Nocturne

Nocturne – noun, (näk-ˌtərn)

(1) A piece of music, especially for the piano, that has a soft and somewhat sad melody. (2) A work of art dealing with evening or night; especially a dreamy and pensive composition for the piano. (3) A musical composition inspired by, or evocative of, the night.

Chapter One

Cadenza

Cadenza – noun, (kə-ˈden-zə)

(1) An elaborate, ornamental melodic flourish interpolated into an aria or other vocal piece; (2) An extended virtuosic section for the soloist usually near the end of a movement of a concerto.

Bright lights flashed from dozens upon dozens of cameras, nearly blinding the paparazzi's celeb du jour as she quickly crossed the crowded sidewalk filled with reporters and well-wishers and entered the rear of the waiting limo followed closely by her agent and business manager. The darkly tinted windows at least muted the continuing flashes of light as the seemingly unending array of photographers tried desperately to capture that one elusive picture of a star – any star – that would make their name and fortune.

"Better luck next time, vultures," came the virtuosa's sharp, biting comment.

"Now, now, Nodame-chan, they're just doing their job," Elise chided her protégé. "Where do you think you'd be right now if it were not for all of the publicity those same 'vultures' provide for you?"

"Happily sitting at home reading a good book and composing more music for children's shows," Noda Megumi replied unrepentantly, crossing her arms and giving her friend a petulant glare. "Which is where I'd like to go right now." She turned her eyes toward the front driver's seat pleadingly. "Please, take me home Oliver," she begged in a tired voice.

"Yes, Nodame-chan," the large man replied with a gentle, knowing smile.

"But the night's still young?" Elise gasped. "You've just finished off your world tour here in Tokyo where it all started! You can't simply go home. You need to be out and about, to see and be seen by all your adoring fans! You can't disappoint them!"

"The only person I'd be disappointing is you, Elise, and you know it," the concert pianist responded with little enthusiasm and absolutely no desire to 'see and be seen' by anyone other than the stuffed animals that lined her bed. She slumped further down into the seat. "You've run me ragged for the past eight months, never leaving me with even a single moment to myself. This tour hasn't been a whirlwind. It's been more like a cyclone or tornado! But it's over now and you can no longer dictate my schedule and my life. I'm going home and that's that!"

"Oliver, don't you dare go anywhere other than Spago East! Nodame-chan has an appointment with the permanent conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic in twenty minutes and we can't have him waiting!"

"Oliver…" Nodame cooed and batted her eyelashes.

"Yes, Nodame-chan. Home it is," Oliver grinned.

"OLIVER!" Elise shrieked in outrage. "How dare you ignore my orders!"

Tired brown eyes sparkled briefly with their old delight at the woman's consternation. "Oliver knows very well who really pays his salary, Elise," Nodame chuckled softly before the look in her eyes changed back to simple exhaustion. "You've also run him into the ground these past eight months. I promised him a week off with pay and I'll be damned if I'm going to go back on my word!"

"A week! With pay!" the blonde agent gaped in shock. "How dare…"

"Nodame-chan even flew my family in for the week," Oliver interrupted the blonde's tirade grinning from ear-to-ear in his seat behind the wheel of the town car. "The wife and kids have always wanted to come to Japan. They're really looking forward to it. Face it Elise, our little girl has outwitted you…again!"

Elise opened her mouth to retaliate, but Nodame was saved from whatever diatribe the European woman was bound to start spouting by the sound of a cell phone ringing. With a look that said their little 'discussion' wasn't over yet by a long shot, Elise opened her phone and listened to the caller on the other end. "They're still there?" she sighed dramatically, but Nodame could see the spark of gleeful avarice in her eyes. "No, don't try to get rid of them. It's the same as last night and every prior performance. The audience needs to have their cathartic moment. They'll eventually leave when they've stopped crying. Just give them some time. All right. Yes, it was a splendid concert, wasn't it? Okay, I'll pass on your thanks and congratulations. Yes, you too." She hung up with another sigh. "Well, you've done it again, Nodame-chan. You left them weeping in the aisles."

"Everyone needs a good cry sometimes," the musical artist known worldwide as The Queen of the Night smiled sadly as she slunk down even further into the limousine's plush leather. "Even famous pianists," she murmured quietly, closing her eyes and hoping that her friend and business manager would take the hint and leave her alone for at least a short while.

This final concert, just like the first one that had kicked off her tour, was filled with vibrant, joyful pieces, each one more powerful and uplifting than the one before it, until the last piece. For nearly the entire night she gave the audience what they wanted to hear, the same kind of lively, eccentric music that had propelled her to the pinnacle of stardom. But not that last piece. That one was hers and hers alone.

It was a nocturne that she herself had composed. All those composition classes, all those hundreds of hours of study and practice, all that analysis and history had finally paid off. She'd completed the complicated piece right before the start of this last tour. And just as it had for Elise the first time she'd played it for the woman that was now arguably closer to her than anyone else in her life, the concert's finale had never failed to bring her audience to tears. Even as they showered her with praise and standing ovations, they did so with salty rivulets streaming down their cheeks and sobs too powerful to be stifled by merely human lips.

