Songs without Words (40 page)

So the lyre player wasn’t alone, after all, she realized. She had a beloved, the inspiration for the song. Alice was a romantic! This thimble was like a passionate epic poem, telling a story about a minstrel enveloping the planet in a song of peace, protecting and watching over it because she loved someone who lived there. And that, thought Harper, was the story of humanity, of parents and children, of lovers, of heroes and their charges.

Wow,
Harper thought.
My mother created all of that!
Harper would have liked to have called her mother and discussed these ideas, but she knew that wasn’t possible. All of this resided in her mother’s subconscious. Alice created her scenes in the same way that Harper played music, with emotion, not thought.

The point of art, Harper thought, was to communicate that emotion with another human being. That had to be the point, ultimately. It was true of poetry and painting and music. The artist produced an object that represented her soul. In that respect, art really did express the artist’s authentic self. Harper realized that she had come full circle, but she thought she had arrived at some conclusion this time. Art might not be nature, but it was as close as humans could get to understanding one another on a natural, gut level. The thimble that Harper held in her hand told her more about her mother than any conversation they had ever had. She recalled something a guest soloist with the symphony once said during a pre-performance interview: “I’d have no means of expressing truth without music.” The most interesting thing about that was that the “truth” was unique for every artist, which ran counter to the usual assumptions people made about the truth.

Harper pictured her mother maneuvering her tiny paintbrush and noticed that she was hearing music in her head again. But the music wasn’t familiar to her. It was something new. It was composing itself in her mind. She took a notebook out of her bag and started writing down notes. This was the music that was playing behind the scenes of her mother’s art.
Ironic
, Harper thought, rapidly transcribing the music in her head onto paper.
My mother has become my muse after all
.

Arriving without incident several hours later, Harper checked her phone. There were no messages. She called Chelsea’s cell phone while waiting at the baggage carousel.Still no answer.“I’m home!” she exclaimed into the phone. “I mean, I’m at the airport. I’ll be home in half an hour.” Excitement, barely under control, twitched in her muscles as she anticipated being reunited with her lover. When she got to her house, she checked her voice mail. Nothing of interest there. It was five o’clock. Chelsea should have been off work at least an hour by now.

Harper showered and changed her clothes. Having still gotten no call from Chelsea, she called her cell phone again and left another message telling her that she would wait for her at her apartment. Then she left the house. Harper had known for quite awhile that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Chelsea. She planned to tell her that soon, perhaps even tonight. She let herself into Chelsea’s apartment with her key. She wasn’t home. The light on the answering machine was blinking, indicating a new message. When Harper played it, she heard her own message telling Chelsea that she was coming home early. The machine then reported in its mechanical voice that there was one old message, which began to play. Harper was about to press Skip when she recognized the voice of Mary Tillotson.

“Chelsea, are you home from work?” said the voice. “Oh, dear one, please pick up if you’re there.”

The pain that hit Harper in her chest was so keen that it felt as if her heart had stopped beating.

Mary’s voice was pleading and whiny like a child’s. “I’m so sorry for everything. You know I didn’t mean it. You know how I am. Please come back. Please forgive me. I’m languishing here all alone.”

It was all too easy to picture her on the other end of the line, lying on her sofa in a melodramatic pose. Harper, seething, wanted to smash the answering machine to bits.

“Darling child, you mean the world to me. I know you won’t let me suffer like this. You’re too good, too kind.”

Mary’s voice turned more formal, more metered as she proceeded to quote poetry.

“‘Come lie on my bed of roses and speak of love as you did once. No, not once, but many times. In our youth, you lay your sweet body across mine and put violets in my hair and kisses on my face. Come let me remind you of the mirth our hearts often shared in those days.’”

After a click, there was silence. Harper stood, frozen, for a minute or more, then moved slowly toward the machine, circling it, as if it were an animal that she intended to pounce upon and kill.

She didn’t want to hear the message again—God, how she didn’t want to—but she had to find out when it had been left. She replayed it, listening for the date and time. Mary’s message was three days old. Chelsea had listened to it three days ago! And then what? She’d said nothing about this to Harper in any of their phone conversations. She had kept it to herself.

Three days
, thought Harper, thinking back on the last few phone calls she had made to Chelsea. There had been nothing odd, nothing at all to alert her that something had happened. It was now almost six thirty. Chelsea wasn’t home and she still wasn’t answering her cell phone.

Where is she?
Harper wondered, fearing she knew the answer. Her head began to spin. Why had she ever let herself believe that this could be more than a summer fling? That’s all there ever was for her. Summer was nearly over now, and Mary had come to reclaim her beloved. It was Hades and Persephone all over again. She had only let Harper borrow her for the summer, as before.

Harper’s knees buckled, and she sank to the floor, feeling her heart breaking. She knew how deeply rooted Chelsea’s sense of loyalty to Mary was. She also knew—all too well—that Chelsea would sacrifice herself and her own happiness if she felt that it was the right thing to do. Mary had appealed to that weakness, with her talk of languishing and suffering. How could Chelsea resist? The poor girl had probably flown to her, unable to deny that powerful, autocratic will. They were probably together right now discussing how Chelsea would break up with her when she returned tomorrow.

Harper sat on the floor for a few minutes, her mind blank, until suddenly she felt like fleeing, like she had to escape this unbearable situation. She left the apartment and started driving toward home, then changed her mind and headed for Roxie’s house. She wanted to hide. She wanted sympathy.

