“But what the hell am I supposed to do about the performance?” Nick roared. Her voice almost broke with the effort, but she had the satisfaction of seeing almost everyone in her line of sight wilt around the edges. She’d worked on that roar.
The Signorina, however, did not wilt. After tucking her violin carefully under one arm, she let loose with a string of words that ran together so quickly Nick could only pick out “cacasenno” and the general summing up, “figlio d’una mignotta.” All in all, Nick gathered from these phrases (and the gestures accompanying them) that since she exuded wisdom, Nick could solve her own problems, and, in case there was any doubt, Nick was a son-of-a-bitch. The Signorina exited, but not before Nick threw a hearty “quel coglione di tuo padre” after her, equalizing the parental gender slurs.
After much pacing, and three false starts, the concertmaster filled in the first violin in the Mozart concerto adequately, but just adequately. Signorina Gabrielle, the violinist from hell, was unmatched for the Mozart. Nick endured the rehearsal but knew she would be eating crow from now until the concert to ensure the guest violinist’s performance.
Nick slammed back to the hotel, as usual not caring about running into buildings, light poles, benches or people. Anger, she had learned, kept her façade from crumbling. The only alternative she had to anger was a torrent of tears, and there was no place to hide while she had her purge.
So she stayed angry, swearing at pedestrians in a variety of languages. Dealing with temperamental musicians had given her a wealth of foreign language expletives. Nick didn’t know what she’d done to deserve the Great Violinist Bitch of All Time, but whatever it was must have been a real peach. She comforted herself with a vision of the future wherein she would call Itzhak Perlman, explain her problem, and Itzhak would promise to be on the next plane.
But it wasn’t the future, it was a dismal present at only the beginning of a too-long concert tour. Nicolas Frost was still up-and-coming in a world that didn’t notice you until you had reached the top. And right now the last thing Nick needed was a violinist with Mystery Illness Number Two. Maybe dressing like a man for five years was beginning to make her think like a man. Somewhere deep down she knew that if a man had complained she’d have consented to a light rehearsal without comment—Gabrielle need only have asked reasonably and Nick would have been reasonable. Instead, Nick’s hackles had been raised by that weak-little-me routine Gabrielle had put on. Her suggestion that Gabrielle try suffering for her art had led to the slanging match, which had surely amused the other performers. Nothing breeds discipline like being called a son-of-a-bitch in front of the entire orchestra. Nick had wanted to retort that she had just as many X chromosomes as the next woman, but it was impossible. Nicola Furst was considered an intriguing new breed of conductor with flashes of genius well-suited to the podium.
Remembering how lightly her ambition of becoming a conductor had been treated when critics had known she was a woman gave Nick a permanent source of bad temper and inner steel that critics and performers now called temperament. As long as she was unpleasant and imperious, glowering down on most people from her almost six-foot height, no one seemed to suspect that underneath the tie and boxer shorts was the strength and resilience of pure womanhood. Sometimes she forgot, too—until she slid into her pajamas. In the night with herself and her fantasies, she was one hundred percent woman. With concentration she could make herself forget that two hundred percent woman in her bed would be an excellent way to pass the time.
She threw open her hotel room door and slammed it behind her. Breathing hard, she looked for something to stay angry at. Oscar looked up from the London Times.
“You have sent orchids,” he said dryly, “with a card saying they are as remarkable as her Mozart. It would be true and I knew you would not vomit.”
“How did you know the rehearsal—never mind. You’re amazing,” Nick said. All of her tension melted out of her as she thanked her good fortune, once again, that Oscar Smythe had decided that Nick would be the next Bernstein if it killed him—and/or Nicola—in the process. It had been more years ago than Nick liked to remember.
“I happened to ask after the Signorina’s health in the elevator. I’m glad I don’t speak Italian. She was quite vocal.”
“Orchids will cost a fortune and she’s not worth it.” Nick threw herself into a chair.
“But her Mozart is. And think what a feather in your cap if you can handle her temperament.”
“I thought my cap already had all the feathers you said I’d need,” Nick said testily. “Sometimes I just want to chuck it all in the bin.” She waved a slender hand at the pants she wore.
