couldn't help it either. Luis came to my hotel suite that evening. He was charming, sweet, full of regrets and explanations. It had been the strain of being without me for so long-not that that was an excuse for his unfaithfulness, he assured me. But he'd been so lonely, so vulnerable, and my doubts and questions had only added to the strain. The other women, they had only been substitutes for me.'
She snatched her glass off the table. 'Can you imagine a woman with a single working brain cell falling for that?'
Tucker took a chance and smiled at her. 'Yeah.'
She stopped, stared at him, then began to laugh. 'Of course you would. And, of course I did. He was still the only man who'd ever made love to me. Maybe if I'd had a few flings myself, I wouldn't have been so ready to fall back into the pattern. Maybe if I'd had the same confidence in myself as a woman that I had as a musician, I'd have shown him the door. But I agreed to put all the mistakes behind us, to start fresh. We even talked about marriage. Oh, in a very distant, diluted sort of way. When the time was right, he would say. When things fell into place. And because he asked me, I committed to another tour.'
A little surprised, she looked down at her wine. 'I'm getting drunk.'
'That's all right, I'll drive. Tell me the rest.'
She leaned back against the counter. 'Luis would be the conductor, I the featured artist. It would be grueling, of course, but we'd be together. And wasn't that the important thing? Dr. Palamo-I had just started to see him- advised against it. What I needed was rest and quiet. I had this nasty little ulcer, you see. And the headaches, insomnia, fatigue. It was all stress, and he made it quite clear that going right back on the road would only make matters worse. I didn't listen.'
'He should have tossed you into a hospital and chained you to a bed.'
'He'd like you.' Amused, she sipped more wine.
'My mother threw a party the night before we left. She was in her element and had a grand time, hinting that it was really an engagement party. Luis responded to that with a lot of winking and hearty laughter. And off we went. As I said, Luis is a brilliant conductor, demanding, moody, but absolutely brilliant. We started in Europe, triumphant. After the first week he moved into his own suite-my insomnia made it difficult for him to get much rest.'
'Slimy bastard.'
'Not slimy,' Caroline corrected him meticulously. 'Slick. Very slick. The rest I'll go along with. On a professional level he was a tremendous asset to me. He pushed me musically. He said I was the finest artist he'd ever worked with, but I could be better. He would mold me, sculpt me.'
'Why didn't he buy himself some Play-Doh?'
She chuckled. 'I wish I'd asked. To give him his due, he never once stinted on his dedication to improving my performance. He did start to slide when it came to treating me like a woman. I started to feel like an instrument, something he would tune and polish and restring. I was so tired, and sick, and unsure. It annoyed the hell out of him when I'd turn up for rehearsal looking exhausted and frail. It annoyed me, too. It annoyed me to see those pitying glances from the other musicians, the road crew.
'I performed well, really well. Most of the tour is just a haze of theaters and hotel rooms, but I know I performed as well as I ever had, perhaps better than I ever will again. I picked up some sort of infection along the way and lived on antibiotics and fruit juice and music. We stopped sleeping together completely. He said I was simply not giving him my best. And he was right. Then he assured me that when the tour was over, we'd go away. So I lived on that. The end of the tour, the two of us lying on some warm beach together.
'But I didn't make it to the end of the tour. We were in Toronto, three-quarters done. I was awfully sick, and I was afraid I wouldn't get through the night's performance. I'd fainted in my dressing room. It scared me to wake up and find myself lying on the floor.'
'Jesus Christ, Caroline.' He started to get up, but she shook her head.
'It sounds worse than it was. I wasn't an invalid, I was just so tired. And I had one of those vicious headaches that make you want to curl up in a ball and cry. I kept thinking it was only one performance, only one, and if I went to him, if I explained, he'd understand. So I went to him, but he was also lying on his dressing room floor. Only he was lying on top of the flutist. They never even saw me,' she said half to herself, then shrugged. 'Just as well. I wasn't strong enough to face a confrontation. Anyway, I went on that night. A stellar performance. Three encores, standing ovations, six curtain calls. There might have been more, but when the curtain came down the last time, so did I. The next thing I remember, I was waking up in the hospital.'
