Love at First Note (25 page)

He paused, and I held my breath, the weight of all that was in the balance hinging on his next words.

“Have you talked to Elliott about this? Is he willing to come?”

I collapsed back onto my pillow. I didn’t exactly want to get into the finer points of my relationship with Elliott, but I really needed Brian to be on my team.

“I haven’t talked to him. We aren’t exactly speaking right now. But I don’t want this to be about us. This just needs to be about getting his career back on track so he’s making music
he actually loves.
That’s all I want from this. Just for him to find his music again.”

He sighed and mumbled something about lovers’ quarrels. “Which
is why you’re calling me. So his big, bad agent can boss him into flying back to Asheville.”

“By Wednesday afternoon.”

“Wednesday, day-after-tomorrow Wednesday?”

“The concert isn’t for two more weeks, but he needs to perform for the conductor by Wednesday.” I crossed my fingers.

He sighed again
, this one a little longer, a little more pronounced.
“Agggh, all right. If you can promise Schweitzer, I’ll get Elliott to
Asheville by Wednesday. I can’t make him talk to you though. You’re
on your own in that regard.”

“Thank you,” I said, relief flooding my chest. “This is going to work,” I told him. “I promise this is going to work.”

As soon as I hung up, I texted Greg.

If you can help, I’m in for the tour. Let’s make this happen.

Wednesday morning I got a
text from Brian with Elliott’s flight information. He landed in Asheville at three twenty, which gave him just enough time, if he drove straight to the performance hall, to play Prokofiev for Dr. Williamson
before the conductor had to leave for dinner at five.

“I can’t be late for dinner,” he told me. “If this friend of yours is going to play for me, he better be here by four.”

I debated whether I should be there for Elliott’s audition. He had to know I’d been involved in bringing him back to Asheville. I had no idea how much his agent had told him, but even if he’d been
told nothing, he
was smart enough to piece everything together.
Asheville was my symphony. He was invited to play because of me.

In the end, I hid in the shadows offstage, watching as Elliott
entered the auditorium, shook my conductor’s hand, then moved to the piano. He rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and sat down, his eyes focusing on the keys. To see him after so many weeks apart
made my entire body tense, every nerve ending on high alert. I
ached to touch him, to breathe him in. Once he began to play, the
feeling only intensified.

He was incredible. I was biased
. Of course I was biased; I was
completely in love with the man. But his ability to turn music into a living, breathing, feeling thing was beyond anything I’d ever expe
rienced before. And I’d been around a lot of musicians.

I slipped out the side stage door and walked to the back of the auditorium so I could sit in the last row. Through the first movement and into the next, Elliott played the Prokofiev with unwavering skill. That he’d had so little notice and was still able to walk up and power out twenty-plus minutes of a piano concerto with no music and no orchestra to back him up was mind-boggling. He was the consummate professional. Truly, he was the best I had ever seen.

When he finished, I held my breath, hoping Dr. Williamson agreed.

The conductor stood from his seat in the front row and clapped his hands, the singular sound of his acceptance echoing through the
empty room. “Bravo,” he said simply, nodding to Elliott. “Bravo.”

I waited for Elliott at the back of the auditorium. He stopped a few feet in front of me, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Hi.” He spoke without smiling.

I swallowed. “Hi. You sounded really good.”
Understatement of the year, but fine.

“Thanks.” He was uncomfortable, which only made me more uncomfortable. All I needed were some words, some good ones that made sense and were clear and concise and easy to understand. But there was no mental violin strong enough to channel peace and confidence into this conversation. I was a complete wreck. My tongue felt like rubber wrapped in Velcro, my head full of sentences there was no way I would ever have the courage to say. I stared at the floor, my cheeks flaming red, frustrated by my inability to just talk already.

“So thanks for setting this up for me.” He motioned over his shoulder to the piano. “I guess my agent is bringing in a producer from Academy Records to hear the concert, so . . . I don’t know. Maybe something good will come of it.”

Wow.
I was annoyed at first that Brian would try to take the credit for getting Schweitzer to the show, but after a moment’s
consideration, I decided it was probably better if Elliott didn’t know I was involved. At least not beyond the effort I’d made to secure him an invitation to play. I wasn’t trying to buy his affection or earn back his good opinion. I loved him. I wanted him to be happy, and I really, really hoped he was in love with me too. But even if he wasn’t, if there wasn’t a single hope of us ever winding up together, I wouldn’t change anything. I’d still be doing the very same thing.

