Ciji Ware (3 page)

Daphne found it bitterly ironic that she remained under the baton of the man whose abject betrayal had thrown her directly into harm’s way in the first place. If she hadn’t been so dazzled by the maestro’s magnetic personality, she might have seen a lot sooner what an absolute rat he was underneath all his celebrated charisma and might also have avoided a classic rebound romance with Jack back home.

Good Lord, Daphne thought, cringing at the memory. She’d certainly been naive when she arrived at Juilliard. Rafe had swiftly wooed and won the virginal heart of the younger, more impressionable Ms. Duvallon, late of New Orleans, failing to mention in the white heat of their mad affair what everyone else in New York already knew: that he was married to a British ballerina who was away on a year’s tour of Commonwealth countries.

“But you weren’t wearing a ring,” she’d wailed when she’d confronted him in a storm of grief and chagrin that swept over her like straight-line winds down the Mississippi Delta—and immediately felt like an even greater fool.

Her hasty exit from Rafe’s magnificent Westside apartment was even more mortifying because it had left her feeling like an idiot
and
a trollop. Far from taking time to lick her wounds and consider the genesis of her folly, she’d crawled home at Christmastime to the social whirl of New Orleans. Shell-shocked from Rafe’s betrayal, she allowed herself to be flattered, wined, and dined by the son of her parents’ business partners, Alice and René Ebert, co-owners of a chain of funeral homes in Louisiana that—along with the proprietors of Flowers by Duvallon—had a virtual lock on the lucrative business of being laid to rest in the Big Easy.

Daphne briefly lowered her eyes to stare at the musical score on the conductor’s desk, angry all over again at herself and everything that had happened since her double-barreled debacle with Jack and the almighty maestro Oberlin. She attempted to gather her thoughts and continue with the matter at hand.

“Rafe, I know how important Saturday’s concert is, and I realize—”

She hesitated, as unhappy images skittered through her head, erasing the carefully prepared words she’d hoped would soften the news of her untimely departure.

Rafe waited an instant, then said with rising irritation, “Well, what is it? I’m five days away from the most important night of my life, Daphne. I don’t have time for chitchat.”

Daphne inhaled swiftly and spoke before her voice froze. “I’m very sorry, Rafe, but I can’t play the concert on Saturday. My brother is getting married in Natchez on the same day and I have to be there.”

Rafe shot her a look of disbelief, and snapped, “It’s a joke, right? People plan weddings
months
in advance.”

“No. They just decided yesterday and called me last night.”

“They’re eloping,” he said flatly. “Nobody wants a lot of family around when they elope. They’re just being polite.”

“They’re not just being polite and they’re not eloping,” she replied doggedly. “It’s a full-on church ceremony in Natchez, Mississippi, and it’s my
brother’s
wedding, Rafe. Remember him?” she added, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “The man who contributed ten thousand bucks to your orchestra?”

“You signed a contract with
me
to play the harp Saturday night, remember?” Rafe replied coolly. “If you don’t show up, you’re in violation. You know the rules. You’re going to have to tell him to get somebody else to play at his wedding.”

“Our contract allows for family emergencies,” Daphne began.

“This doesn’t qualify as one,” Rafe shot back.

“That’s not how I read the contract, but I’m certainly willing to pay for my replacement,” she promptly volunteered, hoping she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt.

“That’s hardly the point,” Rafe retorted caustically. “I can’t believe you’d be so idiotic as to miss your chance to solo at the most significant concert date you’ve ever played in your life.” Rafe’s lips had compressed into a straight line and his eyes narrowed dangerously. “Now, listen, Daphne, if you were a true professional—”

Ignoring these warning signs, she jumped from her chair, her heart pounding and repressed humiliation simmering just below her ladylike smile. “No! It’s your turn to listen to me,” she interrupted. “I showed up at every single rehearsal and performance even after I found out you were two-timing me
and
—as it turned out—your
wife
with another woman. And I never missed any planning meetings, either, when you were barely paying your musicians minimum wage, before we unionized!”

Rafe eyes were practically slits now. He wagged a cautionary linger in her direction. “There are hundreds of harpists just as well trained and just as talented as you are. You’re lucky to be working for any wage, and
I’m
the one who made that possible. I strongly advise you to show up Saturday night or, believe me, Daphne, you will regret it.”

Daphne took a step forward and put both hands on his desk so she could stare directly into his turquoise eyes. “I’m flying home this week,” she said softly. “I’m going to play in my brother’s wedding on Saturday. Evelyn Farnsworth can easily move up to principal harpist for this one performance. She’s played at my side every rehearsal and knows the solo as well as I do.”

“Good!” he snapped. “She can move right into your slot—permanently.”

How could she ever have thought this man was a grown-up?

“Look, Rafe.” She switched to a conciliatory tone she hoped would bring them both back from the brink. “I’m rooting for all of us to succeed like gangbusters Saturday night. Our Lincoln Center debut marks a watershed for our group.” She softened her next remark with a crooked smile. “And I truly believe you’d regret firing me because I’m the best damn harpist in New York who ever played for union scale.”

“Then show me how good you think you are on Saturday, or you’re out.”

Daphne tried not to let a sense of panic take hold. “C’mon, Maestro,” she cajoled. “You know I have the highest professional regard for this organization you’ve created, and I very much want to continue as principal harpist. Why don’t we call a time-out for now and we’ll talk it over when I get back from Natchez?”

“I know what my decision is right
now
,” Rafe retorted, glowering like a small boy who’d just lost a game of marbles. “You’re history, Ms. Duvallon. Excuse me, won’t you? I have a class to teach.”

