Leaves (19 page)

“She was in panties in my bedroom and I have a heartbeat.”

“Solid point. Yeah, she's a babe. She's also funny and smart.”

“Seems like you might not want to screw this up.”

“I'll keep that in mind. So now that you and I are friends again, you wanna give me a key to your house so I can use it when you're not around?”

Tyler smirked and stood up from the bench. “I think you mentioned something about needing to be somewhere.”

Maria checked the radio on her way back from McGarrigle's to confirm that the Patriots had won their game this afternoon. That meant that Doug would be in a great mood when she got home. It always baffled her how her normally even-tempered and rational husband could have his moods completely influenced by a sporting event every fall Sunday. Fortunately, the Pats had been very good for a long time, which meant that bubbly Sundays far outnumbered the glum ones.

Doug wouldn't be the only household member in high spirits. Maria had been at McGarrigle's running through her set for Thursday night's show for both Martha and Colin, including the original song she'd written. She even threw in the new song she'd written for the party as well. Their response was appreciative, encouraging, and genuine, as indicated by Martha's dabbing at her eyes during the last tune.

Their feedback was invigorating. Yes, Colin was completely right that her fingerpicking wasn't as fluid as it needed to be on one of the new songs, and Martha nailed her tendency to over-sing during emotional passages, but those were easy fixes. The point was that she didn't trip over herself. She was beginning to regard Thursday's show with something other than trepidation.

Doug was watching the post-game show when she entered the living room with her guitar.

“45-17,” he said when he saw her. “Brady was merciless today.”

“I heard. Four touchdown passes?”

“Would have been six if he didn't stick to the ground game for the entire fourth quarter.”

Maria put the guitar in the living room closet and walked over to kiss her husband. He gave her a post-victory squeeze.

“How was your music lesson?”

“Fantastic. Really fantastic. It wasn't a lesson, though. It was more of a run-through.”

The show went to commercial and Doug switched to another game. “Run-through for what?”

“Thursday night at Mumford's.”

“Oh, that showcase thing? You feeling good about that?”

“Better after today. I'm a little nervous since I haven't been on stage in such a long time, but this run-through really has me feeling confident.”

“It's nice. It'll be a fun little event.”

The television caught Doug's attention and Maria looked over at it. Seattle versus Phoenix, not something he would have any special interest in.

Maria sat back on the couch. “Martha McGarrigle was very encouraging. She told me there's a whole series of venues between here and Rhode Island that feature live acoustic artists. I had no idea – tells you how out of it I've been. She said if things go as well on Thursday as she thinks they're going to go, that she can help me book some more dates.”

Doug had seemed to be listening with one ear, but now he turned away from the TV. “You're not considering doing that, are you?”

“I know. It's a little weird to think about, isn't it? And I'm completely getting ahead of myself. But I've been really enjoying playing again.”

Doug seemed mystified by her words. “You mean you actually want to
pursue
this?”

The chilliness in his tone set Maria's nerves prickling. “Maybe. As I said, I've been loving it.”

Doug stared at the TV for a moment and then looked in her general direction. “I thought you were just screwing around.”

“I might have been at the beginning, but I'd forgotten how much making music means to me.”

“But these performances would all be at night, right? So just when I'm getting home from work, you'd be taking off. That's not exactly how I pictured things.”

“You pictured me just sitting home waiting for you every day?”

“That's not exactly fair, Maria. I've been encouraging you to find something that mattered to you. It would have been nice, though, if the hours coincided with mine.”

So much for being in great moods. “We don't need to discuss this now,” she said, getting up from the couch and heading toward the kitchen. It was premature to make an issue of her getting deeper into her music, but it was something she hadn't expected to contend with.

The flight from Providence to Charlotte yesterday afternoon had been uneventful, Tyler's favorite kind of flight, and the drive to Columbia had been scenic. There were so many trees and flowers here that he couldn't see in Connecticut. The very fact that he could see flowers at all was something of a treat in late October. Based on what he'd read about the area online, the temperatures stayed in the seventies or above all but three months of the year and rarely dipped below freezing, even at night. That led to a different type of growth and a different kind of color. There weren't rusts and umbers here. The shades were much more vital.

