The Time Between (20 page)

Her eyes widened in surprise. “You can get hurt playing the piano?”

“Only if your aunt Helena is here with her cane,” I muttered.

I showed Gigi how to keep her wrists lifted and to round her fingers so the tips hit the keys. She was an avid pupil and listened carefully without growing frustrated. But by the end of half an hour we were both ready for a break.

Gigi slid off the bench. “I want you to play now.”

“I don’t think—”

“Madame LaFleur always dances for us when we’ve worked really hard. Unless you don’t think you can. Aunt Helena says that the reason why you won’t play for her is because you really don’t know how and that the songs you played that first time you were here were the only songs you knew and that you’ve played them so many times that they sound like they come from a can.”

I looked at her steadily, unraveling her words to the starting place to make sure my anger was directed at the right person. “Did she, now?” I asked, standing up and moving to the edge of the room, where the stacks of music we’d been gathering lay sorted in their various piles. “Do you remember where we put the Debussy?”

Gigi skipped over to a pile beneath the portrait of the woman in the red dress. “You said you were putting all the composers who weren’t Beethoven, Mozart, or Chopin in this pile.”

“I did?” I asked, not remembering the reasoning behind my methodology. I did remember, however, the general ill will I’d felt toward my assignment and the woman who’d issued it, which most likely had a lot to do with the incomprehension of my organizational edict.

I squatted down and began thumbing through the sheet music, having remembered seeing a copy of “Clair de Lune” that was not in a book. I was halfway through the pile when I found it. I held it up like a prize. “I think you’ll like this one,” I said.

I placed it on the music stand, then made a grand show of sitting in front of middle C and adjusting the bench accordingly. I studied the music for a long time, my fingers seeming to remember the notes in the way a memory is resurrected by a forgotten scent. I loved Debussy and this piece in particular for the sheer beauty of it; the brightness of the melody mixed with sensuality made this piece and all of his music a joy to listen to and to play. It had been the first composition I’d learned on my own, and the first time I’d ever seen my father cry. It had embarrassed him, and he’d swiped at his cheeks with the back of his weathered hand and pretended he had something in his eye.

“I hope you’ll like it, Gigi. Claude Debussy was known as the founder of musical Impressionism—although he always disputed that. I’m not sure if there’s a correlation to dancing Impressionism, but maybe you’re familiar with the paintings.”

She stared at me blankly, corroborating my suspicion that I was not a born teacher.

“All right, then,” I said, placing my hands over the keys. “I’ll probably make some mistakes, but try to enjoy the music. In fact, I’m not even going to tell you to watch my fingers or anything like that because I’m not sure I’ll do it correctly.”

Gigi sat down on the small love seat, her feet barely brushing the floor. “Stop making excuses and just play.”

I didn’t bother to ask if she’d come up with that on her own. I’d never met Madame LaFleur, but from what I’d learned of her, it sounded like something she would have said.

I let my hands fall on the first chords, delicate and hesitant, like diving underwater, where light and sound wavered. And then I forgot where I was and who was listening and why I was playing. I
saw
the music, felt it as one feels a boat one is navigating, the sways and swells, the ripples of excitement. I forgot everything, losing myself as completely as if I’d started to follow a new river whose creeks and bends were unfamiliar to me.

I lifted my hands from the keyboard after the final chord, the notes staying in the air as if they knew I didn’t want to let them go. And then I let my foot slide from the pedal, allowing the music to fade completely.

Gigi moved from the love seat to slide next to me and pressed her hand over her heart. “I heard it here,” she said.

Before I could respond, the telltale thump of a cane sounded behind me. I stood quickly and faced Helena. “I hope I didn’t disturb your rest.”

Her eyes held a light in them that I hadn’t seen before. “That wasn’t horrible.”

I remembered that Gigi was in the room and had to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t say the first thing that came to mind. “Does that mean Mr. Debussy isn’t turning over in his grave right now?”

Ignoring my question, she said, “Why did you stop?”

I started to say,
Because the song was over,
but I knew that wasn’t what she meant. I considered my answer only for a brief moment. “Because my father died.”

She regarded me intently, the light in her eyes seeming to grow brighter. “And he did not want you to play anymore after he died?”

I stared back at her, unable to answer. I had never been asked that before, even by myself. I blinked hard, determined that I wouldn’t shed tears in front of Helena. Swallowing thickly, I said, “It was too painful. He taught me how to play, and without him I didn’t see a purpose to it.”