The three-movement concerto said everything that she could not. It bared her soul to the world, forcing them to become unwilling witnesses to the deep chasm of her pain and loneliness; the shards of her shattered dreams; the grudging acceptance of a life without light and love. After nearly two hours of raising them up to the heights and glory of Heaven, she brought them crashing down to the reality that Heaven doesn't exist and never did. It was just a figment of an optimistic mind, no more real than Oz or Narnia – but no matter how harsh, life must go on and maybe, just maybe, they might eventually find the light of a single candle flickering at the end of that long, dark passage.

It was the piece that had somehow garnered her the title 'Queen of the Night' from the critics and talking heads. She certainly couldn't see her name in the same company as the greats like Chopin, Mozart, Bartok, and Ravel, but for some reason the pundits kept comparing her work to theirs, especially when they went on to say how her interpretation of the master's music somehow outshone all previous renditions. As far as Nodame was concerned they were no more and no less than complete and utter idiots. She was a simple piano player, not some fabled composer and artiste that everyone looked up to. She was just plain old Noda Megumi from a small farming community in Kyushu, no matter what anyone else might try to say of her.

That's all she was and ever would be.

For whatever reason, Elise left off her harangue and remained mostly quiet the rest of the ride to Nodame's condo, only occasionally making small talk that was easy to ignore or hum an answer to. Even the traffic appeared to be conscious of its need to remain in the background, muted, not attempting to bypass the thick noise deadening panels of the limo and leaving the tired musician to her thoughts.

Why her friend and manager had decided that Roppongi Hills was the only place Nodame could live was also beyond her, but at least her apartment in one of the four residential towers surrounding the Mori Tower was both spacious and soundproofed. She could play her Steinway D at any hour of the day or night without having to worry about disturbing the neighbors, an important consideration at three in the morning when no amount of medication was able to alleviate her chronic depression and grant her the blessings of dreamless sleep.

"Why are you being this way? I don't understand!"

"No, you never did."

She quickly and expertly masked the pain of ill-timed memory. That too had gotten easier over the past few years. Likely far too easy if that meant anything, but better that than the alternative. Please, Oliver, just get me home quickly. That's all I ask, she begged silently.

After being dropped off in her building's underground garage to avoid the crowds of photographers and press, Nodame politely refused Elise's offer to walk her upstairs, instead asking her to please provide her sincerest apologies to the Philharmonic's conductor, but to let him know she was just too exhausted immediately after her concert, but that she'd be willing to meet with him sometime in the future. Just don't ask me when, she smiled as she blew a kiss to Oliver, placed a small peck on Elise's cheek, and wished the two a good evening.

If he had taught her anything it was to take proper care of her body. The lesson may have finally been learned late, but it had been learned, so as soon as she opened the door to her condo she placed a call to Mr. Wu's down on the third floor and ordered up a large bowl of ramen. Her shoes she left at the door. Her floor-length black gown and stole ended up lying haphazardly across the back of the sofa. Her hose hit the floor in the hallway to her bedroom while her panties and bra finally ended up on the bed. By the time her doorbell rang to signal the arrival of her late dinner she had put on a soft bathrobe, removed her makeup, and brushed the hairspray out of her still relatively short locks.

After eating her fill, which wasn't really all that much – sorry sempai – she took a quick shower before getting into the tub to soak her aching muscles. But before that she took four, extra-strength ibuprofen.

"Not much longer now," she sighed resignedly, sinking deeply into the steaming tub so that only her closed eyes and nose are above the waterline.

-oo-

"You need to push harder on her CD sales, Elise," Oliver commented quietly as he drove his putative boss to the Spago East restaurant so that she could pass on Nodame's apologies. "You can't just keep running her ragged like this."

"You don't think I know that?" the blonde replied quietly, her eyes watching the luminous city of Tokyo passing by in the night. "I may have been even more of an ogress this time than ever before, but just think about how the publicity from this tour has grown her popularity, not to mention her bank account. And with the recordings we've got, putting out a live album will be a cinch, especially with her Nocturne as the final cut."

"What about the other recordings of her earlier live performances? Any chance of those seeing the light of day?"

This time it was Elise's turn to sink back into the dark-grained leather of the limo, her eyes looking up at the fabric-clad roof as if she could pierce the sheet metal to find some kind 'kamisama' that would deign listen to a gaijin. Heck, at this point she'd settle for, what did Nodame call it, an akuma?

"Later," came her soft reply. "They've got a better chance for selling after this CD is complete and has made at least its initial run. I think we can get at least two or three pressings out of this one."

"So you're going to give her that time off?" the driver asked with a soft smile, knowing that a heart actually did beat behind that impressive chest no matter what others might think or say.

"What other choice do I have," Elise argued, but not vehemently. "As you said, she's been run ragged. She needs to have some time to recoup…but I need to get her some one-night only gigs while she's here in Japan. 'Local darling makes good' and all that claptrap. I'll find a way to smooth over the Tokyo Phil. I'll also pull in the NHK, TBK, Suntory, Sumida, and anyone else I can think of. Hell, I'll get her into Budokan and the Tokyo Dome!"

