1. (continued)
"Is there magic in the moon?" Zelda wondered. She was standing on the pebbled stepping stones in the small plot of garden outside their motel room. She gazed enraptured at the heavens.
"Of course there's magic in it," Rhonda said from the open sliding-glass door, leaning against the frame. She sipped from her empty wine glass. "How do you suppose it could float in the sky if it had no magic? It would fall like a rock."
"Maybe it's... like a bubble."
"No it's the eye of a god."
"But it's name is Luna. A girl's name. It would be a goddess if--"
"No difference. God or goddess, all the same. Magic is magic. It's, um... gender neutral." She took another sip from her empty glass. "What did she say when you called her? Is she glad that Cleo's in town?"
Zelda lowered her hands. She had held them under her chin as if beseeching a favor from the full moon. Now the spell had been broken. Or had it? She went over to the wrought iron chair. "I don't think she cares anything at all about Cleo, one way or the other," she said, touching the chair as though to see if it would allow her to sit in it. "She didn't know his name."
"Manly's?"
"She thought it was Joseph."
"You told her that he was the new assistant professor of music, I heard you. Oh come. You DIDN'T neglect to tell her that he was with Cleo tonight, DID you? Oh Zelda, really! That was the whole reason--"
"But I just couldn't. You saw how she felt about him at the party. She was so glad to hear that he's working in her step-dad's department. She told me she's going to enroll!"
Rhonda stared into her empty wine glass. "Yes," she mused, "you informed me of that right away." She took a sip. "But she won't. She came here to work in the accounts receivable office of Apollo Glass Works. It pays good. Why would she want to saddle herself with tuition debt just to bump into Manly in the corridors?"
Zelda very slowly sat in the chair, her expression apologetic. "I think he's... very good looking."
"I won't argue that. If she wants--" Rhonda looked with amused suspicion at Zelda. "If you like him, why didn't you tell her that he was with Cleo? For God's sake, he went to her house. Her grandma's house anyway."
Zelda gave her a puzzled look. "Why would I do that?"
Rhonda rolled her eyes, twirling the stem of her wine glass. "If she wants to meet Manly, she only has to ask her step-dad to arrange it. No need to enroll."
Zelda gazed at the moon.
"Why this sudden determination?" her step-father asked her.
"I--"
"Who was that on the phone?"
"Z--"
"It's all due to my new assistant, I dare suspect," he said. He took off his tweed coat and looked around at the sitting room furniture. "Did she tell you that Professor Strong is fond of you? Well, fond of Traci."
"Who's Traci?" she asked quickly, taking her hand away from the piano as if it had burned her fingers.
"He meant you, that was quite clear. I didn't correct him. Frankly I was not sure he was entirely suitable for you. It was our third interview. How he knew I had a step-daughter I can't imagine unless one of your friends told him. Who was that on the phone?"
"It--"
"Rhonda Salsberger, no doubt."
"Zelda. Zelda Peach."
He smiled, tossing his coat on the backrest of the ottoman. "That party you went to last year. Cut your ankle."
"I didn't do it. Cleo Nelson-Chutsby did it. Mr Piedmont knows her grandfather."
"I'm well aware of who among the alumni Mr Piedmont knows. Why this sudden determination to enroll? Mind you, I've nothing against it, except that you've landed a good position at Apollo. Is it because of Professor Storm?"
She crossed her arms, her chin on her chest. "I don't know any Traci. I didn't hear any such name at the party."
"I've explained that. It's because... Look, I'm going to bed. I've a faculty meeting tomorrow morning early."
When he came up to her she dropped her arms, but she didn't lift her head when he bent down to kiss her on the cheek. This bothered him. He ran a hand down her sleek amber hair and pinched her lightly on the chin. She looked up and smiled wearily.
"Goodnight, Dad," she said.
Cleo felt a volt of sheer terror blazing in her veins the very moment the credits ended. It was good to get that over with. She looked at Manly with the comfortable calmness she felt when looking at her brother. "Well, what do you think of the score?"
She studied his noncommittal expression as he drained the bottle and held it on his knee. She knew the innuendo embedded in the word 'score.' She used it for exactly that purpose.