Her gaze was relentless. “And so you honor him by dismissing the music he taught you?” She waved her hand at me as if to reject anything else I might want to say. “You want to tell me that you did it for love.” She leaned closer to me, her hand gripping the top of her cane. “But that can be a very selfish thing. Maybe you were afraid that you really were not as good as he said you were. It does not matter. We all say we do things for love. But even love has its price. Be careful what you are willing to pay. It might cost you more than you could ever imagine.”

I was shaking, shaking with anger and frustration and the horrible knowledge that part of what she’d said had nudged at the truth. And I wanted to hurt her as much as she’d hurt me. I threw back my shoulders. “Why did Bernadett stop?”

Her expression never changed except for the raising of a single elegant eyebrow. Her voice was calm when she spoke. “I would like to have another piece of the leftover
dobostorta
. You and Gigi may have one, too, and join me out on the screened porch.”

She turned and began to make her regal, yet slow, exit from the room, her hand trembling on her cane the only evidence that she was as shaken as I was.

I had nothing left in my arsenal, so I blurted out, “So the cake wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“I never said that,” she said without turning around.

Gigi tried to hide her laughter beneath the palm of her hand, while I stared after Helena’s retreating back trying to decide if she was the cruelest person I’d ever met or simply the most observant.

Eve

A
t the sound of Eleanor’s footsteps clambering down the stairs, I quickly slid the beautiful burgundy wool gabardine fabric under the yards of tulle I’d been buried under for nearly a week. Since Mama’s unexpected meeting with Mrs. Reed at the fabric store, she’d not only rediscovered an old friendship, which—thankfully—took her undivided focus off me, but also brought an unexpected opportunity in the form of Mrs. Reed’s granddaughters and their heavy involvement in a dance academy.

Mama had been embarrassed when I’d asked her to call her old friend and ask who was making their costumes for the various shows. As I’d explained to her, opportunities sometimes arrived when you weren’t even looking for them. Like when you’re standing in front of rolls of fabric in a fabric store or lying broken on a dirt road staring up at the sky through the gnarled arms of an oak tree.

“Are you ready to go?” Eleanor asked, dangling her car keys.

I spotted a piece of the burgundy and quickly leaned over to fiddle with the sewing machine while using the other hand to hide the wool. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out that I needed to use the old pattern we’d bought all those years ago and make Eleanor a suit. I think I’d decided to do it even before I’d found the material on sale in a color I knew would look beautiful on my sister. If I could see my child as a second chance, then I could see this suit as my penance. Each stitch, each hour a letting go, a saying good-bye to anger and to old dreams that had never really been mine.

“I’m ready,” I said, placing my purse in my lap as Eleanor wheeled me to the door.

As she headed the car toward Charleston, I said, “I’d like to send a thank-you note to Mr. Beaufain. He’s been more than generous in allowing you time off for my appointments, and now for maternity clothes shopping.”

“Believe me, he knows he’s getting a bargain with all the time I spend with his aunt. She’s not the easiest person to get along with.” Her mouth hardened. “Besides, it’s only for a few hours. Glen said he could come pick you up around eleven thirty, right?”

I nodded. “Unless you wanted to grab lunch; then I can call him to come a little later.”

She looked startled at my suggestion but quickly composed herself. “I’ll probably take lunch at my desk to catch up on the work I’m missing this morning.” She waved her hand at me, as if to dismiss further conversation on the subject, and I wondered when she’d started doing that. “Finn usually brings me lunch when I come in late.”

I raised my eyebrows, trying to think of why somebody like Mr. Beaufain would bring lunch to an assistant. “Still, I’d like to send a note. Do you know his home address?”

I was amused to see her blushing. “Yes. I’m actually heading there this afternoon after work. To see Gigi,” she added hastily.

She pulled into the parking lot behind Beaufain & Associates, right next to a beater car that could belong to only one person.

“Is that Lucy Coakley’s Buick? I swear I remember her daddy driving that car fifteen years ago.”

“The one and only,” she said as she popped open the tailgate on the Volvo to retrieve my wheelchair. “Do you want to go inside and say hi?”

“Maybe when we’re finished, if there’s time.” I had no intention of laying eyes on Lucy again if I could help it. I hadn’t spoken to her since my wedding to Glen. Or, more accurately, since the day before my wedding, when she’d shown up at my house to ask me what I was doing. I’d known exactly what I was doing, even then. But I’d been unable to explain to Lucy that my reasons had nothing to do with spite, regardless of what she thought. Mama had wanted me to be a senator’s wife or a movie star, but my own aspirations had been closer to the ground. And I’d recognized that in Glen when I’d first seen him, knew his dreams had nothing to do with chasing stars.

