PART II

Chapter Twelve

Early August 1988

At five thirty a.m. Jesse sat on the subway, surrounded by a group of seedy companions. She headed toward Symphony Station and Martel’s, ignoring the stale, rank odor in the car.

She’d been sure her feelings for Matt would pass like the hunger pangs she lived with as a child—remembering too late that they never went away. She told herself he’d call…run after her…accept her terms. She knew he loved her. But as the days became a week and the weeks a month, Jesse realized that she’d misjudged him. He was just as proud and stubborn as she was.

She retrieved a small, tattered pamphlet from her backpack, skipping to the last paragraph. It was her favorite part. “Today, you incoming students will be taught by the brightest and best in the musical world...” A smile crossed her face. “NEC boasts a faculty of prestigious musicians of world renown. The Conservatory is the destination for anyone who has serious career aspirations in the world of classical music.”

Jesse closed her eyes. “…the destination for anyone who has serious career aspirations in the world of classical music.” She knew who that person was. The Conservatory had been waiting to give her the polish she needed to fulfill her destiny—that of being the finest lyric soprano in the world.

The subway rattled along, lights flickering. Jesse stared out the dirty window, shifting on the hard plastic seat as she studied the darkness. Once again, the long, painful journey leading to the Conservatory came to mind.

Her father died when Jesse was three. Her family lived in a run-down house in Munjoy Hill, on the outskirts of Portland, Maine. Jesse could see her street. The asphalt looked abandoned and cracked. The stark, lonely trees stood witness to the poverty and despair filling the houses in this forgotten section of Maine’s largest city.

Their house was a two-story structure. Its dull, white sides lacked anything to distinguish it. Her mother tried bringing a trace of warmth to their desolate home. But after her father’s death, she’d been forced to sell the better pieces of furniture, so the meager remnants did little to improve the interior.

The children in the neighborhood were tough and unruly. Her only friend was her brother. Ryan was five years older, a wiry, handsome boy whom she worshipped. But like her mother, he delivered newspapers, groceries, and anything else he could to help the Longs survive. He was seldom home. Jesse withdrew to a private world, using her father’s old tape player and collection of classical music to escape. It seemed strange that a man without education or means could find refuge in Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini, but he had, and his passion was his sole legacy to his daughter.

Desperate and alone, Jesse’s mother turned to Alton Eads—a devil masquerading as a decent man. He was given to violence and abuse when he drank—a pastime he practiced too often. He routinely tormented her family, most often Jesse, before dying one October night. His death should have been cause for celebration, but it was bittersweet. Sadly, on that same night, Jesse’s brother died as well. Soon afterward, Jesse’s mother was diagnosed with emphysema.

Despite the sadness she’d endured, as she grew, two things were certain: Jesse’s talent was without equal, and she was as beautiful a young woman as Portland had ever produced.

Jesse lived for music, taking refuge in it. To truly excel, she needed a mentor and good luck. She got the first in the compact form of Pauline Richards—a retired vocal coach from Boston. When she and her husband returned to Maine, Pauline offered her services to an old friend, then head of music for the Portland Public Schools. Her old colleague accepted, offering Pauline a teaching position in one of the smaller schools. What happened changed both her life and Jesse’s.

“On my first day in Portland,” Pauline had said, “I met a sweet, beautiful child. She was tall and painfully thin, dressed in a threadbare dress. She seemed so shy. I put her in the back, away from the more outgoing children. But that girl had a surprise in store. When the class began to sing, one voice came through, strong and clear and true. It was a voice from the back row. Your voice, Jesse.”

Pauline adopted her. Before that a shy and abandoned Jesse felt like the only person on earth. Her new mentor taught Jesse everything she could, drilling her endlessly, even teaching her protégé enough piano to earn a few extra dollars. As Pauline opened the world of music to her, Jesse felt special, someone of value, no longer the by-product of her mother’s sad, short marriage.

Pauline made music come alive for Jesse. By her fourteenth birthday she was performing many of the most difficult arias. Throughout those formative years, Pauline imbued her protégé with every detail about music. But Jesse never waited for the good luck to come and find her. Instead she learned something else. As she blossomed into womanhood, she saw men watch her lithe figure, smile at her; sometimes they even touched her. Rather than protest Jesse understood and used the only assets she possessed—her talent and her nubile beauty. She learned ways to use her ample charms and guile to help gain advantages that her poverty and lackluster academic record might have kept out of reach. It was a dark side of Jesse that Pauline never saw, one she wasn’t proud of and one that came back to pay her cruel dividends one damp night in July of 1983.

****

Ninety miles away, in the close-knit neighborhoods of South Boston, Matt Sullivan had experienced a different upbringing. He spent his formative years nurtured and happily surrounded by friends and family.

Matt had lived in the house on East Broadway for all of his twenty-three years. He’d grown up with all the brash self-confidence worthy of his good looks, athleticism, and superior intelligence. Like Jesse, Matt had lost a parent. His mother died of cancer when he was fourteen, and two years later his older brother James, a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, had died in a training accident. These two tragic and untimely losses had left their mark on Matt and his family, but they stubbornly refused to let tragedy defeat them.

His mother had been an integral part of Matt’s life, but as he’d come to expect, his father had been there to help dull the pain, shuttling Matt to his hockey games and giving him pointers as he watched his son skating at the Castle Island Rink. And while Matt had many friends, it was common to see him, his brother, and his dad at the South Boston Boys and Girls Club, shooting baskets, working out or throwing a few friendly punches at each other. And there was something else that had been a part of his life since he was a boy—his writing. Whenever you saw Matt Sullivan, he was carrying a hockey stick and a notebook. Everyone who knew Matt accepted that when he wasn’t shooting a puck, he was scribbling in his journal.

Matt’s family had lived in their home for over five decades. Much of the last one had been stormy as South Boston was central in Boston’s frustrated attempts to racially balance its schools. It was where they lived as his mother gave birth to their three children, and it was where they lived as his father’s small retail business grew into something larger and more prosperous. Matt knew the family could easily afford a nice home in a quiet, more prestigious suburb, but the thought never crossed his mind. The Sullivans possessed an extensive circle of friends, were devoted members of St. Bridgid’s parish and a strong influence within their tightly-knit community.

The Sullivans lived in the middle of a large, vibrant city, with the growing collection of high-rise buildings in full view. The constant stream of planes headed to Logan Airport flew so low you could nearly touch them, but like their neighbors, Matt and his family knew that everything they needed was within the friendly, narrow streets of South Boston.