Unable to disguise her shock, she cocked her head to one side, and asked slowly, “You’re actually letting me go?”

“I actually am,” he replied smugly, lifting his baton off the desk. “For cause. Play or pay. Just the reason I was looking for. I’ve been thinking for quite a while that you really don’t have what it takes to be first rank.”

“That’s crap and you know it!” she cried in an uncharacteristic show of vulgarity.

“It’s my well-considered opinion,” he said as if he were enjoying this exchange.

“I’ll file a grievance,” she countered, while disjointed images of monthly bills, stomach-churning auditions, and the shame of actually being canned by a man with whom she’d been intimate collided in her brain.

“If you do, other colleagues in our business will hear my side of the story. Face it, Daphne, it was consensual sex.”

“I don’t mean that,” she said sharply. “I’m talking about
this.
” She pointed at him and then at herself. “You’re trying to intimidate me right now to prevent my exercising my rights under our union contract.”

“You’ll be known around town as capital-
T
trouble, and you know what that means.”

She certainly did. There were too many talented musicians chasing too few top-echelon jobs in New York. The last thing a harpist wanted to be dubbed was “trouble.”

“I’m willing to give you one more chance,” Rafe said with a calculating air, “but you have to tell me right now you’ll play the Lincoln Center concert—or you’re through.”

Daphne pictured her brother, King, swiftly stepping out of the line of tail-coated ushers and whisking her away from her philandering groom, down the aisle of Saint Louis Cathedral, and out the arched doors to freedom.

“I love my brother very much,” she said quietly. “I can’t let him down and miss his wedding. He saved me from mine.”

“Yeah, yeah… well, we all have problems. Mine is to fill your chair before our final rehearsal tomorrow.” He punched his intercom. “Helen? Get Evelyn Farnsworth on the phone.”

For a split second, Daphne nearly fell on her knees and begged him to reconsider. A boss who wished her well could easily have interpreted the family emergency clause in her favor. But by now she should know that Rafe Oberlin cared about the advancement of Rafe Oberlin, period. She regarded the handsome young conductor for a long moment as silence filled the room.

I
will
not
cry
, she scolded herself.

She breathed deeply and nodded in acquiescence. Then she summoned her sweetest magnolia smile and bid farewell in a deliberately exaggerated drawl. “You take good care, now, Rafe. And, all the best on Saturday, y’hear? Ah mean it sincerely…”

***

Hundreds of travelers, anxious to begin their revels on Bourbon Street, surged toward the Delta Airlines baggage carousels. Daphne, however, hardly noticed them. She pointed to her claim check and then gazed, incensed, at the lost-and-found clerk standing behind the Formica counter.

“I watched them load the harp on board the plane in New York
myself
,” she said with growing desperation. “It’s six feet tall and weighs at least a hundred and fifty pounds. Not an easy item to misplace.”

“Perhaps it’s comin’ on another flight, miss,” the woman offered hopefully.

“Oh, please,” Daphne said, her exhaustion and stress level zooming into the stratosphere. “It’s got to be here somewhere!”

First
I
lose
my
job. Now I lose my harp. What else can happen?

“I’ll contact New York and call you when we locate it,” the clerk said, with a shrug. “That’s all I can do.”

“You need to know that this little problem will cost forty thousand dollars to solve, so I suggest you—”

“Daphne!” King hissed. “Look over there. Quick!”

Startled, Daphne turned to stare in the direction her brother indicated. A slender, sandy-haired man standing twenty-five feet away was in the act of handing a fistful of bills to a grinning skycap.

“Jack?”
Daphne whispered, dumbfounded to see the very person she never wanted to lay eyes on again.

Jack Ebert.

Her almost husband.

A man she had known since they shared a playpen set up in the Ebert or Duvallon back parlors by their mamas—two women engaged in endless competition, yet who claimed to be
best
best friends. There stood the person with whom she’d gone to grade school, high school, and college for sixteen years—but had ignored as best she could for most of that time, until later when, unbelievably, he became her short-term fiancé.

Daphne’s unhappy musings were cut short by the sight of Jack’s dark blond head bobbing toward the pneumatic doors that led to the bus and taxi stands. In that same instant, she knew that it was no coincidence that her jilted fiancé should have suddenly materialized at the Delta baggage claim just as she was attempting to find an industrial-size harp that had somehow gone astray. She took off at a dead run.

“Hey, Daphne! Wait!” King called. “Let
me
deal with it!”

She ignored her brother’s urgent command. Instead, she bolted toward the skycap, who was smiling to himself as he stowed the wad of cash in his back pocket. She arrived at his side out of breath.

“Don’t you
move
,” she shouted, assuming her most abrasive New York persona. “You can keep the cash,” she announced, pointing to the skycap’s pants pocket. “But I’ll give you exactly
two
minutes
to go wherever the hell you stashed my forty-thousand-dollar concert harp and deliver it to me
here.
Otherwise,” she said, pulling out her cell phone, “I’m calling the N.O.P.D. right now and having you and my former fiancé—who I saw give you money to hide my harp—
arrested
as an accessory to grand theft!”

By this time, King was at her side. The baggage handler stared at Daphne for a moment and then, with a shrug, sidled off toward a door marked “Employees Only.” Within minutes, he reappeared pushing a handcart through the crowds. The instrument loomed even larger than its six feet, shrouded in a form-fitting, ink-black fiberglass case that weighed more than the harp itself.

“Think that’s it?” King asked, deadpan.

Before Daphne could deliver a retort, the skycap asked nonchalantly, “Is this what y’all are lookin’ for? It was in the locked room. For safekeepin’,” he added baldly.