CHAPTER ELEVEN

NEW YORK POST

March 23

Yanks’ New Babe a Classical Hit

Yankees owner Greg Stronghurst and ’60s pitching legend Rich Weber were among the Yankees and other Bronx fans greeting Liza Durbin, a fresh face in classical music, as she returned yesterday to her old neighborhood for a visit and impromptu concert.

Durbin has become a familiar name lately because of her upcoming piano concert at Carnegie Hall, which has surprised the classical music world.

Until January, Durbin was a lawyer at Stricker, Stricker & Feinsod. She’slived in the metropolitan area except for four years at Cornell University asan English major. Colleagues and friends say she didn’t show any particularmusical talent until recently.

“It’s a total shock,” said Myles Broadbent, a lawyer who worked closely with Durbin. “She was a competent lawyer, then she started acting really weird—like wearing her slippers to work. Then she took a leave of absence and all this started. We’re thrilled for her, of course.”

Durbin often practices at her boyfriend’s apartment in Brooklyn, where neighbors first took notice. The Yankees say they loved her first.

“I’ve known Liza since she was born,” said Stronghurst. “She’s an all-American Yankee babe. I knew she’d go far.”

Stronghurst, Weber, first baseman Joey Starr and catcher Rob Rosenberg were part of the surprise waiting for the pianist when she arrived at Durbin’s Sporting Goods, the landmark store built by her father Max Durbin.

I shouldn’t have worn the egregious sweater. Even in the black-and-white photo, I looked awful. At least the smile was real.

Cassie had pulled off a great surprise, rounding up loads of old friends in the Bronx. I’d practically grown up in the family store, and there were several generations of Durbin’s finest on hand. Like Oscar Wallace (still handsome at eighty), who used to play Motown records and show me cool dance steps, and Mr. Liakos, who let me play with the cash register, and some old classmates of mine who actually took time off from work to see me. Not to mention all the Yankees who showed up to give my dad his props.

The store was decorated with banners and too many posters of me in the blue slut dress. Alfie Durbin, my big cousin whom I once had a crush on, won my heart all over again by borrowing a piano from the music store down the block. I played a short Schubert piece to appease Franz, then Cassie handed me the sheet music for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and we really wowed the crowd.

Everything was perfect except for the media. I could have lived without cameras and reporters recording my every blink.

Greta the Grinch didn’t care for the media, either. She called early on Wednesday to demand that we meet at her Juilliard studio later that afternoon. Fine with me, but her attitude was decidedly ungracious. Maybe she didn’t like my mystery sexpot image (maybe it wasn’t my first choice, either), but it was getting results. People were getting to know me, and they would learn to take me seriously.

On the way to Juilliard, I fortified myself with self-confidence, ready for a serious talk with Greta. She can be scary, but I planned to reason with her. As I entered the building, though, I was unnerved by a familiar voice.

“Bonjour, Liza, comment ça va? Pretty good coverage from yesterday, non?” My idiot sister caught up with me at the elevator, grinning as if she had any right in the world to be at Juilliard.

“Cassie, what are you doing here?”

“Nice greeting, sis,” she said. “I was summoned by her majesty.”

Greta?

“And if you ask me, Liza, that woman could use some time in charm school.”

Greta.

“We’ve both been called to the office,” I said. “Did she say anything else to you?”

“Nope, just insisted I come. She must’ve seen the papers today. Think she saw the billboard?”

Cassie actually seemed excited at the prospect. I warned her not to expect gratitude from Greta. She seemed not to hear me.

“We have a little time, Liza. Show me around. This place is really something. You know, I think I saw Itzhak Perlman just before.”

“Yeah, I see him all the time.” So blasé. “Why don’t we go get a cup of coffee?”

The first time I had lunch at Juilliard, I must have looked the way Cassie did. She barely gave her eyes a rest, scanning the room feverishly. The dancers were as lovely as ever, the actors as magnetic, and the collective energy caused a power surge in an otherwise ordinary room. But this time I was consumed by my own circumstances, while my sister devoured the scene.

I told Cassie how much fun it was to see our old friends in the Bronx, that I appreciated all the effort it took on her part. I hoped Greta could see the upside of our situation.

“Oh my God, that is Itzhak Perlman over there,” Cassie said. “Can you introduce me?”

I didn’t have to answer because something even tastier showed up at our table. Unfortunately, he was with his dancing toothpick.

“Liza, where’ve you been lately?” Chase said. He kissed me on the cheek, then looked at Cassie. “You two must be sisters, right?”

Cassie did not seem flattered. I introduced them, and Cassie extended a hand as if waiting for a kiss. Chase shook it.

“And this is Chase’s friend, Kathy,” I said.

“That’s Katje,” said the toothpick.

“So sorry, Katje, of course. Katje is a dancer, Cassie.” As if there could be any doubt. “And Chase is a very successful composer. He writes—”

“You think I don’t know that?” Cassie answered. “We saw you perform in London, Mr. Barnes. Magnifique. We have your CDs.”

Chase and Katje joined our table and we were a merry crowd, chatting about London and how lovely and talented we all were.

