Making a Comeback (17 page)

Jac in a formal gown. Hair shorter. Young. Late teens? Next to a man in a tuxedo…No. She stared. Yes, it was. Leonard Bernstein. Frail looking, but unmistakably Leonard Bernstein. Jac held a trumpet at her side. A sound like a train roared through Liz’s head.

Her gaze darted to other pictures. She brought her hand to her chest as understanding slowly dawned. These photos had one thing in common—a tall, slender, blond woman. Wearing an evening gown in most. A full orchestra behind her in some. Holding a trumpet in many. Shaking hands with known dignitaries in a few.

“Oh. My. God. Jacqueline Richards.” Her mouth froze in an “oh” as she moved from one photo to the next, working her way along the wall, studying each one—running the gamut of the career of Jacqueline Richards, arguably the world’s greatest classical trumpet player. When she reached the end of the wall, she clutched the doorframe and looked up. Right into Peggy’s troubled eyes.

Peggy took the folder from her trembling fingers, led her back to the kitchen, and settled her on a barstool.

Liz was vaguely aware of the party going on around them. “Grandma took me to see her with the San Francisco Symphony when I was in high school. She told me to pay attention because we were witnessing genius. I was transfixed.” Pieces slid into place. Jac’s hearing music like a musician. A shudder whisked through her. She was a musician all right. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“It’s complicated.” Peggy’s smile was that sad one Liz had seen before when she talked about Jac.

She made a noise somewhere between a squeak and a gasp. “The morning I surprised you with croissants and heard the sound of a trumpet coming from Jac’s. That wasn’t a demo CD you said someone had sent her, asking for her opinion. That was her.” It had seemed odd at the time that someone would want Jac’s opinion about a classical piece. Peggy looked apologetic, and she didn’t know whether to be angry or laugh. She stared across the patio toward Jac’s. Jacqueline’s.

“A car accident…I remember reading about it.” Liz frowned, trying to call up the memory. “Badly injured…speculation about whether she’d ever perform again. And then nothing.”

“That sums up the last ten years,” Peggy said, her tone flat.

“Why would she keep that from me?” Being a lesbian was the least of Jac’s secrets. Jacqueline’s.

“It’s complicated.”

“That’s not good enough anymore.” Liz bolted for the cottage, driven by outrage. Again, someone close to her, someone she trusted, had kept something crucial from her.
I was open and honest with her, and all she’s done is lie to me.
She burst through the door, not giving a damn about Jac’s precious privacy. “Jac!” Not in the kitchen or living room. Foolish. She must have had a good laugh helping the little jazz pianist. “Jac!” She marched down the hall. Bedroom door was open and she strode through. No Jac. French doors to the patio were open.

“Did you have a good laugh at my expense?”

“What the—Liz?” Jac. Hot tub. Naked.

Liz retreated, bumping into the door. It banged back against a dresser. She flinched, turned around, and froze. Peggy. In the doorway. Hands on her hips. Heat sprouted everywhere and deposited what Liz was sure was flaming red on her cheeks and ears.

Peggy took her elbow and led her back to the living room. “Sit.”

Liz obediently dropped onto the couch and sat on the edge, hands tucked between her knees, trying to forget what she’d just seen. Peggy and Jac were talking, but their conversation was muffled behind the closed bedroom door. “Why didn’t she tell me?” ran through her mind like a ticker tape. She’d been analyzing music with one of the most brilliant musicians alive. Known for strong opinions. Check. Known as a perfectionist. Check. Known for innovative interpretations. Check. But jazz? How did that fit? And why hadn’t she gone back to performing? She looked up when she heard footsteps.

“Do I need to stay to make sure you two work this out?” Peggy acted like she was scolding children who should have known better.

Jac stood with her hands clasped, her light-blue sweat suit zipped up to her chin. Her face was flushed. Her mouth was a tight line. Max settled in his bed. Everything normal, but not.

Liz nodded, but she wasn’t at all sure this could be worked out. She felt betrayed and very intimidated. All the celebrities she’d met today, and one of the biggest of them must have been laughing at her fan-girl excitement. She squeezed her hands between her knees to stop the trembling. The silence stretched. Not the usual comfortable silence between them. The bad, who’s-going-to-talk-first kind.

Jac went to the kitchen and returned with two glasses of wine, setting one on the coffee table in front of Liz before sitting in her recliner. Silence swallowed them again.