“Of course you would, darling,” Oscar said. “But you do hate Light Opera so. You’d have to go back to the violin and when the paparazzi were through with you you’d be performing with a monkey and tin cup as well. And I’d be out of a job,” he added. “What would a has-been like me do without a prize protegé like you for financial support?”
“You’d find some other sucker with delusions of grandeur to listen to your crazy schemes,” Nick said, but her lips curled upward slightly.
“Well, if you are going to start blaming everything on me again, I shall ignore you and read my paper. The review of last night is satisfactory considering this cretin has a tin ear.”
“Anyone who doesn’t say it the way you would is a cretin to you.”
“I have standards,” Oscar said, his tone and expression indicating that he was not joking.
Somehow Oscar’s drier than dry wit always cheered Nick up. “You know what I’m going to do?” Nick looked up at Oscar with a grin. “I’m going to find someone in this town to make me a real lemon squash.”
Oscar exhaled with bored emphasis. “I’ll alert the media,” he said in precise tones.
“John Gielgud, right? Very good.”
“Quite,” Oscar said. “And before you go out, comb your hair down again. It’s curling. I shall make an appointment for you with the hotel barber.”
Nick did as she was told and gelled her hair back. The severity hardened the angles of her face. The style was the signature of what the press labeled a new breed. Of course the media did not even begin to guess just how new a breed Nick really was.
***
Alison looked down at the air mail envelope in disbelief. What had possessed Carolyn to go back to Paris? With all the world to choose from, why Paris, for God’s sake? Why not just roll around in some broken glass and salt if she wanted to suffer?
Still, it was a letter, and Alison had to smile when she heard Bonnie Raitt’s “Love Letter” start up on the radio. The moment of fantasy was exquisite, but a love letter from Carolyn—not likely.
Dear Alison:
The postmark will tell you where I am. So far everything is as I expected and you can just wonder what I mean by that.
You’ll be vexed to know I spent my second night in Paris at the Symphony. To hear real, live music again! It was sublime. The Mozart was magnifique with a marvelous woman violinist and a young conductor—I’m sure he’ll be famous one day and I’ll get to say I saw him when. Sedate little me jumped to her feet and shouted “Encore!” I know you hate music written before this century, but I do love it. What do I have to do to get you to go with me? I should never have stopped going by myself.
There were very few activities Alison could imagine more boring than watching identically dressed people sawing on pieces of wood, with, no doubt, interplay so subtle as to render one moment indistinguishable from the next until it was impossible to keep one’s eyes open. Of course it meant she could spend an evening with Carolyn—no, it wasn’t worth it.
The coincidence here is that the conductor, Nicolas Frost, shared an elevator ride with me and is he ever a rude boor. Very, very superior and nasty to work with I’ll bet. (Isn’t the missing “H” a little pretentious? Probably a stage name. I get to sneer because I didn’t choose my pen name—you did. Carly indeed. Thank God you never call me that.) But he does get results. The reviews this morning were raving. Supposedly he’s a young gun just as Bernstein was thought of in his youth. I almost cried over the Mozart.
Alison remembered when Carolyn had cried over The Wizard of Oz the last time they’d watched movies together. She’d finally gone to hug her because Carolyn wouldn’t stop crying. Eventually, she’d fallen asleep in Alison’s arms. Not trusting herself, Alison had covered her and left. And Carolyn hadn’t invited her over or referred to the incident since.
Anyway, he is a very good conductor, and he’s really cultivated the tortured artist look, which goes along with the missing H.
Alison glanced at the photo on the program Carolyn had enclosed. To her surprise, she found Nicolas Frost slightly attractive around the edges. Perhaps it was because he had an androgynous look—long, dark eyelashes, punkish slicked back hair, a long nose. His face could probably be extremely expressive—although Carolyn was right, the thin-lipped pose in the photo was Tortured Artist to the hilt. The biographical notes said he had “burst on the musical scene” during a competition sponsored by many important-sounding organizations and had since set a new standard of daring and intensity, blah, blah, blah. Ain’t that grand, she thought. Carolyn had the model for her next hero, and Carly would fall in love with him while she writes the damn book and she’d have to listen to Carly sing his praises until it was finished.
