Maestro (17 page)

But she would do this for him.

She sat at her piano and closed her eyes to better bring the music to life in her mind. To her surprise, it was already there, as if it had been waiting for her. She'd had no idea she remembered Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2 in such detail. It was as if she'd heard it within the last day or so, but the only music she had heard in quite a while was her own.

Don't think
, said the voice from deep within.
Play
. The voice seemed to synchronize with what Maestro had wanted, so this time, she would listen to it. She began playing the concerto. How lovely! She was damned if she didn't feel like she had played this piece recently, although she'd never formally learned it, and she had never before tried to play it by ear, either. She must really be tired. Everything looked blurry. Her piano, the wall, the framed print of a Monet landscape. She didn't stop playing, though. This was like magic; she didn't want it to end. How strange, to have the concerto flowing from her fingertips as if she played it every day. She had always loved it. It was one of her favorite pieces, not only by Rachmaninoff, but by anybody. Maestro's pianistic style – especially listening to recordings of his performances from his days as a concert pianist – had always reminded her of Rachmaninoff's. She wondered if Maestro had ever composed any of his own music when he was younger.

When he was younger
...

Her eyes widened in shock, and she almost remembered something before it faded. What was up with her vision? Her piano didn't just look blurred; it looked like there were two different pianos, and somehow, she was playing them as one instrument. Her spinet piano was brown; the one she saw as a double image was glossy black. What the flaming hell? She jerked her hands off the piano keyboard –
keyboards?
– and everything solidified, returned to normal.

Maestro spoke in her mind, in a strong and tender voice, completely unlike the weak and fading voice she had heard from him at the hospital.
I guarantee you, I am hanging on
.

Without even knowing what she was going to do until she did it, Annasophia started playing the concerto again, picking up right where she had left off, possibly to the very note. This time, she closed her eyes so she wouldn't freak herself out. Whatever was happening, deep down inside, she desperately wanted it to happen, even though she didn't know what
it
was. As she continued to play, the feel of the piano keys changed under her fingers. Could she be playing the glossy black piano she had seen in the double-image? With her eyes closed, she couldn't see double images, but her hearing was as acute as ever. Unmistakably, she heard two pianos: the one she was playing and one off in the distance. The piano in the distance playing Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2 in sync with her was accompanied by a magnificent orchestra. Her breath caught in her throat and she almost jerked her hands away from the keys again, but she made herself keep playing. Whatever was happening, she would go with it. Her gut told her that this was exactly what Maestro had wanted her to do.

His dying wish.

As she kept playing, memories rushed back. She and Maestro had been... what? Shopping. She had found a dress that was somehow important, that held a key to whatever it was that was happening to her now. How bizarre! She had never gone shopping for clothes with Maestro. It wasn't the sort of thing they had done together. But this Maestro had been different. Much younger.

She and Maestro were...

Lovers?

Her eyes popped open. She remembered everything. Not just younger Maestro and how they had fallen in love, but also Matt, and the fact that Matt had been conceived when she and Maestro had made love last night. It accounted for the delicious soreness between her legs. She hadn't wanted to go back to her time. Elena had hummed the concerto, sending her back. That meant Elena could send her back at any time she wanted.
Shit
. She'd have to watch out. She glanced around her. No Elena. But surely, Elena had followed Maestro to wherever she – and he, on stage – were now. And somehow, in 2010, Maestro had known to urge her to come back here. Well, of course he had. He'd already known she was pregnant, but that Matt somehow didn't exist. Perhaps his getting closer to death was making him more sensitive to certain kinds of things, too.

The important thing was that she had returned to 1973, and she never intended to allow Elena to send her back to 2010 again. If she had to, she would wear ear plugs all the time. Or just punch Elena in the face on sight, no questions asked.

By returning to 1973, could she have prevented what she knew, in her timeline, as a reconciliation between Maestro and Elena and Matt's upbringing by a stepmother who resented him? Somehow, she doubted it. In the timeline she knew as normal, Matt existed, yet she had assumed him to be Elena's son. Even Matt thought he was Elena's son.