Tyler had spent some time walking around the University of South Carolina campus in the late afternoon and then grabbed some barbecue from a food truck for dinner. Afterward, he walked around the downtown area, peering into the window of Aperture Photo Gallery, though it had closed at six. It definitely looked like a legit place.

Tyler's hotel was less than a ten-minute walk from the gallery, so the next morning he left his car in the parking lot, grabbed his portfolio, and trekked over, stopping for coffee along the way. Tyler liked the activity of this downtown area. It was hardly a major metropolis, but it was so much more of one than a town like Oldham.

Joe Elliot was a tall, thick man with longish hair, maybe in his early fifties. His voice was more resonant in person than it had seemed on the phone, which was a little surprising to Tyler since he found the opposite to be true in most cases.

“Great to meet you,” Joe said. “Good trip?”

“Very good. The flight and the drive were a breeze.”

“Yeah, it's a pretty straight shot from Charleston. What brought you down here, anyway?”

Tyler had forgotten he'd told Joe that he was already going to be in South Carolina. He was so glad the man mentioned it before he blundered. “Just a little away time.”

“Well, I consider it serendipity. Hey, can I get you a cup of coffee.”

“Thanks, I just had one.”

“Have another. I roast my own beans.”

“That sounds like a very good reason to have more coffee.”

Joe went to the back office and Tyler looked around the gallery a bit. There was an interesting blend of styles here, very different from the galleries near Oldham. There were plenty of formal images, but also a number of edgier ones. That told Tyler something about the market here. Because Aperture was in a college town, it could make room for more cerebral work. Tyler had no trouble imagining his shots hanging in this environment.

Joe came back with the coffee and the two of them sat at a table near the back of the gallery. The only other person present was a young woman, presumably a college student, who worked there. Tyler would have been surprised to find customers here on a Tuesday morning.

He opened his portfolio and pulled out a few pieces that he'd printed and matted. Joe reached out for them as though Tyler were offering up a tray of delicacies from an exotic land. He flipped through the work slowly, smiling and nodding at each new piece.

“I'm addicted to the leaves,” Joe said when he got to the end of the collection. “That piece with the single upturned leaf you just put up on your site is stunning.”

Tyler had added that shot to his slideshow after his phone conversation with Joe, which meant the man had been back to the site since then.

“Thanks.”

Joe handed the photos back to him. “I'm thinking we'll start with a dozen pieces. I have the perfect spot for you.”

Tyler hadn't expected Joe to have made a decision about carrying his work before Tyler got there. “You really think people want this kind of thing down here?”

“No question in my mind.”

Tyler couldn't help but laugh. “I don't suppose you have five or six more galleries nearby.”

Joe raised a finger. “That's something I want to talk to you about, actually. I'm something of a networking freak. I'm in constant touch with photo galleries all over the country – gotta stick together, you know? How would you feel about my brokering your work outside of your home region? I've been doing that with –” Joe pointed over Tyler's left shoulder, causing Tyler to turn in that direction “– that guy, and he's now in twenty-four galleries. I even got him into a place in Calgary.”

Tyler had never had any kind of representation. People who worked on his scale rarely did. The idea was exciting.

“Yeah, I'd be open to discussing that.”

“That's great. I think we'll be able to do some really good stuff with your work. Let's get you rolling here, though. I'd like to have some kind of launch event. Maybe right before Thanksgiving. Do you think you could come down again for that?”

Tyler gave the briefest consideration to whether there might be anything on his calendar for the last week of November. “Yeah, I can definitely come down again for that.”

He spent another hour in the gallery. Joe introduced him to Lily Campbell who was in fact a student at South Carolina, but also the daughter of one of the gallery owners in Joe's network. Together, the three of them walked through the shop discussing the various photographers. Joe talked about each as though he'd had close personal relationships with them for decades.

