1. (continued)
The Other Girl stepped down onto the station platform. Apparently she was the only passenger getting off in Petersville.
There was just a crow-- or was it a raven?-- there to greet her. It was perched on a post of the white plastic fence at the farther end of the platform, cocking its head at her.
"On time for once," a cranky voice said, and at first she thought the crow had spoken to her. It could not be a raven, the town was just too unremarkable for ravens. But there was the reflection of the full moon in a thin puddle of water in the bricks along the fence, with the crow's beak cutting into the moon like a cake knife. It was that time of year when whatever magic there is in one's life begins to manifest.
"Enjoy your trip?" asked her step-father. He came slowly across the brick platform in a wrinkled beige trench coat and brown fedora, a rolled up newspaper in the hand that wasn't in his coat pocket. As usual he was his dapper self, tall, slender, like a movie star from the 1940s, his hair and pencil-thin mustache as white as the moon.
Also as usual he didn't wait for her to reply. "Have you any luggage besides that little suitcase and overnight bag?" he wondered, taking the suitcase from her and turning toward the station doors.
She shook her head just as he started talking again. "It's been a week of acquisitions." They walked along together. "A new assistant in my department and a new housemaid."
"Did that piano prodigy from Holland show up?" she asked.
"Like a sunrise," he said.
He had driven over to the train depot in his Thunderbird, a 1959 model. He was very proud of it. When they reached the house and were parked in the two-car garage, she bent over in her seat to pull up her right stocking. She saw the deep scar just above her ankle bone. She sighed. It was never going to get any better. She could not wear shorts or a skirt and go barefoot or wear sandals, not ever again. People would be sure to question her if she did. She could lie and say she was bitten by a bulldog, but she hated lies. Ever since her third grade teacher lied to her about the prize in the penmanship contest she couldn't even think of lying, or put up with a liar for one second.
"Darling?" said her step father, at the connecting door to the laundry room. "Coming?"
She opened her mouth to answer, her hand on the car door handle, but as usual he interrupted. "Corrine made a dinner for you before she left. The new maid." He went in, leaving the door open.
"Something's bothering you," Cleo said, trying not to sound exasperated. They had selected a DVD and her finger was inches away from the play button when she just couldn't stand it a moment longer.
She straighted and turned to face him. He had not sat down in the love seat. He stood by the bedroom door that she had left open. Granny wouldn't hear anything, even from the stair landing, and it seemed the proper thing to do leaving open the door. Manly smiled at her, leaning his shoulders against the wall, one ankle crossed over the other. He tilted his head.
"School business," he said at last. "A student from Holland. Extremely talented pianist. Wants to be a concert pianist. Very stubborn. Set in her ways. But if she refuses to listen to me I don't think she'll be tolerated by an orchestra conductor. That was her problem in Holland. Her mother thinks a change of scenery will make a difference. I doubt it."
He saw that she wasn't satisfied with his answer. He took a chance. "It's not about what's bothering me," he said, "it's what's bothering YOU."
Cleo looked surprised and just a little offended, though she tried to hide the latter. Manly added quickly, "But it's really none of my business. Let's watch the movie. You said something about popcorn..."
"Do you remember when we met? At the party?"
It was in the patio. Plastic jack-o-lanterns hung from the eaves of the patio roof. Most of the revelers were out on the sand in their costumes, making a bonfire with presto logs. Cleo was half-sitting on the low railing in the corner by the refreshments table. He had just come back from the park restroom, after admiring the Thunderbird under the royal palms. He mentioned the car to his friend, Josephus (he insisted on the Latin version because Joe came dressed as a Roman senator). Cleo overheard him and said in a loud voice: "Mr Piedmont's car. He's the president of Ganesha College, in Petersville. He knows my grandfather. I hear he's thinking of selling it. Interested?"
Manly smiled at the appropriatness of his costume in comparison to this slightly drunk girl's. He was dressed in an 18th century suit, lace at the sleeve cuffs and collar, a pigtailed powdered wig, a fair imitation of an oversized Mozart. She was dressed as Moll Flanders. Her mild drunkenness fit the role perfectly. He went up to her.
"My name's--"
"Beethoven!" she laughed.
"Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And who do I have the pleasure--?"
"I don't remember! Would you sell your harpsichord to buy the Thunderbird?"
"It's a piano," he said stiffly. "Your mention of Mr Piedmont..."
The Other Girl stepped between them. She paused to stare at him, a finger and thumb on the frame of her glasses. She smiled a breathful of liquor. In the next moment she was gone. Rhonda took her arm and escorted her to the limbo pit.