“You do know there are easier and cheaper places to shop than King Street, right?” Eleanor asked as she worked the wheelchair over a curb, her voice having an edge to it that she seemed to have brought back from yesterday’s trip to Edisto.

“I know. But I just got paid for three Junior Miss gowns and I have a meeting scheduled with the dance academy Mrs. Reed’s granddaughters are enrolled in, so things are looking up.” I smiled hopefully. “It’s just that it’s been so long since I’ve been downtown, and I need to see what non-mall stores have in their windows for inspiration for the dance costumes I need to create. A lot of the stores are running sales now, too, so if I can find some good deals on a few maternity outfits, it’s a win-win.”

Eleanor didn’t say anything, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. I’d grown used to this neutrality over the years, but it still seemed as unnatural to me as the Eleanor Murray I’d grown up with driving the speed limit in a Volvo.

I continued. “If you change your mind about lunch, I was hoping we might go to Carolina’s. It’s been far too long since I’ve been there.”

She remained silent and I thought she might not have heard me.

“It’s where we met Glen, remember?” I prompted.

“I remember.” Her voice was flat, and she was walking so fast that my chair was bouncing all over the uneven sidewalk, making me thankful for my seat belt.

I put my hand on hers. “Stop.”

She stopped abruptly, my body jerking forward. I looked around to see if anybody had noticed before turning to look at Eleanor. “What’s got into you? You’ve been carrying a chip on your shoulder since you got back from Edisto.”

I could see her deliberating on how much she should tell me. Finally, she said, “It’s that woman. Helena. She said something that upset me, that’s all.”

“What could she have possibly said that would affect you so much?”

She bit her bottom lip, just as she’d done as a child. “She told me that I stopped playing the piano after Daddy died because I was selfish.” She swallowed. “That I was afraid of failure.”

I remembered very little of those dark days before they found my father’s boat, except for Mama’s blank face and the police chief bringing a cold and shivering Eleanor home from her vigil on the dock. And I remembered the absence of music, the silence of the house, as if it had already begun its mourning. “Then why did you stop?”

Her eyes were empty as she stared back at me, as if the library of understanding she’d built up over the years had been suddenly scattered to the wind.

“I don’t know,” she said with a vicious tug on my wheelchair that sent me swaying sideways.

“We were talking about Carolina’s,” Eleanor said after we’d gone about half a block, eager to pretend that our previous conversation hadn’t happened, that the world still revolved in the direction with which she’d grown familiar. “It’s where Daddy asked Mama to marry him.”

“I’d forgotten that,” I said. I’d spent years listening to my mother talk about her glory days as a Charleston debutante and how she’d disappointed her family to marry my father. “I suppose there really is something special about those round booths in the front of the restaurant.”

“More likely there’s something special in what they serve from the bar,” Eleanor said, a welcome hint of amusement in her voice. She was silent for a moment as she made the turn from Broad Street to King. “I remember how shy you were being, hardly saying a word, and trying not to let anybody notice how you were staring at those boys in their Citadel uniforms at the other booth.”

“If I was being quiet, it was probably because I was keeping a tally in my head of how much money we were spending. I only had twenty dollars in my purse, my entire paycheck from working the cosmetics counter at Gwynn’s.”

She pushed me in silence, then paused in front of the window at Berlin’s. “Then next time we go to Carolina’s, my treat.”

I shook my head. “Oh, no need for that. You always paid your way by adding the excitement factor.” I’d grown up thinking that Eleanor’s misadventures were part of what I was supposed to forget. Instead, as the years progressed, I’d found myself thinking about them more often, considering them the parts of my growing-up years that I most wanted to remember.

Our gazes met in the reflection from the store window. “Like stealing Mr. Grund’s TV?” she asked as a corner of her mouth reluctantly lifted.

“Actually, I was thinking about that evening at Carolina’s. I didn’t know until later that nobody had given you those dresses. To think I met my future husband in a stolen dress.”

She sounded offended. “It wasn’t stolen—it was borrowed. Mama’s cousin had no idea they’d even left her closet.”

“Until she saw us at Carolina’s.”

A snort of laughter escaped from Eleanor’s mouth. “I shouldn’t have done it. Relationships with Mama’s family were strained enough, and that was pretty much the end of it.”

“But you were the one who dared me to go talk to those boys.” I stared at the red spaghetti-strapped dress in the store window without really seeing it. “It used to drive Mama crazy, the way I’d let you drag me into trouble.”

We were both silent as we thought about our last adventure and the consequences neither of us could have foreseen. Turning my chair, she said, “Let’s go in here. They’re bound to have a maternity section, and if not, maybe some loose-fitting tops.”