She would have to be careful.

She listened as Maestro completed his performance with the orchestra. How she'd love to rush onstage and give him a hug and kiss in front of the entire audience! She had to wait. Damn, here she was again in a posh performance venue, wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. She hoped Maestro had gone ahead and bought that beautiful dress. Without the dress, the picture wouldn't be the same one that had led her here in the first place.

Stop obsessing about details
, she told herself. She must remember that she and Maestro could create the future they wanted. With that in mind, she hoped Maestro hadn't bought the dress, after all. Instead, she would buy a hot pink one – any color completely unlike the one in the picture. She was here, and that was what mattered. Knitting her fingers together, she listened as Maestro's audience applauded. Any minute now, he would come back here and see her. A smile broke out on her face.

A door opened, but it wasn't one of the doors which connected to the stage. This door was toward the rear of the backstage area. Elena stepped though it. Behind her was a hall. Annasophia got up from the piano bench and clapped her hands over her ears. Elena began to hum, but before she could get far, Maestro burst in through one of the doors that connected to the stage. “Stop!” he thundered. Annasophia hadn't had any idea he could yell so loud. His voice startled Elena, too, and she stopped humming. Before he could say anything else, the volume of applause from the audience became thunderous. Maestro cast Elena a warning glance, then want back onstage for a curtain call.

Annasophia glared at Elena. “Don't even think about it.”

Elena's lips quirked in a sly smile. She began humming, ever-so-softly, ever-so-slowly, the opening bars to Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2. Annasophia's surroundings faded away just a bit. Before Elena got two bars into the concerto, Annasophia screamed, as loud as she could, to shut out the sound. And her surroundings grew solid again. Was it the concerto itself that was the conduit, or did the answer lie in whether or not Annasophia actually heard it? It seemed like the latter had to be the case.

Interesting
.

Annasophia cleared her throat. Man, she hated screaming like that. It was terrible for her singing voice. At least it had kept her here and had, in a sense, disarmed Elena.

Several people rushed to them. Security, perhaps. “Is anybody hurt?” one man asked.

Surely Elena wouldn't be rash enough to try to make her, Annasophia, disappear in front of these three men. But no. Elena started humming. There was nothing else to do. Annasophia screamed again, even louder.

“Who are you?” the same man said. He scrutinized Annasophia's jeans and t-shirt. “Do you have a backstage pass?”

“No, I...” Damn Elena. She'd started all this. Annasophia glanced at Elena, who was smiling like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland.

“I think you'd better come with us,” said another of the security men.

Elena smiled more widely. One way or another, she was getting rid of Annasophia. “Wait,” Annasophia said. “It's okay. I'm supposed to be here. Just wait until Maestro... I mean, Mr. Dahl... I mean, Wilhelm gets back here. He'll explain everything.”

“I don't think so.” The men herded her toward the door through which Elena had come, the one which opened out onto a hall. “You'll have plenty of time to explain things to us, though. You can't be standing here, screaming like that. There's a performance going on.”

“Yeah, a performance that just finished...”
And that has nothing to do with anything
, she thought. They thought she was a nut. What else could they think? Hell, she'd think the same thing, watching herself without knowing the real deal. One of the men opened the door, and another of them nudged Annasophia through. She glanced back, hoping to see Maestro, but all she saw was Elena's smirk. The men started down the hall, leading her along with them. Damn it. She wasn't a cow, and she refused to be herded. She stopped walking, and to her relief, she heard Maestro's voice. He'd come back from his curtain call.

“Where's Annasophia?” he asked.

Of course, Elena wouldn't tell him.
Please, please
, Annasophia thought. Let him notice the open door. But as she listened, she heard the door closing. Elena must have shut it. Within seconds, the door opened again, and Maestro called, “Wait just a minute. Where are you taking her?”