"Don't go hog wild with this," Oliver interrupted her with a warning, but couldn't really object overmuch. It wasn't like he had much say in the matter anyway. His only real concern was Nodame.

"Have you ever known me to back down from a challenge?" the manager's sparkling, bespectacled, evil eyes winked at him in the rearview mirror.

"Just don't kill the poor girl," he laughed softly.

"That wouldn't be in the current plans, no," Elise grinned.

"Speaking of challenges, have you heard from Maestro Stresemann? Any word from that front?"

"No, none," the grey-eyed manager grumped, not angry per se, simply frustrated at her older and more recalcitrant artist's lack of progress. "All I know is that he'd better not be spending all his time at those stupid hostess clubs. If he is," she held up her clenched fist and pounded it against the roof of the car hard enough that there was a distinct metallic clang, "I swear I'll geld that over-the-hill, over-sexed stallion!"

Oliver could only chuckle at Elise's manner while worrying about the status of the limo's roof. It was a rental after all.

"He'd better be holding up his end of the bargain!" the woman continued her rant.

"I'm sure he's doing everything he can, Elise," the driver, sometimes muscle, and general gopher tried to calm his employer down. "You know as well as I do how he feels about that girl. Do you honestly think he'd let her down?"

"He's made mistakes before," Elise sighed deeply, "I mean, just look at that fiasco in London and the aftermath. I got her signed, but then she up and disappeared on us without a word."

"Still can't believe she went all the way to Egypt," Oliver shook his head, "then got herself lost on the way back. Missing for more than a week, no one could find her, and she shows up at a Paris daycare center playing Beethoven for kindergartners."

"It took Charles Auclair months to get her back to where she was willing to enter even a low level concours, and nearly a year before she won the Concours Géza Anda. I doubt he'll ever forgive Franz for wasting all that time. It put him a year behind schedule and nearly bollixed the whole thing."

"And the Maestro's spent the last five years trying to make up for it," Oliver rightfully pointed out.

"For all the good it's done," the blonde snorted in contempt. "She's still alone."

And that was the crux of the matter and the one thing Oliver couldn't argue. Nodame was at this moment in her large luxury condo, probably some of the most expensive real estate in Japan per square meter, and she had absolutely no one to share it with. Not the flat, not her fame, not her music…nothing. She was alone when she shouldn't have been. Everything that had gone wrong could be traced back to that one concert in London, Nodame's ill-fated "debut." She'd garnered wonderful reviews both in London and abroad. The video of her performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 that Elise had uploaded to the web had over a hundred million hits by now; her website more than four hundred million, but that one concert had also pushed her over the edge. Between her depression and belief that she'd never play with her beloved Chiaki-sempai conducting, her downward spiral had been a terrible thing to behold.

Whether Nodame had been truly prophetic or she'd somehow brought it about on her own, a self-fulfilling prophecy, she had never once played piano in public with Chiaki Shinichi conducting. Her one real dream had never been realized. Instead they'd ended up having a(nother) falling out that Oliver had never been able to properly understand, not that Nodame had been overly coherent at the time. All he knew was that Chiaki had ended up staying in Italy to study with Sebastiano Vieira while Nodame had had to be almost literally dragged out of her depressed state by the small children she played for, her close friends, her family, Charles Auclair, and, eventually, the man Auclair had introduced her to after she won the Géza Anda, Christoph Erlichmann, musical director for the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC.

Three years under Christoph's expert tutelage, of concours and recitals, of salons and mini-concerts, Miss Noda Megumi slowly but surely became the darling of DC. She took Philadelphia by storm and held Boston in the palm of her hand. Kansas City, San Francisco, Portland, LA, Miami, Phoenix, Dallas, Toronto, Quebec, Seattle, Chicago, each city fell one-by-one under her emotive magic. Some critics had started calling her the Mahou Shoujo of the Piano. By the end of her third year in the States, New York was begging her to be their guest soloist and the invitations to London and Paris, Prague and Moscow, Vienna and Florence had started pouring in.

Nodame's first CD had sold well both in the States as well as abroad. Brief, ten and twenty city tours of Europe followed. They hit all the important venues, big and small, and left each and every one of them wanting more. Her second CD had flown to the top of the charts, if only briefly, before settling down to where it still held its place in the top one hundred, an astounding feat for someone who was essentially a newcomer. Eventually came the world tour that had just culminated with back-to-back sold out shows in Tokyo. Five years after her first dramatic debut in London, twenty-nine year old pianist Noda Megumi was once again sitting atop the classical music world. This third CD, if Elise had her way, would most likely remain at number one for weeks or months to come.

It would also give Nodame time to relax and recoup at home, to get her mind and body back in shape to meet the still hectic but much lighter schedule that everyone knew her manager would press upon her. Oliver's favorite pianist would need that short vacation, and those CD and concert ticket sales.

Because they were running out of time.