She pushed me into the store as if that could silence the memories of two sisters who’d somehow grown to think that the long arms of the past were too short to reach them.

Eleanor

It was nearly eleven o’clock before we emerged from the third store, a small assortment of shopping bags dangling from the chair and me and resting in Eve’s lap—all proudly purchased on sale and under the budget Eve had allotted. I also had a phone full of photos for Eve’s burgeoning costume designs.

I’d given Eve my phone to call Glen to let him know that she was ready to be picked up, when I heard my name. I turned and spotted Finn walking toward us, the sun glinting off his hair, its brightness at odds with the black suit. He carried a bag from Sugar Snap Pea Children’s Boutique.

“I hope I didn’t miss Gigi’s birthday,” I said, indicating the bag.

“No. Not quite. It’s four years of remission as of today. We celebrate it like another birthday.”

His grin at his daughter’s success spread a fissure of warmth through my chest. “That’s wonderful. Let me guess—whatever you bought is pink.”

He laughed. “How did you guess?” Turning his attention to Eve, he said, “It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Hamilton.”

I was impressed that he’d remembered her name, but then I imagined that was something that had been ingrained in him since birth.

“Please. Call me Eve.”

“All right. But only if you call me Finn.”

Eve smiled brightly, her confinement to a wheelchair having done nothing to diminish her beauty. But Finn only gave her a glancing smile before refocusing his attention on me.

“We’ve been doing a little maternity shopping for Eve,” I said.

“I can see that.” He looked down at his watch. “I have a lunch appointment at one, but maybe I can interest you both in some coffee?”

Before I could say no, Eve was already redialing Glen. While it rang, she said, “That would be lovely. Let me just tell Glen that he can pick me up at noon. Where do you suggest we go?”

“How about the City Lights Café? It’s just around the corner on Market.”

I tried to catch Eve’s attention, but she was too busy answering Finn’s questions regarding her health and the baby’s. Reluctantly, I began to push the wheelchair at a quick pace, eager to get through what promised to be a very awkward hour.

Luckily, we’d missed the morning rush and it was too early for the lunch rush, which made it easier for us to navigate the wheelchair through the narrow café to a table near the back. I stayed with Eve while Finn went up to the bar to place our orders.

“Is ‘Finn’ a nickname?”

Eve’s question brought my attention back from studying the bohemian crowd around me. I looked at her in surprise. “I suppose so. The name on all of his correspondence is Hampton P. Beaufain. I have no idea where the Finn comes from.”

She propped her elbow on the wooden table and tapped her fingertips on her chin. “I bet the P is for Phineas. You should ask.”

I leaned closer so I wouldn’t be overheard. “No. He’s either Mr. Beaufain at work or Finn when we’re on Edisto. I don’t need to know more than that.”

Eve raised her eyebrows but was prohibited from saying anything else by Finn’s appearing at the table with an iced latte for me, a black coffee for him, and an iced water with lemon for Eve.

Finn took a sip from his steaming coffee, not even flinching at the temperature as he swallowed. “Eleanor, I was hoping to get the chance to talk about something that’s come up.”

I kept my face neutral while I secretly prayed that whatever he had to tell me didn’t involve spending more time with Helena.

He placed his cup on the table. “I have to go to New York on business for a few days. I’d like you to take Gigi to Edisto after work today and stay there while I’m gone.”

I wasn’t sure if I completely disguised my dismay, but I was too busy trying to think of an excuse. “But my job—”

“I’ll tell Kay to take care of any of your work projects. Gigi is good for Helena. And both Gigi and Helena enjoy your company.”

I coughed, my last sip of latte not going down the way it was supposed to. When I’d recovered, I said, “You’re joking about the Helena part, right?”

His eyes were cool and assessing. “You remind her of Bernadett.”

I almost choked again. “I thought she liked her sister.”

Finn kept back a smile. “Bernadett had a way of taking care of things, whether or not she wanted to do them. Like you do.” For Eve’s benefit, he added, “She and my aunt Helena have had their differences. She’s got Eleanor reorganizing all the music in the house and putting it in binders as well as teaching my daughter how to play piano. I don’t particularly think that your sister had this in mind when she started this job.”

Eve sipped her water. “So how else does Eleanor remind Helena of her sister?”

He put his fingers around his cup but didn’t lift it to his lips. “Bernadett worked hard taking care of others, almost to the exclusion of everything else. She was really driven, really devoted to all of her causes. Almost like somebody who was paying off a debt.”