“It was nothing,” I said. “I was happy to do it.” I looked toward the door. “Can we talk for a minute? Want to go for a walk?”

He glanced at his phone. “I only have an hour or so. I have to get back to the airport.”

I tensed. “You’re leaving?” He wasn’t supposed to be leaving.

“I’ll be back in time for the concert. Before that, probably, so I have time to pack everything up at the apartment.”

No, no, no, no!
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I turned so he wouldn’t see. I headed out the door of the auditorium and through
the lobby, making it several paces down the sidewalk before he
finally caught up.

“Emma, wait. Please!”

I stopped walking, but I couldn’t look at him. I knew the min
ute I did every bad, sappy sentence filling my brain would find a way
to escape.
Stupid words.

“Emma,” he said again. He spoke from somewhere just over my
shoulder, his tone gentle, his words soft. “I meant it when I said no
regrets. I wouldn’t take back a single minute of the time we spent together.”

“But?”

“But you were right. It’s not worth it. I can’t ask you to sign up for a life that makes you uncomfortable.”

“So you’re leaving instead?” I could feel him moving closer, close enough that if I turned and reached out, I could touch him, feel him, breathe him in.

“It wouldn’t be good for either of us if I stayed. I can’t live across the hall and see you every day. It wouldn’t be fair.”

I scoffed. “When is life ever fair?”

“But it doesn’t have to be this kind of unfair. I care about you, and I want you to be happy. Even if that means letting you go.”

It sounded like a canned speech, like a stupid line from a stupid movie where a stupid therapist tells some stupid guy what to say.
If I really love you, I have to let you go.
No. If he really loved me, he’d stop the crazy talk about moving out of Asheville and just kiss me already.

“I didn’t mean it,” I whispered. I turned to face him. “Elliott, I didn’t mean it. I was scared and overwhelmed, and I didn’t know what I was saying. You are worth it. You’re worth every
thing.”

He took several paces away from me, then turned, his arms folded tightly across his chest, his jaw clenched. “Don’t say that.”

“But it’s the truth. I’m not proud of what I said, and there were
some things I definitely had to figure out. But I realize now my life only has to be ruined by a meddling media if I’m willing to let it. I don’t have to. I don’t have to play their game. In hindsight, the only significant fallout from that stupid photo was that I lost you. And
that’s way harder than anything the media could ever throw at me.”

He breathed out a frustrated sigh and shook his head.
“No. It took me weeks to get my head in a place where I could even think about standing this close to you without it killing me. I told myself I had to let you go, that it was the best thing for you, and I did. I did let go. Please just let me do that.”

“But it’s not what I want. It’s never what I wanted.”

We weren’t exactly fighting in the middle of the sidewalk, but we were definitely having an emotional conversation, the kind that would draw attention regardless of celebrity status. But Elliott was a celebrity. Which meant we didn’t just get attention. We got people
turning our conversation into a photo op. A camera clicked and flashed from across the sidewalk, the woman behind it not even making an attempt to hide her curiosity.

Elliott reached for my arm and pulled me down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. “But you don’t want this either.” He motioned behind him to the woman with the camera.

“Shouldn’t that be a decision I get to make myself? You’re not even asking me what I want. You’re telling me. Why don’t you stop
and ask me how I feel.” A sharp wind tossed
my hair into my face and
made my breath catch. I’d left my coat inside the performance hall, and the chill cut right to my bones. I wrapped my arms around my
middle, my shoulders hunched against the cold.

Elliott shrugged his coat off and held it out. “Here.”

I shook my head. “I don’t need it.”

“Please,
just put it on.”

I jerked it out of his extended hand, annoyed that even in the midst of our argument, he still had to be so nice. He watched until I’d pulled the coat tightly around my shoulders, my hands pushed into the pockets. It was almost enough to kill me—wearing his coat with the smells and the lingering body heat. It was the worst kind of unfair.

“You just don’t understand, Em. You’re too good to be pulled into the world where I’ve built my career. I don’t want to expose you to the ridicule and curiosity. I saw how that photo hitting the tabloids affected you. And if you’re with me, I am powerless to stop the same thing from happening over and over again. I hate that I wouldn’t be able to protect you from all of that.”