By the time Tyler got ready to leave, the gallery was getting busy. Joe promised to send a contract within the week and then went to attend to a potential customer.

Walking back to the hotel to check out, Tyler considered the possibility that this meeting might have marked the beginning of the next phase of his career. It was possible, of course, that Joe's confidence in his ability to sell and market Tyler's work was unfounded, but there was the very real chance that Tyler would remember this morning as the point when his footprint genuinely started to grow.

Twenty minutes later, he was back in his car. As he was about to turn the key in the ignition, though, he realized he wasn't ready to leave. Maybe he'd walk around a bit more before going; the vibe here felt so good. As long as he was on the road by three o'clock, he'd get to the airport in time.

On the other hand, he didn't absolutely need to fly back tonight. Before he left yesterday, he handled the last details on the party decorations. Everything was under control on that end. He didn't have any pressing business in Oldham. And he certainly didn't have anyone waiting for him.

Maybe he'd hang around South Carolina for another couple of days.

Martha signaled Maria to come backstage ten minutes before she was scheduled to go on. She got a quick peck from Doug and then a huge hug from Olivia.

“Crush this, Mom,” her daughter said.

Maria smiled nervously, “I'm just hoping not to
be
crushed.”

“Backstage” at Mumford's was little more than an office down the hall. The guy who'd been on just before the current performer was sitting in one of the three chairs in the room, smoking a cigarette. Maria told him she liked his set, even though she found it a little passionless. He nodded as though he anticipated her compliment and fully deserved it. The guy couldn't have been out of college more than a year or so. Maria could imagine him thinking he'd be receiving much bigger accolades in much bigger venues by next spring, having no idea that for most aspiring musicians this was as big as it ever got.

Maria took out her guitar to check the tuning as Martha entered the room.

“Are you ready to go on?” the woman said, touching Maria on the shoulder.

“I guess we'll find out in a few minutes.”

“About five. Damien is finishing his last song and then I'll go out to introduce you.”

Maria simply shook her head in acknowledgment.

“You're gonna be great,” Martha said. “You know that, right?”

Maria smiled, but she had been growing increasingly nervous since she entered this room, and Martha's encouragement was only elevating that.

“Thanks.”

Martha patted her shoulder. “Gotta get back out there.”

A couple of minutes later, Maria heard enthusiastic applause, the singer thanking the audience, and then Martha thanking the singer. As Maria listened for her introduction, the singer passed her to come into the office and their eyes met appreciatively for a second. He was probably only a few years younger than Maria and she could tell by the way he carried himself that the response he'd gotten meant something to him. If he was still here when she finished, maybe they'd compare notes.

At that point, Maria heard her name and the polite applause of the audience. She walked up the four steps to the stage and exchanged a smile with Martha before she sat at the stool, adjusted the mic, and checked the tuning on her guitar one more time.

She looked out from the stage. The room was perhaps two-thirds full, maybe seventy-five or eighty people. That was a decent crowd for something like this, a testament to Martha's ability to get attention for these showcases. Maria recalled doing similar things twenty years ago in front of gatherings of no more than a dozen.

Just before she started playing, she looked over at the table where her family was sitting. In addition to Doug and Olivia, Corrina and Maxwell had come as well. Deborah was cooking at the inn, of course, and Tyler was still out of town. Maria assumed that Gardner wouldn't be there, since he always seemed to be working, but she was surprised that Annie hadn't come. Maxwell said something about a babysitter, but he seemed to be having trouble explaining the matter. Maria wondered if he'd be asking to see Lucretia some time soon, though Lucretia hadn't made an appearance in a very long time.

Maria checked her tuning a third time, superfluous because the guitar had been in tune when she first checked, and then started her slowed-down version of “Least Complicated.” As she sang the first verse, she realized that it had been decades since she'd last sung into a PA system. She'd used microphones to record, but not to amplify her voice. For some reason, she found this disorienting, as though what was coming from the speakers was not originating from her, and this distracted her to the point that she botched the last line of the first verse.

