“Good morning.”
She spun around, sending water flying everywhere, pressing a hand to her heart.
“Oh! I didn’t know you were there! I thought you were still downstairs.”
“I’ve been awake for a long time. Routine is hard to break.”
“Have you been sitting in there all by yourself?”
“No.” He grinned engagingly. “With Stella.”
She grinned back. “And how did you two get along?” She put coffee in the percolator basket and set the pot on the stove burner.
“She’s a brassy old girl, but I talked sweet to her and she responded like a lady.”
It wasn’t what he said, but how he said it that made Theresa’s cheeks pink. There was an undertone of teasing, though the words were totally polite. She wasn’t used to such a tone of voice when speaking with men, but it, combined with his lazy half smile while he leaned one shoulder against the doorway, gave her the feeling she imagined a cat must have when its fur was slowly stroked the wrong way.
“I didn’t hear you playing.”
“We were whispering to each other.”
Again, she couldn’t resist smiling.
“I ... I’m sorry nobody was up to fix breakfast for you. It’s my first day of Christmas vacation, and I guess my body decided to take advantage of it. I never even wiggled at the usual wake-up time. I heard Jeff still snoring. He must have come in late.”
“It was around three.”
So—he hadn’t been able to sleep. Neither had she. “Three!”
He shrugged, his shoulder still braced on the doorway. He was wearing tight, faded blue jeans and a white football jersey that hugged his ribs just enough to make them tantalizing.
She recalled how long it had taken her to get to sleep after the curious way he’d managed to stir her senses last night, and wondered what had really kept him awake. Had he lain in the dark thinking of the movie as she had? Thinking of Jeff and Patricia in the car? Himself and her having cake and milk in the dusky kitchen?
His slow perusal was beginning to make Theresa’s nerves jump, so she shrugged. “Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll pour you a glass of juice?”
He obliged, though she still wasn’t rid of his gaze, even after she gave him a glass of orange juice. His eyes followed her lazily as she turned the bacon, scrambled eggs and dropped bread into the toaster. “What do you and Jeff have planned for today?”
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, I was hoping you could come along.”
Her heart skipped, and she was disappointed at what she had to reply. “Oh, no, I have too much to do to help mother for tomorrow night, and I have to get ready for the concert I’m playing in tonight.”
“Oh, that’s right. Jeff told me. Civic orchestra, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh. I’ve been in it for three years and I really enjoy—”
“Well, good morning, you two.” It was Amy, barely giving her sister a glance, aiming her greeting primarily at Brian. To his credit, he didn’t flinch even slightly at the sight of Amy, decked out in crisp blue jeans that fit her like a shadow, a skinny little sweater that fit nearly as close, craftily styled hair with its shoulder-length auburn feather cut blown and curled back from her face in that dewy-fresh style so stunningly right for teenage girls. Her makeup application could have taught “Glue Eyes” a thing or two several years ago.
“I thought teenagers spent their vacations flopping around in baggy overalls these days,” Brian noted, managing to compliment Amy without encouraging any excess hope.
“Mmm ...” Amy simpered. “That just goes to show what you know.”
But Theresa was fully aware that had Brian not been under the roof, that’s exactly how Amy would have spent her day, only she wouldn’t have poked her nose out of her burrow until one o’clock in the afternoon.
Amy stepped delicately to the stove and lifted a piece of cooling bacon, nibbled it with a provocative daintiness that quite surprised her sister. Where in the world had Amy learned to act this way? When? Just since Brian Scanlon had walked into the house?
“Amy, if you want bacon and eggs, get yourself a plate,” Theresa scolded, suddenly annoyed by her sister’s flirtatiousness. Even though she realized how small it was to feel a twinge of irritation at this new side Amy was displaying, Theresa was undeniably piqued. Perhaps because the fourteen-year-old had the remarkably freckle-free skin, hair the color of most Kentucky Derby winners and a trim, tiny shape that must be the envy of half the girls in her freshman class at school. Theresa suddenly felt like a gaudy neon sign beside an engraved invitation, in spite of the fact that it was Amy who wore the makeup. Theresa held her sweater over her elbow as she reached to turn off a burner.