“What do I call you?”

“What you’ve always called me.” Jac’s voice sounded hollow and distant. More silence. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? Lying to me? Again? Playing me for a fool? Having fun at my expense?”

“You can’t possibly think that.”

“What should I think? A world-famous classical musician slums it to help me with my little jazz—”

“Don’t ever say that again!” Jac looked angry and sad and broken all rolled into one. “I’m proud of that album.” Jac had treated her music with respect and praise. She hadn’t faked that.

All sorts of emotions lodged in Liz’s throat—gratitude, awe, confusion, and back to resentment. “I thought we were friends.”

“I’m terrible at friendship, but if I ever wanted to try, it would be with you.” Jac’s smile was heartbreaking.

“Will you tell me what happened?” Accident. Blind. Never performed again. It was going to be a sad story, but she needed to understand.

Jac’s chest lifted with a deep breath, and then she nodded as she exhaled. Silence again, but the kind you couldn’t do anything about. It was Jac’s story to tell. Jac went to her sound system and put on Bill Evans.

Liz was relieved when Jac sat beside her on the couch. Max lay next to Jac, his paw protectively on her bare foot. The first song was over before Jac spoke. When she did, the words seemed to come from a deep, dark place, as if dragged unwillingly into the room. Liz closed her eyes and listened, carefully, the way she’d listen to a piece of music she wanted to understand.

*

Jac took a long sip of wine, gathering her thoughts. Was Liz worthy of her trust? She deserved the truth, but what if Peg was wrong and she didn’t understand? She couldn’t bear Liz’s judgment. The rip current of guilt swirled through her, dangerous, but pointless to resist. It always took her back to that night. She gripped the cool, soft leather edge of the couch. “I was injured in a car accident on Valentine’s Day, ten years ago.” Factual. “It’s not a pretty story.” An understatement.

“That’s why it’s good we’re friends.”

She’d hurt Liz, badly, yet here she was, offering her usual kindness. Friendship she didn’t deserve. “There was a woman. Maria. My European agent’s wife. I was doing a lot of engagements and she started traveling with me. You know how exhausting it is.”

“I can’t imagine doing it alone. Your husband didn’t travel with you?”

“No.” He rarely even attended her concerts, always too busy with the business of music.

“She seduced me. The first time. After that I was equally responsible.” She waited. Liz wouldn’t approve. Would she walk out? How far were the boundaries of friendship?

“She must have been special,” Liz said, her voice gentle.

If only that were true. The rip current tightened its hold and Jac leaned forward on her elbows, trying to ease the pain building in her lower back. “For the first time in my life I knew what it was to be in love. Being with her changed everything.” She drank more wine to steady herself as emotions churned in her stomach. Only Peggy and Roger knew about the affair. “We were in Chicago. Snow. It was beautiful. I performed Hummel. I was outside myself.” They’d made love that afternoon, wild and passionate.

“I’d ordered a special dinner for us.” Maria’s favorite foods flown in from Italy. She drank from her wineglass, her hands trembling the way they had as she’d opened the champagne, anxious to toast their new future.

“I’d filed for divorce the day before. I told her I wanted her to leave her husband so we could be together.” Maria’s face frozen in surprise, the champagne flute to her lips. Surprise shifting to something else as she sipped. Something Jac hadn’t expected. Disapproval. Rejection. Something she hadn’t seen in those six months, the warmth of summer to the chill of that winter night. The best six months of her life.

“She said she wouldn’t.”
Not in the plan, darling.
A terrible shudder shot through her as it had that night. Shocked. Confused. Embarrassed. How had she misread things?

Memories and emotions surged through her, painful and demanding. “I left and went to a bar.” It was a tiny precipice, omission on this side and truth on the other. She backed up and came at it again. “I went to a—bar. I don’t know what I was thinking.” New guilt slid next to the old guilt and squeezed her like a corset. Liz deserved the whole truth, and she couldn’t give it to her.

“You were hurt.”

Jac shook off the understanding in Liz’s voice. There was no excuse for what she’d done that night. “On the way back to the hotel I was in an accident.” That much was true. “Broken vertebrae and ribs. Head injury.” She tossed the words out like a decoy, truths to cover the omissions. It was the best she could do.

“I’m so sorry.” Liz wrapped her arms around her.

