‘You don’t have to explain,’ I say quietly, my heart almost aching for him. ‘I’ll go talk to Mr Stenborg.’ I head over to where Paul Stenborg is standing holding a clipboard, a cool messenger bag slung across today’s arty ensemble of striped shirtsleeves, buttoned-up waistcoat and slim-fitting dark trousers, eight-up Doc Martens. He’s like something out of the Prohibition era, a studiously tousled gangster. Spencer trails me uncertainly across the hall and stands some distance away, as if there exists some unspoken moratorium on him approaching his choir master any more closely.
‘Paul?’ I say brightly.
The man swings around, late afternoon sunshine glinting off his steel-framed glasses, his ruffled Nordic hair. His answering smile does it to me again, suspends time for a moment, the way Luc can, the totality of the man really quite heart-stopping. It hits me again, somewhere in the region of the solar plexus, how beautiful he is. And how rare is such beauty.
I give myself a mental shake as he smiles and holds out a hand to me. Charmed by the gesture, I retain my wits enough to neglect to take it, and after a moment he lowers it back to his side.
‘Carmen,’ he says good-naturedly, not discomfited in the least by my unwillingness to get any closer to him.
‘Thank you for being such a good sport. Spencer’s always needed a little more … encouragement than most.’ From the corner of my eye I see Spencer stare down at the floor, wounded, scuffing a semicircle with one double-knotted, well-tended boat shoe.
‘But he is the best tenor we have at Port Marie High.’ Paul Stenborg’s voice is apologetic as he stage whispers, ‘ Sadly.’ Not caring if Spencer can hear. He smiles broadly. ‘Now what can I do for you? You passed our wicked little test with flying colours, I must say. Gerard and I were talking about you before the rehearsal began and it was his idea to push you a little.’ As if he can hear what Paul’s saying, Gerard Masson looks up and catches my eye, giving me a conspiratorial wink and a thumbs up from across the room.
Paul catches the gesture and smiles at his colleague before continuing smoothly, ‘Now we know for certain what a remarkable range you have. Ellen Dustin did intimate how truly special you are, but we really had no idea until this afternoon. You have a range of over three octaves, surely? With ease, I should say.’ My answering smile is politely noncommittal, for who knows what Carmen is capable of without me? I can hardly separate the strands of us enough to reply definitively.
‘Would it be okay if Spencer and I did a little extra, um, practice?’ I improvise. ‘He just wants to consolidate some of the stuff we did today and we can use one of the practice rooms here. My host family can always run him home later …’ Paul Stenborg’s face assumes an arrested expression, which changes almost immediately to one of open amusement. ‘That’s very noble of you, my dear. But it won’t do much good — wiser heads than yours have tried and failed to improve him. Still, knock yourself out. You have my gratitude. And you’ll have to tell me how you get on …’ As Spencer and I leave the hall together, I can’t help but look back at Paul, his back to us, standing there in a shaft of sunlight like something out of a living painting by Vermeer. He suddenly breaks the illusion of stillness by turning and openly meeting my gaze. Anyone else would have blushed at being caught staring. But this is me we’re talking about, and I’ve always liked beautiful things. Know it for a truth.
I startle an answering look on the man’s face of …admiration? It’s hard to tell, because he looks away and it’s as if the room has gone dark just for a moment. Like the sun’s gone behind a cloud.
Chapter 16
‘I’m surprised he hasn’t asked you out for a coffee yet,’ Spencer says glumly as we walk towards Paradise’s main drag, battling a head wind that, by all rights, should knock Carmen off her size 35 feet.
‘So he really does, uh, do that?’ I say, intrigued to hear the same scuttlebutt twice.
The streets littered with broken hearts. I think it, but I don’t say it.
‘Yeah,’ Spencer replies through gritted teeth as we stumble through the swing doors of a faded, nautically themed joint called Decades Cafe. It’s deserted save for a lone, heavy-set female staffer perched behind the counter devouring a lurid celebrity mag. She barely looks up as we walk by.