"I guess I know why you advised seeing this particular movie," he said. "The piano solo. It was a shade too modernist for my taste."
"You didn't like the score?" she asked in a husky whisper, her shoulder touching his. He looked at her with the faintest smile. Was he onto her game? It wasn't the theme music that prompted her to pick that movie, not entirely. It was the rather slipshod romance between the young business executive and the hippie girl, the girl whose life seemed perfectly aimless.
"Overall I wasn't impressed," he said. "It was just a noise in the background, a not too unpleasant noise, like a clutter of wind chimes. It didn't really match the mood of Bryan or Charlie. The piano started up whenever there was a lull in the dialogue. It was filler, and not much else."
"You hate the score. Honestly I hardly even noticed it. What did you think of Charlie?"
She gave up on 'score.' It was going nowhere. The hippie girl might be the key.
Manly looked straight ahead and tilted back his head. She recognized the signs. He was intrigued by the character of Charlie. A free spirit. That 'don't give a fuck' attitude. Manly was smiling crookedly, like when he first spoke to her on the sidewalk. She had a fleeting sense of guilt for not going on to the Moosehead market for granny's skim milk, but granny had forgotten about it, too. Nothing mattered if it was forgotten. How peaceful and uncomplicated the world would be if everyone just... forgot.
"I liked how she changed her name," Manly said with a floating sort of gaze. "Her real name didn't fit her idea of the hippie life. Gertrude. Too old-fashioned. Too stodgy. Too established. 'Charlie' was just right. She even referred to herself as 'Chuck' once, in the restaurant scene."
She ran her tongue over her lips. "Do you think 'Cleo' is a good name for a hippie girl?"
He gave her a pensive nod. Then after a long moment he said, looking at her with narrowed eyes, "But that's your birth name."
Somehow she lost her psychological hold on him. It was the old excuse about having to get up early for a meeting that took him away from her room, from the house after a curious lingering glance at the dying fire in the hearth. She walked with him down the porch steps to the sidewalk and watched him stare at the abandoned house next door. She felt a twinge of foreboding.
"A suitable place for a Halloween party," he said. He turned to her and asked with an unexpected seriousness, "Does anyone own it?"
She started to say who but then laughed. It was a laugh of aggravation. "Mr Piedmont. He owns everything you show an interest in."
That pensive nod again. She cringed. Had it been a mistake to watch the movie?
Then it seemed his turn to laugh. It was almost soundless, more an expression than a sound. A crow had glided down to the willow. Cleo noticed the thin branches dripping water where the crow had settled. Evidently it had rained lightly during the movie. She searched the dark grey sky for the moon. Four or five stars twinkled in a patch of blackness. Near them in the brooding grey masses was a faint silvery glow. Manly was staring at the crow. What was it about the crow that he found amusing? Was it his mention of Halloween that made the crow's appearance amusingly coincidental?
She didn't ask. He waved at her, thanking her for the "nice evening," and saying, "let's stay in touch."
"Do you need a ride? It might rain again."
He looked back at her as he was passing the chain link fence of the overgrown yard and said, "I don't mind if it rains."
There was a mist beginning to form as Manly Storm turned the corner of Main and began his walk down Almond Street. Every house had a tree in the yard. Most were elms. Looking at the water in the gutter he thought of Holland and its dikes.
Ingrid Brabant, the prodigy. A free spirit? Well, she certainly didn't give a fuck what he thought about her technique. Or was she playing him as radically as she played the piano? He smiled at that. If he only knew her better...
He knew how she performed on the keyboard. He knew about the bright golden lustre of her long hair and how she tossed it to and fro when she played; her fingers like slender white piranha darting at the keys in a feeding frenzy. He knew the fidgety concern of her mother and the silent burning envy of her little sister, Chantal. If there was one thing that Ingrid coveted besides the pianist chair in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, it was her sister's name. She thought it beautiful. 'Ingrid' was so old-fashioned, so stodgy, so... established. Too, she was in America now. No, in California. She had no intention of going back to the Netherlands, not until she had made a name for herself. In fact, he thought with a soundless laugh, she already had. She wasn't Ingrid anymore. Not in her own mind, she wasn't. She was 'Traci.'
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