Kevin, Roxie’s twelve-year-old, answered the door. “Mom,” he yelled into the house. “It’s Harper.”

“Harper,” called Roxie from somewhere in the distance, “come on into the kitchen.”

Kevin ran off. Harper shut the door and made her way to the kitchen where Roxie was loading dishes into the dishwasher. One look at Harper made her stop what she was doing and cross the room, putting her arms around Harper tenderly.

“What happened?” she asked.

Harper cried freely now, letting her tears fall on Roxie’s shoulder. “I’ve lost her,” she managed to say.

Roxie maneuvered her into a chair at the kitchen table, gave her a box of Kleenex and a glass of water and waited for the sobbing to subside. “Tell me what happened.”

Harper told her about the phone call from Mary. “I’ve lost her,” she repeated.

“It doesn’t seem like that’s the inevitable conclusion here,” Roxie said. “Don’t you think you’re being a little irrational? Despite some of the things I’ve said about Chelsea in the past, I can’t deny that she seems to really love you.”

Harper said nothing. She felt defeated.

“Don’t you think you should at least talk to her?” Roxie asked.

Harper shrugged. “I just don’t want to hear it again, the excuses, the explanation about why she has to go back. I’d rather she just goes and doesn’t say anything.”

“Aren’t you even going to put up a fight?”

She hadn’t even considered that, Harper realized. It didn’t seem possible to counter Mary’s hold on Chelsea. All of her dreams had been pinned on the hope that Mary no longer wanted Chelsea, that she wouldn’t ask for her back.

“Put up a fight?” she asked weakly.

“Well, yes, if you want her. God, Harper, from what you’ve said, you don’t even know if there’s any reason to be upset. There are lots of possible explanations. You can’t just give up.”

Earlier in the summer Sarah had advised her to fly to Chelsea and drag her back from the hounds of hell. Was it possible to do that a second time? she wondered.

“You’re right.” Harper took a deep breath. “This is too important to forfeit. I’m going to go get her back.” She stood, filled with a sudden sense of purpose. “I didn’t mean right this minute. Don’t you think you should wait until you calm down before you do anything else? You know how you are when you’re upset. Impulsive and reckless. How about something to eat? I’ve got some spaghetti left from dinner.”

Harper shook her head. “No, I have to go. I have to do this now.”

She had no plan and no idea what would happen next as she drove to Mary’s house, but that was familiar territory for her. She knew that she would do whatever felt right, that no premeditated plan, no matter how sensible, had much of a chance with her.

Her biggest regret, she realized, was that she had not communicated to Chelsea more clearly her feelings about the future, about their potential future together. Why hadn’t she told Chelsea that she wanted to be with her forever? Why hadn’t she told her that she wanted them to live together, to be a devoted couple in every possible old-fashioned sense?

Because she did want that. She believed in that kind of commitment in a way she never had before. Even if Mary was willing to share Chelsea, Harper was not.

Mary’s house looked peaceful and deceptively benign from the front. The doors of the three-car garage were shut. If Chelsea’s car was here, it was out of view inside. Harper walked up to the front door and rang the bell. Impatiently, she rang it again a few seconds later. There was no response. She then banged on the door, imagining Chelsea and Mary inside ignoring her.

Hearing faint sounds of laughter from the side yard, she went around to the unlocked gate and let herself in. In the still evening air, the pool lay tranquil before her, the surface of the water glassy. She stood listening but heard nothing more.

She moved deeper into the yard, walking through the long evening shadows of elm trees toward a wrought-iron gazebo partially covered with a wisteria vine. She heard the scrape of metal against concrete from within the gazebo and thought she could see movement between its bars. Fearing what she would see, but knowing she had no choice but to see it, she moved stealthily to the middle of the yard. What she saw inside the structure left her numb. Mary was lying back in a chaise lounge, wearing a long white robe, secured at the waist, partially open at the chest to reveal one vulnerable-looking breast, pale and fragile. From beneath the robe, the lower torso and legs of a shapely girl protruded. A girl wearing tan shorts and pink flip-flops. A girl who was not Chelsea. Mary’s head was thrown back, eyes closed, mouth open. Her hand gripped the chair’s frame above her head. Harper stood paralyzed on the spot, watching with fascination as Mary’s body moved in a regular rhythm to the tune of her veiled lover’s touch.

Gradually, Harper’s thoughts began to emerge from the tempest of emotion that had propelled her into this absurd position. She needed to find a way to leave before she was discovered. She could make a run for it and depart the way she had come. Or she could sneak into the house and look for Chelsea while Mary was preoccupied outside.

Before she could act, she heard Mary shriek, a blood-curdling yell that yanked Harper’s attention violently back to the gazebo. Mary was sitting upright now, clutching her robe to her chest, and the girl who had been lying between her legs was now on the ground beside the chair. Both of them were staring at Harper.

The girl was not as young as Harper had imagined, but a woman in her thirties with dark hair, cut short, and narrow eyes that were, at the moment, trained on Harper with an expression of intense hostility. “Who the hell are you?” she asked, rising to her feet.

Mary rose too, facing Harper with grim indignation. “This is my gadfly!” she shouted in answer to her lover’s question, gesturing dramatically with her arms as she exited the gazebo. “Have you no shame, Harper? Have you come merely for titillation? Or did you think I was giving lessons this evening?”