“Did you hear anything I just said? What if I don’t need protecting? Shouldn’t I be the
one who gets to decide? Shouldn’t I get to decide if I think you’re worth it?”

“It’s easy to say as much when you’ve only been through it once. But I’ve seen it wreck people. I’ve seen this business wreck relationships and ruin families.”

“So, you’re just going to be alone forever? Because you’re so
self-sacrificing and magnanimous that no one should ever have to endure the chore of loving you because it might mean some stranger
snaps a picture with their cell phone?”

He scoffed. “If that’s what it takes, then yeah.”

“Boy, you are jaded, aren’t you?”

“Y
ou can call it jaded. I’ll call it realistic.”

I took a step back, pain flaring in my chest. “What’s realistic about that? Making your decisions based on how the media treats you? You want to talk about what’s real? Our late-night composing was real. Oscar was real.
We
were real. Every minute I spent with you was real for me.”

“And then you looked me square in the face and said it wasn’t worth it.”

I took a step closer. “I was angry. And I was scared. And you
said some hard things to me. You were right, by the way. About Ava, about Europe—all of it. But I didn’t know that then. I was speaking
out of a place of hurt and confusion, and I was wrong.”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head, moving away again. “I don’t know if I believe you.”

Now, Emma. Say it
now
.
“Elliott, I’m in love with you. I love
you, and I don’t care who takes my picture because of it. I want to
be with you. It’s my choice, and I choose
you
.”
I love you.
The words echoed inside my head,
blatant, bold, completely un-take-backable.
I’d just given Elliott every ounce of my heart. By the look on his face, he didn’t want to take it.

His shoulders hung low like there was an invisible line pulling them down, a force he had to fight to keep his body from sinking into the concrete beneath us. Even his eyes stayed down, glued to a spot somewhere to the right of my left shoe. “I’ve got to catch my flight,” he finally said. “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”

I stood there rooted in place for what seemed like an eternity,
watching him walk away. He didn’t look back.

With Elliott gone again, it
was harder to follow through with my original plan. Everything I’d planned to do was for him. After his rejection, I wasn’t feeling all that altruistic. But I’d made a commitment to make this concert count, and I was too far in to back out now. I gave myself a couple of days to wallow; wore Elliott’s jacket, which he’d left
on my person
when he’d walked away; cried on Lilly’s shoulder through a therapeutic night of chick flicks and comfort food; then forced myself back into the land of the living and functional. Time was growing short, and I had to check off the few remaining things on my list of concert preparations. The first and most important item was the heart-to-heart conversation I promised Gram I’d have with Mom.

Gram was in the kitchen making bread when I arrived. She
smiled at me over the bowl of dough rising on the counter and wiped her hands on her apron. “What are you doing here in the middle of
the day?”

“I need to talk to Mom. Is she around?”

“She’s reading in her room. Everything all right?” She shot me a knowing look.

I nodded, then headed straight for Mom’s room.

She was reclined on the bed with her eyes closed, her book open and resting spine up on her chest. I climbed gently onto the bed.

“Hey, Mama,” I whispered.

She opened her eyes. “Hey! What are you doing here?”

I sat beside her, my legs crossed. “Can we talk about Europe?”

Her eyes turned up
, and she gave me a faint smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

Richard Schweitzer wasn’t the only person I wanted in the audience to hear Elliott play. I wanted someone who could write about his performance and get his name into the symphony circles in New York and Chicago. I started my research by writing the names of every person in the past twelve months who had written a review of a symphony performance for the
New York Times
. It wasn’t that long a list. There were tons of reviews, mostly of those symphonies local to the northeast—the New York Philharmonic, Boston Pops, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.
—but some
reviews were farther reaching. I found one on The Los Angeles Philharmonic and one on Cleveland, which, it was exciting to
realize, mentioned me by name. The articles were written by several different writers, but one woman kept popping up more than all the others—Jeanine Whitaker.

I tried calling the
New York Times
directly, but they weren’t particularly obliging, saying they didn’t give out personal information about their staff writers. They suggested I write her an e-mail using their online contact form, an annoying repeat of what I’d been through with Spectral Media. Luckily newspapers were better at correspondence than talent agencies. An hour after I sent the e-
mail, Jeanine responded with her cell phone number.