‘He’s always going on and on about “genuine talent” and how rare it is. How it has to be nurtured, like a flower.’ Spencer’s voice is bitter as he recounts his choirmaster’s words. ‘But I wouldn’t know because he’s never asked me to go for a coffee and isn’t likely to. A, because I’m a guy, and B, because I’m just a no-talent filler. He’s made that pretty plain all the way along.’ We swing into an empty booth up the back, me facing the door, back to the wall. I don’t know why; it’s automatic, like breathing. The waitress throws down her reading material to take our order after a longer than polite interval. I order what Spencer’s having, because I don’t remember how I take my coffee, or even if I like coffee. I just know that people drink it a lot and that at some time, in some life, I must have tried it. The woman grunts something unintelligible at us in reply before stumping away.
‘You know he used to teach at some big-name school before he came here?’ Spencer continues, his face and voice thawing a little as our coffee arrives. Two steaming cups of oily black stuff that he proceeds to spoon three sugars into. When he’s done with the sugar bowl, I do the exact same, struggling not to screw up my face when I take a sip. It’s like industrial-strength floor cleaner, except sweet. Spencer inhales the steam and hugs the cup gratefully with both palms.
‘Oh, yeah?’ I say, stirring again for something to do with my hands. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘You should,’ he replies with surprise. ‘You’re really talented. One of those “genuine talents” he’s always going on about. He’s really connected, or at least that’s what I’ve heard.’
‘So what’s he doing here then?’ I query as I pretend to ingest more coffee, wincing a moment later when I realise how bald that sounds. Tact isn’t one of my strong points. You’ve probably gathered that.
Spencer gives a no-hard-feelings laugh. ‘The official story? He’d had it with the snobby stage mothers that send their daughters to that place. Too much angst, too much admin, too much flirting from cashed-up, middle- aged matrons who should know better. Preferred the simple life — if you believe that.’ I don’t, and curiosity makes me ask, ‘And the unofficial story?’
‘He had to leave because some student had fallen in love with him and was making his life hell. She was stalking him or something. A couple of thousand dirty text messages, almost that many physical confrontations and a restraining order later, and he’d had enough. She even lay in wait for him in his bedroom once, did you know that? Climbed in a window or something. He had to get the police to remove her from his home. It didn’t stop, so he left the school, left town. Moved as far away from her as he could possibly get. People fall in love with him all the time. And I’m not just talking the girls, either.
Don’t see the attraction personally.’ Spencer shoots me a crooked smile across the rim of his cup.
As interesting as Paul Stenborg is — like an exotic flower in the arid wilderness of Paradise and its surrounds — I’m here to test Spencer about Lauren. I’m eager to see what he knows, but I have to go carefully or risk spooking him, and this is one guy who’s easily spooked.
‘Hey, you know who I’m billeted with?’ I say gently, striving for casual. I tilt the surface of my coffee this way and that, as if it has the power to tell me the future.
Spencer looks up from the table. ‘No, who?’
‘The Daleys,’ I murmur, darting him a glance from under my eyelashes.
Spencer immediately goes pale and takes a big gulp of his still searing drink. He gasps a little as he wipes at the corner of his mouth, his tearing eyes, with the back of one hand.
‘Ryan said to say hey.’ It’s a gamble. I don’t know if Ryan knows Spencer from a can of worms, or vice versa.
‘Tell him, hey back,’ Spencer replies slowly, his eyes suddenly glued to the dark surface of his coffee. ‘They’re a really great family. So close. One of those storybook families that you wish you had. Were,’ he corrects hastily. ‘I haven’t had much to do with them since … well, you know.’ We sit in silence. Spencer fiddles with his watchband, looking devastated, then picks up his spoon and stirs his coffee again, just before he pushes his glasses back up his nose. The amount of tension he’s radiating would make anyone think he’d disposed of Lauren himself.
Maybe I’m onto something here.
‘They don’t really talk about her much,’ I continue quietly. ‘All I know is that they kept her room exactly the