Chase informed Cassie and me that she must see Katje dance. He also mentioned that a contemporary piece would make a dandy encore for me. I reminded my sister that we had to go meet Greta. Chase and Cassie made farewells like old best friends.

Greta Pretsky was waiting for us when we arrived at her studio. Just seeing Cassie and Greta in the same room was jarring.

My svelte sister towered over Greta. Cassie wore Versace with pearls. Greta sported a stiff white blouse with conservative brown skirt and vest, looking like a Girl Scout leader without the badges. You’d need a DNA test to prove these two were members of the same species.

I made the introductions as they glared at each other.

“Mrs. Whitman, why are you making a spectacle of your sister and Franz Schubert?”

Greta’s charm did not win over my sister.

“Dr. Pretsky, I’m sure we all have the same goal in mind here. Why don’t we all sit down and talk about this?” Greta didn’t budge. “Look, you want people to hear Liza. So do we. You want people to respect the music. Nothing could be more important to us. We have different approaches. It just so happens that ours is the one that’s selling tickets.”

“You are making a mockery of everything I hold dear. It is disgusting and I will not have anything to do with it. I insist you stop these foolish pranks immediately.”

“Excuse me?” Cassie still smiled, but not so nicely. “By what right would you be saying this? Do you have a contract with my sister that I don’t know about?”

Contract? The fact that I was a lawyer and hadn’t even thought about a contract was proof of how deeply out of whack my life was. I was so swept up in being en-geniused that it never even occurred to me to ask about money, rights, and obligations for Carnegie Hall or thereafter. Greta had taken over my career, and I let her. Cassie took over my image, and I let her. They didn’t even pretend to include me in their conversation.

“I will cancel this concert if I have to.” Greta’s apple cheeks turned a deeper red as she made her stand. “Then where will your sister be?”

“Carnegie Hall, of course,” Cassie said. “I can easily finance this without you, Dr. Pretsky. But that’s not what either of us really wants, is it? You’ve been wonderful to Liza. You’re the one who got her this far. It would be a great shame if you didn’t stick with us to the end.”

Greta looked outplayed and frustrated. She turned away from us.

“Look, we’ve got the public’s attention,” Cassie said. “We may even sell out next week. I’ll try to keep things more dignified. Don’t you want to be part of this?”

Still no answer, but pulling back slightly.

“My people are working on the contracts. This will work out well for you, Dr. Pretsky, I promise. It’ll work out well for all of us. Did you know that Liza may be recording on Sony Classical? I’ve been talking with John D. Doyle about it.”

Suddenly Greta the Greedy got interested. She wanted to know about the recording deal, future concerts, promotions, and every other gory detail.

Franz, in a state of confused anxiety, added to my distress by spinning like a dervish inside my brain. I was suddenly enraged. Neither Cassie nor Greta remembered I was in the room, so they were surprised when I produced a scream that frightened the furniture.

“Franz and I are leaving.” I switched to a tone of quiet menace. “It would be so good of you two to let me know what you’ve planned for my life. In fact, better if you talk directly to ‘my people.’ I’ll have him call you. His name is Myles Broadbent.”

I walked out, smiling. The thought of Cassie and Greta having to spend any time with that vile weasel would compensate for any lack of experience on the weasel’s part.

My stand for emancipation gave me a temporary buzz, but it wasn’t a convincing victory. Greta knew vastly more about the music world than I did, and Cassie actually cared about publicity and made things happen. I’d be in a stagnant mess without them. But where was the line of responsibility for me? Even if I trusted them with my future, could I trust them with Franz’s? I didn’t have the knowledge or tools to protect his interests or my own.

Chase Barnes, a man who knew plenty, bumped into me, literally, as I was leaving the building, as if he’d been waiting there to do just that. Thoroughly pleased with our collision, he suggested we head for happy hour. It was half past five and we hurried to a local pub. The place was dark, smoky, and adorned with old photos of revered writers and musicians. Mere proximity to these images infected the patrons with an air of intellectual achievement.

We took a corner table, where a flickering candle fought to shine through its filthy glass globe. We ordered a bottle of merlot and mussels in wine sauce. I described the encounter in Greta’s studio. Chase oozed sympathy. He knew what could happen once a talent was recognized.

Chase was not among the child prodigies who never learned about normal life. As a boy in Syracuse, he played excellent piano when he wasn’t busy with football, basketball, and messing around with his friends. He went to the University of Buffalo, where he was one of many music majors. His talent revealed itself in his first composition class. The professor saw something special and took time to work with an eager freshman. Their conversations went well beyond the usual undergraduate discourse.

“Dr. Kauber never doubted me,” Chase said. “He always talked to me as a colleague. Not that I always understood him—he was in another orbit—but I learned so much from him. And I played my own work pretty damn well.

“Kauber got me into the good competitions. Before I finished college, I had a reputation as a young musician to watch. When I got to graduate school, people already knew about me. Most of the grad students and even some professors were threatened by me. I had the hangers-on, too. Lots of helpful people ready to share the glory, in case things went well.”

Chase never made music for the Top 40 charts. There were not zillions to be made off his career, but plenty of interested parties lined up to get a piece of his respectable pie. The rewards would be prestige, power, and pretty good money. And everyone wanted to control him.