From the table, Brian observed it all—the quick flash of irritation the older sister hadn’t quite been able to hide, the guarded movements behind the camouflaging sweater and even the guilt that flashed across her face for the twinge of envy she could not quite control in moments such as these.
He rose, moved to her side and smiled down into her startled eyes. “Here, let me pour the coffee, at least. I feel like a parasite sitting there and doing nothing while you slave over a hot stove.” He reached for the pot while she shifted her eyes to the eggs she was removing from the pan.
“The cups are ...” She half turned to find Amy watching them from just behind their shoulders. “Amy will show you where the cups are.”
They had just begun eating when Jeff came slogging out of his room in bare feet and faded Levi’s, scratching his chest and head simultaneously.
“I thought I smelled bacon.”
“And I thought I smelled a rat,” returned Theresa. “Jeff Brubaker, you should be ashamed of yourself. Bringing Brian here as your houseguest, then abandoning him that way.”
Jeff shambled to a chair and strung himself upon it, more lying than sitting. “Aw hell, Brian didn’t mind, did you, Bry?”
“Nope. Theresa and I had a nice long talk, and I got to bed early.”
“What did you think of old Glue Eyes?” put in Amy.
“She’s just as cute as I expected from Jeff’s descriptions and the pictures I’ve seen,” replied Brian.
“Humph!”
Jeff leaned his elbows on the table and closely scrutinized his younger sister. “Well, lookee here now,” he sing-songed. “If the twerp hasn’t taken a few lessons from old Glue Eyes herself.”
Amy’s mouth puckered up as if it was full of alum. She glared at her brother and snapped, “I’m fourteen years old, Jeffrey, in case you hadn’t noticed! And I’ve been wearing makeup for over a year now.’’
“Oh.” Jeff lounged back in his chair once again. “I beg your pardon, Irma la douce.”
She lurched to her feet and would have stormed out of the room, but Jeff caught her by the elbow and swung her around till she landed on his lap, where she sat stiffly with her arms crossed obstinately over her ribs, an expression of strained tolerance on her face.
“Wanna come along with Brian and me to shop for mom and dad today? I’m gonna need some help deciding what to get for them.”
Her irritation dissolved like a mist before a wind. “Reeeally? You mean it, Jeff?”
“Sure I mean it.” He pushed her off his lap, swatted her on the backside and sent her on her way again. “Get your room cleaned up, and we’ll go right after we eat.” When she was gone he looked at the spot from which she’d disappeared around the hallway wall. “Her jeans are too tight. Mother ought to talk to her about that.”
__________
LEFT BEHIND, Theresa recalled the breakfast conversation with something less than good humor. Why was it so irritating that Jeff had noticed Amy’s burgeoning maturity? Why did she herself feel lonely and left out and—oh, admit it, Brubaker!—jealous, because her sister of fourteen was accompanying Brian Scanlon, age twenty-three, on an innocent Christmas-shopping spree?
With the house to herself, Theresa put on her classical favorites, and spent th
e remainder of the morning boiling potatoes and eggs for the enormous pot of potato salad they’d take to the family gathering scheduled for the following night, Christmas Eve. In the afternoon she washed her hair, took a bath, filed her nails and rummaged in Amy’s room for some polish with a little more pizzazz than the colorless stuff she usually wore. She came up with something called “Mocha Magic” and grimaced as she painted the first stripe down a nail. I'm simply not a “Mocha Magic” girl, she thought, but completed the single nail, held it aloft and assessed it stringently. She fluttered her fingers and watched the light dance across the pearlescent surface and decided—thinking in Amy’s current teenage vernacular—what the heck, go for it!
When all ten nails were finished she wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing. She imagined them glistening, catching the lights while she fingered the neck of her violin. I'm a conservative person trapped inside the body of a Kewpie doll, she decided, and left the polish on.
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.