This led to a cascade of errors. Thinking too much about the lyrics caused her to slip up on her fingerpicking. Concentrating on her mechanics caused her to blow a chord change. By the time she got to the third verse, she half expected the strings to start popping from the bridge one at a time.

Olivia whooped at the end of the song, but applause in the rest of the room was sparse. Maria considered it to be generous.

Just then, her eyes connected with Doug's. He pantomimed taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. It was precisely what she'd done for him when, during one of his infrequent public presentations, he'd stumbled badly at the beginning. Maria understood that the gesture was much more than an attempt to pay her back, and she appreciated it more than she realized she would.

Feeling bolstered, Maria regarded the rest of the audience. “Here's some James Taylor,” she said before launching into “Song for You Far Away.” She handled the fingerpicking at the beginning of the song without incident, and this served as her own metaphoric deep breath. By the time she came to the last words of the first verse – “people keep talking ‘bout a different line but it never seems to fit” – she felt she was channeling the song rather than playing it. This was the seamlessness she remembered from her favorite times on stage. Her guitar, her voice, and her spirit were all merged. She didn't need to think about directing things, or even worse, remembering or noticing things. She could just go along for the ride.

The applause was much stronger after this one. She stole a quick glance at her daughter, who offered her an exaggerated thumbs-up, and her husband, who smiled appreciatively. Then she went directly into her greatly rearranged version of Queen's “Keep Yourself Alive.” The pace of the song was considerably faster than the previous two and the crowd seemed to connect with this, even though she could tell that most of them had never heard the song before and likely wouldn't have recognized it even if they had. By the second verse, her family was clapping along, and this caused several others to join them. Maria found herself moved to the edge of her stool, and she would have stood for the last verse if she could only think of a way to raise the mic while still playing.

The cheering after this one seemed genuinely enthusiastic. Maybe she'd found her calling in acoustic reinterpretations of hard rock hits. Probably not. Still, the fact that several people she didn't know were smiling after this song warmed her.

“Thanks,” she said as the applause died down. “You're very polite, and I'm adding all of you to my Christmas card list. I'm going to risk your disapproval now and do an original song. It's something I just wrote, and it's called, “What If I Told You.”

Maria played the twelve-bar opening with her head down to the guitar, as she tried to inhabit the song. Playing her own material had always been different for her than covering others. While she could attempt to place herself in the songwriter's head when she did other people's songs, there was no distance between her own material and herself, and it was important that anyone listening feel this.

This was especially vital with this song, as it was more than a little confessional.

There was a certain sense of standing naked and vulnerable in performing this song, but it was liberating as well. Then there was a third thing she hadn't anticipated: it was nostalgic. Singing these new words that gave voice to what she was feeling at this stage in her life reminded her of why she'd started writing songs in the first place, of why this particular form gave her a level of expression that she'd never found in anything other than the unspoken communication between mother and infant child.

For a moment, right before the third verse, the emotion of this realization threatened to overwhelm her. She tucked her chin into her chest, improvised a sixteen-bar break, and gathered herself enough to finish strong.

As the crowd began to cheer, Maria leaned her forehead on the mic for an instant before looking out and thanking everyone. Then she blew quick kisses to her family and walked off the stage.

The house was dark when Maxwell returned from the show, even though it was only a little after ten. He'd been half-hoping that he and Annie could talk for a while. He'd tried to convince her to get a babysitter so they could go out to see Maria together, but she'd refused. How could she complain about being tethered to Joey all day and then have no interest in untethering herself to go out with him for the night?

He got ready for bed and slid under the sheets, leaning over to kiss his wife, whose back was toward him, on the cheek. She didn't move. Whenever he got home after she was already asleep, no matter how late, he would kiss her and she'd turn over and move into his arms. That's how he knew she wasn't asleep now.

“Annie,” he said softly.

She didn't answer.

“Hey,” Corrina said as she stepped into Gardner's office. He was studying a brief and kneading both of his temples.