Sometimes Alison hated Carly Vincent. She had thought Carly Vincent would draw Carolyn Vincense and Alison McNamara closer—it gaveher the perfect cover for being a continuing part of Carolyn’s life, year after year, without Carolyn suspecting how important she was to Alison. Of course if Carolyn would just be a little suspicious, then Alison might have found a little courage. Unrequited love was the pits, and she had tried several cures—Maureen and Betsy came to mind. But just when she thought she was cured, Carolyn would do something to lure her back, like dressing up for dinner with her and hugging her. Alison’s body felt the imprint.
To top off the evening I had not one but two eclairs from an all-night bakery—second night in a row, too. Yes, I know white sugar is a slow poison but I don’t really care. Not in Paris. At least they weren’t Twinkies. Something about Paris goes to my head, and since I know that, you may rest assured that my only indulgences will be eclairs. And Champagne.
I’ll say au revoir now so I can drop this in the box. I’m writing in the hotel drawing room that has Louis XIV desks and dainty chairs for letter writing—how continental I feel. I’m not sure why I’m writing at all, except that I wanted to pick up the phone and tell you all about everything. Au revoir—
Carolyn
Alison tucked the letter into the breast pocket of her suit. When she got home she hid it under her socks.
***
Carolyn woke up in a sweat. The clock on the bedside table read three-fifteen a.m. She was feverish but didn’t know what had woken her until a searing pain in her stomach sent her groping for the bathroom. She made it just in time. She tried to pull herself together by brushing her teeth and pretending that throwing up was an accident, and she wasn’t going to do it again. She was wrong.
Several hours later she had nothing left in her stomach. No matter how often she rinsed out her mouth the taste of eclair cream came back, which didn’t help the nausea. Aliment empoisonnement, she thought. Food poisoning. I’d have been better off with Twinkies, she told herself. They never spoil.
Still, she couldn’t keep down the clear broth or tea she ordered from room service when they opened in the morning. She woke up a few hours later and managed to ingest the hard bread that had come with the soup. She went to sleep again and woke at noon.
Determined not to waste a day of her vacation, she showered but found she didn’t have the energy to dress. Her nightshirt was a mess, so she put on a T-shirt and sweatpants, hung the do-not-disturb sign on the door, and crawled back into bed. Okay, a lazy day dozing wasn’t too bad a prospect.
She was almost asleep when the argument started in the next room. In Italian. She could make out a husky voice with an atrocious accent carrying on about breach of contract. Then a piercing feminine voice let loose with words Carolyn could barely translate—she understood the part about bad parentage and excrement for brains. A third voice, in German, interjected a burning desire to get the whole unintelligible-but-heartfelt-adjective prüfing—trial, ordeal—over with as quickly as possible.
She groaned and buried her head under the pillow, but she could still hear them. She debated calling the manager but blissful silence fell. She propped herself back up on her pillow and relaxed.
Then a rhythmic banging began and, then, with a nerve-wrenching skirl of strings, persons unknown launched into a furious onslaught of noise. It was so angry and discordant that Carolyn couldn’t even call it music. It sounded exactly like Carolyn’s stomach felt. She sat upright in rage. Didn’t they have any consideration?
Wobbling on her feet, Carolyn went over to the adjoining door and opened her side. She listened, and suddenly the music stopped. Then it started at the beginning again. Her head was pounding so she pounded her fist on the door to match the rhythm, then caught herself on the frame as a wave of dizziness washed over her.
***
Nick wrenched open the suite’s adjoining door. First, she was paying for that room so as to have a measure of privacy. Second, whoever was in the room had no business banging on the door. She was not prepared for the T-shirted, sweatpanted, barefooted woman who stumbled into the room.
“Good lord,” the woman said in English.
An American. Nick favored the invader with the gaze she reserved for uppity violinists. “What is all that bloody racket?”
“Racket? Racket?” The woman glared up at Nick with blue eyes that reminded Nick of robin’s eggs. “What the hell do you call what’s going on in here?”
“Mozart,” Nick said, frowning fiercely. Robin’s eggs? Where in the world had such a sappy, sickening comparison come from? She was losing her sanity. She’d never even seen robin’s eggs.
