seen a shift in her attitude shortly after the pork chop incident. Though not quite warm, Mallory had begun speaking to me with courtesy. I suspected her new tolerance for me had more to do with my association with Mac than for my own winning nature. I myself was evidence that one could get distracted by nice teeth and infuriating charm. At any rate, Mallory was more with than against me, which was fortuitous with her recital less than a month away.

“Spin, spin, spin,” I said over tied whole notes. Mallory finished the phrase and watched me for my reaction. “Better,” I said, nodding briskly. “Eons better than two weeks ago. Now we shoot for amazing.”

She scribbled furiously on her score and in her notebook while I described the last few touches to make the piece shine. “You're very close,” I concluded. “But you can't let down for even a millisecond. If you do, the text falls, the line fades, and the audience is jerked out of the world you've created for them. Force them to stay with you in that world. Don't let them tear their eyes off you.”

She wrote in silence for a moment then looked up and smiled. “I'm hoping my dress will help with that.”

“Mmm,”
I said. “Do tell.”

She laughed and described the dress with her hands while she talked. “Fitted bodice on the top, made of this great fabric—I'm not sure what it's called—that's gathered all around the bodice. The top is creamy white and then the bottom flares out into a ballroom skirt, chocolate brown to match my hair and eyes.” She finished shyly. “I found it at this little shop in Minneapolis over spring break.”

“You'll be radiant.” I smiled at the girl, washed in a vivid memory of how I felt in my first recital gown. A monstrous teal number with huge puffed sleeves so beloved in the eighties—it still hung at the back of my closet in homage to the formal beginning of my career.

Mallory began gathering her things to go.

I decided to take advantage of our fragile moment of camaraderie. “Are you expecting any special attendees to your recital? Parents? Boyfriend? Long lost cousin from Walla Walla?”

Her eyes shone. “Actually, yes. My mother's coming.”

“That's wonderful. Will she and your dad drive from Minneapolis?”

She snorted. “Not unless she suffers a severe brain trauma beforehand and forgets how much she detests him.”

“Oh,” I said, wincing. “I didn't know they were divorced.”

“Since I was two,” she said, a hardness creeping into her tone. “She packed up and moved to LA in search of herself. Apparently, Dad and I were an unacceptably boring part of her treasure hunt.” She shuffled books and papers into a neat stack on top of the piano and busied herself loading her backpack.

“I'm very sorry, Mallory,” I said. My breathing was shallow, perhaps to compensate for the deep breaths I felt the girl needed to take.

“Don't be,” she said briskly. “It was a long time ago and I'm over it.” She looked past me and out the window at budding trees in the quad. “She's just a very selfish person who cares mostly about her career. She's an actress, did I say that?” She pulled her gaze back to my face.

I shook my head.

“Right,” she said. “She did, in fact, have all her dreams come true.” Her voice betrayed all the irony that she felt. “Ever watch
Under Oath
on NBC?”

“I have on occasion,” I said. In truth, I'd harbored a mild crush on the male lead, Donovan Rice, for most of my adult life.

She nodded. “My mom plays Chelsea Middleton. The redhead with a power complex and commitment issues. And they say typecasting is a myth.” She looked up at me and the old, hard glint returned to her eyes. “But you're the one who knows all about fame, right? What's your take on what a successful career in the public eye can do to one's family?” She smirked, folded her arms over her bag.

I waited a moment before responding, hoping for the new Mallory to kick the old one out of my office.

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “Like I said, I'm over it. We're all very civil with each other now that we're adults. And she's flying out for the recital. You know, making amends, showing her support for my interests, so on and so forth.”

I exhaled, relieved that I wasn't going to have to defend my own career and pursuit of success to someone else's abandoned child. “I'll look forward to meeting her.”

“Oh, you won't be able to miss her,” Mallory said. She tipped her chin in thought. “Let's see if I can give you a picture … If I am Ralph Lauren, spring collection, she is straight Versace, all Donatella with regrettably little Gianni.”

“Mmmm,”
I said, savoring the images. “Superbly expressed. And now I'll really look forward to seeing you two in action.”

She sighed on her way out. “Never a dull moment, that's for sure.” Her ballet flats squeaked all the way down the hall.

By mid-April, tepid days outnumbered frigid ones. In the morning, I would yank open my blinds in the attic and see the tree below my window arching carefully toward the sky, tiny dots of green peppering its branches. The rain that farmers were so jazzed about was great for soil and things, but not so good for my hair or heels. For the most part, I was able to keep to the sidewalks, both on the farm and in town. But sometimes the need to negotiate wet concrete, pig smells, and soft earth got to be a bit much, even for a pioneer like myself.

One glorious part of spring's arrival was the light that lingered later in the day. One Friday evening, I sat by the window, watching a particularly stunning sunset drape its watercolor over the fields. When the last bit of pale yellow had faded to indigo, I stood and lay the quilt that had covered my shoulders along the back of the chair. I walked to the bathroom to wash my face. I hadn't performed deep exfoliation for several weeks, and my pores were suffering. No clean washcloths remained in the basket by the shower, so I headed downstairs. I found Jayne sitting head in hands at the kitchen table. She looked up and I could see she'd been crying.

“Jayne, what is it?” I asked, sitting down beside her.

“Oh,” she said, a new well of tears spilling over. “Just part of life.” She blew her nose loudly into a fresh Kleenex. From the looks of the litter on the table, she'd been through an entire box already. “My mom just called. A friend of mine from high school died in a car accident last night. Her name was Dana.” Her chin quivered with the sound of the woman's name. “She has two little ones, one younger than Emmy. Cal's still not back from Bakerstown and I just want to see him …” She trailed off and then set to another loud nose blowing event, an impressive racket coming from such petite facial structure. When she'd plowed through another three tissues, she shook her head. “It's just so sad. So unbelievably sad. I'd like to help John and the kids, but they live three hours away.” She gestured to her open day planner that was buried in used tissues in front of her. “I can't even find a babysitter so I can go to the funeral tomorrow.”

“I'll do it,” I said, shaking my head even as the words escaped my lips.
What did you just say?
I asked myself.
Please say you dreamed that part and just go back to lending a listening ear.

Too late. Jayne turned to me, blue eyes wide and full of wonder. “Oh, Sadie, would you really? I can't tell you how much it would mean to me.”

I pulled my lips back into a smile and nodded.

She threw her arms around me and crushed my trachea with her neck hug. “Thank you so much,” she croaked through fresh sobs. “I didn't even think about asking
you
.”

That's because doing so would be along the same lines as asking the Pope to a Madonna concert at St. Peter's Cathedral. Some worlds were never meant to meet.

Jayne looked at me, worry etched on her brow. “Not that I have any misgivings. You're so good with the children and they adore you.”