“How was it,” he said without looking up.

“Fantastic, actually. I don't remember Maria being this good.”

He continued to rub his head. “It's nice that she didn't tank.”

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

Gardner tipped his head back and breathed deeply. “As long as you define ‘okay' as ‘certain I'm going to lose this case.' I also have a monster headache.”

Corrina moved closer and started massaging the base of Gardner's neck. He groaned appreciatively. “Do you really think you're going to lose?”

“Would it be possible for you to keep doing that for about an hour? No, I don't really think I'm going to lose, but I think I might not have any hair left by the end of this trial.”

“Sorry. Can you take off fifteen minutes to have a cup of tea with me.”

“I really can't. I'm panning for gold here. I might not make it to bed at all tonight.”

She kneaded his neck for another minute and then gave his shoulders a squeeze. “I'll leave you alone. I'm gonna spend a little time taking care of some things for the party – Tyler screwed up in a big way on the decorations – and then I'm calling it a night.”

“Lucky you.”

Corrina scoffed as she left Gardner's office.

Tyler didn't turn his cell phone back on until he was in his car and heading toward his house from the airport. He saw that there was a voice message and he instructed his hands-free device to play it for him.

“Tyler, it's Corrina. I got a call from Celebrations because they couldn't get you. The thing with the flying bats is a total disaster. I'm taking care of it, but –”

Tyler clicked off the phone. It was exactly the kind of “welcome home” he should have expected.

Deborah had been in the kitchen since ten this morning, and her legs had only now started complaining, eleven hours later. The fourth course had just gone out, and she took a moment to wipe her brow and check in with her staff before beginning final preparations for the first meat course.

The dining room was filled with many of the inn's most dedicated patrons from the years that Deborah had been running the kitchen. She'd reserved one table for four diners from Manhattan who ran a hugely influential food site, her only concession to marketing for her next endeavor, and a table for two for the writers from the
Post
covering this. There was no space for the casual or the curious. There was also no space for her family. Deborah had made it abundantly clear that this night wasn't for them, even though they'd inspired the menu.

Sage had come by after he closed the shop, about an hour before the single seating began at seven-thirty. He was willing to offer more than moral support, but understood when Deborah explained that all the cooking had to be from her and her team tonight. Still, she reveled in wandering past his table in the kitchen for a quick kiss whenever possible. In the past, having a boyfriend hanging around while she was working would have been distracting and annoying. She felt neither distracted nor annoyed now.

Deborah started working on the lemongrass gastrique for the roasted chicken. When she'd first learned the ideal way to roast a chicken at the CIA, her mother had insisted on eating it unadorned. “It doesn't need anything else, sweetie,” she would say. “This is perfect.” Deborah eventually convinced her that the chicken wouldn't be
hers
unless there was a sauce on it, and she'd topped the meat with several over the years. This was always Mom's favorite, though, and it had shown up on the inn's menu numerous times.

The same was true of the cream of parsnip soup with rapini oil and raisin bread croutons that started the meal. Even though Corrina requested it often in the fall for Wednesday night family meals, Deborah would still bring it out for other diners on occasion. That was also the case with the roasted garlic soufflé she offered after the soup, a personal favorite that she presented with an aged Gouda béchamel that servers spooned into the center. Tyler's pasta had never gone out to the inn's dining room – at least not for patrons – and it required a bit of dressing up tonight. Maxwell's diver scallops with hazelnut butter, on the other hand, was already formal and elegant enough, even though Deborah had never served it to anyone other than family previously.

Once the chicken had gone out, it was time to work on the Aleppo pepper bordelaise to go with the beef tenderloin. This one was a favorite of her father's, and he requested it nearly every holiday, even in the face of Deborah's suggestions that they try something different. Once this was done, it was just a matter of stuffing the bomboloni. Gina was already frying the doughnuts and Evan was finishing the caramel.

Twenty minutes later, as the last of the tenderloin plates were leaving the kitchen, Nancy Wilson, the head of the wait staff, came in.