Relieved, she let out a long breath. One moment more, and she and the men would have turned the corner and would have been on their way out the building. Goodness knew where these men would have taken her, or what the hell she could have told them to keep herself out of the booby hatch. The men halted and turned to face Maestro, though they kept hold of Annasophia. “This girl was standing backstage screaming her head off. When we asked whether she has a backstage pass, she said no.”

“She doesn't need one,” Maestro said. “She's with me.”

The thee security men looked at Annasophia, at each other, and then at Maestro. Reluctantly, they led her back up the hall toward him. “Are you sure, Mr. Dahl?” the man who had nudged her said. “She's not dressed for a performance, and–”

“Well, why do you think she's backstage?” Maestro said. Annasophia entered the backstage area, and he put his arm around her. “She wanted to hear the performance, but she didn't have time to dress for it. And as for the screaming you heard...” He paused and indicted Elena with a glance. “My ex-wife has been harassing her.”

The security men looked at Maestro. “Would you like us to escort her from the premises?”

Annasophia had to chew her tongue to keep from laughing. She glanced up at Maestro, and he met her gaze with a mischievous spark in his eyes. “As a matter of fact, I would. This woman, Annasophia, is going to be my wife, and as much as I hate to say this, Elena, my ex, is being very hard on her. Perhaps if you removed Elena from the premises, she'd have a chance to clear her head and give some thought to how she's behaving.”

The men moved in on Elena.

“Wait just a minute,” she said, glaring first at the men, then at Maestro.

Neither Maestro nor Elena spoke as the men escorted Elena out the door and down the hall. Then they looked at each other and burst out laughing at the same time. They laughed so hard that they sagged against each other, then they shared a deep kiss.

It was okay. The danger had been averted.

This time.

###

Annasophia and Maestro headed down the hall together, after the curtain calls and post-performance chatting were over. Maestro had been performing at Kennedy Center, which meant he had waited one day for her to return, even though in her time, only a few hours had passed. “Did you not have a chance to play the concerto before the performance?”

He smiled at her. “Well, trains don't exactly come equipped with pianos.”

That was right; he'd ridden the Amtrak from New York to DC.

“I hoped with everything in me that you'd be waiting for me backstage.”

“Well, I almost wasn't,” Annasophia said. “When I got back to my time, I quickly forgot everything that had happened here. I forgot about you, well, younger you, and I forgot about being pregnant with our child. But...” Should she tell him this? Yes. Perhaps, indeed, it was her telling him about it that got him to urge her, as a dying older man, to return to this time. “You reminded me. That is, your older self reminded me.”

Maestro stared at her, amazed. “I did?”

“Yes. Our son was no longer there, and you knew, as an older man, that something had gone wrong and that you needed to try to get me to come back here. Thank goodness. You told me to go back to my apartment and play the concerto.”

“Go back to your apartment?” Maestro said. “I'm curious. Were you visiting me at my home, as an older man?”

She hadn't wanted to tell him about this, but she supposed the time had come. How else would he know when to urge her to return to this time? He needed to know more than just the fact that it would happen when he was much older, after years of knowing that while he and Annasophia should have a son named Matt, they somehow... didn't.

Annasophia shook her head, hoping to clear it. Thinking about all this could turn her mind into a pretzel. “In my time, you're very sick. You're in the hospital. Apparently, I had been visiting you there but had gone back to my apartment, and then I returned to your hospital room, and you told me to return to my place and play the concerto.” She hoped he wouldn't want to know more. She didn't think she could bring herself to tell him that in her time, he was dying, and that if she were sent back to 2010 again, he might already be dead, and if she forgot at that point, there would be nobody around to remind her.

“Is our son there with me?” he asked.

“No. I couldn't figure out why not, except to speculate that maybe if I hadn't played the concerto to come back here, if I'd stayed in my timeline, I would have had a miscarriage, or maybe...” She stopped, wondering. Might she, if she had stayed in the 2010 timeline, given birth to a baby who had technically been conceived in 1973? That meant that Matt would not have been born yet.