“So you’re telling me you’ll fly me to Asheville and all I have to do is write a review?” Jeanine hadn’t been hard to convince. It was more like she thought I was bluffing, like the deal I was offering was too good to be true. It probably was, but I couldn’t afford her not coming.

“An honest review,” I told her. “That’s all I need you to do.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal, honey.”

An hour later, I e-mailed Jeanine her flight and hotel information and convinced myself I could more than handle charging $973 to my credit card to cover her trip. It was only money. And life wasn’t about money. Life was about people. And zero percent interest for eighteen months.

After confirming plans with Jeanine, I got in the car and headed to Biltmore Forest. Grayson had given me pretty good directions, but I still managed to drive past the imposing English Tudor
that was the home of his brand-spanking-new in-laws. I backtracked and finally found the large stone pillars he’d mentioned, a lion perched ceremoniously on each one, the name Rockwell carved into the imposing stone. The house was surrounded by huge trees and sprawling yards, with a circle drive that wrapped around a gurgling fountain. I shouldn’t have been surprised by the opulence of the house. When I’d talked to Grayson, he’d been
in Hawaii, still on his honeymoon. His eight-week-long honeymoon. People who could afford to fund an eight-week honeymoon—it had been their wedding present, I remembered Grayson telling me—could definitely afford a family estate in Biltmore Forest.

Agnes Rockwell was wearing a silk robe and bedroom slippers
when she opened the door. “Oh, Emma, I’m just so glad you called.
Greg told me everything.”

“Thank you for seeing me. I realize this is a lot to ask, especially when it’s so last minute.”

“Nonsense. This is the kind of thing that makes life exciting!” She led me into a large sitting area at the back of the house, faint winter light streaming in through large floor-to-ceiling windows. She motioned for me to sit but stayed standing herself, her hand
resting on the marble mantel above the fireplace. “Now, I’ve already begun to make some calls,” she said. “Greg tells me he’s bringing Schweitzer, which is just perfect. And you said on the phone you’ve
got a
Times
reporter coming?”

I nodded. It was Greg’s idea that I call Agnes. With her clout as a big-time symphony donor, she’d be able to get the tickets I needed
for the concert—actual
good
tickets, not just the comps I was planning
on begging off of friends. He’d mentioned her name within
minutes as soon as he heard what I was trying to do.

“She’s a huge patron of the arts,” he had said. “She has an apartment in New York and flies up at least three times a year to hear the Philharmonic. She’s very well connected in the city. Plus, she loves this kind of thing. She’s just the person for the job.”

I’d been hesitant to be honest with Greg about what I was trying to do, remembering the almost tense moment when he and Elliott had been sizing each other up, but Schweitzer in the audience was only going to work if Greg was on my team. Luckily telling him the truth had been a good call.

Agnes walked across the room to a table behind the sofa and poured herself a large glass of orange juice. “Would you like some?” She held up the glass.

I glanced at my watch. 11:30
a.m. Still early enough to be wearing silk pajamas and drinking orange juice, right? I nodded, silently hoping it was just juice. “Sure.”

She handed me the glass and sat beside me. “I have another idea if you’re open to it.”

“Um, sure.”

“I met Yvonne Spzilmann at a dinner in New York a few months back,
and we just really hit it off.”

“Yvonne Spzilmann, as in married to Jakob Spzilmann?”

“Oh, lovely. You know who they are! They’re both the most
wonderful people
. Yvonne talked of wanting to visit Asheville, but
we’ve just never gotten around to doing it. It’s a shame, really, now that the leaves have all fallen. I should have had her down months ago, but there’s nothing to be done for it now. I suppose the mountains are still pretty, even in January. Anyway. I’ve given her a ring and asked her if she’d like to come down for the weekend, and she’s delighted to come. She and Jakob are both coming. Won’t that just be lovely?”

I hardly knew what to say. “You’re bringing Jakob Spzilmann to the concert.” Jakob Spzilmann was a cellist, a senior professor at Juilliard, and an emeritus conductor for the New York Philharmonic.

“It’s all but official. I told them about you and your pianist. They’re looking forward to the show. Have you ever met him?”

“Once
, a long time ago, at a series of workshops I attended while still in school. He’s phenomenal.”

“I do so love the work he did with the Philharmonic. He always put on such lovely concerts.”

I was completely overwhelmed. I thought I was asking Agnes for help securing extra tickets to a sold-out performance. I had no idea she would go so far as to bring one of the nation’s finest conductors to the concert. “Agnes, I don’t know how to thank you. This is so generous of you
.”

