Clarice lifted her hands from the keyboard and allowed the sound of the final chord of Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata to echo in the room and reverberate through her body. That had been good. More than good. Every phrase, every note had been shaped just the way she’d wanted it to be. She’d luxuriated in the sensation that came over her when she was playing extraordinarily well, the feeling that she was making it up as she played, rather than interpreting the notation.
Here in her living room at seven in the morning, everything came so easily. But lately, her great performances traveled no farther. In front of a live, listening audience, the risk taking and experimentation that had always made the experience of playing the piano so thrilling deserted her.
Even if some special moments occurred during the overly careful music making she presented to the public, she wasn’t likely to be aware of them. These days, when she sat down in front of an audience to play, nearly all she heard was the pounding of her heart.
Over the years, she’d been hounded by worries over her parenting skills, her religious devotion, and her value as a wife. None of those insecurities had ever taunted her when she played, though. The outside world had gone silent and all doubts had vanished the moment her fingers touched ivory. Until recently. Irrational fear had taken root in her brain, and no amount of common sense could quiet the sharp-tongued critic in her head. After years of fantasizing about a performing career, she had one. Now the voice in her head was determined to force her to admit that she didn’t deserve it.
Worse, Clarice had to wonder if the story she had told herself most of her life—that it was her mother and then her husband who had kept her feeling trapped and frightened all those years—might have been false. Between her mother’s constant criticism and Richmond’s unceasingly maddening behavior, they had made it easy for her to blame them for every twinge of anxiety she felt. But it wasn’t Beatrice or Richmond who tormented her with the question “Who do you think you are?” Clarice listened to the taunting words in her head with a musician’s keen ear, and she knew her own voice when she heard it.
Just as Clarice had begun discovering that Richmond might have been miscast as the villain in her inner drama, she had recognized a better role for him. With the Chicago concert looming, she had developed a habit of calling Richmond late at night and inviting him over. And when he arrived at her door, Richmond could barely say hello before she was on him, insisting that he get to work. She’d done just that last night. Richmond, who could sleep through the most thunderous sonata, lay snoozing upstairs in her bed.
Clarice understood that her solution to the stresses of her new life was fraught with potential complications. Richmond saw each night he spent with her as a step toward reunion. She knew that allowing him to continue believing that would likely lead to trouble. But every time that mean little orator in her head enumerated the reasons she should doubt herself, it was followed up by a louder voice that hollered, “Get Richmond over here, right now!”
Richmond had proved better at calming her nerves than any pill. So she’d decided to worry about the potential side effects from her remedy later.
Clarice turned away from the piano and stood. She thought about going back upstairs and returning to bed, but instead she walked to the couch. The distance was short, since her grand piano, the one piece of furniture she had added to the house after she’d rented it from Odette, dominated the space. Two long strides brought her to the overstuffed sofa and the coffee table that had been there since Clarice had visited Odette in this room when they were girls.
When Clarice had first rented the house, Odette had told her that she was free to redecorate as she chose. But Clarice’s needs were simple, and she liked keeping things the way they had been when Miss Dora and Mr. Jackson had lived here. She also supposed that she hadn’t really believed at the time that she was in the house to stay. Certainly Richmond had expected her to come home. As it turned out, though, living on her own for the first time in her life had proved to be much more fulfilling than she had anticipated. Now she couldn’t imagine leaving.
Odette’s father had built the house himself, and he’d had a good time putting it together. The house looked as if Mr. Jackson had made his construction decisions by flipping coins and rolling dice. Rooms were circular, triangular, trapezoidal, and pentagonal. Some doorways were delicately arched, while others were pointed on top like dunce caps. As a consequence, Clarice supposed, of the strangely shaped and seemingly randomly placed windows with their multicolored glass, sunrise brought spectacular splashes of color inside every morning.
Clarice remembered how her own parents had laughed about this place. “Good Lord, the man has built a carnival funhouse over there,” her mother had once said.
She had been partly right. The house was designed to delight. But it was also built solidly. Never a leak or a draft, whatever the weather. Perhaps if Beatrice could see the rainbow that the sun had painted on the ceiling above Clarice’s head, she might understand how magical this home was.
From the moment Clarice had come to live here, the house had seemed to cry out for music. Between her own practicing and the playing of her students, the rooms were regularly filled with classical melodies. But what the house demanded was the heat and abandon of the blues, the music that had poured from the stereo or the radio every time Clarice had come by the house to see Odette when they were girls. Maybe that was what she should do to celebrate this morning’s Beethoven: put one of the blues recordings she’d bought after moving in on the stereo or return to the keyboard and play one of the two blues songs in her repertoire.
The phone rang before she could make a decision. When she answered, her cousin Veronica skipped over any exchange of greetings and said, “You’re talking to one of the four new associate pastors of First Baptist Church.”
Plainview’s fertile Baptist rumor mill had spoiled Veronica’s surprise before Clarice had gone to bed the previous night. Several members of her cousin’s church had called with the story of how, at a poorly attended deacons’ meeting, Veronica and three other deacons had promoted themselves to the ceremonial post of associate pastor. Rather than tell her prickly cousin that she already knew about her new title or that she’d heard that the church’s congregation was reacting to the elevation of their new associate pastors with a mixture of amusement and mockery, Clarice said, “Congratulations.”
“If this doesn’t prove to you that Madame Minnie has the gift, I don’t know what will. She predicted this,” Veronica said.