“Good lord,” the woman said again. She looked beyond Nick and seemed to realize she had interrupted something. She at least had the grace to go pale and look apologetic. Her eyes were very blue.
Actually, Nick thought, taking into account the T-shirt that was just a little too tight in the right places—NO, nein, uh-uh, no way, nunca, non, nyet, nada. Stop that right now, she ordered herself. No fantasies, no wondering if you could sneak out into a woman’s arms for a night—oh no, you promised.
Gathering her usual ill-humor, Nick went on, “That racket is the overture from Mozart’s Magic Racket.” She did not smile. “We’re rehearsing in here.”
“Well, I’m throwing up in there,” the woman said. “I’d like to do it in peace.”
Priceless! She should go on the stage. “What do you know, Gabrielle,” Nick said in her halting Italian. “Your Mozart has made someone sick.”
“Not my Mozart—his,” Gabrielle said, gesturing at the other violinist whom she had insisted needed the extra rehearsal.
“I’m not going to stand for this,” Kruger snarled, while Oscar threw his hands up. The two performers shot nasty phrases at each other again. Nick forgot the woman in the doorway as she shouted for silence.
The woman followed her all the way into the room and said a distinctly nasty phrase in German.
Nick stopped short—more aspersions on her parentage. Her parents, looking down on their daughter from parts unknown—or in her father’s case, looking up—were probably having fits. Kruger and Gabrielle gaped and were then blessedly silent. Oscar stifled a laugh, but Nick saw nothing funny.
“Fraulein,” Nick said, with feigned patience. She used every inch of her height to tower over the intruder. The top of the woman’s head came precisely to Nick’s shoulder. Now the woman looked familiar—oh, the little-miss-show-off-polished-schoolbook-accent creature from the lift. “Mademoiselle?”
“Ms. Vincense, if you please,” the woman snapped. Bloody hell, some American virago. The woman took a deep breath, then paled—guilt at interrupting a rehearsal, no doubt. Her next words proved Nick’s theory. “The concert last night was wonderful.”
Nick continued to stare at her skeptically. She was beyond idle flattery, and—with more effort than she liked to admit—completely resistant to female charms. “Perhaps then you’ll understand why rehearsing is so important. Tonight is the finale. And perhaps you’ll explain what you’re doing in the hotel room I’m paying for?” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Oscar suddenly start forward, but he stopped. Gabrielle wanted to rehearse, so rehearse they would.
“Au contraire, I am paying for that room,” the woman said. “And I don’t see why you have to practice next to where I’m trying to sleep.”
Nick looked pointedly at her watch, then said, by way of the only apology she’d give, “The hotel was not supposed to rent out that room to avoid this problem.”
The woman started to reply, but Nick saw her gaze focus on the room service cart with the eclairs she’d ordered for Gabrielle, who had then of course refused them. If Nick hadn’t ordered them Gabrielle would have been slighted.
Nick realized right about then that the woman wasn’t naturally pale. She went from white to green and then ran from the room, slamming her own adjoining door shut. Shortly thereafter Nick could hear the dim sound of retching.
“Rehearsal is over. Over,” she repeated imperiously. She gritted her teeth. “Gabrielle, you really have no reason for concern. Your performance will be as stunning as your reputation.” Let her take that any way she likes.
Oscar closed the door, then turned to Nick. “Shall I let the manager know how unhappy we are with their little cock up?”
“Certainly. I don’t intend to pay one franc for that room for the entire time we’ve been here. Thank goodness we’re leaving in a few days!”
Nick went into the bathroom and gulped down some headache tablets. She heard Oscar explaining, in his dry fashion, how critical the rehearsal had been, what the interruption had done to the Maestro’s nerves and what the hotel could do to ease the strain. She leaned out of the bathroom and said, “I don’t think the woman in the next room should have to pay for it either. She’s been just as inconvenienced.”
Oscar passed that on and mentioned that the Maestro knew many people who would be shocked to learn that a hotel of this stature had double-rented a room—No, no it was not necessary to send the Maestro a bottle of wine. Correcting their folio, and the folio for Ms. Vincense next door, would be sufficient.