She felt like a thief, stealing comfort she hadn’t earned, but Liz holding her felt so good. Friendship. Longing curled up from her center, and she let it have its way with her, used it to keep the guilt at bay. A word attached to the longing. Love. She was falling in love with Liz. When Liz finally let go, she could barely stay upright from the muscle spasms clamping down on her back. She went to her recliner and lowered herself carefully onto it.

“Do you have contact with Maria?”

“I haven’t seen her since that night.” For months she’d thought Maria would come to her. She’d both feared and longed for it. Now she’d traded one unrequited love for another. Max moved to his bed and she reached for him.

“If I were you I might not have said anything either. Like my not wanting to tell people about Teri. Thank you for trusting me. It doesn’t change anything.” A short laugh. “Well, maybe it does. You really like my music?”

Jac remembered that tone she’d once encouraged in everyone she met. Intimidation. Awe. Reverence. She hated the sound of it in Liz’s voice. “I love your music.”

“Thank you. Coming from—”

“Please don’t.” Another reason she hadn’t told Liz. She already sensed a subtle imbalance of authority between them because of Liz’s turning to her for help with the CD. She wanted a friend, not a fan.

“Is Winters your maiden name?”

“No. Richards is. I never took my husband’s last name.” He’d been angry, but she’d held her ground. “Winters is my mother’s maiden name. I wanted to make it hard for the press to find me. I couldn’t deal with all that after the accident.” Or now.

Liz was quiet and then asked, “Why do you blog jazz instead of classical?”

“Don’t quote me, but it’s more interesting.”

“Why didn’t you go back to performing?”

“It took a year for me to go completely blind.” A year of doctors assuring her she wouldn’t lose her sight. A year of debilitating migraines on top of the excruciating back pain. More and more days of darkening vision until one day the shadowy grayness was gone, too. Damn experts. “Longer for me to recover from the back injury.” They told her she’d never walk without a limp. “All my energy went into rehab and building a new life.”

“But you play.”

“Once in a while.” Guilt jabbed her again. Not the whole truth, but she couldn’t have that discussion tonight. She needed to take muscle relaxers and the heavy-duty pain medication, and go to bed before the back pain incapacitated her.

Liz was quiet again. Was she deciding if she wanted to be friends? Was Peg wrong that she’d understand?

“I need to be honest with you, too. I told my dad who you are.”

“What?” Her pulse skyrocketed and her back seized as she jerked up straight.

“I told him you were the
Jazz Notes
blogger. I’m sorry. I was upset by something he said and it just came out. I should have told you sooner, but I was afraid you’d stop helping me with the CD.”

Relief soothed the flood of adrenaline. Of course Liz couldn’t have told him her real identity. “In the scope of things, that’s a transgression worth excusing. Please don’t tell him who I am.”

“I promise. I also put your name on the album as co-producer.” A pause and then, “Does that look mean you’re amused or about to throw me out?”

Jac realized she’d raised her eyebrow, tilted her head, and crossed her arms. A look the press had labeled imperious. “Why?”

“I felt dishonest taking all the credit. I figured since no one knows you’re behind the blog, it wouldn’t do any harm. It still won’t.” She paused. “Except I broke a promise I made to you.”

“Let’s call it even.” Should she tell Liz the rest while she had this opening? Her back muscles spasmed and she slumped back against her recliner, tilting it back to ease the pain. She wasn’t up to it tonight.

“Can we be friends?”

“I’d like that.” In a few minutes Liz would be gone and the darkness would be all she had.

“Can I stay here a bit longer?”

She really needed to go to bed.

“Sorry. You’ve probably had enough of me for one—”

“Stay.” She’d have to wait to take the medications because they made her drowsy, but it was a small price to pay for more time with Liz. Two hours of talking music, some laughing, a bit of arguing as Liz’s intimidation faded, and then Liz said good night with a long hug. No sooner had Liz left than Peg came to check on her.

“I’m exhausted and my back’s bad.”

“I told you she’d understand. I’m proud of you.”

“Don’t be. I didn’t tell her all of it.”

“It’s a start,” Peg said after Jac shared what she told Liz.

In the bathroom she swallowed a pain pill and a muscle relaxer. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she lifted the lid on the music box Liz had given her Saturday, a thank-you for helping with the CD. “Fond Memories,” her favorite song from the album because of Liz’s solo, filled her heart with a longing she hadn’t felt since those months with Maria.