A year ago, Minnie had lost patience with Veronica for using her fortune-telling appointments to complain that her church didn’t appreciate her unique spiritual insights. Minnie had shouted, “If you can’t shut the hell up, then get your own damn church.”
Having interpreted Minnie’s outburst as a prophecy that she would soon lead her own flock, Veronica had promptly enrolled in an online divinity school. Now, degree in hand, she was ready to save souls at First Baptist. The congregation’s continued resistance to her efforts to facilitate their salvation was, she believed, a clear indication of how badly they needed saving.
“I’ve got all kinds of ideas for the church. I’ll show you my list when I come over later.”
With each word Veronica spoke, Clarice’s Beethoven buzz faded further. She said, “Today’s not the best time for me. I’ve got a lot of practicing to do for the hospital recital next week.”
“Oh please, Clarice, it’s not like you’ve got a real job. You can play the piano anytime. I’ll bring you the pictures of Apollo that Sharon sent the other day. They’re the cutest ones yet. You will just die.”
Clarice’s free hand tapped imaginary piano keys on her knee. She’s my blood and I love her. She’s my blood and I love her.
“Veronica, today isn’t good for me.”
“I’ll bring Aunt Beatrice with me, and we can look at the pictures together. It’ll be fun. I’ll be there around four.”
Veronica and Mother. Veronica hung up before Clarice could speak another word.
The tension Clarice had shaken off with the aid of the Waldstein Sonata took hold of her again. Back to the piano for more Beethoven? Or maybe blaring some Mississippi blues from the stereo might relax her. Rejecting those options, she rose from the sofa and headed up the stairs to the bedroom where Richmond lay.
He was sleeping on his side. The bedcovers were bunched at his waist, and his bare chest was exposed. There was no mistaking that he had once been an athlete. Even though he was asleep, the musculature of his body suggested that he might at any second leap from the bed in some thrilling acrobatic motion.
This was her Richmond. The only man she had ever loved, though that hadn’t always seemed like the brightest idea. She would never know the total number of affairs he’d had. Hell, maybe he didn’t know, either. There had been decades filled with nights when he didn’t bother to come home, countless calls from strange women, rumors that made their way to her ears, anonymous letters from writers who claimed to be concerned friends.
Still, she had stayed with him. When she’d finally left, it’d had relatively little to do with Richmond. She had walked out because she just couldn’t stand herself anymore.
She’d felt a cold rage toward Richmond for years by the time she left him. But her ire had inspired more exhaustion than histrionics. And anger wasn’t the reason she continued to refuse to return home. She stayed in her Leaning Tree rental because she could no longer picture herself in her old house and her old life. She had left home just the way her children had—first Ricky, then Abe, then the twins, Carolyn and Carl. They had matured and stepped out into the world just the way they were supposed to. When Clarice’s turn came, she had taken off, too.
Looking down at Richmond with the red and orange light from one of Mr. Jackson’s prism windows painting his face, it was difficult for Clarice to think of anything but the good times and easy to imagine that more of them lay ahead. But the indications were that Richmond was about to ruin everything.
Suddenly he needed to know how she felt all the time. And he wouldn’t accept “fine” as an answer. “No, really, Clarice, I want to know what you’re thinking. I want to know how you feel.” It was like being cross-examined by a dogged, lovesick hippie.
Then, after almost forty years of having half the bed to herself every night, Richmond suddenly wanted to cuddle. As soon as she got comfortable, there he was, enveloping her in a wrestling hold. With his hot breath against her neck, his stubble scratching her shoulder, newly sensitive Richmond was a chore to sleep with.
Even though she had assured him that it was unnecessary, Richmond seemed determined to demonstrate to her that he had become more caring and enlightened. It was sweet, she supposed. But she had grown tired of wading through Richmond’s deluge of chitchat and embraces to get to the thing he was truly good at. If she wanted scintillating conversation and hugs, she could call Barbara Jean or Odette.
After giving it a rest for more than a year, Richmond had begun pestering her about moving in with him again. Just last week, he’d hinted that the two of them should renew their marriage vows on the occasion of their upcoming wedding anniversary. “It would be like a fresh start,” he had said.
Twice during the past month, Richmond had unexpectedly dropped to one knee in front of her and then looked up at her as if he were about to say something. The first time, she had silenced him with a passionate kiss that developed into a breathless encounter on the piano bench. The second time, she had interrupted him to express her admiration for the flexibility he had gained since the knee replacement surgeries he’d had a year earlier, dwelling on the more gruesome details of his operations until the last vestiges of romance had been excised from the situation.
Thinking about marriage made Clarice feel even more jittery. She climbed into the bed alongside Richmond. Though she didn’t always want him around for the entire night, it was convenient to have him available for sunrise relaxation. Any amount of morning physical contact tended to put ideas in his mind, and she was eager to get those thoughts in place before he felt the need to show her how modern he had become by inquiring about her mood or pulling her into a platonic hug. She rested her right hand on Richmond’s hip. Without opening his eyes, he stretched and yawned. Then he rolled over and grunted.
Now that he was on his back, Clarice placed her hand on his flat belly. Richmond, a true morning man, responded to the invitation of the hand on his stomach as she had hoped he would. He snuggled in close to her and pressed his lips against her neck. He mumbled, “Good morning, baby,” and moved a hand beneath the T-shirt she had worn to bed. Richmond flashed his dimples and whitened teeth at her, then began kissing her along her collarbone.
It’s so cute when he thinks he’s seducing me.