Nick looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. If the barber had cut it any shorter you’d look like Yul Brynner. And you can just forget all about this unexpected meeting with a woman who probably looks even better when she isn’t sick—Nick silenced the thought with a wave of a mental baton. There was no future in it.
***
“Another airmail from Paris,” Devon said, his voice thick with insinuation.
“Oh, give me that,” Alison said. She snatched at the envelope, but he held it away. “Give it to me right now or I’ll tell your old man you keep a spare package of condoms in your desk.”
“Oh!” Devon said in disgust. “Tacky, very tacky.” He handed over the letter. “Besides, when I work late sometimes he picks me up. Pun intended—you’d never guess what goes on after you leave for the night, to your solitary and sterile bed.”
“Tacky, Devon. Have you faxed that stuff to New York yet?”
Devon’s look left no doubt as to what Alison could do with her fax. If she didn’t like Devon so much she’d probably hate him. She retired to her office and opened the letter. Maybe Carolyn was realizing how much she missed Alison.
Dear sane and sensible Alison:
I know I should never have come back to Paris. When I leave the day after tomorrow it will be two days too late! Would you believe the second set of eclairs was bad? I’ve been sick all night and to make things worse I was subjected to the most appalling argument with none other than Nicolas Frost. I was trying to sleep after puking all night and he had a rehearsal in his room, which is next to mine. He made some lame excuse about the hotel making a mistake, and that no one was supposed to be in my room. Hah. I gave him a few choice opinions in German, then I almost lost it on his Italian leather loafers and it would have served him right.
By the time you get this I’ll be all better, and well on my way to Munich. I hope I’ve recovered enough to do the Louvre tomorrow, after which you will receive a letter all about art. No more throwing up or Nicolas Frost whom I hope I never see again. You would have been quite proud of me. Green and lamentable—
Carolyn
Alison laughed. She adored Carolyn’s proficiency with German expletives, even though she never knew what the heck they meant. She folded the letter back into the envelope. She missed Carolyn.
“Sam Beckwith is on the line again,” Devon called, interrupting the poor-baby thoughts Alison was sending in the general vicinity of Paris. “Maybe I was wrong about the solitary and sterile bed.”
“Shut up, Devon,” Alison warned in a tone she knew Devon would ignore. “Hi, Sam,” she said sweetly. She could hear Devon laughing.
“Ally, I think I may have found a wonderful b-e-d frame for Carolyn.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Sam. I—does she need a new one?”
“The one she has now is adorned by a Barbie-like ballerina. It’s difficult to decorate around.”
“Well—”
“Meet me tomorrow to take a look and then we’ll catch some d-i-n-n-e-r somewhere. You pick a restaurant.” Sam’s voice was encouraging and Alison wondered, yet again, if Sam might be the cure she was looking for. They were good friends already.
“Okay. Where should I meet you?”
When Alison hung up, after settling the details with Sam, she could hear Devon whistling “Strangers in the Night.” She called out, “Shut up, Devon.”
He changed the tune to “She Loves You.”
***
Nicolas Frost was an unpleasant, uncivilized jerk. Carolyn’s writer persona had recorded useful physical details. The gray eyes, long eyelashes and smooth skin—well, none of it went with a personality that was about as endearing as boils.
She ordered a cup of broth and bread and ate it with more success than the last batch. Feeling almost human she decided to take a bath. She had just finished setting out her bath paraphernalia and her book when there was a knock on the door. She peeked through the peephole, rewrapped her robe tightly around her and opened the door. It was the older man she had seen in the next room—the only one who had looked at her with anything like sympathy.
“With Maestro Frost’s compliments,” he said gravely, in his cultured English voice. He sounded like Ralph Richardson. He carried in a huge basket of yellow roses. “He is very sorry about the inconvenience and hopes you are feeling better.”
“These really weren’t necessary,” Carolyn said. Roses were not her favorite flower, not anymore.
“They are just a token. Maestro Frost is very sorry you were subjected to that brawl. He has arranged for the hotel not to bill you for this room since they should not have put you in it in the first place.”
Carolyn was astounded. “It wasn’t necessary, but thank you.”
“I would like to inquire,” he went on as if Carolyn had not spoken, “if there is anything I could arrange that would speed your recovery? You do appear a little less pale.” He smiled faintly.