“Well, I’ve always believed one good turn deserves another. You made Greg a very happy man.”

I looked at the floor.

“Plus, if this young man is as good as you say he is—”

“Oh, he is. I promise he is.”

“Then let’s hope he doesn’t disappoint. It looks like he’s going to have quite the audience. Now. Let’s talk about tickets. We need two for the Spzilmanns, one for the
Times
reporter, one for Greg, and one for Richard Schweitzer. Is that all?”

I shook my head. “One more if you can spare it. There’s someone else I’d like to bring as
well.”

She nodded. “So six total? No problem. I’ll make some calls. I’m sure I can manage that many.”

After Grayson’s wedding, I’d looked up the Rockwells’ name on the list of symphony donors. They were season underwriters, which meant annual donations of ten thousand dollars or more. I was more than willing to trust her connections and her influence. That she was even willing to use her influence on my behalf was a tender mercy I hadn’t expected.

Agnes
fed me chicken salad sandwiches and lemonade, which felt so much like a rich-person meal I almost laughed when she brought me my plate, then sent me out the door with kisses on each cheek and a promise to wear her best for the concert because “surely
it was going to be an event to remember.” I honestly didn’t even
know what hit me until I was back in my car, my head reeling from everything that had happened in such a short amount of time. My plan was actually going to work.

Before heading home, I stopped by the box office at the performance hall to drop off a check for an undisclosed amount from Agnes—“Don’t open it, child. It hardly matters to you what’s inside”—and to pick up a press pass and a concert ticket Agnes promised would be waiting for me. From there, I went back downtown to a tiny basement office on the south side of Broadway in between a dry cleaner that specialized in leather restoration and a used electronics shop with a sign in the window that said “Scooter repair. We’ll get you going again.”

I opened the glass-paned door etched with the words “Asheville News and Culture” and headed down the narrow wooden staircase. At the bottom of the stairs, a small reception area opened into one room, two rows of desks lined up in the middle. There were eight desks total, but only three were occupied. Everyone looked up, surprise on their faces. Apparently they didn’t get many visitors.

I recognized Najim Berkley from his online profile picture, so I walked past the empty reception desk and stopped in front of him. “Are you Najim
?”

He grinned. “For you? Absolutely.”

I rolled my eyes. “Do you want to sell another story about Elliott Hart?”

His eyebrows went up, recognition dawning on his face. “Ah, I remember you. That was a good sale.”

It was all I could do not to punch the guy or even just scold his glaring lack of decency. I’d debated whether I should turn to Najim for help. I mean, I had someone from the
New York Times
.
I didn’t need bottomfeeders like this guy. Except, I did. Because he was the one who would sell to gossip columns, and the gossip columns were the ones that would get Elliott’s name trending.
And that was what I wanted.

I wanted to believe Elliott’s brilliance as a performer would be enough to wow Richard Schweitzer into signing him on the spot, but seeing that his name still had star power and still generated online interest couldn’t hurt. For once, I actually wanted the paparazzi to help me out. And Najim
was the closest thing Asheville had to paparazzi.

I took a deep, steadying breath, forcing it out through my nose before dropping a list of names and phone numbers onto his desk, along with a ticket to the Prokofiev concert and the press pass I’d wrangled from the concert hall that would allow him to bring his camera to the show.

I motioned to the ticket. “A week from tomorrow, he’ll be there. It’s . . .” I hesitated. “The concert is a really big deal. And that list is every single reporter or tabloid that contacted me after you sold the wedding photo, some with a lot bigger names than
the trash column you sold to last time. If you get some good shots,
I’m sure they’ll be interested.”

He looked at the list with interest. “
Celebrity Weekly
, huh? Not bad.”

“Will you do it?”

His eyes ran up and down my body in such a blatant way I felt like I needed to shower to get the feel of him staring off my skin. How had he and Grayson ever become friends? “You play too, right? Will you be on stage?”

I sighed. In reality, with the position of the piano and my seat as concertmaster, I’d likely be in the background of most of the photos he took of Elliott. “I’ll be there.”

Najim shrugged and picked up the ticket. “All right, you’ve convinced me. I’ll see what I can do.”

It wasn’t a perfect answer, but I was out of time. It had to be good enough.