The people he trusted let him down. Chase didn’t understand the business side of music and chose advisers simply because he liked them. His friends, it turned out, weren’t much more knowledgeable than he was. So he got an agent who arranged for performances and a recording contract. It was years before he realized how much he was paying for questionable help.

Chase was booked for far too many concerts. He traveled all the time, performing with orchestras in the States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. He lived in a state of exhaustion. He finally became so depleted that he had to cancel concerts, sometimes with same-day notice. It hurt his career. Overnight he went from being the darling of serious music to an unpredictable brat. He used this downtime to think things over.

Chase fired the agent and cut his ties with anyone looking to control him. He took his current position at Juilliard, got back to serious music, and was master of his life again. And it took only twenty years to achieve all this.

The twenty-year timeline scared me into a second bottle of wine. We switched to less terrifying topics. Chase laughed at my Yankees stories. He gave me a full account of dinner with Mick Jagger in Singapore. We ranged over movies, art, embarrassing moments, and suddenly it was eight o’clock. Something rumbled in my memory banks.

Wednesday, eight o’clock: Nonie’s Grill with Ruthie, Peter, Dan, and Fred. Except eight o’clock was wrong. I should have been there at six-thirty.

“I gotta go,” I blurted. “It’s been great but I gotta go, Chase. Really gotta go.”

“Well, that’s a shame because I could think of nicer ways to end this evening.”

Yeah, yeah, very charming, but I really had to run.

I sprinted out the door and searched for a taxi. Nonie’s Grill was way down in Soho, no chance of getting there in less than twenty minutes. I considered a subway until a cab pulled up and emptied its passengers right in front of me. I grabbed it.

The driver looked familiar. An African-looking man with a distinctive accent. The ID displayed in the front window said his name was Moreno Abdi.

“You gave me a ride once before.” He looked back to see if he recognized me. “You sang for me and I bought a CD.”

“I sell two or three CDs a day. Ha, if I am lucky!” he said. “You are musician?”

“Yes. Now I am. You drove me to Juilliard and sang for me. It was wonderful.”

“Dat’s right, I remember. You are ‘sort of musician.’ ” He chuckled warmly. “Now you are real musician? Good, good. We can sing.”

“I don’t sing.”

“Good, good. You can listen.”

He serenaded us all the way downtown. His voice emanated from another place, where people dance to a lion’s heartbeat.

The effect was mesmerizing. I forgot the anguish of having stood up Ruthie, Peter, Dan, and Fred. I would have to explain, to make things right again with my friends. But Moreno’s voice was a lovely diversion, and I let those worries float away in his vibrato. I hardly noticed when he stopped the car in front of Nonie’s Grill.

“We’re here, miss.”

I sighed in response.

“You like my CD, miss?”

His CD lay on a shelf in my apartment. I’d been meaning to play it.

“Oh, yes. How much do I owe you?” I reached for my wallet, then stopped. “Hang on a second. Let me peek in here and see if I’m staying.”

No sign of Fred, Ruthie, Peter, or Dan.

I asked Moreno to drive me home. He made it an exotic journey with songs that brought sunshine and zebras into the cab.

I climbed the stairs to my apartment, dreading the aftermath of my no-show at Nonie’s. Nasty messages on my machine, or worse, no response at all. Wrong again.

“Hey, Liza, it’s about time,” said Ruthie. She was comfortably curled on the sofa next to Peter. Fred and Dan lounged at the dining room table, and Patrick filled the big easy chair.

“Liza, we hear you’re a possessed genius and a total mess,” Dan said. His long blond hair was disheveled, as usual. “Grab a glass and spill your guts.”

Some bottles of wine and an unopened Guinness sat on the coffee table. I filled a glass with something red and sat down with my friends.

They had given up on me at Nonie’s, but Fred claimed extenuating circumstances on my behalf. Undependable was normal for me lately, he told them, probably beyond my control. He gave them the barest-bones account of me and Franz. They wanted to see for themselves and decided to wait for me in my apartment, so Patrick hosted an instant party.

With ridiculous eagerness, I filled my friends in on the events leading to Carnegie Hall. They may have laughed off Fred’s version of the story, but they took mine seriously. My credibility was unquestioned, after all, based on my previous lack of talent.

While they wanted every detail of my amazing life, I wanted to hear everything about them. Ruthie and Peter, married six years, were still mad for each other and thinking about kids, or possibly a St. Bernard. Dan was secretly in love with someone at his genetics lab, so we gave him bad advice on how to get her attention. Someone asked Fred how he liked having his own ad company. He showed enthusiasm until he remembered that he and I had a few conflicts in that area, so suddenly he became interested in Patrick’s career plans. Patrick stumbled on his answers, too, and it seemed a good time to call it a night. Anyway, we were out of wine and munchies.

We said good-bye with tipsy hugs and vows of secrecy. Franz added his contentment to the good cheer. Patrick and I went to bed happy—he even forgot to ask where I’d been until almost nine o’clock.

Gottseidank . . . Thank you, God, that I was not a woman. To be so duped by broad shoulders!