“I think I ate some bad eclairs. I’ve had some broth. It’s not Mom’s chicken soup, but I’m recovering.”
“Very well, I will leave you to rest.”
“Thank you for bringing the roses, Mr.—I don’t know your name, I’m sorry,” Carolyn said.
“I am Oscar Smythe,” he said. He said his name as if it should be familiar to her—it tugged at Carolyn’s memory.
“Did you conduct a complete recording of Brahms with the Vienna Philharmonic? A long, long time ago?”
“I’m not sure I would have repeated the adjective, but yes, I did do that recording some years ago.”
“It’s still my favorite. I’ve been listening to it since my mom bought it for me when I was a little—”
“Please,” he said, holding up one hand with great dignity. “Thank you. For an American I must say you show remarkable judgment.” His voice was devoid of irony, but Carolyn saw a flash of it in his eyes. He bowed like David Niven, tipped an imaginary hat and left.
Carolyn closed the door. “What a character,” she said to the roses.
She had a long soak in the tub, turning the pages of The Mists of Avalon as she swished her toes in the hot water. When she went back into the bedroom it reeked of roses. She sneezed twice, then dialed for a bellman.
The sooner she got out of Paris, the better. Her train to Munich was scheduled for the day after tomorrow. She couldn’t wait to put some distance between herself and the problems Paris seemed to cause her.
The young man who came for the roses was overwhelmed and thanked her profusely. “Good riddance,” Carolyn muttered as she closed the door.
***
The next morning, Carolyn ate a bland breakfast and took a cab to the Louvre. She lingered as long as possible over the Da Vincis, only to stop in a daze before the raw magnificence of Van Gogh’s Flowers in a Copper Vase. Around every corner was art she’d only seen photographs of—all the painting and sculpture she would have seen on her last trip if only romance hadn’t gotten in the way. She edged forward toward the Van Gogh, vaguely aware that she was nudging another woman.
The blonde woman gave ground with a sarcastic “Pardonnez moi.”
Carolyn blinked, clearing her eyes of the violent, overwhelming hues. “My fault,” she replied in French. “I was so struck by the work—”
The woman’s blue eyes softened and she gave Carolyn a toothy smile. “I understand.” Her smile broadened as she glanced past Carolyn. “There you are, Cherié, where have you been?” Another woman, as dark-skinned as the first was fair, stepped around Carolyn and the two women exchanged kisses on each cheek in French fashion, and then they stepped away from the painting.
Carolyn took advantage of the extra room and leaned closer to examine the painting. She made a mental note to make time in Amsterdam for the Van Gogh Museum.
“Cherié, not here,” Carolyn heard the blue-eyed woman say. Some note in the woman’s voice made Carolyn turn. The black woman was toying with the collar of the blue-eyed woman’s shirt, her long fingers slipping inside the collar and brushing tenderly against the pale skin. The hair at the nape of Carolyn’s neck prickled and she shivered.
“Let’s go back to the hotel, then,” Cherié said. Her voice was low, personal, husky—suggestive of promised delights. Carolyn found she couldn’t swallow. The blue-eyed woman swayed as she nodded.
Carolyn realized she was eavesdropping. She was uncomfortably warm—her clothes felt tight. It was the strangeness—she’d never seen two women—it was just different. She made herself move, forcing her attention to another Van Gogh. She studied it as if her personal safety depended on knowing every brush stroke.
By the time she reached her hotel that evening she had mostly forgotten the two women in the Louvre. Her feet ached and she wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, but she still had to pack and get ready for her early train departure the next morning. So she ordered room service again—just crepes without any sauce and a dish of vanilla ice cream. She hoped her stomach could handle that meal.
The waiter was gone before she saw a large bowl of soup on the tray. She double-checked the bill she had signed, but the soup was not on it. Then she saw the florist’s card discreetly tucked under the saucer.
I doubt anyone named “Mom” made this, but perhaps it is what the doctor ordered—N. Frost. “Well!” Carolyn exclaimed. She sniffed. Chicken soup. Her stomach growled. She devoured the soup, then wrote out a tactful and brief thank you note to Oscar Smythe because she was sure that Nicolas Frost hadn’t arranged for the soup. He was probably still bullying violinists.