'Someone should have put him in the hospital.'
'It wasn't him. He was just one more symptom. It was me. Me and my pitiful need to do what was expected of me. Luis hadn't made me sick. I had done it. Diagnosis-exhaustion.' With a restless movement of her shoulders she walked back to the table to pour more wine, carefully shaking out the last drops. 'I found that humiliating. Somehow it wouldn't have been as bad if I'd had a tumor or some rare exotic disease. They ran scads of tests, poked and prodded and scanned, but it all came down to plain old exhaustion complicated by stress. Dr. Palamo flew up to treat me himself. No 'I-told-you-so's' from him. Just competent, compassionate care. He actually booted Luis out of the room once.' Tucker lifted his glass. 'Here's to Dr. Palamo.'
'He was good to me, good for me. If I needed to cry, he just let me cry. And when I needed to talk, he listened. He isn't a psychiatrist, and though he recommended one, I felt so comfortable talking just to him. When he felt the time was right, he had me transferred to a hospital in Philadelphia. It was really more like what they used to call a rest home. My mother told everyone I was recuperating at a villa on the Riviera. So much more sophisticated.'
'Caroline, I have to tell you, I don't think I like your mother.'
'That's all right, she wouldn't like you either. She did her duty, though. She came to see me three times a week. My father would call every night, even if he'd been to visit. The tour went on without me, and the press played up the collapse, and the fact that Luis was now snuggled up tight with the flutist. He did send flowers, along with romantic little notes. He didn't have any idea I'd seen him with her.
'It took about three months before I was well enough to go home. I guess I was still a little wobbly, but I felt stronger than I ever had in my life. I began to understand that I'd allowed myself to be treated like a victim. That I'd permitted the exploitation of what should have been cherished as a gift. My talent was mine, my life was mine. My feelings were mine. God, I can't tell you what an epiphany that was. When the lawyers contacted me about my grandmother, I knew what I wanted to do. What I was going to do.
'When I told my mother, she was livid. I didn't just stand up to her, Tucker, which was really all I'd hoped for. I stood in that damn, prissy sitting room of hers and I shouted, I raged, I demanded. Naturally, I apologized. Old habits die hard, but I stuck with what I needed for myself. And I headed south.'
'To Innocence.'
'By way of Baltimore. I knew Luis was there, doing some guest-conducting. I called ahead, so he'd be expecting me. Oh, he was thrilled, delighted. When I got to his suite, he had an intimate dinner set up. I threw a glass of champagne at him, then I really cut loose. It felt wonderful. He was incensed enough to follow me out into the hall when I left. The man in the room across the hall-I never did get his name-came out and saw Luis trying to drag me back into the room. He decked him.' With her eyes half closed, she pantomimed a right jab. 'One shot to that perfectly chiseled jaw, and Luis was down for the count.'
'Buy that man a drink.'
'That would have been proper, I suppose, but I was still revving on instinct. I did something else I'd never done in my life. I grabbed him-a complete stranger-and kissed him full on the lips. Then I walked away.'
'And how did you feel?'
'Free.' With a sigh she sat again. There was no trace of the headache, she realized. Her stomach wasn't knotted, her muscles weren't tense. 'I still have moments, like with that phone call, when I lose that feeling. You don't dump all your baggage at once. But I know I'm never going back to the way I was.'
'Good.' He lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles. 'I like the way you are now.'
'So do I, mostly.' Her glass had sweated a ring on the table. Caroline traced patterns in the moisture. 'I may never heal the rift with my mother, and that's hard. But I've found something here.'
'Peace and quiet?' he said, and made her smile.
'Right. There's nothing like a few murders to calm things down. Roots,' she said, glancing up. 'I know that sounds silly since I spent only a few days here as a child. But shallow roots are better than none.'