Cleo watched them for a cold moment, then brightened her expression for him. "Yes, the college president."
"I was a music teacher at Golden West Community College in Huntington Beach," he said succinctly. He was still comporting himself like he imagined Mozart. "I'm looking for another college to ply my trade. Do you know Mr Piedmont personally?"
"Oh somewhat," she said, "through my grandfather. They went to school together. I'm thinking--"
The Other Girl was back. She faced him with her head down, looking up at him from under her eyelashes. He liked how her short chestnut-colored hair lay flat on her head and cheeks. She was dressed like a 1920s flapper, and so was Rhonda.
"Do you mind?" said Cleo, standing up, her hand on the refreshments table.
The Other Girl ignored her.
"----" said Rhonda, calling her name. "We're signing up for the limbo contest. There's a prize!"
The Other Girl turned and took one step toward Rhonda. "SURE there is," she said in a tone of skepticism, almost of loathing.
Cleo sighed angrily. She tried to get her happy composure back. "I'm thinking that you ought to visit my grandparents in Petersville. I can take you. And I'll have Grandad invite Mr Piedmont over for dinner. That way--"
He was taken aback by the boldness of the Other Girl. She was right there in his face, leaning forward for a kiss, her lips just slightly puckered.
Rhonda laughed. "You're pickled!" she said. "Come on."
"Yes, go on!" shouted Cleo.
The Other Girl turned around to look at her, leaning back against Manly's chest, rubbing him with her shoulders. He could tell by Cleo's furious expression that the Other Girl was giving her a superior, triumphant look.
It happened then. The 'accident.' He saw it clearly. The smashing sound, the Other Girl jumping sideways, grimacing, her eyes stunned, the blood on her ankle, Rhonda coming up to take hold of her...
"Yes, I remember," Manly said. "Shall we pop some corn?"
Alone at the dining room table, the Other Girl tapped her cell phone. "Zelda. Hello..."
She half listened while watching her step-father dusting off the piano keys in the front sitting room, closing its cover, adjusting the framed photo of his first wife, deceased, that stood on top of the upright.
"Who?" she said, intrigued. Zelda's shy voice had all her attention now. "But I don't remember a Manly Storm. It must've been someone else. Who would be likely to forget a name like that?"
She smiled at the nervous excitement urging itself into her ear.
Then she sat back in her chair, her face slack, her eyes enlarging behind her bifocals.
"Oh. Oh... Yes... I DO remember now. But I thought his name was Joseph... My God I was drunk. I must've been so..." She leaned forward with her elbows to either side of her plate, the fingers of her left hand caressing the lip of her glass of iced tea. "Oh I know. Oh for SURE. She was insanely jealous. Did you see her throw that glass pitcher at my feet? I've such an awful scar... What? Say that again?"
She straightened her back. Her hand gripped the glass of tea tightly. Her face glowed in all its rather ordinary prettiness. She looked across at her step-father. He was closing the window drapes and shaking his head at some distressful yet humorous thought.
"Well then I've made up my mind," she said in a voice that was as vindictive as it was gratefully enlightened. "Professor Storm. Dad will know all about him. And you know what, I'm going to enroll. Suddenly I'm burning up with musical ambition."
"Butter and salt?" Cleo asked him in a rhetorical manner. She was already taking the butter tray from the fridge. "The salt shaker's on the bottom shelf of the cabinet to your right."
Manly had said hardly a word during the popping corn process. She had gone on about the party, the limbo idiocy as she called it, and the arrival of the bikers that made an amusing chaos of everything. That's when they separated. Manly went off with the Roman senator to admire the Thunderbird, "didn't you?" she asked, putting the pan of hard butter on the stove fire. "I'm sure you did."
"Mr Piedmont sold it to one of the teachers, I heard. Joe told me. He doesn't know which one." But that didn't matter to him. He was seeing the Other Girl walking around in a slow circle in the palm grove by the parking lot, sipping a cup of coffee and gesturing to her heavily bandaged ankle. Rhonda, angry, made signs of helplessness. Joe was anxious to leave. The row of motorcycles made him feel silly wearing a toga and a laurel wreath. And so they left... a year ago. Not quite a year ago. It seemed like last week.
Granny was watching TV in her bedroom and was probably asleep by now. They went hurriedly upstairs.
Manly sat in the loveseat with a paper bowl full of popcorn, a bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade wedged between his thigh and the side of the stuffed armrest. The movie started just as Cleo sat beside him, as if she had choreographed it to happen that way. She commented on the opening strains of the theme music as she pressed her hip against his.
"You'll have to tell me what you think of the score when the credits are scrolling by," she insisted.
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