***
Nick sighed and looked at her itinerary. Paris was only the second stop of her guest conducting tour and she was already tired. To make things worse, she had had a dream last night about a woman with blue eyes who swore at her in German while Nick made passionate love to her. Boxer shorts were comfortable but lately they’d seemed irksome. Did she really want to spend the rest of her life dressed as a man? Didn’t she have any other options?
“What is bothering you?” Oscar asked from behind her.
“You’re a mind reader,” Nick said. Oscar always knew. “What always bothers me when I’m tired.”
“Ah. So, sneak out the back way. This is Paris—lesbian bars abound, darling.”
“It’s too risky. I might be seen out of these damnable boxer shorts.”
“Then go in drag,” Oscar said. “I’m told it’s all the rage.”
“And who told you that? Some little number at the local La Cage aux Folles?”
“I do not interest myself in little numbers,” Oscar said, at his haughtiest. “And I have not sampled the local—cages—in many years. I’m getting too old for it.”
Nick smiled fondly. Oscar’s favorite role was the aging and forgotten conductor. “You know perfectly well that your gray temples still turn heads.”
“Yes, but that child who was here yesterday—”
“What child?”
“Carolyn Vincense—the American girl next door. You sent roses and chicken soup, by the way.” At Nick’s snort, Oscar continued, “She did remember who I was. She’s been listening to my Brahms since she was a little girl.”
“So have I, for that matter,” Nick said. She bit her lower lip to keep it steady.
Oscar sighed. “Go ahead, laugh. I just hope that when you’re my age people will know you for what you’re working on at the time, not something you did thirty years ago. And when you’re my age maybe being gay won’t stand in your way.”
“Maybe not, but being a woman probably still will. If they find out I’m a woman and gay it’ll be double the fun for the paparazzi. I can’t go within a hundred meters of a lesbian bar.”
“There’s always a sex change operation,” Oscar said. He went back to studying his correspondence.
Nick said nothing. It was both his age and his sex that kept Oscar from understanding that turning into men was not the way to combat discrimination against women. But who was she to talk—that was exactly what she had done. She might tell herself she was just a part of a long tradition of cross-dressing women in the arts, but her choices weren’t anywhere near that clear-cut. And she wasn’t just cross-dressing, she was passing as a man.
There were, according to Oscar, quite a few members of the Royal Academy who were gay, but most were completely closeted. Of the women members—and women were far in the minority—Oscar suspected one was a lesbian. A few of the gay men were so gifted or powerful that it ceased to matter. If you were Bernstein, for example, no one picked someone else over you for a recording contract. She knew the label “probably a pouf” had kept Oscar at the very edge of fame. When he had stayed in the role of the critic he had been left alone. But every time he had reached for the baton the whispers had started up again and the offers faded away.
In revenge, Oscar Smythe had become a respected and somewhat feared critic. Nicola Furst had listened and believed when he told her she had talent and then, in the same breath, told her it was a pity no one would ever know—because she was a woman and an intimidating figure of a woman at that. She’d informed Mr. Know-it-All Smythe that he was wrong, but within a few short years she had learned he was right. As a solo violinist she gained only nodding glances and utterly forgettable reviews that never failed to mention her height. No one had expressed anything except boredom when she had conducted. Her attempts at orchestration were “weak” or “shrill.” In the meantime, less-talented men she had been at Trinity College of Music with secured First Chair positions, assistant directorships and even Royal Academy memberships.
Nick glanced over at Oscar’s disciplined profile. No one would believe her if she told them that the staid and proper English gentleman had been the one to suggest the masquerade. He’d only agreed to hear her because he’d had an affair with one of her mother’s uncles (she hadn’t known that at the time). She would never have dreamed the interview would result in his urging her to don male attire. Her parents had been killed in a plane crash when she was an infant and the elderly aunt and uncle who raised her had since passed away. The trust fund administrators had ceased all interest in Nicola when she had taken control of her money at the age of twenty-five. Who remembered her from boarding school? Some of her chums might, but only as the gawky girl who never wore skirts and spent every spare hour in a study room with her violin.
