Jane Austen’s beloved characters… brought together… in 21st c. Atlanta.
Previous Story: “Tailgating Mr. Darcy”
Wait
Tom Bertram left the tailgate needing a cold shower. He never should have accepted that invitation – it was too severe a test after rehab to deny himself that many proffered drinks. After surviving Thanksgiving that week, he’d thought he was ready, and he was wrong. Add the full frontal assault of Isabella Thorpe’s perfectly sculpted cleavage, and decision fatigue had nearly finished him. Charles Bingley had seen his resolve fraying and adroitly introduced Isabella to another man eager to be shot down. Charles was a good friend. He wished he had what Charles and Jane had.
It was better that he hadn’t stayed for the afternoon game anyway, he thought as he unlocked his Tesla and collapsed in the seat, leaning his head against the steering wheel. Tonight was the big night. He was going to speak to her. Hadn’t he made it through that party without a drink? He sat up and looked out the windshield at the light glancing off the falling leaves. Maybe he had been ready for the tailgate, after all. He’d made it through successfully. Next time it wouldn’t be so hard. He had fallen and passed through a long winter of his life, but now he was a new man. She would see that and give him a chance.
He started the engine and glided out of the garage, merging with traffic on North Avenue, listening to the diminishing sound of the college band playing their crashing fight songs in Bobby Dodd Stadium. Atlanta traffic was bearable on Saturdays.
He wondered where she was right now. How did she prepare for an evening performance? Did she rest in the afternoon? Who were the people who traveled with her and took care of things? Did she stay in a hotel when she performed in Atlanta? Or did her brother put her up? Tom hadn’t spoken to Henry in ten years – not since Henry had played fast and loose with all the girls in Tom’s family.
What will she wear tonight? he wondered as he showered. Will she play an encore tonight? he thought as he selected a spread collar shirt and tie. Will she be available to talk afterwards? he hoped as he made himself a club soda with grapefruit juice. He pulled a meal pre-made by his nutritionist from the fridge and ate it standing at the counter, knowing that this wouldn’t change, that she wouldn’t see him. What did he think was going to happen? That the world’s leading concert harpist would suddenly give it all up to settle down with him? That he’d come home to find her cooking dinner and raising their kids?
He tossed the empty container in the trash and placed the fork in the dishwasher that held a week’s worth of forks and glasses. Maybe he’d run it tonight. The housekeeper was coming tomorrow and would put the dishes away.
In spite of misgivings, Tom turned off the lights and continued with the plan. He drove south from his high rise apartment on Peachtree Road, lights already twinkling for Christmas, past his favorite wine store in the Peachtree Battle Shopping Center, past Piedmont Hospital where he’d spent the initial part of his rehab, over the bridge that spanned I-85 where he’d nearly jumped one night two years ago, around the curve of Peachtree Street past First Presbyterian Church where he’d been baptized as an infant. He turned at the High Museum of Art where he’d spent many hours sketching the masters and joined the line of cars on 16th Street waiting to enter the parking garage.
The elevator opened onto the windy plaza between the white shining facade of the High Museum and the concrete Woodruff Arts Center where concert-goers scuttled through the swinging glass doors into the Christmas-swagged interior. Tom held the door for a group of women whose grateful smiles lingered in admiration on his impressive height. One woman looked twice and said in a depressed voice,
“Oh. Hi, Tom.”
He peered at her and detected a familiar face under the thick glasses. One of Elizabeth Darcy’s younger sisters. The unattractive, musical one. What was her name?
“Mary Bennet. How are you? You like the harp?”
“I am a pianist, as you know. The harp is essentially a piano standing on its end whose strings are plucked instead of struck with a felt hammer.”
Tom prepared for a lecture as he held the second set of doors for her.
“I find Mary Crawford’s adaptations of organ and piano music for the harp to be masterful. Have you ever heard her play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor?”
“In Berlin. She performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker and played that as an encore. It was extraordinary.”
“You’ve seen her play it live?” A new respect for Tom dawned on Mary Bennet’s pinched face. “I’ve only ever seen it on YouTube. Though I guess my view of her fingering was closer than yours from the audience.” Mary regarded Tom curiously. “Did you know Mary Crawford growing up? I was too young to run in her circles, but you might have known her…”
“I did – we haven’t kept in touch. She used to play pretty often for our family at home when we were younger. You might remember that she and her brother were orphaned as teenagers, and my parents sponsored them for a while.”
Mary’s face dropped as all the gossip she’d heard growing up returned to mind.
“Ah. You do remember. We do not keep in touch with her brother Henry any more.”
“How is your sister Maria? And their – her – child?”
“Both are well, thank you. Eddie is ten years old now. Yes, named for my younger brother. I was not the hero of that story.”
“And your brother Edmund and Fanny are…”
“Happily married and well, thank you. Ed pastors a church on the Westside, and Fanny writes comedic histories for children. They have two kids now.”
They had reached the door of Symphony Hall and queued to show their tickets. “Well, you’ve really turned your life around since those days, haven’t you,” Mary said while locating her ticket on her iPhone.
This conversation had now exceeded the maximum politeness requirement for a friend’s sister. “Where are you sitting, Mary?” He glanced at her ticket. “Ah, I’m on the other side of the house. It was good seeing you. Enjoy the performance.”
He stepped into the yawning Symphony Hall – formerly renowned for its terrible acoustics before installing its $500,000 acoustical shell courtesy of the Darcy Foundation – and moved down the left aisle toward the third row where he had selected his seat.