Sister Patrick Rose might realize that a photo of Nicolas Frost was also a photo of Nicola Furst, but it was unlikely that a missionary would be attending a European symphony. Yes, indeed, Nick was sure Patrick Rose would remember Nick as vividly as Nick remembered her and her lesson about why a seventeen-year-old Nick was suddenly interested in becoming a nun. Their affair—Nick’s first—had been short, tempestuous and delicious, then terminated by Patrick Rose’s decision to go to Central America. Nick actually couldn’t remember what she had felt like in those days, thinking a nun’s life would suit her. She didn’t remember being seventeen.
Who would remember her from Trinity? If anyone did, it would be as the woman with a chip on her shoulder. Who cared if Nicola Furst disappeared off the face of the earth? No one. If her trust fund hadn’t covered her fees, Trinity would have shown her the door after her second year.
She’d resisted the whole idea. She didn’t care that her mannerisms and appearance had always been masculine. She’d told Oscar she loved women and she loved being a woman. And he’d told her how his own variation from the norm had kept his performing career from ever flowering. He’d named more than two dozen gay men in “serious music,” as Oscar called it, whose talents were all on the same plane. The ones who were in the closet were a lot richer and more famous than the ones who were suspected or out. Bernstein didn’t count.
With Oscar’s sponsorship, she’d entered the competition, and when Oscar Smythe sponsored a talented young man, the musical world had listened. Nick won the competition, receiving glowing praise from people who hadn’t given Nicola Furst a second thought, and became Oscar’s protege. The press ate up the “orphaned son of an old British family” story Oscar fed them, in which Oscar implied he’d raised Nick from childhood, and paid for his schooling and conservatory training abroad. Nicolas Frost’s height was never mentioned, but the short, slicked-back hair had attracted a number of comments. Nicolas Frost was courted for his talent, praised for musical sensitivity, and shunned for his reputation as a temperamental maverick. The Royal Academy had indicated interest in Nick, though they had ignored all of Nicola’s attempts to get their attention. Now she couldn’t afford to answer all the questions on the standard biography form. Besides, at this stage in her life she didn’t feel like giving the Royal Academy of Music or its affiliates the time of day.
But critical praise and a flood of eager students had made Nick hungry for more, and more is what she got. Always wearing boxer shorts had seemed a small price to pay, and Oscar was a genius at feeding the press. They staged opportunities for Nick to be photographed with women, and cultivated a reputation for Nick as a heartbreaker. Oscar’s greatest fear was not that Nick would be discovered as a woman, but that anyone would think Nick’s association with Oscar meant Nick was gay. They had both been hysterical with laughter when a London tabloid had printed a story about a woman who claimed Nick was the father of her baby. Fortunately, it had been her fourth claim in less than ayear and no one had even bothered to ask Nick about it. At thirty-three, Nick was famous in London; fifteen years of study and twelve more of hard work had made it so. This tour was supposed to cement her fame in Europe, lead to an American tour and bring Nick to the attention of recording companies.
Nick understood Oscar’s fear of Nick’s being labeled gay. If she weren’t wearing male clothing they’d probably be pretending to be lovers a la Svengali to keep anyone from guessing that Nick was a lesbian. She knew the disguise hid the real drawback—her gender. She could count on one hand the prominent women conductors. She respected them from the bottom of her heart, but she dreamed of going further than any of them would ever be permitted to. Her most sustaining fantasy was of the day she arrived at the pinnacle of success and revealed her womanhood.
“Being a man has limited benefits,” she said aloud.
Oscar looked up. “Quite.” He studied her for a moment, then with a slight smile, asked if she’d like some tea.
Well, the crisis is passed once more, Nick told herself. She had these soul searchings every so often—but it did seem they were happening more frequently on this blasted tour. Enough, enough, she told herself. It’s just being away from the sanctuary of home. It doesn’t matter that you’re lonely as hell and you have to mail-order clothes and wear suit jackets in raging heat.
As she turned resolutely to the study of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto Number Two, the centerpiece of the Munich concerts, she flashed on a snippet from the movie Victor, Victoria, when the cross-dressing Julie Andrews had complained her bosom would end up looking like two empty wallets. Nick’s bosom was well on its way to walletdom.