Early in his career of following Mary Crawford, he had learned that sitting right of center commanded an excellent view of a harpist’s finger-work. But from that angle, Mary’s hair fell over her face, so anyone in love with her would need to sit left of center.
He scooted past a dozen already-settled patrons as the lights dimmed and the cacophony of strings rehearsing, woodwinds squawking, and brass blasting arpeggios resolved itself into a single reedy A440 that the rest of the instruments matched in pitch. Following a silence, the conductor walked to center stage amid polite applause and bowed before taking the podium.
Music directors always did this: The soloist draws the crowd, but they saved her until the second half. The first half of the concert consisted of an orchestral piece Tom didn’t care about followed by some contemporary composition to educate the audience that absolutely no one cared about. He began to plan his week as the pastoral notes of Dvorak’s American Suite passed over him.
By the time he’d finished mentally writing the upcoming speech to his board of directors, the conductor had been applauded and resumed his position. Tom glanced at his program – this next piece was by someone named Julia Perry. At least she had died back in the 1970s, so this music might have stood the test of time. It was entitled A Short Piece for Orchestra. Well, it had that going for it. Tom waited with a modicum of hope for the opening notes — but his expectations were met with a noise from the stage that sounded more like a traffic jam than music. He returned to his speech.
The intermission, like a seventh inning stretch, allowed him to awaken a bit and remind himself why he didn’t simply skip the first part of these events: purchasers of the cheap seats were descending en masse to the closer, empty seats they had noticed during the first half. The one time he’d arrived during intermission involved a tussle for his seat with an elderly woman, an experience he would never willingly repeat.
The stage crew rolled Mary’s harp onto the stage and placed it left of the podium. When she took her seat in a few minutes, Tom would be able to see her face through the strings of her instrument as she watched her fingers fly.
The lights dipped in the signal that his life was about to resume. After the conductor, she would take the stage and be seated a few yards from him, her vivacity filling the room. The silence stretched Tom’s nerves as he waited for her to appear.
The clicking of her heels offstage heralded her entrance met by enthusiastic shouts, drumming of feet, and wild applause as she strode to her instrument. Her gauzy black gown flowed around her, and she curtsied deeply to the audience.
Tom sat transfixed by her beauty as she arranged the swaths of her dress and stretched her fingers across the strings. She nodded to the conductor, and Reinholt Glière’s Concerto for Harp and Orchestra in E Flat Major began as if mid-kiss in a schmaltzy 1940s love scene. The music flowed through Mary’s fingers, and the passion on her face reflected the urgency of the arpeggios as they reached higher in ever-increasing climaxes. Resplendent, transcendent, magnificent. How could this woman whom he’d alienated with his inebriety ever turn to him? When he spoke to her tonight, her expressive eyes would tell him if he had a chance: to stay or to leave – he would know.
Tom leaned in his seat and traveled with Mary over the landscape of the music, visiting every note and exploring every chord with her. He was no musician, but his body responded with thrills to the glissandos as her elegant hands flew over the strings. The final rush of notes culminating in the stately closing chords left the audience breathless before they leapt to their feet with shouts of “Brava!! Brava!!” – applauding, beating their programs on seats, crying in amazement at her virtuosity.
Four curtain calls later, Tom thought she looked tired, ready for it to end. She still would not give an encore and did not emerge for a fifth curtain call. Perhaps she would be too tired to see him, he thought, anticipating and outwitting disappointment. He filed out of his row with the other patrons and stood by the stage door in the hallway. This had to be timed right. He wanted to catch her before she left her dressing room but to wait until the halls had cleared of departing musicians. He didn’t want their first conversation to be observed by the whole orchestra.
Tom allowed a pushy mother to take her little prodigies in front of him through the door where she glanced around and then headed down the stairs to the dressing rooms. About a dozen other intrepid souls followed her, and Tom brought up the rear, always looking like he belonged wherever he went in his navy suit and tie. He nodded to a few techies stacking chairs and sauntered down the steps.
Following the crowd, he saw a gathering outside Mary’s dressing room and hung back, waiting to see what would happen. In all the years he had watched her perform in various concert halls all over the world, he had never done this, never tried to see her. He had waited until now – until he was sure he wouldn’t let her down, wouldn’t drink again when stressed, wouldn’t get hooked by another woman who cast her lure his way. He knew he’d changed, but would she see it?
In a heart-stopping moment, Mary Crawford opened the door and stood facing her fans with a smile. Her chestnut curls surrounded her valentine face, paler than usual but peerless in its soft beauty. The children held up programs to be signed while their mothers pushed them forward. She posed for selfies and portraits, signed CDs, and scanned the hallway with tired eyes to see how many more minutes she would need to be there when her glance alighted on Tom standing apart from the group. For a moment, she froze with recognition, and he looked back at her waiting to see her anger, her disgust, her annoyance. He didn’t breathe until a slow smile spread across her face, her eyes glowing with delight. Tom’s smile rivaled hers, and he chuckled with disbelief at this reception.
“Wait for me,” she mouthed over the heads of her fans, watching for him to confirm.
He nodded with a smile. He could wait. He would wait.
Next story: “The Right One”
Find Jane Austen’s characters in their books:
Tom Bertram, Mary Crawford, Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park
Mary Bennet, Charles Bingley in Pride and Prejudice